The prospect of voting on the Internet seems irresistible because of its convenience. Toward that end, the U.S. Department of Defense is now developing a comprehensive Internet voting system, known as Project SERVE, designed to allow the approximately 5 million Americans who are overseas or on military installations to vote online. The system will be tested on a small scale in the presidential election of 2004.

In this talk we will review the principal methods of electronic voting, their advantages and disadvantages, including such phenomena as tampering, vote-buying, hacking and other methods used to influence the outcome of elections.

Even though Hong Kong is still the debate of constitutional reform and universal suffrage, computer and political scientists, senior legal and government officers and researchers, and grass root bodies cannot afford not to be aware of what is happening in the world at large, and the eventual coming of electronic voting. Here is a chance for you to listen to a most dynamic orator and an legal and computer expert, Professor Michael Shamos of Carnegie Mellon University, who is also the Visiting Professor of the Department Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Hong Kong, teaching a module in the renowned and established MSc programme in Electronic Commerce and Internet Computing. 

1. E-commerce Web sites provide a primary interface to customers;
2. Web users expect instant gratification from their interaction with these sites;
3. Users "experience" usability before they are committed or buying;
4. Expectations arise from the best Web site across the industry;
5. Competitors are just a "mouse click" away;
6. There is a distinct value for time-constrained information seekers and customers. 

In this address Prof. White will discuss currently successful design techniques for E-commerce Web sites to improve their efficiency and usability. He will also describe current research in human-computer interactions which suggests how Web site design can be used to influence the opinion of potential customers or customer groups.

This neglect has resulted in the business world not really understanding how open models are working in those organizations that have been variously visionary enough and foolhardy enough to adopt them. This is regrettable.  We unquestioningly assume that value-exchange in markets is immediate and reciprocal, and that buyer and seller swaps items of value there and then. But in practice some markets already feature deferred reciprocity, and indirect reciprocity. 

Open source and open content are not naïve, "gift" economies, but rather harbingers of a new wave of business activity that transcends naive economic rationalism, and deserves a serious study by e-business leaders.