Business highlights

The approval of the approximately $18 billion purchase of the world's ninth-largest oil company follows months of negotiations and a high-profile courtship from CNOOC Ltd., a Chinese oil company that hoped to secure energy resources needed to accompany its country's rapid economic growth.

Unocal announced that holders of 77.2 percent of eligible shares favored the Chevron buyout and 2.6 percent were opposed. The remainder didn't vote. Unocal said the deal would be final by later in the day and its stock would be delisted after the close of business Wednesday.

CNOOC's bid caused a political uproar, and was clearly on the minds of about 100 Unocal shareholders and employees gathered at a hotel for the final vote. Several expressed patriotic pride in being sold to a U.S. company, while some suggested Unocal may have sold too soon and wondered whether the Chinese company ever had a shot.

Geeks match wits over sci-fi and computers at Golden Penguin Bowl

SAN FRANCISCO - Pencil pushers and programmers from Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. faced off this week for the greatest of geek glories: the Golden Penguin Bowl.

Techies from both companies - rivals in the emerging search engine wars - matched wits Tuesday over questions about everything from old computer operating systems to the name of the mining spacecraft in the movie "Alien."

The quiz competition's announcer dubbed the matchup a battle of "good versus evil," alluding to Google's famous creed of avoiding evil deeds. But officially, this was a battle of Microsoft employees comprising the "Nerd" team against Google's "Geek" squad.

Microsoft's Rob Curran provided a wealth of science fiction knowledge, buzzing in quickly to answer questions about the TV series "Star Trek."