HEALTH
August 7, 2006 | Linda Marsa, Special to The Times
The tendinitis in Mike Estrada's right arm was getting worse. He couldn't write up work orders for his construction company, carry a briefcase or even staple together papers. But although the pain was aggravated by the repetitive stresses of his job, the ergonomic changes -- getting a new office chair, using a track ball instead of a mouse -- didn't help. Finally, he sought help from doctors at USC. They prescribed not additional work changes, but painkillers and -- exercise.
BUSINESS
June 1, 2006 | David Colker, Times Staff Writer
Is the Motorola Q phone a BlackBerry killer? Or just a pretty face? The Q, which went on sale Wednesday from Verizon Wireless for about $200, has a full-sized keyboard for composing e-mail and text messages. So does Research in Motion's BlackBerry phone, which has become a fixture of business culture. The Q has a bright, color screen. Ditto the comparably priced, newer BlackBerry models. And both have the ability to receive e-mail on the fly. So, what's that different about the Q?
BUSINESS
October 30, 2005 | David Colker, Times Staff Writer
Take a quick glance at Hewlett-Packard Co.'s new smart phone -- the iPaq hw6515 -- and you might think you've seen it before. With its miniature qwerty keyboard, touch screen and five-way navigation button on the front, the iPaq -- available starting this week -- looks a lot like Palm Inc.'s popular Treo 650. In addition to their similar designs, each can be used -- with varying degrees of success -- as a phone, address book, appointment calendar, e-mailer, Web surfer, camera and video player.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 26, 2004 | Lee Romney, Times Staff Writer
For nearly a decade, Kwei Fong Lin tolerated numbness in her forearms. Like a great many Chinese immigrants who work in this city's cramped and poorly equipped garment factories, her neck and back ached from long days spent hunched over a sewing machine while perched on rickety folding chairs, stools or even crates. "We just took the pain as it came," the 52-year-old Hong Kong native said in Cantonese. But an unlikely revolution has taken root here.
AUTOS
August 6, 2003 | Jim Mateja, Chicago Tribune
The assignment, the boss insisted, was simple: Undergo an "ergonomics awakening." So off we set to Northwestern University, where Fred Lupton, a Ford Motor Co. ergonomics engineer, was spending the day sharing his knowledge with budding engineers. Ford's ergonomics engineers must ensure that features and systems on new vehicles are easy to use.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
October 13, 2002 | From a Times Staff Writer
Alphonse Chapanis, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University who pioneered the field of ergonomics, has died. He was 85. Chapanis, who lived in suburban Towson, Md., died Oct. 4 in a Baltimore hospital of complications following knee surgery. Long before the term ergonomics became commonplace with the proliferation of computers in the workplace, Chapanis began his research in what was formerly called human engineering.