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Roger Federer can now guide you on Waze in three languages
Roger Federer is the first celebrity voice on Waze to give directions in no less than three languages (French, German and English).
Google Home and Assistant can speak Canadian French now
The first of several new languages for Google's Assistant AI is here, as users have noticed Canadian French as a language option. I was able to switch it on for my Google Home by looking for Assistant Language under device settings in its control app, while The Android Soul reports they could turn it on simply by saying "Ok Google, speak to me in French Canadian," however I could not get that to work. The new language is obviously there to get ready for the Google Home launch in Canada on the 26th, making it the first one Assistant supports outside of English. At Google's I/O event in May, the company announced that German, Brazilian-Portuguese and Japanese will be added this summer, followed by Italian, Spanish and Korean later in the year.
Google Assistant will speak in four more languages this summer
Google Assistant is getting all the attention so far at the company's annual I/O keynote. It can see, it can (finally) work on your iPhone and, starting this summer, Google Assistant will be able to detect and respond in French, German, Brazilian-Portuguese and Japanese. And that's not all. By the end of the year, the Assistant will also be able to speak Italian, Spanish and Korean.
Google hopes new languages keep you from saying 'adios' to Allo
When Google released its Allo chat app late last year, the accompanying chatbot known as Google Assistant was only able to offer helpful advice and Smart Replies in English. Knowing full well that you can't have an international chat assistant without supporting multiple languages, Google eventually introduced support for German, Hindi and Japanese as well. Today, that repertoire grows even larger as Assistant in Allo now supports two of the most popular languages in the world: French and Spanish.
The next big 'Overwatch' event starts tomorrow
According to a trailer released for French-speaking audiences, Overwatch's next big event is headed to consoles and PC tomorrow, April 11th. "Insurrection" sends you and five teammates into the past against hordes of robotic Omnics on the King's Row map. Set as a "declassified" archival mission detailing Tracer's first outing for Overwatch, the update will have more than 100 new character models, emote poses and graffiti tags waiting for you. Be sure and grab this quickly, though, as the event only lasts until May 1st. Character skins from the new "Insurrection" event also leaked onto Xbox Live a few days ago, too, as fans search for more details to whet their appetite for the new update.
Google expands mission to make automated translations suck less
What started with Mandarin Chinese is expanding to English; French; German; Japanese; Korean; Portuguese and Turkish, as Google has increased the languages its Neural Machine Translation (NMT) handle. "These represent the native languages of around one-third of the world's population, covering more than 35 percent of all Google Translate queries," according to The Keyword blog. The promise here is that because NMT uses the context of the entire sentence, rather than translating individual words on their own, the results will be more accurate, especially as time goes on, thanks to machine learning. For a comparison of the two methods, check out the GIF embedded below.
ICYMI: All aboard the hydrogen fuel cell train!
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A French company just introduced a hydrogen fuel cell train that it plans to install on a line in Germany in 2017. The train can carry 300 passengers reaching speeds of 87 miles an hour, all while emitting water rather than the usual diesel fumes that go along with such routes. We think the Casper insomnia chatbot is probably just a PR stunt by the company, but it may also be functional so you're guess is as good as ours as to why a mattress company would want to talk about people (likely their own customers) who struggle with going to sleep at night. If you're interested, the truck clock video is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
World of Tanks 360 edition gets French tech tree
If you're an Xbox 360 World of Tanks player, you'll be glad to know that today's update adds the French tech tree, 28 new tanks, and two new maps to the game. The new content is technically free to download, but it does require an Xbox Live Gold subscription. We've embedded a new six-minute dev diary including French tank footage just past the break.
The DOFUS movie aims to release in 2016
World of Warcraft isn't the only online game that's working on a movie adaptation. DOFUS has an animated feature that will be coming out in French theaters on February 3rd, 2016. The feature is called DOFUS -- Book I: Julith and will be fully animated. The project has cleared the pre-production phase and is going forward to meet the 2016 release date. The studio released a screenshot (above) from the film, illustrating its art style. Ankama said that it doesn't know when or whether the film would be made available outside of France: "At this time, we can't announce any plans for the international communities, but if that changes, we will inform you as quickly as possible."
EU Connected realms and free character migrations
The realms, they are connecting. CM Takralus on the EU forums posted this update on which realms have been completed and which ones are still scheduled to be connected. This updates the big master list of EU realms. The realms connected this time around were English, French and German language realms, with an emphasis on PvP and RP (and even RP/PVP). The connected realms are: English Realms - Bloodscalp and Emeriss/Agamaggan/Hakkar/Crushridge and Laughing Skull and Shattered Halls/Balnazzar/Ahn'Qiraj/Trollbane/ Talnivarr/Chromaggus/Boulderfist/Daggerspine (PvP) French Realms - Confrerie du Thorium and Les Clairvoyants (RP) German Realms - Mal'Ganis and Echsenkessel/Taerar (PvP), and Der Abyssische Rat and Die Arguswacht/Die Todeskrallen/Das Syndikat (RP/PvP) Takralus also announced the following realms are scheduled to be connected: English Realms - Sunstrider and Shattered Halls/Balnazzar/Ahn'Qiraj/Trollbane/ Talnivarr/Chromaggus/Boulderfist/Daggerspine/Laughing Skull (PvP), Darksorrow and Genjuros (PvP), Moonglade and The Sha'tar (RP) French Realms - Elune and Varimathras (PvE), Marécage de Zangar and Dalaran (PvE) In addition, there are also Free Character Migrations planned for the following realms: Silvermoon to Magtheridon and Azuremyst Kazzak, Outland and Stormscale to Auchindoun
French MMO Therian Saga launches English open beta
Therian Saga has proven to be a modest hit in the French-speaking communities of Canada and Europe, amassing 50,000 players for the free-to-play sandbox title since summer 2013, and now it has opened its doors to the English-speaking community as well. Developer Virtys announced today that Therian Saga has begun the English open beta, inviting in a new wave of players to see how the studio has been taking cues from the community with the game's development. Therian Saga is an open-world sandbox that prides itself on an elaborate crafting system, interdependant guilds, a deep story, and heroes that keep on going even when you log out. The developers have put together a welcome video for its English-speaking community, explaining what makes Therian Saga special. Unfortunately it was lost in an avalanche and will never be... oh, we're just kidding. It's after the break! [Source: Virtys press release]
Google voice search on Android and iOS now speaks French, German and Japanese
To date, Google's mobile voice search has been limited to English speakers -- not very convenient if you're looking for coffee in Cologne. Thankfully, its vocabulary is expanding today. The Google Search apps on both Android and iOS now recognize voice commands in French, German and Japanese, and they'll respond in kind. There's no mention of when other languages will be available, but those speaking in supported tongues just have to run Google's latest software to get started.
French regulator moving forward with Verizon / AT&T interconnection investigation
When you think about it, does anyone really know what's going on behind the scenes of the internet? While you're attempting to figure out how "42" is the obvious answer to that, French regulator ARCEP is moving ahead with an investigation into Verizon and AT&T. Specifically, the two have failed in an attempt to block the aforesaid entity from investigating interconnection agreements. For those unaware, these types of deals are widely viewed as being able to undermine net neutrality, and we've seen the FCC look into similar matters here in the United States. The long and short of it is as follows: with high-bandwidth services growing rapidly, ISPs far and wide are contemplating the move to extract additional revenue out of backbone providers by charging them to deliver heavy traffic to end users. It'll be interesting to see what ARCEP digs up -- something tells us the findings will be known well beyond the borders of France.
France mulls extending piracy laws to include streaming and direct downloads
ISPs in the US are just getting around to enforcing a "six strikes" policy against illegal P2P sharing, but France is now contemplating a crackdown on the streaming and direct downloads of pirated content. Hadopi, the government organization behind the country's existing "three strikes" law, released a new report that proposes websites take a page from YouTube's book and actively monitor content by using recognition algorithms and the like to take down things that are presumed illegal. If a site weren't to cooperate after a round of warnings, it might face penalties including DNS and IP blocking, domain name seizures and even financial repercussions that involve having their accounts with "payment intermediaries" (think PayPal) suspended. As for enforcement of this potential government mandate, the dossier posits that it could lean on internet service providers instead of hosting services, which according to EU law, can't be forced to conduct widespread surveillance. For now, these suggestions aren't being made policy, but Hadopi is mulling them over. [Image credit: keith.bellvay, Flickr]
ArenaNet launches French and German wikis for Guild Wars 2
It's hard for some folks to imagine MMOs without wikis for looking up where the seventh Heart of a Stinky Womp Rat can be found or where that one dratted quest NPC is. ArenaNet has news for those people: In a blog post this morning, French Community Manager Stéphane Lo Presti introduced the official French and German Guild Wars 2 wikis. The ever-growing official Guild Wars 2 English wiki already has over 4,700 articles, and the new wikis will hopefully be caught up to speed quickly now that they're open for contribution. Because most ArenaNet employees aren't French- or German-speakers, the team is relying more heavily on user-generated content for these wikis. Lo Presti also brought out news of a Spanish wiki still in development. Once that's released, there will be official wikis for all the localized languages in the game.
French court rules Google isn't liable for YouTube bootlegs of TF1 TV shows
France typically hasn't been kind to Google. Today, though, it's cutting some important slack. A court has ruled that the search firm can't be held liable when YouTube members upload clips of their favorite football matches or movies from local network TF1. As in a case involving Dailymotion last year, the judge saw YouTube as just the host for others' videos rather than having any hand in producing the content itself. Not only does the decision let Google off the hook for a possible €141 million ($177 million) fine, it prevents the company from having to pre-screen every video that might be visible in France -- a difficult challenge for a company that takes 72 hours of new video every minute. Google is still facing less-than-cordial attitudes towards its copyright enforcement in other countries, including a zombie Viacom lawsuit in the US, but it now has some extra ammunition if it wants to cite a precedent. [Image credit: Premiere]
Neverwinter releasing Q4 2012, opens French and German websites
Neverwinter was the unexpected surprise of PAX East for us, which is why we're psyched that it should be in all our hot little hands by the end of the year. Perfect World announced that its upcoming Dungeons and Dragons MMO will launch globally in the fourth quarter of 2012. As part of the global efforts, Perfect World has opened up French and German websites to cater to the diverse European playerbase. Each localized website is just as informative and media-packed as its English counterpart. Cryptic Lead Producer Andy Velasquez is quite excited to be working on the project and anticipates players' delight when the game finally arrives: "As a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, it's a rewarding experience to develop Neverwinter and contribute to the lore of the franchise. We're taking calculated steps to ensure Neverwinter will captivate players with its immersive storylines and beautiful artwork while being a fast and fluid action game." [Source: Perfect World Entertainment press release]
Gravity Rush's love affair with the 'bande dessinee' art style
Gravity Rush's art draws heavily from the Franco-Belgian comic book style bande dessinee, which is marked by exaggerating elements that the reader should pay the most attention to. For Gravity Rush, this means creating a large, lush world with multiple, vertical layers and buildings, done with a line drawing method that makes structures more easily recognized, art director Yoshiaki Yamaguchi writes on the PS Blog."The direction we chose to use for the game's graphics conveys the necessary information with exaggeration that matches the player's sensation," Yamaguchi says. "Taking that into consideration, we also wanted to use line drawings, the characteristic of BD and the simulation of beautiful air effects. I think the broader the game art expression becomes, the more interactive a game becomes."The hue of the sky and concept of a living background, as Yamaguchi has previously gushed about, look to bring Gravity Rush's art full circle, even in its initial stages in the 2008 concept video above.
Roku 2 boxes updated for Francophones and English speakers alike
The latest update for Roku 2 and LT boxes is rolling out to all now, bringing the boxes to v4.6 and reportedly improving system navigation performance "by up to 50 percent". As noticed by Zatz Not Funny when it first started leaking out, this version includes the French language support required by Roku's Canadian launch (that's the channel selection for Canada pictured above) this week, while the official blog notes several other fixes and tweaks that should make launching channels like Netflix and BBC iPlayer a more reliable experience. As usual, it should be pushed to every box over the next couple of days, but you can speed up the process by manually checking for an update. Have an older Roku player? Don't worry, Director of Product Management Tom Markworth closes telling owners to "stay tuned" for future updates coming their way as well.
Nintendo puts 3DS in the Louvre, France remains generally indifferent
Sharing a birthplace with Arséne Wenger, Jean-Paul Satre and Jules Verne, the Louvre is France's most prized national treasure. In partnership with Nintendo, the museum finally replaced those cumbersome handheld guides with 3DS units a fortnight after the anticipated March launch. The consoles will provide a variety of tours, offering detailed lectures around the entire museum, or the Cliff's Notes edition for the lazy connoisseur. Shigeru Miyamoto popped up to demonstrate that you can examine HD snaps and 3D images of the sculptures on show, just in case looking up and seeing it in the flesh stone would be too traumatic.
