NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Apple became the latest tech company to reveal statistics on employee diversity Tuesday. The results? Predictably unimpressive.

The company's 98,000 worldwide employees are 70% male, a figure that jumps to 72% for leadership roles and 80% for technical positions.

"As CEO, I'm not satisfied with the numbers on this page," Apple chief Tim Cook said in an open letter accompanying the figures. "They're not new to us, and we've been working hard for quite some time to improve them."
There's been a renewed focus on Silicon Valley diversity in recent months, with companies like Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB, Tech30) and Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) pulling back the veils on their workforce stats for the first time. Apple had not previously disclosed its employee diversity statistics.
Apple's diversity figures are notable because Apple's employee count includes more than 41,000 Apple Store workers, most of whom earn an hourly wage. Apple's competitors, meanwhile, have a higher percentage of workers in technical positions.
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Apple's U.S. employees are 55% white, compared with 63% of the general population, though whites account for 64% of those in leadership roles.
Asians make up 15% of the company, with Hispanics at 11% and blacks at 7%.
The nation's overall population is about 63% white, 17% Hispanic, 13% African American and 5% Asian, according the Census Bureau, with women making up 49% of the work force.
Cook noted that Apple (AAPL, Tech30) has hired a handful of female executives of late, including new retail head Angela Ahrendts and environmental initiatives leader Lisa Jackson, and that it recently pledged $100 million to improve technology in underprivileged schools. Apple is also a sponsor of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights organization, and Cook personally has spoken out in favor of workplace protections for the LGBT community.
"Inclusion and diversity have been a focus for me throughout my time at Apple, and they're among my top priorities as CEO," he said.
Related: Microsoft pokes fun at Macbook users in new Surface ads
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson appeared at several annual meetings of tech companies this spring, including Google and Facebook, to urge them to do more to recruit African American and Hispanic workers.
Google reported in May that its staff is 70% male. The search giant is 61% white, 30% Asian, 3% Hispanic and 2% black.
Facebook said in June that it was 69% male globally, with its U.S. workforce 57% white, 34% Asian, 4% Hispanic and 2% black.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

After years of controversy surrounding the treatment of its factory workers, Apple decided Thursday to eliminate the use of two toxic chemicals in its manufacturing process.

Lisa Jackson, vice president of environmental initiatives at Apple (AAPL, Tech30), says the computer company will prohibit the use of benzene and n-hexane in the assembly of its electronics. Benzene is a carcinogen associated with leukemia, and workers who are exposed to high concentrations of n-hexane in large doses can develop nerve damage, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control.

Jackson said the company had recently "received some questions" about whether chemicals were being used at Apple. So she dispatched investigators into Apple's 22 factories and "found no evidence of workers' health being put at risk."
She said the company's restrictions on unsafe chemicals have been updated to make sure the two chemicals are not used in the manufacturing process.
In its effort towards the use of green materials, Apple previously developed power cords without including PVC, displays without mercury and enclosures without brominated flame retardants.

23 million Twitter users are fed by robots

In an analysis of its user base, Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) said 30 million, or 11% of its 271 million active users, receive tweets through third-party applications, such as Tweetdeck. Of that group, 23 million, or 8.5% of its active users, get tweets "without any discernible additional user-initiated action." In other words, their feeds are updating without them having to interact with Twitter. [See correction below]

That's not necessarily a great thing for the company's bottom line -- that's 30 million accounts that aren't looking at or clicking on Twitter ads and 23 million that aren't necessarily actively interacting with their feeds.
Twitter also said that fake or spam accounts made up less than 5% of its monthly active users.
Fake or spam accounts don't include "Twitterbots," which are automated feeds that reply or retweet other tweets. Many can be amusing or fun.
Poetry dorks will appreciate @pentametron, which retweets tweets that are in iambic pentameter. ("backs killin after sleeping on the floor," tweeted @saswillis_xx).
@YesYoureRacist will automatically retweet any tweet that begins "I'm not racist but...." @YesYoureSexist does the same for "I'm not sexist, but...." tweets. As the Twitterbot notes, those tweets are typically racist or sexist.
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Do you have trouble spelling "sneak peak?" @StealthMountain will automatically reply with a correction: "I think you mean 'sneak peek'"
And did you know that Big Ben has a Twitter feed? When the clock at the Palace of Westminster in London chimes, @big_ben_clock tweets out the time. At 4 p.m. GMT, expect to find "BONG BONG BONG BONG."
Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly said that 8.5% of Twitter users are bots. In fact, 8.5% of Twitter users are receiving data from automated feeds.