"MAIN" via Steve in Google Reader

Yemen says kills Islamists, Saleh heads for U.S. (Reuters)

2012-01-28T20:20:37Z

Reuters - Yemeni troops killed four Islamist fighters in a southern town they seized from government control, a local official said on Saturday, but a spokesman for the Islamists denied his side had suffered any casualties.

Apple patent looks to create 'secure magnets' to unlock your device

2012-01-28T19:41:00Z

It's an Apple patent application: please be aware this is unlikely to wind up in your next device, please fasten seat belts and fix your tray table in the fixed and upright position. Inside the bezel of your iDevice or Mac is a magnet that operates a switch -- that will only be activated when a "correlated" magnet inside a key-fob makes contact. That's the thinking behind Cupertino's newest patent application, attempting to turn magnets into a way of keeping your stuff secure. An example listed in the patent is using a stylus with specially encoded magnets to securely unlock an iPad, which we attribute to a zealous patent attorney and not a reversal of the "they blew it" rule. It may sound ridiculous when you first consider it, but given the magnetic-activation of the iPad 2's smart cover, it's not as outlandish as you believe. Still, we'll believe it if we see it in a couple of years.

Apple patent looks to create 'secure magnets' to unlock your device originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Patently Apple | USPTO | Email this | Comments

10 Ways Your Startup Can Hook Into Facebook, Part I: On The Web

2012-01-28T20:30:19Z

This is a guest post by Ryan Spoon (@ryanspoon), a principal at Polaris Ventures. Read more about Ryan on his blog at ryanspoon.com.

Having already covered how startups can use search and Twitter to find customers, here’s 10 steps for finding people on another key marketing platform: Facebook

Facebook has evolved from a social network into the fabric with which much of the web is constructed: identity, product, data, experience and so on. Even if you chose to no longer use it as a social destination, you would still find immense value in it through your every-day web usage: registration, personalization, sharing, interaction, etc.

This is of course a huge opportunity for consumer-focused startups. Facebook plays a core role in touching each step along the standard product / user funnel:

- Acquisition: virality, referrals, paid traffic
- Activation: conversion paths from new to active users
- Activity: user engagement and retention

Below is a slide presentation with five ways to think about leveraging Facebook to affect those three steps on your web experience. Tomorrow I will share five ways to find success on Facebook.com.

Motorola Droid Razr Maxx Review: 4G LTE With Solid Battery Life Just Got Real

2012-01-28T19:55:13Z

Short Version

The Droid Razr Maxx by Motorola is a very special phone. You see, I had a bit of a thing for the Droid Razr when it first came out, but it wasn’t quite perfect. It felt a bit light, and I had trouble holding it in my hand since it was so big and so thin at the same time. Plus, battery life was a bust. It wasn’t awful, but it only lasted about nine hours, meaning most people would need to bring a charger along every day.

The Droid Razr Maxx throws all those problems into the trash can, and only gains about 18g and 1.89mm in return.

Features:

4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced qHD 960×450 display
Dual-core 1.2GHz processor
8-megapixel rear camera with autofocus, flash, and 1080p video capture
1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter
Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread
Verizon 4G LTE
MSRP: $299.99 on-contract

Pros:

Big battery life improvements (more on that later)
Bump in storage from 16GB to 32GB
Feels a bit more like a premium product with the added heft

Cons:

If you liked the size of the RAZR, the thickness might bother you
Poorly placed microUSB charging port
No removable back cover (which has its rough consequences, I recently learned)

Long Version:

If I had to choose between the Droid Razr and the Droid Razr Maxx, I’d go Maxx all the way. Battery life may not be the star spec when you’re reading your reviews, but we all sooner or later realize that it’s probably the most important spec of all. 4G LTE is amazing. If you haven’t tried it, you should (seriously) run down to a Verizon and do a Google search or load an app on to one of the store units. You won’t just notice the difference; you’ll pine for it. But don’t get ahead of yourself. Before the Razr Maxx, every phone with 4G LTE support couldn’t keep up after a few hours of use.

The Razr Maxx crushes that pretty huge problem and finally makes 4G LTE a viable option for the power user.

Battery Life:

I usually save this section for closer to the end, but I figured you guys are just going to scroll to this section anyway, so I might as well get it out of the way.

Yes, the Razr Maxx’s battery life is far better than that of the Razr. I actually still have my Razr from when I reviewed it, and was able to test both phones alongside each other. But before I get into the results, let me tell you about how we tested it. We have a battery test program here that continuously searches Google for images. Once one page loads, another pops up. I can close out of the browser at any time to load apps (which I did), make calls (did that, too), browse the web (yep, that too), and watch some videos.

But the most important thing to remember when I give you these numbers is that both phones, the Maxx and the original Razr, were in constant use from the beginning of the test until they died. No locked screen. No minute to catch their breath.

The Razr lasted for four and a half hours with constant (and varied) use. The Maxx, on the other hand, stuck with me for eight hours and fifteen minutes. For those of you following along at home, that’s almost double the battery life. If I use the phone like a normal human being (read: not Google Image searching random names constantly), it lasted a full day and on into the next day before it needed a charge around 11 am. This is with Wifi and 4G LTE in use.

Hardware:

The phone itself is beautiful. Many of you may be bothered by the fact that its 8.99mm thick compared to the Razr’s 7.1mm waist line, but I actually found the extra bulk to both feel more premium and look… well, better. Because the Razr is so very thin, the classic “Moto hump” on the back is much, much more pronounced than it is on any other Droid. On the Razr Maxx, the hump is actually quite subtle.

The phone is a tad heavier than its predecessor, which I think lends itself to that premium feel, as well. Though, size may still be an issue for me. As I said with the Razr, my hands are pretty big for a girl and I still have trouble performing one-handed actions on the Razr Maxx.

One thing I failed to mention in my Razr review that I’ve since realized annoys me quite a bit is the placement of the microUSB port. Both the microUSB port and HDMI out are placed square on the top of the phone. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this makes it impossible to play a game or work in landscape while the phone is plugged in. Motorola (and others), please start putting your charging ports on the top side, if possible.

As far as the display goes, of course it’s beautiful. There’s very little differentiation between pixels and the size really lends itself to TV/movie viewing. Screens vary from phone to phone (even if they’re technically the “same screen”), and I did notice that the Razr Maxx has a more of a yellowy tint to it, whereas the Razr has more of a bluish tint. These are just my units, though, and if they weren’t side by side I might not have noticed at all.

I’m still a huge fan of the design, and think those boxy corners and that Kevlar fiber casing are a great direction for Moto to be headed in.

Performance::

Alright guys, after two whole sections of (mostly) praise I need to get out a big gripe. While I was testing the Razr Maxx, it froze twice. This isn’t that big of a deal. I’ve spent a good deal of time with the phone and really pushed it to the maxx (heh), and pretty much all phones freeze at some point or another. The problem, however, is that every time the Maxx froze, it stopped responding to touch.

You don’t necessarily need a removable back cover to help with battery life on this thing, but without it there’s no way to manually shut down the device. Each time I held the lock button to turn it off, I couldn’t tap the icon to shut it down. Plugging it in to a PC didn’t jolt it out of its freeze either. This left me waiting for the phone to either cool down and snap out of it, or run out of battery (which can be a helluva long wait with the Razr Maxx, especially when it’s basically sleeping). The Maxx overheats to an extent, just like the Razr, and I assume this was the culprit in my freeze issue.

Basic performance, on the other hand, was just fine. Switching between apps, surfing the web, and watching mobile video was all pleasant. I didn’t experience any serious hiccups (other than those freezes), but the usual Android lag still remains. Luckily, Moto chose to leave Blur out of the equation and laid a rather light, useful overlay onto both the Razr and the Maxx. I say keep ‘em coming like that, Moto.

As far as software goes, everything is the same on the Maxx as it is on the Razr, so I’m going to refer you to the Razr review.

Camera:

I kind of brushed over the camera performance in my Razr review, so I figured I’d show you guys what I’m talking about this time around. Still image quality is very good, especially in bright environments (see below). Even zoomed in, the camera still takes quality shots though it still won’t replace a nice point-and-shoot if you take pictures more than the average bear (that Yogi reference is weak, but I’ll still leave it.)

Low-light pictures aren’t as great, but it still gets the job done as far as stills are concerned (see below). Video capture in low-light environments doesn’t really cut it though. I tried to take a little video at my friend’s birthday party last night in a bar and had no luck. Just a lot of squiggly, blurry darkness.

If you know how to use the camera and focus before you hit the shutter button, the lag between tapping shutter and taking the picture isn’t that bad at all. If you try to focus and hit the shutter to early, you’ll be waiting a while.

Motorola packed all kinds of fun goodies into the camera application, which can be accessed by a rather slick drop down bar that sits right on top of the view finder. It offers up basic settings (like where to save the pic, geo-tagging, etc.), effects (like B&W, negative, and sepia), scenes (some of which help a bit with low-light shooting), modes (including panorama), exposure and flash.

All of this is majorly helpful, but I did have one small complaint with panorama. Unless you’re really steady, the shot can look a bit awkward. If you tilt a bit, for example, while moving from frame to frame, the shot can have bendy lines that should be straight and other strange qualities (in the image below, the train tracks dip a bit toward the right even though they are completely straight and level in real life).

Light:

Dark:

Panorama:

Conclusion:

At the end of the day, I’d say this is probably my favorite new 4G LTE phone, mostly because it actually makes LTE a viable option. Past that, it’s quite beautiful, reliable, and well-built. You won’t scratch the screen by dropping it a few feet (thanks to that Corning Gorilla glass) and the Kevlar fiber casing is not only durable but it adds a nice touch in the design department.

I’m a bit concerned about the overheating issue, but I’m also aware that I was using the phone in a way that most users won’t since I was testing. Still, if you’re a power user, I’d think twice about this and maybe see how others are faring as far as freezing is concerned.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to apologize on behalf of Motorola for screwing over Droid Razr owners. If you’re happy with your Razr and love how thin it is, than just ignore me. But for most of you, I assume that battery life is really bugging you on the original. It’s only been a couple of months since the Razr debuted, and that’s probably the biggest problem I have with this phone. I applaud Motorola for seeing an issue and nipping it in the bud, but you have to be careful that you don’t screw over your original customers in the process.

Steve Jobs, Superhero

2012-01-28T19:21:18Z

Editor’s note: Scott Weiss is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and the former co-founder and CEO of IronPort Systems, which was acquired by Cisco in 2007.

When I was a kid, I read tons of superhero comic books. I fantasized about superpowers, but the storylines about heroes with massive Achilles’ heels really held my attention the most. They saved the world but had screwed up personal lives, made lots of mistakes, and often acted like complete assholes. In retrospect, I related to their flaws. And, probably not coincidentally, my favorite characters exhibited core weaknesses I had experienced: Spider-Man (immaturity), Iron Man (overconfidence/hubris), and Wolverine (rage). Ironically, when the character’s weakness comingled with the superpower, it would often spur them to succeed against impossible odds.

It was in this context that I was riveted reading Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson. Given the number of different interviews and unfettered access granted to Isaacson, it felt like an incredibly authentic account of Jobs’ life. His greatest accomplishments, mistakes, superpowers, and flaws were laid out about as raw as I’ve ever read. Steve’s superpowers were many: He was wickedly brilliant, could see around corners, and had unparalleled understanding of how people interact with technology, to name just a few.

Did Steve have an Achilles’ heel? From the book, one could conclude that he was an extremely demanding boss. Like a beacon, superstars from every function (e.g. engineering, design, marketing, etc.) were drawn to work for Steve. They described his aura as absolutely overwhelming. And Steve pushed these A+ players to extraordinary, impossible achievements. Steve’s drive for speed and perfection often resulted in harsh, public criticism — usually directed at his very best people. Steve would constantly look over their work and declare, “This is shit!” or “This really sucks!” On my Kindle, I searched the words “shit” and “sucks” and counted 24 instances where he used one of those phrases referring to someone’s work/product.

I’ve had a number of entrepreneurs suggest that this persona isn’t unique to Steve Jobs but a common trait among some of the most successful founder/CEOs in the world. Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Jeff Bezos have all been reported as similarly caustic at times. Is this something to be emulated?

As I was reading the book, something struck me like a hammer: Despite Steve Jobs’ choice of words, lack of empathy, and sometimes prickly demeanor, he spent a huge amount of time giving his most talented employees constant, hard, critical feedback.

Thinking about how most companies dole out feedback — if they do at all — it’s usually directed at the bottom quartile of performers versus the top. A typical manager at review time spends 80% of their time preparing detailed reviews on the bottom 25%. The top quartile gets lame, short reviews — the equivalent of “You’re doing great, keep up the good work!” So, a manager takes all that time and effort to get someone doing the work of half of a full-time employee (FTE) to do the work of .75 or 1 FTE. In contrast, Steve Jobs — with his feedback energy directed at the top — manages to motivate people already doing the work of 2 or 3 FTEs to do the work of 10, maybe 20 FTEs. Now that’s serious leverage! Could this be a superpower comingling with a weakness?

I’ve found that the A players are comparably lazy with regards to their potential. Without serious motivation, they will never reach it—or even try. Despite his delivery, I believe Steve’s critical energy was directionally correct.

Here are a few other suggestions for motivating top talent:

Flip the feedback equation to 80% of your energy spent on the top quartile. This is really hard in practice as the feedback is usually more nuanced. And the top performers are usually defensive.
Infuse some damn passion. The best people don’t just want money, they want to go on a crusade and make a difference. An entrepreneur needs to constantly re-enroll the troops with a compelling, authentic story of how and why we will do the impossible.
Set stretch goals and push like hell to meet them. It’s great if these goals have meaning as well — e.g. we need the software release out before a
major industry conference.
Find a bogeyman competitor to hate. (Preferably a company bigger than yours — Microsoft!) At IronPort, we called out our competitors to the entire company and rallied the team to play catch-up. We also gave bonuses to the sales teams for rip-outs of a competitor’s appliance and then mounted them like trophies on the wall.
Work your ass off by example. A leader who is always present, ridiculously responsive and contributes real, hard work sets the right pace and tone.

A constant challenge for leaders is to find effective AND positive ways to motivate. The very best companies have inspirational founders who have found a way to coax the superpowers out of their top employees. When the top quartile contributes at 5x to 10x, it makes a serious difference.

Aging U-2 Will Fight On Into the Next Decade

2012-01-28T20:34:00Z

Hugh Pickens writes "For more than half a century, the CIA and US military have relied on a skinny, sinister-looking black jet, first designed during the Eisenhower administration at Lockheed's famed Skunk Works in Burbank, headed by legendary chief engineer Clarence L. 'Kelly' Johnson, to penetrate deep behind enemy lines for vital intelligence-gathering missions. Although the plane is perhaps best known for being shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 with the subsequent capture of pilot Francis Gary Powers, the U-2 continues to play a critical role in national security today, hunting Al Qaeda forces in the Middle East. The fleet of 33 U-2s was supposed to be replaced in the next few years with RQ-4 Global Hawks, but the Pentagon now proposes delaying the U-2's retirement as part of Defense Department cutbacks." (Read on, below.)

DIY Dishwasher Detergent [Household]

2012-01-28T20:00:00Z

You can make a simple detergent that works well in dishwashers by mixing a cup of borax and a cup of baking soda or washing soda and storing it in a tub. Use a tablespoon or two of this mixture (depending on the size of your dishwasher) along with a bit of Oxiclean or a commercial detergent to run a load of dishes. More »

Motorola Droid Razr Maxx Review: 4G LTE With Solid Battery Life Just Got Real

2012-01-28T19:55:13Z

Short Version

The Droid Razr Maxx throws all those problems into the trash can, and only gains about 18g and 1.89mm in return.

Features:

4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced qHD 960×450 display
Dual-core 1.2GHz processor
8-megapixel rear camera with autofocus, flash, and 1080p video capture
1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter
Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread
Verizon 4G LTE
MSRP: $299.99 on-contract

Pros:

Big battery life improvements (more on that later)
Bump in storage from 16GB to 32GB
Feels a bit more like a premium product with the added heft

Cons:

If you liked the size of the RAZR, the thickness might bother you
Poorly placed microUSB charging port
No removable back cover (which has its rough consequences, I recently learned)

Long Version:

The Razr Maxx crushes that pretty huge problem and finally makes 4G LTE a viable option for the power user.

Battery Life:

I usually save this section for closer to the end, but I figured you guys are just going to scroll to this section anyway, so I might as well get it out of the way.

Hardware:

I’m still a huge fan of the design, and think those boxy corners and that Kevlar fiber casing are a great direction for Moto to be headed in.

Performance::

As far as software goes, everything is the same on the Maxx as it is on the Razr, so I’m going to refer you to the Razr review.

Camera:

Light:

Dark:

Panorama:

Conclusion:

Kuhn Rikon Improves Their Spice Grinder With Grade School Science [Cooking]

2012-01-28T20:00:00Z

Remember when you first learned about the power of levers? And how (in theory) you could even use one to move a mountain? Well Kuhn Rikon has applied the same principles to a spice grinder, but on a smaller scale. More »

Sanctions to hit EU buyback firms: Iran oil chief (Reuters)

2012-01-28T19:30:15Z

Reuters - European companies owed oil by Iran could lose out if Tehran imposes a ban on crude exports to the European Union next week, the head of Iran's state oil company said on Saturday.

Dress up as your favorite Power Ranger with custom-made hoodies [Video]

2012-01-28T19:30:00Z

Once upon a time, my brother and I entered a Power Rangers/VR Troopers trivia contest on Prodigy. TV junkies that we were, we handily answered all the questions, but, sadly, when our names came up in the drawing, we received the inferior VR Troopers action figures instead of the much cooler, dino-centric Power Rangers dolls. It's probably a good thing that my 13-year-old self didn't have access to one of these custom-made Power Rangers hoodies, or she would have spent the next four years dressed as Trini. More »

Righthaven Redux — With a Difference

2012-01-28T19:25:00Z

First time accepted submitter Capt.Albatross writes "At Boing Boing, Rob Beschizza reports that, in an act of delicious irony, Swiss ISP Ort Cloud [sic] has acquired Righthaven's domain name and has relaunched Righthaven.com as a web hosting service diametrically opposed to the practices of its original owner, a notorious but ultimately unsuccessful copyright troll. The new owners, in partnership with first amendment lawyer Marc Randazza (who was instrumental in the original Righthaven's demise), promise 'infrajuridsictional infrastructure' — uptime that would require international cooperation to bring down. 'Frivolous plaintiffs will find little comfort here' says Ort Cloud's Stefan Thalberg. The domain name became available in a court-ordered auction of Righthaven LLC's assets, to pay its creditors."

Steve Jobs, Superhero

2012-01-28T19:21:18Z

Editor’s note: Scott Weiss is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and the former co-founder and CEO of IronPort Systems, which was acquired by Cisco in 2007.

Here are a few other suggestions for motivating top talent:

Flip the feedback equation to 80% of your energy spent on the top quartile. This is really hard in practice as the feedback is usually more nuanced. And the top performers are usually defensive.
Infuse some damn passion. The best people don’t just want money, they want to go on a crusade and make a difference. An entrepreneur needs to constantly re-enroll the troops with a compelling, authentic story of how and why we will do the impossible.
Set stretch goals and push like hell to meet them. It’s great if these goals have meaning as well — e.g. we need the software release out before a
major industry conference.
Find a bogeyman competitor to hate. (Preferably a company bigger than yours — Microsoft!) At IronPort, we called out our competitors to the entire company and rallied the team to play catch-up. We also gave bonuses to the sales teams for rip-outs of a competitor’s appliance and then mounted them like trophies on the wall.
Work your ass off by example. A leader who is always present, ridiculously responsive and contributes real, hard work sets the right pace and tone.

Dell Winter Electronics Blowout: UltraSharp U2312HM $184, Logitech 2.1 Speakers $40, 16GB USB $15

2012-01-27T17:02:05Z

If you weren't able to take part in the 4 Day Sale Dell had earlier this week, they're back again today with a Winter Electronics Blowout Event. We've listed some of the more notable deals below and don't to use the the coupon code L07TXSDW2NRR0H to save $15 on select Home and Home Office electronics and accessories (excluding "customizable" electronics such as monitors where you can add warranties) when you bundle products totaling over $99.99.

The popular 23" UltraSharp makes a return and at $184 is a great deal for an IPS monitor. With full HD resolution and vibrant colours, it might be the last monitor you'll ever need -- until you pair it up with another, of course. It also features portrait or landscape orientation, 4 x USB ports and DVI and display port connectivity options.

The sale starts now and is on until February 2.

At Just $40, the Price Is Right For Tenqa's Bluetooth Headphones [Headphones]

2012-01-28T19:00:00Z

I haven't had a chance to test Tenqa's new REMXD Bluetooth headphones, so I have no idea what they sound like. But at just $40 they're some of the cheapest wireless headphones you can buy, and might be worth a try. More »

Radioactivity Counter Turns Your Android Phone into a Geiger Counter [Video]

2012-01-28T19:00:00Z

Android: Getting one step closer to turning your phone into a tricorder, Android app Radioactivity Counter uses the CMOS camera sensor on your phone to record radiation levels. More »

Concept Art Writing Prompt: Gentleman Godzilla goes out for a stroll [Open Channel]

2012-01-28T19:00:00Z

Fire up your keyboards, kids; it's time for another Concept Art Writing Prompt. This week's writing prompt features a familiar character: the one, the only Godzilla. Will your flash fiction piece star the famed Japanese monster? Or will you give this parasol-wielding lizard man an entirely different identity? Post your story in comments More »

(Founder Stories) SoftTech VC’s Clavier: How To Avoid The Series A Crunch

2012-01-28T18:32:57Z

At the top of this Founder Stories episode featuring SoftTech VC’s Jeff Clavier, Chris Dixon mentions much has been written about the “Series A Crunch.” It’s the occurrence of seed stage companies hitting the end of their initial funding cycle at roughly the same time and having to compete for big checks from a limited supply of VC. There’s just not enough money or VC interest to keep all entrepreneurs afloat for another round.

In an effort to prevent future founders from colliding into the Series A Crunch, Dixon advises startups set out to initially raise 18 months of funding, adding, “18 months effectively gives you let’s say 12 months of real operating, which gives you three iterations instead of one.” The more time to perfect the product the better.

Clavier agrees that the Crunch “is absolutely happening” and backs Dixon’s longer runway strategy.

Clavier also says consumer internet companies need to demonstrate more than ”just pure user traction” to whet a VC’s appetite. He tells Dixon SoftTech VC is moving towards backing “businesses” and trots out Fab as an example. “We’ve made money from Fab the day we launched the service, Why? Because it is transaction based.”

Make sure to watch the full interview for additional insights and make sure to watch episode I and episode II of this interview.

All Founder Stories videos including interviews with David Karp, Lauren Leto, Stephen Kaufer, Christopher Poole, Dennis Crowley and many other founders are here.

iNdustrial Revolutions

2012-01-28T18:11:34Z

To paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, “iPads are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” It’s an ugly story. Over a hundred employees “injured by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause nerve damage and paralysis” because its use “meant workers could clean more screens each minute.” Other workers killed or injured by explosions. All so that iPads can be built as cheaply as possible, so that Apple can maintain its 44.7% gross margins. Isn’t that awful?

Yes, of course — but let’s try to maintain a nuanced perspective here. This is hardly a new story, and it’s hardly unique to the tech industry. Think of the exploitation of child labor to harvest Egyptian cotton and Cote d’Ivoire cocoa. Plus ça change; a decade ago it was Indonesian sweatshops and Indian fireworks exciting outrage. Think of the exploitation of Congolese workers to mine coltan, used in electronics everywhere. Show me a country with a large population of desperately poor people, and I’ll show you horrific exploitation of impoverished workers.

Please note, though, that the latter is an inevitable symptom of the former; and again, let’s please try to maintain a sense of perspective. It’s awful that a dozen Chinese workers were killed and hundreds injured building iPads–but at the same time, coal mining kills more than two thousand Chinese workers a year (down from almost 7000 ten years ago) and nobody’s suddenly outraged about them. We in the West don’t really seem to care that Chinese employees work under awful conditions and die in appalling numbers — unless they make shiny things that we use. We claim we don’t want people to suffer, but in fact we just don’t want our iProducts tainted by that suffering. Isn’t that more than a little hypocritical?

So what? you might say. It’s all horrible! Stop them all, or any of it that we can stop, right now! Right?

No. Not necessarily. This is a really complex and difficult issue, and there’s no obvious right answer. Over the last thirty years, trade and export-driven growth have been insanely great for China, and made life enormously better for the overwhelming majority of its billion-plus people. (My personal experience bears out all the data, for what it’s worth: in 1997 I spent a month roaming solo through central China, then came back nine years later. China 1997 and China 2006 were like two entirely different nations, and the latter was vastly better off.)

If Apple and other Western manufacturers were to pull production from China to other, better-paid, union-friendlier jurisdictions with stronger protections for worker rights, that would be disastrous for Apple’s profit margins and innovation speed — but it would also be disastrous for China’s people. On the whole, overall, despite the gruesome and heartrending disasters in the spotlight right now, both sides benefit greatly. That’s how and why free trade works.

At the same time, we can all agree that no businesses anywhere should be poisoning their workers and/or generally treating human lives like disposable Kleenex. This is especially true in a nation whose government only accepts trade unions which are powerless government puppets. But I would argue that it’s China’s steadily growing wealth — which comes from trade, and especially, manufacturing — that will ultimately transform it into a nation where real unions and real worker rights can and do exist.

It’s worth noting that Foxconn’s problems are China’s national problems writ small. Hexane pollution and aluminum dust are scale-model versions of the nationwide poisoned milk scandal, or the ongoing catastrophe of Beijing’s hyper-polluted air, or the major lakes entirely conquered by toxic cyanobacteria. Again, employee exploitation is a symptom, not a problem. The problem is ubiquitous grinding poverty – something that trade, investment, and economic growth slowly, over decades, alleviates, albeit at a terrifying cost to the environment.

Think of the West’s Industrial Revolution. That’s more or less the same revolution transforming China right now. Is it possible to have such a revolution without some concomitant Dickensian horrors? The available evidence sadly indicates “probably not.”

In the interim, what Apple (and the countless less-sexy enterprises whose products are manufactured in China under similar conditions) can do to improve the lot of those who craft its wares is this: increase their leverage over their suppliers, by making the threat of moving production elsewhere credible. Foxconn wants to keep Apple happy, obviously – but they’d be a lot more proactive about doing so if they genuinely thought they might lose massive amounts of Apple’s business to someone else.

A concrete example: Apple shouldn’t get Foxconn to manufacture iPads in Brazil: they should have another company entirely build iPads in Brazil. Right now Apple needs Foxconn almost as much as Foxconn needs Apple. Real competition among suppliers would mean that each of them will jump a lot higher and faster when Apple says “worker rights.”

But let’s not get myopic about Apple and iPads, when the landscape of globalization and its excesses is so much vaster and more diverse. Let’s not pretend that the dynamic is purely “rich Western tech companies exploiting poor nations.” And let’s remember that technology, and China’s growing wealth, will probably ultimately solve this problem. Remember that decade-old outrage about child labor in India’s fireworks industry? Well, it’s much diminished these days, thanks to automation and India’s much wealthier society. Similarly, China’s burgeoning online population has pressured its government to pay attention to air pollution… and Foxconn is already roboticizing its assembly lines.

Most of all, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the technology pioneered in large part by the very same cohort of Western companies who outsource production to China is, slowly but steadily, lifting China, India and sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty. That, not where your iPad came from, is the most important story in the world today.

Image: Smog over Tiananmen Square in 2006, by yours truly. By all accounts it’s gotten much worse since.

Company turns to bribery for 5 star Amazon reviews

2012-01-28T18:03:00Z

In a world where word of mouth and the judgment of the hive mind is worth more than any ad or the ruminations of many professional reviewers, companies will do just about anything to ensure a strong rating on outlets like Amazon. It's clear that dummy accounts simply aren't the way to go, but what about bribing your existing customers? Apparently VIP Deals thought that route was perfectly acceptable and offered rebates to people who rated their products on Amazon. Now, the offer letter (which you can see at the more coverage link) doesn't explicitly ask for a five star review, but it is strongly suggested that the company expects one in exchange for receiving the product for free -- in this case, a leather Kindle Fire case. VIP's reviews and its products have all since been booted from Amazon, but it certainly raises plenty of questions about the ease with which some companies are able to game the system and how a reputable outlet can protect its customers from ratings scams. Hit up the source for the full story.

Company turns to bribery for 5 star Amazon reviews originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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