french

Twitter must reveal names behind anti-Semitic tweets, rules French court

Twitter has been ordered by a French appeals court to produce the names of the people behind any anti-Semitic tweets, according to Le Monde.

On Wednesday, the Paris Court of Appeal struck down an appeal by Twitter in which the site argued that it shouldn't be required to take action against tweets unless they're illegal in the country where the tweet was reported. Twitter had launched its appeal after a French court ruled in January that it must hand over the names of those who post anti-Semitic tweets.

The case stemmed from several tweets posted last October that … Read more

Pro tennis player uses iPhone camera to dispute call

The future of arguing a referee's call is upon us. On Monday, a tennis player used an iPhone to take a picture of where his ball supposedly landed.

At the French Open, Ukrainian tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky surprised the crowd with his impromptu display of photography skills during the first set of a match against Richard Gasquet. At one point in the game, Stakhovsky hit the ball and a line judge ruled the shot as out of bounds. To make sure, officials went to the line to examine where the ball hit and confirmed the ruling. Stakhovsky attempted to argue the call to no avail.… Read more

Twitter hit with $50M suit over anti-Semitic tweeter data

The Union of Jewish French Students, UEJF, has doubled down in its battle with Twitter and said it filed a $50 million lawsuit against the social network yesterday.

The cause of the suit? User data for anti-Semitic tweets.

The fracas goes back to October when Twitter was awash in anti-Semitic French-language tweets tied to the hashtag "#unbonjuif" ("a good Jew"). This prompted the student union and other anti-racism groups to ask Twitter to remove both the tweets and the hashtag. The social network complied by deleting the tweets in France that it deemed racist.

While deleting … Read more

Yahoo looks to buy stake in video-sharing site Dailymotion

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is working on buying a controlling stake in video-sharing site Dailymotion, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

Unnamed sources told the Journal that Yahoo is in talks with France Telecom, the company that owns Dailymotion, to buy as much as 75 percent of the site. The site may be valued at about $300 million.

It's far from a done deal at this point, according to the Journal's sources, but Yahoo could use a boost in the video-sharing space, which is mainly dominated by services like Google's YouTube.

Although Mayer purchased a recommendations startupRead more

The 404 1,200: Where we play the crying game (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- "Bang With Friends" sex app claims to help you mix business with pleasure.

- Paying tribute to Holocaust victims...using Grindr?

- Google Street View catches couple doing it in a dressing room.

- Research finds people that fly in virtual reality are more eager to help in real life.

- Sony teases big NYC event for February 20; PS4 debut?… Read more

Practice your verbs with Coniuno

One of the hardest things about mastering a foreign language is learning how to properly conjugate verbs. Coniuno offers conjugation practice for verbs in German, English, Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, and Portuguese. It's not the most intuitive program we've seen, and it might not be the best choice for language learners who are really new to the concept of conjugating verbs. For users who have some foreign language experience and a familiarity with conjugating, however, it's definitely a good way to hone your skills.

Coniuno's interface makes use of a couple of toolbars across the top … Read more

Google must delete 'torrent' from autocomplete, court says

The French Supreme Court has ruled that Google may have to censor the words "torrent," "RapidShare," and "Megaupload" from its instant and autocomplete searches, according to TorrentFreak.

In its ongoing court case with French music industry group SNEP, Google has been accused of implicitly allowing copyright violations for not filtering out these words. The SNEP alleges that when users type in names of well-known musicians in Google search, file-sharing sites get added on with the autocomplete feature.

"We are disappointed by the court's ruling," a Google spokesperson told CNET. "Google … Read more

Google Translate supports more than 60 languages

Google Translate for Android is a simple, versatile tool that supports more than 60 languages, offers an SMS translator, and even speaks some of your translations aloud.

The best thing about Google Translate is its simplicity. The app is decked out with a sleek, ICS-flavored Holo theme, complete with Android 4.0's signature action bar and drop-down menu. Altogether, the new skin is a marked improvement over the slightly clunkier interface developed for Android Gingerbread.

To use Google Translate, just select your input and output languages, then type in your text. For even faster results, you can set the … Read more

Did French President Sarkozy download pirated movies, music?

Someone in the home of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, a strong proponent of anti-piracy legislation, has been using BitTorrent to download pirated versions of music and movies, according to a French blog.

An associate of the Nikopik Web site found IP addresses allocated to the Elysee Palace, Sarkozy's residence, on YouHaveDownloaded.com, a Russian-based site that tracks public downloads from BitTorrent.

It appears that copies of movies including "The Tower Heist," "Change-Up," and "Arthur Christmas," as well as the "The Beach Boys Greatest Hits" album were among six downloads linked to … Read more

Google Translate is simple and versatile, so long as you're data-connected

Google Translate for Android is a simple, versatile tool that supports more than 50 languages, offers an SMS translator, and speaks some of your translations aloud.

Google Translate is incredibly simple to use. Just select your input and output languages, then type in your text. You can also set the app to automatically detect your input language for even faster results. To quickly interchange your input and output languages, just hit the conveniently placed (center screen) arrow icon. That's it.

It's no secret that Google Translate performs a solid job translating, but what really makes it shine are … Read more