Pinboard (guardiantech)

iDevice manufacturer Foxconn shows off prototype smartwatch with health sensors >> Medgadget

guardiantech — 2013-07-02T14:32:07+00:00

Hon Hai Precision Industry, aka Foxconn, may be popularly known as the contract manufacturer of the iPhones and iPads. However, the Chinese company recently revealed its own design for a prototype smartwatch that can help improve one’s health.
While it includes many features that Apple’s mythical iWatch is said to have (and are already found on smartwatches like the Pebble), such as the ability to receive notifications and field phone calls, Foxconn’s smartwatch also contains sensors to measure a user’s vital signs, including respiration and heartbeat. It also has the ability to protect users’ health data stored inside with a built-in fingerprint scanner.

Nice.

New iPhone, old abuses: Have working conditions at Foxconn in China improved? >> SACOM

guardiantech — 2012-09-21T21:24:25+00:00

Now, in September 2012, our researchers revisited Foxconn’s plants in Zhengzhou, HenanProvince, China, whose sole product is the iPhone. Most of the 60 interviewees who SACOM talked to are new workers recruited by the government. The high turnover rate and the government’s need to recruit workers and take other special steps to smooth production implicitly suggest that job satisfaction is not high. More than that, SACOM’s new investigation finds that Foxconn workers in Zhengzhou are still facing deplorably harsh working conditions. It is disappointing that no matter how advanced the technology introduced by Apple is, the old problems in working conditions remain at its major supplier Foxconn.

Inside Foxconn: Exclusive look at how an iPad is made >> YouTube

guardiantech — 2012-04-12T22:18:06+00:00

Rob Schmitz (who was one of those suspicious about Mike Daisey's claims about Foxconn working conditions) gets inside a factory and gets filming.

Now can we start talking about the real Foxconn? >> Bloomberg

guardiantech — 2012-03-25T19:56:11+00:00

Tim Gulpan, who been reporting on Foxconn and China for more than a decade:

In our reporting, as “Inside Foxconn” detailed, we found a group of workers who have complaints, but complaints not starkly different from those of workers in any other company. The biggest gripe, which surprised us somewhat, is that they don’t get enough overtime. They wanted to work more, to get more money. Less than a year later, I went back again with another colleague. We went inside the same Longhua campus in Shenzhen, which required Foxconn’s approval, and chatted with workers. We stood outside the gates (possibly the same gates where Daisey claimed he found underage workers), with Foxconn unaware we were there. We wandered farther into the local neighborhood shopping strip, among the bubble-tea stands and food vendors, where the young workers went on dates and caught up with friends. These weren’t Daisey-esque scenes of woe and horror. Rather than forced labor and sweatshop conditions, workers told of homesickness and the desire to earn more money-two impulses that seemed to drive each other for workers planning to go home once they’d earned enough.

Foxconn, Apple, and the Fair Labor Association respond to ABC News’ Exclusive Report >> ABC News

guardiantech — 2012-02-24T06:42:51+00:00

The echoes from the Foxconn report continue:

From Auret van Heerden, President and CEO of the Fair Labor Association, regarding the “five year conversation” with Apple: “The discussions began in April 2007 but stalled in March 2008. We then resumed them in April 2009 and decided to do a small pilot survey so that Apple could get an idea of how our tools might add value to their program. That pilot led to a second activity that I believe contributed to the decision to join the FLA at the end of 2011. I, of course, cannot speak for Apple but I do believe that the decision to join was probably taken some months before (and therefore well before) the New York Times articles.”

That is, Apple wasn't stampeded into this. All the clarifications are interesting. We're still awaiting Dell, Microsoft, HP and Nintendo's statements on Foxconn conditions.

What we learned from the 'Nightline' report on Foxconn factories >> The Verge

guardiantech — 2012-02-22T08:12:20+00:00

This and more from Josh Topolsky:

Foxconn executive Louis Woo said that he would actually like it if Apple demanded that the company double the pay of factory employees. Your move, Apple.