9 to 5 Mac reports that hackers accessed Foxconn's internal data and released the information (or 'dumped', in hacker/data-nerd parlance) online, including the logins and passwords for procurement sites, teh Intranets and email accounts, with the account of CEO and animal herder Terry Gou being no exception. more ›

"Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad", a new piece on the notorious tech manufacturer Foxconn by David Barboza and Charles Duhigg of the New York Times, was translated into Chinese and published in Caixin, one of the leading news weeklies in China. They've compiled and translated a list of the reactions by Chinese readers to the piece, which split along the usually lines of tacit acceptance and finger-pointing. more ›

“Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.” more ›

Foxconn is back in the news with a vengeance these past few weeks after workers protested and even threatened mass suicide. Watch Jon Stewart's take on the factory, which he struggles to differentiate from an actual prison. more ›

This week's episode of massively popular US podcast This American Life zones in on Apple, Foxconn, and the workers that assemble one of the the most ubiquitous device brands on the planet. more ›

An explosion took place last weekend at a Shanghai-based Apple factory, making it the third lethal incident at an Apple factory in only 15 months. The incident has left roughly 60 people injured and is currently under investigation by Chinese authorities. more ›

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Created by Italian developer Molleindustria (other games include deconstructions of McDonald's and the oil industry), the most unsettling mini-game in the app is "Suicides", in which players thumb a pair of rescuers holding a fireman's trampoline left and right, in a bid to save Foxconn employees bent on jumping off of a building to meet their makers. more ›

A few links to start out your day. Jordan Pouille has some interesting photos that offer an intriguing glimpse of life in "iPad City" in Sichuan, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers to make Apple's extremely popular product. more ›

A few links to start off your day: more ›

Taiwan's own Foxconn, famous for producing Apple products such as the iPad and equally infamous for its unfortunate spate of suicides, recently revealed their plans to replace some of their workforce with 1 million robots over the next three years. more ›

It looks like the scourge of suicide at Foxconn continues unabated: a 21-year-old Foxconn employee fell from the sixth floor of a factory dormitory in the Longhua district (龙华) of Shenzhen on the 18th. Foxconn is of course the infamous manufacturing giant that produces iPhones, iPads, Xbox's, Playstation 3's, and not to mention products for other clients like Dell, HP and Nokia. It is the third suicide this year, following incidents in January and May, and the 18th since the beginning of 2010 (other sources [in Chinese] have the number lower, at 16). more ›

Shenzhen: the bright star of market liberalization and home to Foxconn controversies and Obama's half-brother is now being touted as the next... political reform breeding ground? On the heels of Premier Wen Jiabao’s political reform comments made during an August trip to the city, it is at the heart of an experiment that gives more responsibility and greater freedoms to independent social and civic organizations... aka NGO’s. more ›

Employees at Foxconn received a 66% increase in their wages on Friday, with average pay to be around $300 (2,000 RMB) a month. The Shenzhen-based factory that produces iPads, iPhones and Dell computers was plagued by a spate of suicides this spring, in which 12 workers jumped to their deaths. It was widely felt that low wages and arduous 15-hour days contributed to the cluster of deaths. Friday's wage increase is the second such attempt by Foxconn to improve working conditions for its 300,000 employees, having pledged a 20% pay rise in May. more ›

According to MIC Gadget, these photos were found on a Chinese online store and show off the frong LCD and bezel of the upcoming iteration of the iPod Touch (4th generation). more ›

Foxconn, always with the clever ways to get their employees to stop committing suicide, has now started holding rallies with the theme "Treasure your life, love your family, care for each other to build a wonderful future." more ›

Perhaps the promises of higher pay and better conditions at Foxconn haven't been much solace to its workers or someone just had an unfortunately timed accident: either way, another worker - this time a summer intern - has fallen out of a Foxconn dormitory and died. more ›

We thought Next Media (parent company of Apple Daily) was running out of newsworthy items to render in CG -- our mistake! After last week's animation of The Internet vs. Justin Bieber, the people who also brought us Tiger Woods being slapped by his wife, Gordon Brown beating his employees and the Late Night fight between Conan and Jay now use their animation wizardry to present Steve Jobs slicing off a customer's fingers with a lightsaber to show the correct way of holding an iPhone 4. more ›

"If a worker in Taiwan commits suicide because of emotional problems his employer won't be held responsible, but we are taken to task in China because they are living and sleeping in our dormitories" more ›

It took over a dozen suicide attempts for them to realize conditions at Foxconn were maybe somewhat inhuman, but it looks like the company's at least willing to change its ways now. On the table for Foxconn workers: a wage increase that doubles their salaries and a new rule instating that they take at least one day off a week. more ›

Around this time of year, the topic of social unrest in China is never far from the fore. The recent spate of strikes at the Honda plant in Foshan and slew of suicides at Foxconn's Shenzhen factory has provided recent evidence that not only disenfranchised sections of society are willing to show their defiant colours, but also the greater need for the government to address China's wealth distribution. more ›

Joy of joys! Foxconn has now said it plans on raising wages for its Chinese workers by around 20%. The company faced a whole slew of suicide attempts yesterday, flack over some of its perhaps hastily constructed anti-suicide measures, and can expect independent investigations into working conditions from Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Will the 20% wage increase be enough to stop the jumpers? It's hard to say - for reasons excellently outlined by The Telegraph's Malcolm Moore - but it's infinitely more helpful than the non-suicide pact Foxconn soon had to retract. For more news on the matter, click here. more ›

When your PR push can't get your workers to stop leaping off of buildings, then perhaps it's time to start up the censoring machine. News about Foxconn jumper number 12 (which happened just hours ago) has already been banned, but number 13 apparently leapt faster than the Ministry missive could come out and was reported on by Hong Kong media. more ›

From RTHK via Xinhua: The twelfth employee to jump from Foxconn's Shenzhen plant this year became the tenth person to plunge to his death at the factory just now around 11pm. Earlier in the day, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou arrived in Shenzhen to bring the media for a tour around the factory's recreational facilities said to be available to employees, such as the swimming pool you see on the right. He bowed multiple times for the "unstoppable tragedies", adding that he was willing to stop making Foxconn employees sign the non-suicide pact. He also added that those who jumped did so because of boy-girl relationships, and that he was in no position to stop that from happening. Families of the suicide victims were seen outside the factory wailing, demanding for an investigation. more ›

The latest in Foxconn's methods to deal with employee suicides is apparently to get them to sign a letter promising that they won't kill themselves. Oh boy! Terry Gou really ought to hire some suicide prevention officer with better ideas! Employees have already complained that the letter makes it seem like they could be carted off to a mental hospital if they argue with a supervisor and that they don't know what the consequences are if they don't sign. (Foxconn manufactures, among other products, Apple's Mac Mini, iPod, iPad, and iPhone.) more ›

Sorry about the Foxconn overload lately but we thought this little hack job seen on the Foxconn HR site was kinda funny:

Foxconn -- We're Hiring more ›

Yet another employee has committed suicide at Foxconn, bringing the total of jumpers at the manufacturer to 11 to try and 9 to actually succeed this year. According to reports, a 19-year-old male from Hunan leapt off a building at the company's training center in southern China. This news comes just four days after the last death, a 21-year-old at the Shenzhen plant. Guess those suicide prevention initiatives, including counselors, song and dance, and fences aplenty, can't come soon enough. For more about the Foxconn suicides, read here. more ›

Apparently the ribbing it got for hiring monks to cleanse the factory's aura didn't stop Foxconn from thinking up other strange schemes to keep worker suicides to a minimum. The latest: playing music on its assembly line to soothe work stress. They're also planning on recruiting more than 2,000 singers, dancers and gym trainers and a good number of psychiatrists as well. Oh yeah - and three-meter fences around dormitory buildings to stop employees from jumping. How about more glaringly obvious solutions like mandated breaks and less punishing work hours? crickets. more ›

Foxconn's recent rash of employee suicides has given rise to a slew of editorial cartoons lampooning the company and its methods of dealing with the aftermath. more ›

Attempted suicides at Foxconn hit the big 10 today as a 21 year old young man jumped to his death from the iPhone-maker's Shenzhen plant this morning at 5am. This is the eighth death of a Foxconn employee so far this year -- two jumpers survived their falls. Meanwhile, Foxconn executives have confirmed yesterday's report of security guards beating factory workers. The incident apparently happened last August, and insiders say it has been settled in private and that the guards have been fired. more ›