group was not included in the purchase because Beatrice Foods had previously sold the group to the Japanese company Shin-Shirasuna. The Harman Kardon receiver group was the heart of Harman International, and in 1985 Harman purchased the receiver group and returned the company to its pre-1976 form. From 1999 to 2007, Harman Kardon worked to develop digital processing for audio products. In 1999 the company introduced the CDR-2 compact disc recorder, the first with 4X high speed dubbing. In 2000, Harman Kardon produced the AVR-7000 audio-video receiver, which was able to decode and process HDCD. Harman retired in 2007 at the age of 88. At that time he hired technology executive Dinesh Paliwal to succeed him as CEO. On March 11, 2017, Samsung Electronics announced the acquisition of Harman for a reported purchase price of $US8 billion. Other products SoundSticks The Harman Kardon iSub 2000 Subwoofer and SoundSticks were introduced at the July 2000 Macworld expo. Harman Kardon partnered with Apple to design and manufacture these products. Apple did the industrial design and mechanical engineering to have the product fit into the Apple product family. This product won an Industrial Design Excellence Awards gold award and was featured on the cover of I.D. magazine. The SoundSticks II were a minor upgrade, with the addition of capacitive volume control buttons and a 3.5mm mini-jack input replacing the previous USB input. The SoundSticks III were a further update changing the styling slightly using black highlights and white lighting to match the new iMacs, instead of green and blue of the original SoundSticks and the SoundSticks II. The Soundsticks Wireless introduced the capability to accept Bluetooth inputs. However, it retains the wires between the speakers. Car audio Harman Kardon supplies or supplied audio equipment to several vehicle manufacturers including Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, MG Rover, Volvo, Buick, Kia, Hyundai, Ssangyong, MINI, Saab, Harley-Davidson, Chrysler, Alfa Romeo, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Daihatsu, Toyota, Honda, Jaguar, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Tata Motors. Computer speakers Harman Kardon has made desktop computer speakers. Harman Kardon has also made laptop speakers, which have been used in certain models of Toshiba, Acer notebooks, Asus laptops, Apple iMacs and Huawei's M5 tablets. A pair of Harman Kardon transparent spherical speakers, along with the Apple G4 Mac Cube for which they were designed and produced from 2000 to 2001, are housed in the permanent collection of New York's Museum