YouTube celebrated its seventh birthday by saying it has hit fresh milestones in terms of its offerings and the amount of time spent on the video-sharing website.

"Today 72 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute," the Google-owned website said in a blog post Sunday.

"Like many 7-year olds around the world, we're growing up so fast! In other words, every single minute you now upload three whole days worth of video instead of two. That's 61 Royal Wedding Ceremonies, 841 Bad Romances, and 1,194 Nyan Cats."

The blog added, "all 800 million of you all over the world have shown us we're on the right track by increasing subscriptions 50 percent and watching over three billion hours a month."

Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion.

The Mountain View, California-based Internet search and advertising giant has not yet announced a profit for the video-sharing site despite its massive global popularity.

YouTube has been gradually adding professional content such as full-length television shows and movies to its vast trove of amateur video offerings in a bid to attract advertisers.

Judge directs truce talks in Apple-Samsung patent fight
San Francisco (AFP) May 21, 2012 - The chiefs of iPhone-maker Apple and smartphone giant Samsung were to be in patent war truce talks on Monday at the direction of a judge who asked them sidestep a court battle.

Apple boss Tim Cook and Samsung chief Choi Gee-Sung were to commence private mediation sessions with a judge in San Francisco federal court but there was no sign of them in the building through the day.

Cook and Choi were free to slip away together to a venue of their choosing for the scheduled two days of settlement talks, details of which were to be kept secret.

"The parties have indicated they are willing to participate in a Magistrate Judge Settlement Conference," San Francisco district court Judge Lucy Koh said in a court order earlier this month.

Koh is presiding over two closely-watched patent lawsuits pitting the companies against one another and wants them to resolve their differences before trials, the first of which is slated to begin in July.

Apple and Samsung, a leading maker of smartphones and tablets using Google-backed Android mobile software, are fighting patent battles in more than half a dozen countries.

Each company accuses the other of infringing on patented technology in smartphones or tablets.

Samsung is a leading maker of mobile gadgets powered by Google-backed Android software, but it also supplies California-based maker of iPads, iPhones, and iPods parts for its coveted gadgets.