Sunday, November 03, 2013

Innovation, trends and rumors from France

Some news bits I found interesting in The Connexion (November 2013 issue).


* Slow computers in France are costing users 5 days a year in wasted time. Waiting for their PCs to start up (11 minutes), files to load and programs to start took on average 120 hours a year. Whoa. That's a lot of time for extra coffee breaks or water-cooler gossip!

* According to Thomson Reuters, the top countries for innovative business are USA, Japan and France. That's encouraging news for Francophiles around the world!

* Despite city-wide campaigns to be more tourist-friendly, Paris has still maintained its reputation of being rude according to the Anholt-Gfk City Brands Index, which measures cities by the opinion of visitors in several categories. London and Sydney were the top two and, sadly, Paris didn't even make the top 10.

* Did you know that eating Frogs legs was originally a British thing? According to archaeologists from the U of Buckingham who found charred bones dating back to between 6250 BC AND 7590 BC, it seems we should switch the associations for "frog" and "rosbif!"