defrog: (falco)
defrog ([personal profile] defrog) wrote2008-08-28 06:55 pm

HERO OF THE WORKING CLASS

ITEM: The Internet’s newest sensation: A Chinese factory worker whose picture was accidentally left on an iPhone.



The story: she works in the testing department of the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen (just across the border from me) and her colleague took a few test photos – and forgot to delete them before putting the phone back. The man in Britain who eventually bought the phone saw the pictures and put them on the Internet.

Gizmodo has the rest here.

The good news is that neither of them lost their job over it. Even the Foxconn spokesguy called it a “beautiful mistake”. Now everyone who buys an iPhone wants a picture of someone on the factory line who made their iPhone.

I find this a charming concept: putting a face to the person who made something you bought. I remember visiting a Samsung mobile phone factory in Korea years ago, and one thing I recall clearly was seeing a group of women in hairnets and aprons sitting in a waiting area, talking and gossiping before their shift started. It was a very human moment in a technological setting.

I think it’d be cool to buy my next phone and find it loaded with a gallery of pictures of every person who touched it from start to finish. The downside, of course, is that it would depend on the working conditions of the factory – and in China, they’re not all as nice-looking as the Foxconn testing room.

My favorite mistake,

This is dF

[identity profile] wickedsin.livejournal.com 2008-08-28 01:57 pm (UTC)(link)
wow, that's kind of neat

[identity profile] popfiend.livejournal.com 2008-08-28 07:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Amen.

[identity profile] def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com 2008-08-29 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
Personally I think it's one of the most brilliant photos ever taken. Whenever they compile the best photos of the '00s, this should be one of them.