Recently, there's been an article in "Der Spiegel" (in German) on the, what I would call, "electronic revolution" in the German parliament. Since tablet computers have been allowed for use during parliamentary sessions, the article says that at least half of of the parliamentarians have gotten themselves an iPad.
And who could blame them as the devices are undoubtedly useful and they get them for free anyway as they get reimbursed (see the article). The other reasons for the sudden popularity of tables could also be the fact that other forms of electronic computing, i.e. anything with a physical keyboard is still banned. In other words, no notebooks and netbooks (see another article here). At first I wondered why such a discrimination was imposed but I assume it has been done to keep the noise level to a minimum that might increase if people en masse started to type on their netbooks. Ah well, you can't have it all I guess.
In my opinion, the good thing coming from this is that parliamentarians are now integrating computing, wireless Internet access and the Internet in general more in their daily life than before. And that's very positive as the laws they make having to do with the Internet, data privacy, etc. will impact them more than before as well. So they just might think a bit more before giving their vote.
Hmm .... I can see it now, row upon row of parliamentary members, all with their heads down playing Angry Birds ;)
Posted by: Michael Salmon | February 07, 2011 at 06:11 PM