kye
Latest
Genius Gila gaming mouse hands-on
What does it feel like holding a CES Design and Innovation nominee in your hand? If Genius is any indication, it feels an awful lot like a $100 mouse. A pretty nice $100 mouse, mind you -- one with all sorts of flashing lights and rubber-injected sides. The Gila GX Gaming Series fits nicely in the hand, as one might expect from a peripheral designed for extended MMO marathons. It's also got a nice weight to it already, but if that's not enough, that's no problem: there's a trap door in the bottom that opens up. Inside, you can slot a tray of watch battery-sized weights, which pop in and out to adjust the thing to a suitable level, up to 30 grams. Also cool is the DPI gauge on top of the mouse, to let you know where you currently stand in the 200 to 8,200 range. There are 12 buttons jammed into the thing, and as you'd imagine, there's button assignment and macro options, so you can set up to 72 keys on the thing. There's also a slew of color options for the various lights on the mouse, in case the glut of buttons aren't showy enough for your gaming needs. Sadly, Genius isn't quite ready to debut the second generation Ring Mouse, but we've been promised a glimpse in the very near future. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub. Jon Fingas contributed to this report.
National Labor Committee report on Chinese CE factories uncovers deplorable conditions
Yesterday, the National Labor Committee produced a report on the working conditions at the KYE Factory in Dongguan City, Guangdong, China. KYE operates (like many factories in China) a live-work facility and generated sales of $400 million in 2008. KYE manufactures outsourced products for HP, Best Buy, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, and ASUS. Their largest customer, however, is reportedly Microsoft. The report details some of what we've come to expect in stories of labor abuses -- near children, most of them women, working for 16 or 17 hours a day, living in nearly deplorable conditions, for less than a dollar an hour -- all so that the world's ever-growing need for / addiction to consumer electronics can be fed. Now, the gadget industry isn't the only offender by a stretch -- but it's quickly becoming one of the largest (in addition to producing a truly horrific amount of toxic garbage). After the break are some choice facts from the report that our readers might be interested in ingesting, so read on.
