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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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    Portuguese bank offers "McCain/Obama" rate deal

    LISBON
    Mon Oct 6, 2008 1:23pm EDT

    LISBON (Reuters) - A Portuguese online bank unveiled a novel interest rate deal Monday by letting clients bet on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

    Technology  |  Lifestyle

    Banco Best's customers will be awarded interest on their 60-day deposits on the basis of whether they bet correctly on the winner of the November 4 U.S. election between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, the bank said in a statement.

    If they pick the winner, they will be rewarded with interest of 8 percent, applied retroactively from November 4 to the day they opened the account. If their bet is wrong, they will get just 2 percent interest.

    Banco Best will offer up to 10 million euros of the so-called McCain/Obama Deposit, which can be subscribed to online (www.bancobest.pt) at any time until November 3.

    The bank said it will also provide an online barometer of deposit holders' expectations of the election result.

    The offer came as several European governments rushed to guarantee bank deposits after a spate of bank failures linked to the global credit crunch.

    (Reporting by Axel Bugge, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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