Gizmodo Australia » france

The French Batman Is Scary For Different Reasons

Nick Broughall — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:30:32 +0000

I’m not sure whether this French version of Batman would rather take on crime or eat fruit, but you can’t deny that it’d be a shock to see him hanging upside down from a toilet cubicle…

[NimportequiThanks Nic!]

Steve Ballmer Speaks The Language Of Surrender, Perfectly

Matt Buchanan — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:20:00 +0000

Oh, of course Steve Ballmer speaks “careful, well-pronounced” French perfectly and France loves him back because he’s “one of us”. [WSJ]

Microsoft Opening Windows Cafe In Paris

Sean Fallon — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:20:00 +0000

How do you get the French excited about Windows 7? Apparently, the sales pitch goes down better with some coffee and pastry. That’s why they’re building a full-on cafe in the heart of Paris (47 Boulevard Sebastopol).

The cafe will open for a few weeks starting on October 22nd. Patrons will be treated to, well…treats along with the opportunity to play around with various Microsoft products—although nothing but food will actually be sold there. So we get Microsoft stores and they get a cafe. Do you think the cafe concept would fly in Australia? [TechCrunch]

French Parliament May Mandate Full Photoshop Disclosure

Mark Wilson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:40:00 +0000

In today’s media, you can’t find an image of a person that hasn’t gone through some level of Photoshop manipulation. But France may decide that any such images need a disclosure, just like a cigarette ad.

If the proposed law passes that, incidentally, is currently supported by over 50 politicians, every Photoshopped human on everything from advertisements to news stories to product packaging would require the footer: “Photograph retouched to modify the physical appearance of a person”.

Advertisers who fail to include the footer would be fined $US55,000 or up to 50% of the cost of their campaign.

The law itself is being driven on by arguments that Photoshopped images can “lead people to believe in a reality that does not actually exist, and have a detrimental effect on adolescents”. And while that’s a fair point, the skeptic in us might see this as the lame excuse of someone not committed enough to rigorous cosmetic surgery. [Telegraph via ars and Image]

Giant Mechanical Jules Verne Diving Puppet Taking a Break In France

Jack Loftus — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:30:00 +0000

Even giant melancholy Jules Verne mechanical marionettes need to take a time out from time to time. [Socyberty via Boing Boing]

France Slaps Down Proposed Anti-Piracy Bill

Adam Frucci — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:00:00 +0000

A plan to allow record companies to monitor internet traffic in France for piracy and shut down repeat offenders has been killed. Sweet.

Under the plan, the music and movie industries would have been empowered to analyse the downloads of individual Internet users to root out instances of piracy, and to report violations to a newly created agency. The agency was to send warning letters to violators; after the third letter, the Internet service provider would have been required to sever service.

The voting down of the bill is seen as a big loss for President Sarkozy, who promises to have a revised version of the bill ready in the coming weeks. [NY Times]

Parking Meters From Hell

Sean Fallon — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:20:00 +0000

Fair warning—crazy French smart meters that detect the presence of cars and tell nearby authorities to come and bust you are making their way to the UK. Are we next?

The meters create magnetic fields capable of registering the metal mass of vehicles. They have a direct computer link to a police station.

Under a mechanism adopted by towns such as Issy-les-Moulineaux on the outskirts of Paris, cars are allowed 20 minutes of free parking. If they stay longer, the smart meter sends a message to a police control room, which alerts officers through their mobile telephones a quarter of an hour later.

To make matters worse, Claude Zandona, the man behind the manufacturer of these smart meters, envisions a system where users would pay using an identification number stored within their mobile phone. The system would first send you a text message warning and then follow up with a notice that you have been fined. Tickets could be sent directly to your door—making the whole idea of meter maids obsolete. [Times Online via CNET]

France Gets New Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, World Exclaims ‘Merde!’

Jesus Diaz — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:15:00 +0000

What you see here is the new M51 nuclear ballistic missile literally getting out of the swimming pool. For some reason, the French military–like everyone else, really–thinks that it is a good idea to spend five billion dollars developing new and more effective methods to destroy the planet as the world itself keeps going to hell on its own. Because what humanity needs right now is a Mer-Sol-Balistique-Stratégique missile, oh le missile, loaded with six independently targetable TN 75 thermonuclear warheads with “penetration aids” (yes, they are French. Pervs).

The three-stage solid propellant engine of the M51 is derived from the Ariane 5 rocket, weighs 57 tons and has a range of 8,000km, guided by inertial and star position systems. It would be delivered in 2010 to their Triomphant class submarines and, hopefully, they will get rusty in there. Or maybe not.

France To Slap Convicted Pirates with Year-Long Internet Ban

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:45:00 +0000

France’s Senate just passed a law proposed in mid-summer that would cut the families of illegal fileswappers off from broadband internet access for a year. This makes France the first country to pop anti-piracy legislation against users, and it’s probably not going to be the last.

This would be a “three-strike” system. You get two warnings before your ISP is legally empowered to cut you off. The first warning arrives by email; the second is snailmail, perhaps just in case the first got caught in your spam filter.

Just months before, the powerless rubber-stampy European Parliament called a denial of net access a violation of “civil liberties and human rights.” Apparently President Sarkozy, his totally hot recording-artist wife and a lot of other people disagree.

Though the bill still has to get past France’s lower legislative house before it can go into effect, it’s looking good: The Senate passed it with near unanimity. Oddly enough, the Communists abstained and one hard right-winger opposed it, due to the fact a ruling could seriously complicate a bundled net-phone-TV package. (10 bucks says his kid’s all over them torrents.) [UPI]

Man Gets His Arm Sucked into French Train Toilet, Toilet Just Won’t Let Go

Adam Frucci — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:10:00 +0000

Here’s a piece of advice: when riding a high-speed train with a toilet that uses super-high powered suction to flush, keep your hand out of there. One unlucky Frenchman learned the value of this advice the hard way when he dropped his phone into the toilet of a TGV train. When he reached in to retrieve it, the suction kicked in, and it all went downhill from there.

The train had to make an emergency stop for two hours while rescue workers tried to get the man out. They ended up having to remove the entire toilet from the train with the man’s arm still stuck in it.

Benoit Gigou, a witness to the man-eating toilet, said that “He came out on a stretcher, with his hand still jammed in the toilet bowl, which they had to saw clean off.”

Let this be a lesson to us all. Don’t mess with train toilets. [BBC]