Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen a nonstop parade of cases, docks, and stands for Apple’s iPad tablet, but one configuration we would have thought would be a natural is mounting it on a wall.

Apple, Dell and HP are investigating their overseas partner Foxconn, a Chinese component maker that has seen several employee suicides in the past year.

Labor activists have accused Foxconn of instituting sweatshop-like work conditions for its employees, compelling nine workers to kill themselves to escape their harsh routines. Apple, Dell and HP have announced that they are in contact with Foxconn to examine the work conditions.

“We’re in direct contact with Foxconn senior management and we believe they are taking this matter very seriously,” said Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, in a statement to Bloomberg. “A team from Apple is independently evaluating the steps they are taking to address these tragic events and we will continue our ongoing inspections of the facilities where our products are made.”

Foxconn’s harsh work conditions have been especially high-profile because it is known for producing components for the phenomenally popular iPhone, among products for companies other than Apple. However, labor issues have been prevalent across Asian suppliers for years. Many Asian-supply workers and labor-rights activists have cited sweatshop-like conditions such as hourly wages below a dollar, violations of work hours and firings without notice.

The most sensational story about Foxconn to date involved an employee committing suicide over the loss of a prototype fourth-generation iPhone after allegedly being bullied by the company’s security officers. The New York Times launched an independent investigation, in which a reporter’s translator faced physical threats from a Foxconn security officer while questioning the victim’s family.

The ninth Foxconn death occurred Tuesday with a 19-year-old’s apparent suicide — just one week after the company’s eighth employee suicide.

To offer a first-hand account of Foxconn, reporter Liu Zhiyi of the Chinese paper Southern Weekend went undercover as an employee at the factory. She reported that workers were stuck in grueling, repetitive jobs and working long hours for minimal pay.

In response to the scrutiny surrounding Foxconn, billionaire Terry Gou, founder of Hon Hai (aka Foxconn Technology Group), this week opened a tour of the factory to journalists.

“We expect our suppliers to employ the same high standards we do in our own facilities,” a Dell spokesman said in a statement. “We enforce these standards through a variety of tools, including the Electronics Industry code of conduct, business reviews with suppliers, self-assessments and audits.”

HP has also said it is investigating “the Foxconn practices that may be associated with these tragic events.”

Photo: Bert van Dilk/Flickr

See Also:

• Workers Plan to Sue iPhone Contractor Over Poisoning
• Report: Missing iPhone Prototype Pressured Chinese Worker to Commit Suicide
• Silicon Sweatshops: Gadget Factories Take a Toll on Workers
• Apple: No Sweatshop iPod Labor

T-Mobile announced Monday that it has expanded its HSPA+ buildout to more cities in the Northeastern U.S.: New York, Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse are now covered. Connecticut, Hartford, New Haven, Milford, and Stamford have HSPA+. Providence, Rhode Island is also included. HSPA+ potentially gives much faster data speeds to users with 3G-capable phones.

T-Mobile says it will also expand its HSPA+ network into Boston and Washington, D.C. “in the coming weeks.” The company also says its HSPA+ network now covers 30 million Americans and will cover 185 million Americans with “4G speeds” by the end of 2010.

T-Mobile has begun using the term 4G to stand in for HSPA+ in their press materials and will likely begin using it in advertising once more people are covered. This is not to be confused with Sprint’s 4G, which is based on completely different WiMAX technology. AT&T and Verizon have pledged that their own versions of 4G will go live in 2011.

Sure, a cybernetic-filled, dystopian future may sound nice and cheery, but what happens when all your snazzy implants get infected with a computer virus? That’s what one brave researcher at the University of Reading is attempting to find out, and he’s now actually gone so far as to willingly “infect” himself in the name of science. As you might expect, however, this is all this very much a proof of concept, but Dr. Mark Gasson says that the infected RFID chip in his hand was indeed able to pass on the virus to an external control device in his trials, and he warns that the eventual real world implications could be far more dire. Gasson is particularly concerned when it comes to medical implants, which he says could potentially become infected by other implants in the body, and even pass on the “infection” to other people. Head on past the break for the BBC’s report, and try not to be too startled by the Dalek in the room.

[Thanks, Mark S]

Continue reading British scientist becomes first human ‘infected’ with a computer virus

British scientist becomes first human ‘infected’ with a computer virus originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore certainly piqued our interest at MIX by demoing Windows Phone 7 on an unidentified Samsung handset, but our excitement soon faded when we found out it was just a hacked-up Omnia i8910 and not a real phone. Still, the Sammy remains only the third WP7 device we’ve seen other than the ASUS-built test mule and the prototype LG Panther that’s been popping up recently after debuting on the Engadget Show, so these two videos of it running a recent WP7 build at reMIX in France is still quite notable — the OS seems fast and responsive, and we’re told everything on the device was functional, including the GPS and camera. What’s more, there’s a demo of an Xbox Live Arcade / iPhone game port called Twin Blades by Press Star Studio — it was done in a week by one programmer using 90 percent of the Xbox Live code. That’s impressive, to say the least.

Of course, this device may look like an Omnia, but it doesn’t have the Omnia’s OMAP3 processor — as per WP7’s requirements, the internals have been swapped for a Snapdragon-based board. We’re still waiting for Microsoft and its partners to show us some more interesting hardware — let’s face it, the Panther and this Samsung are almost identically boring — but there’s no denying the software itself looks to be coming along quickly. Now let’s just hope it launches with enough heat to save Microsoft from another executive shuffle. Video after the break.

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 pops up on a Samsung prototype device, plays Twin Blades

Windows Phone 7 pops up on a Samsung prototype device, plays Twin Blades originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 13:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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