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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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    Ask.com closes acquisition of Dictionary.com

    SAN FRANCISCO
    Thu Jul 3, 2008 5:56pm EDT
    Ask.com's former Chief Executive Jim Lanzone speaks during the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York, May 14, 2007. REUTERS/Keith Bedford

    SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ask.com, the Web search unit of IAC/InterActiveCorp, has closed an all-cash deal to acquire Lexico Publishing Group LLC, the owner of popular reference sites Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com.

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    Lexico of Long Beach, California, was founded in 1995, starting with Dictionary.com. A year later Lexico introduced Thesaurus.com and in 2002 began Reference.com. For users who know what they mean but can't recall the term, it also offers a Reverse Dictionary (here).

    Ask.com said the deal expands its monthly audience by around 15 million users to 145 million, an increase of 11 percent. Based on March traffic data from comScore Inc, that would make Ask.com the ninth-largest Web property globally.

    Dictionary.com is the fifth most-visited reference site among U.S. Web users, according to data from online audience measurement site Hitwise Inc. Reference.com is 39th most visited and Thesaurus.com ranks 47th.

    The influence of Ask.com within e-commerce conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp is growing as New York-based IAC plans to spin off four of its largest businesses and focus on Web media and advertising in coming months.

    Terms of the merger were not disclosed. The transaction was originally announced on May 15.

    (Reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
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