Over the weekend NYT published an engrossing article, laying out in fascinating, sometimes depressing and heartbreaking detail China’s role as the manufacturing superpower at the cost of middle class jobs in the U.S. by way of dissecting Apple as the primary case study. Those details have profound and far reaching implications for the future of global economy and America’s tech innovation in particular. While it’s common knowledge that everything is made in China, what some may not realize is that it’s not due to cheap labor rather China’s ability to “scale” at a breakneck speed and breathtaking manner that no other country in the world can match. And when it comes to manufacturing high volume consumer electronics, that’s where it counts: 

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.” […]

“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

This is a must read. If nothing else, to get the details behind first iPhone’s benchmark-setting all glass, scratch resistant screen. Speaking of which, that last bit you’ll get you.

WSJ has an interesting, albeit somewhat hilarious “behind the scene” look at famous bands and their lucrative yet publicity avert corporate gig racket :

The standard contract stipulates the rocker spend 20 minutes greeting people, with a limit of 50 hands shaken, says SAP’s Mr. Giampaglia. To get it over with, producers sometimes line guests up in groups of two before the performer enters the room. […]

Some stars make demands of their own: Before Metallica would agree to its first-ever corporate gig, for Salesforce.com last year, the band stipulated that several hundred members of its fan club be allowed to attend free.

While the die-hards and the conference attendees mixed peacefully, Metallica fans on the heavy-metal band’s website complained later about the corporate crowd.

“Everyone is just pretty much standing there motionless with their cameras out,” wrote one.

Finding an act for the typical 40-year-old tech-industry attendee isn’t always easy. […]

Indeed, stepping outside the mold sometimes misses the demographic mark. In 2010, Oracle hired hip-hop’s Black Eyed Peas; one older Oracle salesman, asked the following year, recalled their name as “something with food.”

Jenna Wortham, writing for the NYT:

It costs the carriers about a third of a penny to send text messages. Considering that the major carriers charge 10 to 20 cents to send and receive them, “it’s something like a 4,090 percent markup,”

At 20 cents and 160 characters per message, wireless customers are paying roughly $1,500 to send a megabyte of text traffic over the cell network. By comparison, the cost to send that same amount of data using a $25-a-month, two-gigabyte data plan works out to 1.25 cents.

Despicable.

Of all the ways cell phone carriers in the U.S. had been screwing their customers for years (locked phones, crippling features, contracts, termination fees, poor customer service, call quality, drop calls, data theft) - this got to be is the most vile and outrageous. Something that wasn’t mentioned in the piece that many may not be aware of: if you happen to send or receive a text from overseas (which by the way aren’t covered in any of their already expensive text plans) - they’ll charge you 25 cents each way. Yep. 25 cents. Both times. And there’s nothing you can do about it. There is some hope in the upcoming iOS5 free iMessage feature. But that’s only for iOS devices AND the cell phone carriers are already plotting:

AT&T recently started requiring new subscribers to choose between two texting plans: pay $20 a month to send unlimited text messages or pay 20 cents for each message sent and received. The company will no longer offer a plan that charged users $10 a month for 1,000 text messages. This is apparently aimed at pushing customers toward a pricier plan even if they are not heavy texters.

I can’t think of any other industry that is as slimy, monopolistic and unholy as the wireless carriers in the U.S. They are the worst. Period.

JENNA WORTHAM writing for the New York Times:

Those who have watched Turntable.fm over the last few weeks say that for now, the service is enjoying something of a golden moment, akin to the early days of LimeWire and Napster before copyright lawyers cracked down. Already there are certain aspects of the service that seem likely to raise hackles among music executives.

For example, one of Turntable.fm’s most-loved features lets musicians and D.J.’s upload their own songs or homemade remixes of others’ songs. Anyone who is listening can add these to a queue to be listened to and played later. But the uploaders may not have permission to make those remixes and share them.

That ‘Upload’ option has been the single most favorite feature for me. Granted the labels will release the hounds soon once this reaches any kind of critical mass with the public. Here’s hoping they’ll work something out by then.