Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., October 9, 2006 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has agreed to acquire YouTube, the consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience, for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google's expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing videos, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a vast new audience.

"The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. "Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers."

"Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people consume media, creating a new clip culture. By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners," said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-Founder of YouTube. "I'm confident that with this partnership we'll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide."

When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google's own fast-growing video business. YouTube will continue to be based in San Bruno, CA, and all YouTube employees will remain with the company. With Google's technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, YouTube will continue to build on its success as one of the world's most popular services for video entertainment.

The number of Google shares to be issued in the transaction will be determined based on the 30-day average closing price two trading days prior to the completion of the acquisition. Both companies have approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Google

Hands-on with Nintendo Wii

Nintendo of America recently unveiled the essential details on its goofily-named next-generation Wii (pronounced "We").The console will be available November 19th in the U.S., with a price tag of $249. This includes two controllers (the wireless Wii remote and the wired Nunchuck), and the five-in-one Wii Sports title. The Company also unveiled Wii Channels (essentially, the system's interface, which also incorporates some cool entertainment features) and two other first-party titles available at launch (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Excite Truck). At the launch in New York last week, I was able to get a few hours of hands-on time with previously unseen game levels, new titles, and, of course, the hardware.

What I liked

Innovative controllers: What seemed goofy at first turns out to be pretty ingenious. In the Wii Sports Boxing game, for example, you use the Nunchuk and the Wireless Controller (one in each hand) to punch at the screen, making the whole experience more realistic. It's also nifty in a game like Zelda, where the Nunchuk in the left hand moves the character around, while the Controller in the right serves as a sword controller.

Pick up and play: Many of the Wii titles on display were of the no-previous-experience-necessary puzzle (Wario Ware:Smooth Moves, Big Brain Academy) variety. And the motions you make using the controllers on Wii Sports so mimic the actual sports (you literally swing the controller like a tennis racket) that even "uncoordinated" types who have grade-school-gym-class-enforced familiarity with, say, baseball, would be able to pick up and play. Even well-established franchises such as Madden NFL 07 offer user-friendly tutorials for the uninitiated. Lapsed gamers intimidated by complicated Xbox 360 controllers may flock to the Wii.

Cool interface: I liked the Wii Channels, particularly the appropriately named Mii Channel that lets you create a cartoonish avatar of yourself. Like a version of you if you were a Gorillaz band member, this character can then be inserted into any number of games, including Wii Sports and Wario Ware. With more than six pages of facial hair (two alone for eyebrows) and other physical attributes, this feature is a personalization freak's dream.

What I didn't like

HD or not HD: I couldn't find anyone at Nintendo to give me a straight answer on whether games would be in 480p (same quality as DVDs) or 720p (HD-quality). The component video output—there's no state-of-the-art HDMI—indicates it could go either way. 480p would be nice to view pictures and videos stored on an SD card (which is what is offered on the Wii Photo Channel). And though games might look nice on a TV up to, say 50 inches, Wii titles might suffer if projected onto a wall in 100 inches or on a fat 65-inch rear-projection set.

Thin launch lineup: Nintendo announced more than 40 first- and third-party titles due out by March 31st, but it was not specific about exactly how many titles would be out at launch. If it's games you want, you're better off with an Xbox 360.

Boy, do my arms hurt: Whether "casting" a fishing rod to catch virtual bass in Zelda or tossing a bowling ball in Wii Sports, I nearly dislocated my shoulder using the wireless controller. Shoulder pain may be the gamers' new carpal tunnel syndrome as far as Wii's motion-based gameplay is concerned.

Bottom Line (for now)

At $250, the Wii isn't cheap, but it's still a bargain compared to the $599 PlayStation 3 and the $399 Xbox 360 Premium system. And unlike Sony, which is only making 400,000 PS3s available at launch, Nintendo says it will ship four million Wii units by December 31st. So it's likely you'll actually be able to get one. But it's also likely that you'll be just as able to get an Xbox 360 with its more than 100 available titles by year's end. For now, only one thing's for sure: Until Sony gives us a compelling reason to buy the PS3 beyond it being an incredibly affordable Blu-ray disc player, either of these other choices is a winner.

Microsoft warns software pirates

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Microsoft Corp's upcoming Windows Vista computer operating system will include technology that is designed to prevent pirated copies from fully functioning, the software giant said.

Reduced functionality is already a part of the Windows XP activation process, but Windows Vista will have a reduced functionality mode that is enhanced, Microsoft said on its Web site on Wednesday.

Microsoft said the upcoming releases of Windows Vista and also Windows Server "Longhorn" will be the first two products to ship with the new anti-piracy measures included, but more Microsoft products will eventually adopt the technology.

Windows Vista systems must activate with Microsoft as genuine within 30 days and failure to do so will result in "reduced functionality mode" until successful validation occurs, Microsoft said.

Customers that use genuine versions of Windows Vista will get an enhanced set of features that will not work on non-genuine or unlicensed versions of Vista, it said.

Users of non-genuine Windows Vista software will also be notified by the appearance of a persistent statement in the lower right hand corner of their desktop that reads: "This copy of Windows is not genuine."

A Wall Street analyst said on Wednesday that Microsoft will most likely ship the Windows Vista system on time and meet its deadline for both corporate and retail consumers.

Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund sent a note to clients saying Microsoft may be ready to send the final test version of its much-anticipated Windows upgrade later this week or next week, indicating that Vista will be available for business customers in November and retail PCs by late January.

Windows Vista, five years in the making, has been postponed by Microsoft several times.

Microsoft Windows sits on more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers and the Windows business accounts for about 30 percent of the company's $44 billion in revenue.

Study: Robots could sense shapes with whiskers

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Seals track prey with them, rats sense nearby objects with them and robots could soon be using whiskers in a similar way to see in the dark and avoid obstacles, researchers said on Wednesday.

They developed an array of robotic whiskers that move in any pattern over an object just as they do on living creatures.

"We constructed an array of whiskers that rely on sensing only at the base. As the whiskers move over an object, we can then figure out the object's three dimensional properties," said Professor Mitra Hartmann, of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

"Or instead of the whiskers moving, a fluid can flow against the whiskers and we can figure out the direction and speed of the fluid at different points of the flow," the expert on biomedical and mechanical engineering added in an interview.

This type of technology could allow the extraction of the three-dimensional features of almost any solid object, the scientist said.

Developing artificial whiskers that move like the real thing has been challenging because it has been difficult to determine where along a whisker something has touched.

Hartmann and graduate student Joseph Solomon solved the mystery which enabled them to build an array of whiskers that can sweep in an arbitrary pattern over an object. They reported their findings in the journal Nature.

Whiskers are an important feature for rats to survive, Hartmann said. They connect to neurons in the brain which are arranged in the same way the whiskers are arranged on the animal's face.

"These robotic whiskers are helping us understand the mechanical variables that are important for the real rat -- going into its whiskers -- as it explores in real life," she said.

The whiskers could be used on land-based robots on difficult terrain and on underwater vehicles. In fog or glare the whiskers could replace cameras or could be used to find an obstruction in a dark underground pipeline.

"On an autonomous rover they could be used for obstacle avoidance, to characterize terrain and ground texture, to verify the speed of the rover and to determine whether the wheels of the rover are slipping," Hartmann added.

Adobe Adds Blogging Support To Contribute Web Tool

Adobe Systems Inc. Thursday shipped Contribute 4, an update to its Web publishing tool that has baked-in blogging support and boasts integration with the Microsoft Office suite on both Windows and Mac OS X.

Contribute 4 lets users post and publish content to multiple Web sites and blogs, allows them to work offline, and melds with Dreamweaver, the company's site design package, so that administrators can give access rights to Contribute users without worrying about them mucking up the site's look-and-feel.

The update connects to a trio of popular blogging services out of the box -- Blogger, Typepad, and Wordpress -- and offers the option of linking to in-house blog servers as well. Microsoft Office support lets users post new content to a site from within Word, Excel, and Outlook, said Adobe.

This is the first update to Contribute since Adobe acquired the software as part of its 2005 $3.4 billion merger with rival developer Macromedia.

"With Adobe Contribute 4 anyone with basic computer skills can easily publish updated information to the Web, offloading Web site administrators from tedious routines," said Don Walker, Adobe's senior director of product marketing, in a statement.

Contribute 4 is available immediately for Windows 2000 and XP, and Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later for $149. Upgrades cost $79. The Mac version is not a Universal binary, but runs on Intel-based systems in emulation mode.

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