The truth is that consumers don't really have a good option when it comes to buying "ethical" smartphones and tablets. Why is that? Why is there Fair Trade coffee but no Fair Trade electronics?
Officially, the RedPad is available to all Chinese citizens, although its 9,999 yuan (US$1,600) price tag has many of the country’s microbloggers speculating that the Android-based tablet is primarily meant as a tax-subsidized tool for party officials.
Apple just did something unprecedented: It released the names of all 150+ of its suppliers after several news stories — including a damning report from Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life — painted an unflattering picture of how the company’s suppliers treat their workers.
Note to Apple: If there’s any way you can avoid shuttering one of your flagship stores on the very day you launch a new iPhone, well, good luck with that when the store’s in Beijing, your customers broke its glass door in a prior year scuffle and this year’s iPhone-hungry contingent came armed with eggs.
Dozens of workers assembling Xbox video game consoles climbed to a factory dormitory roof, and some threatened to jump to their deaths, in a dispute over job transfers that was defused but highlights growing labor unrest as China’s economy slows.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that hackers located in China managed to breach the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s information technology infrastructure.
The iPad: designed by Apple, assembled in China…and now divorced from its own name after falling on the losing side of a patent lawsuit brought against a company located in southern China.
Thanks to growing economic unrest in China’s factory belt, dissatisfaction among workers has spread, leading to growing conflicts, unflinching demands and week-long protests that could begin to take their toll on electronics manufacturers like Apple and Motorola.
Wei Xinlong couldn’t afford an iPad for his girlfriend, so he did the next best thing—built one himself.
Foxconn, pressured by the stresses of rising labor costs and negative media attention over employee suicides, could be reshaping the landscape of manufacturing forever. How?
It sounds like the set-up for a joke, but it’s true; Groupon’s attempt to crack the Chinese market has been slowed by the discovery that the “luxury watches” its subsidiary was selling weren’t entirely legit.
