BUSINESS
November 23, 2011 | By Hugo Martín, Los Angeles Times
A surge in international visitors and huge crowds attending the NBA All-Star weekend and other downtown events have put Los Angeles on track to host a record number of visitors in 2011. "We are forecasting to have more visitors come to Los Angeles than any other year we've ever had," said Mark Liberman, president of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, known as LA Inc. "That is great news. " With a 51% jump in convention room bookings this year and a 16% increase in overseas visitors, the bureau estimates that the city will host more than last year's 25.8 million overnight visitors and surpass the 2007 record of 25.9 million.
BUSINESS
June 8, 2011 | Alex Pham and Ben Fritz
With sales of its 4 1/2-year-old Wii console plummeting and avid gamers spending most of their money on competing devices from Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp., Nintendo Co. has unveiled a new console that it hopes will draw those players back. The Japanese game company showed off the device, which marries an iPad-like touch screen with a traditional controller, at a news conference Tuesday morning before the official opening of the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
BUSINESS
June 17, 2010 | By Hugo Martín and Alex Pham, Los Angeles Times
Electronic software professionals partied at Staples Center to the booming hip-hop sounds of Eminem and Usher. Video game reviewers from around the world spilled out of the Los Angeles Convention Center to stand in line for more than 15 minutes just to buy a cup of coffee. The Electronic Entertainment Expo was back in town this week, bigger and more raucous than last year — a sign, according to city officials, that Los Angeles is fast becoming a top-notch convention town.
ENTERTAINMENT
June 13, 2010 | By Alex Pham, Los Angeles Times
Step away from the controller. Microsoft this week is unveiling a set of video games that don't require people to navigate their way around a complex controller with more buttons than the cockpit of a Boeing 747. Following on the massive success of Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft is introducing a technology, code-named Project Natal, that ditches the controller altogether. Instead, the games will rely on a device the size of a stapler that perches on top of a living room TV to recognize faces, obey voice commands and track body movements.
ENTERTAINMENT
June 13, 2010 | By Alex Pham, Los Angeles Times
.— On a blustery January morning, Michel Laprise found himself in a private conference room within Microsoft Corp.'s labyrinthine campus here, surrounded by 15 of the company's sharpest analytical thinkers. Laprise started his presentation by dumping a pail full of sand on top the conference table, alarming executives who worried about the wiring embedded in the table for PowerPoint presentations and technology demos. Armed with three rocks, a small wooden elephant and a flashlight, he spent an hour weaving a tale of a boy on a quest to locate meteors that have fallen from the sky and to uncover their meaning.
ENTERTAINMENT
June 10, 2010 | By Ross Lincoln, Special to the Los Angeles Times
The Electronic Entertainment Expo goes down Tuesday to June 17, but as expected of L.A.'s biggest annual geek party, the major industry events start before the actual conference begins in hopes of capitalizing on the most media buzz. In fact, this year's official events wrap up on the first day of E3, leaving the spotlight on the exhibitors at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Wednesday and June 17. E3, as it's known, opens its doors only to industry professionals and reporters, but most events are available to virtual "party crashers" via live Web streams.