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caption Mike Gecawicz during a typical workday in Dongguan, China. source Courtesy of Mike Gecawicz This native Bostonian is a worker on an assembly line in China. Mike Gecawicz assembles 3.5 mm headphone cables in Dongguan, a city in Southern China. He chose to become a factory worker to gain a better perspective on the products we use everyday. Mike Gecawicz is a student at the University of Maine, where he studies new media. He spent his summer break in a headphones factory in Dongguan, China – a city of eight million sometimes called “the factory of the world.” Gecawicz’s father works in headphones and headsets, and helped connect him with a factory owner in Dongguan. He spent a previous summer in the same factory as a camp counselor for the workers’ kids. “I’m not entirely sure why they wanted me to come and do this,” Gecawicz said in an interview with Business Insider. “Part of it for me was … [Read more...] about Here’s what it’s actually like to work in a Chinese electronics factory, according to one American student

Register for our free newsletterSMART home devices such as artificial intelligence-powered speakers are becoming increasingly common in the UK, according to new research by YouGov. The firm’s Smart Homes 2018 Report reveals that almost a quarter of Britons (23%) now own a least one smart device for the home, with just under one in 10 (8%) owning two or more. Smart speakers, such as the Amazon Echo or Google Home, remain the most popular type of device – which also include connected lighting, security systems and thermostats. Both are powered by AI assistants that can answer queries as well as control other internet-connected appliances around the home. Such has been the success of Google and Amazon’s devices that Apple has since entered the market – launching the Siri-enabled HomePod earlier this year. Russell Feldman, YouGov’s director of technology research, said: “Ownership numbers are impressive, for this point in the product cycle. “The … [Read more...] about Smart devices are becoming more popular in British homes, according to research

caption McDonald’s new flagship restaurant. source McDonald’s McDonald’s opened a new flagship store in Chicago that looks more like an Apple Store than a fast-food restaurant. The restaurant features table service, ordering kiosks, and more than 70 trees inside the building. While not every McDonald’s will look like the Chicago mega-store, the flagship restaurant reveals some major clues about the future of the fast-food chain. McDonald’s newest restaurant is making a bold statement about the future of the chain. On Thursday, McDonald’s is opening a new flagship restaurant in Chicago. It’s a glassy 19,000-square-foot building that looks more like an Apple store than a fast-food restaurant – and that’s exactly what the company intended. “We are proud to open the doors to this flagship restaurant which symbolizes how we are building a better McDonald’s for our customers and the … [Read more...] about McDonald’s just opened a new restaurant that looks like an Apple Store — and it reveals a blueprint for the future of the fast-food giant

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s net worth is estimated to be $625.37 million. That’s mostly from Apple stock options. But the native Alabaman doesn’t live very lavishly. Apple CEO Tim Cook, 57, is at the helm of the only company in the world that’s worth $1 trillion. But he actually is a lot less wealthy than leaders of other, less revenue-generating corporations. He’s worth “only” $625 million, while folks like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Page are worth tens of billions. Cook, who is the son of a shipyard worker and a pharmacy employee, said he’s not motivated by money – and that shows through in what we know about the private CEO’s habits. Here’s how Cook made his millions and what he does with them. Tim Cook is worth at least $625.37 million, according to a 2017 estimate by data company Equilar reported by Time. Source:TIME The bulk of that is from his total stock options and … [Read more...] about Tim Cook is worth $625 million and leads a $1 trillion company — but he reportedly buys discounted underwear and prefers hiking to yachting

If you’re short on things to read — seriously? — be sure to check out the latest experiment in the Firefox Test Pilot program. It’s called Advance and it aims to ‘advance’ you past the site you’re currently gawping at and on to the next. How? By recommending relevant web content based on your browsing history, of course. Don’t scream just yet. This feature isn’t part of the default browser (at least not yet, anyway). You have to explicitly opt-in and enable it. Keen to do so? Advance on… Advance is a new Firefox Test Pilot Experiment Advance is a self-described “content discovery tool”. It works by adding a sidebar/panel to the Firefox that you can open/close while browsing the web via a toolbar button (which, annoyingly, is badged with the number of ‘read next’ suggestions waiting for you). When the sidebar is open you’ll see it’s divided in to two … [Read more...] about Firefox’s Latest Experiment Uses Your Browser History to Recommend Web Content