Gates envisions computing future
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates sketched out a vision for the future Wednesday in which a cell phone will become a “digital wallet,” able to receive e-mail and even scan business cards, while computers and TVs will merge.
Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, also wants to “redefine the way that citizens think about how they work with government and how efficient communication takes place,” Gates told about 300 political, business and academic leaders from Canada, Latin America and the United States at the company’s Government Leaders Forum.
The two-day event is intended to explore ways to improve government use of computers, as well as the transition to what Gates called the “knowledge economy.”
New Orleans
Offshore oil sites sell much higher
High oil and natural gas prices figured heavily Wednesday as petroleum exploration companies put up $588.3 million in winning bids for 405 offshore tracts off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
The figure far exceeded last year’s auction by the U.S. Minerals Management Service when $342 million in winning bids were accepted for 403 tracts that exploration firms are betting on to produce in the central Gulf of Mexico.
Wednesday’s sale came as the MMS studies a plan to open to drilling about 2 million acres of offshore tracts about 100 miles south of Florida Panhandle and 200 miles west of Tampa Bay.
Kansas City, Mo.
Feds approve H&R Block bank
Federal regulators have approved H&R Block Inc.’s application to open its own bank, the company said Wednesday.
In a letter dated Tuesday and released Wednesday, the Office of Thrift Supervision gave its blessing for H&R Block Bank, a savings bank to be based near H&R Block’s Kansas City headquarters.
The bank, which will provide a full range of banking services, will start out with $160 million in assets, to be expanded to $185 million by the end of the year.
Detroit
GM mulls new bid for GMAC stake
General Motors Corp. is considering a bid of $12.5 billion to $13 billion for a majority stake in its financing arm from a group led by New York private-equity firm Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts and some banks, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
The newspaper said the nonbinding bid for the stake in General Motors Acceptance Corp. gives the automaker another option to what had been considered the leading bid from Cerberus Capital Management, a private-equity and hedge fund group.
But the Journal, citing unidentified people familiar with the offers, said GM is cool to the new proposal from the KKR group due to some of its fine details, and could decide against selling to either group.
Instead, the newspaper said GM could sell off GMAC’s home mortgage and insurance operations while keeping the auto-financing arm.