Mr. Cook (Photo: News.au)

Apple CEO Tim Cook is preparing for his upcoming Congress appearance about corporate tax code by promising a “dramatic simplification” of the ancient laws. [Washington Post]

It’s been a year since Facebook's IPO. So let's celebrate it with a ~one year later~ reflection piece. [WSJ]

Remember when you’re complaining about your long work week, it’s way worse for Foxconn employees. [NYT]

It sounds like the Facebook designers behind News Feed's redesign were having the chillest of times on the project. They brought in lamps to create a "nice living room" and stared at posters on the wall to keep them motivated. [Taxi]

Ugh, we have some disturbing news: A website that bills itself as “Kickstarter for gigs” has launched in London. [BBC]

Charlie Ergen? (Photo: NBC)

Dish Network announced today that it has submitted a $25.5 billion bid for Sprint Nextel in an effort to circumvent an offer from Japanese telecom company SoftBank. Charlie Ergen, the chairman of Dish, related the company's purchasing strategy to the plot of Seinfeld: "You initially didn’t know exactly where things were going, but it seemed to all come together in the end." [New York Times]

Facebook Home has only been out for three days, but that’s totally enough time to call it a failure. Out of 4,000 reviews, roughly 47 percent of users gave it a 1-star rating. [Daily Dot]

Foxconn is adding 10,000 new employees to its ranks as it prepares for the launch of the next Ping Home iPhone. [CNet]

Cornell's planned high-tech campus on Roosevelt Island is still years away, but some of the classes are getting started in a nondescript, third-floor loft in Chelsea. [New York Times]

Baidu, a.k.a "Chinese Google," has opened an artificial intelligence lab in Silicon Valley to look for top talent to join the growing company. [ZDNet]

'Murica! (Photo: Google)

Hey America, don't say Google never did anything for you: Looks like Google Glass will be made right here in the good old U. S. of A. That's according to the Financial Times says, citing sources "familiar with the company's plans."

The president's speechwriters have likely already popped this news into the Google Doc where they spitball ideas for the next State of the Union.

The FT says Google is talking to Foxconn about manufacturing components elsewhere in the world then assembling the final product in Santa Clara. It's not clear how many jobs such a facility might create. According to the report:

The small scale, high cost and complexity of the project’s initial run makes it practical to base manufacturing operations near the search company’s Silicon Valley headquarters, according to people briefed on the plans.

Proximity to Google HQ means it'll be easier for Sergey and his minions to keep a close cybernetic eye on production, in case problems crop up.

Newt's going to be so stoked, you guys.

We're hungry. (Photo: Screencap)

Foxconn has confirmed that underage "interns" as young as 14 worked for brief periods at its Chinese factories. Bring this up the next time an underemployed millennial theater major carps about, oh, anything. [Bloomberg News]

Marissa Mayer has poached another Googler: Henrique de Castro will be Yahoo's COO. But it's costing the underdog a pretty penny to get him: All told, he'll get something like $60 million (part of it in stock). [Wall Street Journal]

Badges? What badges? Foursquare, in its pursuit of being a player in the search and recommendations business, has redesigned its desktop home page so that anyone, not merely registered users, can use the service like they would Yelp. [GigaOm]

Meet your new favorite Tumblr, Fairy Tales for Twentysomethings: "the emperor bought a new fedora but all his friends thought he looked really stupid in it." It's like Once Upon a Time, except not one long commercial for the Disney Vault. [Tumblr]

Future Twitterer? (Photo: flickr.com/whatcounts)

Twitter is reportedly hunting in Hollywood for new board members, with an eye to installing a "media player." A leading contender: former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin. [AllThingsD]

Eric Schmidt, on iOS 6 mapageddon: "We think it would have been better if they had kept ours. But what do I know?" [Reuters]

Production has resumed at the Foxconn factory temporarily closed down due to a riot. [Washington Post]

There's now an app that'll afford you the chance to look at pictures of Albert Einstein's brain. However, the $9.99 price point suggests the creators don't think much of your brains. [AP]

If you're going to send a sext, make sure you've got the right number--unlike this elderly man. [CNN]

Tim Cook at a factory in Zhengzhou (cnn.com via Apple)

Foxconn decided to close down one of its factories in central China this morning after a riot took place in the factory compound late Sunday night, according to the New York Times. The plant in the city of Taiyuan employs about 79,000 workers and the brawl involved 2,000 of those employees. Reuters spoke to a Taiyuan plant worker who said that the factory is one of the plants assembles and makes parts for Apple's iPhone 5.

No workers died in the riots, but three were put in critical care.

Pictures of the incident were shared on a Chinese Twitter clone and show that windows in the plant were smashed and that Chinese riot police were called to the scene.

This riot comes three months after a 23-year-old employee committed suicide a month after he started working at the plant. Back in March of this year, Apple promised to improve conditions at Foxconn factories. The announcement came after the Fair Labor Association found a slew of violations at Foxconn factories including ones related to working hours, compensation and health and safety.

Both the Times and Reuters emphasize that this event represents a shift in the attitude of Chinese workers, highlighting the frustration Foxcon employees feel with factory conditions. Both quote Geoff Crothall, a spokesman for a Chinese labor group, who says, “They’re more willing to stand up for their rights, to stand up to injustice” and "Clearly there is deep-seated frustration and anger among the employees and no outlet, apart from violence, for that frustration to be released."

Now is the part where I throw my head back and laugh. (Photo: flickr.com/oreilly)

Do we detect a little extra joy in Jeff Bezos's supervillain laugh lately? Well, a spot of plotting does warm the heart, and it sounds like he's cooking up something big. Judging from a Bloomberg report this morning, it's looking like that Amazon smartphone may very well be more than mere rumor.

Anyone from Microsoft might just want to go ahead and leave the room; coming on the heels of that Vanity Fair article, this'll just upset you.

Bloomberg cites two people "with knowledge of the matter," who claim an Amazon smartphone designed to compete with iPhone and Android is on its way. According to one of those sources, the company is already working with Foxconn on the device.

But the bulk of the article rests on a recent patent-buying spree by Amazon:

Seattle-based Amazon considered buying wireless patents from InterDigital Inc. before the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania- based company said in June that it will sell the assets to Intel Corp. for $375 million, two people said. Amazon is taking pitches and setting up briefings with other sellers, the people said.

Amazon isn't confirming jack, and the company's spokesman refused to comment for the piece. But given the increasingly ugly tone of the patent wars--for example, good luck getting hold of a Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the U.S.--Amazon may very well just be taking steps to protect its existing hardware business. After all, Google coughed up billions for Motorola and its patent portfolio.

Nonetheless, someone should probably check on Steve Ballmer's office furniture.

Mr. Cook at a factory in Zhengzhou (cnn.com via Apple)

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been posing for many a photo op at Foxconn factories recently, but no portraits of him smiling in a rubber suit can eclipse the findings released today in a Fair Labor Association report.

Apple agreed to let the Fair Labor Association audit Foxconn factories in three Chinese cities, and what they found will not do the technology company's ailing reputation concerning factory conditions any favors. "The findings of FLA’s nearly month-long investigation revealed serious and pressing noncompliances with FLA’s Workplace Code of Conduct, as well as Chinese labor law," reads the report.

The FLA surveyed 35,500 workers in three different factories. According to the report, they found "at least 50" violations, primarily related to the areas of Working Hours, Health and Safety, Industrial Relations and Compensation. Among the findings, all three factories had workers working more hours than legally allowed, and 14% of workers may not receive fair compensation for scheduled overtime.

Health and safety was also of major concern to the workers interviewed for the report. "The investigation revealed that a considerable number of workers felt generally insecure regarding their health and safety," it reads. "The issue of aluminum dust was of particular concern, as this was the cause of an explosion at the Chengdu facility last year."

The report also states that most of the Foxconn workers are overwhelmingly young: the average age is 23, with anywhere from 3.6% to 5.51% of employees only 16-18 years old.

For all of the violations that the FLA found in this audit, Foxconn has agreed to "remedial actions" to help bring the factories up to standard. The report also states that "Apple has committed to ensuring that the FLA code standards are upheld in its supply chain."

We can only hope that means more than just smiling for the camera.

Mr. Daisey

After a swath of deflection attempts and half-apologies, notorious truth-exaggerator and Apple opponent Mike Daisey has finally issued the genuine apology we've all been waiting for.

In an entry posted to his blog yesterday, Mr. Daisey apologized to everyone who ever paid him a modicum of attention, including his audience, theater coworkers, journalists and human rights advocates, for exaggerating the negative details of Apple's Chinese factory conditions on "This American Life."

"I speak about truth because it is what I aspire to," he wrote. "All my stories, even when I’ve fallen short, have been attempts to experience the truth with my audiences. I am sorry for where I have failed. I will look closer, be more patient, and listen more clearly. I will be humble before the work."

We're not really surprised that it took him this long to bite the bullet and dish out an honest apology; it took news organizations months before some intrepid fact checker bothered to Google "Cathy translator Shenzen," so every element of this story has been a frustrating collection of WTFs from the get go.

Mr. Daisey isn't the only one whose reputation suffered from the controversy. "This American Life," a show with a rabid fan base that (disclosure!) includes this reporter, emerged with ethics guns blazing, only to come off on their "Retraction" show like a bunch of self-serious truth hoarders that get off on public flagellation.

Sometimes a good story correction is the same thing as a good apology: acknowledge you were wrong, say you're sorry and get back to work--like say, on our collective fact-checking Google skills.