Google Code Jam 2006: Programmers Worldwide Invited to Participate in Google's Fourth Annual Global Coding Competition; Registration opens August 14th; Finals to Be Held in Google's New York City Engineering Office on October 27th, 2006.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. & NEW YORK -- Google Inc., (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced today that registration is now open for Google Code Jam 2006. Google's annual online coding competition presents participants with a series of challenges that they must use their programming skills and creativity to solve. Programmers ready to match their skills against the world's best can register at http://www.google.com/codejam2006. The top 100 contestants win an all expenses paid trip to New York City to compete in the finals at Google's New York Engineering Office.

"The Google Code Jam is an incredible opportunity for the most talented and fastest computer scientists in the world to come together and compete on an international stage," said Alan Eustace, senior vice president, Engineering, Google Inc. "Google is proud to support these amazing coders as they take on some of the world's most challenging programming problems, and we're pleased to have the chance to introduce them to our research and development offices around the world."

This year marks the first year the finals will be held in New York City. "Google New York is very excited to be hosting Google Code Jam 2006," said Craig Nevill-Manning, director, Engineering New York, Google Inc. "It's an incredible opportunity to introduce the best of the programming world to our New York Engineering office in downtown Manhattan and demonstrate the incredible diversity of experiences that Google offers engineers all over the world. If you can make it in Code Jam here, you can make it anywhere!"

In addition to the trip to Google's New York Engineering Office, finalists will also divide $155,000 in prize money:

Grand Prize:             $10,000
        2nd - 10th place:        $5,000 each
        11th - 25th place:       $2,500 each
        26th - 50th place:       $1,000 each
        51st - 100th place:      $750 each

Registration for Google Code Jam closes September 5, and the qualifying round begins on the same day.

Last year, more than 14,500 competitors from 32 countries took part in the Google Code Jam, and Marek Cygan of Poland took home the grand prize. The Google Code Jam is powered by TopCoder(R), the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment, and competitive software development. More information about Google Code Jam 2006 can be found at http://www.google.com/codejam2006.

About Google Inc.

Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

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