Apple adds hip-hop flair with $3 billion purchase of headphone maker, music streamer Beats
Apple adds hip-hop flair with $3 billion purchase of headphone maker, music streamer Beats
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple is striking a new chord with a $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics, a headphone and music streaming specialist that also brings the swagger of rapper Dr. Dre and recording impresario Jimmy Iovine.
Wednesday’s announcement comes nearly three weeks after deal negotiations were leaked to the media. It’s by far the most expensive acquisition in Apple’s 38-year history, a price that the company is paying to counter a threat posed to its iTunes store.
The price consists of $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in Apple stock that will vest over an unspecified time period. The deal is expected to close before October.
With $1.1 billion in revenue last year, Beats is already making money and will boost Apple’s earnings once the new fiscal year begins in October, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview.
Google to build prototype car controlled by computers, not driver, without steering wheel
LOS ANGELES — Google plans to build and launch onto city streets a small fleet of subcompact cars that could operate without a person at the wheel.
Actually, the cars wouldn’t even have a wheel. Or gas and brake pedals. The company says the vehicles will use sensors and computing power, with no human needed.
Google Inc. hopes that by this time next year, 100 of the two-seaters will be on public roads, following extensive testing. The cars would not be for sale and instead would be provided to select operators for further tweaking and have limitations such as a 25 mph top speed.
The announcement presents a challenge to automakers that have been more cautious about introducing fully automated driving and to government regulators who are scrambling to accommodate self-driving cars on public roads. Other companies are working on the technology but none as large as Google has said it intends to put such cars in the hands of the public so soon.
Inspector general says 1,700 veterans awaiting care at Phoenix VA hospital left off wait list
WASHINGTON — About 1,700 veterans in need of care were “at risk of being lost or forgotten” after being kept off the official waiting list at the troubled Phoenix veterans hospital, the Veterans Affairs watchdog said Wednesday in a scathing report that increases pressure on Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign.
The investigation, initially focused on the Phoenix hospital, found systemic problems in the VA’s sprawling nationwide system, which provides medical care to about 6.5 million veterans each year. The interim report confirmed allegations of excessive waiting time for care in Phoenix, with an average 115-day wait for a first appointment for those on the waiting list.
“While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility,” Richard J. Griffin, the department’s acting inspector general, wrote in the 35-page report. It found that “inappropriate scheduling practices are systemic throughout” some 1,700 VA health facilities nationwide, including 151 hospitals and more than 800 clinics.
Griffin said 42 centers are under investigation, up from 26.
Egypt’s el-Sissi way ahead of sole rival in presidential election
CAIRO — Partial results of Egypt’s presidential election announced late Wednesday showed the nation’s former military chief comfortably ahead of his rival after votes from 2,000 polling stations were counted.
The campaign of retired field marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said he won 4.2 million votes, with left-wing politician Hamdeen Sabahi taking 133,548.
El-Sissi’s win was never in doubt, but the 59-year-old career infantry officer had hoped for a strong turnout to bestow legitimacy on his ouster last July of Egypt’s first freely elected president, the Islamist Mohammed Morsi.
However, el-Sissi’s campaign said turnout nationwide was around 44 percent, well below the nearly 52 percent won by Morsi, even after voting was extended for a third day Wednesday.
By wire sources