Wireless

EDMONTON, Canada - With a daughter to feed, no job and $200 in the bank, Detroit pipe fitter Scott Zarembski boarded a plane on a one-way ticket to this industrial capital city. He'd heard there was work in western Canada. Turns out he'd heard right. Within days he was wearing a hard hat at a Shell oil refinery 15 miles away in Fort Saskatchewan. Within six months he had earned almost $50,000. That was 2009. And he's still there. "If you want to work, you can work," said Zarembski, 45. "And it's just getting started.

A list of upcoming concerts across the Southland, with on-sale dates in parentheses. Hollywood Bowl Incubus, Oct. 7 (Sat.) Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Slightly Stoopid, Sept. 27 (Fri.); Lil Wayne, Aug. 26 (Sat.) Greek Theatre Beirut, Oct. 4 (Sat.) Hollywood Palladium Dropkick Murphys, Oct. 15; Bring Me the Horizon, Sept. 2 (Fri.) The Wiltern Straight No Chaser, Dec. 9 (Fri.); Ladytron, Sept. 24 (Sat.) City National Grove of Anaheim Matt Maher, Sept.

Last spring, the creators of the Pebble smartwatch shocked the tech community when their Kickstarter campaign raised $10 million .  It was still a long road from when the campaign closed in May to when Pebble finally started shipping its first smartwatches to backers in January. And while the initial batch of watches came out in a slow trickle, the pace kicked up in late February and early March. And now, 10 months later, Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky is thrilled with the reception the product is receiving and to finally be getting feedback from users.

Sprint Chief Executive Daniel Hesse was in Irvine last week to pick up two J.D. Power awards given to the Kansas-based carrier and Boost Mobile, one of its prepaid brands. The awards, given for rating the highest for customer purchase experience, come at a time of enormous change for the wireless carrier. Sprint is currently in the process of purchasing spectrum from U.S. Cellular, buying Clearwire and being in the middle of a takeover bid by both Japan's SoftBank and Dish Network.

Going to a large sporting event usually means you won't have Internet connection until you leave the stadium, but Los Angeles' Staples Center will no longer have that problem. The arena, which is home to the Lakers, Clippers and the Kings, has been outfitted to provide attendees with free Wi-Fi courtesy of Verizon Wireless. Thursday night's NHL playoff game between the Kings and the San Jose Sharks will be the first time users can try out the building's new wireless network. That means the next time you want to check in on Facebook or Foursquare, send out a tweet about Blake Griffin's monster jam, or publish an Instagram of Kobe Bryant, you won't have to wait until your data network gets unclogged.

The digital doctor will see you now. Just pull out your smartphone. Want to track your blood pressure? Make checking your pulse as easy as saying "cheese"? Figure out your eyeglasses prescription or diagnose an ear infection? "The smartphone is effectively becoming a scientific instrument," says Frank Moss of the MIT Media Lab. With modern high-resolution screens and powerful computing ability, the smartphone can perform tests that previously required a doctor's visit. And more cheaply.

Apple down? RIM up? It's like investors have entered a smartphone bizarro world. Following an unconfirmed report of waning iPhone 5 sales, nervous investors briefly drove Apple's stock below $500 on Monday, continuing a slide from a peak of more than $700 in September. Kicking sand in Apple's face, chief rival Samsung announced Monday it has sold 100 million Galaxy S smartphones. And even the stock of struggling Research in Motion, whose sales of BlackBerrys were crushed by the iPhone in recent years, soared 10% amid optimism that Apple's weakness might help it rebound.

Karla Rendon stood in front of the vending machine at Maplewood Mall in St. Paul, Minn., staring at an assortment of items ? diapers, baby wipes, sippy cups, bottles, grape juice and diaper rash ointment. Just what a mother shopping with her 13-month-old baby needed. "I wish there had been one of these when I was at the Mall of America," said Rendon of Maplewood, Minn., recalling a recent excursion with daughters Makayla, 5, and Daisy, 13 months. On that day, Rendon had forgotten Daisy's bottle.

Garden Grove resident Ken Licht is in the market for a new cellphone. But he can't get a good explanation of why he'll have to pay sales tax on the full price of a handset ? even though most phones are heavily discounted by wireless companies or given away free. It's a question I get asked a lot. And with nearly 300 million cellphones now in use in the United States ? meaning that 93% of the population is sporting a mobile device, according to the wireless industry ? it's probably not a bad idea to explain what's going on. First of all, Licht made the same observation that probably all cellphone customers have made at one time or another.

Here's some Ozzy Osbourne news that has nothing to do with the singer's marital troubles : Black Sabbath is headed out on a full North American tour. The legendary English heavy-metal band -- or three-fourths of it, anyway -- announced Thursday that it will launch a 20-city swing through North America on July 25 in Houston. The tour is scheduled to stop Aug. 28 at Irvine's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater before wrapping at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Sept. 3. The shows are to begin not long after the scheduled June 11 release of "13," Black Sabbath's first album with Osbourne since "Never Say Die!"