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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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    News Corp in deal talk with Yahoo: reports

    NEW YORK
    Wed Feb 13, 2008 3:54pm EST

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is in talks to combine MySpace and other Internet properties with Yahoo Inc to fend off Microsoft Corp's $42.1 billion bid, according to several reports.

    Technology  |  Stocks  |  Mergers & Acquisitions

    One proposal under discussion would value the MySpace online social network at around $6 billion to $10 billion and would give News Corp a more than 20 percent stake in a combined company, according to the Wall Street Journal Web site Wednesday.

    News of the discussions were first reported by the Silicon Alley Insider blog, followed by the TechCrunch blog. A proposed deal would involve a cash infusion from News Corp and an unnamed private equity fund, according to TechCrunch.

    Murdoch has held on-again, off-again discussions with Yahoo over the past year. Responding to questions, Murdoch told analysts and reporters on a conference call last week that his company was not interested in bidding for or pursuing any transaction with Yahoo.

    News Corp declined comment on Wednesday. A Yahoo spokeswoman also declined comment on the report and reiterated the company's position that its board of directors continues to explore its options.

    "It is hard to imagine that Rupert would be willing to put enough cash in the deal to make it interesting to Yahoo shareholders," RBC Capital Jordan Rohan said.

    Yahoo shares were up over 1 percent at $29.89 while Microsoft shares were up almost 2 percent at $28.89. News Corp shares were down less than 1 percent at $19.19.

    (Reporting by Kenneth Li and Eric Auchard, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)



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