Google buys garage where empire began

SAN FRANCISCO - Internet search leader Google Inc. has added a landmark to its rapidly expanding empire — the Silicon Valley home where co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin rented a garage eight years ago as they set out to change the world.
The Mountain View-based company bought the 1,900-square-foot home in nearby Menlo Park from one of its own employees, Susan Wojcicki, who had agreed to lease her garage for $1,700 per month because she wanted some help paying the mortgage.
Wojcicki, now Google's vice president of product management, didn't work for the company at the time and only knew the Stanford University graduate students because one of her friends had dated Brin.
During Google's five-month history there, the garage became like a second home for Page and Brin.
The entrepreneurs, then just 25, seemed to be always working on their search engine or soaking in the hot tub that still sits on the property. They also had a penchant for raiding Wojcicki's refrigerator — a habit that may have inspired Google to provide a smorgasbord of free food to the 8,000 employees on its payroll.
When Page and Brin first moved in the garage, Google had just been incorporated with a bankroll of $1 million raised from a handful of investors. Today, Google has about $10 billion in cash and a market value of $125 billion.
Google declined to reveal how much it paid for its original home, but similar houses in the same neighborhood have been selling in the $1.1 million to $1.3 million range. That's a small fraction of the $319 million that Google paid earlier this year for its current 1-million-square-foot headquarters located six miles to the south.
Although the Google garage isn't considered a historic site quite yet, it already has turned into a tourist attraction.
The busloads of people that show up to take pictures of the house and garage have become such an annoyance that Google asked The Associated Press not to publish the property's address, although it can easily be found on the Internet using the company's search engine.
Google may use the home as a guest house, but nothing definitive has been worked out. "We plan to preserve the property as a part of our living legacy," said Google spokesman Jon Murchinson.

'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin killed while filming

Brisbane: Steve Irwin, the Australian television personality and environmentalist known as the ''Crocodile Hunter,'' was killed on Monday by a stingray during a diving expedition, Australian media said. He was 44.Irwin was filming an underwater documentary on the Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Queensland state when the accident occurred, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on its website.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp said Irwin was diving near Low Isles near the resort town of Port Douglas.A helicopter carrying paramedics flew to the island, but he died from a stingray barb to the heart, ABC reported on its Web site.Telephone calls to Australia Zoo, Irwin's zoo in southern Queensland, were not immediately answered.
Irwin is famous for his enthusiasm for wildlife and his catchcry ''Crikey!'' in his television program Crocodile Hunter, which was first broadcast in Australia in 1992 and has aired around the world on the Discovery channel.
He rode his image into a feature film, and developed the Australia Zoo as a tourist attraction.
Irwin had received some negative publicity in recent years. In January 2004, he stunned onlookers at his Australia Zoo reptile park by carrying his 1-year-old son into a crocodile pen during a wildlife show. He tucked the infant under one arm while tossing the 13-foot reptile a piece of meat with the other.Authorities declined to charge Irwin for violating safety regulations.
Later that year, he was accused of getting too close to penguins, a seal and humpback whales in Antarctica while making a documentary. Irwin denied any wrongdoing, and an Australian Environment Department investigation recommended no action be taken against him.

Bismillah Khan - a legend who lived and breathed music

New Delhi: Ustad Bismillah Khan, the legend responsible for making the shehnai popular, will remain synonymous with the instrument he played.
The nation will always remember the mellifluous shehnai recital that he gave from the ramparts of Delhi's Red Fort on Aug 15, 1947, when India gained her independence from colonial rule.
After television came into Indian households, it was his shehnai recital on the state-owned Doordarshan channel that heralded India's Independence Day celebrations every year.
Bismillah Khan, who received the nation's highest civilian award of Bharat Ratna in 2001, died early Monday of cardiac arrest at a Varanasi hospital at age 91.
Born on March 21, 1916, Bismillah Khan was from a family of musicians, who played in the royal court in the then princely state of Dumraon in Bihar. He was trained under his uncle, the late Ali Bux `Vilayatu', who used to play the shehnai at the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
Bismillah Khan, who started his music career in 1930, earned recognition nationally as well as internationally purely on the strength of his talent. He has played shehnai in five continents.
He was among the few Indians who had the distinction of receiving all the national awards - Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan and the Bharat Ratna.He was also awarded honorary doctorates from the Benares Hindu University and Shantiniketan.
The renowned musician also experimented with Hindi film music and composed the number "Dil ka khilauna hai toot gaya" for the film "Goonj Uthi Shehnai". However, Bismillah Khan's last wish - to play at the India Gate in the heart of New Delhi - remained unfulfilled. He was slated to play there on Aug 9 this year, but his illness saw the programme being cancelled.
He had also wanted to perform at Darbhanga in Bihar, where he had spent much of his struggling years. "I will be overwhelmed if I get an opportunity to perform at Darbhanga. I would like to take a dip in the same pond where I used to take a dip twice a day in my childhood," he had said during a visit there.Bismillah Khan always believed that musicians were supposed to be heard and not seen and this could be seen in the simple lifestyle he led until his death.Despite having given concerts in almost every capital across the world, the shehnai player had not been economically very sound as he supported a joint family of around 70 members.Hard pressed for money, he had often asked the government for financial assistance, including a gas agency in his grandson's name.
Khan's simple living was brought out by not only the old, almost crumbling haveli he lived in but also his chief mode of transport continued to be the cycle-rikshaw!
Bismillah Khan was a devout Shia Muslim, but he never saw any contradiction between his religion and his music. In fact, he was also an ardent devotee of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of music.
He had once remarked: "Music, sur, namaaz. It is the same thing. We reach Allah in different ways."

China shuts down over 100 websites for copyright violation

BEIJING (AFP) - China has shut down more than 100 websites for copyright violations since a new regulation came into effect in July, state media have said.
The websites included those that provided free downloads of movies and music, the Xinhua news agency said Monday.
The government passed the regulation in a bid to ban the uploading and downloading of Internet material without permission of the copyright-holder, Xinhua said.
Under the regulation, anyone uploading texts, performances, sound and video recordings to the Internet for downloading, or copying, must have permission from copyright owners and pay the required fee.
"Since the regulation took effect on July 1, the administration has enhanced supervision and punishment of online copyright violation," Liu Jie, deputy director of the copyright department with China's National Copyright Administration, was quoted as saying.
The number of websites offering such illegal downloading will continue to decrease as authorities continue the crackdown, Liu said.
Details of the closed websites were not given but some of the cases are being considered for criminal prosecution, Xinhua said.

Dell to recall 4.1M laptop batteries

DALLAS - Dell Inc. said Monday it will recall 4.1 million notebook computer batteries because they can overheat and catch fire. Dell negotiated conditions of the recall with the federal
Consumer Product Safety Commission, which called it the largest electronics-related recall ever conducted by the agency.
A Dell spokesman said the batteries were made by Sony Corp and placed in notebooks that were shipped between April 1, 2004, and July 18 of this year.
"In rare cases, a short-circuit could cause the battery to overheat, causing a risk of smoke and/or fire," said the spokesman, Ira Williams. "It happens in rare cases, but we opted to take this broad action immediately."
The battery packs were included in some models of Dell's Latitude, Inspiron, XTS and precision mobile workstation notebooks. Dell planned to launch a Web site overnight that would describe the affected models. Williams said the Web site would tell how consumers to get free replacement batteries from Dell.
There have been numerous recent news reports about Dell laptops bursting into flames, and pictures of some of the charred machines have circulated on the Internet.
Dell, the world's largest maker of personal computers, confirmed that two weeks ago, one of its laptops caught fire in Illinois, and the owner dunked it in water to douse the flames. Other reports have surfaced from as far away as Japan and Singapore.
Monday's move was at least the third recall of Dell notebook batteries in the past five years.
Dell recalled 22,000 notebook computer batteries last December after symptoms that were similar to those that prompted Monday's recall. The company also recalled 284,000 batteries in 2001.
Consumers with affected laptops should only run the machines on a power cord, said Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The safety agency knows of 339 incidents in which lithium batteries used in laptops and cell phones — not just Dell products — overheated between 2003 and 2005, Wolfson said.
The list of incidents ranges from smoke and minor skin burns to actual injuries and property damage, Wolfson said.
Most of the incidents reported to the CPSC occurred around the home, but transportation-safety officials have become increasingly concerned about the threat of a laptop causing a catastrophic fire aboard a commercial jetliner.
For Dell, the recall comes as it battles other questions about quality and customer service.

Woman Wins $400,000 Betting on Husband's Birthday

PONTIAC, Mich. (Aug. 10) - A woman who has been playing the lottery since 1972 won $400,000 by purchasing 80 $1 tickets, all with the same number that represents her late husband's birthday.
Lidia Gutierrez, 63, is a regular customer at Wally's Mini Mart in Pontiac. On July 27, she bought 80 $1 tickets with the winning number 2123 for the Michigan Lottery's Daily 4 evening drawing. Each ticket is worth $5,000.
"She was very excited," store owner Wally Kinaia told The Oakland Press.
There was no telephone listing for Gutierrez in Pontiac, and telephone calls Thursday to others with the same last name did not locate her.
Kinaia and his wife, Nidhal, have owned Wally's for seven years and said Gutierrez's win was lucky for them, too. They received $10,000 for selling winning tickets to Gutierrez and another customer who won $20,000 last week.
Regular customer Janice Broadnax, who bought a ticket Wednesday, said it was "an inspiration" to hear about Gutierrez's win.
"I'm not as big a player as some though," she said. "Now, we know there are winners in this area. It keeps up hope."
Gutierrez has been playing 2123 - the date and year of her husband's birth - nearly every day since the lottery began in 1972, Michigan Lottery spokeswoman Andrea Brancato said.
Kinaia said other people also buy multiple tickets with the same number.
"We have people who play 50 on one number, 60," he said. Gutierrez had won smaller prizes before, Brancato said.
"Her wagers always varied. She'd play as little as $1 on some days, but when she went to the party store from which she always makes her lottery purchases," Brancato said, "she had a hunch and put the $80 down on her favorite number."
All the lottery's net income goes to Michigan's public schools.