TAG #220: Microsoft compra LinkedIn, Moto Z, Planes Celulares y Scanner para coches
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
Microsoft is buying LinkedIn in a $26.2 billion mega deal - and one bank is helping the company do it.
Morgan Stanley is the sole adviser to Microsoft on the deal.
Morgan Stanley"s lead bankers on the deal are Mike Wyatt, head of global technology mergers and acquisitions, and Drew Guevara, head of global technology investment banking, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Wyatt is a managing director at Morgan Stanley. He has been with the firm for 22 years, according to his LinkedIn profile, and has advised on more than 125 transactions, including McAfee"s $7.7 billion sale to Intel in 2010.
Guevara joined Morgan Stanley from Bear Stearns in 1995, according to his LinkedIn profile, and has helped bring companies - including Ingram Micro, SanDisk, and Seagate - public. He also counts Amazon, Yahoo, and Zynga among his clients, according to the profile.
LinkedIn hired two advisers, the San Francisco-based tech boutique firms Qatalyst Partners and Allen & Co.
Veteran dealmaker Frank Quattrone, George Boutros, who took over as CEO from Quattrone earlier this year, Marcie Vu, and Jonathan Turner worked on the deal for Qatalyst:
Quattrone worked for Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse before cofounding Qatalyst, and has advised on more than 500 transactions. His clients include Apple, Google, eBay, and Oracle. He led the IPOs of Amazon, Cisco, and Intuit, according to Qatalyst"s website.
Boutros took over as CEO of Qatalyst in January. He has previously worked for Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley. Boutros has advised on more than 400 transactions, according to Qatalyst"s website, including Google"s purchases of YouTube and DoubleClick and Google"s deal for Motorola Mobility.
Vu, head of consumer-technology banking, worked with LinkedIn on its IPO in 2011. She joined Qatalyst in 2013 from Morgan Stanley, where she was head of consumer internet banking. She"s also worked on the IPOs of Facebook, Google, and Alibaba, according to Qatalyst"s website, and on mergers and acquisitions, including CNET"s deal for CBS, OpenTable"s sale to Priceline, and Zappos" sale to Amazon.
Turner is a founder and copresident of Qatalyst overseeing consumer technology and software banking. He previously worked for Credit Suisse. He advised Tumblr on its sale to Yahoo, Twitch on its sale to Amazon, Xoom on its sale to PayPal, and Autonomy on its sale to HP.
Ian Smith was the lead banker on the deal at Allen & Co., according to a person familiar with the matter. He has worked with tech companies, including Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb, and Dropbox, according to his LinkedIn profile. Earlier this year, tech media startup The Information named Smith Silicon Valley"s favorite banker.
E3 2016 - Ubisoft Live Conference - June 13th - 12:30 p.m PDT
UPDATED LIVE: SCROLL DOWN FOR THE LATEST NEWS
France"s Ubisoft has a packed slate on deck for its E3 press conference. Expect to see previews of Watch Dogs 2, For Honor,South Park: The Fractured But Whole, and Tom Clancy"s Ghost Recon: Wildlands.
And while the company confirmed earlier that there will not be a new Assassin"s Creed game in 2016, that doesn"t mean that it"s impossible to see a glimpse of the next game in the series, even if it"s coming in 2017 or beyond.
With the press conference about to kick off, we"ll be updating live as the new unfolds.
Nic Healey/CNET
The main theme is "Ubi 30", as it"s Ubisoft"s 30th birthday this year. So we"re of course kicking off with a dance number to a Queen song. Aisha Tyler is hosting once more, her fifth time.
(P.S.: If you"re a fan of camera operators, you"ll love my photos from the conference.)
Ghost Recon Wildlands is the first game of the show, with a cinematic trailer. This announced at the end of last year"s conference. We"re now getting a short lesson on the coca leaf as a set up for the games premise: That a Mexican drug cartel has taken over the entire country of Bolivia and turned it into a drug lab. Being a Tom Clancy game, you"re some badass military guys. It"s the largest open-world action adventure game that Ubisoft has produced.
Getting a co-op gameplay video now, a group of people working to take down one of the cartel head honchos. Lots stealth gameplay and a rather cute little automated drone. It out March 7, 2017, for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.
Nic Healey/CNET
South Park: The Fractured, But Whole is up next, with Trey Parker and Matt Stone hitting the stage (Ubisoft has definitely won the award for the most f-bombs...). We"re now getting some character creation gameplay: It"s a superhero spoof game, if you weren"t aware. The combat has been revamped since the Stick of Truth, the first South Park game. It"s coming out on December 6. The trailer is hilarious, riffing on Marvel, DC Comics and JJ Abrams.
Nic Healey/CNET
Time for The Division, which we saw a little of at Xbox this morning. Underground is the new expansion, set mostly underneath New York. It"s June 28 for Xbox One and PC and August 2 for PS4. The next expansion is Survival, a new style of gameplay with more of a focus on resource scrounging.
Nic Healey/CNET
VR time, with a PVP demo of Eagleflight with help from, of all people, Palmer Luckey. It"s basically capture the flag with eagles.
Nic Healey/CNET
More VR as Ubisoft talks Star Trek: Bridge Crew, which Sean Hollister played yesterday. Up to four players on a VR starship bridge. The demo video has at least three different Star Trek actors playing the game. Ubisoft has confirmed that it takes place in the JJ Abrams world. LeVar Burton on stage now.
VR over and now we"re on to another look at For Honor, which is vikings vs. knights vs. samurai because why not. Last year was the multiplayer look, but now we"re talking campaign mode. Looks like we"ll get a gameplay look from the viking perspective.
Orlando Shooting Witness | Christopher Hansen | Contradictions | CNN - Fox News
The Muslim terrorist who killed at least 49 people in an Orlando nightclub early Sunday was an angry loner who beat his ex-wife, alienated co-workers and made at least two mysterious trips to Saudi Arabia, according to people who knew him and law enforcement authorities who are now piecing together his descent into radical Islam.
FBI Director James Comey on Monday said that three phone calls between Omar Mateen and a 911 operator while Mateen was holed up in a club bathroom with hostages may provide insight into his radicalization.During those calls, Comey said, Mateen "made clear his support for" ISIS and pledged loyalty to the terror group"s leader.
However, Mateen also "claimed solidarity" with the Boston Marathon bombers -- who learned how to make their pressure cooker bomb from an Al Qaeda-affiliated magazine -- and a man who blew himself up in Syria during an operation for Al-Nusra Front, leading Comey to say it was "unclear which terror group he aspired to support."
Another potential avenue of investigation is a pair of trips Mateen, 29, took to Saudi Arabia in March 2011 and March 2012 for umrah, a non-mandatory visit to Mecca for Muslims. Saudi Arabia"s Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed the trips to The Associated Press in a text message Monday. Umrah can be performed at any time of the year.
Law enforcement officials could not confirm to Fox News what Mateens exact itinerary was, including cities he may have visited or individuals he may have met with; however, Mateen is known to have stayed in the Kingdom for 10 days during the first trip and eight days during the second trip.
After checking with Saudi officials, Comey said the FBI found nothing incriminating about the trips.
We obviously don"t know the details yet, but it"s worth recalling how the San Bernardino shooters met in Saudi Arabia and were engaged there, Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst for the Clarion Project, told FoxNews.com, referencing the ISIS-inspired December terror attack that killed 14 people in California. These trips to Saudi Arabia also make it less likely that Mateen is a so-called lone wolf who acted mostly independently.
The Middle East jaunts came before Mateen was caught up in two FBI terror investigations. He was interviewed by the bureau twice in relation to a 2013 incident and once in 2014, but, officials said Sunday, Mateen was not assessed to be a threat. At the time of the shooting, Mateen was not under surveillance or the subject of an investigation, authorities said.
Mateen first appeared on the FBI"s radar in May 2013 after co-workers at a courthouse where he served as a contract security guard reported that Mateen made claims he had family in Al Qaeda, a Sunni terror group, and was himself a member of Hezbollah, a Shia terror group. Mateen said he hoped law enforcement officials would raid his apartment and "assault his wife and child so he could martyr himself," Comey said. He"s also alleged to have claimed a connection to the Boston Marathon bombers, The Washington Post reported.
The 2013 probe was closed after a 10-month investigation, during which agents introduced confidential sources to Mateen, recorded conversations with him, searched government archives and twice interviewed Mateen in person. He was on a watch list during the investigation, and if he had tried to purchase a firearm during this period, he would have been flagged to the FBI, Comey said.
Mateen told agents he had made the terror statements in anger "because co-workers were discriminating against him and teasing him because he was Muslim."Investigators came to believe the statements were mere boasts and Mateen was not legitimately tied to any terror groups.
He seems to be looking for any opportunity to associate with the terrorist group du jour, a senior U.S. official told The Washington Post.
FBI agents were back at Mateens door just a few months later in July 2014, this time because of possible ties to American-born suicide bomber Moner Abu-Salha, who blew himself up in Syria in 2014 on behalf of Al-Nusra Front. During its investigation, the FBI learned that Mateen, who attended the same Fort Pierce mosque as Salha, had watched online videos of an Islamist terror leader. However, FBI agents determined Mateen"s contact with Salha was minimal." Mateen was not the subject of the investigation and agents did not have further contact with him.
"We"re also going to look at our work to see if there was something we should have done differently," Comey said. "So far the honest answer is, "I don"t think so.""
President Obama said Monday the FBI followed proper procedure when they interviewed Mateen.
Comey said the FBI was "highly confident" Mateen was radicalized at least in some part through the Internet.
Aside from the terror claims reported by co-workers, some who worked with Mateen were also disturbed by his language when talking about minorities, other religions and gay people.
He talked about killing people all the time, Daniel Gilroy told The New York Times.
Mateen was even less stable at home.
His first wife, who was born in Uzbekistan and met Mateen on the Internet, told The Washington Post that he frequently beat her after their 2009 marriage. They reportedly divorced in 2011.
He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasnt finished or something like that, Sitora Yusifiy said.
Mateen was remarried at least once, to Noor Zahi Salman,after his divorce from Yusifiy. He had a 3-year-old son.
Salman told authorities the couple had recently been to Downtown Disney as well as Pulse, a federal law enforcement source told People. The trip to Downtown Disney came in April, the source said.
His father, Saddique Mateen, recalled a recent episode in which Omar Mateen became upset when he saw two men kissing in public while he was with his young child. But Saddique may have also contributed to Omars worldview. Born in Afghanistan, Saddique is an eccentric pro-Taliban activist who produced an online video critical of homosexuality just hours after Mateens attack.
It is likely, much like the San Bernardino event, that Mateen became radicalized over a period of time as he dove further into the world of ISIS social media and preaching, former CIA agent Mike Baker said. It"s very likely his Afghan family saw signs of increasing radicalism, but, as is typical, family rarely approaches law enforcement with these warnings.
FoxNews.coms Diana Falzone and Fox News Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
Carson on Trump comparing him to a child molester: "It did work"
Katie Couric / AP
BY: Stephen GutowskiFollow @@StephenGutowskiJune 10, 2016 4:00 pm
Yahoo News will continue to employ Katie Couric as its global anchor despite evidence that documentaries she executive produced and narrated were deceptively edited.
Yahoo was not involved in the creation and production of the independent documentaries, Under the Gun and Fed Up, a Yahoo spokesperson who did not want to be identified told the Washington Free Beacon. Were confident in the work of the Yahoo News team, which adheres to the highest standards of journalism.
When asked if that meant Couric was still with the company the spokesperson said yes, I can confirm Katie Couric is still with Yahoo News.
The statement comes as Couric faces scrutiny over edits made in the two documentaries she wasinvolved with since joining Yahoo News in 2013 for a reported $10 million a year.
In the 2016 documentaryUnder the Gun,Couric and director Stephanie Soechtigedited out gun rights activists answers to a question aboutbackground checks, replacing them withseveral seconds of silence. Anumber of commentators called on Yahoo News to fire Couricafter a Free Beacon reportproducedraw audio of the interview.
The Free Beacon broke news of further accusations of deceptive editing in the 2014 documentary filmFed Up, which was also executive produced by Couric and directed by Soechtig.
Dr. David Allison, director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center, said his portrayal in that film was antithetical to the spirit of science and democratic dialogue. Industry sources told the Free Beacon that the documentary inserted audio at a moment it did not occur during a separate interview with Lisa Gable, a spokesperson for the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation.
The Weinstein Company, which distributes Fed Up, manually requested the removal of YouTubevideosfrom Fed Up at the center of the Free Beacon report hours after publication.
Soechtig, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the Free Beacon, did not dispute accusations of deceptive editing but did stand by the film in a statement to Variety.
Fed Up, which premiered at Sundance two and a half years ago, has had a profound impact on how Americans eat, Soechtigsaid. I have received countless testimonials from people whose lives, bodies and health have been transformed because of Fed Up. Recently the FDA announced it would start labeling added sugar on nutrition labelsa solution specifically highlighted in this film.
I am hopeful that any additional conversation around a problem that is crippling millions of Americans can only lead to positive change and that people will see this for what it isspecial interest groups and their allies are worried about the substantive conversations these films have inspired about the issues. I stand behind Under the Gun, and Fed Up and all the decisions I made as the director.
A spokesperson for Couric did not issue a statement to Variety but directed the publication to Soechtigs statement.
FULL Jeff Sessions interview On FOX "Fox News Sunday" (6/12/2016)
MASON, Ohio A man accused of shooting his father and an Ohio sheriff"s deputy is scheduled to be arraigned on preliminary charges that include attempted murder.
Nineteen-year-old Mohammed Abdou Laghaoui"s hearing is scheduled for Monday.
Authorities say Deputy Katie Barnes was shot in the abdomen Thursday while responding to a domestic situation at an apartment complex. She"s expected to recover. The suspect"s father was shot in the hand.
Authorities believe an AK-47 assault rifle was used in the shooting. The sheriff"s office says it might have been discarded afterward.
The office is expected to release 911 tapes on Monday. Cruiser cam video and audio of radio traffic also are being reviewed for release.
Update: EA still hasn"t posted the full livestream, but Eurogamer grabbed it. Embedded above!
After the EA Play show today, the publisher showed off several rounds of 64-player Battlefield 1 with celebrity players including Terry Crews (who uses mouse and keyboard, nice) and Snoop Dogg. They still haven"t posted an archive of the stream (we"ll update if they do), but there are a few player-made videos up and you can see one of them above.
Below weve pulled out all the relevant details we could find in the commentary. Also read Phil"s hands-on preview for direct impressions.
When one of the fully-controllable airships (i.e. massive blimps) come down, they can crash into and destroy any part of the map, and the carcass stays put, becoming a new part of the environment.
All (or at least nearly all) of the buildings in the map shown could be destroyed.
Tanks can also self-repair, though you cant move or get out of the tank when its happening.
Individual tank parts have damage modeling, so you could take out the treads, for instance. On airships, guns mounted to the bottom can be taken out individually, and snipers can shoot the gunners themselves.
Snipers can use anti-vehicle rounds.
According to the commentators, the weapons have a lot of kick.
The spawn map is no longer a 2D representation, but an actual overhead view of the game.
A dynamic weather system means rain or fog can roll it at any moment, giving snipers and pilots a hard time, and allowing for stealthy advances.
There are some new movement systems, including a high vault over taller obstacles. You can also charge through doors.
Flying looks pretty forgivingmultiple times throughout the stream, planes collided with the ground, the windmill, and other planes, only to tumble a bit and quickly recover.
Melee weapons include a hatchet, entrenching tool, and bayonets.
If equipped with a bayonet, you can use a special charge move to tackle enemies or get to safety faster than sprinting.
Donald Trump"s official CNN interview as presumptive nominee (Part 1) "Thanks to you, we"ve reached a milestone," she said during a speech in Brooklyn. "Tonight"s victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible."
After three decades at the center of American politics as a pioneering -- and deeply controversial -- feminist icon, the victory brings Clinton, 68, within reach of finally cracking the "highest, hardest glass ceiling" she lamented eight years ago when she conceded the Democratic race to Barack Obama. The former first lady, senator from New York and secretary of state will now face presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in a general election battle that is already shaping up as one of the nastiest campaigns in modern U.S. history.
Clinton has pounced on Trump"s business record, character and tendency to use his platform to wage personal grudge matches to try to define him early on in the minds of voters as unfit for the presidency. Trump, for his part, is aiming to portray Clinton as a consistent liar who can"t be trusted.
Though Clinton already has Trump in her sights, she has work to do to unify her own party after a grueling battle against Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator spoke before a roaring crowd of his own in California to declare "the struggle continues." The Vermont senator pledged to stay in the race through next week"s primary in Washington, D.C., and to fight on for social, economic, racial and environmental justice at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Obama"s call
President Barack Obama, who waited until voting ended in the last six primary states to weigh in on the race, called both candidates to congratulate them for "running inspiring campaigns that have energized Democrats," according to a White House statement.
But the President, who will meet with Sanders Thursday at the Vermont senator"s request, clearly sided with Clinton by lauding her for "securing the delegates necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination for President."
"Her historic campaign inspired millions and is an extension of her lifelong fight for middle-class families and children," the statement said.
Reaching the highest peak yet in a tumultuous and trailblazing political career, Clinton claimed victory exactly eight years after folding her 2008 Democratic primary campaign against Obama.
Her long-awaited moment of celebration came as she notched wins in the night"s primaries in California, New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico Democratic primaries, according to CNN projections.
Clinton took the stage in Brooklyn to an explosion of cheers from her crowd, in the kind of eruption of enthusiasm that has been fleeting during much of her campaign. Clearly delighted, she stood with her arms outstretched on stage, savoring the adulation.
Reaching out to Sanders supporters, Clinton praised the Vermont senator for his long public service and mirrored some of his progressive economic rhetoric. She played down any notion of divisions and said their vigorous primary campaign was "very good for the Democratic Party and for America."
But in a sign of the task she faces in uniting the party, Sanders supporters loudly booed her name when he said he had received a "gracious" call from his rival and said he had congratulated her on her victories on Tuesday.
Sanders confounded the notion that the end of the state primary races would mean the end of his campaign.
"Next Tuesday, we continue the fight in the last primary in Washington DC," Sanders said. "We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, D.C., and then we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia."
"I am pretty good at arithmetic and I know that the fight in front of us in a very, very steep fight."
But Sanders vowed to fight on for every delegate and every vote.
Clinton vs. Trump
While Sanders signaled that he was not yet ready to fold a campaign that started with him as a fringe candidate and ignited a startling grass roots uprising that won more than 10 million votes, Clinton looked ahead to the general election.
Clinton intensified her assault on Trump, laying out a case that his values and rhetoric are incompatible with American principles and that he"s "temperamentally unfit" to be President.
"He is not just trying to build a wall between America and Mexico. He is trying to wall of Americans from each other. When he says let"s make America great again, that is code for let"s take American backwards."
She hit Trump hard for his recent attacks on a judge with Mexican ancestry along with mocking a disabled reporter and calling "women pigs."
"He wants to win by stoking fear and rubbing salt in wounds and reminding us daily just how great he is."
Clinton also signaled a robust challenge to Trump resonating with gender and personal themes. She spoke of how her late mother, Dorothy Rodham, taught her "never to back down from a bully."
Sanders faces an existential campaign question. He is grappling with whether to honor his vow to fight on to the Democratic National Convention next month or accept the electoral mathematics that give him no viable path to victory and join Clinton to unite a party divided by a much more competitive primary race than expected.
CNN"s Brianna Keilar reported that the campaign managers for Clinton and Sanders are in touch, keeping the lines of communication open so they can eventually unify the party, according to a source familiar with the conversations.
The New York Times reported the Sanders campaign is about to undergo a significant reduction in staff. A top campaign official would neither confirm nor deny the report to CNN. But notably, as the campaign reaches the end of the primary season, the campaign has not moved to staff key battleground states and little appears in the works beyond recent promises to fight to the convention.
Trump"s controversy
For Trump, the question Tuesday was how he would extricate himself from the political hole opened up by his controversial comments about a judge of Mexican descent who is overseeing a lawsuit aimed at Trump University. His accusation that the judge is biased because of his ethnicity has horrified senior GOP leaders who recently reluctantly endorsed him. He tried to neutralize the furor with a statement Tuesday saying his comments had been "misconstrued."
Amid the furor, Trump, who won the Republican contests Tuesday, delivered a more conventional speech that seemed a departure from the free wheeling approach he often takes. Using a teleprompter -- notable for someone who has blasted Clinton for being scripted -- Trump attacked Clinton and called for GOP unity. For one night at least, it seemed that the unpredictable billionaire had heeded calls by the GOP establishment -- which he built a campaign on vilifying -- to rein himself in for the good of the party.
"We are only getting started and it is going to be beautiful," he said.
He didn"t mention the judge during his speech and instead sought to convey that he understood his new role as the leader of the GOP.
"I understand the responsibility of carrying the mantle and I will never, ever let you down," he said.
A top campaign adviser told CNN"s Jim Acosta that Trump"s speech was "very important to recovering from these five bad days."
