Hasta La Gadget!

The land of fine wine, food and women (in no particular order) might soon be the first country in the world that imposes taxes on search engines – if French President Francois Hollande has his way. He is working on a new kind of tax which will require search engines like Google to fork out money each time they make use of content from the French media. Hollande did work out some small talk with Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, during a meeting in Paris yesterday.

According to Hollande, the rapid expansion of the digital economy could result in updated tax laws in order to ‘reward’ French media content. What do you think of this idea? It might just lead Google and other search engines alike to avoid French news sources, citing other search results instead, and the French media would be all the poorer for it as folks would not be able to read what French journalists have written if such a tax were to be implemented. Obviously, Google has opposed the plan, and could very well bar French websites from its search results should the tax be imposed. Across Europe, Germany and Italy did share their concerns and are receptive to the idea of a ‘Google tax’. How about you?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google ordered to censor search terms in France, France fines Google for collecting personal data over Street View,

I have never been one for boats or yachts, but even I could be persuaded to give yacht-life a try in this magnificent vessel that was co-designed by the Apple-master himself, Steve Jobs. This was the boat that Steve Jobs was working on until his untimely death in 2011.

Venus was a collaborative effort between Steve Jobs and Philippe Starck, and it measures over 230 feet in length. Just like your MacBook Pro, it’s has an aluminum shell. The interior cabin is equipped with a set-up of seven 27-inch iMacs for its control room.

I wonder if they’ve upgraded to the new iMac that will be released shortly. The yacht is akin to an Apple store, with large windows, almost from floor to ceiling. The main living area has walls of glass that are forty feet long and ten feet high (!).

Venus finally made its maiden appearance in the city of Aalsmeer in the Netherlands. If you’re wondering how much Venus cost to build, it’s way more money than you could ever afford.

[via designboom]

A supposed member of the Microsoft Word team has gone to Hacker News to address a complaint about Office 2013′s processing speed on the company’s new Surface tablet. The complaint mentions that the tablet cannot keep up with the user’s typing, either because of the tablet’s CPU or a bug in the code of Office 2013.

The Microsoft employee, who remains anonymous, mentioned that there were many challenges with developing the tablet version of Office 2013, including when the team “didn’t even know about the Surface.” The Microsoft employee says that the hardware they were working with “was prerelease hardware from MSFT partners that had varying levels of performance.”

However, Microsoft president of the Windows and Windows Live division Steven Sinofsky made an appearance in the Hacker News thread and addressed the issue himself, as well as correcting the anonymous Microsoft employee in the process. Sinofsky says that the “issue is known,” and “an update is forthcoming.” Afterward, he said that developers on the Office team “had access to the tools and hardware need,” and that “there was no shortage of knowledge, hardware, or communication.”

The complainer issued an update about his problem, and he says he didn’t update the Surface to include the latest Office code, which users have said that will solve the lag issue. So, if you’re experiencing the same issues, the best thing and probably the only thing to do is update Windows RT to include the latest fixes.

[via ZDNet]

Microsoft responds to Office 2013 complaint on Surface tablet is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

True to its commitment of making Gmail faster and better for its users, Google is now adding another useful feature to its popular email client. Today, Google has announced that it has redesigned the compose and reply experience in Gmail by now allowing the compose section to pop up in a window within the platform, similar to opening the chat feature. This is definitely good news since this will make it easier for us to access other emails without having to save them in draft or to discard it.

“And because the compose window works the same way as chats, you can write multiple messages at once and minimize a message to finish it later,” said Phil Sharp, Product Manager for Gmail. Moreover, the new compose functionality now allows you to easily insert inline images, hide controls, view profile pictures of your contacts when adding recipients to your message, and drag and drop address chips. As for the reply experience, Phil Sharp says that we will also see the same changes each time we reply to a particular message. Google will be rolling out a preview of the new features starting today.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Gmail search gets a boost, Google warns users of potential Gmail attack,

Details are still emerging about the evacuation of New York University’s Langone Medical Center, the sprawling hospital complex in Manhattan, following the failure of both its main and backup power generators Monday night.

Lorinda Klein, a spokeswoman from NYU who was not on the scene, told The Huffington Post that staff and emergency personnel were continuing to evacuate patients on Tuesday morning, and that they were “hoping” to be finished by noon.

Read More…
More on Hurricane Sandy 2012