An 11-year-old boy from Upper Allen Township, PA, has been charged with institutional vandalism and criminal mischief after voiding his bladder on a stack of school-owned MacBooks, causing an estimated $36,000 in damage.

Apple officially considers peed-upon products a biohazard, and Apple Geniuses are under no obligation to repair them, so the school district is writing the computers off as total losses.

The mischievous young urinator was not arrested, but his case has been sent to the Cumberland County Juvenile Probation Department.

[msnbc.]

Yesterday, I posited that Apple's new Siri commercial starring Samuel L. Jackson would have been a lot better if Jackson had been in character as Julius from Pulp Fiction.

Well, that happened in a delightful parody from Slacktory (or, as they call it in France, a Royale with Cheese).

(Sorta not safe for work, Pulp Fiction.)

[slacktory.]

Fragrance company Air Aroma and Melbourne, Australia-based art group Greatest Hits are collaborating on a new fragrance that smells like a freshly-opened MacBook, with notes representing "the smell of the plastic wrap covering the box, the printed ink on the cardboard, and the aluminum laptop."

The scent was created for Greatest Hits' "De facto Standard" exhibition in Melbourne, and won't be made commercially available, so it looks like it still costs over a grand to get a whiff of a new MacBook.

[psfk.]

Apple may be returning to its summer release schedule for new iPhones, according to a recruiter at the gates of controversial Chinese iPhone manufacturer Foxconn.

When WBS News asked the recruiter about Foxconn "help wanted" posters around the company's Taiyuan location, he said, ""Now, we're recruiting 18,000 people to make the Apple iPhone 5. That's because it seems like it will go on sale around June."

The iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 all launched in June, before Apple broke the pattern with an October launch for the iPhone 4S.

[kotaku]

The Fair Labor Association, the independent watchdog group Apple enlisted in February to audit working conditions at plants run by Chinese iPhone and iPad manufacturer Foxconn, has released its first report, detailing the company's violations in areas like wages and working hours.

After visiting three Foxconn factories and surveying 35,000 employees about their living and working conditions, the FLA determined that the company regularly demands excessive overtime and pays salaries that aren't enough to cover workers' basic living expenses.

Foxconn has agreed to work with the FLA to remedy at least one of those problems, announcing it will achieve "full legal compliance" with Chinese labor laws that limit workers to 60 hours per week (including paid overtime) by July 1st.

The company plans to hire "tens of thousands" of extra workers to ease the load on its current employees.

The report was released as Apple CEO Tim Cook made a trip to China and visited at least one Foxconn factory. Cook didn't comment on the FLA's findings, but Apple has released a statement in support of the report's recommendations.

[cnn]

Apple CEO Tim Cook was spotted touring a Foxconn factory where his company's iPhones and iPads are produced during his visit to China this week.

Cook is in the country to personally address concerns about the working conditions in Apple's Chinese supply chain, as well as a legal battle over the Chinese trademark on the name "iPad."

When he wasn't walking the factory floors in yellow coveralls, Cook also met with Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong and Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang about Foxconn factory issues and China's stance on intellectual property rights.

[dvice]

Mike Daisey, whose monologue "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" was recently found to contain several major fabrications about what he saw at factories run by Apple's Chinese manufacturing partner, Foxconn, has posted an apology on his blog.

Previously, Daisey claimed that although he had never personally seen some of the harsh working conditions described in his performance, his show's message about "the nature of Chinese manufacturing" was still basically true, and accused critics of wanting to "return to ignoring everything about the circumstances under which their devices are made."

His latest post is an actual apology, both to his audiences for "being careless with [their] trust" and to fellow documentary theater performers for "making [their] path more difficult."

He also apologized to the journalists to whom he "exaggerated" his experiences in China, writing, "Things came out of my mouth that just weren't true, and over time, I couldn't even hear the difference myself."

The scandal apparently hasn't done much damage to Daisey's career. No theaters have cancelled their scheduled performances of "The Agony and the Ecstasy," and Daisey has added a new prologue to address his critics.

[mikedaisey]