Ultimate Techie Hotel Room Available in Paris

Smart Planet: Novotel and Microsoft have teamed up in Paris to create the ultimate techie hotel room. The room “3120” has been outfitted with the latest technology including a digital mirror and Xbox consoles. The prototype will only be available temporarily at the Novotel Vaugirard-Montparnasse location and visitors can book the room through February 14^th. 

Novotel is a chain of hotels present in 40 countries attracting a mix of family and business clients. This high tech room is the first collaboration with Microsoft since the partnership formed in 2008.

The project is only meant to last three months, but could be prolonged according to Marine Todesco, communications chief at Novotel’s parent group, Accor. “If this room fulfills expectations and if reservations are in demand, it could be prolonged,” she said.

The room is a techie dreamland. It has an Xbox Kinect for game lovers. The SENSORIT digital mirror allows guests to check news while checking their reflection. The Windows Phone 7 and the Nokia Lumia are also available, though they won’t be commercially available in France until the end of the year.

Todesco said that the Surface interactive table is among the most surprising feature. Guests can use it to browse the Web, play online games, or even use interactive maps to plan the next day’s adventures. “Its applications are basically unlimited,” she said.

The features are largely experimental in the hotel. “It’s important to note that the innovations in the rooms are pilot versions; some of them, if they are very successful with clients, could be deployed on a larger scale,” Todesco said.

The room “3120″ is available for 199 euros a night and is located in Paris’ 15^th arrondissement, with a view of the Eiffel Tower. While details aren’t available yet, Todesco said that another Novotel-Microsoft project will be unveiled next year in a to-be-announced European capital.

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Berlin Restaurant Serves Only Caveman Food

Daily Mail: At first glance, Berlin's Sauvage restaurant looks much like many of the German capital's other trendy eateries.

But take a closer look at the chalkboard out front and you'll discover they are embarking on a culinary shake-up that takes its inspiration from the Stone Age.

Proudly announcing a 'Real Food Revolution - Paleolithic cuisine!', there is no cheese, bread or sugar available, only fare accessible to our hunter-gatherer ancestors more than two million years ago.

The restaurant menu shows a stereotypical image of modern humanity's forbearer, the jutting profile of a hirsute caveman. Inside, diners eat at candle-lit tables with a contemporary cave painting hanging in the background, according to Spiegel Online.

Sauvage, which is also the French word for 'savage' or 'wild,' is part of the Paleolithic diet movement and claims to be first of its kind in Europe. That means serving only organic, unprocessed fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, and herbs.

The truly obsessed build an entire lifestyle around the concept, mimicking caveman-era exercise. This can involve lifting boulders and running barefoot, with some even emulating the blood loss they believe Stone Age hunters might have experienced in pursuit of their dinner by donating blood every few months.

But guests at Sauvage can try 'Paleo' without feeling obligated to take on a strictly Stone Age lifestyle. Sauvage's Boris Leite-Poço told Spiegel Online of the growing interest in caveman cooking.

He said: 'Many people think the Paleolithic diet is just some hipster trend, but it's a worldwide phenomenon, with an online community that spans the globe. The trend is probably strongest in the United States, where people who have had enough of the fast food way of life and generations of illness have taken it up.'

The menu includes salads with olives, capers and pine nuts; gluten-free bread with nut-based butter or olive tapenades; smoked salmon with herb dressing; and other various meat and fish dishes. Gluten- and sugar-free cakes, like a spicy pumpkin pie, are available for those Stone Age diners who don't want to skip desert.

Earlier this year, thousands of people rated the Paleo diet the best way to lose weight, despite a report claiming it was ineffective. A U.S. News and World Report said the regime, otherwise known as the Caveman diet, would 'likely disappoint... and was the least effective for weight loss.'

But a poll beneath the review revealed that 3,292 people said that the diet had worked for them, compared with just 85 who said that it didn't.

First Segway Park Opens in Denmark

NY Daily News: The world's first off-road Segway course opened its doors in Aarhus, Denmark on Friday.

Modeled as a miniature version of Yellowstone National Park, the course offers riders the chance to steer their two-wheel Segway scooters through mountains and waterfalls in a giant indoor hall.

"We have 6,000 square meters (64,583 square feet) and have built a copy of Yellowstone National Park, with mountains and waterfalls and tracks ranging from granite to sea-shells -- all sorts of things. You get the feeling you're actually driving in the park," Paul Teichert told AFP.

"A trip in the hall is a cross between a flying carpet and skiing in the Alps. And for those who are doing one of the courses as a race, we have automatic timing mechanisms that make sure they don't cheat," Teichert said.

The Segway is a one person, two-wheel, self-balancing, electrical transportation unit. Teichert said the Danish park was the first of its kind in the world, "and will be the biggest for a long time to come." He said that in tests, women appeared to be better initial off-road drivers of Segways than men.

"They're more careful to start with. Men just go at it and end up on their behinds," he said.

He said senior executives of the US Segway company had announced they would be arriving in Denmark soon to study the hall. He added that security had been a primary concern for constructors and all tracks and courses had been approved by both police and Denmark's Technological Institute.

The Segway was introduced in 2002 amid great fanfare as a means of revolutionising urban transportation. It uses gyroscopes, computers and electric motors to cruise to 12 miles (19 kilometres) per hour.

Dutch Railway Introducing "Pee Bags" on Trains

Inquirer News: Dutch National Railways said Friday it planned to introduce so-called “pee-bags” as an emergency alternative to non-existing toilets on its short-hop trains.

“Yes, we are planning to introduce the bags on our short-hop Sprinter trains,” NS spokeswoman Nienke Kooistra told AFP, but stressed “it’s to be used in extreme emergencies only, for instance when a train is stranded.”

Should passengers urgently need the bathroom, they will be able to take an on-board bag and use the unoccupied drivers’ cabin at the back of the train, she said. The bag is attached to a spout and filled with a powdered substance that turns into a gel, and passengers would then leave it behind or simply throw it away when they step off.

But incredulous rail passengers interviewed by Dutch national television were dismayed by the idea, especially women.

“Are you serious? No, no ways, I just can’t see myself doing ‘it’ in that,” one unnamed female passenger told its NOS morning journal program.

“For a man it may be easier, for a woman that’s just impossible,” she said.

Dutch train drivers also reacted with fury, saying they were revolted by the idea of their work space being turned into a lavatory.

“When I first heard about it, I thought it was a joke. Wim Eilert of the country’s driver’s union (VVMC) told the ANP news agency.

“To let people pee where somebody else needs to work, that will not do. It’s distasteful,” he said.

Spain to Open Universal's First European Theme Park

Attractions Management: Paramount is to open its first European branded theme park in Alhama de Murcia, Spain, as part of a EUR1.1bn (£950m, US$1.5bn) tourism project expected to open in spring 2015.

Proyectos Emblemáticos Murcianos (Premursa) is behind the scheme, which will also boast a 1.03 million sq m (11.1 million sq ft) LifeStyle Center business and leisure complex. Premursa has secured a long-term agreement with Paramount Licensing for the development and operation of the 550,000sq m (5.9 million sq ft) theme park.

Paramount will not be investing in the project but will assist in the creation of the park, which is to feature more than 30 attractions and two themed hotels. Retail and restaurant units and the Paramount Live live-stage-spectacular will be located in the Paramount Promenade at the grand entrance to the park.

Meanwhile, the main theme park will boast four themed areas: Adventure City for action fans; Rango's West; Woodland Fantasy for kids; and Plaza Futura offering science-fiction experiences. Meanwhile, the LifeStyle Center complex will offer seven hotels, including two four-star sites with a convention area and a five-star property incorporating a casino.

The commercial area of the development will be established in the 150,000sq m (1.6 million sq ft) Street Mall and contain a number of restaurant and night leisure facilities. An auditorium; an exhibition room; and a large convention area are also proposed, as well as a business complex to create a new financial hub for the Murcian region.

Paramount Licensing executive vice president Michael Bartok said: "Paramount chose the Region of Murcia for this project because of the exceptional qualities that make it a popular tourist destination.

"The support from the regional and local governments as well as Premursa is remarkable and we look forward to creating a world-class destination."

The Bubble Hotel: Rooms With a View

Not far from the city of lights, a new hotel offers weary Parisians the chance to fall asleep beneath the glow of the stars. The unique Bubble Tree hotel is the brainchild of French designer Pierre-Stephane Dumas.

Strategically placed in areas chosen for their natural beauty, the air-filled bubble rooms allow guests to experience nature without the hassle of setting up a tent. This particular bubble tree is situated near the bucolic grounds of the Chateau Mal-maison, once home to Napoleon’s wife, Josephine de Beauharnais.

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'Eagle's Nest' a Surprise Tourist Attraction

Daily Mail: The dark allure of Adolf Hitler has turned his tea house at the top of a Bavarian mountain into one of the most visited sites in Germany. Tourism authorities announced that over 300,000 people visited the retreat on the peak of the Kehlstein mountain which was built for him as a 50th birthday gift by Nazi party secretary Martin Bormann in 1939.

This is nearly 30,000 up on last year.

Although Hitler's Berghof home on the mountain was destroyed by the Allies in bombing raids and after WW2, the tea house survived to become a tourism magnet in peacetime.

Officials said that most visitors to the mountain are Americans followed by Britons; combined they make up 85 percent of the people who came to see where Hitler ate cream cakes with his mistress Eva Braun and snoozed in chintz chairs as the world war he started raged. Germans make up just a small proportion of visitors to the tea house, preferring instead to enjoy nature and walking holidays in the beautiful countryside of the Obersalzburg all around.

For around 20 euros modern day visitors to the house 6,000 feet up are rewarded with spectacular views and can get refreshments from the privately run restaurant, including roast pork with dumplings and cabbage, salads and sandwiches, that operates in summer months inside it. There is even a gift shop.

Visitors access the tea house on a bus via a serpent-like mountain road called the Kehlsteinstrabe and enter a golden brass lift built into the mountain side, itself accessed via a tunnel through the granite. The Kehlsteinhaus is known in English as the Eagle's Nest and is built in a chalet-style taking 13 months to construct.

It was finished in the summer of 1938 before it was presented to Hitler a year later, but he only made a few visits to the chalet partly due to his fear of heights. After the war it was used by the Allies as a military command post until 1960 when it was handed back to the State of Bavaria.

It is 1834m above sea level and is perched on a rock wall having cost 30m Reichsmarks to build - about £100m today.

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Hamburg's Giant Bathing Lady

Daily Mail: Meet the not-so-Little Mermaid that has been having a right old knees-up in the German city of Hamburg.

Oliver Voss's floating sculpture is designed to look like a woman bathing in the picturesque Alster Lake.

The three-piece work of art, which is 13ft high and 98ft long, will be turning heads for the next ten days - with many visitors boarding rowing boats to get a closer look.

Voss, head of the advertising academy Miami Ad School, said he wanted the aquatic sculpture, called The Bather, to be 'a topic of conversation in Germany'.

But his creation has also caused controversy, with district mayor Markus Schreiber telling de Bild newspaper that it was 'sullying the beloved lake'.

The enormous sculpture, made from steel and styrofoam, does not resemble a traditional mermaid.

Instead of a woman with a fishtail, Voss's lady of the lake has legs bent at the knee and protruding from the water.