An explosion at a Shanghai supplier to Apple Inc injured 61 workers after aluminum dust produced by polishing cases for iPads ignited, China Labor Watch said.
The cause of the blast on Saturday at Ri Teng Computer Accessory (Shanghai) Co (日騰電腦配件), owned by Taipei-based Pegatron Corp (和碩), was similar to that of an accident at a Foxconn Technology Group (富士康) facility in May, according to an e-mailed statement from China Labor Watch.
Pegatron chief financial officer Charles Lin (林秋炭) did not immediately return calls to his office seeking comment.
Foxconn, the biggest contract manufacturer for Apple, said in May “combustible dust” probably caused the May 20 accident at its factory in Chengdu, when three workers died and 15 were injured.
Pegatron said on Sunday that some employees injured in the explosion the previous day were hospitalized, without providing details about the accident.
“We are working closely with Pegatron to understand the cause of this accident,” Carolyn Wu, a spokesperson for Apple in China, said by telephone yesterday.
“Our hearts go out to the people who were hurt in Songjiang,” she said, declining to elaborate.
Local authorities in the Songjiang area have started investigating the accident at Ri Teng, the Shanghai city government said in a posting on the Sina Weibo microblogging service on Saturday.
Pegatron shares fell 1 percent to close at NT$31.30 in Taipei trading yesterday, compared with a 0.4 percent gain on the benchmark TAIEX.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
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Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day