FLA

Researchers say Gainesville, Fla., is America's 'pirate capital'

No metro area in America pirates more music than Gainesville, Fla., on a per capita basis, according to data-tracking firm Musicmetric.

Musicmetric also reported that of the 97 million BitTorrent files downloaded across the United States in the first half of 2012, about 78 percent were albums and 22 percent were individual songs. The company says that if most albums have 10 songs on them, the number of tunes pirated tops 759 million.

Gainesville, located in north Florida, is home to about 124,000 people. The city is also home to the University of Florida, which has nearly 50,000 … Read more

Fair labor report shows progress at Apple's Foxconn factories

Apple supplier Foxconn has completed the majority of the changes aimed at fixing labor law violations, but its biggest obstacle may be ahead of it -- communicating with its employees that it will continue cutting weekly work hours down from more than 60 to 40 to comply with China's regulations, according to the Fair Labor Association.

The association published a report today reviewing Foxconn's completed changes and its next steps. The FLA found that Foxconn made all of the 195 change due in April and May. These are mainly physical changes that improve worker health and safety and … Read more

Foxconn fiasco not Apple's finest hour

"We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain," Apple's CEO Tim Cook wrote in a late January letter to employees.

A couple of weeks later, Cook returned to the same theme at an investor conference, where he said that "no one in our industry is doing more to improve working conditions than Apple."

Really?

After the release of an audit yesterday by the Fair Labor Association we can measure those claims against the evidence. Apple may indeed be serious about improving the conditions of people working for its suppliers in China, but it'… Read more

FLA-led Foxconn audit finds violations, fixes promised

The first results from the Fair Labor Association's audit of Foxconn have revealed violations in wages and overtime, conditions that the Chinese manufacturing giant has pledged to remedy.

The audit, which was posted to the FLA's Web site this afternoon, found all three factories in the region to be in violation of both the labor organization's code standard, and Chinese law in hours worked by employees. The FLA said these factories "exceeded" 60 hours per worker, which Foxconn has now said will be scaled back to 49 hours per week by July 1, 2013.

Foxconn … Read more

Ahead of report, FLA chief says Foxconn has 'tons of issues'

Though a full report from the Fair Labor Association's audit of Foxconn isn't expected till next month, the group's head says the FLA has already found "tons of issues."

In a telephone interview with Bloomberg, FLA Chief Executive Auret van Heerden told the outlet that the group had found "tons of issues," and that "I believe we're going to see some very significant announcements in the near future."

What those issues are were not disclosed by van Heerden, Bloomberg reported.

The remarks come just a few days after van Heerden … Read more

Apple labor petitioners to make deliveries again next week

The group that hand-delivered printed petitions to Apple's retail stores last week plans to come back for round two.

Last week, SumOfUs delivered boxes containing some 250,000 printed signatures from its petition asking Apple to require more "ethical" working conditions from its supply and manufacturing partners. In a statement issued this afternoon, SumOfUs said it plans to do it again.

Next Thursday the group is taking what it calls a "distributed" approach, delivering the same petition to Apple's stores anew. However this time, the group is plans to have "hundreds of its … Read more

Facebook embraces stage names

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Facebook embraces celeb pseudonyms VoIP must report service outages FLA: Foxconn facilities are 'first class' Update to stop address data snatchers Google+ is a man's world Subscribe:  iTunes (MP3) |  iTunes (320x180) |  iTunes (HD) |  RSS (MP3) |  RSS (320x180) |  RSS HD

Apple's mess in China: What you need to know (FAQ)

With the working conditions at overseas factories still in the public eye, Apple says it's picking up the pace on when we'll see the results of its first third-party audits.

Earlier today, the company said that the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a nonprofit labor rights group Apple joined last month, is already in China doing its first round of auditing at Foxconn factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China.

The first results from those audits will go up on the FLA's site next month, with reports on additional suppliers used by Apple and other technology companies to follow … Read more

Flash editing program

Eltima Flash Decompiler Trillix provides a series of tools for taking SWF movies, editing them, and converting them into Flash files. While it offers an impressive collection of controls, it certainly isn't for everyone.

The program's interface is intimidating, mostly because it's formed out of several small windows working together. The windows display file trees, images, and other tools. Eltima includes an educational video tutorial, but the video might scare off novice users with its tech-heavy talk. After some study, we were able to open up a Shockwave video (.swf file) and extrapolate all the pieces that … Read more