The controversy over working conditions at FoxConn, a Taiwanese company who assembles and supplies the iPod for Apple has escalated, as two Chinese journalists have had their assets frozen by a court at the company's request.

They claim that the journalists exaggerated claims of bad working conditions in their assembly plant. An Apple investigation (yeah, I know, hardly impartial) had found that there was no evidence of forced labour but that limits on work hours were exceeded.

Workers allegedly told the reporters that they had to stand for hours on end, and were not allowed to talk.

Other large tech companies using FoxConn's services include Dell, Sony and Intel.

  Archos never really impacted on my life until a very dull evening channel-hopping led me to TV's darkest hole - the shopping channels - where an enthusiastic gent was demonstrating one of their portable players. Unlike most items on such channels, it actually seemed like a decent piece of kit. And now they've updated the range, adding the 604 and 404 personal video players.

The new models have a hefty 30GB of storage, which should be good for up to 85 movies, 130 hours of TV, 300,000 photos, 15,000 songs or any number of PDFs. Portable does mean a small screen, with the 404's screen just 3.5 inches, while the 604 features a 4.3-inch screen. However, one feature on these devices could outweight that downside - if you pick up the optional docking station, you can do scheduled or one-touch recording straight to the device from TV, DVD or cable. Which means you'll be able to watch the end of that film you missed the night before on the train to work!

Prices are £220 for the 404, £270 for the 604 and an additional £70 for a docking station. Available from September

Archos website

Via Shiny Shiny

  Nokia is to release an enhanced version of its 8800 slider phone next month, keeping the looks, adding a much-needed higher-spec camera and changind the name to the 8800 Sirocco.

I thought the Sirocco was an old Volkswagen motor, but apparently its a strong wind. What that has to do with phones, I don't know - but I do know that this phone features a 208 x 208, 262,144-colour display, 64MB of storage, Bluetooth with wireless stereo audio, MP3 ringtones and a digital music player. Battery time is eight days in standby and up to three hours talk time. Much of that was present in the older version, the one big new feature is the camera, boosted from a VGA model to two megapixel model. There's also a redesigned keyboard and navigator control.

You can get your hnads on one in September, with no price as yet confirmed. But you're unlikely to geet much change from £500.

Nokia website

Via The Register

More mobiles:
One Minute Video Review: Nokia N73
Samsung's 8GB SCH-B570 golfing mobile phone

Toshiba has launched a range of USB drives under the TransMemory label, all featuring U3 technology and with capacities up to 16GB.

In addition to the usual benefits of a USB drive (ease of use, size and portability), the drives also feature U3, which extends the use from a storage device to a host of applications and personal settings. Once you've configured a U3 drive and downloaded the free programs available, you can re-create a familiar computing environment on any PC, using email, a web browser and other programs - all with your settings. And once you've removed the drive, all traces of your presence are removed too. It's also password protected for added security.

The smaller TransMemory U3 drives will be available at the end of November, while the limited edition 16GB drive will appear at the end of December. Prices to be confirmed.

Toshiba website

More storage:
JumpDrive Firefly - the USB drive gets smaller (again)
PNY Attaché Pro - the security-conscious USB drive

Confused by all this talk of aggregating undefined feeds, enabling citizen-media platforms, and harnessing AJAX-enabled synergies? Join the club. If only you too could gabble Web 2.0 bullshit. But now you can, thanks to - what else - The Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator.

Click a button, and it churns out a catchphrase that'll have venture capitalists flinging money in your direction. And the site helpfully also points you in the direction of a Web 2.0 company name generator, and a Web 2.0 logo creator. Now that's what I call synergistically long-tail stuff!

Heaven knows, the Web is full of marvellous ways to kill an hour or two when you should be working, but Fanpop may be one of the most addictive. It launched in early August, and describes itself as a "social portal".

The idea is simple: if you're a fan of something - whether it's The Simpsons, viral videos, tea or 80s fashion - you can create a 'spot' which collects together links to news stories, video clips, blogs, photos, forums and other online resources. All these links are submitted by Fanpop users, who can vote on each other's links to highlight the best.

Several members of the Shiny Media team have been lost in niche Fanpop spots since discovering it, and the site already has more than 1,000 spots on it. So we thought we'd chat to CEO and co-founder Dave Lu to find out more about it.

Looking for a digital camera that can withstand a bit of wear and tear, but still packs in the features? It's perhaps worth sneaking a peek at Ricoh Caplio 500SE, and in particular, the Model W.

It's not the best-looking camera you'll see on the shelves, instead it's built for more extreme conditions, featuring a water, shock and dust-resistant casing. The Model W of this 8 megapixel camera also features both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. And if you're not near a hotspot to upload your snaps, you can transfer the photos to your mobile, then send/upload from there.

There's also a 2.5-inch LCD screen, 3x optical zoom and 26MB of internal memory (which can be boosted by SD card). The price of the Model W is $1,100 (around £578) and it ships in the US around the end of the year. As yet, there's no date for a UK launch.

Ricoh website

Via Engadget

More digital cameras:
Olympus mju:1000: 10 megapixel, 3x optical zoom, compact digital camera
Canon adds A710IS, A640 and A630 cameras to the PowerShot range

Bang & Olufsen has introduced a typically stylish new TV - the BeoCenter 6-23 LCD TV. And it's a first - the first time a TV has come with an integrated DAB radio as standard (unless you know better).

The 23-inch LCD TV promises a 180-degree viewing angle and a front glass screen to keep the picture bright and clear, even when it catches the sunlight. There's also DVI input if you want to impress your mates and use it as a computer monitor, while BeoLink offers connectivity to any other Bang & Olufsen TV in the home.

  Here at Tech Digest, we've heard rumours that ROK is about to launch a mobile VoIP appication that will enable you to make free mobile-to-mobile calls, via the internet rather than via your mobile network. And what's more - the application will be given away absolutely free.

Bruce Renny, Marketing Director at ROK, was surprisingly (and unusually) coy when we asked him about this - neither confirming nor denying the rumours. So it's very much a case of watch this space - more news as soon as we get it.

ROK has made a name for itself previously by offering mass-market mobile TV over 2.5G GPRS and movies on memory card. The company recently turned a few heads when its mobile TV service out-performed all but one of the 3G services in a consumer test.

ROK website

More VoIP:
Logitech and Skype produce Internet Calling Desktop
Review: Philips VoIP321 dual phone

Sister blog Tech Reviews, has the skinny on the Navman Mobile Travel Assist S60 Edition. It is a sat nav system for Series 60 (that'll be Nokia N Series then) mobile phones. It has lots of interesting new features and includes the NavPix - GPS image tagging system - which debuted on the 700 series a few months back.

Read the full review here.

So, you spent hundreds of pounds on that home gym gear to get yourself fit, and now it's rusting away in the garage. Don't worry: even Hollywood superstars do the same thing. At least, that's the conclusion to draw from this eBay auction on Bayraider for Charlie Sheen's home gym, which he originally paid over $20,000 for, but is now on eBay for $995 "in like-new condition".

Meanwhile, if you're less fitness-focused and more gadgety, you may want to check a couple of other auctions found by Bayraider today: such as this gold-plated iPod Nano, this baseball bat signed by the Sopranos cast, or this collection of Snakes On A Plane tat. Because you can never have enough ceramic piggy-banks based on popular snake-related B-movies.

A number of the big hi-fi names seemed to have cottoned on to the fact that we want a good home audio system, but often haven't got the space for the full stacking experience. The latest company to miniaturise their high-end technology is Denon, which has unveiled the D-F102DAB micro component system with DAB radio.

According to Denon, only the size has gone down, not the quality, with the D-F102DAB using audiophile components and technology from Denon's Advanced Evolution hi-fi. In addition, the speakers are specifically tuned for UK ears and combined with the hi-grade amplifiers, should offer a qulaity of sound you don't usually find in a system of this size/price bracket. But if I were you, I'd give it a showroom listen and make your own mind up on that.

You'd think Sony would be throwing all their eggs into the Blu-ray basket right now. Not so - they're still working with the humble DVD and now working with NEC in a joint venture to produce the AWG170A DVD writer, which promises writing/reading speeds at the highest level available in the industry today.

The AWG170A can achieve 18x DVD±R overspeed writing on 16x single layer media, along with 12x DVD-RAM write/read speed - an increase of over 50%. The drive supports all DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW media including double and dual layer DVD Recordable discs and has been tested with over 400 media types, including 8x recording of both DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL double/dual layer discs. Rewriteable DVDs are recorded at 8x (DVD+RW) or 6x (DVD-RW) speed but can be read at up to 13x. The drive also supports CD-R writing/reading of 48x speed.

Here’s a weird little tip that has been doing the rounds for a while -- it first came to Propellerhead’s attention in the late 1980’s -- and over the years quite a few people claim to have temporarily revived a dead or dying hard drive simply by popping it in the freezer for a few hours.

The drive should be tightly sealed inside a 'Ziplock' plastic bag, to prevent condensation and left in the freezer compartment for at least two or three hours. It’s not a permanent fix and once back inside the case the drives apparently work long enough for the user to recover data, maybe 20 minutes to half an hour.

The web has been abuzz with an apparent leak of Canadian prices for Windows Vista on a Microsoft website, that has subsequently been withdrawn. However, a price list has been on Amazon’s pre-order pages for at least the past two weeks, with a predicted release date of January 30th. In case you are interested, or want to start saving your pennies the US prices are as follows: Vista Home Basic will be $199 for the full version and $99 for the upgrade (approx £105/52). The Vista Home Premium Full/Upgrade will set you back $239/$159 (£126/£84), Vista Business will be $299/$199 (£158/£105) and Vista Ultimate will be $399/$259 (£210/£136). Don’t forget it’s all speculation and conjecture and these are US prices but so far Microsoft hasn’t denied it and it sounds about right so they’re probably in the ballpark

Native Instruments - producers of Reaktor, Absynth and Traktor, now brings you the Audio Kontrol.  Available this October, the Audio Kontrol is an advanced MIDI control box aimed at musicians, producers and DJs.  24-bit / 192 KHz quality, Windows XP and MacOS compatible (thanks guys!), two balanced inputs, four balanced outputs, USB 2 bus powered, and 3 programmable buttons. Will cost €300, yet magically come with €400 worth of software. [GT]

Audio Kontrol

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Today's Website of the Day is Technology Evangelist, a collection of insightful posts on technology issues including the Internet and computing, from Ed Kohler.

Sam Sethi at Techcruch UK has written an interesting post that focuses on trust versus control of employees' access to the Internet at work.

Anne Kirah, Microsoft Senior Design Anthropologist (at the recent Tech.Ed. in Sydney) described two types of people - digital immigrants who were not born in the digital age and to a greater or lesser extent have learnt to use the technology, and digital natives who were born into this sea of technology and see it is a natural part of life.

In her address she said:

”In the old world we measured productivity by just sitting your butt down 9 to 5. We were coming to work 9 to 5, what else would you do at work except work? And I’m still of that mindset myself because I am of the older generation. I find it very difficult when I’m bombarded by instant messages, I find that I just fracture, but that’s just me. But what often happens is that we translate our own experiences and say ‘well, I can’t do it so nobody else can do it. If they’re doing it, it must mean they’re not focused.”

When I was a kid I always had a dream of owning a jukebox that I could load all my CDs into and play randomly. Then, along came the iPod which gave me a pocket-sized portable jukebox. But what if you could dock your iPod to a jukebox-esque gadget that will play your music, display your photos (or at least send them to a TV), and flash a lot of lights?

Well, it may not be to everyone's taste, but the Jukebox Station from Pacific Rim technologies looks like a fun piece of kit to literally brighten up your room.

As for the sound quality, Pacific Rim describe it:

Complete wood enclose speaker system for clear quality sound enjoyment from your iPod. Within Jukebox Station sealed wooden enclosures comes the quality components used for amplifier and drivers with advanced design characteristic to produce high-quality clean sound. No more CD’s skipping while playing your music loud.

At one metre high, it offers a complete wood enclosed 80w stereo speaker system, FM radio, LED lighting system, speakers with woofer, mid-range and tweeters, 17 function remote control, universal iPod dock and audio input connections.

It's available from October for $700 - not cheap. No word on whether it'll make it over to the UK.

Pacific Rim website

I love magic... I love watching magic. I don't like magicians coming up to me and giving me hassle however. This is why the internet is so ace. You can watch tricks without the fear of being made to walk up to a stage and forced to act like a chicken.

Mof Gimmers