The Blog

Foxconn and Apple to split costs to improve factory conditions

Foxconn plans to improve labor conditions in its Chinese factories where iPhones and iPads are made, according to CEO Terry Gou, and Apple will reportedly share in the costs of making those improvements.

“We’ve discovered that this [improving factory conditions] is not a cost. It is a competitive strength,” Gou told reporters on Thursday, according to Reuters. “I believe Apple sees this as a competitive strength along with us, and so we will split the initial costs.”

Apple and Foxconn have come under heavy fire recently from critics saying the factories that make iPhones, iPads, and other Apple gadgets are little more than sweatshops that exploit Chinese workers. A 2006 incident involving labor law violations at one of Foxconn’s factories prompted Apple to begin internal audits of its entire supply chain. Those audits have turned up numerous abuses, and while Apple has taken steps to rectify them, activists believe Apple could do more.

Read more on Ars Technica…

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Microsoft goes green: data centers, offices to be carbon neutral come July

This summer, Microsoft is launching a new green energy initiative in which all of the company’s direct operations, “including data centers, software development labs, air travel, and office buildings,” will go carbon neutral.

The program will begin in July, at the start of Microsoft’s 2013 fiscal year, and includes a company-wide carbon fee, whereby various divisions will be held accountable for their own energy usage.

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Etc: The iPhone 4S launches on three new regional carriers on May 18 with a $50 discount: Bluegrass Cellular, Golden State Cellular, and Nex-Tech Wireless.

The iPhone 4S launches on three new regional carriers on May 18 with a $50 discount: Bluegrass Cellular, Golden State Cellular, and Nex-Tech Wireless.

Read More:
MacRumors, previous Ars coverage

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Not-Horrible iPad Cases: a round-up of the best

The following round-up is from our esteemed colleagues at The Wirecutter. We recently were discussing this very topic in the Editor’s household, where children abound and the SmartCover fails to do much protecting.

Some people think the iPad is so gorgeous it doesn’t need a case. I disagree, and my favorite overall case is Joy Factory’s SmartSuit 3.

I’m surprised we could narrow it down; this took some doing. After about 70 hours of trolling published reviews and surveys of every case available for the new iPad, we called in roughly a dozen finalists to check the fit and feel ourselves. We eliminated the obviously ugly, cheap-feeling, poor-fitting, ill-reviewed cases in previous iPad 2 iterations, and selected the most protective, ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing models available. We looked at every model from makers like Speck, Targus, XtremeMac, G-Form, Switcheasy, Marware, DODOcase, Grovemade.

(An up-front tip of the hat to iLounge’s Nick Guy is in order here, because he is clearly the best iPad case reviewer around. We gained a lot, not only from his insights but from the sheer number of cases reviewed. His work represents as complete a catalog as you’ll find.)

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Week in Apple: Mastered for iTunes, RubyMotion, and Willy Wonka Jobs

This week’s most popular Apple coverage at Ars included our analysis of the Mastered for iTunes audio, a look at RubyMotion, Apple’s tablet market share numbers, an interview with the creative director who worked with Steve Jobs for 12 years, and plenty more. It has been a busy week, so we won’t blame you if you missed some of it. You’ve come to the right place!

Does “Mastered for iTunes” matter to music? Ars puts it to the test: Some engineers say Apple’s “Mastered for iTunes” program is mere marketing hype. Ars visits a mastering studio to try the process for ourselves.

Exclusive: building native iOS apps with RubyMotion: Former Apple developer Laurent Sansonetti has created a new development tool called RubyMotion that allows developers to build iOS applications with the Ruby programming language. We put it to the test in this exclusive hands-on tutorial.

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Google may face massive fine from FTC for bypassing Safari privacy controls

Google is said to be in the process of negotiating a fine with the Federal Trade Commission for circumventing Safari’s privacy settings, according to Bloomberg. Citing an unnamed “person familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg says Google faces being fined up to $10 million once the FTC files formal charges against the company, though unsurprisingly, neither Google nor the FTC has publicly commented.

Google was found to be working its way around Safari’s tool that allows users to block third-party cookies earlier this year in order to, well, “track” users with cookies. (The code used by Google was part of its program to place the “+1″ button in advertisements.) At the time, the company issued a statement saying that the circumvention wasn’t intentional, but privacy groups were still quick to file complaints with the FTC over Google’s actions. That was quickly followed by a class-action lawsuit and an investigation by European regulators.

According to Bloomberg’s source, the FTC plans to charge Google with violating its consent decree with the US government that came out of the Google Buzz settlement. The company had agreed not to mislead users about its privacy policies or what it’s doing with user data, and critics were quick to point out that circumventing a browser’s privacy controls seem to fall under that umbrella. No expected timeframe was given for when the FTC will officially charge Google.

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Nokia being sued by investor for fraud after share price tumbles

Nokia has been hit with a class-action lawsuit for failing to turn around its smartphone business in six months and reporting substantial losses for the first quarter of this year.

Investor Robert Chmielinski says that between October 11th, 2011, and April 10th, 2012, Nokia engaged in fraud. Over that period Nokia CEO Stephen Elop made a number of confident statements about the prospects of the company’s then-forthcoming Lumia range of Windows Phone handsets. On April 11th, however, Nokia issued a warning that its quarterly performance would be worse than expected. The company posted losses of €1.34 billion ($2.17 billion) for the first quarter of 2012. Combine that with the $100 rebate for early Lumia 900 buyers—a move that knocked 16 percent off Nokia’s share price—and the company’s shares have taken a beating.

As is customary, Nokia’s forward-looking statements were all suitably disclaimed. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 has a “safe harbor” provision that protects companies from legal action should their forward-looking statements turn out to be untrue. Nokia included the necessary wording to indicate that the statements were dependent on market conditions and many other factors, and that reality might diverge from its predictions.

However, Chmielinski argues that Nokia isn’t protected, because Elop and other company officers knew that the forward-looking statements were false, and were not related to any business plan or projections. Chmielinski is claiming class-action status, with anyone who invested in Nokia in that six-month period included in the class.

Nokia has issued a statement saying that it is aware of the lawsuit, believes it to be without merit, and is investigating further.

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