Chinese groups slams Apple for environmental policies

Ouch. The Associated Press is reporting that three dozen environmental groups have jointly issued a report called "The Other Side of Apple" that accuses the company of ignoring their concerns about health and safety issues at Chinese manufacturing facilities. These plants that the company with components that are used to build iPads, iPhones and other apple products. The report cites the use of dangerous chemicals used in the manufacture of touch screens, and other hazardous materials that can make factory workers sick or endanger their lives.
The report comes just as Apple has opened stores in China and this week told investors that China was a vast and important market for the company.
The report noted that Apple was the least responsive of 26 tech companies doing business in China. An Apple spokeswoman in China, Carolyn Wu has said that the company is "committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility," but had no direct response to this latest report. The groups have commended Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq Computer and others as the most responsive. Previously, Apple was embroiled in controversy after some employees at the South China Foxconn plant where Apple products are built committed suicide.

Larry Page takes over as Google CEO, Eric Schmidt now Executive Chairman

Google's Q4 financial results press release contains a bombshell: as of April 4, co-founder Larry Page (on the far right, above) will replace Eric Schmidt as CEO. That doesn't mean Schmidt is leaving -- he'll carry on as Executive Chairman and serve as an advisor to Page and co-founder Sergey Brin, focused on external things like deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership." As for Sergey, he'll now "devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products," while Page assumes responsibility for day-to-day operations and product development and strategy.

Schmidt's clarified the change in a blog post, saying that the idea is to make leading Google as efficient as possible, and that "Larry, in my clear opinion, is ready to lead."

iFixit releases iPhone 4 liberation kit for Pentalobe screws

The good folks at iFixit have noticed that iPhone 4s taken in for service often return without their original Phillips 00 screws. Instead, they're being replaced with Apple's own proprietary Pentalobular screws. These are the same screws that are in the current-generation MacBook Air. Here's a close-up pic from an iPhone 4, courtesy Engadget editor Nilay Patel.

Don't call them Torx screws because they most certainly are not. To get the rare, expensive tool that's meant to extract them, you'll have to be a certified Apple tech (or know one).

While you're meant to use a special driver to extract those screws, you can get them out with something else. That something else is a part of iFixit's "iPhone 4 Liberation Kit," which contains replacement Phillips screws and a driver that will remove Apple's Pentalobular screws, as well as two Phillips replacements. No, it's not the official tool but a low-cost alternative. Note that there's a good chance it will damage the proprietary screws, but you're going to throw them out anyway, right?

Opening an iPhone 4 isn't something that just anyone should do. Be careful and know your limitations. If you're ready, the iPhone 4 liberation kit can be yours for US$9.95.

Check out the video explaining the issue and the kit after the break.

[Via Macgasm] Continue reading iFixit releases iPhone 4 liberation kit for Pentalobe screws

iFixit releases iPhone 4 liberation kit for Pentalobe screws originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Deals of the Day [Dealzmodo]

Today's deals include a 6 core HP desktop, a pack of 4 Plantronics headsets, and a free digital copy of Betty Crocker Soups Cookbook. It's not too early to start planning for Valentines Day. This sounds like a great deal. More »

Fujitsu unveils Esprimo FH99/CM, touts it as the world's first glasses-free 3D desktop

After seeing Sharp's 10.6 glasses-free 3D display last September, we left convinced that parallax barrier 3D technology was a long way off from being ready for prime-time, and then we reached for a bottle of aspirin. Demonstrations by Intel and Sony at CES this year proved, however, that a lot can change in four months, and we hope for Japan's collective eye sight that Fujitsu's Esprimo FH99/CM desktop PC follows this trend. That's because Fujitsu claims it's the world's first glasses-free all-in-one, and it's scheduled to launch in the country on February 25th with a whopping $3,100 price tag. All that dough will get buyers a naked-eye 23-inch full HD 3D display plus top-of-the-line features such as a Blu-ray drive with 3D Blu-ray support, a 2Ghz Core i7 processor, 4GB of memory, a 2TB hard drive, and two USB 3.0 ports. There's no word whether the computer will land stateside, but if it doesn't, Toshiba has hinted they could fill the void with a glasses-free 3D PC of its own by late 2011. Still, we wouldn't recommend stomping your 3D glasses just yet.

YouTube streams are down on Boxee but not blocked (update: fixed)

Last night Boxee users apparently noticed they were unable to stream YouTube videos via their app or Boxes as noted above by TheNewTVRepublic, leading to some speculation that we were seeing a repeat of licensing related blocking that once shut down access on Popcorn Hour hardware. Fortunately that's not the case, as the official YouTube account just tweeted out a notice that it's only a glitch which it is working to address "quickly." We'll return to DEFCON level 4 pending an actual fix, but until then the latest series of Vote 4 Bieber My YouTube entries will just have to wait.

Buffalo's PC-TV1/HD adapter brings Intel Wireless Display support to Japan

So, you did it. You went out and purchased a WiDi-enabled laptop. Congratulations. Trouble is, you have no way to get those wireless transmissions to your television, and that's where Buffalo comes in. We've already seen a handful of Wireless Display adapters hit the market here in the US, but mama always said that more made things merrier. Buffalo's PC-TV1/HD is fairly simple; just plug it into your television via HDMI or composite video cords, sync it with your WiDi computer, and enjoy the spoils of watching (mostly) lag-free HD content flow from your laptop to your HDTV. Check it this March for ¥12,500 ($150), or just do what everyone else does -- buy a $4 HDMI cable, and swallow the fact that living in the future simply isn't worth going broke over.