"This American Life has retracted an episode that focused on working conditions inside a Foxconn iPad factory, calling the source material 'partially fabricated'. The episode - the most popular in TAL history with nearly a million streams - was partially based on the work of artist Mike Daisey, who apparently lied to fact-checkers about his experiences visiting Foxconn's facility. Some of the lies were discovered during an interview with Daisey's Chinese translator, who disputed the facts presented in his show and on the air."
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Member since:2005-08-18
Where did I mention the iPhone?
Better than average does not mean that it's actually good.
Raised by how much and for whom? China has had industrial production of cheap stuff for ages. When I was a kid in the 70's most toys was already manufactured in China.
Many, many factories (maybe not Foxconn) treats their employees terribly bad. Having lived in Asia for 10+ years and worked for companies with manufacturing in China I can say that the conditions for many (probably most) workers is so horrible it's hard to believe.
Member since:2010-07-07
Your fanboism is showing mate, take it from me, I've been an Apple lover since the IIe, but the Apple of today isn't the company I remember.
Apple has the pull to force Foxconn to improve their working conditions and pay, but they don't as they'd rather just pocket the excess profits in massive executive bonuses. You didn't see these kinds of situations back when the US economy was booming, the reason is simple, back when things where made in the US we had a very high marginal top marginal tax rate which caused the executives to not take the companies profits for themselves but to invest that money into expanding their company and strong employee unions that forced non union companies to at least come close to matching pay and working conditions in their shops by setting the bar so high at the companies they where at, if the US government hadn't started slashing top tax rates and union busting we where on track to have a 4 day work week by the 90's.
Now you may ask, WTF does that have to do with China? Well it has everything to do with China, in our current state of affairs china is the world's dumping ground for slave labor, sure the average quality of life in China has increased due to this, but it's nowhere near what it should be as the increase is due to the fact that they had a surplus of people and a shortage of jobs, in that situation any job is an improvement to your quality of life, but unless the Chinese government steps in somewhere this will plateau, especially if we in the west keep taking these economic hits we eventually wont be able to buy iPads anymore and the Chinese will essentially be back where they started.
If I had to guess though, the Chinese government, not being stupid realizes that they have the ability to crush the world if they can build out their infrastructure and and with it their economy, they already have all the factories and tech on the planet, it wouldn't be too hard to strong arm the rest or the world into what they want with a trade war in the next few years, they only need to be built out to the point that the Chinese people can keep their own economy afloat while they hammer the rest of the world's economies harder then they currently do.
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
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"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Member since:
2009-08-22
No it's not their problem but nothing Tony said justifies Apple exploiting the workers. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem and Apple (and other companies doing this) are not part of the solution. "
Rubbish. How could western companies boycotting China help anyone?
Ridiculous and vacuous moral posturing (with a dash of iPhobia thrown in for spice) is no substitute for engaging in a real analysis of the real world which often awkwardly reveals that the problems are complex and the solutions elusive and certainly not quick.
What seems to be missing is any acknowledgement of some basic facts:
a) The conditions of workers in factories making components for Apple are better than average.
b) Jobs in factories such as those run by Foxconn are are hugely sought after because they offer a better standard of living and better life opportunities than the alternatives.
c) The development of modern competitive industrial production in China, as exemplified by companies like Foxconn, has very significantly raised the GDP and standard of living of the Chinese.
d) All of the outrage whipped up around the issue of the conditions of workers in Apple's Chinese supply chain has, it turns out, been based on deliberate lies.