suicide

Rutgers student gets 30 days for spying on gay roommate with Webcam

A Rutgers University student was sentenced to 30 days in jail today for spying on his gay roommate's romantic encounter, an act that may have been related to the roommate's subsequent suicide.

Dharun Ravi, 20, set up the Webcam several times, urged others to watch and tweeted about watching his roommate, Tyler Clementi, "making out with a dude." The 18-year-old Clementi jumped to his death from a bridge a few days after learning about the spying.

Ravi, who faced up to 10 years in prison, was charged with 15 counts, including invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, … Read more

Tumblr tackles pro-anorexia and suicide blogs

A quick search on Tumblr looking for tags related to eating disorders can launch a user into a world of self-harm blogs with posts like "keep calm and stop eating," "mind over matter and I won't get fatter," and "my life changed forever when I choose not to eat."

However, as of next week, most likely none of these posts will show up on the microblogging service.

Tumblr announced today that it was planning to implement a new policy banning pro-self-harm blogs. In addition, it will show public service warnings when people search … Read more

Microsoft probing report of Foxconn mass-suicide threat

Microsoft is probing a report that more than 300 workers at a Foxconn factory that makes Xboxes in China threatened a mass suicide earlier this month over a pay dispute.

Employees at the Wuhan, China, plant made the threat on January 2 after their demand for pay raises was rejected, according to Kotaku. Wuhan's mayor reportedly intervened on January 3 and talked the group off the building.

Foxconn, a Chinese company that makes hardware for companies such as Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Sony, told CNN the dispute had been settled, but the details of that resolution were not disclosed. … Read more

Facebook throws potentially suicidal users a Lifeline

Facebook announced today that it's working with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on a program designed to help save lives.

The new service will enable Facebook users to click on a link and be taken to a page where they can enter into a live chat with a suicide prevention specialist. There is also a reporting link where users can alert Facebook, if they see something on a person's profile that causes them to think that the person is in severe distress. Facebook will send a message to that person to encourage them to contact the Lifeline.

The … Read more

Chemical suicide detection kit to help first responders

In Japan, it's called "detergent suicide." People take their own lives by inhaling a deadly mixture of chemicals, typically including hydrogen sulfide, in small, enclosed spaces such as cars or closets. At high enough concentrations, one breath can be lethal.

A few years ago, these chemical suicides were extremely rare. But they started occurring more frequently in Japan and began to make headlines there after a 14-year-old girl contaminated 90 of her neighbors when she took her life this way in 2008. Today, by some counts, more than 2,000 people have committed suicide in this fashion, … Read more

Foxconn to replace workers with robots

Foxconn, the hardware manufacturer made famous by a rash of well-publicized suicides, plans to replace some of its workers with robots.

The Taiwanese company, which manufacturers laptops, mobile devices, and other hardware for Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Sony, plans to replace factory workers with more than 1 million robots, according to a state news agency Xinhua report. Terry Gou, founder and chairman of the company, told employees at a dance Friday that the move is designed to improve efficiency and combat rising labor costs.

The company currently employs about 1.2 million people, but it's unknown how many people … Read more

Apple report reveals grim truths behind gadgets

Apple's just-released progress report on the labor-related practices of its overseas parts suppliers reveals grim truths behind the making of such popular gadgets as the iPad and iPhone--including worker poisonings, child labor violations, and 60-plus-hour work weeks.

The Supplier Responsibility 2011 Progress Report, released just weeks after Apple logged record profits of $6 billion, marks the first time the company has officially acknowledged that 137 workers "suffered adverse health effects" at Wintek's Suzhou factory in China (which supplies parts to Apple and Nokia) because of exposure to n-hexane, a toxic chemical in cleaning agents.

A report last year … Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: Self-driving cars (podcast)

Today we're talking about self-driving cars. Our news hook, of course, is the recent New York Times story about Google developing self-driving cars--cars that are already cruising the public California highways and driving in traffic.

There have been other big stories in the development of self-driving cars. The first big news to get the public's attention was the running of the DARPA Grand Challenge for robotic cars, in 2004. A car built by Carnegie Mellon University drove the farthest, but no vehicle finished the course. In the 2005 Grand Challenge, five vehicles finished, and the winner was a vehicle called Stanley, which was developed by Stanford.

We're going to talk today about self-driving cars and about what's going on at Stanford, as the team there is preparing to take on even more challenges in self-driving cars. We have two great guests in the studio:

First, Sven Beiker, executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford. Since Spring 2009, he has taught the Stanford class "The Future of the Automobile." Sven was at BMW from 1995 to 2008, working on technology scouting, innovation management, systems design, and series development.

Also with us: Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight at Discern Analytics and visiting scholar at Stanford. Paul is a noted futurist whose essays have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Wired, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

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Show notes and talking points… Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: The human cost of gadgets

Editor's note: This post originally published yesterday before the round table took place. It was updated today with a new time stamp and the video interview.

Did you ever wonder where the raw materials for your phone or camera or laptop came from, or who assembled it? Popular stories this year about the working conditions at smartphone manufacturer Foxconn finally brought to light one piece of this puzzle. Workers there, stories say, suffer not just low wages but physically and psychologically unsafe conditions, which have led to a rash of suicides at the plant.

But even before your gadget is assembled, its raw materials must be pulled out of the earth. Some of these materials, notably tantalum, which is used in capacitors, are mined in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Income from these mines directly funds warring groups; ongoing fighting over resources leaves civilians terrorized and brutalized.

There are things you can do to push companies toward building more ethical and humane products. That's what we're covering today. Our guests are Aaron Hall, a policy analyst for the Center for American Progress and the Raise Hope for Congo project; and Global Post reporter Kathleen McLaughlin, who's been working on the investigative series Silicon Sweatshops since 2009.

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Show notes and talking points… Read more