shenzhen

ZHENGZHAO, Henan province, China -- If you want to understand why iPhones are made in this corner of the world, look no further than Li Yue.

When I met the effervescent 21-year-old, she was lined up at a kiosk outside the gates of the massive assembly plant owned by Foxconn. Li, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jean shorts and carrying a pink parasol to beat the heat on a scorcher of a June day, was among a group of a dozen or so candidates applying for a job with the Taiwanese firm. Not a specific job, mind you. Any … Read more

Apple is teaming up with Foxconn to invest money to try to improve conditions for the supplier's factory workers.

Plagued by reports of poor working conditions at plants in China, Foxconn chief Terry Gou confirmed the news today but didn't give a dollar amount or indicate how much each company would spend, according to Reuters.

"We've discovered that this (improving factory conditions) is not a cost. It is a competitive strength," Gou told reporters earlier today. "I believe Apple sees this as a competitive strength along with us, and so we will split the … Read more

Authorities in China and Hong Kong have cracked the case of the flying iPads. In a "Mission: Impossible"-style smuggling operation, iPads, iPhones, and other coveted gadgets were being ferried across the river that separates Hong Kong and Shenzhen via a long zip line, according to translated reports from Chinese media.

The idea was apparently to capitalize on the different taxation laws in the two locales and make a mint selling the devices cheaper on the mainland side.

As if written for a scene with Daniel Craig or Jet Li, the goodies were loaded into a black nylon bag under cover of nightfall and sent over a cable line roughly a third of a mile long using an elaborate pulley system. The whole process reportedly took about two minutes.

The video below features a tour of one side of the crime scene.

Customs officials undertook a significant surveillance campaign, which led to a handful of arrests and seizing of dozens of the previously airborne Apple devices estimated to be worth more than $45,000. … Read more

Editor's note, March 16, 2012: "This American Life" announced today that it's retracting a story it did recently about working conditions at Foxconn that included an interview with Mike Daisey as well as an excerpt from his monologue "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." It said it was doing so because of "numerous fabrications" it found. CNET's Josh Lowensohn has the latest story here. CNET has contacted Mike Daisey for clarification and to expand on the statement he posted to his Web site today, but he has not yet … Read more

As a fellow CNET blogger found, security at the CES shooed us looky-loos away before we had time to poke around too much. There are, however, some observations to be gleaned from today's teasers. We'll all be treated with gadget after gadget starting tomorrow: I've seen devices like HDTV's that massage your back while it makes you a sandwich (no, not really), phones deaf people (yes, really), toys galore (lead-free let's hope) to name a few. But for now, out of the 700+ exhibitors, about 80+ are from, or list Shenzhen in their company's … Read more