flextronics
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'Atomically thin' transistors could help make electronic skins a reality
Stanford researchers have developed 'atomically-thin' flexible electronics that could make electronic skin (and new implants) practical.
Trump ‘opens’ Texas Apple plant that’s built Mac Pros since 2013
As planned, today Donald Trump took a tour of an Apple manufacturing facility in Texas alongside CEO Tim Cook. While impeachment hearings continued in D.C., the president tweeted that "Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America." While Apple did claim in September that exemptions from tariffs the Trump Administration put in place made it possible to produce the new Mac Pro in Texas, a company called Flex has been assembling its high-end desktop computer there since 2013. Apple also announced plans for a new 3 million square foot campus in Austin, that will not be a manufacturing plant, didn't open today and wasn't a part of the tour. It said production of the new Mac Pro is now under way, although it didn't narrow down the "December" release window announced last week. As far as any hopes for further tariff exemptions that could help Apple, Reuters reports Trump responded "We're looking at that" when asked about it.
Quirky will sell its Wink smart home tech after going bankrupt
Quirky hinted that things weren't going so well when it stopped building its namesake oddball gadgets, and it's now extra-clear that the company has hit a rough patch. It's filing for bankruptcy in a bid to get its house back in order, and the restructuring effort will include selling off Wink, the firm behind its relatively popular smart home platform. The contract manufacturing outfit Flextronics is making a "stalking horse" offer for Wink to set a baseline price, but the hope is that another company will pony up a greater amount. So how does this affect you, then?
Flextronics brings US manufacturing to the startup set
At the end of the San Francisco Bay, in the center of the town of Milpitas, sits a nondescript office park. The Flextronics' campus is situated in the middle of this sprawl surrounded by rows of parking spaces and strips of manicured grass. It looks like any other set of buildings in any other industrial park in any other metropolitan area in the United States. But its seemingly boring location is what makes this bland row of buildings in the San Jose suburb so intriguing. Flextronics is doing something that was unheard of just a few years ago -- it built a US-based factory that's manufacturing hardware for small companies. One of those companies is Recon.
The Aquila tablet scans our world in 3D to help build better virtual ones
Your tablet can fire off emails and help you rotate beautiful, Escherian worlds, but can it capture the world around you in glorious 3D? Probably not, but the newly revealed (and Android-powered) Aquila from Mantis Vision and Flextronics can. Most of its spec sheet reads like any other top-flight tablet's would -- it's got a 8-inch screen running at 1900 x 1200 and a punchy Snapdragon 801 chipset ticking away in there -- but the telltale dual image sensors 'round the back make it clear this isn't your average Android slate. By capturing regular color footage and infrared depth data, the Aquila can put together an awfully detailed spatial representation of your surroundings.
What Lenovo's Motorola deal could mean for American manufacturing
Lenovo purchasing Motorola from Google raises a lot of questions. But, lost amid all the speculation over what this means for the marketplace, is the potential human cost. Motorola directly employs over 4,000 people, many of them at its headquarters in Libertyville, Ill. -- a wealthy suburb north of Chicago rich with brick single-family homes and more trees than people. For the moment, at least, those employees and the executive team appear to be safe. During yesterday's conference call following the announcement of the deal, Lenovo officials said there were no immediate plans for layoffs or a leadership shakeup. Things are a little more uncertain for those who rely indirectly on Motorola for their paycheck, for example the people working the Moto X assembly line in Fort Worth, which is run by subcontractor Flextronics.
Motorola's retreat continues, sells factories in China and Brazil to Flextronics for $75 million
Mere hours after Motorola announced that it was pulling out of South Korea, it's revealed a deal to sell its Chinese and Brazilian operations to Flextronics for $75 million. We won't blame you if you've not heard of the manufacturer, which has previously built XBox and Zune units for Microsoft as well as Kodak's digital cameras. While the stack of cash will go straight to plug the hole in Motorola's coffers, Flextronics has also bought first dibs on future smartphone production, something that CEO Mike McNamara says could be worth "several billions" in revenue down the line -- hopefully the next time Larry utters the words "Motorola" and "Nexus" in the same sentence. Update: Motorola Mobility exec Frank Meng says that the 7,000 workers at the firm's Tianjin, China operation won't lose their jobs during the hand-off to Flextronics. In addition, a Motorola spokesperson told The Next Web that the company plans on transferring "all in-scope employees and contractors" to Flextronics. How's that for job security?
Former Apple supplier exec pleads guilty to leaking iPhone details
Former Flextronics employee Walter Shimoon pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and security fraud. Shimoon leaked information about upcoming Apple products to hedge fund traders in late 2009. He is one of 11 people who have admitted their guilt after the government's crackdown on insider trading. Mr Shimoon and the others were industry experts who worked with Wall Street analysts and managers. The government alleges this relationship got too cozy and the information shared between the two groups crossed the line from "permissible market research" to insider trading. Mr Shimoon was recorded talking about the unreleased iPad (K48 codename) and iPhone as well as confidential sales information. He told a government witness, "So, you can get, at Apple you can get fired for saying K48...outside of a, you know, outside of a meeting that doesn't have K48 people in it. That's how crazy they are about it." [Via AppleInsider]
Flextronics purchasing Solectron for $3.6 billion
Don't feel bad if you've never heard of Flextronics, Solectron or both -- we polled our mom on the subject, and she asked when we were going to give up this "blogging nonsense" for a real job -- but these two fairly low-profile contract electronics manufacturers churn out massive amounts of product for other little companies you might have heard of: like HP, Dell, Sony, Ericsson, Cisco, Motorola and Microsoft. Now Flextronics is ending this bitter rivalry in a Coke buys Pepsi-type shocker, forking over $3.6 billion in cash and stock for Solectron. Flextronics will operate Solectron as a subsidiary, and claims the purchase will help it expand scale and market reach, while saving on costs, with the deal to add about 15 percent to earnings, claims the manufacturer.
Microsoft building a Zune factory
The fact that you all voted the Zune "Worst Gadget of the Year" in the recent Engadget Awards doesn't seem to be causing any hand-wringing in Redmond, as Microsoft confirmed today that they're building a dedicated Zune factory in China with an unnamed partner to crank out the oft-rumored next-gen Zune. It looks like Toshiba's not going to be involved this time around, as Zune marketing director Jason Reindorp has been quoted as saying that the rush to get the original Zune to market "forced us to take a look around at what was on the shelf...and get it out there," while this time they're interested in "the flexibility and control we have in creating a device from scratch." Ouch. Sorry, Tosh. Reindorp mentioned that the new manufacturing partner is someone MS is "very familiar with," and the new plant is located in the same city as the Flextronics plant that builds the Xbox 360 for Bill and Co., although nothing's been confirmed. For what it's worth, Reindorp also said that building a dedicated plant isn't going to bring "changes for the sake of changes" to the Zune (which is pretty funny given how many promo Zunes keep popping up) but here's hoping that it brings changes for the sake of actually making the thing better.[Thanks, Mike]
HP and Flextronics team up to deliver higher quality cameraphones
It's no surprise that cameraphones are emerging as some folks' point-and-shoot of choice, and we've already seen LG and Schneider-Kreuznach team up to deliver higher quality shots from your multi-functional mobile, but now HP and Flextronics are trying the knot in order to allow users to capture photos "with the same high quality they achieve from their digital still cameras." The five-year deal gives Flextronics -- makers of Kyocera, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola handsets -- exclusive use of HP's image processing technology in return for an undisclosed royalty. The same technology used in HP's long-standing lineup of Photosmart digicams will soon be hitting the depths of your pocket, and promises to produce "significantly improved results" over current options, delivering shots that are "good enough to print." Although we're not sure if these forthcoming modules can outsnap the 10-megapixel SCH-B600, we're all well aware by now that megapixels aren't everything.[Via CNET]
Kodak digital cameras to be manufactured by Flextronics
In a move probably intended to placate investors after a disastrous second quarter -- recently-reported net losses of $282 million were even higher than expected -- Kodak has announced that it will shift the manufacturing of its digital cameras over to Singapore-based Flextronics International. Although Kodak will continue to "develop the high-level system design, product look and feel, and user experience" of the cameras, Flextronics will acquire most of the company's Digital Product Center in Japan, and will be responsible for the assembly, production, and testing of the entire lineup. As part of the deal -- which Kodak hopes will help bring products to market more quickly as well as control costs -- about 550 of its employees will be transplanted to Flextronics facilities in China. While Kodak is currently the number one seller of digital cameras in the US, it's been difficult for the company to make the transition from film, with 100,000 workers having lost their jobs since 1988. Assuming that the requisite conditions are met and regulators give the thumbs up, the two companies plan to seal the deal before the end of the current quarter.[Via LetsGoDigital]
Over a million 360s per month by end of '06
Winstron, one of Microsoft's three manufacturing partners (in addition to Flextronics and the recently recruited Celestica) has announced they will be roughly tripling their production capacity to "reach a capacity of one million units per month by the end of the year." With all three partners pumping out 360s, Microsoft's manufacturing troubles will seem like a thing of the past come holidays '06. With Sony's PlayStation 3 due to launch in November, Microsoft's major tactical advantage (in addition to polished, second-wave titles) will be an abundance of consoles. With Sony facing a worldwide launch, with a technologically impressive system, they face the same risk Microsoft is just now overcoming: shortages. When little Billy wants next-gen gaming, Mom and Dad might see the possibly cheaper and readily available Xbox 360 as an adequate substitute. Who knows, maybe little Billy won't even mind so much when he's playing Gears of War or Too Human.
