The UK's Department for Education and Skills (DfES) is taking steps to help schools ensure that students surf the Internet in safety. The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) has undertaken a review of Web filtering, monitoring and detection software. The review, due for completion by April, will provide detailed descriptions of the functions of each program, in order to enable schools to make informed decisions about which products to buy. A DfES spokesperson stressed that the review would not be recommending specific products to schools. Meanwhile, a Becta pilot scheme is about to be rolled out across 50 schools to encourage children to use the Internet safely.
UK telecoms firm BT has won a contract to provide the Bavarian State government in Germany with a complete communications network. BT says the contract is worth up to EUR200 million over seven years and is the company's biggest ever commercial win outside the UK. The project, which involves the restructuring of the Bavarian government's entire telecommunications network, will see BT install network links to 2,000 locations in Bavaria, using its MPLS service to provide fixed-line voice and Internet services.
Dubai is on a par with some of Europe's leading proponents of e-government in terms of the availability of e-services, according to a study by Madar Research Group, a Middle East research company. The benchmarking study examined 19 of the most popular or essential services for businesses and residents, such as visa applications, birth certificates, bill payment and company registrations. Dubai scored 76 out of 100 in the test, which measured the availability of services and whether they could be completed on-line. Madar Research noted, however, that the study did not examine other factors, such as user-friendliness or functionality.
Thailand's National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) says it is ready to start producing chip-based smartcards, according to a report by BangkokPost.com. Nectec has prepared the prototype for a chip-based ID card, which uses an identification system based on radio frequencies to store personal data. The kind of information that could be embedded into the smartcards includes e-signatures, driving licence status, job title and membership of organisations. The cards may also function as e-purses or e-passports in the future. Itti Rittaporn, microelectronics director of Nectec, urged the government to provide a loan of THB770 million for the purchase of machinery for the manufacture of the microchips.
The US Senate has slashed USD40 million from the Bush administration's request for e-government funding. In a bill passed by the Senate, just USD5 million of the proposed USD45 million was allocated for Bush's interagency e-government programme for fiscal 2003. Lawmakers had originally authorised USD45 million for the programme under the E-Government Act of 2002, but the fund suffered as Senators pared back spending across the board. A Congressional committee will now have to vote on whether to add any additional funding to the Senate's proposed USD5 million spend.
An innovative Dutch TV programme is combining election polling with interactive television, reports Europemedia.net. Each night on "Are You Worth My Vote?" a leader from one of the five main Dutch political parties answers questions sent in by viewers. The politician is seated in an armchair that changes colour depending on the audience's reaction to the politician's answers. Around 2,000 viewers are pre-selected to judge the leader's responses by voting on the show's Web site during the program. Maurice de Hond, the show's creator, describes the program as "infotainment" and says it "popularises politics."
Quelle: electricnews.net
