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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

Pictures of the year: Technology

A look at the year's best science and technology photos.   Slideshow 

    Google Earth patent infringement suit dismissed

    SAN FRANCISCO
    Thu Mar 8, 2007 10:33am EST
    The Google headquarters in Mountain View in a file photo. A U.S. judge ruled that Google's 3D modeling software, which gives Web users an astronaut's view of the earth and allows them to zoom down to street level, does not infringe the patent of a rival. REUTERS/Clay McLachlan

    SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge ruled that Google Inc.'s 3D modeling software, which gives Web users an astronaut's view of the earth and allows them to zoom down to street level, does not infringe the patent of a rival.

    Technology

    Judge Douglas Woodlock of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston denied a complaint by Skyline Software Systems Inc. that the Google Earth mapping software of Google's Keyhole Inc. infringed Skyline patents.

    The judge also denied motions from both parties on whether the patents in question were valid, but left the possibility for either party to reassert these issues if they do so before April 20. He canceled a planned trial date set for June.

    In his ruling, Woodlock held that Google's system does not attempt to render views of Earth's terrain, a key claim of the patent held by Skyline, which is based in Chantilly, Virginia, and offers its own "fly through" three-dimensional software.

    Mountain View, California-based Google acquired Keyhole in October 2004 and renamed its flagship product Google Earth.
    Technology


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