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Apple ordered to pay $4.2 million for botched iPad program in LA

The LA Unified School District (LAUSD) will receive a settlement worth $4.2 million from Apple for the ill-fated program that aimed to put an iPad in the hands of 640,000 students in the city. Cupertino was supposed to earn $30 million from the $1.3 billion project, but it was apparently riddled with issues from the beginning. It didn't take long for the initiative to crumble, and LAUSD -- accused of mismanagement, miscalculation and corruption among other things -- is now under FBI investigation for the bidding process that spawned the contract.

Lenovo, the other tech company involved in the project aside from Apple, agreed to let the district have the $2.2 million worth of laptops it recently ordered for free. LAUSD will also get $6.4 million (it's still a tentative amount, though) from education software maker Pearson, which was contracted to conjure up math and English curriculum to use with the project. The district says the software company only ever provided a partial curriculum. While the FBI investigation still isn't done, LAUSD plans to use most of the money from the settlement to buy computers for a completely different initiative.

[Image credit: Diane Collins and Jordan Hollender]