Los Angeles

The trial of a Missouri woman charged in a tragic MySpace hoax resumed Thursday. Testimony began Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in the controversial trial of Lori Drew, who is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of computer fraud.

The charges stem from her alleged participation in a MySpace hoax which may have caused the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier. Drew is being tried under the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act.

On the first day of the LA Auto Show BMW Group's MINI division made the world Premiere of their much anticipated MINI-E electric car. While the car is not yet ready to be put into production, MINI will be releasing 500 units on lease to drivers in California and New York in order to study the car's performance in the real world.

The trial of the closely watched case involving a Missouri mother who allegedly started a hoax on MySpace resulting in a teenage girl's suicide is set to start as the court begins jury selection.

Lori Drew will be on trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. She is being prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Drew's daughter, a minor, and her now-19-year-old employee Ashley Grills are also accused of participating in the hoax.

Lori Drew garnered headlines after being painted as a vindictive mother whose online actions allegedly led to a 13-year-old girl's suicide.

But when jury selection begins Tuesday in a Los Angeles federal courtroom, a judge said he would instruct jurors that the case is about whether the 49-year-old Missouri mother violated the terms of service of the MySpace social networking site, not about whether she caused the suicide of Megan Meier.

A video for the title track on hip-hop veteran Common's forthcoming album, "Universal Mind Control," begins with a digital music player pulsing to the beat. The viewer is pulled through the screen into the gadget's guts, where the cool, collected rapper lets loose an easy stream of lyrics.

It takes hitting rewind a few times to notice that the music player isn't one of Apple's slim new iPods. It's a Zune, and it's made by Microsoft Corp.

Solid-state drives with random write speeds as much as 100 times faster than existing systems. That's the promise of a "next-generation patented flash management system" unveiled Wednesday by SanDisk.

The company said the system, called ExtremeFFS and announced at the WinHEC 2008 trade show in Los Angeles, will ship in SanDisk products next year.

Decoupling Physical and Logical Locations

Windows 7 may have gotten much of the attention at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday, but on Wednesday other Microsoft programs got their turn to shine.

In keynote speeches by Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group; Scott Guthrie, vice president of Microsoft's .NET Developer Division; and others, attendees were shown demos of Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0.

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it plans to finally allow the crown jewels of its applications -- the Microsoft Office suite -- to be delivered through Web browsers.

The announcement was made at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
Chris Capossela, senior vice president of the Microsoft Business Division, said Office Web will allow users to employ lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote to create, edit and collaborate with Office documents through a Web browser.

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it plans to finally allow the crown jewels of its applications -- the Microsoft Office suite -- to be delivered through Web browsers.

The announcement was made at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
Chris Capossela, senior vice president of the Microsoft Business Division, said Office Web will allow users to employ lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote to create, edit and collaborate with Office documents through a Web browser.

At the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft offered the first public glimpse of a post-Vista world Tuesday. Dubbed Windows 7, the new operating system promises faster bootup times, better memory handling, and extensive support for a touch interface.