UK To Have Biggest Population in Europe?

Here's a curious thing or two:

The UK population could almost double over the coming 75 years, according to official government projections.

The previously unpublished figures suggest the British population could hit almost 110m in 2081, if immigration fertility and longevity rates are high.

The figures are higher than those released just a month ago by the Office for National Statistics.

In October, the ONS projected the population could go from around 60m today to as high as 77m in 2051.

A *conservative* estimate for 2051 is 77m, while on the high side we have:

According to the ONS, if all of these factors were on the high side over the coming decades, the population across the UK would hit 91,053,000 by the middle of the century

Got that? Between 77 and 91 million?

Now take a look at this table, which shows Germany, with currently the biggest European population, shrinking to 74 million in 2050.

Funny old world, innit? (Via Andrew Leonard.)

Deutschland 2.0 Über Alles

One of the besetting faults of the online world is a certain anglocentricity in its reporting: we tend not to hear much about the goings-on in other parts of the world - even other parts of Europe. So for all those of you who were wondering, here's a list of the top 100 Web 2.0 sites in Germany, complete with quick notes explaining what they do.

One Door Closes, Another Door Opens

So Germany has decided to live in the past:

Deutsche Telekom AG, Europe's largest telephone company, can block buyers of Apple Inc.'s iPhone from using the handset on competitors' networks, a German court ruled, overturning an injunction won by Vodafone Group Plc.

The Regional Court of Hamburg said in a statement today that it lifted an injunction obtained by Vodafone that stopped Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit from selling the device only with exclusive contracts or software that restricted use on competitors' wireless systems.

But there is a long-term silver lining to this short-term cloud, as this analysis points out:

What might be the result of this? Hopefully Vodafone, and Verizon, will get a clue and offer more cooperation to Google’s Android, further opening their networks. They might also deliver a true Internet experience, rather than the walled garden of data services Verizon is noted for.

Mobile 2.0? I Hope Not....

Fabrizio Capobianco reckons today is a frabjous day:

1&1, the largest web hoster in the world, went live with a mobile email solution last week in Germany. They are using Funambol, integrated with OpenXchange. Open source on all levels...

Why is it the start of a revolution?

Because this not a carrier, though they are offering mobile email directly to their users. An ISP offering mobile messaging... The start of a big shift in this market, where you will get your email pushed to your phone directly from the company that "owns" your email. In 99.99% of the cases, that is not your mobile carrier...

I agree that this is big - unfortunately.

I say unfortunately because the company making this move is 1&1, from whom I have had some of the worst service ever. At one point, as a special concession, 1&1 agreed to upgrade my online storage to the level that everyone else was getting - as a long-standing customer, I was of course being penalised for my loyalty - but only if I *faxed* them a formal request. The idea of automatic upgrades, or even upgrades after a telephone request was just too much to ask, it seemed.

So while I applaud the move in theory, I would advise people to wait until companies with more respect for the customer get involved.

Actuate's Actual Open Source Snapshot

One of the sure signs that open source is moving into the mainstream is the number of surveys about it that are being conducted. The great thing about these is that while individually they bolster the case for open source in different areas, collectively they are almost overwhelmingly compelling.

The latest such survey comes from Actuate. It's actually an update of an earlier, more circumscribed one, and it ranges far more widely:

Following research first conducted in November 2005, exclusively targeted at financial services companies in the UK and Europe, the 2007 Actuate Open Source Software Survey broadened its scope to include research attitudes to open source systems in both North America and Germany. The 2007 survey also extended beyond financial services to include public services, manufacturing and telecommunications (telco) in the new regions and now uniquely provides a detailed local insight as well as interesting regional comparisons across the geographies and the vertical sectors within them.

The top-line result?

Half the organizations surveyed stated that open source is either the preferred option or is explicitly considered in the software procurement process. One surprising note is that one-third of the organizations surveyed are now likely to consider open source business intelligence in their evaluations. This is a huge shift from just a few years ago.

The survey is available free of charge, but registration is required.

ODF - Nochmals "Ja, Danke"

Interesting:

In his words of welcome Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called ODF "a completely open and ISO-standardized format." It was thus an "excellent basis" for "a free exchange of knowledge and information in a time of globalization," he declared. This in turn was a necessary ingredient of the knowledge society, he averred. Within the Federal Government the Federal Foreign Office is considered the strongest proponent of free software. After having early on networked its foreign missions with the help of open-source programs and migrated its laptops to Linux and OpenOffice the Federal Foreign Office intends to extend its program of migration to all workstations of its diplomats by the middle of next year.

What's (Open) Source for the Goose...

A report suggesting that the Chinese military has hacked into German government computers could have a negative impact on the prospects in Western markets of Chinese equipment vendors Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063 - message board; Hong Kong: 0763), believes an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort .

...

"The ability of Huawei and ZTE to participate in, let alone win, telecom infrastructure tenders in the Western hemisphere may have lessened considerably following last week's shock report," writes Lindberg in a research note issued Monday. "It could trigger a return to national security clearance when it comes to procurement of telecom networks," he adds.

OK, so this may be pure paranoia, not least because it's not clear that the alleged Chinese spyware has anything to do with the Chinese telecom equipment.

But there's a more general principle: if it ain't open, you don't know what's going on, so all this kind of stuff could be going on, unbeknownst to you. Of course, it also applies to Chinese procurement as well, which is one reason why I think open source is bound to win out there, as elsewhere.

After all, if you are a (paranoid) government flunky, do you really want to risk national security (and your post) on that black box? No, I thought not. (Via GigaOm.)

Mr. Dell Does the Decent Thing

Hooray:

today, it's official: Dell announced that consumers in the United Kingdom, France and Germany can order an Inspiron E1505N notebook or an Inspiron 530N desktop with Ubuntu 7.04 pre-installed.

(Via The Open Sourcerer.)

More Grist for the (Circumscribed) Copyright Mill

Although doing away with copyright altogether is probably not such a hot idea - after all, the GNU GPL, and the edifice of free software it supports, depends on it for its efficacy - there is increasing evidence that we should be limiting its scope.

Here's some more:

The 2001 Information Society Directive (2001/29/EC) is introduced thus: “If authors or performers are to continue their creative and artistic work, they have to receive appropriate reward for the use of their work…” (Recital 10). “A rigorous, effective system for the protection of copyright and related rights is one of the main ways of ensuring that European cultural creativity and production receive the necessary resources and of safeguarding the independence and dignity of artistic creators and performers”(Recital 11).

This study shows quite conclusively that current copyright law has empirically failed to meet these aims. The rewards to best-selling writers are indeed high but as a profession, writing has remained resolutely unprosperous.

Interestingly,

Compared to the UK, writers’ earnings are lower and less skewed in Germany. This may reflect a more regulated environment for copyright contracts in Germany. It may also reflect the globalised nature of English language markets.

More about the study, and links to its consituent parts can be found on this page.

Deutschland = Digital Dummkopf?

With the latest Copyright Act, Germany seems to be intent on waving goodbye to the 21st century, with some people wanting to take it back into the digital stone age:

CDU MP Günter Krings emphasized that "the Union holds intellectual property to be an essential prerequisite for prosperity in our society." He therefore praised the agreement reached on the fee to be charged for copyright even though he said that this could not be the long-term solution, adding that "there is no way around DRM." Krings said that "Internet piracy" was "one of the largest attacks on our national economy." For example, he said that a number of jobs had already been lost in the music industry, and the movie industry faced the same challenge. But Krings reassured everyone that "the legal system was not going to capitulate." He said that the Copyright Act should also be further amended so that only copies of the original would be admissible. In addition, Parliament also faces the problem of "intelligent recording software," which records broadcasts of online radios; Krings spoke of such software as "legally tantamount to an illegal file-sharing network" and added, "there must be an end to the freebie mentality in our society." Norbert Geis of the CSU also felt that the "second basket" of amendments does not mark the end of the reform. For him, copyright policy should focus on "making it clear to people that these rights are protected by the Constitution."

"Intelligent recording software": what will the fiends think of next?

The Birth of Blognation

I was a big fan of the Vecosys blog - I even got used to its horrible name. And then it went away, only to emerge, phoenix-like, from the ashes, as something bigger and bolder: Blognation.

Blognation is certainly an ambitious”“Go Big or Go Home”” project, the aim being to report on the Web 2.0 startup ecosystem around the globe including, United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Denmark Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Netherlands, Japan, China / Taiwan / Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, South America, all with the help of 16+ blognation editors who are getting ready to start writing.

Today sees the launch of blognation UK and over the coming weeks and months all of the other aforementioned blogs will be launched. And proving that I certainly don’t lack ambition, I am currently speaking with a further 10 more prospective editors to cover Canada, Russia, India, South Africa, South Korea, South-East Asia, Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey and Greece.

Makes sense, but it depends critically on the quality of the blogger team that Sam Sethi has assembled. We shall see. At least the name is better than the previous one.

Offiziell: de.wikipedia.org ist Offiziell

Here's an interesting precedent being set:

For the first time, the German edition of the open Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia will be receiving state funding. Germany will be setting aside part of its budget to improve information about renewable resources in Wikipedia. Over the next few years, several hundred articles will be written on this issue.

"A number of key words already have excellent entries in the German Wikipedia" within the field of renewable resources, explains Andreas Schütte. Schütte is the executive director of the Renewable Resources Agency (FNR), which receives funding from the German Ministry of Nutrition, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection to conduct research on renewable resources with an eye to launching products on the market. At the same time, Schütte says that a number of key words in the German Wikipedia have very short descriptions, are not up to date, or are missing entirely.

Entries on this topic are to be improved under the direction of the private-sector Nova Institute. The Institute plans to get external experts to write entries on renewable resources for Wikipedia. These experts will first receive training for Wikipedia because collaboration in the community project has its pitfalls. The Institute is therefore looking for someone well versed in Wikipedia to handle project coordination. The project partners have issued a call for tenders for that position. Wikipedia experts can send in their applications immediately.

The benefits of expanding this approach are great. The state gets to distribute useful information, highly efficiently, and helps to ensure its reliability. The users, of course, gain enormously from this new influx of quality contributions.

Even the Wikipedians gain, since in the future there might be the prospect that they could be commissioned by governments to write high-quality articles on particular subjects (but with editorial independence).

And if other governments start following suit, the long-term viability of the entire Wikipedia project - still rather uncertain, at present - will be transformed completely.

All-in-all, this move by the German ministry represents a small but important step towards making Wikipedia into an all-encompassing reference, subsuming both official and unofficial information.

Exporting Jurisdictions - the Other Way

We're used to seeing the US exporting its own ideas of what consitututes illegality when it comes to copyright and patents - notably through its free trade agreements - but here's a useful reminder that in today's interconnected world, things can flow the other way too:

As Second Life grows, the European market becomes a larger and larger part of its user base. ComScore estimates as a much as 61% of Second Life's residents are based in Europe (including 16% in Germany). While ComScore's likely overestimated the number of active European residents, there is no doubt that European users have made up a substantial percentage of Second Life's rapid growth over the last eighteen months. Enough growth, that Linden Lab is rumored to be looking for European collocation space. And with servers in Europe, the Second Life content on those servers would unequivocally fall under the laws of the nation(s) those servers are based in.

And since you cannot usefully carve up the metaverse based on the physical geography of its users, this means that European laws - notably on virtual child pornography - are likely to be applied to the whole of Second Life.

German Court Gets It Badly Wrong

Bad decision, bad news:

the Court states that operators of Internet forums are liable for all comments posted there, even if the operator has no knowledge of their content.

OK, we'll just close the Internet down, then.

Sinning Against the Holy God of American IP

Even for the field of intellectual monopolies, which is strewn with examples of hypocrisy and bullying, this "301 report" from the International Intellectual Property Alliance in the US really takes the biscuit. Here's what Michael Geist, one of the world's leading legal scholars has to say of its truly paranoid listing of most countries of the world for their transgressions against the holy god of American IP:

each invariably criticized for not adopting the DMCA, not extending the term of copyright, not throwing enough people in jail, or creating too many exceptions to support education and other societal goals. In fact, the majority of the world's population finds itself on the list, with 23 of the world's 30 most populous countries targeted for criticism (the exceptions are Germany, Ethiopia, Iran, France, the UK, Congo, and Myanmar).

The U.S. approach is quite clearly one of "do what I say, not what I do" (fair use is good for the U.S., but no one else), advising country after country that it does not meet international TPM [Trusted Platform Module] standards (perhaps it is the U.S. that is not meeting emerging international standards), and criticizing national attempts to improve education or culture through exceptions or funding programs. Moreover, it is very clear that the U.S. lobby groups are never satisfied as even those countries that have ratified the WIPO treaties or entered into detailed free trade agreements with the U.S. that include IP provisions still find themselves criticized for not doing enough.

I'm really quite ashamed that the UK isn't on the list, too: the fault of Tony "the poodle" Blair, I suppose.

La Seconde Vie, Das Zweite Leben

Now what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life.

To say nothing of Second Life. And here are some juicy ones (as an Excel workbook, alas, but it opens perfectly well in OpenOffice.org.). Here's one in particular I found significant:

Active % of residents in the top 100 countries

United States 31.19%
France 12.73%
Germany 10.46%
United Kingdom 8.09%
Netherlands 6.55%
Spain 3.83%

That is, Europeans already outnumber Americans in Second Life (and I'm sure that Europeans will soon be outnumbered by those from the rest of the world soon).

Is Germany Really Losing It?

I have a great deal of respect for the German nation. More than anyone else, I think, they have come to terms with their recent history - specifically with the Nazi period - and emerged stronger, wiser and more admirable (compare, for example, Turkey's rather sad denial that a genocide of over a million Armenians lies festering in its past). But recently, I've noticed some signs that German society - or at least its politicans, which I concede is not quite the same thing - are really out of touch with reality.

I wrote yesterday about its daft plans to monitor PCs while connected to the Internet - blithely ignoring the near-impossibility of this idea. Now we have something else equally stupid: the criminalisation of violent video games. According to Der Spiegel - probably the best news magazine in the world - the Bavarian minister for internal affairs wants to make the "production, sale and purchase of such games punishable by up to one year's imprisonment."

This is so obviously a knee-jerk reaction by frightened old politicians, unable to deal with the technological changes that are happening around them. What makes it particularly sickening is that it concerns itself with virtual violence, and blithely ignores the rather more pressing issue of all the violence present in this world - as practised, for example, by the US Government in its various torture camps around the world. Get real, people.

The Politicians' Big Disconnect

According to heise online:

the [German] Federal Ministry of the Interior declares the ability to search PCs without physical access to them to be a key component in the fight against terror.

Well, it can declare away until its booties fall off, but as the article points out:

How a screening of PCs protected by a firewall or tucked away behind a router with Network Address Translation is to be carried out the proposals of the politicians concerned with internal security remain conspicuously silent, however.

Quite. Throw in a modicum of serious data encryption, and you have a PC that is seriously hard to hack - however much the politicians might declare this approach to be a "key component in the fight against a terror."

All of which provides a further demonstration, if one were needed, of how this idiotic "fight against terror" is merely a pretext for governments around the world (step forward, Mr Blair) to impose pointless and unworkable schemes that serve no other purpose than to trample on the freedom of all of us, while the ne'er-do-wells laugh up their terrorist sleeves.

Of Kant and Cant

Sad to see the once-rigorous nation of Immanuel Kant falling for the, er, cant of the content industries in the copyright reform discussions:

But Jerzy Montag, Member of the Green Party opposition, sees this slightly differently. “The current reform draft is in some points friendly to industry and antagonistic to the interests of authors and creators,” he said. “We should give more rights to creators, but I am pessimistic here. And it makes me see red to think about how vehemently based on the current draft the CDU-SPD [Social Democratic Party] coalition wants to go after users.”

The target of Montag’s critique is a proposed change to establish criminal liability for illegal private copies. A mass complaint against 25,000 private users resulted in a clear statement of a court in Karlsruhe that it was unable to bear that load and therefore would not open proceedings in minor cases.

The German justice minister reacted with the introduction of a “bagatelle clause” into the draft proposal to limit criminal proceedings on commercial “pirates.” Yet after heavy criticism over legalising intellectual property theft from rights holders and some members of parliament, the minister withdrew the bagatelle clause (which refers to a minor case of no commercial relevance).

"Pirates", "intellectual property theft", and so on, and so on....

It's the Info Commissioners Squad

I don't know how much practical effect this will have, but it's a nice idea:

A group of international data and privacy protection commissioners has decided to act together to challenge the surveillance society which they claim is developing. Commissioners from the UK, France, Germany and New Zealand will adopt common policies.

At the annual Conference of Data Protection and Information Commissioners, held last week in London, a joint set of objectives was adopted by the international commissioners aimed at tackling what they see as a growing international issue of constant citizen surveillance.