During the first few days of December 2006, Project Gutenberg U.S. (including Reserved/Pending) reached the 20,000 mark!This is a fantastic effort from all involved, my congratulations to everyone who helped in reaching this milestone.
— Mike
At the fourth annual State of Play/Terra Nova symposium, a panel discussion on the tax implications of real assets in virtual worlds offered attendees a clear message: paying taxes on such assets is just a matter of time. One panelist, Bryan Camp, tax professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law, noted that existing law is sufficiently broadly defined that revenue from activities in a virtual world, such as Second Life or World of Warcraft, is already subject to taxes, despite there being no mechanism to track or collect such taxes.
William LaPiana, a wills, trusts, and estates professor at New York Law School, made similar comments, saying that estates above a certain threshold are subject to tax, and that includes virtual assets that are part of those estates. Dan Miller, a senior economist with the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, said, "[T]he question is when, not if, Congress and IRS start paying attention to these issues." That committee is expected to release a report next year outlining the government's approach to the issues of taxation on events and assets held in virtual worlds.CNET, 3 December 2006
http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-6140298.html
From hart at pglaf.org Mon Dec 4 14:24:51 2006 From: hart at pglaf.org (Michael Hart) Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 14:24:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [gweekly] [PW] A Standard eBook Format? - A Graduate Research Survey (fwd) Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0612041424460.24180@mail1.pglaf.org> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 17:36:55 -0700 From: EDWARD GOAS <EDWGOAS at uat.edu> Reply-To: list at project-wombat.org To: list at project-wombat.org Subject: [PW] A Standard eBook Format? - A Graduate Research Survey My name is Edward Goas, and my graduate advisor has recommended that I ask for the assistance of librarians as I seek out information regarding digital books, or eBooks. I am pursuing a Master's degree in Technology Management at the University of Advancing Technology in Arizona. This survey will be used to forecast the success of a proposed eBook standard file format and whether a standard eBook format will solve any existing issues. Estimated completion time of the survey is 5 minutes. Feel free to leave any answers blank and submit an incomplete survey. For those interested, I will happily provide my data and thesis upon its completion to anyone who submits a survey. I?ll provide it in any format you?d like. The survey can be found at: http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=570561 Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns. Thanks in advance to those who participate! Sincerely, Edward Goas University of Advancing Technology edwgoas at uat.edu **********************************************_ Project Wombat list at project-wombat.org http://www.project-wombat.org/
The city of Manchester in the United Kingdom announced plans to build a municipal Wi-Fi network that will cover 90 percent of the city and include as many as 2.2 million people. The wireless network is part of the city's bid to win a government competition for IT funding. In that competition, called the Digital Challenge Initiative, one region of the country will be selected to receive as much as 3 million pounds to fund IT projects. If Manchester's bid is successful, those funds would be used in part to pay for the wireless network, though city officials said the network's development does not depend on winning the contest.
Dave Carter, head of the Digital Development Agency, which is overseeing the Wi-Fi project, said it will have enormous impacts for businesses and residents of the city.BBC, 1 December 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/6199382.stm