Technology

This promises to be the Silent Spring for big print media. Already this year we've lost the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Dozens of other papers have been driven to the brink by double-digit losses in circulation and print advertising revenue and an overburden of untenable corporate debt. My beloved L.A. Times, owned by the bankrupted Tribune Co.

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name the nation's first-ever federal chief technology officer sometime soon. According to Obama's website, the CTO's role will be to "ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century." It's not surprising that Obama plans a major emphasis on technology.

Over the last year, the technology world has been enamored of the possibilities of moving into the cloud. That's the latest trend in computing that enables consumers to forget about storing their software and data on local hard drives -- where it can be zapped by electrical surges and soft-drink spillage -- and let companies such as Amazon .com Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. worry about keeping it safe on a network of remote servers. The cloud computing concept is so appealing that the city of Los Angeles is considering scrapping its current e-mail system and replacing it with a cloud-based offering from Google, joining more than 2 million businesses already using that company's system.

In the airy computer lab at Romero-Cruz Elementary School in Santa Ana, 11-year-old Davis Nguyen quickly completed math problems. Each correct answer let an animated penguin named JiJi take steps across a bridge. The computer game looked simple, but backers say it is part of an innovative and powerful new way to teach math, and standardized test results released Tuesday appear to back up their claims. Across the state, schools saw a 4.5% increase in the number of elementary students scoring "proficient" or "advanced" in math.

When Elliot Aleskow recently checked into the Montage Beverly Hills, the Maryland doctor got a room with what seemed to be typical hotel amenities: A bed, a flat-screen TV, curtains, an alarm clock, lamps and a remote control. But there was nothing typical about the room's built-in technology. Using the remote control and an on-screen television menu, Aleskow programmed the alarm clock to play his favorite music in the morning. He also opened the curtains and set the room temperature and lighting just the way he likes it -- all by pushing a few buttons on the remote.

Children and seniors demand many of the same things from their technology: They want it to work right away. They don't want it to do a million things. And they need it to be secure. "Both groups need simple things with less functionality and more protection," said Robin Raskin, a former PC Magazine editor who founded twin conference sessions on technology for the two age groups at this week's Consumer Electronics Show.

Though 2009 looks just as grim as 2008, organizers of the Consumer Electronics Show last week forecast a few rays of sunshine. The Consumer Electronics Assn. projected growth in organic LED displays, digital book readers, Blu-ray disc players and lightweight laptops called netbooks. Despite a projected 0.3% decline in overall consumer spending in 2009, the trade group said, people will continue to earmark a large chunk of their income for technology.

If the Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama administration looked more like the rotary-dial past. Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy Wednesday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

Microsoft Corp.'s first-ever mass layoffs showed Thursday that even the most rock-steady technology companies are feeling the pain of the global recession. Consumers and corporations are deciding they can do without the latest computers, software and even cellphones as they grapple with what Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called a "once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions."

Intel Corp. plans to spend $7 billion upgrading its U.S. factories over the next two years, a sign that the recession hasn't extinguished chip makers' thirst for cutting-edge equipment. The company's investment, announced Tuesday by Intel Chief Executive Paul S. Otellini in a speech in Washington, speaks to the semiconductor industry's need to keep investing heavily regardless of the poor economic climate that has led Intel to cut jobs.