BUSINESS
May 10, 2013 | By Chris O'Brien, Los Angeles Times
Fly toy helicopters with your mind. Be a DJ and shift musical tracks based on how you feel. Wiggle robotic cat ears by increasing your state of calm. Astonishing advances in the ability to harness brain waves have made the fantastic notion of moving and controlling objects with the mind possible. Now neuroscientists are grappling with another challenge: Find a "killer app" that will demonstrate the true potential of tapping into brain waves and ignite the neurotechnology revolution.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 1, 2013 | By Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times
While Jennifer Clay was at home taking an online exam for her business law class, a proctor a few hundred miles away was watching her every move. Using a webcam mounted in Clay's Los Angeles apartment, the monitor in Phoenix tracked how frequently her eyes shifted from the computer screen and listened for the telltale sounds of a possible helper in the room. Her computer browser was locked - remotely - to prevent Internet searches, and her typing pattern was analyzed to make sure she was who she said she was: Did she enter her password with the same rhythm as she had in the past?
BUSINESS
April 30, 2013 | By Shan Li and Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times
The three-day Milken Institute Global Conference kicked off Monday in Beverly Hills, with media moguls Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch among the hundreds of business leaders and politicians slated to speak. The annual event, run by financier and philanthropist Michael Milken, will also host talks by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Vice President Al Gore, Magic Johnson and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. There are close to 4,000 attendees this year watching 600 panelists participating in some 140 sessions.
NATIONAL
April 20, 2013 | By Monte Morin
Talk about heat from law enforcement. As thousands of police officers closed in on Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday evening, airborne authorities relied on thermal imaging technology to confirm the fugitive's position in a stored sailboat. “We have what's called a FLIR - a forward-looking infrared device - on that helicopter. It picked up the heat signature of the individual," said Col. Timothy Alben of the Massachusetts State Police. PHOTOS: Manhunt for bombing suspects Bloodied from an earlier gun battle with police, Tsarnaev, 19, had crawled into a plastic-covered boat that was stored in the backyard of a Watertown, Mass., home.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 20, 2013 | By David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Critic
Atwood will appear at the Festival of Books in conversation with Michael Silverblatt at 11 a.m. on Saturday. More information: latimes.com/festivalofbooks If you want a sense of how Margaret Atwood operates, you could do a lot worse than to watch her keynote address at the 2011 O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference in New York. "This is not the kind of thing I usually do," the author begins, speaking in a quiet deadpan, before stepping from behind a podium and moving to the lip of the stage.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 20, 2013 | By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times
In one of the stranger plot twists in Hollywood, BitTorrent Inc., the technology company whose name was once synonymous in the creative community with Internet piracy, is now doing business with the film industry. The San Francisco company is partnering with Cinedigm, a leading Los Angeles distributor of independent films across digital platforms, to promote its newest release, "Arthur Newman," starring Colin Firth and Emily Blunt. Starting Monday, BitTorrent will help promote the film by inviting the 170 million users of its software - which helps facilitate the transfer of large data files - to watch the first seven minutes of the film prior to its theatrical release Friday.