Computer Applications

Gardena police are taking law enforcement in a new direction: Instead of just tailing the bad guys, they're tracking the good ones. Using a system like the one used to recover stolen cars, Gardena is monitoring the movement of its patrol cars, prisoner transport vehicle and undercover detectives. It is the first law enforcement agency in the nation to use the high-tech system to follow its police force. "I feel more comfortable using Teletrac," said Officer Nick Pepper.

Viacom Inc., the parent of powerful cable networks MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, is now fighting with two big cable operators over putting its content on tablet devices such as Apple's iPad. Viacom, which is already in a legal battle with Time Warner Cable, on Thursday filed a similar suit against Cablevision Systems Corp. saying the cable company does not have the right to put its channels on the iPad. Both suits were filed in federal court in New York. Such disputes are becoming common in the media industry.

It's the age of the customized commuter. At least, that's the vision of Rapid Transit District officials. In the latest move to encourage more drivers to leave their cars at home, the RTD announced Tuesday a computerized planning service that gives commuters a tailor-made schedule for taking the bus from home to work and back. "It's a whole new way of reaching out and touching someone," RTD spokesman James Smart said at a news conference Tuesday.

A review of computer systems around the country has yielded potential information-sharing fixes that might prevent deaths or injuries in the child-welfare system here, Los Angeles County officials said Friday, but none can be put in place without legislative changes. Among the likely contenders to replace the county's much-maligned computer system, known as the Family and Children's Index, is a Web-based portal, similar to a search engine, that would allow authorized users to freely exchange information.

Viacom Inc., the parent of powerful cable networks MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, is now fighting with two big cable operators over putting its content on tablet devices such as Apple's iPad. Viacom, which is already in a legal battle with Time Warner Cable, on Thursday filed a similar suit against Cablevision Systems Corp. saying the cable company does not have the right to put its channels on the iPad. Both suits were filed in federal court in New York. Such disputes are becoming common in the media industry.

Long after Arnold Sauro retired from police work, he was plagued by the memory of one murder. He remembered how the victim was found, lying face down in bed, beaten and strangled, a silk stocking wrapped around her neck. He remembered her Hollywood apartment, the most brutal murder scene he had ever worked, with blood splattered on the walls, the ceiling and the bed.

Out on the edge of the Pacific, on a patio stretching below the swank Ritz-Carlton hotel, the groom smiled nervously. His bride looked radiant, hair encircled with flowers, wedding dress trailing behind as she stepped slowly down the aisle, father at her side. In most ways, the Saturday fete was like any other wedding. Except one. The bride is paralyzed from the chest down. But she was able to stride delicately across the bricks because of the ingenuity of the man she was marrying.

Addressing wedding invitations by computer? Surely Miss Manners would disapprove. Well maybe, and maybe not. Meet InScribe, a computerized calligraphy system that's so sophisticated that it even makes tiny errors--just like a real human calligrapher. Instead of a printer, the InScribe uses a mechanical claw holding a calligraphy pen attached to an Epson Equity II computer. Because it employs a real pen, the result is lettering virtually indistinguishable from hand-drawn calligraphy.

Creative Computer Applications Inc., which sells information systems for health care companies, reported a 56% decrease in net income for its first quarter that ended Nov. 30, to $44,244, compared with $101,032 for the prior year's quarter. However, the Calabasas-based company reported a 17% increase in revenues for the quarter, to $1.4 million, compared with $1.2 million in the same period a year earlier. The company blames the reduction in net income on expenses associated with an

Like many financial institutions, Security Pacific National Bank had a problem with fraud, specifically fraudulent use of debit cards at automated teller machines and sales counters. And, like other financial institutions, Security Pacific discovered that fighting the problem by trying to recover losses was far less effective than preventing fraud in the first place.

Want to put a pillow on your relationship and smother it? Or maybe hit an extended snooze on that incessant biological clock? Grab your Apple iPhone: There's an app for that. Girlfriend Keeper Price: 99 cents What it is: For some reason, that David Lee Roth song "Just a Gigolo" from the '80s kept playing in my head when I set this one up. The app's name might be ironic. The app is either a fun, lighthearted take on flirtation or the lazy lover's crutch to communication.

How long does it take to get to Saturn at, say, the speed of light? With Wolfram Alpha, the online "computational knowledge engine" that launched Monday, the answer -- 75 minutes -- can be found in a fraction of a second. Web users can submit customized questions to the service, and Wolfram Alpha will try to work out the answer on the fly. The chance that a healthy 35-year-old woman will contract heart disease in the next 10 years? One in 167. The temperature in Washington, D.C.

California's system for providing jobless benefits is quickly running out of money even as state government scrambles to keep up with the highest level of unemployment in almost 15 years. Meanwhile, other state services for the jobless are stretched thin as the state's unemployment rate rose in November to 8.4%, up from 8.2% the month before. Millions of calls to state unemployment insurance processing centers continue to go unanswered, a problem first reported by The Times in April.

In a computer lab at UCLA, the worlds of cyberspace and Medieval Europe merge. A large group of computer engineers, scholars, students and other experts at UCLA have built a virtual cathedral -- a computer re-creation of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral as the building probably appeared when it was dedicated in northwest Spain in 1211. Projected onto a screen curving nearly a half-circle, the image looks as if it belongs in the virtual world of a video game.

After 13 years of brute-force computer analysis examining all 500 billion billion possible board positions, researchers announced Thursday that they had solved the centuries-old game of checkers. The result? A perfect game cannot be won or lost but will inevitably end in a draw, according to the research published in the journal Science online.

What better way to pay tribute to this era of computer rankings and bowl championship series standings than pre-playing the most anticipated game in BCS history on a computer? The Times asked the people at Whatifsports.com, an Internet site that specializes in sports replays, to simulate today's Rose Bowl matchup between top-ranked USC and No. 2 Texas -- 50 times. One team won 36 of the 50 simulated games, its most representative victory recapped below.

"My God, it's an opera," Steven Spielberg said after he saw Ridley Scott's "Gladiator." DreamWorks, Spielberg's company, had nurtured the neo-sword-and-sandals epic from the start: Writer David Franzoni first mentioned his fascination with the mad Roman emperor Commodus to Spielberg back when they were collaborating on "Amistad" in the mid-'90s.

Like almost everyone she knows, Dianna Boundy believes in the righteousness of the digital revolution. Twelve hours a day, she's "jacked in." At work, she designs computer games and e-mails her colleagues just down the hall. At home she surfs the Web till midnight, balances her electronic checkbook and e-mails friends around the world. In between, there's her cellular phone and new car stereo--the one that purrs "hello" when she turns it on. She doesn't know Richard Murphy.

Digital video recording pioneer ReplayTV plans to announce today that it will start selling software next year that helps personal-computer users tune in to and record live television. The company said its software would be sold with Hauppauge Digital Inc.'s WinTV-PVR tuner-encoder card, hardware that can be added to a PC. ReplayTV, owned by D&M Holdings Inc.

Geoff Lester's two iPods can hold 20,000 songs, so he turned to the iTunes Music Store, which stocks 1.5 million online selections. But how to choose? After the 28-year-old Los Angeles resident picked a few tracks, the software algorithms powering iTunes took over, popping out song after song they calculated that he might like. He did. He estimates that he bought 500 tracks he otherwise wouldn't have over the last two years.