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The French Canadian government of Quebec is saying non to English-only video games if French versions are available.

French language rules on video games come into force on April 1, prohibiting the sale of new English-only video games in Quebec if a French version is available.

Great Seal of Quebec.

(Credit: Quebec, Canada) Is this a smart move to get more video games into the hands of French speakers? Or, is it misguided, xenophobic protectionism? I’m going with the latter.

One of the many reasons this is such a bad idea is that game companies can simply stop creating French versions of games to bypass this ridiculous law. I’m not sure how big a market there is for video games in French, but I suspect any kind of regulation that forces game development companies to abide such rules would quickly force their hand to decide if it was worth it to carry on with multiple languages.

One retailer profiled in the Toronto Star alluded to the fact that the delay in getting games to players (assuming the French version came out after the English version) would affect his business dramatically:

“I’m afraid it’s going to cost me my business,” Ronnie Rondeau said. “If it really was going to make a difference, I’d be for it, but only a small number of people want to play in French. The rest don’t care.”

If the issue for retailers is really the timely delivery of the French version then this suggests there is a market opportunity for cloud gaming platforms such as Steam to figure out ways to offer new games in multiple languages.

Via GamaSutra

Update 1:35 p.m. PDT: I got some helpful background information from the editor of JOUEZ.com:

In 1977, the Charter of the French Language, also known as Bill 101, defined French as the only official language of Quebec and framing fundamental language rights of all Quebecers. In 1997, this law was amended so that every product sold in Quebec must include packaging, instructions and warranty certificates in French. Since then, all computer software, including game software and operating systems, whether installed or uninstalled, must be available in French unless no French version exists. Video games publishers were given a six-year grace period to comply. Since 2003, video games are now available with French packaging/booklets/warranties.

In 2007, the Quebec government finalized a deal with the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, to increase the number of video games available in French in Quebec. Activision Blizzard, Disney Interactive Studios, Electronic Arts, Microsoft Canada, Nintendo of Canada, Sony Computer Entertainment Canada, Take2 Interactive, THQ and Ubisoft Canada, who are all members of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, agreed that they would be able to offer their next-generation games with French content before April 1, 2009, if such a version exists elsewhere in the world.

After this deal was announced in 2007, the number of bilingual games raised significantly. For example, in 2007, only 17 percent of
Xbox 360 games were available in French in Quebec. Today, half of the Xbox 360 library (about 190 titles out of 380) is available in French in Quebec. Almost every new AAA release is now bilingual or multilingual. Games that are only available in English, that don’t exist in French, still can be sold in Quebec. Out of the thousand games released each year, almost every one of them made their way in Quebec. Retailers complaining about possible delays or higher pricing are not truthful.

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It’s the ultimate summer Friday news story: CNN Webcasting a press conference hosted by the men who claim they nabbed a dead body of the legendary creature known as Bigfoot.

Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi held the press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., in conjunction with Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two men from Georgia who claim that they found the corpse while hiking. Biscardi wouldn’t actually show the body, saying that he had invited Fox News reporter Megan Kelly to show it on-air and that a number of scientists would be performing an autopsy on Monday.

“Starting Monday I should have assembled some fine scientists that will do the autopsy to find the origin and death of this creature, and at that point in time we will make it known and hopefully we’ll get somebody to come in and film it,” Biscardi said to listeners, “to show it to the world as it’s being done. I want to get to the bottom of it.”

That didn’t do too much to appease the skeptical audience of the press conference, who were on the verge of heckling.

On the Web it was equally chaotic. Twitter users went nuts, with Twitter Search (formerly Summize) bringing up dozens of posts per minute from users who were watching the press conference online or expressing their opinions within the site’s 140-character limit. Third-party analytics site Twitscoop showed a barrage of Twitters that included the word “Bigfoot,” and determined the word to be the hottest term on the microblogging site at the time.

People have been Googling it, too. The search query “Bigfoot press conference” hit the top three on Google Trends.

“R.I.P. Harry. The Hendersons will miss you,” one Twitter user said jokingly in reference to the ’80s comedy Harry and the Hendersons, about a family that adopts a Bigfoot. Others were more skeptical, given the dubious nature of the photos. “That Bigfoot in the box looks so totally fakey, like a bad Halloween costume,” another Twitter user said.

But most of the Twitter observers tuned into the press conference seemed to take the whole thing as entertainment. “I’m actually fearful to enter these Bigfoot infested woods in Georgia!” one exclaimed. “He’s a Bigfoot dressed up as a Bigfoot, playing another Bigfoot,” one wrote in a nod to a line spoken by Robert Downey Jr. in the just-released satire flick Tropic Thunder.

Most Twitterers didn’t seem to believe the contents of the conference, probably because there were enough gray areas in the press conference to paint the walls of my office a nice foggy hue. Biscardi denied that he’d participated in a money-scheming Bigfoot hoax in 2005, saying that he’d been duped by a deranged woman who claimed she had two “Bigfeet” in captivity; he claimed he refunded those who’d charged to see a Webcast of the creatures when he realized it was fake. And Whitton shrugged off a series of goofy YouTube videos, most of them now pulled from the video-sharing site, in which he and Dyer reportedly claimed the Bigfoot was a fake and featured Whitton’s brother dressed up as a scientist analyzing it.

“We just decided to have a little fun with it,” Whitton said. When asked why he didn’t call authorities when they claimed to have found the body in early June, he answered, “I didn’t see any need to at the time. It seemed like it would create a frenzy.”

“I want to protect the species,” Whitton continued. “Everyone would be up there hunting for Bigfoot and disturbing the habitat.”

Plus, the Associated Press reported that Whitton and Dyer’s story had changed, and in the press conference Whitton claimed that he and Dyer hadn’t actually been veteran Bigfoot hunters as reported earlier. When they found the creature, they considered the idea of doing guided tours of Bigfoot country, but that was as far as they said they went.

“I didn’t believe in Bigfoot at the time,” Whitton said.

And if Twitter is to be believed, the Internet still doesn’t.

With all of this in mind, I think that this is an interesting look at video trends, but I’m not convinced that this is a game changer. It may help us to better understand the life cycle of web videos, but I think that this will ultimately be a bigger deal for partners and advertisers than it will be for content creators.

YouTube claims that this new service will allow you to determine trends in how long it takes for a video to become popular as well as what happens when they do become popular. Advantages vary for the different groups that will be using Insights. Creators will benefit from looking at viewing trends, partners can use the data to better understand their audience and become more profitable, and advertisers can tweak their marketing strategy based on past trends.

YouTube has just announced the newest addition to its video service. It’s called YouTube Insights and it allows content publishers, partners, and advertisers to see detailed statistical data for their videos. Metrics that the service provides include geographic viewing and relative popularity.

You can get a look at this new service by going to Account > Videos, Favorites, & Playlists > and then clicking on “About this video” for the video that you want to analyze.

YouTube Insights provides in depth data in the form of graphs and maps.

There are, without a doubt, people who are going to benefit from the addition of this new service, but there is one thing we have to remember. Most of the people who are on YouTube are there to watch the videos, not to create them or advertise there, so the effect of this announcement will not be immediately apparent to most YouTube users.

Sony, in delaying the service launch, noted it wanted to expand its closed beta program to more PS3 users. The pending Home service is targeting its virtual community of PS3 users.

“We have come to the conclusion that we need more time to refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today,” Kazuo Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment president, said in a statement. “Our overarching objective is to provide users with new gaming experiences that are available only on PlayStation Home.”

Sony Computer Entertainment announced Tuesday that it is again delaying the launch of its 3D social-networking gaming service, “Home,” for the
PlayStation 3.

The PlayStation Home Open Beta service is expected to begin in the fall, nearly a year after its expected launch date. Sony unveiled the concept of its Home service more than 12 months ago and had anticipated at the time a full launch of the service at the end of last year.

The latter, known as concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) systems, may make more sense in a broader set of geographies, compared with concentrating solar thermal. Both forms of concentrating solar power are meant to improve on sun-tracking flat panels.

Prometheus Institute forecasts that 50 gigawatts of electricity could be generated this way by 2020. Currently, there 430 megawatts worth of concentrating solar power systems installed around the world, according to Emerging Energy Research.

Update on May 27: added that Greentech Media is publisher of concentrating solar power report.

Click on the image to view a photo gallery of different utility-scale solar technologies.

(Credit:
Schott)

California and Spain are the biggest markets for these concentrating solar power systems. If renewable portfolio standards get passed in more states, we could see a much greater diversity of technologies beyond the solar trough and solar tower.

When it comes to solar these days, it’s go big or go home.

Utilities are being pushed to use more renewable energy, heating up the business of large-scale solar power. (Click here for related photo gallery.)

Which technological approach will win out isn’t clear yet, but the demand for centralized solar-power generation systems is there.

Concentrating solar thermal systems, meanwhile, will dominate very large centralized power generation.

There are competing designs for utility-scale solar farms. By concentrating light to make steam, some designs use heat to generate electricity. In parallel, other companies concentrate light onto photovoltaic cells to generate electricity.

The Prometheus Institute, in a report published by Greentech Media, forecasts that concentrating photovoltaic technologies will be used in midsize to large power plants that range from about 1 megawatt of production to about 100 megawatts.

(Credit:
Prometheus Institute/Greentech Media)

Hands-on with the Dell Adamo photos

Other than a headphone jack and a user-accessible SIM card slot (the first time we’ve seen that on a laptop) on the right side, all the other ports and connections are on the rear edge. There are two USB ports, a USB/eSATA port, and an Ethernet jack, plus a DisplayPort video output (although dongles to other video connections will be available).

The following product is available:

On Sale Now: $999.00
View the latest prices for Dell Adamo

Instead of the typical Christmas tree of lighting effects found on laptops in all price ranges, the Adamo has only a handful of small LED lights, for the power button, the touch-sensitive media controls, and the caps-lock button, as well as a backlit keyboard. Besides Adamo-branded desktop wallpaper, Dell also created a custom
Windows Vista theme for the system, called Adamo Ice. Along with branded accessories Dell plans to offer, it’s all part of a concept for the Adamo “brand ecosystem.”

The 1,366×768 LED display is behind a sheet of edge-to-edge glass, again similar to the current MacBook line. It’s a sleek look, but very susceptible to glare and reflections. The screen hinge is set back about an inch from the rear of the system, leaving what looks a little like a small handle when the display is open.

Picking up the Adamo, we were surprised at how heavy it felt. At a hair under 4 pounds, it’s certainly lightweight, but based on the size, we were expecting something closer to the 3-pound MacBook Air.

After teasing the system at CES 2009, Dell formally announced its online availability starting March 17, and we’ve managed to get our hands on a preproduction version of the hardware to bring you our initial impressions.

Adamo vs. MacBook Air

One of the most buzzed-about new laptops of 2009 is Dell’s Adamo, a high-end, ultrathin 13-inch model that starts at $1,999 and shares a design sensibility with the MacBook Air and the HP Voodoo Envy 133.

At first glance, the Adamo, is a stark break from Dell’s recent laptop designs, built into an aluminum case with unibody construction, similar to the current MacBooks. The model we have is black (Dell calls it “onyx”) and a white “pearl” version is also available. The back of the lid and the keyboard tray are split between brushed metal and a fingerprint-attracting glossy finish.

Dell is pitching the Adamo as a “luxury brand notebook design for the luxury conscious consumer,” which may not seem like the most timely of ideas, considering the current economic climate and the resultant growth in low-cost Netbooks. While the timing may be unfortunate, products such as this generally have long, multiyear production cycles, from concept to release.

Inside, this prototype unit has a 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U9300, 2GB of RAM, and a 64GB SSD hard drive; these could change in the final shipping version of the Adamo, and we hear a 128GB SSD will be standard.

About 0.65 inch thick, Dell claims this is the thinnest laptop in the world. It’s certainly thin, but going toe-to-toe with the MacBook Air, the true “thinnest” title is open to interpretation. The tapered Air is thinner at its narrowest point, but slightly thicker at its widest point. In either case these are both very slim systems.

Also: More about laptops every week on the Digital City Podcast. Listen now:

Download the latest episode Need even more? Follow Dan on Twitter!

The keyboard itself is a big change from the typical Dell laptop keyboard, which has always had tall, tapered keys. This borrows more from the Dell Mini 9, with flat, closely spaced keys, similar in style to what you might find on a MacBook or Sony Vaio. We found the keyboard easy to use, but there’s a little wasted space at either side of the keyboard tray that could have been used to space out the keys more. The keyboard itself has too much flex in the middle, and the keys are a little clacky, but these could be issues with our prototype hardware. The metal touch pad was very good; sometimes using nontraditional surfaces on a touch pad can add uncomfortable friction and finger drag, but that was not the case here.

With a low-voltage version of Intel’s Core 2 Duo, it’s not meant to be a speed demon, however, in anecdotal hands-on use, we found the Adamo to be perfectly fine for normal multitasking–Web surfing, working on office docs, and media playback–and we’ll run a complete series of benchmark tests on the final shipping version. We haven’t had time to run a full battery drain test yet, but the battery icon in the system tray claims more than 3 hours of battery life on a full charge at the default power settings.

Now that's a glossy screen.

For more on the Dell Adamo, check out additional coverage from Erica Ogg and Rafe Needleman.

As a luxury laptop, the Adamo has plenty of high-end visual touches. The pearl finish has a wavy pattern etched into it, while our black model has a more traditional brushed-metal look. Notably, the usual brand and regulatory stickers have been removed, in favor of etching the information directly into a panel on the system’s bottom.

“It’s an accelerated strategy,” said Rachel Posner, senior managing director for proxy solicitation firm Georgeson Inc. “There’ll be multiple road show meetings with investors in a single day, repeated calls to investors, and follow-up meetings.”

“(Yahoo’s) shares likely would pull back once the buyback is done,” Bellini noted. “The (AOL) deal likely also includes outsourcing search to Google, which stands in stark contrast to management’s strategy that combined search and display (advertising) are critical to long-term success.”

And the crowd, or should I say the investors, liked what they saw. Yahoo’s stock ended the day up slightly as the first punch came in toward the end of the trading day, and has continued to climb in early morning trading Thursday, following news events from last night.

A Yahoo-Google-AOL deal could prompt Microsoft to raise its bid, something it has resisted since announcing its unsolicited cash-stock offer back on Feb. 1, with an initial value of $31 a share. The deal price is currently valued at $29.24 based on Wednesday’s close.

“As such, we believe this will increase pressure on Microsoft to increase its $31 offer price,” Mahaney said. “Arguably, a worst-case scenario for Microsoft would be a full Google search outsource decision by Yahoo.”

As for a Microsoft-News Corp.-Yahoo deal, Bellini points out that the integration risks could outweigh any financial benefit the Redmond giant would receive by having News Corp. help offset some of the costs of a Yahoo acquisition.

Microsoft mashup with News Corp.?
Soon, another development emerged, with The New York Times reporting that Microsoft and News Corp. were in tentative discussions on a joint bid to buy Yahoo. The report noted that the deal would mash up Microsoft’s MSN and News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media unit, which oversees MySpace, with Yahoo.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is hoping to keep Yahoo investors focused on its offer and the notion that it’s “the one” to hook up with Yahoo. In addition to the option to raise its offer price to clinch the deal, Microsoft may find a Yahoo-News Corp.-Microsoft deal will be equally attractive to investors as a Yahoo-Google-AOL operation.

Mark Mahaney, an analyst with Citi Investment Research, meanwhile, views Yahoo’s Google announcement as an “aggressive response” to Microsoft’s looming deadline and possible proxy fight.

What Wall Street thinks
Wall Street weighed in Thursday morning, and the consensus seems to be this: a higher bid for Yahoo, and a Microsoft victory.

Here’s a quick blow-by-blow.

Said Posner: “Investors vote with their pocket.”

In rapid-fire succession Wednesday, the Microhoo buyout brawl had Yahoo throwing a one-two punch at Microsoft, with a swift comeback punch from the folks in Redmond.

One gauge of investor sentiment is Yahoo’s share price, of course.

Updated 8:10 AM PDT with Wall Street reaction.

Yahoo looks to Google and AOL
Yahoo kicked things off by announcing it would do a brief two-week test to use Google for search ads. That gave investors a bit of excitement, as they envisioned the hook-up would give a nudge to Microsoft to raise its current bid.

“We continue to believe reaching a mutual agreement with Microsoft would be the best way for Yahoo to potentially extract a higher Microsoft bid (likely $32 to $35),” analyst Heather Bellini of UBS said in a research note Thursday.

That was quickly followed with reports that Yahoo and AOL were on the verge of doing a deal on terms that had been speculated upon over the past two months–Yahoo absorbing Time Warner’s AOL and the media giant getting roughly a 20 percent stake in Yahoo.

And given that Microsoft over the weekend issued a three-week deadline to Yahoo to do a deal with the software giant or face a hostile proxy fight and direct plea to Yahoo investors, proxy solicitors say the pitch and pace will be greatly accelerated between the two companies.

She added that the topic of discussion will no longer be just about price and terms of a Yahoo deal, but now also ways in which Yahoo could bring other strategies to the table.

Two new wrinkles in this long-rumored deal were its supposed imminence and word that Yahoo would come up with enough funds to lure investors with a stock buyback–worth several billion dollars, with a price in the range of $30 to $40 a share, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Bellini termed an AOL-Yahoo transaction as “unlikely.” She noted that Yahoo may face a tough time convincing a majority of its shareholders that an AOL transaction–even with a $35-a-share buyback–would be more attractive than Microsoft’s offer.

DxO was skeptical about public beta software, but the public “seems to be eating them up forever,” Marin said. “In hindsight, we probably would have been better off doing it on day one (with the Windows version), so we’re switching gears.”

This image illustrates the de-mosaicing process that’s one aspect of converting raw image files from high-end cameras into more manageable formats such as JPEG or TIFF. DxO Optics Pro 5 features a new engine for that conversion process.

DxO Labs released DxO Optics Pro version 5 for Windows last year, saying it hoped to release the Mac OS X version in November. However, the Mac version of the software now is scheduled for release on Feb. 22, said Luc Marin, DxO’s director of marketing for photography, at the Photo Marketing Association trade show here.

(Credit:
DxO Labs)

The company hopes to complete the final version in early spring, but issuing a public beta means the company will get feedback that makes a final release date uncertain, though, he said.

LAS VEGAS–In a departure from how it handled its Windows release, DxO Labs plans to begin a public beta testing for the
Mac OS X version of its DxO Optics Pro software used to convert raw files from higher-end cameras.

In addition, Marin said, DxO is planning an update next week that will support Canon’s 1Ds Mark III and Nikon’s D3, two new top-end SLR cameras. Later will come support for Canon’s Rebel XSi, Nikon’s D60, and Sony’s Alpha A700, he added.

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What industries are the right places to think about?

Tuesday, I attended the Open Source Business Conference panel titled “After Wall Street’s Chernobyl: Funding Open Source through the Downturn,” featuring some well-known open-source venture investors to hear what they are thinking about. The OSBC is taking place in San Francisco through Wednesday.

Peter Fenton: I thought it was potentially negligent to have this presentation get out there. It was very different than the way we would want to communicate with our CEOs.

Ryan Floyd: Most people who survived the downturn understand much better how to survive this time. There are companies that we are clearly pressing for growth, but we need to make sure the businesses are run in a profitable manner.

Just how bad is it from the venture investment perspective? Are the good times really over?

How do VCs think about funding companies through the downturn?

Panelists:
Larry Augustin (moderator)
Robin Vasan, Mayfield Fund
Peter Fenton, Benchmark
Ryan Floyd, Storm Ventures
Tim Guleri, Sierra Ventures

Any software vendor that has a lower friction model gets the benefit of potentially flying under the radar from a budget standpoint. It’s a philosophical change where IT doesn’t want to be sold. They want to make the decisions of how they buy.

Tim Guleri: Data center–there are tons of opportunities just around the growth of data. The move toward cloud infrastructure (thanks to virtualization) and trying to drag costs down, lead the charge via noncritical processes.

Robin Vasan: We used to spend a lot of time with CIOs of companies. Now we’re seeing a shift–we are very bullish on the scale of the “Internet 500.” It’s a radically different architecture and a great sandbox for new companies.

We’re in a good position to recover as our businesses are not debt-laden. We (venture-backed companies) have a better chance of recovery than many other companies.

Tim Guleri: It’s not about growth right now, it’s about cash and cash management.

Robin Vasan: Sequoia did a favor by putting the tough message out there. People want to buy in a different way. Open source, SaaS, and free-mium are things we are looking at.

WiiWare
Midnight Bowling (Gameloft, 800
Wii points): Midnight Bowling offers various game modes and a brand new physics system allowing for realistic bowling action. Play with up to three friends in various bowling alley environments.
MadStone (Riverman Media, 800 Wii points): In this puzzle game, you must control the path for elemental MadStones as you attempt to restore peace to Earth. Enjoy the game alone or co-op with a friend.
Virtual Console
Mario Golf (1999, Nintendo 64, 1,000 Wii points): Mario and company hit the links in the fantastic golf game from the Nintendo 64 era. Tee off through six different 18-hole courses and choose any of your favorite Nintendo characters.
Shining Force II (1994, Sega Gensis, 800 Wii points): Two missing jewels from the Tower of the Ancients has lead to the resurrection of the Devil King. You must take on the role of Bowie and must find the missing jewels, ending the Devil King’s reign.

What games do you think are missing from the Wii Virtual Console? Sound off here!

This week brings us a classic Mario Golf game and some bowling after dark.