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Los Angeles schools award $30 million iPad contract to Apple
The Los Angeles Unified School District is redirecting US$30 million of its budget to provide roughly 35,000 iPads to 47 district schools, the Los Angeles Times reports. Because the devices will come pre-loaded with educational software, the price per unit clocks in at a hefty $678. LAUSD is the nation's second-largest school district with nearly 695,000 students as of data released in 2009, only surpassed by the New York City Department of Education with more than 1 million students. The LA Times says that the actual benefits to Apple will actually be in the hundreds of millions of dollars during the two-year contract. LAUSD's superintendent John Deasy appeared in a video as part of Apple's textbook event in New York City in 2012, which was the launch of iBooks Author and iTunes U. [via All Things D]
App Developers' Conference dated, call for papers open now
GDC is the Game Developers' Conference that happens every year up in San Francisco, and the company also hosts a number of other GDC events all over the world. Usually, they do GDC Online in Austin, TX every fall, but that conference has recently been changed into two different conferences, both of which are set to take place later this year in Los Angeles. One half of the conference will be called GDC Next, and will focus on the future of gaming development, featuring things like the new Ouya console, cloud gaming, and next generation platforms. And the other half is now called the App Developers' Conference, and will focus on not just game development, but mobile app development as well. Both shows are being held in Los Angeles on November 5-7, 2013, and both shows are now open for submissions for panels and talks. ADC is obviously looking for app makers who can speak on the design, business, and actual programming of apps, so there will undoubtedly be some talented iOS developers there that week. If you have a great idea you'd like to present, you'll need to get your submission in by May 29. It's interesting to note this change. The official GDC itself has also been swinging more towards mobile game development, and away from major studio talks and presentations. This last year at GDC, there was an indie scene like I've never experienced before, and while some of that was driven by major publishers like Sony and Microsoft, much of it has to do with Apple's App Store and other mobile opportunities. As a result, more than ever of GDC is dedicated specifically to smaller mobile developers, and these two new conferences are part of that push.
LA is on the Formula E schedule next year, electric racer hits the streets to celebrate
The FIA's upcoming Formula E series has revealed two US dates on its début 2014 calendar (Los Angeles, Miami) and yesterday it took to LA's streets to promote the partnership. For Earth Day, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa welcomed Formula E Holdings CEO Alejandro Agag downtown along with a Formula E racecar for the exhibition. The race will run on downtown streets next year, although the exact route the 140MPH-capable EVs will take has yet to be locked down. Unfortunately there's no video of the event so while you can't not-hear its electric engine humming along as it burned rubber in the streets, the pictures in this gallery and video from its Moscow and Rome exhibitions will have to do. Update: Now there is a video available of yesterday's event, shot from onboard Lucas di Grassi's car. You can find it embedded after the break, complete with high pitched electric whine.%Gallery-186548%
Daily iPhone App: Artkive helps you save your child's artwork for posterity
I first learned about Artkive last week at an event here in LA, put on by Technori and designed to show off some of the best startup ideas in the City of Angels. The company has been around for quite a while, and has picked up a whole lot of buzz from mom bloggers and the parenting industry (which explains why I'm so late on it: I don't have kids and don't plan to any time soon). But I have to admit, after watching the presentation at Technori, that Artkive is a really impressive app, with a lot of potential going forward. The basic idea with the app, as you might have guessed from the name, is that it's designed to work as an "art archive" of your children's work. All parents get plenty of artwork from their kids as they grow up, be those macaroni sculptures, finger paintings or just roughly scribbled-on coloring books, and sometimes that art goes on the fridge or into a box at the bottom of the closet. But Artkive's goal is to keep it saved away digitally, available to either be shared with others via social networks, or eventually printed off into a keepsake book or on other items. The app is as simple as it gets -- you simply use the iPhone's camera to take a picture of your kid's art, you can tag it with some relevant information like their age or where it was done, and then you have a quickly growing archive of all of their work. Artkive's representatives at the Technori pitch pointed out that while the app has been smoothed over through its various versions and iterations, it's far from done. Not only do they have lots of opportunities in terms of licensing and item sales (one company has even approached them to try and make a set of Artkive-branded creative tools like a paint easel or a crayon set), but what they'd like to do eventually is turn the app into an archive of everything your kid does including art, which would mean pictures as they grow, any special awards or commendations, or anything else you'd like to save from your child's childhood. That's a pretty big idea -- for now, Artkive is obviously focused on just keeping the art safe. This is definitely a solid app, and if your child is at that age where every other day they're bringing home something creative, this might be the perfect way to track and store exactly that they've done. Artkive is a free download, available right now from the App Store.
Sprint leak reportedly has LTE reaching Los Angeles, 20 other markets on April 12th (update)
Sprint has been teasing for weeks that its LTE network would soon launch in Los Angeles. If a fresh leak from Phone Arena proves true, we may at last be down to the final hours before the Now Network officially flicks the switch for those Angelenos -- and a good chunk of the US population, for that matter. The staff memo reportedly has LTE formally launching in 21 markets on April 12th, with LA being joined by larger cities across the US like Charlotte, Memphis, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Newport News. Its schedule also has a number of sizable cities joining the mix across 10 states, with multi-city expansions on the way in California, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and (as you likely noticed) Virginia. Although the faster 4G service still won't be ubiquitous on Sprint if the rollout goes ahead as claimed, the expansion could be a very convenient complement to the HTC One launch. Update: Much like San Francisco, LA will be something of a soft launch: Sprint has noted that bits and pieces of the LTE network are in testing.
NYT: Penguin to extend ebook and audiobook library rentals to LA and Cleveland
Penguin will refresh its ebook lending system later today, according to a report from the New York Times. The publisher will start lending out its titles in Los Angeles and Cleveland, mimicking the program that trialled (despite some DRM issues) in New York. Public library users can even expect downloadable audiobooks to join the lending list soon, through a team-up between Penguin and OneClickDigital. Expect the same lending rules, with new books appearing six months after their first release and the bizarre 'one copy at a time' system, in which each title can only be rented at one person at any one time. Worse still, at least for libraries, at the end of each year they must buy each title again or lose access to the digital copy. [Image courtesy Sten Rüdrich]
Boxee hands out free Boxee TVs to its most eager cloud DVR fans
If you like the idea of the Boxee TV, you'll be glad to hear that Boxee is handing units out like so much Halloween candy... as long as you live in the right areas, that is. Those who've signed up for product notifications and live in the cloud DVR coverage areas of Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, DC can get a free Boxee TV just by filling out a survey. They'll even have the privilege of getting their units ahead of everyone else. Boxee hasn't said if any new sign-ups will qualify, though it can't hurt to try the source link and potentially get a welcome treat.
Visualized: Space shuttle Endeavour goes on a crosstown journey through LA streets
The space shuttle Endeavour finally bid adieu to its fans in Southern California last weekend, not in the air, but on city streets. The L.A. Times captured this remarkable feat in a time-lapse video, and it's quite a sight to see the orbiter sailing past suburban houses and fast food drive-thrus. Along its 12-mile crosstown trip from LAX to the California Science Center in Exposition Park, the shuttle atop a special transporter had to maneuver past trees, utility poles and of course hundreds of enthralled residents. This came weeks after it made its farewell tour over the California coast perched on a Boeing 747. Take a peek at the Endeavour's final fascinating journey at the source.
MacTech announces Walt Disney Animation Studios tour, filling up fast
Registration is currently underway for the 2012 MacTech Conference here in Los Angeles (October 17-19), and MacTech publisher Neil Ticktin has sent along some new information about what's going on at the conference this year, and it sounds amazing. In addition to the previously announced sessions from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and keynote speaker Matt Drance, MacTech will also take attendees over to the Walt Disney Animation Studios for a special behind-the-scenes tour, and have a special exhibit of "Hollywood treasures" for attendees to check out. There have also been some post-conference events added, including some interesting technical panels as well as some official Apple Certification Exams. This conference is always a great time, and in addition to all of the fun, MacTech also offers up two solid presentation tracks, one for developers and the other for IT professionals. You can register for the conference right now -- Ticktin tells us it's filling up quick, so hurry over and sign up if you're interested. MacTech 2012 will run from Wednesday to Friday October 17-19, 2012 at the Sheraton Universal in Los Angeles. TUAW will be in attendance as well -- we hope to see you there!
Deezmaker 3D Printer Store opens in Pasadena, will sell you a slice of the future for $600
If the MakerBot store in Manhattan is the East coast's vanguard for 3D printer stores, Deezmaker's just-opened store in Pasadena, California is the equivalent pioneer for the West coast crew. As of now, you can walk through the doors at 290 North Hill Avenue and at least see the store's own Bukobot printer in action, even if high demand through Kickstarter pre-orders precludes walk-in sales for the next few weeks. When you can make that impulse purchase, however, you'll find the Bukobot at a relatively cheap $600 and may see some alternatives during your visit. Store owner and Bukobot creator Diego Porqueras stresses to Ars Technica that he wants Deezmaker lasting for the long haul, and he may have chosen just the right area to make that happen -- the shop is a stone's throw from the experimenters (and simply curious) at Caltech, NASA's JPL and Pasadena City College. No matter how it all shakes out, we're hoping that the two near-simultaneous store openings are the start of a larger trend that takes 3D printing into the mainstream.
GDC Online coming to LA, rebranded as App Developers Conference
For the past few years, the Game Developers Conference has held a satellite show in Austin, Texas called GDC Online (and I went there a few years back for TUAW to cover the mobile gaming track). But GDC has announced that this year is the last year it'll do GDC Online in Austin. Starting next year, the conference (which has mostly been about online gaming) is moving to Los Angeles, and will be renamed the App Developers Conference. The event will be co-located with another show called GDC Next (which will apparently feature everything outside of standard mobile app gaming), and both will share an open expo floor. The two events will take place on November 5-7, 2013. Essentially, this all means that GDC is changing its focus for this satellite show, from the originally very popular market of MMOs and online games to the currently very hot market of mobile apps and tablet/smartphone gaming. For the last few years, even the original GDC conference in San Francisco has had a growing focus on mobile gaming (first adding a mobile gaming track and then filling it out to be almost half of the show's content), but this is the biggest change to the conference's lineup yet. Since I am based in LA, we'll plan to have coverage straight from the show next year; no matter what direction this new show takes, you'll be sure to hear about it.
SIGGRAPH 2012 wrap-up
Considering that SIGGRAPH focuses on visual content creation and display, there was no shortage of interesting elements to gawk at on the show floor. From motion capture demos to 3D objects printed for Hollywood productions, there was plenty of entertainment at the Los Angeles Convention Center this year. Major product introductions included ARM's Mali-T604 GPU and a handful of high-end graphics cards from AMD, but the highlight of the show was the Emerging Technologies wing, which played host to a variety of concept demonstrations, gathering top researchers from institutions like the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo and MIT. The exhibition has come to a close for the year, but you can catch up with the show floor action in the gallery below, then click on past the break for links to all of our hands-on coverage, direct from LA.%Gallery-162185%
MacTech conference returning to LA in October
I've been to the MacTech Mac and IT consultants conference a few years in a row now, and I have to say: If you do any Apple consulting or development, it's a great show to see. The Sheraton Universal here in Los Angeles is a great setting, and MacTech publisher Neil Ticktin always puts an excellent event together, filling the three day schedule with great speakers, lots of opportunities to network and talk with other pros (over excellent food and drink), and even some nice offsite trips, like parties at Universal Studios and special events at places like the famous Griffith Observatory. MacTech has just announced details for this year's flagship conference in Los Angeles, and as you can see, there will be some very big names and faces showing up at the Sheraton from October 17-19 this year. The joint sessions will be run by two department heads from the Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Mac luminaries like Andy Ihnatko, Andy Lee, and Kyle Kinkade will host sessions along with lots of other good folks from the community around the world. Registration is open now -- early bird pricing is $999 ($300 off of regular pricing) and ends on August 31. MacTech is always a great time every year, and this year promises to be no different. If you have an interest in this show, be sure to get your tickets as soon as possible. TUAW is a media sponsor of this event, and has worked with MacTech on event coverage in the past.
We're live from SIGGRAPH 2012 in Los Angeles!
Most of us experience the Los Angeles Convention Center during one of its most chaotic weeks of the year, when tens of thousands of gaming industry manufacturers, video game designers and consumers descend upon downtown LA for the annual E3 expo, booth-babe radar tweaked to 11. There's a hint of graphics prowess amid the halls this week, too, albeit on a vastly smaller scale, and with a heavy heap of civility. SIGGRAPH is a trade event through and through, with attendees demonstrating their latest tech, taking in a handful of seminars or hunting for networking opportunities, in search of employment and partnerships. It's often also a venue for product launches, which is what's brought us out, along with the usual bounty of kooky creations that serve to entertain and lighten the mood. As always, we'll be bringing you a little bit of everything over the next few days, letting you sample the best of SIGGRAPH from the comfort of your own device -- head over to our SIGGRAPH 2012 tag to follow along.
E3 loves LA, staying through 2015
Video game journalists worried about not being able to make their annual trek to Amoeba Records and Secret Headquarters Comics can breathe a collective sigh of relief -- through 2015, at least. The Entertainment Software Association, the organization behind E3, announced today that it will be keeping the massive gaming show in Los Angeles for another three years. Next year's show will be hitting the LA Convention center on June 11th. More info and some quotes from a very happy Southern California mayor after the break.
KCRW launches MALCOLM music service to help indie bands in need
Being a DJ at radio station can be an embarrassment of riches. And really, who's going to listen to you complain about having too much music to listen to? Santa Monica's terrifically wonderful public radio station KCRW is looking to take a little bit of the pain of finding new music for its DJs, with the launch of MALCOLM, a site that lets artists submit their music for consideration -- a nice attempt at continued outreach in a medium so dominated by charts and major label interference. Bands can create profiles with images, bios and social media links, alongside up to three tracks. MALCOLM serves as a bit of a social network for the station's DJs, letting them share tracks and interact with profiles, alerting artists via email when someone has commented on or rated their listing. More information on the service, which borrows its name from KCRW's old internal record filing system, can be found in the press release after the break. Interested bands can submit songs in the source link below.
Live from Microsoft's mystery press conference in Los Angeles!
When Microsoft calls a last-minute press conference to make a "major" announcement, there's only one sensible thing to do: pack your bags, fly to Los Angeles and get ready to hear what Ballmer & Co. have to say. With no hints whatsoever (not even a cheekily worded invitation!), we've nothing but speculation and rumors to guide us as we head into this news conference. Will we hear about Win8 tablets -- specifically, a Kindle Fire competitor running Windows RT? Or maybe today's news elaborates on Xbox Music? All we know is that it won't have anything to do with Windows Phone, seeing as how Microsoft is holding another press event just two days from now where it's promised to give us a sneak peek at Apollo. Oh-so mysterious of Redmond, and all the more reason for us to host a liveblog. The doors here open at 3:30pm local time, so stay tuned as we bring you up-to-the-minute coverage on Microsoft's big reveal. June 18, 2012 6:30 PM EDT
Microsoft plans 'major announcement' for Monday, June 18th
It's not offering much in the way of hints, but Microsoft has just invited the press to an event in Los Angeles on Monday, June 18th for what it promises will be a "major Microsoft announcement." While it didn't have any more to say than that, the company's Windows Phone summit does follow later that week, and there's been no shortage of Microsoft-related rumors as of late, including a possible acquisition of Yammer (reported today by Bloomberg), and long-running talk of Office for iPad, which was again revived earlier this month. Whatever it is, we'll be there to bring you the news as it happens. Update: Citing "sources outside the company," AllThingsD is reporting that the event will focus on Windows RT for ARM-based tablets, and that Microsoft will be showing off devices running the OS as well as some of the programs and services that will be available for them.
We're live from E3 2012 in Los Angeles!
Well friends, a barrage of gaming glory is about to descend on southern California. The 2012 edition of E3 begins today with a handful of pre-show press conferences from the industry's big three. We're on the ground at the Los Angeles Convention Center and surrounding area to bring you coverage of all the happenings. While we don't anticipate any big console reveals from Microsoft or Sony, we are looking forward to Unreal Engine 4, Wii U news, Smart Glass, some sort of PlayStation news and a dash of mobile gaming. If you're looking to follow along easily, keep an eye on our event hub for all of the latest game-centered coverage.
Clearwire's TDD-LTE rolling out in 'early 2013,' coming to NYC, SF, LA, Chicago, Seattle and more
Clearwire's hardly throwing in the towel after that whole "WiMAX" thing; instead, the outfit has its sights firmly set on bringing TDD-LTE to the masses here in America, starting with an initial rollout in early 2013. A release put out today confirms that New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle will be among the 31 cities where the company will launch the aforesaid network, though there's no breakdown on which of those metro markets will be forced to wait until "mid-2013" to get served. Speaking of, Clearwire's making no bones about the fact that "high demand hot zones" will be the ones targeted initially, and in a bid to outshine those LTE networks already live, President and CEO Erik Prusch is suggesting that his firm's 4G network "will show that not all LTE networks are created equal." Bold words, sir.
