Mobile phones help keep Lewisham clean: Residents of Lewisham in London are being encouraged to use their mobile phones to help the council fight graffiti. Using their cameraphones, citizens can take pictures of graffiti, overflowing bins, abandoned cars and other environmental problems and send the images directly to the council. People who want to use the service must first download a free application from the council's website, www.lovelewisham.org. The council will publish the images on the site, along with pictures of clean areas when the problems have been rectified. Users can also opt to be kept informed of progress by text message. The scheme is part of a Local e-Government National Project called ENvironment and Community Online Residents E-Services (ENCORE). ENCORE aims to help local authorities accelerate their provision of online services and make it easier for them to meet targets for e-government. The Local e-Government National Projects are designed to ensure that all councils have access to key electronic services and building blocks, without having to build them from scratch.
Computerisation can cause medical errors: report: As the US government encourages hospitals to move toward the computerisation of its systems, a new study claims that the use of computers can lead to medical errors. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, assessed a computer system used to order medicines at a Pennsylvania hospital. The University of Pennsylvania researchers found that the system increased the risk of 22 types of prescription error, including ordering the wrong dosage, failing to renew medication on time and prescribing a drug for the wrong patient. The report's authors said that electronic order systems have many advantages over paper systems, but the researchers pointed out that "blind faith in the technology is silly." Still, advocates of computerisation point to earlier studies which show that computerised physician order entry (CPOE) systems can significantly reduce prescription errors.
Busan reveals U-City plans: The city of Busan in South Korea has unveiled an ambitious plan to become the world's first "Ubiquitous City" or U-City. Working in partnership with Korean telco KT, the metropolitan government said it plans to invest around SKW1 trillion (USD1 billion) to introduce ICT (information and communications technology) and wireless internet access to every part of the city by 2010. About 70 percent of the total investment will be put into logistics, with the government aiming to turn the port city into a logistics hub for Northeast Asia. Among the city's plans are the construction of a "U-Port" in Busan harbour using technologies including RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) to provide cargo information in real time. There are also plans to build a "U-Convention" facility that gives users access to information on international conferences and on tourism. The government is discussing potential opportunities for involvement in the project with IT giants such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.
Caution urged over Italy's digital TV plans: The Italian government's plan to provide e-government services over digital TV should be greeted with caution, according to a new research note from Gartner. The Italian Minister of Technology and Innovation recently announced plans to co-fund 29 regional and local government projects that will use digital terrestrial TV to deliver services to citizens. The TV Government (T-GOV) projects, which are valued at over EUR32 million, cover a range of services related to areas such as employment, social services and healthcare and involve regional, provincial and municipal government, along with a number of TV broadcasting companies. Gartner says that, although digital TV shows promise as a way to deliver e-services, there is cause for concern on a number of fronts. The uptake of digital terrestrial TV is still modest throughout Italy, due to limited content offerings and strong competition from satellite TV. There is also a risk that the convergence of home entertainment systems toward PC media centres, enabling the use of TV screens to watch TV shows and use the internet, will relegate T-GOV to niche status.
Cadcorp to provide GIS for Newtownabbey: Newtownabbey Borough Council in Northern Ireland has announced that it has selected Cadcorp, a digital mapping and geographic information system (GIS) software developer, to supply it with a corporate-wide GIS. Under the terms of the deal, Cadcorp will provide the local authority with a number of its Cadcorp SIS (Spatial Information System) mapping software licences and assist the council in the implementation of the new system. In the initial phases of the development project, Cadcorp SIS will be linked to existing departmental databases and third-party software applications in the council's building control, environmental health, parks and development services departments. The move will enable these departments to use GIS capabilities for the management, manipulation, reporting and presentation of location-based data. "Among the benefits that [Cadcorp SIS] brings us is the ability to bring together a wide range of departmental databases and to manage and present complex data in an easy-to-understand manner," said William Dunbar, property services manager, Newtownabbey Borough Council.
Autor: Sylvia Leatham
Quelle: ElectricNews, 16.03.2005
