Foxconn To Replace Workers With 1 Million Robots Over Next Three Years

Apple’s big manufacturer in China Foxconn is looking to replace a chunk of its workers with robots over the next couple of years, href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-07/30/c_131018764.htm">reports Xinhua:

Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn will replace some of its workers with 1 million robots in three years to cut rising labor expenses and improve efficiency, said Terry Gou, founder and chairman of the company, late Friday.

The robots will be used to do simple and routine work such as spraying, welding and assembling which are now mainly conducted by workers, said Gou at a workers’ dance party Friday night.

The company already has 10,000 robots, with this number set to skyrocket over the next three years. Foxconn also does assembly work for Sony and Nokia.

While it’s not clear how many workers will be replaced by these robots, but given the scandals about suicide at Foxconn, you can bet the management likes the idea of a workforce with far fewer demands.

[via href="http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/31/foxconn-to-replace-a-portion-of-its-workers-with-1-million-robots/">MacRumors]

Readdle apps on sale!

In celebration of their 4th birthday, Readdle is having a two day, 30%-off sale on all of their apps! Here’s a few of their popular ones:

Head on over to Readdle’s iTunes developer page [iTunes link] for more apps.

If you pick any of these up, let us know what you think!

[Readdle]

Fake iPhone 5 Already Available

href="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1115_110728011500_1-500x327.jpg">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22839" title="1115_110728011500_1-500x327" src="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/1115_110728011500_1-500x327.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="327" />

Oh snap, that didn’t take long! It’s a fake iPhone 5, with a slimmer body and curved back! This rather shoddy looking fake is being marketed as the “iPhone 5″ href="http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=12287557523">over dodgy chinese websites, and for around $100 you get this bizarre device with  JAVA based OS, MP3 and MP4 playback and Wi-Fi.

This fake is 7mm thick where the iPhone 4 is 9.33mm, and seems to have cribbed the vaguely correct shape from the leaked iPhone 5 cases — but this doesn’t have the mute switch on the opposite side like the cases suggest. Plus it really, really obviously looks fake.

[via href="http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/01/iphone-5-knockoffs-showing-up-in-china-already/">MacRumors]

Mobile Nations Monday Brief – August 1, 2011

Sprint Motorola Photon 4G review – Part 1 Motorola Droid 3 review HTC EVO 3D and Sensation (and others) get new unlocked life thanks to Revolutionary T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide review	Press Release: RIM Delivers Revolutionary Social App Experience with BBM 6 Facebook v2.0 for BlackBerry PlayBook and smartphones Now Available What the Android App Player means for BlackBerry
Mobile Nations 0: Episode Zero Mobile Nations 1: Where the magic happens Mobile Nations 2: Not yet begun to fight! Mobile Nations 3: Full House!	HP TouchPad coming to Australia on August 15th, Asia-Pacific next month What if it’s HP that wants nothing to do with Sprint? HP gearing up for Pre3 apps; Early Access emulator coming this week
iPhone 5 to launch in second week of September, iPad 3 to follow later in the year? Facebook for iPad found hidden in the latest iPhone app update? Is that a Galaxy Tab 10.1 in this iPad podcaster’s pocket?	T-Mobile prepping for a 4G Windows Phone? Mango has been Released to Manufacturers (RTM) More Mango for Developers: 7712 update & SDK Beta 2 refresh

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New iPhone Coming in October, Not in September

href="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/100108_october.jpg">src="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/100108_october.jpg" alt="October iPhone 5 release" title="100108_october" width="380" height="380" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-22827" />

According to href="http://allthingsd.com/20110801/new-iphone-in-october-not-september/">All Things D, rumors of a September iPhone 5 release are incorrect. Speculation that the href="http://www.everythingicafe.com/rumor-att-employees-instructed-of-vacation-blackout-at-end-of-september/2011/07/30/">AT&T vacation blackout was tied to new iPhone is also bunk.

“I don’t know why AT&T’s calling for all hands on deck those weeks, but it’s not for an iPhone launch,” said the source familiar with the plans.

Their sources have said it’s coming this October, while refusing to offer up a hard launch date. Of course, this will likely lead to the next round of rumor hounds on the actual date.

Shark Week Gets Its Own App

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I assume everyone is watching Shark Week as we speak? After all, who doesn’t love a week of of television devoted to those brutal and beautiful killers of the sea? Capitalizing on the week’s huge popularity, Discovery has created a companion app called href="http://itunes.apple.com/app/shark-week-live/id447655069?mt=8">Shark Week Live to make your week that much more awesome.

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t stream or anything useful like that, but rather works as a real-time companion to their television feed. It’ll display information that syncs up with the programming to make it that much cooler. Here’s the official description:

SHARK WEEK LIVE is a co-viewing app, designed to enhance your enjoyment of the Shark Week TV shows on the Discovery Channel. Just activate the app while you’re watching Shark Week (July 31st – August 5th on the Discovery Channel), and you will be treated to exclusive behind-the-scenes content synchronized to the TV broadcast. You can also compete in real-time against other viewers, by playing the Shark Week LIVE trivia game.

While this app is iPhone only, all this content is viewable through the official Discovery iPad app.

iPhone Air, Mockup of Possible Next-Generation iPhone

With Apple’s annual press conference just around the bend, the iPhone 5 rumors are in full-swing. You’re probably sick of them, as am I, but this mockup (below) by Italian designers, onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.ciccaresedesign.com/?page_id=260');" target="_blank" href="http://www.ciccaresedesign.com/?page_id=260"> Ciccarese Design is slick enough to compensate for the disappointment by yet another rumor entering the rumor mill. id="more-21052">

href="http://www.iphonealley.com/news/iphone-air-mockup-of-possible-next-generation-iphone/attachment/iphone-air" rel="attachment wp-att-21053">src="http://www.iphonealley.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/iphone-air-e1312134475153.jpg" alt="" title="iphone air" width="600" height="450" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-21053" />/> href="http://www.iphonealley.com/news/iphone-air-mockup-of-possible-next-generation-iphone/attachment/iphone-air2" rel="attachment wp-att-21054">src="http://www.iphonealley.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/iphone-air2-e1312134517253.jpg" alt="" title="iphone air2" width="600" height="450" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-21054" />/> href="http://www.iphonealley.com/news/iphone-air-mockup-of-possible-next-generation-iphone/attachment/iphone-air-3" rel="attachment wp-att-21055">src="http://www.iphonealley.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/iphone-air-3-e1312134539313.jpg" alt="" title="iphone air 3" width="600" height="450" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-21055" />

The supposed next-generation iPhone, depicted in both black and white versions, sports a teardrop design (thicker at top, progressively thinner as you go down), an edge-to-edge display and an aluminum body design. It’s certainly one of the best mockups the iOS community has been faced with since the launch of the iPhone.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind the thin body and edge to edge display, but the teardrop design couldn’t really be of much help other than providing a spin off of the current design of the iPhone and of course helping the overall presentation of the phone. Yeah it’ll be fine holding it in portrait orientation, but what about landscape? Wouldn’t the different thicknesses get on your nerves? Everything else does match what the iPhone 5 is supposed to look like, though, come this September, so we’ll just have to wait and see what Apple is waiting to reveal to us.

Though it’s one of the nicer mockups we’ve seen in recent times, I wouldn’t count on the design making it to Apple’s press conference this September. Various, probable, iPhone 5 cases have been spotted recently, not featuring specifications to accommodate iPhone Air’s teardrop design.

So, the final impression expectations land on your heads. Would you purchase a device like so?

[Via onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.razorianfly.com/2011/07/28/meet-iphone-air/');" target="_blank" href="http://www.razorianfly.com/2011/07/28/meet-iphone-air/">RazorianFly]