USC Media and Public Relations

BBC News (U.K.) featured the Body Computing Conference, an annual gathering organized by the USC Center for Body Computing that focuses on health monitoring gadgets, sensors and apps. Leslie Saxon of the Keck School of USC, the center’s executive director, spoke about Southern California being a hub of technological innovation. “We showed something at our conference where if you have an implanted device, you can ask that device a question and reprogram it using a commercially available smartphone with an enhancement and using the cloud. And that’s pretty amazing,” she said. Discovery News featured a car demoed at the conference; a joint project by the USC Center for Body Computing and the USC School of Cinematic Arts, the BMW is outfitted with sensors that can monitor a driver’s health. The car was also covered by Gizmodo and Newser.

The Wall Street Journal highlighted research by Darius Lakdawalla of the USC School of Pharmacy and a colleague finding that the poorest groups receive the most health benefits from Medicare at any given age, and that this advantage significantly outweighs the fact these groups die younger. Lakdawalla, an expert with the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, concluded that “Medicare is an extraordinarily progressive public program, in dollar terms or welfare terms.”

BBC News (U.K.) featured Manuel Castells of the USC Annenberg School and his research on the rise of alternative economic cultures online. Castells’ latest book is “Aftermath: The Cultures of the Economic Crisis,” which he discussed before an audience at the London School of Economics. He said that consumer culture has been driven by the idea that acquiring newer, bigger and more material goods will lead to happiness; people are now reversing that assumption, but are still trapped within the old economic system. “People don’t trust where they put their money and they don’t trust those who they delegate in terms of their vote,” Castells said.

Truthdig ran a column by Bill Boyarsky of the USC Annenberg School about polling data used by the presidential candidates in the 2012 election. Boyarsky reported on the data gathering process undertaken by volunteers in the Crenshaw neighborhood and other areas of Los Angeles. “Today, with people baring the smallest and most boring details of their lives on Facebook, the phrase ‘invasion of privacy’ has an antiquated sound, but that’s an apt way to describe this profiling,” Boyarsky wrote.

Los Angeles Times quoted Richard Jewell of the USC School of Cinematic Arts about “Skyfall,” the new James Bond film.

American Public Media’s “Marketplace” interviewed Lawrence Harris of the USC Marshall School about the New York financial markets reopening after Hurricane Sandy.

CBS News Los Angeles affiliate KCBS-TV interviewed Leslie Saxon of the Keck School of USC about atrial fibrillation, a potentially life-threatening disorder that affects heart rhythm.

Los Angeles Times cited the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll finding that support for Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 had fallen below 50 percent.