The LA Food Swap was launched in March 2011, and met with great success. Its founder, food writer Emily Ho, banded together with other swap organizers around the country and worked to put together an online portal for food swappers. The Food Swap Network launched Monday. more ›

From the people that brought you the pee-in-your-pants funny Damn You, Autocorrect site for all those iPhone texting hijinks comes the new site Why, Siri, Why?! which lets users submit screengrabs showing the goofy things the updated Apple iPhone 4S voice-activated "assistant" says. Not so fun, however, is word that employing Siri to make a call can override a vital security feature many people use on their iPhones. more ›

The state of the economy may be a big question mark but one thing's for sure: L.A. tech is hot. Westwood-based Elevator Labs received $20 million in funding this week in another example of investors putting money into innovative Los Angeles-based startups. Managing partner Zack Zalon spoke to us about how his years at Virgin Digital influenced his approach and why he's excited about L.A.'s tech community. more ›

Google's Android operating system is solidifying itself as the most popular in the U.S. as it continues increasing its market share over Apple's iOS and RIM's Blackberry in recent surveys. Nielsen's June numbers on smartphone puts Android's U.S. market share at 39% to Apple iOS' 28%. more ›

Steve Jobs has $76 billion dollars burning a hole in his black mock turtleneck. Apple's value has skyrocketed more than 300 percent in the past couple years owing much to growing iPhone sales and the success of the iPad. But Apple's future success rides not just on product but on content -- specifically audio and video downloads and paid streaming content. more ›

Media Leaders, the social media strike team that manages Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for over a dozen brands, hosts an influential networking event tonight in Santa Monica. more ›

After months in search of a buyer, Beverly Hills-based Myspace has finally been acquired. In an email to employees late Wednesday morning, CEO Mike Jones broke the news to employees in an email late Wednesday morning. more ›

Namesake, a Los Angeles-based startup, is hoping to fill that void. Founded in January 2010 by entrepreneurs Brian Norgard and Dan Gould as a place for professionals and creators to match ideas with opportunities and resources, Namesake.com is still in private beta but we've got invites for you... more ›

New Exhibition at TAG Gallery in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station opens today featuring the work of artists Anne M Bray, Patricia Doede Klowden and Gary Polonsky focusing on American Obsessions: Food and Fashion. The exhibition will be up through June 18, with the opening reception on Saturday (May 28) and the artists panel discussion on June 1. more ›

We spoke with AOL's Entertainment Practice Head Debbie Menin at Digital Hollywood Spring 2011 last week at the Ritz in Marina del Rey. We discussed the different ways in which consumers are using social media to inform purchases and decisions and how that in turn is informing the advertising industry. more ›

Andrew Hyde sold all of his worldly possessions last August and began a trip around the world. He makes no secret of this -- its detailed on his website. We're well aware that personal information becomes vulnerable whenever we agree to the terms of service of yet another fun geo-location mobile app as it typically utilizes information from the phone's positioning to track real-time location. But this week, geodata geek and author Pete Warden released an open-source iPhone application that exploits a file in iPhone 4 (or iPad 3G) containing all recorded geographic data in the phone's history. more ›

What better day is there than the Tuesday than during National Library Week for the Los Angeles City Council's Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee to take up the vital discussion of the permissibility of internet porn in our libraries? more ›

Using "xxx" as a handy euphemism or stand-in term for "adult-oriented" material is a contemporary common practice, and today could be the day that "xxx" goes to the web. Well, there's plenty of "xxx" on the web already, but this is a specific decision that is being made today in San Francisco to create the ".xxx" domain to readily identify "mature" content on the 'net. A vote is slated for today by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), explains Fishbowl LA. more ›

One day out of the year should be set aside so we can live life as if we weren't spoiled by all of this wonderful technology. That's the mission of a non-profit called Reboot, which has appropriated the concept of the Sabbath Manifesto to disengage us all in a National Day of Unplugging. more ›

It seemed like it was just yesterday that Kutcher and Larry King were going head-to-head -- in a publicity stunt raising money for charity -- to see who could be the first to 1 million Twitter followers. That was April 2009. Today it takes less than 24 hours to reach one million -- if you're Charlie Sheen -- and apparently only the charity of Charlie Sheen's #tigerblood benefits in this case. more ›

If you're among the many Angeleno transit users who have paced anxiously curbside, waiting for that damn bus to get there and hating that there was no real way of knowing when your ride was going to pull up, you might want to get on board Nextrip. Metro began testing this real-time bus arrival system yesterday, reports The Source. All you need is a cellphone. more ›

Thousands of Gmail users found themselves without much of an email account recently, and now Google is stepping up with an explanation, though not all is fixed, says the HuffPo. At fault is "a software bug" that chewed up some account info and emails for 0.02% of their customer, which is "about 40,000 of the service's 200 million accounts," according to CNET. more ›

Mark Suster, an entrepreneur and Santa Monica-based VC asks this question today on Tech Crunch: Can you really build a great tech firm outside Silicon Valley, and in particular, in LA? The short answer is yes, but not like Silicon Valley, and with varying rules and conditions. more ›

L.A.'s homegrown conference, expo, and party for web startups, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists takes tonight and Thursday at the Skirball Cultural Center. Twiistup 8 will feature demos from ten hot startups on the verge of breaking out, panels and sessions geared toward L.A.'s unique media & technology landscape and the Twiistup afterparty. more ›

Can MTV.com do what many have tried (and failed) to do over the past decade-and-a-half -- become the MTV of the internet? MTV Networks' head of digital media told us that's exactly what he's set out to do in 2011. We rapped with EVP of MTV.com Dermot McCormack about iPads, Android tablets, Lady Gaga, and the future of MTV programming and he came at us with a three-pronged proposal to cure the world of Justin Bieber... or... to dominate the entertainment industry like Max Headroom always envisioned, long before Jersey Shore. more ›

RIP Google Wave. It's time to say farewell, though many of us hardly knew ye. Google has announced they're pulling the plug onthe internet giant's attempt to turn your inbox into something as loud and theoretically interactive as a college dorm's bulletin board. more ›

Going green got a whole lot more chic recently in the city of Lynwood, where iPads have been brought in for the City Manager and City Council to replace all the paper once used to print out "their bi-weekly meeting agendas, staff reports, city contracts and other information," reports The Wave. more ›

The civic-minded or the out-of-towners can get acquainted better with Downtown Long Beach now thanks to a new iPhone application that will help people navigate the area, according to the Press-Telegram. The free app, currently only available for iPhone, aims to put the city's business district just a touch away for those who want to learn about events, where to find parking, report graffiti, hop on a bus, or where to get a bite to eat. Eventually the developers, Meta Flavor, plan to enhance the app by adding personal preference-based restaurant results, public safety alerts, and more. They also plan to develop versions for BlackBerry and Android phones. 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 ›

Last month at Twiistup 7 we had the opportunity to chat with the founder of Bakespace.com -- the social network for foodies. Babette Pepaj was bouncing around the networks as a reality TV producer before she decided to go full-time with her new-found passion for baking. The LA-based Bakespace.com is now one of the top online communities for recipe sharing and more. So before you step into the kitchen, check out Bakespace and be sure to save some leftovers for us! more ›

Over the years Twiistup has evolved from a blowout meet 'n' greet for startups, entrepreneurs and investors to a can't-miss, day-and-a-half of panel discussions, showcases and mixers featuring the top tech and media innovators and venture capitalists from LA and beyond. Billed "LA's biggest technology event," the agenda and guest list is a stacked who's-who of elite tech talent. But don't let the mature, sit-down nature of Twiistup 7 fool you, as Hollywood's penchant for partying is not forgotten with a 007-themed after party and a hosted pre-party included with each event pass. Twiistup 7 begins at 6pm at UCLA's Korn Hall with panels and demos all day tomorrow at the Skirball. Discounted tickets are still available ($397 before 3 pm today, $497 at the door.) more ›

To find what gadgets we'll want in our living room, car, and back pocket over the course of the year, we needn't look further than The 2010 Consumer Electronics Show last weekend in Las Vegas. more ›

When I moved into this neighborhood four years ago after driving out from Chicago, one of my first objectives was to test the various cellular phone (that's what we called them back then) providers. more ›