[LINK] An Android Dematerialising Parliament

[Tom Worthington]

Yesterday Senator Lundy talked about her experience trying a 
Blackberry smartphone as part of a trial for members of the 
Australian Parliament 
<http://tomw.net.au/moodle/course/view.php?id=12&topic=7>. She 
commented that this worked better than earlier phones issued but 
still had limitations. I suggested they look at the new Google 
Android phones, such as the HTC Magic 
<http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?id=85048>.

The Senator mentioned that with a workable smartphone she has much 
less need to turn on her laptop. Also that for one recent 
parliamentary committee meeting several members chose to telecommute 
from their electorate office, rather than go to the expense of flying 
to Canberra (also reducing carbon emissions).

One possibility is to run the same Android software on the laptop and 
the phone. Apart from the convenience of the user being able to use 
the same interface and applications, it would allow for very low 
power, low cost netbook and nettop computers to be used (under $300) 
<http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/01/google_android_running_on_eee_pc_701_tutorial.html>.

This would be an interesting form of what the SMART 2020report from 
the  Climate Group refers to as "Dematerialisation" 
<http://tomw.net.au/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=258>. Several of 
the speakers at the symposium yesterday referred to this report, 
including myself <http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/green_ict_elearning/>.

The audio and slides of the symposium should be on the web later 
today <http://tomw.net.au/moodle/course/view.php?id=12>.

ps: The notes from my Green ICT course also worked fine on the 
Senator's phone, allowing for universities to be "demateralised" as well. ;-)



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University