BlackBerry users were outraged over a recent service outage that left customers out of touch for three days, and now consumers in the U.S. and Canada are filing class action lawsuits against Research in Motion, the telecommunications company that makes the popular smartphones. Are you among the deeply inconvenienced who want their money back? more ›

While it's quite typical for AT&T customers to complain of missed, failed and dropped calls, this weekend's hardware failure sent L.A. area users into a grumbling frenzy. The exact number of AT&T customers affected has not been specified, but the total reaches into the thousands. more ›

It can't be "one of the most widespread and strongest wind episodes in recent years" without some fallout--or, more appropriately, some fallen trees and power outages. There is, of course, already the requisite Foursquare Windpocalypse 2010 venue for your check-in entertainment (a moving target, if ever there was one). more ›

Sorry shoppers, there are several stores on the Third Street Promenade who've lost power, reports CBS2, and "they could remain without electricity until as late as 2 a.m. Tuesday." An initial outage in Santa Monica due to "underground equipment failure" cut power to about 2,000 customers. Now about 50 customers in the vicinity of the "mall area in the vicinity of Fourth and Second streets, Santa Monica Boulevard and California Avenue" has remained affected by the outage. more ›

Today's go-to excuse is provided by the good people of Google, whose free Calendar service is experiencing a widespread outage today. Once the complaints started flowing on Twitter (another free web service prone to outage), Mashable went to the source and got the word from Google: "We’re aware of a problem with Google Calendar affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Calendar. We will provide an update by May 6, 2010 12:00:00 PM UTC-4 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change." One good way to back up calendar files? Pen and paper is a fairly reliable option. more ›

A Gardena municipal bus struck "a fire hydrant, a few cars and power lines in Harbor Gateway" at around 5:45 this morning, according to abc7. The driver was killed. Crews are working to turn off the water that shot into the air when the hydrant was sheared, and the DWP is working to restore the power lost to about 3,300 area customers who were thrown in the dark when the accident downed power lines. "TV reports say the driver may have suffered a heart attack and lost control of the bus, although [LAPD spokeswoman Norma] Eisenman says she cannot confirm that," notes CBS2. more ›

Thousands across Los Angeles are without power today, according to the L.A. Department of Water and Power. Some 20,000 customers in the greater South Los Angeles area are affected. In portions of Studio City and North Hollywood, about 1,100 customers are without power. Outages have always been reported in East Los Angeles, Mid City, and Woodland Hills. The department has increased the amount of crews working on power restoration. more ›

A tipster sent this missive to our inbox last night: "no ones cellphones are working on the west side. i know for a fact att and sprint are down and have been for hours now." But the West Side wasn't the only part of town feeling cut off from the world; it seems AT&T had zero to minimal phone or network service from about 7 p.m. until at least 1:00 a.m. last night elsewhere in Los Angeles--we know this because our own beloved iPhone was of no use to us from the Valley to Glendale to Dodger Stadium and back to the Valley again. Luckily, it seems to be all systems go this morning. Did your AT&T (or Sprint, as our reader suggests) network disappear last night? Anyone know why this happened? more ›

This morning at 9:15 a.m., power at 12 Metro Red and Purple Line train stations between Wilshire/Western and North Hollywood went out for 55 minutes, according to a Metro Spokesperson. No one was hurt or injured, and operations slowed down but never fully stopped. However, patrons riding in elevators at two stations, Wilshire/Normandie and Vermont/Sunset, were stuck for at least fifteen minutes before fire department crews could rescue them. While the Dept. of Water & Power reported no outages at street level, Metro later discovered the problem was within their own system dealing with alternating current. Power never halted on the rails and trains still ran, albeit at a slower speed delaying trains 13 minutes behind schedule and stations were still lit for commuters by emergency flood lights. The incident was cleared by 10:10 a.m. more ›

If you are seeing what we're seeing when you log into your Google Mail account, you're not alone, and no, the "errors" aren't your fault. What to do? Well, you can go to the beach, take a nap, follow the grumbling session on Twitter and throughout the blogosphere, or take a chance on the GMail HTML interface, which is still functioning for some users. more ›

When the power goes out, that means the traffic lights go with it, making it harder to tell if there is even a traffic light there to begin with (especially if you're unfamiliar the neighborhood). Despite that, signals that are out must be treated like a stop sign. The LAPD never seems to send these educational warnings out, but this friendly reminder comes from the Los Angeles Fire Department. "With power out to many traffic signals in the North Hollywood area, Los Angeles Firefighters remind you to always treat darkened traffic signals as a 4-way stop." Thank you Web 2.0 Department of the Century. Thank you. more ›

Recent major events for the LAFD include last night's apartment fires in North Hollywood and Westchester. Busy day on LAPD's blog: a drive-by shooting yesterday, a labor day homicide, Congressman Xavier Becerra's office burglarized, two fatal Skid Row stabbings, a Carl's Jr. robbery and a fatal shooting this morning in South LA. Sparked by the recent heat-reated power outages, Matt Littman at the Huffington Post asks if Los Angeles is in permanent decay: "It... more ›

Cingular customers have been experiencing a system-wide problem today in the Los Angeles area. The current glitch comes two days after announcing a shiny, new mobile/web deal with MySpace. Maybe the Verizon/YouTubers have taken to knocking down towers? I speculate. Below, please find the dramatic re-enactment of my customer service phone exchange. The grumbly lady that answered my call was less thrilled about answering my questions: Is there currently a problem with service in... more ›