Gadgets & Technology

Booq Boa Skin XS

While you’re waiting for your iPad you can stock up on all the new accouterments you’re going to need. Like the new Boa Skin XS from booq! “Designed specifically for the iPad, Boa skin XS gives today’s creative professional stylish options to protect their new gear.”

Boa skin XS offers sleek, colorful protection for your iPad on its own or in conjunction with another bag, backpack or purse. The soft neoprene skin protects your gear from scratches and scuffs, while the rigid base provides impact protection from drops or mishaps. With the base wrapped in a tough booq Twylon for optimum durability, Boa skin XS provides long-lasting protection that can withstand all of life’s elements. Sized specifically for the iPad, the neoprene Boa skin fits securely to your most valuable device, but can also stretch to accommodate other gear and accessories. Boa skin XS comes in five stylish colors (turquoise, yellow, violet, sand, and black).

The Boa skin XS is $30, and available at booqbags.com.

?

TomTom iPhone

If you’re looking for the best iPhone navigation app, then TomTom is your best choice. In the future, TomTom will be one step closer to the feature set found on high-end dedicated GPS units. Version 1.3 is currently held up by App Store reviewers, but when they get done pawing through the code, it will enable real time traffic reports along with a Google-powered local search tool.

The addition of the new services pretty much replicates the services found in TomTom’s GO Live models. Now users can get traffic reports along with local searches within the app, while dedicated iPhone apps can already get local fuel prices and weather. The dedicated GPS units still offer a bit more navigation goodies, along with larger screens, but the iPhone is nipping at their heels with the latest update.

“TomTom is fully committed to offering TomTom app users the services and features they demand most,” said Tom Murray, vice president of market development for TomTom Inc. “The latest update to the TomTom app for iPhone will offer our highly sought-after real-time traffic service option, enhanced point-of-interest search capabilities and a wide range of other features.”

Apple Inc.

Continuing our previous post about Apple Labor Violations, Apple Inc. said it found more than a dozen serious violations of labor laws or Apple’s own rules at its suppliers that needed immediate correction.

The findings were outlined in a company report on audits of 102 supplier facilities conducted in 2009. That was a year in which questions about the practices of one of Apple’s suppliers came into focus after the suicide of a Chinese worker who held a sensitive job handling iPhones.

Along with many other technology companies, Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., relies heavily on foreign contractors to build its products. Monitoring their labor practices be difficult, and Apple has caught heat in the past on this issue.

The company said in its latest report that “by making social responsibility a fundamental part of the way we do business, we insist that our suppliers take Apple’s code as seriously as we do.”

Apple said it found 17 “core” violations, the most serious type.

Those included three cases of underage workers being hired; eight instances of workers paying “recruitment” fees that were above the legal limits in those countries; three cases in which suppliers used non-certified vendors to dispose of hazardous waste; and three others in which the companies gave false records during the audits.

In the cases involving underage workers, Apple said three facilities had hired a total of 11 workers who were 15 years old in countries where the minimum employment age is 16. Apple noted that the workers were no longer underage or weren’t working for the facilities anymore when the audits were undertaken.

Apple has been pressured before to answer questions about its suppliers’ practices.

Last July, a 25-year-old Chinese worker whose job involved shipping iPhone prototypes to Apple killed himself by jumping from the 12th floor of his apartment building amid an investigation into a missing iPhone. The worker, Sun Danyong, worked for the Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese manufacturer that has long been one of Apple’s key suppliers.

The suicide, and allegations that Foxconn security guards roughed up the worker before his death, prompted a reply from Apple that all of its contractors “must treat workers with respect and dignity.”

In 2006, Apple found that workers in a Chinese iPod factory were in many cases exceeding the company’s limits for overtime. Apple ordered the factory to comply with its limits. Apple was responding to news reports at the time that workers at the factory were paid as little as $50 a month and were forced to work 15-hour shifts.

iPhone OS 3.0

Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 opened the iPhone to several features previously available only to jailbroken devices: copy/paste, MMS, push notification, voice recording, global search, HTTP streaming, and peer-to-peer networking. Apple’s June release of the iPhone 3G S extended the iPhone’s hardware capabilities to include an enhanced camera, integrated magnetic compass, video recording, augmented reality and navigation, and voice control.

There were other signs that Apple might begin lifting restrictions on previously forbidden application categories. Yet it took a very public investigation by the FCC following Apple’s hobbling of Skype and rejection of Google Voice for the iPhone to persuade Apple and AT&T to relent on VoIP telephony. And though apps such as Google Voice and Skype can now be used on the device, limitations still abound. Internet tethering, an intensely desired feature, is one high-profile example. Built into OS 3.0, the capability remains restricted in the United States by monopoly iPhone carrier AT&T.

Meanwhile, Apple has not altered its SDK restriction on interpreted code, which rules out Flash and Java applications (although Adobe purportedly has a Flash work-around), as well as Flash video playing inside the iPhone’s Safari Web browser. Web browsers themselves remain off limits as an app category, except for simple repackaging of the iPhone’s built-in Webkit HTML rendering engine.

Then there are certain iPhone capabilities that Apple still reserves for itself: background processing, video recording on pre-3G S devices, application launching, video output, lockscreen and wallpaper customization, interface skinning, GPS tracking, and remote control of an iPhone from your desktop computer (a la Apple’s Mac OS X Screen Sharing).

Each of these limitations provides incentive for the jailbreaking community to thrive.

Apple,Inc

Apple Inc. announced that three of its suppliers hired underage workers to help build the iPhone, iPod, and the company’s Mac computers last year, a violation discovered during an onsite audit of 102 factories.

Three facilities had previously hired 15-year-old workers in countries where the minimum employment age is 16, the company said in a report on “Supplier Responsibility“. The workers were no longer employed at the time of the audit, it said.

Apple did not name the violating suppliers and manufacturers.

Apple also found three cases where suppliers “falsified records” to conceal their underage workers.

The audit took place at facilities in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Philippines and the United States. Of the 102 facilities, 60 overworked their employees, 24 paid less than minimum wage and 57 didn’t offer required benefits.

Apple’s Code sets a maximum of 60 hours of work per week and requires at least one day of rest every seven days of work. They asked suppliers to end the practice of wage deductions being used for disciplinary measures. Apple reported they have stopped doing business with at least one supplier after finding repeated violations. The unnamed company would not take action to address Apple’s concerns, according to Apple Inc.

Apple also found that at eight facilities, including those in Taiwan, foreign workers paid extreme recruitment fees to hiring agencies to get jobs. The company reportedly reimbursed $2.2 million in fee overcharges over the last two years. Apple has set new standards limiting such fees to the “equivalent of one month’s net wages.”

To educate workers about their rights, Apple “also created extensive training programs,” Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, told Bloomberg.

As part of the training, 128,000 workers received information outlining their rights. The training program also including teaching 5,000 supervisors and managers on their responsibilities toward employees, Apple said in the report. The company also created courses for workers to expand computer and technical skills. They also set standards for shelter, medical treatment, and non-discrimination.