Recent coverage in the media over worker conditions in the Chinese factories which manufacture Apple’s products have “exposed” much of what all of us in the technology industry already knew but were unwilling to accept — that China is the most powerful engine of production for the technology industry, and that the blood, sweat and tears of Chinese workers is what fuels that hungry engine, at a tremendous cost to human rights. The bottom line why all of these manufacturers, Apple included, outsource much of their manufacturing to China is that the labor is cheap, in addition to escaping American taxes and regulatory issues which lower the costs of production. It would be nearly impossible for these companies to stay competitive if they produced electronics in the United States because you would have to pay these workers decent salaries and decent benefits, you would have to conform to American labor laws which significantly reduce the number of hours these people could work, and you could never legally employ child workers. So the sad truth is that in order to feed the world’s thirst for the latest and greatest in inexpensive smartphones, tablets, computers and other consumer electronics, a vast number of human beings in China need to suffer.

Being held in Amsterdam this week ISE 2012 welcomes over 750 exhibitors amd will be the largest professional AV and systems integration trade show ever held in Europe, bringing together manufacturers, distributors, integrators, specifiers and technology managers from over 100 countries worldwide.

HomeToys.com will bring you all the breaking industry news and product announcements via our ISE 2012 Newspage.

Click here to visit the ISE Webpage

Stay tuned for our ISE 2012 show report.

Amidst the grid-climbing robots, smart thermostats, and electric cars at the smart grid conference DistribuTECH in San Antonio, Texas this week, battery makers were touting their low-cost batteries as energy storage for the grid, for buildings, and some day, homes. It’s not so unfeasible that in the future many homes could have their very own battery, likely to be combined with a rooftop solar panel. In Panasonic’s booth — the company bought controlling interest in Sanyo back in 2009 — a battery box was featured. The box strings together hundreds of small format lithium-ion laptop batteries in much the way Tesla for its electric car battery. (Note: Tesla also uses Panasonic laptop batteries.) A couple of battery stacks would be enough for a single family home, combined with an inverter already retailing in Germany (one of the largest rooftop solar markets) for less than $5,000. A few years ago there were reports this battery could store a week’s worth of electricity.

Best Buy gave owners of its Rocketboost wireless audio system a way to steer it independently with both desktop and mobile apps. Both a Windows controller (above) and an iOS app (free, App Store) let users pipe audio from a Rocketboost host device to any Rocketboost audio system on the same local network, including Insignia TVs and soundbars. It lets users mix and match sources and destinations, also giving them a signal strength for each device to give a hint of how reliably it will play. The system depends on having a computer with a USB adapter that makes the RF wireless-based connection to end devices. Rocketboost's main advantage is claimed to be its "HD" audio by using the higher bandwidth RF affords without having to tie the audio to a specific app or using a short-range, narrow bandwidth technology like Bluetooth.

The 2012 International CES was the largest in the event's 44 year history, with a record number of more than 3,100 exhibitors across the largest show floor in CES history – 1.861 million net square feet of exhibit space – and drawing a record of more than 153,000 attendees, including more than 34,000 international attendees. More than 20,000 new products were launched at the 2012 CES.

Check out the HomeToys.com 2012 International CES show report.  We scoured the thousands of announcements for some of our favorite new Home Technology products.

As a media partner for 2012 CES; HomeToys has one of the most comprehensive newspages featuring all the news and new products from the show floor.  Click here for our Special CES Newspage. 

A competition to identify the world's most energy efficient flat screen televisions will kick off on Friday, with the U.S. Energy Department and other governments sponsoring a race to cut down on home electricity use. The contest, part of an international initiative to promote "super-efficient" products, will award up to 20 Global Efficiency Medals to the most efficient televisions from four different regions: Australia, the European Union, India and North America. Organizers say building more efficient appliances can ultimately save enough energy to avoid the need to build new power plants. Televisions comprise 6 percent to 8 percent of global residential electricity consumption.

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is planning to re-enter the Japanese flat-panel television market next year, the Nikkei business daily reported on Tuesday, without citing sources. The South Korean consumer electronics giant had withdrawn from the market in 2007, the newspaper said. Samsung is in talks with Japanese consumer electronics retailers Yamada Denki Co and Yodobashi Camera Co about handling its flat-panel televisions, the paper said.

Two of the 25 TechZones on the showroom floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center will be geared specifically toward digital health, with more than 171 exhibitors showcasing products as part of the Digital Health and Fitness category.  According to a recent survey by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the organization that runs CES, the sports and fitness category is a $70 billion annual business in the U.S. alone. The growing mobile phone market and explosion of mobile apps has contributed to the growth of the digital health market as well. A recent ABI Research report says the market for sports and fitness apps is expected to reach $400 million by 2016, across more than one billion annual health-related app downloads.

Health care companies have also been getting into the app arena. United Health Group plans to show off mobile applications at CES 2012 for managing health care accounts, tracking prescriptions and creating health goals. Aetna already has mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry; Blue Cross and Blue Shield introduced an app for iOS devices earlier this year.