The woefully incomplete Louvre app for iPhone offers little to smile about.
J'adore France and the French people. But I'm pretty disappointed with Musee du Louvre, a free but painfully brief virtual tour of the famous museum.
The app consists of four main sections. In Louvre: The Visit, you get a video tour of seven well-known areas of the museum, including The Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa.
However, each "tour" lasts less than 20 seconds, and the default language is French. If you tap the screen to bring up the controls and then tap the language icon, you can select English (or German or Japanese), but there's no way to make it the default. You have to perform this step for each video, each time you watch it.
In Artworks, you get a Cover Flow-style selection of famous paintings--but only 20 of them. Tap one to get information about the work, a zoom-and-pan-able full-screen view, and a map showing its location within the museum.
The Palace follows the same format, but focuses on areas of the Louvre itself rather than individual artworks.
Finally, there's the prerequisite visitor information, including hours and admission fees--but no maps to or of the museum (save for the aforementioned few).
Musee du Louvre does let you bookmark any item for easy reference, but with so little content, this seems rather pointless. Hopefully the curators developers will turn this incomplete tease of an app into the rich, arts-friendly resource it should be.
In the meantime, anyone planning a visit to the actual museum would be much better served by Rick Steves' Louvre Tour ($4.99).
The Dome system combines sleek good looks and high quality sound.
(Credit: Focal)Focal Audio, aka JM Lab, may not be a well-known name in the U.S., but it is France's largest speaker manufacturer. I had Focal Mini Utopia speakers in my reference two-channel system for years and the Focal Grande Utopia EM ($180,000 per pair) is the best sounding speaker I've ever heard.
Maybe that's why the Focal Dome 5.1 satellite/subwoofer system ($2,595 MSRP) review by Michael Trei in Sound & Vision magazine piqued my interest.
The Dome replaces the Sib and Cub 5.1 system I favorably reviewed a few years ago. Unlike the Asian-built Sib and Cub, the Domes are manufactured at Focal's factory in Saint-Etienne, France.
The Dome 5.1 package is Focal smallest home speaker system yet. Trei writes: "the Dome satellite's cast-aluminum enclosure feels solid enough to withstand being run over by a small car." Each satellite speaker has a 4-inch woofer and a 1-inch aluminum/magnesium inverted dome tweeter, similar to the one Focal uses in its upscale Profile and Electra S models. Optional stands are available for the sats.
The matching cylindrical, rounded-top subwoofer has a single downward-firing 8-inch woofer and a built-in 100-watt amplifier.
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Jasmine France joins us as we cover a slew of unreadable watches, clocks and bulletproof watch winding safes. She also shows off her insane ability to read the faces of watches that no one else can decipher.
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EPISODE 147 |
Samsung claims its watch is world's slimmest
Turning a Power Mac G3 into a wall clock (Thanks, Nicholas!)
Digital black-and-white clock is a milestone in minimalism
... Read moreWe take a walk on the virtual side in today's Gadgettes. Virtual reality museums, robotic kittens, and fusion in your pocket!
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EPISODE 145 |
Household gadgets we’d like to see
Canon launches virtual-reality dinosaur exhibit in Japan
Robo-Kitty: Sega Toys unveils the Dream Cat Venus
Handheld fusion reactor on the way?
A propos (of) nothing
Vroom: Surf the Web with a Ford GT
It's About Time
Eris Planetary Sphere watch goes anywhere but the wrist
Pink Watch
Juicy Couture goes geeky
Tool Time
Ript Fusion body-shaping undershirt (thanks, Sam!)
Reverse Gender Gap
Ostrich three in one chair for sunbathing bookworms
BlingRX
Russel Hobbs RHG2TSW crystal encrusted bling toaster (thanks, Colleen!)
Kill Me
Fantasy coach bed for the budding superiority complex
Jasmine France joins The 404 today. Just a little warning: she had just flown into New York City on the red-eye from San Francisco and is pretty loopy for part of the show. But she does give us the 411 on the best MP3 player and headphones to get.
(Credit:
Wilson G. Tang/CNET)
Jasmine dishes the dirt on Justin as an intern years ago. Let's just say dry cleaning, coffee, foot rubs, and walking her dog were part of his daily routine. Oh, how far he has come.
We talk a bit about how popular "casual encounters" has become on Craigslist. It's even bigger than Match.com, eHarmony, or even Yahoo! Personals. Jasmine tells us about her "missed connections" story. It gets juicy. Find your subway crush here.
Also, we discuss a bit 'bout how piracy is ruining the PSP. Justin doesn't really care; Jeff gets upset; and Wilson's fourth cousin is selling pirated games back home in Zhong Guo. Speaking of China, for about five minutes too long, Wilson exposés on Jackie Chan's recent comments in the press. This is why we don't discuss anything with any seriousness.
Finally, it's "Earf Day"...we think that's how it's spelled. Anyway, as part of our effort to be friendly to the environment, CNET TV is launching The Green Show, starring Mark Licea. That's right! MTI has his own show now. Check it out and send us your comments at greenshow [at] cnet [dot] com.
Episode 325
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(Credit:
Matt Hickey)
I hate parking tickets. I mean, nobody likes them, but I have a special hatred for them. And now they've given me one more reason to avoid going to France.
I often play a game of cat and mouse with the parking attendants of Seattle. I know I have two hours at a meter, but I also know they have scheduled routes, much like mail carriers. I push my luck and usually make it out just as they're approaching. Often, though, I'm too late. But these new "smart meters" in France make my stupid game impossible.
The meters not only register the amount of time you can occupy a spot, according to FoxNews.com, but they'll also alert the meter maids if you've overstayed your welcome. That's right, they snitch on you. To make matters even more insulting, they'll send you a text message telling you you've been fined. These instruments of parking monitoring are evil.
They're rolling out soon in the U.K., which means the likely next stop is here in the States. I do not like where this is headed. The ultimate goal, of course, is to raise revenue for the cities that they're installed in. Officials will naturally say they're meant to facilitate better parking for everyone, but I'm cynical enough to realize they'll be used to pay for a new bridge with my windshield.
Related stories:
(Credit:
Geek and Hype)
The Yubz telephone makes the argument that even iPhones can't escape irony's tacky, far-reaching arm. For $50 and the cost of shipping from France, you can own this ridiculous handset that plugs into your iPhone and lets you pretend you're Donald Trump in the early 1970s.
It'll be out in mid-November on the Yubz Web site, but if you simply can't wait until they inevitably show up in your local mall's Spencer Gifts, they're also available for preorder.
Finally, if a solid gold telephone triggers your gag reflexes as much as it does mine, you can also opt to have your phone painted rose, rouge, jaune, noir, orange, or vert, according to the Web site. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go Google four out of six of those colors.
Looks like the first and second generations of the Zune will have to wait until the end of 2009 for a new member of the family.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)In an announcement that will surely test the patience of Zune fans, European newspaper GNT has quoted Microsoft France's Francois Ruault as saying the third generation of the Zune MP3 player will likely have a worldwide release during the holiday season of 2009. While folks in the European Union are probably happy to hear they'll be getting the Zune at all, the rest of us have just glimpsed a long wait for a Zune 3 hardware refresh.
The article goes on to hint that Microsoft's Zune Marketplace digital music download service will eventually be rolled into the Windows Mobile platform. While knee-jerk speculation points to the Zune's iPhone-like ascent into a mobile phone, more than likely this is just Microsoft adjusting to the partnerships companies like Rhapsody and Napster have struck with mobile carriers over the past year.
(via AnythingButiPod)
Updated at 12:00pm to clarify the French law on unlocked cell phones, and at 1:43pm with comment from Apple.
The iPhone on Friday will make its debut in the United Kingdom and Germany, the first countries outside of the United States to get their hands on Apple's first mobile phone.
Apple's Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone to the British in September.
(Credit: Crave UK)For months, many (including this guy) had expected Apple to wade into the European mobile-phone market with a 3G iPhone, but virtually the same model that's available in the States will be presented to British and German users of O2 and T-Mobile's networks, respectively. The 8GB iPhone is going to cost 269 pounds in the U.K.($563.87 as of this writing) and 399 euros ($583.84), including VAT in both countries.
It will be very interesting to see how the iPhone is received in Europe. Sophisticated smartphones and fast 3G networks are the norm in many places, not a novelty. Still, the combination of the touch-screen interface and the iPod capabilities should tempt some European consumers; at the Intel Developer Forum in September, I noticed more than one member of the British press sneaking over to the San Francisco Apple store to acquire an iPhone, presumably with plans to unlock it for the carrier of their choice.
According to reports, there will be at least one significant change arriving with the European iPhones: OS X 1.1.2. UPDATED: Apple confirmed Thursday afternoon that OS X 1.1.2 will ship tomorrow "to support the international launch of the iPhone."
The software update, which will presumably be delivered to all iPhone owners, is said to fix the TIFF image flaw that allowed the iPhone to be rehacked after the 1.1.1 update disabled third-party applications. It will also probably escalate the hacking wars by making the iPhone more impervious to both third-party applications and unlocking, the real source of consternation for Apple.
Later this month, France will be the third European destination for the iPhone, and Apple and Orange, the wireless carrier selected for France, might have to make a concession to the forces of unlocking. Apparently, it's against French law to sell mobile phones locked to a specific network, though Apple has not confirmed whether its French iPhone will be locked.
UPDATED: At the suggestion of a reader, I looked into this a little more, and it's not explicitly against the law to sell locked phones. However, the law requires that French carriers unlock phones if the customer requests it, and they have to let customers do that for free after six months.
Apparently even dire warnings about the threat of snooping by American spies aren't enough to keep some top French government officials from nursing CrackBerry addictions on the sly.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
According to a report to be published in Wednesday's edition of the French newspaper Le Monde, bureaucrats continue to lament--and in some cases, quietly ignore--a warning dispatched 18 months ago from the head of France's national defense agency. Reissued recently, the notice reportedly bars certain categories of government officials from using their Research in Motion BlackBerries to circulate sensitive government information.
French security officials are still working on finding an alternative tool, but it hasn't been easy, the story said.
Meanwhile, an unnamed member of the prime minister's cabinet admitted that after one failed attempt at replacing the devices with something else, certain people have opted to continue using the smartphones "in secret." A secretary to one cabinet minister griped that it has become necessary for officials to "relearn" how to cope with older technologies.
Alain Juillet, a senior official in charge of economic intelligence for the French government, justified the plan by saying the BlackBerry poses "a problem of data security."
The rules came about because some of the main BlackBerry mail servers reside in the United States, where French security officials fear the messages are vulnerable to being swept up and perused by none other than the National Security Agency, according to the Le Monde report.
"The risks of interception are real," Juillet was quoted as saying.
Restrictions on BlackBerry use aren't unique to France. The Australian government also prohibits agencies from using the devices to transmit confidential, secret or top secret information--or with systems that involve such categories of data.
