Mar 27
The Korean news agency Yonhap News reports that a carbon dioxide leak in a Samsung plant in southern Seoul has killed one of its workers.
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Sep 11
Ever wonder how Motorola’s stateside assembly of the Moto X compares to giants such as Foxconn? Well, now you can go on a digital tour of the facility via Google Street View — that is if our extensive gallery of up-close-and-personal photos doesn’t do it for you. Google and Motorola have introduced the new virtual destination to celebrate the Fort Worth factory’s official launch, so anyone with internet connection can check out where the company assembles the 100,000 phones it ships each week. And if you’re tired of looking at sterile white factory walls, you can always use Street View to coo at animals, climb lofty buildings and conquer mountains instead.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google
Source: Motorola
Aug 02
LG’s OLED display production plant is taking shape, will fire up second half 2014
Posted in: Today's Chili
To us, installing some factory equipment doesn’t seem like much cause for celebration. To LG, however, it’s the first piece of tangible progress made towards getting its new OLED manufacturing line up and running. At a shindig held to welcome the equipment to LG’s plant, the company said it expects to begin mass production of panels for 50-inch plus HDTVs in the second half of next year — a little later than the original plan of first half 2014. Hopefully there won’t be any more delays, as we’d quite like to see the production line flowing and the mammoth prices of those gorgeous curved sets come down a little.
Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, HD, LG
Via: OLED-Info
Source: The Korea Times
Jul 29
Apple’s new suppliers are ‘even worse’ than Foxconn, says China Labor Watch
Posted in: Today's Chili
Just as Pegatron has managed to snatch more Apple contracts away from Foxconn, so too has it attracted greater scrutiny of the conditions faced by its 70,000 workers. China Labor Watch, the US-based worker welfare monitor, now alleges that Chinese factories run by the up-and-coming Taiwan-based manufacturer are “even worse” than Foxconn’s. It claims to have found health and safety violations, poor living conditions in dorms, and the coercion of workers by withholding their pay or identity cards — in other words, the sort of stuff that breaches both Chinese law and Apple’s supplier policy. Its latest report also accuses Apple of failing to treat abuses with the same urgency that it applies to lapses in product quality.
For its part, Apple has responded by highlighting the fact that it has audited Pegatron facilities 15 times in the last six years, and that a recent survey found that Pegatron employees were working an average of 46 hours per week. It also said it had dealt promptly with earlier instances of ID cards being withheld, but admitted that China Labor Watch’s report includes “claims that are new to us” and that will need to be investigated “thoroughly.”
[Image credit: Jay Greene, CNET]
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Apple
Source: WSJ, China Labor Watch
Jul 26
Robots have ruled industrial production for decades in many fields, from the auto industry to food processing and consumer electronics. The Singularity isn’t here yet—but in the world of manufacturing, it’s been knocking on the door for years.
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Jul 16
The Porsche 918 Spyder is like no other hybrid on the road, promising Bugatti-like performance
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Jun 13
MakerBot is building an empire selling printers that make things—but have you ever wondered where the printers themselves are made? On June 7th, the company opened a huge new factory to accommodate the booming demand for Replicators, and we got a first-hand look inside.
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Jan 28
A maintenance contractor called out to fix a hydrofluoric acid leak at a Samsung plant has died after being taken to a hospital, according to Korean media. Four others were injured by the lethal gas but have reportedly been discharged by doctors. The factory in question is located within South Korea, which isn’t known for the sort of lax safety standards that plague workers in China, but AsiaE reports the accident will nevertheless be investigated to find out if any laws were breached in the way the leak was handled, and if the killed contractor was wearing the right protective gear. For the sake of context, it’s worth remembering that even state-of-the-art installations can be prone to accidents — in 2011, for example, seven American workers were injured in an explosion at Intel’s semiconductor fab in Arizona.
Filed under: Samsung
Via: The Verge, The Next Web
Source: AsiaE, Yonhap News, CriEnglish
Jan 21
There’s a million things this could be: a fake, a prototype, the spawn of some renegade lathe, we just don’t know. What we can say is that the photo above was posted to the Chinese-language Digi-wo forum by someone who reckons it could be a component for a 6.44-inch, 1080p Sony phablet. The bezels on the side look slightly skinnier than those on the similarly sized 6.1-inch Huawei Ascend Mate — although we might be imagining that, and in any case the Ascend Mate has the advantage of definitely being real.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Sony
Via: GizChina
Source: Digi-wo (Chinese)
Jan 12
If you were ever curious about how Nikon managed to make the wonderful glass that capture beautiful pictures, well, it all starts with making the glass itself. This video gives you a peek inside the Nikon factories that make the glass and shows you the step by step process. More »
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