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Digital TV listing company Rovi is buying TiVo in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $1.1 billion. Rovi Corp. said Friday that it will pay $10.70 in cash and stock for each TiVo Inc. share. Rovi will pay $2.75 per share in cash, or about $277 million. The rest, $7.95 per share, will be paid in stock. Once the deal closes, the combined business will use the TiVo name. TiVo is a digital video recording company. Rovi CEO Tom Carson will serve as CEO of the new company. The executive said in a written statement on Friday that the buyout will help to extend services across platforms and expand its customer base. The transaction will add more than 10 million TiVo-served households to Rovi’s current customer base of about 18…

Astronomers searching for life beyond our solar system may need to look no farther than a little, feeble nearby star. A Belgian-led team reported Monday that it’s discovered three Earth-sized planets orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star less than 40 light-years away. It’s the first time planets have been found around this type of star - and it opens up new, rich territory in the search for extraterrestrial life. Because this star is so close and so faint, astronomers can study the atmospheres of these three temperate exoplanets and, eventually, hunt for signs of possible life. They’re already making atmospheric observations, in fact, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope will join in next week. Altogether, it’s a “winning combination” for seeking chemical traces of life outside our solar…

A solar-powered airplane soared above the clouds Monday after taking off from California for Arizona to resume its journey around the world using only energy from the sun. The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 left Mountain View south of San Francisco shortly after 5 a.m. Monday for an expected 16-hour trip to Phoenix. Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg was at the helm of the plane that began circumnavigating the globe last year. Video from a wing-mounted camera showed the aircraft taking off in a westerly direction before swinging to the southeast and rising above the clouds. About an hour after takeoff, Borschberg used his phone to snap photos of the sun coming up along the horizon. Then he prepared for media interviews and made breakfast plans. “I’m heating up water for coffee,”…

Bitcoin is a type of digital currency that allows people to buy goods and services and exchange money without involving banks, credit card issuers or other third parties. Its origins have long been a mystery - though an Australian man long rumored to have ties to bitcoin has come forward claiming to be its creator. Who is this man, and how does this system work? Here’s a brief look at bitcoin: HOW BITCOINS WORK Bitcoin is a digital currency that is not tied to a bank or government and allows users to spend money anonymously. The coins are created by users who “mine” them by lending computing power to verifying other users’ transactions. They receive bitcoins in exchange. The coins also can be bought and sold on exchanges with U.S.…

Google is offering $250,000 to help with the ongoing response efforts in Flint as the Michigan city reels from the effects of a lead-contaminated water supply. Google spokesman Patrick Lenihan announced the two grants to reporters. He says the first $150,000 grant will help researchers from the University of Michigan predict which homes are likely to have water with high lead levels without physically testing it. University researchers will also build a mobile app and online tools that can help Flint residents visualize data, report concerns and request testing kits. The second $100,000 Google grant goes to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. Kathi Horton, the foundation’s president, says she doesn’t know what that money will be used for yet. The foundation gives grants to other area nonprofits.…

Conventional movie wisdom would suggest that there can only be diminishing returns with long-running franchises. There must be a breaking point, right? Especially at movie four, five, six and beyond. There are exceptions, sure, but even the painstakingly plotted Marvel films have had low points. And yet in the ashes of “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the brain trust behind Marvel Studios and directors Joe and Anthony Russo have built what is easily one of the strongest films of their so-called cinematic universe with “Captain America: Civil War,” an engaging, lively and just flat out fun use of the characters we’ve gotten to know across the last eight years and 12 films. As our interest waned in the prospect of yet another supervillain threatening to destroy an entire city or planet,…

The military is launching tests on the world’s largest unmanned surface vessel - a self-driving, 132-foot ship designed to travel thousands of miles out at sea without a single crew member on board. The so-called “Sea Hunter” has the potential to revolutionize not only the military’s maritime service but commercial shipping - marking the first step toward sending unmanned cargo vessels between countries, according to military officials, who showed off the ship in San Diego on Monday before it was put in the water. The Pentagon’s research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, developed the ship along with Virginia-based Leidos. DARPA will test it in conjunction with the Navy over the next two years off California’s coast. The tests will largely focus on its ability to react…

The Hungarian government wants to drive out ride-hailing app Uber from the country while proposing new legislation to crack down on unlicensed passenger transport, officials said Monday. Taxi drivers have held several demonstrations against Uber and unlicensed drivers, slowing traffic in Budapest and petitioning authorities to ban the U.S. company, whose European headquarters are in Amsterdam. Uber was “consciously and cynically breaking every Hungarian law,” said Janos Fonagy, state secretary at the Ministry of National Development. “The aim is to make impossible in Hungary the activities of this company which ignores the rules, and totally oust them from Hungary.” The government has proposed new legislation increasing penalties for unlicensed drivers - who could lose their license for up to six months and their cars for up to three years -…

Amazon is clearly entering its Prime. Meaning, of course, its $100 annual membership program, now a decade old, which has accomplished the remarkable feat of convincing millions of people to pay an annual fee for the privilege of, well, shopping. Prime is now central to Amazon’s strategy of dominating the world of commerce. What started as a yearly fee for free two-day shipping now offers a sometimes bewildering array of perks, including household product subscriptions, one and two hour Prime Now delivery, streaming music and video, e-books, groceries (for an additional $200 a year), photo storage and more. “Prime has become an all-you-can-eat, physical-digital hybrid,” Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos wrote in his annual shareholder letter in April. He wants the service to be such a good deal that…

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will walk away with a $55 million severance package if the company’s auction of its Internet operations culminates in a sale that ousts her from her job. The payout disclosed in a regulatory filing Friday consists of cash, stock awards and other benefits that Mayer would get should she be forced out as CEO within a year after a sale. Although Yahoo’s board is still evaluating takeover offers, most investors are betting that the company will decide to sell its well-known brand and an Internet business that includes a popular email service and sections focused on sports and finance. Mayer, a former Google executive, has been unsuccessfully trying to turn around Yahoo for nearly four years. Instead, Yahoo’s long-running slump has deepened during her reign, making…

At first glance, Gilani Dambaev looks like a healthy 60-year-old man and the river flowing past his rural family home appears pristine. But Dambaev is riddled with diseases that his doctors link to a lifetime’s exposure to excessive radiation, and the Geiger counter beeps loudly as a reporter strolls down to the muddy riverbank. Some 50 kilometers (30 miles) upstream from Dambaev’s crumbling village lies Mayak, a nuclear complex that has been responsible for at least two of the country’s biggest radioactive accidents. Worse, environmentalists say, is the facility’s decades-old record of using the Arctic-bound waters of the Techa River to dump waste from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, hundreds of tons of which is imported annually from neighboring nations. The results can be felt in every aching household along the…

A Brazilian judge struck down an earlier court ruling to suspend messaging service WhatsApp in Latin America’s biggest country for 72 hours, reactivating it on Tuesday, the day after it was shut down. The ruling by Judge Ricardo Mucio Santana de Abreu Lima came just hours after another judge upheld an earlier judicial order suspending WhatsApp’s services. The application was working again by Tuesday afternoon. The suspension had gone into effect Monday shortly after it was ordered by Judge Marcel Maia Montalvao, in the northeastern state of Sergipe. A court official in Sergipe said the suspension was ordered because WhatsApp has repeatedly failed to turn over information about its users for an investigation into drug trafficking and organized crime. WhatsApp officials have estimated that the service is used by 100…

“The Big Bang Theory” was the comedy winner in television last week - by a landslide. The long-running CBS sitcom was seen by 14.1 million people last Thursday, easily the week’s most-watched program, the Nielsen company said. The next closest comedy was CBS’“Mom,” which had 8.3 million viewers. CBS was television’s most popular network, as it usually is unless one of its competitors is airing a special event. Nielsen, at a news conference Tuesday, unveiled data that illustrates how the myriad of ways people can watch television these days is boosting the viewership for some programs. Some programming, like sports, is almost always watched live, but that’s not the case with much prime-time entertainment. For example, for one episodic drama - Nielsen would not reveal the specific show - 61…

The Witch A Puritan family in 1600s New England is ravaged by black magic, witchcraft, and possession. FIVE FACTS: 1. Stephen King, who is often called the “master of horror,” has stated that he was terrified by this film. 2. Shot in only twenty-five days. 3. Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie both appeared in Game of Thrones (2011), although they never shared any scenes together. 4. Most of the film’s dialogues and story were based on writings from the time. 5. There were more scenes planned to involve Black Phillip, but because he wasn’t as well trained as planned, the ideas had to be scratched. Where to Invade Next The tenth documentary movie from controversial director Michael Moore sees him spend time in various countries across the globe to see…

Was it a blip, or a breakthrough? Scientists around the globe are revved up with excitement as the world’s biggest atom smasher - best known for revealing the Higgs boson four years ago - starts whirring again to churn out data that may confirm cautious hints of an entirely new particle. Such a discovery would all but upend the most basic understanding of physics, experts say. The European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN by its French-language acronym, has in recent months given more oomph to the machinery in a 27-kilometer (17-mile) underground circuit along the French-Swiss border known as the Large Hadron Collider. In a surprise development in December, two separate LHC detectors each turned up faint signs that could indicate a new particle, and since then theorizing has…

Virtual reality, oddly enough, isn’t immune to the problems that arise in practical reality. Just ask would-be fans of the Oculus Rift headset, many - possibly most - of whom are still waiting for their $600 gadgets more than four weeks after they started shipping . The delay, naturally, has sparked online grousing and even some data-based activism, including the creation of a crowdsourced spreadsheet for tracking who received their prized VR gear and when. Some longtime supporters of Oculus have declared themselves alienated by the company’s inability to deliver; others have defected to rival VR systems, or are at least considering it. Christian Cantrell, a software engineer and science-fiction author in Sterling, Virginia, put in his pre-order roughly 15 minutes after Oculus started accepting them in January - and…

MUSIC HAS NEVER BEEN MORE UNIVERSAL Since it first broke cover as a “One more thing...” reveal by Apple CEO Tim Cook at last year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the Cupertino giant’s much-hyped music streaming service, Apple Music, has made strong progress in eating into Spotify’s formidable and long-established share of this market. During Apple’s second-quarter 2016 earnings call, Cook confirmed that the service now boasted 13 million paid subscribers, a two-million jump on February’s figure. However, amid the rising user numbers, the service’s wider evolution continues apace. GOOD PROGRESS ALREADY FOR THE NEW SERVICE With much controversy and debate having long reigned over the role of streaming in the music industry and the lack of money that it produces for artists, hopes were high at the time of Apple Music’s announcement that…

An Australian man long rumored to be associated with the digital currency Bitcoin has publicly identified himself as its creator, a claim that would end one of the biggest mysteries in the tech world. BBC News said Monday that Craig Wright told the media outlet he is the man previously known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The computer scientist, inventor and academic said he launched the currency in 2009 with the help of others. Wright made similar claims to the Economist magazine, which said on its website it still has “nagging” questions about Wright’s claim. He also asserted his role in a lengthy blog post. The founder’s identity has been shrouded in uncertainty, and the media’s inability to pinpoint the person responsible has led to a series of investigations. Last…

Google is likely to face its first European Union antitrust sanction this year, with little prospect of it settling a test case with the bloc’s regulator over its shopping service, people familiar with the matter said. There are few incentives left for either party to reach a deal in a six-year dispute that could set a precedent for Google searches for hotels, flights and other services and tests regulators’ ability to ensure diversity on the Web. Alphabet Inc’s Google, which was hit by a second EU antitrust charge this month for using its dominant Android mobile operating system to squeeze out rivals, shows little sign of backing down after years of wrangling with European authorities. Several people familiar with the matter said they believe that after three failed compromise attempts…

“The Jungle Book”extended its box-office reign to three weeks, easily besting a handful of newcomers that made little impact. In its third week of release, the Disney release took in $43.7 million, according to final box-office figures Monday. Jon Favreau’s well-reviewed Rudyard Kipling adaptation has held up extremely well, bringing its North American sum to $253.4 million. Three new releases didn’t come close. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s action comedy debuted with $9.5 million; Garry Marshall’s latest holiday-themed romantic comedy “Mother’s Day” weakly opened with $8.4 million; and the video-game adaptation “Ratchet & Clank” took in just $4.9 million. The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks…

On a recent Thursday, the staff at Sunny Vista Living Center in Colorado Springs bustled in the kitchen. The phone rang with a last minute order as Chris Willard tended to a large pot of Thai-style soup with fresh ginger, vegetables and thin-sliced beef. It was a special meal for a woman of Asian descent who didn’t like any of the dozen choices on the menu. “You have to be creative,” said Willard, a chef with an easy smile and a long mustache, who is the nursing home’s food service director. Earlier that day, he had received a thumbs-up for his gluten-free pancakes. Sunny Vista is part of a slow but growing trend among the nation’s 15,600 nursing homes to abandon rigid menus and strict meal times in favor of…

Fiat Chrysler and Google will work together to more than double the size of Google’s self-driving vehicle fleet by adding 100 Chrysler Pacifica minivans. The companies announced the agreement on Tuesday, saying that Chrysler engineers would work with Google to install sensors and software so the vans can drive themselves. The added vehicles are needed as Google expands real-world testing. Google says it will own the gas-electric hybrid vans, and it’s not currently licensing autonomous car technology to Fiat Chrysler or anyone else. Both companies are free to work with others as well. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The added vehicles are needed as Google increases real-world testing in four cities including Mountain View, California; Austin, Texas; Kirkland, Washington; and the Phoenix area. Initially the vans will…