Manufacturing

Geek Out

How An Auto Body Innovation Revolutionised The Way We Build Skyskrapers

3:00AM Yesterday | Rachel Swaby

Certainly you’ve assembled a piece of IKEA furniture and experienced that special kind of frustration that comes with realising the screw holes don’t line up and you have to take everything apart and put it together it again. Now imagine this problem at 230m in the air with massive steel girders instead of particle board. When those holes don’t line up, it’s a whole different kind of frustration. More »


News

Bill Maher Piles On The Foxconn Shame-Fest

1:45PM February 7, 2012 | Michael Hession

Bill Maher interviewed Mike Daisey last week on Real Time, adding to the scourge of recent negative publicity surrounding the conditions at Apple supplier Foxconn. Daisey is the actor who wrote and performed the one-man show The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, a musing that faces the labour issue head-on. He actually went to China and talked to workers outside the infamous Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. More »


Computing

Woman Who Assembles iPads Shown iPad For First Time In Her Life

7:00AM February 7, 2012 | Sam Biddle

“Ms Chen”, as CNN calls her, works in a Foxconn plant installing iPad screens for virtually every waking hour of her life. Despite this, she never actually saw an iPad until CNN whisked her away. Her reaction will surprise you. More »


Entertainment

The iNett: Conan’s Solution To Foxconn Suicides

8:30AM February 3, 2012 | Michael Hession

The ongoing issues that Apple faces regarding workplace conditions in its suppliers’ Chinese factories has left an ugly streak on the company’s bright and sparkly facade. Why not use all that power of innovation and design to tackle the core issue? Last night’s Conan featured an Apple commercial that ‘revolutionises the safety net’. Zing! More »


Gadgets

A Gadget Tax Worth Paying

3:30PM February 2, 2012 | Matt Buchanan

Joel Johnson, after he visited a Foxconn factory for Wired: To be soaked in materialism, to directly and indirectly champion it, has also brought guilt. More »


Mobile

Thousands Queue For Foxconn Jobs Ahead Of Possible iPhone 5 Production

2:15PM February 1, 2012 | Andrew Tarantola

Despite the explosions, suicides, reported abuse and poisonous gas, Foxconn is apparently a very popular place to work. More »


News

Apple Makes New Employees Work On Fake Products Until Apple Can Trust Them

8:00AM January 31, 2012 | Casey Chan

In Adam Lashinsky’s book, Inside Apple, he examines how brutally insane and awful it is to work at Apple. Turns out having plainclothes spies and murky job descriptions isn’t enough, because Apple sometimes makes its new employees work on fake products until they prove themselves trustworthy. More »


News

Chinese Citizens Comment On Foxconn, Apple

8:30AM January 27, 2012 | Roberto Baldwin

The New York Times teamed up with a Chinese magazine to see how the Chinese feel about Foxconn, Apple, and the how their factory workers are treated. The results might not surprise you, but they will remind you that there’s more cost to your iPad than what’s on the price tag. More »


News

How iPad Demand Led To Last Year’s Deadly Foxconn Explosion

6:00AM January 27, 2012 | Kyle Wagner

You probably remember the Foxconn explosion from last May that killed four people and left 18 others seriously injured. Charles Duhigg and David Barboza of the New York Times have a massive profile on the human side of a totally avoidable dust explosion in a plant frantically rushing to keep up with demand for iPads, and all the negligence that went into it. More »


News

Apple And Microsoft Supplier Chief Calls Employees ‘Animals’

4:30AM January 24, 2012 | Jesus Diaz

Terry Gou is the chairman of Hon Hai Precision, the owners of Foxconn. He’s also an insensitive asshat. At the company year-end party at the Taipei Zoo he said: “I have a headache how to manage one million animals.” HILARIOUS! More »