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"We live in an age of sharing. As consumers and online, we regularly share personal information, and generate new data through our browsing or purchasing history. Businesses and government are increasingly aware of the value of this information, which can result in better and cheaper services for customers, new sources of income for businesses and improved public services. But the question of who owns this information, and how it is collected, stored and used, is becoming a major consumer rights issue. It is crucial, therefore, that people are at the heart of any new settlement. The Data Dialogue sets out the results of the largest ever poll of public attitudes on personal information and data- sharing. Based on a representative sample of 5,000 adults, the report finds a growing crisis in consumer confidence over how government and business handle personal data, and discomfort about the way in which personal information and data are currently being used. The report argues that this loss of confidence could have a knock-on effect on the economy and on the quality of services available to consumers. However, it also finds that views about sharing change when people are given more control and choice about what data is shared, and when the benefit of sharing that data is made clear to them. It therefore suggests that consumers should be engaged in an honest dialogue about how data are collected and used, and be given meaningful choice and control over the information they share. That will be good for business and consumers alike."

Last year the U.S. broadband stimulus program finished awarding public, private and  nonprofit organizations over $7 billion to build new broadband infrastructure, create  public computing centers and implement broadband adoption programs. Concurrently,  hundreds of millions have come from private and other public sources for broadband.  Improving economic development is a driving force behind these investments.  What have we achieved for our investments, particularly in underserved urban and rural  communities? It is a little early in the process, though, and only a small portion of the  stimulus checks have been issued. Perhaps the more important question is, what  economic outcomes can we hope to achieve in the next two or three years? This  survey's results provide a number of clues. 

CORPORATE RESISTANCE to publicly-owned internet networks dates back to the fabled days of dial-up. In 1995, companies lobbied successfully for Texas to enact a law barring municipal entities from providing certain telecommunications services. In response, a number of national organizations lobbied Congress to include a provision in the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996 that would pre-empt states from enacting laws that would bar "any entity" from providing telecommunications services. But in 2004 the Supreme Court ruled in Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League that that pre-emption was too broad (more on the decision here). If Congress wanted to restrict states from exercising traditional state powers-including instructing municipalities on what services they could provide-it had to say so explicitly, the Court decided.  Since then, nearly half the states have enacted barriers to public communications initiatives. The first such laws were "flat-out, in-your-face" bans-outlawing municipal networks outright. But more recently, telecoms began pressing for state-level laws to establish a "level playing field"-a wireless market that doesn't pit private companies against public providers. These laws typically impose onerous regulations on public networks that invite costly litigation and frequently lead to delays and cost overruns.

A task force exploring ways that open governance can be brought to public administration in Quebec has produced a welcome report that represents a step in the right direction. The report lays out an impressive series of recommendations on how to improve public accountability in real time, as well as facilitate more citizen input on the design of government policy. It rightly takes the view that more openness is the key to restoring public trust in government, something currently in sparse supply in this province.

Venture capital (VC) has delivered poor returns for more than a decade. VC returns  haven't significantly outperformed the public market since the late 1990s, and, since  1997, less cash has been returned to investors than has been invested in VC.  Speculation among industry insiders is that the VC model is broken, despite occasional  high-profile successes like Groupon, Zynga, LinkedIn, and Facebook in recent years.  The Kauffman Foundation investment team analyzed our twenty-year history of venture  investing experience in nearly 100 VC funds with some of the most notable and  exclusive partnership "brands" and concluded that the Limited Partner (LP) investment  model is broken 1 . Limited Partners-foundations, endowments, and state pension  fund-invest too much capital in underperforming venture capital funds on frequently  mis-aligned terms. Our research suggests that investors like us succumb time and  again to narrative fallacies, a well-studied behavioral finance bias. We found in our own  portfolio that: * Only twenty of 100 venture funds generated returns that beat a public-market  equivalent by more than 3 percent annually, and half of those began investing  prior to 1995. * The majority of funds-sixty-two out of 100-failed to exceed returns  available from the public markets, after fees and carry were paid. * There is not consistent evidence of a J-curve in venture investing since 1997;  the typical Kauffman Foundation venture fund reported peak internal rates of  return (IRRs) and investment multiples early in a fund's life (while still in the  typical sixty-month investment period), followed by serial fundraising in month  twenty-seven. * Only four of thirty venture capital funds with committed capital of more than  $400 million delivered returns better than those available from a publicly  traded small cap common stock index. * Of eighty-eight venture funds in our sample, sixty-six failed to deliver expect

Génération d'idées est une organisation à but non lucratif, indépendante et non partisane dont la mission est d'offrir à la relève un espace dans lequel elle peut contribuer activement à l'avancement de notre société. Conscient de l'apport de la diversité des opinions, cet espace encourage les regards nouveaux sur les enjeux politiques, sociaux, économiques et culturels propres à notre société. Il valorise l'expression des opinions divergentes et stimule l'innovation émergeant de la confrontation de celles-ci. Animé par la conviction de l'importance pour la relève d'investir le débat public, Génération d'idées se veut donc un incubateur d'idées porteuses pour l'avenir de notre société et un porte-voix qui les exprime au nom de notre génération au sein du débat public. Pour garantir ce rôle d'acteur public, Génération d'idées mise à la fois sur la mobilisation et l'activisme de ses membres, ainsi que sur un dialogue intergénérationnel.

Si les hotspots Wi-Fi gratuit se multiplient dans les lieux publics, leur accès est parfois fastidieux. Le propriétaire d'un PC portable ou d'un smartphone doit en effet trouver le réseau, le sélectionner et s'identifier, le tout manuellement. L'équipementier Ruckus Wireless s'est associé à la Wi-Fi Alliance pour développer un nouveau type de point d'accès public permettant de simplifier cette procédure.

"Open public space in cities doesn't have to sit unused; just take a look at San Francisco's Pavement to Parks project, which turns wasted space in streets into "parklets" where people can sit and relax. A group of San Francisco organizations have teamed up to enliven public spaces with Urban Prototyping: San Francisco--a project that aims to spawn a number of small-scale, replicable projects for public areas that can improve cities in some way."

Le libre accès aux résultats de recherche stimulera la capacité d'innovation en Europe. La Commission européenne a présenté le 17 juillet 2012 des mesures visant à rendre plus accessibles les informations scientifiques produites en Europe. Les publications et les données scientifiques issues de la recherche financée par des fonds publics seront accessibles plus rapidement à un plus large public, ce qui permettra aux chercheurs et aux entreprises de les exploiter plus facilement. Grâce à ce coup de fouet pour la capacité d'innovation en Europe, les découvertes scientifiques se traduiront plus rapidement en avantages pour la population. L'Europe obtiendra ainsi un meilleur retour sur son investissement de 87 milliards € par an dans la R&D. Ces mesures complètent la communication de la Commission sur la réalisation de l'Espace européen de la recherche (EER), adoptée également aujourd'hui.

Les questions du financement de la création, de la délimitation des contours du domaine public et du droit d'auteur sont plus que jamais sous le feu des projecteurs en France. Plusieurs évènements récents sont venus réveiller les consciences. Tout d'abord, la parution de deux livres. The Case for Copyright Reform est un court ouvrage rédigé par les fondateurs du Parti Pirate Suédois Rick Falvinge et Christian Engström, et qui, comme son titre l'indique, prône une modification et une simplification du droit d'auteur. Sharing par Philippe Aigrain, l'un des principaux promoteurs de la contribution créative précise les fondements et les modalités d'un financement de la création permettant le libre partage des oeuvres. C'est ensuite la consultation lancée par la hadopi sur les exceptions au droit d'auteur relayée par la commissaire européenne Neelie Kroes sur son blog. Entre également pour une bonne part, la promesse du nouveau gouvernement en place de procéder à une révision de la loi hadopi après concertation avec les différents acteurs de la société civile. Encore plus récemment, le réseau européen Communia a publié un rapport préconisant des mesures visant à mieux définir les contours du domaine public. L'OMPI examinera prochainement trois propositions timides allant dans le sens d'une meilleure identification, mise en valeur et protection du domaine public. Enfin les élections législatives prochaines sont l'occasion pour le Parti Pirate français de se faire connaître

This week, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman launched NYOpenGovernment.com, a new website that his office touts as a means for "voters, the media and government watchdogs hold state government accountable" by providing the public online access to government data on campaign contributions, lobbying, and state contracts. "Secrecy breeds corruption, while transparency generates confidence," Attorney General Schneiderman said, in a prepared statement. "New York Open Government will help the public keep an eye on what their government is doing in order to deter corruption and increase confidence in the public sector. This site is a one-stop-shop for New Yorkers demanding up-to-date and comprehensive information about their government."

Les coûts des abonnements aux revues scientifiques sont prohibitifs. Ceci n'est pas moralement acceptables lorsque les recherches sont financées par des fonds publics et que les auteurs ainsi que les pairs qui revoient les articles ne sont pas payés. Les organismes subventionnaires, les chercheurs et le public exigent  de plus en plus des contenus ouverts: les moyens offerts par le web pour collaborer à la réalisation de contenus et à leur diffusion justifient de moins en moins l'usage d'entreprises privées. 

"The American Library Association (ALA) released a report earlier this year entitled The 2012 State of America's Libraries. The report states that "Facebook and Twitter in particular have proven themselves useful tools not only in publicizing the availability of online collections, but also in building trusted relationships with users.""

"City governments, faced with decreased resources after the Great Recession and rising citizen demand for services with increased urbanization, must be able to make better decisions that are informed by data. To put it another way, in 2012, mayors need to start playing Moneyball in government with evidence-based analysis. From public health to education to energy policy, if governments can shift resources to where they're needed more quickly and accurately, there's substantial positive outcomes for citizens from the application of data for public good. Predictive data analytics - like any data analysis - can only be as effective as the data that they're based upon. Data quality is a long-term concern for any policy maker that wishes to make data-driven decisions, from foreign policy to energy to transportation. If it's bad data, policymakers are going to have a problem, even with superior methodology and algorithms."

Over the past several years, I've been writing about how government data is moving into the marketplaces, underpinning ideas, products and services. Open government data and application programming interfaces to distribute it, more commonly known as APIs, increasingly look like fundamental public infrastructure for digital government in the 21st century. What I'm looking for now is more examples of startups and businesses that have been created using open data or that would not be able to continue operations without it. If big data is a strategic resource, it's important to understand how and where organizations are using it for public good, civic utility and economic benefit.

"Bercy vient de rendre public un rapport de l'Inspection général des finances sur "Le soutien à l'économie numérique et à l'innovation", pourtant remis au gouvernement dès janvier 2012. Il faut dire que le document critiquait ouvertement les orientations du FNS, le fonds national pour la société du numérique. Inutile de s'interroger longtemps. Si le précédent gouvernement n'avait pas rendu public le rapport de l'Inspection générale des finances (IGF), sur le soutien à l'économie numérique et à l'innovation, c'est parce qu'il épingle ouvertement les orientations du Fonds national pour la société du numériques (FSN) créé par le Programme des investissements d'avenir."

Open311 is a form of technology that provides open channels of communication for issues that concern public space and public services. Primarily, Open311 refers to a standardized protocol for location-based collaborative issue-tracking. By offering free web API access to an existing 311 service, Open311 is an evolution of the phone-based 311 systems that many cities in North America offer.

Some of Whitehall's most secret statistics are to be published and will be free to use by businesses and the public, the chancellor will announce on Tuesday in his autumn statement. Personal health records, transport data, house prices and even the weather will be included in what promises to be the most dramatic release of public data since the 2010 election.

En plus de posséder un intérêt culturel certain et également en ce qui concerne l'avancée scientifique, l'Open Access permettrait notamment au secteur public d'économiser du temps et de l'argent.

MONTREAL - The Quebec government has pledged to increase transparency and turn citizens into decision makers by using the latest online tools and embracing a new culture of openness. In Wednesday's release of a long-awaited report into how to bring open governance to Quebec - billed as "historic" by advocates of open governance - the government said that by next month, it will launch a web portal that will make public data easily accessible. Another website, to be created later, will gather public opinion on how the government is run.