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Apple supplier accused of chemical safety and overtime violations
Apple is still struggling to improve working conditions at its suppliers. Both China Labor Watch and Bloomberg report that Catcher, a key supplier for iPhone and MacBook casings, makes workers endure harsh safety conditions and unfair work terms in a factory in Suqian. According to observers and discussions with workers, the machines are not only loud, but spray fluid and metallic particles that frequently hit workers' faces (only some of which have access to safety goggles and gloves). Workers suffer health issues such as vision problems, irritation and discoloration. Beyond this, the facility reportedly pumps out wastewater that violates local safety levels, and workers return to cold dorms with no hot water or built-in showers.
Apple supplier tagged with another round of labor violations
Apple's gearing up for a very big day next week, but it to the people inside it must seem like this one will never end. First the company was implicated in perhaps the biggest celebrity leak of all time, and now it's getting wrapped up in another round of alleged labor violations thanks to one of its China-based suppliers. A report released by China Labor Watch and the environmental watchdogs at Green America maintains that some workers at a Catcher Technology factory in Suqian that produces aluminum cases for Apple products were found putting in crazy overtime hours (up to 100 hours a month in some cases) and used toxic chemicals without being safety trained.
Catchr keeps an eye on your iPhone when you can't
Have you ever left your iPhone on a countertop or coffee table and wondered if a curious friend or family member did any snooping? Catchr is an app designed to answer that question by tracking all the app activity that happens on your device. Once you tell Catchr to begin its monitoring, the app records app status changes, with what the developer claims is 98 percent accuracy. When someone opens or closes an app on your phone -- whether it's you or not -- that activity is saved to a list by Catchr, which can be checked later. Each list is called a session. If the Catchr app is shut down, the session will be closed, but the list of previous app activity will still be available once you open the app again. The app also features a passcode lock, so you'll know that nobody's tampered with the logs. In addition to app activity, each recorded session also tracks how the app was closed -- whether by the authorized user or via a forced shutdown -- as well any GPS movement the phone experienced during that window. In all honesty, the amount of time your smartphone is out of your sight during an average day is probably rather small, but if you find yourself leaving your device to charge in places where it could be tampered with -- and if you don't want to set up a passcode lock in the meantime -- Catchr is an interesting alternative. It's a lightweight, relatively inexpensive (US$1.99) way to make sure nobody's been messing with your smartphone when it's out of your line of sight.
SlingCatcher box reveals codec support: why hello, XviD
We honestly can't wait for Sling's SlingCatcher media streamer to be released, so we'll take any little scrap of info we can -- and these shots of the box are pretty tasty scraps indeed, because it looks like Sling's latest will have some sweet codec support: WMV, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264 and XviD in a variety of file formats, including .VOB. Sadly, it looks like output maxes out at 1080i, but that's a small tradeoff for what looks to be one of the most flexible streamers on the market. Hit the read link for two more shots, including the codec list.
Catcher: rugged UMPC handles 50 Gs of shock
You know, there are all kinds of people in the military these days. And we just know that the geekiest of our armed forces are going to go gaga over this new UMPC, called the Catcher. This new rugged, superportable computer has 802.11a/b/g support, Bluetooth, dual-mode CDMA / GSM data, fingerprint reader, GPS, iris scan, a pair of VGA cameras (one pointing toward the user, and one away), and an "emergency alert feature" that sends an auto tracking signal back to the server. The Catcher is also designed to support a three foot drop and up to 50 Gs of shock -- slightly better than our consumer-grade laptops, hey? We've got zero intel on price or availability, but surely Uncle Sam spares no expense for our elite fighting force. And we're sure that our men and women in uniform running around Saddam's former palaces are going to want something like the new application Lifeware to control audio and video systems that they surely have spread throughout the house. Lifeware promises to control everything from temperature to audio controls, but no word on if our soldiers will be able to run military applications, control their in-base audio systems, and play solitare all on the same device, which would clearly be the holy grail in convergence. [Via jkOnTheRun and eHomeUpgrade]
