Cannington Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers and related software. Cannington also manufactures and distributes music players $($cPod$),$ mobile phones $($cPhone$),$ and smartwatches $($Cannington Watch$)$ along with related accessories and services, including online distribution of third$-$party music, videos, and applications. The following information was taken from a recent annual report of Cannington:

Property, Plant, and Equipment $($in millions$)$:

Line Item Description Current Year Preceding Year

Land and buildings $$750,390$ $$435,226$

Machinery, equipment, and internal$-$use software $712,871562,793$

Other fixed assets $907,972682,855$

Accumulated depreciation and amortization $(952,995)(795,413)$

a$.$ Compute the book value of the fixed assets for the current year and the preceding year.

Current year book value $($in millions$)$ fill in the blank $1$ of $2$$

Preceding year book value $($in millions$)$ fill in the blank $2$ of $2$$

A comparison of the book values of the current and preceding years indicates that they fill in the blank $1$ of $3$

$.$ A comparison of the total cost and accumulated depreciation reveals that Cannington purchased fill in the blank $2$ of $3$$

million of additional fixed assets, which was offset by the additional depreciation expense of fill in the blank $3$ of $3$$

million taken during the current year.

b$.$ Would you normally expect Cannington$$s book value of fixed assets to increase or decrease during the year?