This French Life

Your photos just got more room to breath on Flickr

I HAVE often mentioned photo website, Flickr, and if you use it to host some of your favourite snaps of France it has just got a little bit better.

Owner of the site, Yahoo!, has made available to every member one terabyte of online storage for free — enough to store more than 500,000 images at a resolution common to most smartphones.

There has also been a move towards showcasing the actual photographs and toning down the text and white space that featured in the past version.

There is very much a 'touch' feel to the new site, designed for the rising popularity of iPads and other tablets and with this in mind Flickr also launched a new Android app to follow the December unveiling of a new iPhone app.

French data watchdog sees its workload rise

THE French data protection authority, Commission Nationale de l'informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), received a record number of complaints in 2012.

In its annual report, CNIL said that it registered 6,017 complaints from people, an increase of 4.9% on 2011.

CNIL puts the increase in complaints received down to a growing awareness amongst people of their data rights, as well as increased worries and concerns.

But there has also been a change in the data that CNIL is responsible in overseeing, in particular FICOBA files which contain details of holders of bank accounts in France and 1,829 requests have been made by heirs or notaires of deceased account holders.

CNIL has also been involved in challenging the data protection practices of Google and Facebook, pressing them to ensure individual's information is safe and within their control.

Skype risks legal charges after failing to register in France

SKYPE has been warned that it needs to register in France as 'an electronic communications operator' and if it does not then it is breaking the law.

The Rude Baguette website reports that although registered in Luxembourg, the fact that it provides services to French customers means it needs to be legally registered, something it has failed to do.

Communications watchdog, ARCEP has warned Skype that it needs to be registered due to certain legal requirements.

ARCEP says that such compliance means it is 'required to perform legally ordered interceptions' which means provide the French police authorities if so required.

Twitter turns down user requests from France, for now

IN a similar way to Google, a report has been published by Twitter into the requests it receives for user date from governments around the world.

Its Twitter Transparency Report is a compilation of requests covering July 1 to December 31, 2012 and the French authorities have been knocking on Twitter's door.

In the last six months of 2012 there were 12 requests for user information, and interestingly Twitter did not comply with any of them.

But this could change as last week a French court ordered Twitter to identify users who had posted racist tweets on the site, although being a US-based service questions were raised on the influence the court can have.

Twitter's report is still in its very early stages so little can be drawn from these statistics, except in Europe France sits in second place for user requests behind the UK (25).

And both countries are a long way behind the US, which made 815 user requests of Twitter over the six month period.

Monkeying around with the Solarmonkey Adventurer

WITH the recent winter weather making the lights flicker on and off, I've been playing with the Solarmonkey Adventurer to keep my mobile phone and other gadgets powered up.

Produced by Powertraveller, it is a portable solar charger featuring two panels with a battery built in behind one of the panels to provide power when out and about as well.

The clam shell arrangement ensures the panels are protected if you are on the road, but also lets you easily sit the kit in the sun to charge up the battery.

The Solarmonkey Adventurer comes with a connection cable that comes out of the panel via a standard USB, and at the other end you can attach various mobile phone tips including the very common mini USB.

There is also a Monkey Tail connector which is designed for Apple's iPhone, iPod and iPad which is for the older style connectors, while those of you with an iPhone 5 can plug the sync lead directly into the USB port of the panel.

Although I have been playing with the kit indoors, there is no doubt that Powertraveller has an eye on the outdoor adventurer as it comes with a waterproof outer jacket that zips up and netting inside that lets you carry leads and tips.

The Solarmoneky Adventurer also includes a carabiner clip so you can hang the panels from a backpack, or anywhere else really, directly in the sun to charge the battery.

On the tech side of things the 2500 mAh internal lithium-polymer battery charges to full in about eight to 12 hours, and it is possible to charge a mobile phone a couple of times, but you are not going to be able to completely charge something the size of an iPad.

Handily your can simultaneously charge the battery in the sun and run an external 5 volt USB device, letting you charge the two at once.

Alongside my d.light for lighting and a wood burning stove, with the Solarmonkey Adventurer I can now keep in touch with the outside world should a power cut hit my corner of France.

Amazon: Solarmonkey Adventurer

France increases number of Google user data requests

THE French authorities continue to lead the way in Europe when it comes to requesting user information from Google.

The search engine's bi-annual transparency report showed for the second half of 2012, the French authorities made 1,693 requests for user date, and Google complied with 44% of them.

This is up on the 1,546 requests made by the authorities, often police and legal entities, for the first half of last year.

France currently sits in third place for the number of requests, behind India in second and the USA in the top spot, with Germany fourth and the UK fifth.

A new look for the Elysée.fr website

THE official Elysée.fr website has been revamped to keep visitors up to date with the work President Hollande is currently doing.

It now features a prominent calendar strip across the page to highlight where the president is, as well as the future meetings and events, as well as a quick way to catch up on what has recently happened.

The world of Twitter and Facebook is just a click away, whilst strong images and recent videos are all just a click away.

Towards the bottom of the home page you will find links to pages that tell of the story of the Elysée Place, as well as some of the history of French politics.

And interestingly, a link to a section dedicated to François Hollande's partner, Valérie Trierweiler, featuring photographs from some of the official engagements she has taken part in.

Just over a third of web users in France read news online

JUST over a third of internet users in France turn to the web for news updates or to read their favourite newspapers, the lowest of any EU nation.

Figures from Eurostat, the European Commission's official statistics agency, show that 38% of French people who have internet access used it to read news reports in the past three months.

This is way behind Lithuania, with 92%, and Estonia with 91%, who had the highest percentages, while Spain had 76%, Germany had 67% and the Netherlands 59%.

Finland was the leading EU member state for internet banking (91% of internet users) and online travel services (69%).

Portugal had the largest share of internet users who posted messages to social media (75% of internet users), and the Czech Republic (35%), France (40%) and Germany (42%) the lowest.

20th century photo archive opened by Europeana

A VAST collection of photographs from the 20th century has been made available on the Europeana digital library.

The library's EURO-Photo project opens up the the archives of nine European news agencies, with more than one million photographs available to browse.

Covering European events, and people, the photographs provide an insight into both world wars, but also the rise of celebrity and sporting competitions such as the Tour de France.

France leads Europe in making legal requests of Google

THE French authorities remain one of the keenest when it comes to the surveillance of the online lives of their citizens, according to Google.

The search engine's bi-annual transparency report showed for the first half of 2012, the French authorities made 1,546 requests for user date, and Google complied with 44% of them.

This compares to a figure of 1,404 for the period from July to December 2011, and amongst European countries France currently makes the most requests just ahead of Germany.

Legal demands are also made of Google to remove items from its search results, various blog and forum posts and items such as YouTube videos.

In response to a court order, Google removed 992 search results that allegedly violated the privacy of an individual.

And overall the number of content removal requests received by Google increased by 132% compared to the previous reporting period.

Looking at the worldwide figures Google was pretty blunt in what they believe the stats show.

"This is the sixth time we've released this data, and one trend has become clear: government surveillance is on the rise," Google said.