Cool New Google Translate Update!

The good folks in Mountain View, California have just updated Google Translate, creating a fantastic tool for foreign travelers and anyone struggling to learn a new language. Basically you speak into the mic...and the app speaks back in the language of your choice. For those of us who learn better visually than aurally, the app lets you see the translated phrase as well as hear it. The new update is for both Android and iOS.

"When talking with someone in an unfamiliar language, conversations can... get... realllllllly... sloowwww," Google says. "While we’ve had real-time conversation mode on Android since 2013, our new update makes the conversation flow faster and more naturally." 

Once you've downloaded the update, go to Translate and tap the mic to start speaking in your selected language, then tap the mic again and the app will automatically recognize the language being spoken. For the rest of the conversation, you won’t need to tap the mic again—it'll be ready. Go for it! Now you can ask directions to the autoroute, tell the waiter that you're fromage intolerant and chat up anyone in French with relative ease....if you speak slowly and enunciate, of course.

The instant translation currently works for translation from English to and from French...plus German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. More languages are coming. Pretty soon you'll be able to communicate with just about anyone on earth...a fairly remarkable thought.

The Translate app has also been updated for written text. It already lets you use camera mode to snap a photo of text and get a translation for it in 36 languages...like a street sign, for instance, or a restaurant menu. But this new update lets you instantly translate text using your camera. While using the Translate app, just point your camera at a sign or text and you’ll see the translated text overlaid on your screen—even if you don't have an internet or data connection. You can also use your finger to highlight and then scan just the part of the text you want translated. I tried it and it works...but nowhere near as smoothly as the voice translator. The voice translator rocks!

Merci, Google! Now if only you could make an app to help me find my phone in the bottom of my handbag when I'm searching for a French phrase and need it right away...

My New Favorite Travel Companion

If you travel internationally, you know what a hassle it can be to get online without racking up huge roaming charges. Lots of people buy a local SIM card but they're not always available and many devices don't take them. Plus, a new SIM means a new phone number...more hassle!

Many of my travel-planning clients ask about connectivity for their upcoming trips to France...and I'd been wondering for a while about those mobile hotspots that you can rent for travel. They create a WiFi signal wherever you are, for when there's no WiFi and you don't want to use your own 3G or 4G. Such as? In a car, on a bus or train, in a rental house, on the street or in any shop or restaurant without WiFi. Or, where the WiFi is so slow it makes you nuts.

When my client Joyce Rothenberg--a tour operator who brings groups to France--used one on her recent trip and told me it was fantastic, I knew I wanted to give it a try. So I got myself one from Travel WiFi...and to get it back they'll have to pry it from my clenched little fists. I love this thing!

Prices depend on the length of your trip, starting at 6€ per day (for 30 days). A seven-day rental is 48€; a three-day rental is 30€.  Readers of Provence Post will get a 10% discount by using the link below. 

If you're thinking oh no, not another gadget with cords and adapters and complicated instructions...this isn't like that at all. In fact the company clearly set out to make the process as easy and pleasant as possible. Hey, your little hotspot arrives in a small flat box with a cookie in it. How many companies send you shortbread just for fun?

The device itself is tiny--smaller than a deck of cards--and the instructions are super easy. Basically, you use the little cord to charge it as needed...then input the password that appears conveniently on the back of the device...and off you go, browsing the web, downloading emails, sending photos and more, all at 4G speed. (If 4G is unavailable in your area, you'll get 3G or 3G+.) If you know where you're going in France, you can check the coverage map here.

Most clients order their hotspot once they know their travel dates...and have it sent to wherever they're staying in France: hotel, hostel, private home, rental. (For the time being, the company only ships to France.) Or, you can reserve one and pick it up at Travel Wifi's office in Paris....where, the website says, you'll be offered a cup of coffee and lots of Paris travel tips! If your rental starts on a weekend when the office is closed, they'll find a way for you to get it. 

When you're done, you pop it into the box and into the pre-paid envelope and send it back.

Travel WiFi's devices work with laptops, tablets and smartphones. They're totally wireless: toss it in your purse or backpack, leave it on the dashboard, keep it in your pocket. Use is totally unlimited: you can suck up as much data as your heart desires with no hidden fees or small print or exceptions. And you can share your connection with up to nine other devices at the same time. Yep, the whole family can be online at once. Two families!

Considering that data access while roaming can cost up to 10€ per MB depending on the country and plan, the daily rental price really seems like nothing. Think of the time we've all spent on the road, searching for a good WiFi signal...time that could be spent doing just about anything else. And given that you're not changing your SIM, your phone number stays the same...another big bonus, in my book.

It is possible to buy (rather than rent) personal hotspots, for roughly 100€ to 200€. But then you'll need a different SIM card and subscription for every country you visit. For most travelers, a short rental is a far better option. I assume these devices are now available for rental all over the world, but the Travel WiFi one works only in France; beyond that you're on your own.

There are quite a few companies that now offer the same type of device but I had a super positive experience with Travel WiFi...so I'm really happy to recommend it to anyone coming to France. And because I know how y'all love a deal, I asked company co-founder Jonathan Justman to give you a 10% discount and of course he said ''bien sur!'' So be sure to book by clicking here or you won't get the discount.  You're welcome!

Questions: contact@travel-wifi.com, tel +33 (0)1 76 44 00 30.

Get a Job, Will Ya?

One of the many pleasures of blogging for me has been getting to know my readers, both virtually and in person.  And over the years I've gotten something of a sense of who you are. I've come to realize that, while many of you are retired and in the ''let's travel!'' chapter of your lives, just as many of you are still toiling away in the working world, be it in France, the US, the UK, Australia or another country. 

And many of you have told me that you'd like to live and work in France one day, whether that means getting a job or starting your own business or moving your business to France or whatever. I hear from people who want to come next month...and next year...and ''one day soon." 

So if that's you...or someone you know...check out this free English-language Paris Startup Job Fair on April 5th. (I meant to share the last one with you but didn't get to it in time.) I know it's short notice for those of you who aren't in France but then again what a great excuse to grab a cheap flight, eh? Startup in this case means young companies such as Bla Bla Car, Deezer, My Little Paris, AppGratis, tinyclues, Invoxia, Bunkr, KelDoc, WeekendDesk.fr, Carnet de Mode and Mailjet all of whom participated last year. Fifty companies and 750 job seekers were there.

"Rude Baguette is happy to host the second edition of our Paris Startup Job Fair, which saw 100-plus jobs filled in its first edition," says the company's co-founder and editor Liam Boogar. "With unemployment at its highest in France, there are great opportunities for talent to find work in France, where tomorrow's top startups are being born!"

Anyone interested in the ''Paris Tech Ecosystem'' is also welcome at another cool networking event that Rude Baguette is hosting. This one is April 8 and all the details are here. If you subscribe to the Rude Baguette email newsletter, which covers the tech, digital and start-up world in France and elsewhere, you'll get notified about all future industry events, in Paris and other cities.

And while we're at it, here's another European job fair that might interest you. This one is the same day--April 5th--but in Amsterdam. It's sponsored by Expatica.com...it's more international in scope...and all the info is here.

Photo: The last Paris Startup Job Fair, in September, brought together 50 companies and 750 job seekers. More than 100 jobs were filled.

Shark Tank/Dragons Den for Tech Startups

I just got word that the deadline has been extended five days on this wonderful initiative for young tech businesses in Europe.  

On April 4th, Girls in Tech Paris will host the third annual European Lady Pitch Night, where five startups will be brought out to Paris (all expenses paid) to compete in a pitch competition. To qualify? You must have your HQ in Europe, have at least one female co-founder and have been in business for at least six months, but no more than three years. And finally, your company must have developed or be developing a tech product (Internet, mobile, software, video game, electronic, etc.). The deadline for applications is now March 15th and you can apply here.

Last year’s event drew 60 applications from startups in 11 countries. The five selected startups pitched to Gilles Babinet, Orange, LeWeb and other event sponsors. 

Girls in Tech and European Lady Pitch Night are both working to build and support the European tech startup scene. According to Liam Boogar of The Rude Baguette (which does the same thing, more specifically to France, and is a marvelous resource): 'There are a lot of great angel investors & VCs in France who only get deal flow in France because, well, no other startups come out here. This event is a great chance for European startups to get their name out there in the French market! While our company Rude Media won’t be pitching (despite our awesome female cofounder!), we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on some of the awesome female entrepreneurs coming out to the event.'' 

The public is welcome at the conference on April 4 and tickets will be available here. GIT Paris stresses that the event and the group are both open to both men and women.

For more info on Girls in Tech Paris, see their site here. They're also on Facebook and Twitter.

Meanwhile, if the French startup, tech and digital world interests you, make sure to subscribe to Rude Baguette here. They'll be hosting their own event, the Paris Pub Summit, at the DelaVille Café in Paris on March 22nd at 19:30; it's co-hosted by the Web Summit and it's designed for entrepreneurs, investors, press and the rest of the international startup community. All the info on the Paris Pub Summit is here.  

*Like this post? Then why not subscribe? Just click here...

Google Voice Translator and Google Goggles

Text translation apps have been around for years: you type in a phrase and your phone, tablet or PC gives it back to you in the written language of your choice. For those of us with a less-than-perfect French, who often need to write (or read) emails and letters in French, Google Translator has been invaluable. Not perfect, of course, but much better in many cases, than we could do on our own. For a few years now, I've been waiting for Google to come out with something similar for voice and I just found out they have...turns out it's been around for more than a year. It's called Google Traduction (here in France) and Google Translate (elsewhere); it's free and it works beautifully. Now when you're struggling to find a word or a phrase, you can simply speak it in English (or one of many other languages) and the app translates and repeats it--in a sexy French voice, no less. When I tried it in reverse--French to English--that worked well too, with the response in a posh British accent. You can also see a text translation, view dictionary results for single words, access your translation history and more. To download the app from the iTunes app store globally, click here. And while we're on it, another great Google feature you may not know is Google Goggles, which lets you point your phone at something (a monument, a painting, a wine label, etc.), snap a photo and get an almost immediate identification (and search results). The Goggles feature (also called visual search) is incorporated into the Google Search app, where you'll also find voice-activated search as well. Seriously...how great is Google?

This Post Has Nothing To Do With Provence

Anytime I come across something I think you might like, I try to find a French connection to justify posting it on my blog. If I can't, I don't. But these videos of Lotte and Vince growing up? I just had to. Their dad is the Dutch filmmaker and photographer Frans Hofmeester, who's been filming his kids since they were born and assembling the clips using time-lapse technology. Lotte is now 12 and Vince, 9. 

Hofmeester began the project when he noticed how quickly his first-born was changing...and he wanted to capture each and every moment. “I filmed Lotte every week,”  he told ABC News. “I felt the need to document the way she looked to keep my memories intact.”  When the kids aren't in the mood, he distracts them by asking questions.

Frans says he's always had a hunch that what he was doing was special but that he never expected the response: there have been more than 700,000 views on his Vimeo page to date. “I’m flabbergasted. This is overwhelming,” he said.  In the meantime, the proud papa continues to record his kids’ growth. “There will be a lot of changes in the coming years,” said Hofmeester.  “And of course I'll continue filming.”

The New Food Lover's Guide to Paris App

Back in the day, when sightseeing or visiting a new city for work, I'd head out in the morning carrying a guidebook, a list of things I wanted to see and do, assorted scraps of paper scribbled with who knows what, restaurant names and addresses and, if it was an eating trip or I was interviewing chefs, the Zagat Guide. Plus, of course, a notebook, a camera and a map. Hardly what you want to schlep around with you on a full day of touring. Add to that all the little things one picks up along the way on a day out...and that makes for a heavy tote bag indeed. Then came digital and everything changed. Now when traveling, I hit the street with little more than my iPhone. And I'm always looking for ways to streamline the process further still, talking to other travelers and travel writers about what gadgets, apps, sites, programs and services they find most useful. Since many of these tools are free or cheap, it's tempting to grab them all...and some people do. But for me the key is to find the best option, master it and move on. (Still, I have three GPS apps on my phone and no real idea how to use any of them.) Whether I'm on my tablet or my iPhone--or at home on the desktop researching--I'm always hunting for a quicker, better way get the info I need on the road, without getting bogged down, digitally, by everything that I don't.

That was a very long winded way of saying: check out Patricia Wells' new Food Lover’s Guide to Paris app, which came out this week. I haven't played around with it yet but knowing Patricia, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t great. She and her team spent well over a year visiting and revisiting, tasting and retesting, writing and fact-checking, while her tech experts were  busy developing and designing an impressive compilation of 350 of the city’s ultimate culinary destinations. You’ll find old favorites and scores of new discoveries, from sushi spots and creperies to mom-and-pop bistros to extravagant Michelin three-star restaurants. Also included are Patricia’s favorite wine bars, bakeries, pastry shops, chocolatiers, fromagiers, markets and specialty shops. Bookmark your favorites for a personalized list.

The $4.99 app is in English and compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch, running at least iOS 5. It will also work on iPad running iOS 5, but in a smaller iPhone format.

When Patricia first published The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris in 1984, it was called “the book that cracks the code.” It has sold 300,000 copies, been updated four times and was published in five languages. (A new version is in the works but won’t be out for about two years.)

“Much has changed on the Paris food scene since the latest edition of the book was published in 1999,’’ Patricia tells me. “There’s a whole new group of energetic young cooks, expanding the culinary ‘musts’ into upcoming neighborhoods. A fresh generation of bakers, pastry chefs and chocolate makers is bringing us all new looks, flavors and excitement.’’

Wherever you are in Paris, the app’s map will show you (with color-coded pins and GPS coordinates) the closest recommended restaurants, shops and markets. Each selection includes commentary, address, phone, opening hours, web site and email addresses where applicable; photos are included for many of them. You can call numbers directly, click through to web sites and get directions too. Contents are browsable by category or neighborhood, or by restaurant specifics such as price, cuisine, specialties of the house and details such as vegetarian- friendly or Michelin-star rating. The app also contains Patricia’s dining dictionary, an A-Z glossary of French culinary terms to help you translate menus on the spot.

For those who don’t know Patricia’s background, she was global food critic for the International Herald Tribune for more than 25 years. She’s a former New York Times food writer and the author of 15 books, including her upcoming Cooking With Patricia, out next year. With her husband, Walter Wells, Patricia has lived in France since 1980 and runs the popular cooking school At Home with Patricia Wells, with locations in Paris and Provence. 

For more info on the new app, click here. For Patricia’s website and blog, click here. You can also find her on Facebook  and Twitter. And for some of Patricia’s Provence restaurant recommendations, click here…but please note the story is two years old so some info may have changed.

J'Adore This Dior Commercial

Have you guys seen this Dior commercial, with Charlize Theron, Greta Garbo, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe? It was directed by Oscar-winning French director Jean-Jacques Annaud and made using CGI or Computer Generated Imagery. Now I adore Dior even more...

Le Kindle Français Est Arrivé

Yesterday Amazon launched its French Kindle Store with 35,000 French-language book titles to choose from. At the same time, Amazon unveiled the first French-language Kindle, calling it the smallest, lightest and most affordable Kindle ever. Priced at just 99€, the newest Kindle will be released on October 14 but you can pre-order it now by clicking here. The Kindle store now offers more than 825,000 books--including thousands of global best sellers--in English and other languages as well as Kindle versions of major French newspapapers such as Le Monde, Le Figaro, Liberation and others. For all the details, see the Amazon press release here and a full story on Wired.com here.

Provence In the Press

While you've all been out snipping lavender, drinking rosé, playing boules and being fabulous by the pool, you may have fallen a bit behind on your reading. So because I live to please you, I've gathered some recent articles you may have missed....

A week in Provence...on a budget.

The magic of the Var.

The Provence of Mistral and Daudet.

Eighteen years of free travel for baby born on the TGV.

The Gorge du Verdon gets a closeup in the Telegraph.

The passing of a remarkable woman.

Marseille gets a nice shout out in the New York Times.

Fancy-car lovers, look away: this is going to hurt!

How to beat high roaming fees when traveling abroad.

Raves for the piano festival in La-Roque-d'Antheron.

Smoking banned on beach at La Ciotat.

A handy list of apps for France.

BMI's new Heathrow to Nice service starts August 25.

A nice article about Provencal rosé.

Bonnard Museum is now open.

Will Brad and Angela get married in Provence?

Then again, maybe not...

Air France says take your trash with you, SVP.

The Michelin three-stars of France.

Book hunting in Montolieu.

Using Twitter to teach French.

The Telegraph says now is the time to visit Avignon.

Overview of the real estate market in Provence.

A brief history of rosé...and a cheat sheet.

William and Kate learn to cook French.

Exploring in the footsteps of Van Gogh.

In the market for a 17th-century chateau?

What Pierre Cardin has been up to in Lacoste.

A bargain red wine from Provence.

The Wall Street Journal explores the Camargue.

It looks like they were making beer in the South of France as early as the 5th century.

Pippa's summer in the South of France.

Provence vs. The Languedoc.

A grape-based vodka from Provence.

Top Photo: This four-bedroom restored farmhouse near Cavaillon is on the market for €1.6 million ($2.67 million). Half of the property's 4.7 acres are lavender fields. Get more info--and an update on the Provencal real estate market--in the New York Times here. Center and Bottom Photos: Château de Sannes is a 17th-century estate, on 136 acres, for sale by Christie's. It has enchanting formal gardens, olive groves, a truffle plantation, wheat and lavender fields...and 80 acres of vineyards. For more info, click here.

French (Bread) Revolution

A couple years ago, I wrote about a drive-through boulangerie just outside Paris where you could buy fresh-baked bread from the comfort of your car. Last week, I shared the news that McDonald's in France had just begun offering baguettes. And now I have the pleasure of reporting (thanks to an article in the Guardian), that Paris has its first 24-hour baguette dispenser. The bread is partially baked before being put in the machine, then finished off when ordered and delivered crisp and hot – for €1. Local baker Jean-Louis Hecht cooked up the idea to take advantage of the August holiday period when many of France's 33,000 bakeries are closed. But Hecht admits he was also weary of customers knocking on his apartment door at all hours, looking for fresh bread when his boulangerie downstairs was closed. "This is the bakery of tomorrow," he proclaims. "It is answering a real need. People who work at night or early in the morning can get their fresh bread. To me it's a public utility." Read the full story here. 


Photo: French baker Jean-Louis Hecht at his baguette dispenser in Paris, by Michel Euler/AP, via Guardian.co.uk

A Kinder, Gentler Way to Book Flights

Planning any travel? Then check out Hipmunk. It's a huge improvement over the other popular travel booking sites--a much quicker and more-organized experience. "Our goal is to build the best travel site on the Internet," Hipmunk co-founder Adam Goldstein said in a recent article in Fast Company. "And by 'best' I mean the site that helps people find what they're looking for with a minimum of agony." Unlike other sites, Hipmunk has tabs to let you compare multiple searches at the same time. It hides flights "that no intelligent person would take." Plus, they just added a little WiFi indicator directly onto flight search results so you can see easily who offers internet up in the sky. Thank you, Hipmunk! Hip, hip, hooray!

LIFE Magazine Looks at Provence

If you loved LIFE like millions of others did, then Life.com might ease your withdrawal. The magazine was a mainstay of American culture, an icon in the world of photojournalism, the first all-photographic American news magazine. LIFE dominated the market for more than 40 years, from its launch as a weekly by Time founder Henry Luce in 1936; as an intermittent "special" until 1978 and as a monthly from 1978 to 2000. Today on the site I happened on a beautiful photo essay about Provence, a series of 36 mostly black-and-white photos taken as early as 1900. To see the gallery, click "Next" in the image above or better yet, click here to see the images full size. You might also enjoy the series of vintage photos on Europe's "Wine Line" or on French design icons or this one, called Classic Cannes.


Pictured: A Grasse perfume-factory worker on a bed of roses, May 26, 1955. Photo by George W. Hales/Getty Images

Van Gogh 2.0

Inspired by tilt-shift photography, which plays with depth of field and makes real world scenes appear like miniature models, art student Serena Malyon simulated the effect with Photoshop, transforming a number of well-known Van Gogh paintings. You can see more of her images and learn how she made them here. To see other striking tilt-shift photos by various artists, click here.

Pictured: Van Gogh's "Prisoners Exercising," after and before. The original was painted in St. Remy in 1890.

Welcome To Our Newest Advertiser

Ben Collison and his wife, Alice, moved to France in 2003. Originally from Preston in Northwest England, they now live in Cotignac, in the Var region of Provence. They have two children: William (age 3) and Eva (11 months). Ben launched his design business in 2003 and has grown it into one of the leading English-speaking web and graphic design agencies in the South of France. Pure Design International also offers web optimization, logo design and corporate identity, marketing, advertising and print (large format, car wrapping, business cards, posters, luxury stationery, etc.) “If it’s printable, we can do it,” he says.

Ben charges €30 per hour or, for web design and development, a flat fee.  For large projects, he prefers to meet in person, therefore his clients tend to come mostly from the area between Monaco and Marseille. But he’s happy to work via phone and email too. Recent clients include Sunseeker France , Luxury & Family Property, Home-Hunts, Domaine de la Pertuisane, Fine Wine Works  and Michael Zander Architects.  And you can see more of his work on the Pure Design site….click here.

Ben’s a big believer, of course, in the power of a professional presentation…particular in these competitive times. “It’s so important to have a brand, business card or website you’re proud of,” he says. “It’s worth investing a few extra euros to have something that displays creativity and attention to detail…something that looks and feels good or provides a great user experience. The impression you leave with people really counts.”

Pure Design International

Tel: 09 70 44 62 97

Mob: 06 18 74 03 32

PureDesignInternational.com

info@puredesigninternational.com

David Hockney's iPaintings

You still have time to see “David Hockney: Fleurs Fraîches,” an exhibit of images (flowers, places and people) created by the British artist on his iPhone and iPad.  It's at the Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent in Paris until Jan 30th. With “Brushes” and other apps, Hockney used his thumbs and fingers to create full-color images directly on the device’s screen, modifying the hues and layering brushstrokes of various widths and opacities; he then emailed the images to friends. The show presents the work in its original digital format and as projections; you can also see an animation of Hockney creating one of the works from start to finish on a large floating screen. According to the New York Times, the artist becomes so immersed while doing the finger paintings that he catches himself stopping to wipe off his fingers.

David Hockney lived in Paris from 1973 to 1975 and this is his first major show there in more than a decade. "It's the first exhibition ever totally emailed to a gallery," the artist says, in a video on the gallery's website. An international tour of the show is planned following this Paris premiere.

Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent

5, avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris.

Tél. : 01 44 31 64 00  

fondation-pb-ysl.net


Above: Untitled 14 June 2010 © David Hockney

Can You Ear Me Now?

Now you can dress up your cell phone and all your other electronic devices with reproductions of classic paintings such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night. (And none too soon, I might add.) Van Gogh painted Starry Night (and close to 150 other oils) while hospitalized in St. Remy in 1889, following the cutting-off-of-the-ear incident in nearby Arles. (By the way, two German art historians recently said they now believe it was actually Gauguin and not Van Gogh himself who sliced off the famous ear.) The original Starry Night hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York while Van Gogh's room at the hospital  St. Paul de Mausole in St. Remy is beautifully preserved and open to the public. The Van Gogh cell phone skins cost about $8 and may or may not come with a free matching "wallpaper" skin for your laptop. To see all the styles and to order, click here. 

Using Your US Cell Phone in Europe

Something I'm asked almost as often as "where should we eat in Provence?" is "what should we do about a cell phone on our upcoming trip?" Obviously there's no simple answer but BudgetTravel.com has taken up the topic so you might be interested in what they have to say. Click here for the first story and comments; here for the follow up.


Photo by Andy Hebden via Flickr. To see more of his work, go here.

Feel Like You're Being Watched?

A cloud-free southern Europe was photographed from space in early March, with Spain (lower left), France (center), Switzerland (upper right) and Italy (lower right) all visible. Four mountain chains are clearly distinguishable: the Alps, Jura, Pyrenees and Massif Central. The western portion of the Alps is visible (bottom right) on the border of France and Italy. The Jura Mountains, north-west of the Alps, are also snow covered. The Pyrenees (bottom left) form the natural border between France and Spain (with the country of Andorra in between). The photograph came from the European Space Agency and their site has many more cool images of France to explore. Thanks to Craig McGinty of This French Life for the heads up on these stunning photos.

Photograph: Meris/ESA

Google Scores on Super Bowl Sunday

Google broke with its longstanding tradition of not advertising its search engine on national television when it ran this attention-grabbing and yet understated 60-second spot during the Super Bowl on Sunday Feb 7th. The Super Bowl is the most-watched TV event of the year (stats for this year put the number at 106.5 million viewers) with 30-second commercials selling for upwards of $3 million. This was Google's first-ever Super Bowl ad buy. Called "Parisian Love," the commercial was based on a series of YouTube videos called Search Stories that Google has posted over the past three months. "We didn't set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt told CNN. "We liked this video so much, and it's had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience." Predictably, the ad has inspired all sort of parodies including one with a pro-life message called Parisian Oops and another making fun of Tiger Woods. To see the ad, click the arrow above. And if you're older than 12 and need to watch it more than once to catch it completely, don't worry--you're not alone.