Moms like gizmos too, study says

Forget the flowers. Moms appreciate electronics gizmos as much as dads, according to newly released retail data.

Consumers spent significantly more on gadgets for mom this year than they did last year, approaching the same levels for dad, market researcher The NPD Group Inc. found in a comparison of electronics sales from the weeks preceding Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Specifically, consumers spent more than $865 million in the week before Mother’s Day, up 9 percent from last year’s $791 million. Spending for the week before Father’s Day was about $873 million, up 3 percent from last year’s $846 million.

“Those used to be gadgety playthings for dad, but what this (data) shows is that electronics are must-haves now,” said Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis. “So they’re becoming better products for gift-giving for all mainstream consumers, and that means moms, too.”

Scientists release movies of SoCal quake

The next time an earthquake hits Southern California, go online later that day to watch a 3-D rendition of it.

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology can now create a movie just 45 minutes after a temblor, showing how seismic waves spread from the epicenter.

During a recent demonstration, the director of Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory, Jeroen Tromp, played a movie of the 2003 magnitude-5.1 Big Bear quake.

The movie featured a 3-D map of Southern California with color-coded waves radiating from Big Bear in San Bernardino County and slowing down as they hit the Los Angeles basin, shaking the area like gelatin.

Report: Japan must bolster Internet use

Japan needs to improve Internet access and other mobile network systems to boost efficiency, creativity and productivity and overcome challenges posed by the aging and shrinking of its population, a government report said.

The Information and Communications White Paper, approved in a Cabinet meeting, called for further efforts to build a “ubiquitous” network society and make good on earlier announced plans to make Japan the world’s most advanced networking society by 2010.