Le Web3 Live

So … the winner of the Web3 Startup Competition has been announced! The prize goes to French startup GooJet (i.e. Good Gadjet). GooJet beat out around 120 other companies for the honour. GooJet has created different widgets for mobile phones, in order to give access to community services and tools.

GooJet is also a partner of the conference…

The startup announced three days ago that they raised 2.3 million euros from Partech International, Elaia Partners and IRDI.

The second and third prizes went to Plymedia and G.ho.st.

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Fresh news after the night at la Scala. Great venue, great music, happy people : a success.

Watch the video (in French, but never mind) :

Hans Rosling’s presentation was billed as a 20-minute speech about “Why books and school lectures still exist.” Read more

French designer Philippe Starck has just finished speaking for more than 40 minutes… his topic? what social design is about. Here’s a sample of his metaphorical presentation of one of his collections of lamps dealing with war. His French accent and Jean-Claude-Van-Damme style make it all the more fascinating…

See PhilippeStarck’s profile.

Tuesday morning. LeWeb3 - Here we are!

LeWeb3-Live.net brings you the first photos of the event…

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Loïc Le Meur paid a surprise visit to his hard-working LeWeb3 staff on Monday afternoon. Along with his wife Géraldine, he visited the “docks” where the two-day conference will take place to check if everything was on track for the “big show”. His technicians and collaborators had been working hard since the morning.

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It’s not easy to become a “friend” with Dan Rose. It’s rather paradoxical that the vice-president of Facebook can’t be easily found on the Web. Perhaps it’s because “Dan Rose” is such a common name in the US. A better explanation could be that Rose is careful about his privacy on the Web. On his Facebook profile, Rose “only” lists around 400 friends, just as many as on his LinkedIn network. And most of his “friends” working for the social-networking company. Read more

At the turn of the century, e-books popped up, announcing the death of the old paper book that was supposed to join the diligence and the telegraph at the museum.

Fortunately for book publishers, this scenario didn’t happen. Books sells are still growing up, either on the Internet or in traditional bookstores.

But the last e-books launched by Sony, Bookeen, and Amazon are far more efficient than their ancestors, and the online bookstores are now ready to provide bunches of digital books to “e-readers”.

The great change might be close, and this time it’s not science fiction.

On the wooden tables of a Paris university amphitheatre, many books, piles of documents or laptops. In front of Lorenzo Soccavo, blogger of Nouvolivractu (http://nouvolivractu.cluster21.com/), two e-books are set : the I Rex Iliad and the Bookeen Cybook.

The Iliad, device of digital version of the french newspaper les Echos

What makes these new devices different from the first generation e-books that crashed down? “The first e-books had LCD screen. These new devices use e-ink, which allows a real paper-reading feeling” explains Lorenzo Soccavo. When you look at the screen, you wouldn’t say it’s paper. But it’s true it’s not uncomfortable. “E-ink means stable text, no backlighting and a low energy consumption” he adds. And for those who are afraid to miss the feeling of the paper or the charm of pages to turn, Lorenzo Soccavo swears that the device is soon forgotten when you are absorbed by a story.

The Cybook can contain many Da Vinci Code

Right. Now we have a proper reading device, large enough and simple to use (but still quite expensive : between 300 and 400 $), what should we put in it? The last born e-book, the Kindle of Amazon, is linked to a on line library filled with more than 80 000 books, while the Kindle can contain 2000 books. The Sony Reader displays 10 000 opus. But if you still don’t find what you need, there are numerous books with no copyrights on the web.

The Kindle of Amazon, which also displays newspapers and blogs.

Welcome in 3D bookstores
You can also choose to send your avatar in a 3D bookstore. On Second Life, he/she will look for your favourite author on Archebooks’ shelves. In October, Kinset launched its immersive library, linked to Amazon. It is not interactive enough and quite “slow” for some bloggers, but still impressive.

Enter the Kinset online bookstore

This kind of trip may look like a game, but according to Lorenzo Soccavo, it will one day become a common way to buy a book. “On Second Life I can go to the Amsterdam library, talk with the avatar of the librarian or with avatars of english readers. It is quite difficult to do it in real life.” True. But for those who enjoy to have “real” relationships in everyday life? “The purpose is not to stay cloistered in your house and to live through your avatar,” answers Soccavo. “The avatar is to be used as a tool, which can do things you are unable to do at the moment.” Said like that, it becomes less scary, it even may be useful.