charge a fee based on viewing, and to maintain his agreements with the film companies and the owners of the sports broadcasting rights, he looked for a way to encrypt the broadcasts. An Australian entrepreneur named Bruce Hundertmark contacted Shamir and the Weizmann Institute and between them and Murdoch's News Corp. corporation. News Corp. was impressed with their "smart card" technology and decided to invest in its development. The company was established in 1988 as News Datacom (NDC) by Dr. Dov Rubin, Jonathan (Yoni) Hashkes, Michael Dick, and Yishai Sered - and soon joined by Mickey Cohen and Gershon Baron - in partnership with News Corporation and the Weizmann Institute, a university and research institute in Rehovot, Israel. The company was renamed News Datacom Research, and additional investors joined. The company signed a contract with BSkyB, in which News Corp. had a 35% stake, for the development of an encryption system. In 1992, one year after finalizing its product, the company was acquired by its primary customer, News Corp, for $15 million, and renamed News Digital Systems (NDS). In 1999, the company began trading as a public company on the NASDAQ stock exchange. In 2009, Permira and News Corporation announced a $3.6 billion arrangement for buying the public holding in NDS, turning it into a privately held company. Acquisitions In December 2000, NDS acquired Orbis Technology, a British company which develops software for interactive betting, in order to strengthen its application portfolio for Interactive TV. In March 2008 Orbis Technology acquired Electracade Ltd, a UK-based developer of online interactive games for £2.6 million. In July 2010, Orbis Technology acquired Alphameric Solutions, a provider of technology to the bookmaking marketplace, from Alphameric PLC for £15.5 million. In February 2011, Orbis Technology was sold by NDS for £208 million, in a management buyout backed by private equity firm Vitruvian Partners. In June 2002, NDS acquired Visionik A/S, a Danish company which provides digital interactive broadcast technology. In August 2003, NDS acquired all the intellectual property assets of a French interactive TV technology company Interactif Delta Production S.A. On 16 December 2003, NDS acquired the MediaHighway middleware business from Canal+ Technologies a subsidiary of Thomson SA and licensed certain related patents from Thomson SA for a total consideration of €60 million. In October 2006, NDS acquired Danish game design company ITE. On December 4, 2006, NDS acquired Jungo, which provides software for residential