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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 

    Microsoft aims to add 1 bln more users by 2015

    SEATTLE
    Thu Apr 19, 2007 3:33am EDT
    Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates waits to testify about American competitiveness before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington March 7, 2007. Microsoft Corp., trying to meet its goal of doubling the number of computer users to 2 billion by 2015, promised to cut its software prices to governments in developing countries that provide free computers to school children. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

    SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp., trying to meet its goal of doubling the number of computer users to 2 billion by 2015, promised to cut its software prices to governments in developing countries that provide free computers to school children.

    Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced the program at a news conference in Beijing on Thursday.

    Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said it plans to offer a software package called Microsoft Student Innovation Suite for $3 to governments purchasing and giving Windows-based computer to primary and secondary students.

    The software bundle, which will be available in the second half of 2007, includes Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live Mail desktop and other programs.

    "This is not a philanthropic effort, this is a business," Orlando Ayala, senior vice president at Microsoft's emerging segments market development group in an interview before the official announcement.

    In many emerging markets, Microsoft has seen its software pirated and sold at a fraction of the price of a genuine product. Microsoft said the technology industry must also adapt business models to developing nations.

    The company is working with retailers and computer makers in Brazil to test a pay-as-you-go system, because that model has been successful with mobile phones in the country.


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