Silicon Republic on OOXML

Silicon Republic has an article about the Ireland OOXML decision. It is mostly an accurate reflection, but one point needs to be clarified.

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Microsoft welcomes Ireland’s vote on OOXML

According to this press release, Microsoft welcomes Ireland’s ‘no with comments/conditional approval’ vote and NSAI’s consultative committee unanimously agreed to the conditional acceptance of the Office OpenXML standard.

I am glad that Microsoft welcomes the decision. However, the account above was not what happened at the meeting of ICTSCC last week as I recall it. In my recollection, Microsoft voiced a sustained objection to voting in this way. Microsoft was supported in a call for voting ‘yes’ by representatives from ICTIreland, Intel and CP3. There was nothing unanimous about it.

Also, to clarify, the committee involved, the ‘Information and Computing Technology Standards Consultative Committee’ does not have the final say in voting on standards. Its role is purely consultative, to provide advice to the NSAI in accordance with Section 10 of the National Standards Authority of Ireland Act 1996. The making of a final decision lies with NSAI itself.

Ireland votes Conditional Approval/No with Comments on OOXML standard

Ireland has voted ‘no with comments’ on the OOXML/DIS 29500 proposal to make the new XML-based Microsoft file formats an international standard.
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Bikes in Berkeley

Berkeley Bike Boulevards from Streetfilms shows some ideas about encouraging bicycle use in Berkeley, California.

New development in Ballsbridge

Mountbrook: A Vision For Ballsbridge is the video about the urban development planned for Ballsbridge, which is about 10 minutes walk from where I live. There are also some nice pictures of the proposed development.
It’s interesting to look at the way the project is presented and the way that people are reacting to it.

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Interactive map of Dublin bus routes

This is a fairly usable, simple map of Dublin bus routes. It’s great, probably the best bus map out there for Dublin. Mind you, you couldn’t rely on it alone, because it doesn’t link to the timetables, so you have no idea how often each route operates, which is essential to know if you want to make a connection.

Minister to delay postcode system

Government Minister to delay Irish postcode system. Not such a big surprise. The plan had been to launch a scheme by January 2008, but the project appears to have become mired.
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Beautiful information in San Francisco

Stamen design writes about a proposal for visualising schedule information at the Transbay Tower in San Francisco. I read about it on Smartmobs and they read about it on Information Aesthetics.
It looks nice, but a bit incoherent if you ask me. I was thinking more about how plane departures could be shown on a screen. The ideas I had were as follows:

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OOXML – Ireland recommended to abstain

There is an article in today’s Irish Times about OOXML in which I am quoted. I was asked for a comment on this in the afternoon yesterday. A number of people have asked me about the position I took this morning. Basically, the slightly longer story is that the reason we are abstaining is because there was not a large enough majority in favour of voting for conditional approval (there was a simple majority, but not the two thirds majority we had agreed would be required). The other people voting wanted to express approval without any reservations whatsoever.

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Getting around Dublin by bike

I went and bought myself a bike to get around Dublin on. I have to say, it’s definitely the best way to get around the city centre during the traffic.

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