Mobile Magazine » government

Over 450 Electric Car Charging Stations to Be Installed by BC Government

Michael Kwan — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 23:46:00 +0000

They say that one of the bigger reasons why electric cars haven’t soared in popularity is the lack of infrastructure. When you have a relatively shorter range on a “full tank” of electricity, you need to be sure that there’s somewhere you can charge up along the way. The Government of British Columbia agrees.

In fact, the BC government is partially funding the creation of 454 new electric vehicle charging stations around the province. They’ll be built by businesses, community groups and local governments, giving drivers of cars like the plug-in Prius and the Nissan Leaf somewhere to “top up” while on the go. Not surprisingly, these charging stations will be mostly located in major points of interest like malls, city halls and hotels.

Among the organizations set to install these charging stations are Best Buy (Burnaby), the City of Chilliwack, the City of New Westminster, the District of Tofino, Ridge Meadows Hospital, Metro Vancouver, Thompson Rivers University, Vancity (Coquitlam), Vancouver Airport Authority and WorkSafeBC (Richmond). The 168 government-run ones will be public charging stations, of course, though it’s unclear whether these stations will be completely free for the end consumer. The remaining 286 electric fuelling stations are receiving 75 percent funding.

“We’re providing more accessibility for electric vehicle owners,” said Environment Minister Terry Lake, “so that they can have the convenience of charging up at Brentwood Town Centre here in Burnaby and of course different locations across the province.”

[Source]

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CISPA Bill Even Worse Than SOPA/PIPA

Michael Kwan — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:56:54 +0000

The good news is that SOPA and PIPA haven’t come to pass, but the bad news is that they could be followed by a bill that is even more invasive and could violate even more of your civil liberties. It’s called CISPA and it stands for the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. In short, it allows the government to request all kinds of information of Internet service providers and web hosts about its users.

Private companies are “encouraged” to “monitor” for “cyber threat” information happening on their networks, even if they have no real reason to do so. As Kendall Burman from the Center for Democracy and Technology explains in the video below, the breadth of the bill is remarkably broad, covering just about any kind of Internet activity at all. It doesn’t even really say what “government” can demand this kind of information, leaving it very vague and wide-reaching.

Ironically, even GOP candidate Rick Santorum went out to say that the Internet is “not a free zone,” and that regulations have to be in place to prevent an “anything goes” environment online. So much for small government. Following the Supreme Court ruling that allows getting strip searched for even the most minor of offenses, CISPA could allow the strip-searching of your online habits too… even without any kind of offense at all.

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City of Vancouver Switches to iPads, Cuts Printing by 40 Percent

Michael Kwan — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:52:51 +0000

And here I was, so proud of my home city, only to learn that this City of Vancouver isn’t the Canadian one. Instead, it’s the one just a couple hours south of here. A pilot program in Vancouver, Washington has replaced the BlackBerry devices issued to employees with Apple iPads, effectively netting $336 in data cost savings each year, as well as cutting down on the printing of documents by 40 percent.

The pilot program involved 54 iPads for members of the city council, as well as the leadership team and police department. They switched from a $71 plan for the BlackBerry devices to $43 for unlimited data on the iPads. I don’t think this is a completely fair comparison, as the iPads aren’t going to make regular voice calls and the city employees will still need a phone. Even so, they say that works out to $336 annual savings per device.

Perhaps the bigger story here has to do with the savings on printing. The meeting packets at council meetings, orientation sessions, and so on were no longer printed, being sent to members via email instead. This way, they could view them on their iPad. This brought about a 40 percent reduction in printing, going from 5,371 pages to 3,182 pages in the two months of the pilot project.

Of course, this savings isn’t really specific to the iPad. Tablets in general are saving the planet in their own little way and this is just one more example of that.

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Congress to allow the use of electronic devices in House

Jeremy Pedro — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 15:32:52 +0000

Up until now America’s lawmakers have been banned from using any electronics while they were on the House floor, but the Republicans are currently planning a change in pace and removing the ban of electronic devices in the House. This means that the leaders of the country are now able to check their Facebooks, send email and Tweet when gatherings get to be tedious and drawn out. But fear not that is not what our world’s leaders are going for with this new rule, instead, they hope to promote the use of the devices to research information, review the text of a bill, check on the facts or simply just keep up with the daily news around the world.

Republicans say: “Mr. Boehner (Speaker of the House) has deep respect for the institution and its traditions. This is not free license to Skype or pay bills online. But we recognize that people consume information electronically these days. It’s just silly that the House wouldn’t accommodate that.”

At the moment, the Senate does not seem to have any intention of following Congress on this issue and will continue to ban the use of electronic devices, though both parties seem to have unwritten agreement to allow usage under the tables. This just shows that technology has the ability to change the face of society, including our governments.

[Gizmodo via NYT]

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