Robot Freedom Fighters Booted From Apple Store In Siri Liberation Plot [Humor]

With all the recent protests outside Apple stores, you might think this placard-carrying duo was taking the Cupertino company to task about labor in China.

Nope: it’s a publicity stunt for a play called Robot the Rock Opera. Members of the merry troupe of the Planet X Players descended on the Cherry Creek Mall store in Denver to promote the upcoming play.

Despite the fact that it was the day of the new iPad launch, they were allowed in and given the boot (albeit cordially) by Apple employees after handing out a few flyers about liberating Apple’s robot voice assistant Siri from “slavery.”

Cult of Mac talked to writer/director Seth Iniguez Bertoni about how services like Siri are leading to “digital servitude,” whether Siri considers the work fair labor and how the actors got that mesmerizing silver sheen.

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From Silicon Valley To Shenzhen [Exclusive Book Excerpt]

A view of Shenzhen, CC-licensed on Wikimedia by Mauchai.

Mike Daisey’s NPR monologue may have misrepresented his experience at Foxconn in China, but his main findings about working conditions there ring true.

Underage workers, health hazards and debilitating overtime are findings echoed by sociologist Dr. Boy Lüthje, who has spent the last decade researching labor conditions at China’s contract manufacturers where U.S. tech giants including Apple, Dell and HP make the electronic devices that populate our homes.

(You can read Cult of Mac’s exclusive interview with him here.)

Along with a team of researchers, he’s the author of a forthcoming academic work titled From Silicon Valley to Shenzen. The data here, Lüthje notes, is from late 2009 (before the wave of suicides hit Foxconn) but the general conditions remain largely unaltered. When it hits shelves, the book will include updated comments on Foxconn and Apple, he says.

Publisher Rowman & Littlefield granted Cult of Mac permission to publish an excerpt from Chapter 4, which similarities between electronics assembly plants in Mexico, China and Eastern Europe.

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Here’s What Working Conditions At Chinese Electronics Plants Are Really Like [Exclusive Interview]

Adapted from CC-licensed photo by Mrbill on Flicker.

If you own an iPhone, laptop, Kindle, Android device, electric toothbrush, baby monitor or GPS navigator, it was probably put together by a worker in a Chinese factory.

Although Apple is currently juggling the PR hot-potato over working conditions at Foxconn plants in China, a situation made more murky by the factual takedown of Mike Daisey’s monologue, dozens of other global companies make their must-have electronics there.

For a wider perspective, Cult of Mac tracked down one of the world’s leading experts on modern labor in Asia.

Dr. Boy Lüthje is a sociologist at the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research and currently a visiting scholar at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii who has spent a decade visiting factories to study working conditions at electronics manufacturers in Asia, including Foxconn.

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The Economist Dropped A Story On Mike Daisey When The Facts Didn’t Check Out

Economist contributor and Macworld senior contributor Glenn Fleishman is a fan of Mike Daisey’s monologues, and was interested in writing about “The Agony & The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.”

But Fleishman spiked the story when some of the facts didn’t check out.

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Apple Needs To Think Different About Chinese Workers, Say Protesters

The Raging Grannies at the Palo Alto Apple store.

Apple fans and journalists asking them why they stood in line overnight weren’t the only ones outside retail stores for the debut of the latest iPad.

Consumer groups protesting labor conditions at the factories in China where those shiny new tablets were made were also out making their voices heard.

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Here’s How Police Departments Use Mac Tools For Computer Forensics

Police forensics training for Macs in Middletown, Delaware.

If you’ve ever taken apart an Apple device, you know what delicate work it can be.

Imagine trying to extract incriminating child pornography photos from a laptop and you’ll understand why tools that help you see what’s on the device before opening it up are increasingly important in law enforcement.

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Instaprint Wants 500K To Develop Your iPhone Pics [Interview]

Four quirky creatives in New York want to make tangible those memorable moments snapped with your iPhone at a bar, a concert or your house – and possibly send them to your ex – with device called Instaprint.

They are the brains behind Breakfast, named the top innovative digital agency last year by Mashable, also responsible for a tweeting bike and the Conan Blimp. (Not bad, since the agency is a mere 18-months old.)

Breakfast is now handing the hat around to fund photobooth device Instaprint on Kickstarter, asking for $500,000.

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Are iPad Owners Too Happy With The Device To Buy A New One? [Poll]

CC-licensed, ShortcutsUSA/Studio DNA.

Though our own reader poll and the sellout of the new iPad strongly suggest otherwise, at least one gadget site says its readers are not interested in buying the latest version of the device.
Only a quarter of readers polled on gadget news aggregator Drippler who own first-gen iPads plan to upgrade and about the same percentage of iPad 2 owners plan to pony up for the next iPad. (The site wouldn’t reveal exact numbers behind the poll but says they have predominantly U.S. readers who are gadget hounds.)

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Were Workers Forced To Violate Chinese Labor Laws To Make The New iPad? [Interview]

Watchdog group SumOfUs has launched a new petition asking Apple to prove that workers at Foxconn factories in China weren’t subject to illegal overtime to make the iPad 3.

Specifically, they’re looking for Apple to turn over individual worker hours from November 2011-February 2012 to prove they’re not violating China’s labor laws which prohibit more than 36 hours of overtime per month.

Cult of Mac talked to SumOfUs founder Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman about what the group hopes to achieve with this latest petition, launched the morning of the iPad event as of this writing reached 41,500 of its 50,000 signature goal.

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These Raging Grannies Shake It Outside The Apple Store For Worker’s Rights [Interview]

Raging Grannies protest outside the Palo Alto store Feb. 13

If you happen by the Palo Alto Apple Store Monday afternoon, that group of elderly women dressed in white dancing the robot to techno music on the sidewalk aren’t some funky flashmob.

They’re Raging Grannies, and they’re are mad as hell about worker conditions in China where Apple products are made.

Galvanized by a recent Mike Daisey story on NPR about Foxconn, they’re staging monthly protests outside the Palo Alto Apple store. They’ll be on the sidewalk grooving to bring more attention to Apple’s labor policies in China at 3 p.m. on March 12.

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