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Last month we reported that Foxconn was raising worker salaries up to 70 percent amidst a flood of worker suicides at their Chinese factory.

The company, probably best known for manufacturing the Apple iPhone among tons of other electronics we use daily, has been massively criticized for its working conditions, and low wages.

Foxconn has considered moving to Vietnam to lower their already low labor costs, and has also considered replacing workers with automated robots at some factories.

Today though, according to Gizmodo, the company has taken a much simpler route, installing safety nets at some of its facilities, effectively as a way to catch workers that may be considering trying to kill themselves.

Foxconn has not released a PR on the nets, so for now they are just speculation.

The Google Nexus One is the first Android smartphone device to officially get the final Android 2.2 Froyo, the much-anticipated OS update.

Users should begin getting the OTA update starting this week.

Says Google: "In order to access the update, you will receive a message on your phone's notification bar. Just download the update, wait for it to install, and you should be all set. This update will be rolled out gradually to phones - and most users will receive the notification by the end of the week . We hope you enjoy these new features."

There are many new features that most users have been expecting and wanting. The main two are the addition of Flash (built-in) and the addition of Wi-Fi tethering. Additionally, Apps2SD, desktop to handset music streaming and a "one-handed camera UI" are part of the update.

On the performance end, a new Dalvik JIT compiler will give 2.2 users a 200-500 percent performance boost over those using 2.1. The HTML-5 supportive browser will give 300 percent performance boosts for JavaScript.

Sony America has announced that they will be launching the PlayStation 3 firmware update v3.40 "soon," and the update will bring Facebook integration and the launch of the PlayStation Plus premium PSN service.

PlayStation Plus was announced at E3 and will give users access to new applications and features that standard free PSN users will not have.

Plus is free for the first 90 days, and then users can purchase a three-month package for $18 USD or a full-year package for $50 USD.

For the fee, a user will be able to gain full access to certain PS3 downloadable content and PSN titles, such as the PSone archives and Minis, and be able to play them for as long as the PlayStation Plus membership is valid. Some games will only be playable for a certain amount of time on a trial basis before needing to be purchased.

An extra feature that PlayStation Plus provides is the ability to schedule the PS3 console to switch on and automatically retrieve demos, patches or updates at certain times.

Additionally, says Gamasutra, PSP firmware v6.30 will add the service to the aging handheld.

AT&T has announced the completion of a year-long project to improve their wireless service in New York City, finally dubbing the populated city "iPhone-ready."

Over the years, the carrier has received a bad reputation for dropped calls, slow Internet and overall shoddy service in NYC, where there are the highest amount of iPhone owners outside of Los Angeles.

The carrier has now given more space on the airwaves for its 3G network in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens, which should lead to less dropped calls and faster data downloads.

AT&T started the project last year and says that service quality has improved over the last six months in the city.

The project was ongoing in NYC and San Francisco, with the California project still in progress.

Apple recently sold 1.7 million new iPhone 4 units this week, so AT&T will likely have a surge in bandwidth usage.

According to analytics company StatCounter, Google Chrome has surpassed Safari as the third most popular Web browser, although both still remain far behind Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox.

Chrome now has 8.97 percent share in the U.S., passing Safari at 8.88 percent.

IE, all iterations included, leads the way at 52 percent, and Firefox is in second at 28.5 percent.

Internationally, StatCounter says Chrome took third a long time ago, and now holds 9.4 percent, compared to Safari's small 4 percent. The company attributes that to Chrome having language support for 48 languages, while Safari only has support for 16.

StatCounter bases its stats "on an analysis of 3.6 billion page views, 874 million of them in the U.S., captured from its network of counters embedded in the pages of 3 million Websites."

Samsung has announced that five of the six largest U.S. wireless carriers have signed on to sell Galaxy S Android smartphones.

The Galaxy S range are Samsung's "Superphones," each of which have a Super AMOLED screen, which are 20 percent brighter, with 80 percent less sunlight reflection and add 20 percent more battery life.

Says Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt of the deal: "It's a good sign Samsung has placement at all the major carriers but a lot of phone sales depend on how much marketing support you can get from the carriers. Exclusive products tend to get more marketing support."

"If you want to make a big splash the exclusive phones tend to sell better at least for the first quarter or two in the U.S. market," he continued.

McCourt cites the smashing success of the iPhone 4, which just sold 1.7 million units in its first 72 hours of availability.

Sprint will sell the Galaxy X as the Epic 4G, Verizon will sell the Galaxy S as the Fascinate, and T-Mobile will sell the S as the Vibrant, loaded with Kindle e-books. AT&T's Galaxy S will sell as the Captivate. US Cellular's device has not been branded yet.

The free Amazon Kindle app is now available for Android users, giving users a chance to start reading e-books for the popular e-reader on their smartphones and tablets running the popular open source mobile operating system.

The app is still a bit lacking in features compared to the full software available for PC and Mac users, but it serves its main purpose, which is to allow users to shop and download e-books.

Most books sell for $10-12 USD, and users can read the first chapter free before deciding to take the plunge and buying the full book.

Unfortunately, in version 1.0, you cannot browse for titles, but that necessary feature is upcoming in future updates.

The app allows for portrait and landscape orientations, depending on your preference and screen display.

Kindle for Android is free in the Android Market.

iSuppli has torn down the new iPhone 4, and found that the hardware costs as little as $187.51 to build.

The smartphone's most expensive component is the 3.5-inch LCD display, which was created by LG Display and costs $28.50 per device.

"Over the years, the iPhone has generally tended to hover in the $170-to -$180 cost range because Apple seems to be trying to hit some kind of budget," says Kevin Keller of iSuppli.

Keller notes that the tear down does not include R&D, labor, shipping, advertising and iOS development, which could add a significant amount to the total.

The A4 processor was created by Samsung and costs $10.75 per device. The gyroscope chip costs an estimated $2.60 per device and the accelerometer chip costs 65¢.

It is unclear how much money Apple receives per device from AT&T, which in turn sells the device (with contract) for $199 or $299 depending on the amount of memory, but regardless it seems Apple is making a high profit margin on each device sold.

Apple has announced this morning that they have sold 1.7 million iPhone 4 units in just 72 hours following the device's launch.

The latest update of the popular smartphone has now become the best selling launch in the company's history.

"This is the most successful product launch in Apple’s history," adds Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. "Even so, we apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply."

The iPhone 4 sold 600,000 pre-orders on its first day of availability, June 16th, even taking down AT&T's servers and forcing orders to take minutes instead of seconds to submit.

Apple and a number of retailers sell the smartphone for $199 (16GB model) and $299 for the larger capacity 32GB model.

The phone is available currently in the U.S., UK, France, Germany and Japan and soon in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The Blu-ray Disc Association has approved the BDXL standard this week, meaning quad-layer 128GB Blu-ray discs are on the way.

BDXL also allows for triple-layer BDs with 100GB capacity.

Current Blu-ray players are not compatible with BDXL, and there are no players yet in the works with support for the new standard. When they do become available, BDXL players will support current single and double-layer BD, as well.

For now, the format is targeted "at professional applications such as archiving and medial imaging," says TG.

BDXL should hit the mainstream, however, when 3D Blu-ray content hits mainstream, as that content will need the extra space.

Says BDA committee chair Victor Matsuda: "The BDA worked diligently to create an extension of the Blu-ray Disc format that leverages the physical structure of the design of the disc to create even more storage capacity."

The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) has announced this week that their long time Chairman and CEO John Kennedy will be stepping down.

Says Kennedy of his departure: "I leave behind a fabulous team at IFPI well qualified to deal with the many and complex issues the recording industry has to deal with."

The IFPI has been known to take down file sharing sites, notably international torrent sites. The IFPI is also behind raids on music pirates and uploaders.

Kennedy continued: "It has been a fascinating, enjoyable and challenging role over the last few years and I believe we have achieved a great deal but I now intend to return to a more commercial role."

Finally, the ex-CEO marked a number of "successes" the group has had during his tenure:

-The concept of graduated response is now being enacted by many governments and considered by more - a far cry from the reception I got when I suggested this idea to the ISPs many years ago in Brussels.

According to a leak reported by BGR, Verizon is already slashing the prices of the Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two devices, part of a wider promotion that starts tomorrow.

Just last week, it was rumored that Verizon had only sold 500 Kin devices since launch in May, an unexpectedly low number, even by most conservative standards.

If the rumor is true, which seems likely, Verizon is slashing the prices in an effort to sell excess stock of the smartphones.

The Kin One will drop to $30 from $50 and the Kin Two from $100 to $50, with both also offering "BOGA," (buy one, get an additional phone of equal or lesser price free).

While decent low-end smartphones, the Kins have been criticized for their mandatory $70 voice+text+data plans, especially since the phones were built for teenagers.

Nokia has selected the Linux-based MeeGo mobile operating system over its Symbian OS for all upcoming high-end smartphones, effectively admitting that Symbian was not in a position to ever truly rival the iPhone or Android devices.

CNET says the N8 will be the last N-series smartphone to use Symbian.

"Going forward, N-series devices will be based on MeeGo," said a spokesman.

Symbian will still be installed on low and mid-end phones from the world's largest phone maker, however.

Nokia has spent many millions on developing the Symbian OS, only to see their smartphone market share deteriorate thanks to Apple and Android.

MeeGo was created earlier this year, a merged effort by Nokia and Intel, mixing their Maemo and Moblin operating systems.

As has been the case with all service packs, whether in alpha or beta mode, a beta of the upcoming Windows 7 SP1 has been leaked on line, and is now circulating on torrent, P2P and warez sites.

Additionally, a beta of the Windows Server 2008 R2 has been leaked as well.

The SP1, as stated by Microsoft, will be mainly a rollup of already-released hotfixes.

Earlier in the month, Microsoft spokesperson Gavriella Schuster, said the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 official beta was set for a July launch.

She also explained the SP: "It will not contain any new features that are specific to Windows 7 itself. For Windows 7, SP1 will simply be the combination of updates already available through Windows Update and additional hotfixes based on feedback by our customers and partners. In other words, customers can feel confident about deploying Windows 7 now!"

Peter Molyneux of Microsoft, the man behind games like Fable, has taken a shot at Sony's PlayStation Move motion control system, saying it is no different than the Wii's four year-old motion controls.

In an interview, Molyneux said: "I find it hard in my mind to differentiate between the Sony Move and the Wii... I know Sony and Nintendo would argue that they are different, but they kind of seem the same."

Those comments mirror critics of the Move, who say the system is very similar to the Wii's controls, even down to the controller's shape.

Sony has downplayed those concerns, arguing that the Move is much more sophisticated because it can track player motion through a camera, while also capturing full depth of motion. The Wii can only recognize 2D movements.