It's a virtual printing press for carbon certificates that its backer, Sumitomo, can sell or use to offset its obligations under Kyoto.

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After EMCC lost its backer, American Totalisator Vice President Henry Strauss, near the end of 1949, it was forced to court suitors who might acquire the firm.

CNN: Genesis of the computer

Some reports have cast the breakdown of the talks as mutual, while others have said it was the Beast and its backer, Barry Diller, that left the table first, possibly at the urging of former GE chairman Jack Welch.

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