Salvador Rodriguez

Free Wi-Fi is now available to visitors at six parks throughout the city.

Park-goers will be able to connect their laptops, tablets and e-readers to public Wi-Fi networks at Cabrillo Beach, Echo Park Lake, Griffith Observatory, Pershing Square, Reseda Park and Venice Beach.

Apple became the latest tech company to reveal the diversity of its workforce, and as has been the trend, the Cupertino giant is dominated by white men.

The iPhone maker said only 30% of its 98,000 employees are women. The number drops to 28% when it comes to leadership roles, but that is actually a higher percentage than at other tech companies.

In terms of race and ethnicity, Apple said it's split 55% white, 15% Asian, 11% Latino and 7% black, but those figures include retail store employees. In tech-specific jobs, the numbers skew toward whites and Asians, at 54% and 23% respectively, while Latinos fall to 7% and blacks drop to 6%

After ending its effort to acquire T-Mobile US, mobile carrier Sprint named Marcelo Claure as its new chief executive and president.

Claure replaces Dan Hesse, who has served as Sprint's chief executive since 2007. Claure is the founder of Brightstar, which provides services for wireless careers and mobile device manufacturers. He will resign as its chief executive on Aug 11, when he is expected to start at Sprint.

Internet providers have sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency not to reclassify broadband as a utility, following reports that Chairman Tom Wheeler had revised his proposal for net neutrality.

The letter maintains that although reclassifying broadband as a utility would give the FCC more regulatory power over Internet providers, it would also stifle innovation and lead to less money invested into broadband networks, ultimately hurting consumers' Internet experience.

A total of 28 Internet providers from across the US backed the letter, dated May 13, with signatures from their chief executives. Among the companies were AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. "Such an action would greatly distort the future development of, and investment in, tomorrow’s broadband networks and services," the companies said.

The Internet providers said they want to work toward rules that would secure an open Internet but that reclassification is not the way.

When it comes to tablets, Apple remains the dominant leader, but rival Samsung is catching up. Apple iPad sales fell from 19.5 million during the first quarter of 2013 to 16.4 million during that period in 2014. At the same, Samsung grew its tablet sales from 8.5 million to 11.2 million during the first quarter of 2014, according to figures released by IDC, an analysis firm.

Those sales caused Apple's share of the tablet market to fall from 40.2% in 2013 to 32.5% in the first quarter while Samsung grew its share of the market from 17.5% to 22.3%.

During the period, Samsung released a handful of new tablets, including the Galaxy NotePro and Galaxy TabPro, with numerous productivity features that were aimed toward professionals. The company also packaged its tablets with other devices and products in numerous carrier promotions. The tactics seem to be paying off.

"Samsung continues to work aggressively with carriers to drive tablet shipments through attractively priced smartphone bundles," IDC said in a statement.

The whole market struggled with sales during the first quarter of 2014. According to IDC, tablet sales grew only 3.9% from 2013. Along with Apple, Asus and Amazon also saw their tablet sales decrease compared with 2013.

"The rise of large-screen phones and consumers who are holding on to their existing tablets for ever longer periods of time were both contributing factors to a weaker-than-anticipated quarter for tablets and 2-in-1s," Tom Mainelli, IDC program vice president of devices and displays, said.