Gizmos no longer just for dads
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- 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 the 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.

Some of the hot items for Mother's Day: digital cameras, which increased 27 percent in unit sales this year; portable music players, which jumped 40 percent; and satellite navigation systems, which shot up more than fourfold.

Scientists make quake movies
PASADENA, Calif. -- 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 now can 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.

The public can access movies for Southern California temblors of magnitude 3.5 and higher at shakemovie.caltech.edu dating to 1999.

The seismic movies, based on simulations made by the university's new 2,048-processor supercomputer, are the latest high-tech earthquake tools.

Last year, the U.S. Geological Survey unveiled an online forecast that calculates the probability of aftershocks at specific locations over a 24-hour period. Before that, the agency created ShakeMaps, computer maps that show areas of intense shaking.

Emmys go broadband
NEW YORK -- The Web sites for The New York Times and The Washington Post led the slate of nominees for the first Emmy Award for broadband news and documentary programming.

For news and documentaries, NYTimes.com garnered three nominations: columnist Nicholas D. Kristof's multimedia presentation on atrocities in Sudan; a pair of videos on the drug policies of Bolivia's new president; and a seven-part interview series accompanying the newspaper's investigative piece on child pornography.

WashingtonPost.com got two nominations: a Web documentary on the effects of corruption, poverty and history of authoritarian rule in Azerbaijan; and four videos on the lives affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Also nominated were MTV News segments on the Oct. 8, 2005, earthquake in South Asia, as shown on Overdrive.com; and National Geographic's four-part Webcasts on Katrina, as shown on Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com.

The award, eligible for programs that do not appear first on television or elsewhere, will be presented by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences on Sept. 25 in New York.

Japan to bolster Internet use
TOKYO -- 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.

The number of Internet users through cell phones and other mobile terminals reached 69 million, surpassing the 66 million accessing through computer terminals at the end of 2005, the report said. Some 49 million use both.

The report said further development of networks could create more flexibility in working environment, with workers using video conferences or working from home. It also could create new jobs for specialists in management and outsourcing.

The report noted, however, that there is a digital divide. Although Internet use last year surpassed 90 percent in Japanese between ages 13 and 49, it was less than 50 percent among people 65 or older.

That is a major concern here. Roughly one in four Japanese will be 65 or older in 2015, and about one in three by 2050. That has already caused a labor shortage and revenue crunch because of the shrinking tax base.