Results tagged “technology”

Crime Mapping is a website that "automatically retrieves data from a records management system," and tracks and maps the information for the public to view, explains KTLA. The San Gabriel Police Department has joined with about two dozen California law enforcement agencies to make use of the Google-powered mapping site so that are residents "can now track crime trends in their neighborhoods." The service for San Gabriel launched today, and marks the first time a police department within Los Angeles County is making use of the service, which "requires no man-hours from police."

On the agenda today for the City Council is consideration of a proposal that will "replace the city government's crash-prone e-mail system with a Google-based application," according to the Daily News. The impetus behind what some view as a costly or belated upgrade is the fact that the system they currently use, GroupWise, is often down and unreliable.

William Bratton, the soon-to-be retired Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, was in Washington D.C. today, urging members of congress to make a wireless public safety broadband network a reality nationwide. In his testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, he talks how such a network could help the development of predictive policing:

As new media consumption goes mainstream, so goes the geekfest; this week's Twiistup includes panels featuring the likes of Brooke Burke (of Wild on E! and Dancing with the Stars fame) discussing her new-found success as an online entrepreneur and Chamillionaire (he of the many mixtapes and much Patron) talking digital music. Since 2007, Twiistup, has served as both a memorable party for the entrepreneurs and media savants and a matchmaking event for select SoCal startups and wide-eyed venture capitalists. But this week Twiistup, now in it's sixth version, is expanding to add a day-and-a-half conference with top speakers to complement a night of open bar mingling.

After much pushing and prodding by the public and media, Metro finally succumbed, quietly launching Google Transit this past weekend. Go ahead and play, it's like we're in a real big city now, catching up with most other major ones.

For a guy as lazy as I am, there’s only a certain number of phrases that will really get me off the couch. I mean, I can get a cheeseburger delivered to my apartment if I really want, and anything not in arm’s reach can either be gotten by stick, or isn’t worth your trouble in the first place. I’m not exactly what you’d call ‘motivated’. However, words like ‘tech’ and ‘Kogi BBQ’ will get my ears to perk up. By the time you add ‘free booze’ to that string, I’m almost done putting on a pair of pants for the first time in weeks. And if you can manage to wheeze out ‘secret airplane hangar in Santa Monica’ before I put a gun to your head and make you drive me there, you certainly are one fast talker.

As the iPhone commercial says, "there's an app for just about anything." Want to get bruised up by security guards in a dark room behind a casino for counting cards? Yup there's an app for that. Las Vegas Review-Journal reports, "California gaming authorities tipped off their Nevada counterparts to a blackjack card-counting program that can be used on either the Apple iPhone or the Apple iPod Touch portable music player." Counting cards is not illegal in Nevada casinos (just ask these guys) but using a device like an iPhone app to help count cards is considered a felony. The cleverly titled "Blackjack Card Counter" app is still available in the iPhone App store for $3.99.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa yesterday told the Daily News editorial board that a large unseen number of layoffs are coming to city employees. "We can't continue to operate the way we have in the past," he said.

Good news for geeks and the unemployed alike: The internet is the place to work this year. Per a poll conducted by Twiistup ahead of their upcoming meetup event:

Fifty-seven percent of the Southern California start-ups surveyed said the health of the Internet industry in Los Angeles in 2009 will be better than 2008. A significant proportion of respondents, 71%, also said that LA is a better place to build a startup in the Web 2.0 and / or digital media space over the San Francisco / San Jose Bay area.

It seems these days you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone whose glassy eyes are fixated on the tantalizing business card-sized screen of their beloved iPhone. Techies, Apple enthusiasts, and gadget junkies alike, take heed: There are rumors swirling around that hint that a new iPhone could hit stores come summertime, based on some clever 'decoding' by techies of iPhone software update numbering.

On Thursday night, close to a thousand LA Tech scenesters are expected to join together for the first Digital Family Reunion at the Skirball Center. It's an important event that recognizes that Los Angeles, just like Silicon Valley, is a technology and internet hub. "The event will bring together a wide variety of voices who have helped carve the path for Los Angeles’ emergence as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship," explains co-host Jennifer Fader.

A report released this week said that 70% of technology sector companies are not using RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, to communicate with website visitors. But if you, like said tech companies, are not using RSS, it's likely you a) don't really understand RSS or b) haven't taken a leap of faith into the wonderful world of RSS.

Turn to page 56 in the just-released issue of Wired Magazine (Nov., 2008) and you'll see kind face (usually smiling if you meet him in person) of Brian Humphrey at the Los Angeles Fire Department. The one-page blurb talks about the department's tech initiatives such as the much talked about LAFD Twitter, but also some technologies Humphrey is currently working on. For example, at some point, you may be able to type in your home address and get a text alert when it's on fire (eek!). LAist interviewed Humphrey last year about the use of social networking and emergencies. ALSO: Both USA Today and Daily News penned articles about the LAFD's widgets.

This year's election has gone to the tech generation, which can account for this clever way to txt your way into today's Sarah Palin rally in Carson. An E-billboard across from the Home Depot Center was rented by the California Democratic party so that those wishing to pose the Alaskan Gov. and Republican VP nom some more hard-hitting questions could do so via a text message. Watch what came up online here.

There are thousands of people that read this blog via their subscription to LAist's RSS (Really Simple Syndication). But sometimes when people hear the word "RSS," their faces go blank.

As the LA Times Book Prize award ceremony looms ever-closer, we're taking a look at the books nominated in each category. As we mentioned last week, unlike other big literary awards, the LA Times Book Prize winners are never a sure thing, which is what makes following them all the more fun.

As reports and tweets comes out of of SXSW in Austin, TX where BusinessWeek's Sarah Lacy reportedly held a disastrous interview with 23-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, news of the popular social networking site with more of a national and local business twist hit the wires: Paramount will offer movie clips via a Facebook application, a first for the movie industry.

I've got a conundrum, folks. You might, too: In a study entitled "The End of the Music Industry As We Know It" (suggested subhead: "And consumers feel fine"), Forrester Research, Inc., is reporting that half of music sales will be digital by 2011, and digital sales will surpass CDs entirely by 2012.

Lakers 111, Sonics 91 - Seattle had no chance against the surging Lake Show. Kobe was ejected in the third and it didn't matter (double technical after arguing a call -- not a huge deal). LA has won 11 of their last 13 and all but one was on the road. The Lakers got double digit contributions from seven players, led by Pau Gasol's 22.

The AMGEN Tour of California has returned and it started a couple days ago with a time trial in Palo Alto. The tour makes its way to Sacramento today and then starts heading south towards Los Angeles. The race concludes on Sunday, February 24th with Stage 7 which starts in Santa Clarita and finishes in Pasadena.

With so many epic video game titles making their debut last year, 2008 has some pretty big shoes to fill. Several titles released in 2007 undoubtedly rank the highest among several industry top 10 lists; Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, and Mass Effect to name a few. These games have proven and will continue to prove that they will be quite difficult to surpass in quality. Such competition is exactly what makes the gaming industry as successful as it is; publishers pushing hardware technology to the limit to optimize the consumer experience.

• The Daily News has more details on those marijuana vending machines. Besides, you know, the fact that they are TOTALLY AWESOME!
• A rash of gang violence in Watts since the weekend has led to two shooting deaths and the injury of at least 13 others.
• Yahoo is not doing so well: a major drop in fourth quarter profits is going to mean layoffs somewhere in the neighborhood of of 7% of the workforce.
• Four people, including one juvenile, were arrested in Glendale for an attempted carjacking in which the suspects are accused of threatening the driver with a shotgun: "A suspect fired at the frightened driver as he took off in his truck, and shotgun pellets hit the back of the truck."
• More on the USC "Riots" and the cops who spoiled the party, from L.A. blogger WitnessLA: "Now, no one would argue against an officer having the right to use appropriate force on a large, drunk, bottle-throwing college guy. But, in multiple instances eyewitnesses insist that they saw an indiscriminate use of Tasers and batons on non-aggressive students."
• This isn't really news...which doesn't stop it from being TOTALLY AWESOME: make your Guitar Hero controllers into actual instruments!
• An asteroid passed by earth today, a mere 334 thousand miles away from us! Close calls, guys!

Natalie Angier, New York Times reporter and author of Woman: An Intimate Geography, has written foreword to Full Body Project, the recently published book of photographs by Leonard Nimoy (yes Trekkies, Spock). The two will focus their Hammer Conversation on the concepts of beauty and sexuality.

Can I just say that after giving up TV, I have had a bitch of a time trying to find Family Guy and Sex and the City episodes (which I have recently gotten re-addicted to over the Christmas holiday) online. I found a solution (and something else to get addicted to) – OVGuide.com. OVG is now on my Firefox toolbar – and that's a big deal to me, though maybe not you because you don't know how important something has to be to me to land a spot on that toolbar.

A group of enterprising young researchers in UCLA's graduate Computer Science department have discovered a fun new way of using your iPod playlist: Wi-Fi enabled software sends your music preferences to whatever computer is nearby. Then music tailored to your preferences pumps out of the speakers -- can you imagine walking into a coffee shop, and the Carrie Underwood track playing shuts off, and a Matthew Good album slides into the rotation instead? How awesome! What a great way to go about your day!

We've all seen phishing e-mails before (thank you eBay, PayPal) but it's a bit trickier when the e-mail deliberately asking you to pony up your e-mail username and password comes from a sender purporting to be USCTEAM.

It sounds like the plot of a Charlton Heston film from the 70's, but the possibility of meat from cloned livestock has become a reality.

Unfortunately, the uploaded photos were not tagged, leaving it up the Flickr community to do so. Searching for "California" or "Los Angeles" still has limiting results. As Stephen Shankland says at CNET's Underexposed blog, "it's a safe bet that the Library of Congress photos won't immediately sport a huge range of highly descriptive tags... I can't imagine the government would pay on its own to fund some dedicated tagging effort."

Twiistup is hosting its third event tonight at the Air Conditioned Supper Club on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice. What is Twiistup? It's the brainchild of Mike Macadaan who was seeking to fill a need for a fun, tech-focused event that would showcase up-and-coming companies, while providing a casual environment for discovery and networking. Geeks are cool. Southern California tech company startups are hot and Twiistup is the place to be to bring those elements together. The event is sold-out, but never fear, LAist will be there to fill you in on all the excitement and news to come out of the evening.