AT&T in $4.85bn tower deal with Crown Castle, looking to expand in Europe

Telecom giant AT&T has agreed to lease nearly 9,100 of its towers and sell another 600 to tower operator Crown Castle International.
AT&T will receive nearly £3bn in cash as part of the deal.

The deal gives AT&T cash to fund a new share buyback which was announced earlier this year, as well as a multi-billion dollar plan to upgrade its wireless and high-speed internet networks.

It has also hinted that it is looking at making acquisitions in Europe.

"This deal will let us monetise our towers while giving us the ability to add capacity as we need it," Bill Hogg, a senior vice-president with AT&T said in a statement.

"And we’ll get additional financial flexibility to continue to invest in our business, maintain a strong balance sheet and return value to our shareholders."

Piracy site IsoHunt to shut down

BitTorrent website IsoHunt is to shut down following a court settlement.

The site’s owner, Canadian Gary Fung, has agreed to pay $110m to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

MPAA chairman Chris Dodd said the move was a "major step forward" for legitimate commerce online.

Mr Fung said: "It’s sad to see my baby go."

The site is currently still online, but will soon be shut. It is one of the most popular sites of its kind on the internet.

A group of companies, including Disney, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox, accused the site of wilfully infringing copyright by listing millions of popular movies and TV programmes – in a court battle that has lasted for more than seven years.

Now Mr Fung has agreed to settle. He said: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race and I have remained faithful. 10.5 years of IsoHunt has been a long journey by any business definition and forever in internet start-up time.

"It started as a programming hobby in my university days that has become so, so much more."

Court documents acknowledged that it is unlikely that Mr Fung’s company could pay $110m, and that the MPAA would probably receive between $2m and $4m.

Flying robot cleaners win design competition

An automatic cleaning system consisting of hundreds of flying mini-robots has been awarded first place in the 2013 Electrolux Design Lab competition.

‘Mab’, the winning desin, is an automated cleaning system consisting of hundreds of flying mini-robots. The robots clean surfaces by touching them with a drop of water. Mab scans the house, determines the areas to clean and sends the robots flying.

"I was in my university gardens when I observed the controlled flight of bees pollinating a flower, and how magical it is to see swarms of bees working together," said Adrian Perez Zapata from Colombia, who invented Mab.

"My concept Mab only requires a short initial configuration to function autonomously, so you could arrive home and see a swarm of mini-robots roaming around cleaning independently. This means you could sit back and relax, as you observe with great astonishment the little Mab ‘fairies’ working their magic autonomously."