Apple's Chinese Factories to be audited by Fair Labor Association

Photo from Hothardware.comApple today announced that the Fair Labor Association will conduct special voluntary audits of Apple’s final assembly suppliers, including Foxconn factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China, at Apple’s request. A team of labor rights experts led by FLA president Auret van Heerden began the first inspections Monday morning at the facility in Shenzhen known as Foxconn City.

Click to read more ...

CrashPlan+ offers Affordable Cloud Backups

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Backups are an essential part of computing life. Hard drives die, computers fail, accidents happen. Not everyone is keen on regular backups since they require external drives or other tedious workarounds. Cloud backup services, however, make sense because they work in the background and cost less than backing up to physical drives. CrashPlan for PC, Macs and Linux offers various backup options starting at $1.50 a month.

Click to read more ...

Review: 16GB Lexar Echo USB ZX Backup Drive

Tesxt and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

WIth the proliferation of tablets, netbooks and all increasingly thin ultrabooks in the market, storage has become a big deal. $100 is the penalty to double a tablet or notebook's memory from 16GB to 32GB because internal SSD (Solid State Drive) memory is still darn costly. Lexar's series of tiny yet capable (8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities) USB backup drive give instant memory expansion at a relatively affordable price.

Click to read more ...

Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 9 bundle released

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Adobe Systems Incorporated recently announced Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 & Adobe Premiere Elements 9 for Windows and Mac, the newest release of their leading consumer photo- and video-editing software. We were invited by Adobe Canada to preview the new releases (video, above). We have our first impresssions and details.

Click to read more ...