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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness.   REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    Google CEO bullish on mobile Web advertising

    DAVOS, Switzerland
    Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:28pm EST
    In this file photo Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt attends a news conference in Paris June 19, 2007. The arrival of a truly mobile Web, offering a new generation of location-based advertising, is set to unleash a ''huge revolution'', Schmidt said on Friday. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

    DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The arrival of a truly mobile Web, offering a new generation of location-based advertising, is set to unleash a "huge revolution", Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Friday.

    Technology  |  Stocks

    "It's the recreation of the Internet, it's the recreation of the PC (personal computer) story and it is before us -- and it is very likely it will happen in the next year," he told a panel at the World Economic Forum.

    Current estimates for mobile advertising are cautious, with consultancy Forrester predicting revenues of under $1 billion by 2012.

    But Schmidt said this figure was too low and failed to take into account the fact the mobile Web was reaching a tipping point.

    Google aims to be a prime mover by bidding for coveted airwaves to launch an open U.S. wireless network, pitting it against established telecommunications players. The move will take the Silicon Valley-based company well beyond its core Web search and online advertising franchises.

    Some analysts are worried at the high costs involved but Schmidt said he was confident location-based advertising -- which could, for example, direct hungry travelers to nearby restaurants -- would be "a very, very good business".

    Content providers, already struggling in the modern world of music and film downloads, are less convinced that mobile Internet is a minefield.

    "It is not going to be easy to hang on the price of content," said Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corp.

    For full coverage, blogs and TV from Davos see: here



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