Louvre spruces up online galleries

Tuesday marked the re-opening of the Louvre online. The new site replaces one launched ten years ago.

Quicktime 5 or later is required to view "virtual tours." More features promised by month's end include more profiles of artworks, a site for kids, and online ticketing.

The site is now available in French and English, with new languages, starting with Japanese, coming soon.

According to a story by Agence France-Presse, the site was built by Credit Lyonnais, which donated 4 million euros, Accenture (1.6 million euros), and Blue Martini Software (1.3 million euros). The total is about seven million euros, or $8.6 million dollars, about what it would cost a family of four to spend a week in Paris seeing the thing in person.