Hasta La Gadget!

Reuters is reporting that Hon Hai, the manufacturer that everyone else knows as Foxconn Technology, saw its sales tumble in the first quarter of this year. In the post-Christmas season, the iPhone maker brought in $26.9 billion — a fall of 19 percent compared to the same quarter last year. It’s a strange turn of events, seeing as 2012 turned out to be a record year for the company, but Reuters interprets the figures as being a symptom of a drop in demand for the Apple products that Hon Hai builds and is largely dependent on — an issue that has been brewing for a while now.

Filed under: Cellphones, Apple

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Source: Reuters

Foxconn is sadly no stranger to worker suicides and threats of such, which reached such an extreme a few years back that nets were installed to catch those who thrust themselves from the roof. Those nets didn’t deter protesters who took to the roof on Friday, March 29, however, one of whom jumped, surviving but not without injury.

The report comes from Sina Weibo, which says that in addition to the worker who jumped, three other workers were also on the roof in protest, likewise threatening to jump. The folks over at CNET received a statement from Foxconn, which said that three workers did protest and were arrested by police without injury, denying that anyone was hurt or that the attempted suicide took place.

What were they protesting? Says Foxconn’s statement: “We can confirm that on March 29, three employees at our campus in Longhua, Shenzhen were involved in a workplace dispute over the company’s decision to offer them an opportunity to relocate to another Foxconn China facility as part of a shift in production linked to their business group.” Further expounding on this, Weibo reports that some employees were encouraged to resign.

Foxconn, which has been accused of poor working conditions, has experienced various forms of this for years. In 2010, for example, an employee at the Shenzhen factory committed suicide for reasons related as being of a personal nature, while another female employee jumped from the roof, but was thwarted by the safety nets. In one of the larger protests, early last year 300 employees took to the roof and threatened to jump over payment issues.

[via People.com.cn]

Foxconn denies that worker tried to commit suicide during protest is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hon Hai Precision, also known as Foxconn Technology, has reported its earnings for the year and notched a net income of $3.2 billion according to the Financial Times. Most familiar as the manufacturing muscle behind Apple’s iPhones, iPads and the like, the Taiwan-based manufacturer beat analyst predictions on high margins for those products. Its subsidiary, Foxconn International Holdings, is the world’s largest cellphone maker and produces devices for companies including Nokia and Motorola, but suffered a net loss of $316.4 million. As a result, some are concerned about Foxconn’s heavy reliance on Apple as a customer going forward. Still, the company is reportedly continuing a plan to increase vertical integration, by manufacturing the parts for devices and not just putting them together — we’ll see if anyone notices changes in the final product anytime soon.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple

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Source: FT, BBC, Bloomberg

All the way from China we’re having a glance at a set of prototype cases for the Samsung Galaxy S4, a smartphone device that’s set to be unveiled in just a week’s time. As it is quite often with releases such as this, the Samsung Galaxy S IV (or S4, whichever you like) is said to have had its basic physical specifications leaked to case-makers so that they might create protective bits and pieces for the hardware available when the device launches. While this situation can sometimes give us a healthy dose of early understanding, it can just as easily be a completely false scent – so keep that in mind!

The cases you see above come from MobileGeeks where they’ve gotten information from the case manufacturers themselves on the origin of the design. As the folks at MyLiving have let it be known that they’ve gotten information on the build of the Galaxy S4 straight from Foxconn, there is a real possibility that they are, indeed, legitimate. Foxconn is a manufacturing chain that over the past few years has become famous for putting together some of the most high-profile gadgets in the mobile industry.

What we can glean from these cases (the two black cases, that is), is that this Galaxy S machine may be working with a slightly less organic look than the Galaxy S III had. The salmon-colored case above is made for a Galaxy S III and the blue device to the left of the whole pack is, indeed, a Galaxy S III in the flesh. The Galaxy S4 appears to be essentially the same height as the Galaxy S III with a bit more bulk around the edges and, though you can’t tell from this photo, both cases appear to be made for devices with essentially the same thickness.

Several elements wash over from the Galaxy S III like the necessity for three holes right up top of the back on the case – one for a camera lens, one for a camera flash, the third for a speaker. The appearance of a power button hole on the case in the same place and the volume button also appearing in essentially the same space on the opposite side of the phone are also really rather indicative of Samsung sticking to its guns with how they intend you to tap on this smartphone.

You’ll also notice that these case designs bear exceeding resemblance to the cases leaked last month courtesy of MobileFun. Either this is what the Galaxy S4 will be shaped like, or there’s a real trickster out there poking fun at the case manufacturers one by one – we shall see!

Have a peek at the timeline below of Samsung Galaxy S4 articles from the past week or so to make sure you’re all up to speed on everything that’s known – and what’s about to be known, too. The big event for the reveal of the Samsung Galaxy S4 takes place on the 14th of March – we’ll be there with bells on, so follow along all day!

Samsung Galaxy S4 prototype case gets fat and sharp is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Mobile image processing in itself isn’t special when even high dynamic range shooting is virtually instant, at least with NVIDIA’s new Tegras. A new low-power MIT chip, however, may prove its worth by being a jack of all trades that works faster than software. It can apply HDR to photos and videos through near-immediate exposure bracketing, but it can also produce natural-looking flash images by combining the lit photo with an unassisted shot to fill in missing detail. Researchers further claim to have automatic noise reduction that safeguards detail through bilateral filtering, an established technique that uses brightness detection to avoid blurring edges. If you’re wondering whether or not MIT’s work will venture beyond the labs, don’t — the project was financed by contract manufacturing giant Foxconn, and it’s already catching the eye of Microsoft Research. As long as Foxconn maintains interest through to production, pristine mobile photography won’t be limited to a handful of devices.

Filed under: Cameras, Science, Alt

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Source: MIT