The Times finally got around to making official what LA Observed reported last month: Dawn Chmielewski is leaving the San Jose Mercury News for the tech coverage pod in Los Angeles. She will cover "digital media and intellectual property." Today's announcement also discloses that science writer Charles Piller will shift back to Business and cover Microsoft from San Francisco. He'll also report on the "frontiers of technology...he will focus on emerging technologies such as nanotech, examine age-old obstacles that have stymied engineers and programmers trying to push the boundaries of technology, and pay special attention to how the emerging technological environment shapes us as people." Memo follows:

To: The Staff

Dawn Chmielewski, personal technology columnist of the San Jose Mercury News, and Charles Piller, who has been a Science reporter here the past four years, are joining The Times' technology team in Business.

Dawn will cover digital media and intellectual property in Los Angeles; Charlie will write from San Francisco about the frontiers of technology and cover Microsoft Corp.

Dawn spent five years at The Merc. Before her stint as a columnist, she covered the intersection of technology and entertainment from Los Angeles. Dawns also has has been a technology reporter at the Orange County Register, a business reporter at the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot Ledger, a metro reporter at the Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times and the Norwich (N.Y.) Evening Sun. Chmielewski also is a contributor to, and co-host of, the PBS show Digital Duo. She is a graduate of Utica College of Syracuse University.

In her new assignment, Dawn will cover the blurring line between technology and entertainment and examine the legal, social and economic consequences of that shift. Her hiring fills a position that was posted Aug. 23.

Charlie joined The Times in 1998 as a technology reporter based in San Francisco. He wrote the paper's Innovation column for several years before moving to Science to cover national security, forensic science and infectious diseases. Before joining The Times, Charlie was executive editor at PC World magazine and senior editor at Macworld magazine. He is the author of "The Fail-Safe Society" and coauthor of "Gene Wars: Military Control Over the New Genetic Technologies." Charlie is a graduate of Lone Mountain College in San Francisco, now part of University of San Francisco.

In his new assignment, he will focus on emerging technologies such as nanotech, examine age-old obstacles that have stymied engineers and programmers trying to push the boundaries of technology, and pay special attention to how the emerging technological environment shapes us as people.

-- Russ Stanton, Business Editor
-- Amy Wallace, Deputy Business Editor
-- Aaron Curtiss, Technology Editor

January 3, 2006