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New York artist fashions dead drop from dying hardware, mounts DVD burner in city wall
The optical drive may be making its exit in the world of personal computing, but at least it seems to still have a place in artistic architecture. Aram Bartholl -- the man behind New York City's infamous USB dead drops -- has installed a DVD burner into the side of the Museum of the Moving Image to promote HOT, an art exhibition described as "a group show about video that is not video." Passersby who pop in a blank DVD-R will be rewarded with a digital copy of the show and the satisfaction of finally having something to do with their aging stash of unused optical media. Just how do you install PC hardware in a museum wall? Drill an enormous hole, of course -- check out a video of the installation for yourself after the break.
New York City walls play host to covert thumbdrives
Back when the walls had ears, spies would store their information in a hidden cache and pass along the location via code. Now, a New York City artist is doing the same with USB flash drives, five of which he's already injected into the city's brick walls. While there some obvious logistical reasons we'd avoid using his creation (not to mention worries about AutoRun in older PCs) we'll definitely keep the idea in mind for Engadget informants who are particularly paranoid about their anonymity. See the first five drives' not-so-secret locations in photos at our source links.
Philips and O'Neill launch durable headphones -- shaka bra!
In what amounts to yet another co-branding marketing kerfuffle, Philips and O'Neill have teamed up on a foursome of so-called durable headphones. The Stretch headphones (pictured) are the toughest of the bunch, constructed from an ultra-durable, temperature-resistant, and awesome-sounding material called TR 55LX that boasts a surface hardness six times greater than the polycarbonate stuff found in most headphones. The Snug series boasts "bold graphics" and can fold flat, while the in-ear Covert buds brings an iPhone controller. Last, and apparently least, is the "stylish" Specked with tangle free cord. Amazing. All are said to have been tested by the "toughest O'Neill team riders." As proof, O'Neill is trotting out Jeremy Jones, Mark Mathews, and Ane Enderud to promote its new gear, presumably because they want to and not because they are contractually obligated under the terms of their respective high-paying sponsorships. Needless to say, these headphones aren't for you if you don't know who these people are or you lack the fragile hipster ego required to wear them. No prices were announced, but you can expect them to match the "premium" description when these arrive for retail in Europe and the US sometime this month. We did give Stretch a go for a quickie ears-on, and honestly, while the cloth cord was a nice touch and they do seem to be super rugged, we'd prefer that the team paid a bit more attention to the sound quality than the finish.%Gallery-101026%
EVE Evolved: Exploration -- The basics
When we talk about EVE Online, it's often about PvP or the latest political intrigue in the sandbox. Less talked about is the game's core PvE gameplay, which for many players is the entire scope of their interests. I've covered a number of great ways to make ISK in previous guides, from my three-part series on trading and extensive four-part guide to research to the similarly thorough three-part guide to mission-running. Most recently I tackled the age-old art of asteroid-belt ratting in nullsec. Another of EVE's most popular PvE pastimes is exploration, where players scan out hidden mission-like sites hoping to strike it rich. Exploration is one of those things that spans players of all skill levels, with new players able to make a useful contribution and group up with older veterans. Within a week of starting the game, new players can be locating hidden complexes, doing battle with the local NPCs and hopefully finding some valuable loot. Although exploration sites use the same deadspace dungeon and combat mechanics as missions, there are a few key differences. While missions can be created at will by going to an agent NPC, exploration sites spawn randomly in space and have to be manually scanned down using probes. In this week's first part of the EVE Evolved guide to exploration, I look at the ships and equipment you'll need, and the scanning techniques typically used to find hidden exploration sites.
The fate of a generation of workers: Foxconn undercover fully translated (update: videos added)
Machine translations are still years or even decades away from perfection, so rather than sending you to an auto-translated page, we now present -- with exclusive permission from Southern Weekend -- a human translation of this damning article on Foxconn by undercover reporter Liu Zhiyi. (Photo: Southern Weekend) I know of two groups of young people. One group consists of university students like myself, who live in ivory towers and kept company by libraries and lake views. The other group works alongside steel machineries and large containers, all inside a factory of high-precision manufacturing environment. These guys always address their seniors as "laoban" (boss), and call their own colleagues -- regardless of familiarity -- the rude "diaomao" (pubic hair) in loud. After going undercover in Foxconn for 28 days, I came back out. I've been trying to tie the two pictures together. But it's very difficult. Even with people living in these two places sharing the same age, the same youth dream. My undercover was part of Southern Weekend's investigation on the then six Foxconn suicides. We soon found out that most of Southern Weekend's reporters were rejected due to age -- Foxconn only recruits people around the age of 20. In comparison, being just under 23 years old, I was quickly brought into Foxconn. The 28-day undercover work made a strong impact on me. It wasn't about finding out what they died for, but rather to learn how they lived.
Undercover Chinese reporter exposes Foxconn working conditions (update: full English translation)
Some time in April, Chinese news site Southern Weekend sent its intern, Liu Zhiyi, on a 28-day undercover mission at Foxconn's Shenzhen factory, as part of an investigation on what could've led to this year's numerous suicides in one of China's largest factories. While the report doesn't comment on the company's management and support networks (or the lack of) for front-line workers, it appears that the real problem lies in Chinese workers' definition of a "good factory" -- one that pays more by means of offering overtime hours. It's clear what's causing this perception -- there's the sub-standard minimum wage in Shenzhen, and then there are the companies abusing this fact to lure workers with overtime hours above the legal limit. Update: Thanks to Southern Weekend's exclusive permission, we've now published the full human translation of the Chinese report.
YouTube: Viacom would demand removal of videos it covertly uploaded itself
As you may have heard, Viacom and YouTube have been having a little tift lately, in the form of a major lawsuit by the former over copyrighted material posted on the video portal. It's a lawsuit that, according to YouTube, will cause such video sites to "cease to exist in the current form" -- but more importantly, it's a lawsuit that leads to some rather hilarious behind-the-scenes details. Here's a really juicy one that the official YT blog published today by Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine. Word has it that Viacom had hired over the years at least 18 different marketing firms to inconspicuously upload content. We can't really say it better than the posting: "[Viacom] deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom." Wait, it gets better. According to Levine, Viacom's tactics were so good that the company itself didn't even know which videos it had uploaded, prompting multiple occasions where it would demand a clip removed, only to later ask for its reinstatement. "In fact," she claims, "some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself." Hit up the source link for all the details. Honestly, we can't wait to see what else is dug up in these proceedings. Update: Of course, that's not the whole story. Also revealed in court documents today was discussions by Viacom to -- get this -- purchase YouTube before News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch got the chance to do it himself. Let's be thankful for that judge's decision to unseal all court documents, shall we?
