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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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    Symbian says could expand ties with Google

    TOKYO
    Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:09am EDT

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    TOKYO (Reuters) - UK-based smartphone software maker Symbian said on Wednesday it could expand its collaboration with Google Inc (GOOG.O) to the operating system level as it moves to grant free and open access to its software platform.

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    "We already work together and so whatever collaboration, if there is an opportunity, we will be happy to collaborate with them," Symbian chief executive Nigel Clifford told reporters in Tokyo.

    "And that could be on the application level or that could be on the more fundamental operating system level."

    Symbian currently uses Google applications such as maps and search engines on its platforms.

    Symbian software is used in some 60 percent of smartphones -- mobile handsets with computer-like capabilities -- but Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone or new categories of phones based on Google's Android software could challenge that dominance.

    Symbian's closest rivals are Linux-based phones and Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Windows Mobile operating system, but they occupy only 12 percent and 11 percent of the market, respectively, according to data provided by Symbian.

    Nokia (NOK1V.HE), which holds 47.9 percent of Symbian, said last month it would buy out other shareholders of Symbian for $410 million and make its software available to other phone makers without charging royalties, in response to new rivals such as Google.

    Nokia will contribute Symbian's assets to a new not-for-profit organization, Symbian Foundation, in which it will unite with leading handset makers, network operators and communications chipmakers to create an open-source platform.

    Members of the Symbian Foundation include Sony Ericsson (6752.T), Motorola Inc (MOT.N), NTT DoCoMo (9437.T), AT&T Inc (T.N), LG Electronics (066570.KS), Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), STMicroelectronics (STM.PA), Texas Instruments Inc (TXN.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L).

    Nokia will give Symbian and its S60 software assets to the foundation, while other members said they will lend their UIQ and MOAP software to create a joint Symbian platform in 2009.

    Symbian was formed a decade ago in London by a consortium of top mobile handset makers looking for a standardized way of building software to run new phones.

    It was the descendant of software used to run Psion electronic organizers popular with business professionals in the 1990s.

    (Reporting by Sachi Izumi; editing by Sophie Hardach)
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