Electronic Equipment

The U.S. Trademark Office, reversing a decision last July, has decided to review whether a controversial patent awarded to La Palma inventor Gilbert P. Hyatt should instead be granted to a former Texas Instruments engineer. The proceeding, known in official jargon as an interference, will focus on who was first to invent the computer-on-a-chip--the brain of all electronic equipment from microwave ovens to pocket calculators.

Three gunmen are wanted in connection with a series of robberies at Radio Shack and Wherehouse Music stores in the Los Angeles area, police said Tuesday. Los Angeles police say the men began their robberies Oct. 19 and have hit 30 stores. Surveillance cameras show three men using semiautomatic handguns to rob the shops during business hours. No one has been injured so far. The suspects are described as 25 to 30 years old with black hair and brown eyes.

An office of the IBM Corp. recently gave $75,000 worth of office and electronic equipment to Costa Mesa High School. Principal Ed Harcharik said he and other school employees worked for three days during the winter holiday to move equipment into the school. The surplus equipment was available because the IBM sales office on Anton Boulevard is shrinking due to buyouts, said spokeswoman Terri Johnson. Johnson said IBM offices are encouraged to help nonprofit organizations in their region.

A layer of gunk clung to just about everything in the Sepulveda Basin on Monday after flooding from the weekend's storms--hardly surprising for a flood basin. But near the center of the muddy basin stood a 6-foot-high traffic signal control tower, looking clean, shiny and brand new. That's because it was. Every time the basin floods--which it is designed to do during major storms--the electronic control unit has to be replaced with a new unit. The replacement cost: $6,000. And that's every time.

Chinese officials appear to have no legal basis for detaining crew members or seizing electronic equipment on the U.S. spy plane that landed in southern China after a midair collision, several American experts in international law said Tuesday. Accidents in international air or sea traffic, even those involving military vessels, generally require nations to assist the victims and keep hands off the stricken planes or ships, the experts said.

The gulf between the sound you hear in a first-rate cinema and the sound you hear at home from a videocassette or a laser disc is as between night and day, or at very least late dusk and day. Where is the sense that you are in the middle of the sound, or that a jet is roaring past your left shoulder, or just that not all the talkers are clustered in the center of the room?

This is about that vision thing, that tele-vision thing, and how two demographically correct California towns separated by geography and cable companies are about to have their vision thing tested. A contemporary tale of two cities . . . for some, perhaps, the best of times, the worst of times, for some an age of wisdom or possibly an age of foolishness. Cerritos in the south. Castro Valley to the north.

Rashida Redd punched in a six-digit code in her Pontiac Grand Prix and got a new lease on life. The 34-year-old Pottstown, Pa., mother of five had to file for bankruptcy protection about a year ago in the face of mounting medical bills from her husband's open-heart surgery. Despite her poor credit history, Redd was able to lease the 3-year-old car from Williams Pre-Owned of Limerick on the condition that it have a starter-interrupt device. "At least I was able to save the house," Redd said.

Ron Arnone inherited a love of song from his father, who had once been a vaudeville performer. The problem is, Arnone can't sing--at least he thought he couldn't until he stumbled upon karaoke . "I was pretty much a shy guy before then," the former advertising consultant said. But one day he bought a sing-along system for his office, "just to show clients," and began toying with it. That was four years ago.

The world's two largest commodities exchanges, under the gun to clean up fraudulent practices in their trading pits, said Wednesday that they will jointly develop new hand-held electronic equipment that will make it more difficult for traders to falsify their records.