A man of 30 died when his phone exploded in his jacket pocket. Cause was due to a faulty battery. source. If possible, I try to keep my mobile in my bag - not because I think its going to explode but because we don't really know the effects of having a device like this close to ones body.
woaaa! i didn't know u could die from such explosion anyway i always put my cellphone on my handbag
Terrorism!! We better time travel to stone age to avoid all this from happen. Don't forget to bring your candy girl BTW.
Henry, Finland's Nokia phones explodes as well: http://www.marvinryan.com/blog/2007/08/16/exploding-cellphones-batteries/
on a side note, I won't be putting my phone in my front pocket after reading Danny's post... if it somehow explodes, it might take out my little bro along with it. ^^;
i'll live my life on the edge and keep it in my front pocket, but lets hope to god this doesn't happen
I don't believe much in technology anymore (Thanks Sony et al.) and this is confirmed by this mini-post. Can't they completely guarantee the safety of people before selling their products?! Drives me mad.
Yes, they most definitely can guarantee safety. These phones (rather, the batteries) don't just explode on their own. There are numerous safeties in place to prevent a battery from shorting when used properly. More likely than not the man was using a fake/counterfeit battery to save a few bucks, or he spilled something into his phone and never bothered to worry about it. Over time, a spill can result in a short circuit (due to the formation of dendrites) in the battery, which leads to the eventual explosion - or more typically, a quick burst into flames. Regardless, I still find it astounding that the burst was strong enough to damage internal organs. It's a tragic incident, but I'm certain that the phone manufacturer is not entirely at fault on this one. tl;dr version: You can still trust your electronics, just treat them nicely :).
Okay, can you explain the fact that extremely big companies make recalls on such batteries from time to time? Those surely aren't fake and damage surely is not linked to misuse... Rather a fabrication fault, hence not enough safety research. Guess it's due to rush politics. "Sell before, guarantee after".
I agree D_Blade, just like drugs and other products being approved by the FDA or somesuch, then three years later there are massive lawsuits because the products are actually killing people. Maybe a bit of forsight should have gone into this. I know they cannot test for every eventuality, but seriously people. That or at least educate your target consumers as to how to handle such products. Cell phones and Lithium-ion batteries especially, have very high energy chemical reaction. I remember my parents always warning me about batteries, and acid etc. Maybe instead of a little notation posted on page 16 of the manual in between seven other languages, they should have it somewhere obvious that you really need to watch what happens with the potentially lethal chemical reaction that is happening in your shirt pocket. Or we just go back to the cell bricks of the 80's. Anyone miss those?
D-Blade: Typically recalls are made before any incidents occur - hence why they're being recalled. These are due to variations in the manufacturing process that had otherwise been undetected until a recent test was made. For the amount of electronics produced, the number of recalls are really, really quite low - you're looking a the company losing millions of dollars in lost product and even more in reputation. This is not something they want happening any more than the consumer does. Honestly, you're more likely to get in a car accident on your way to work than have a cellphone mishap lead to your untimely demise. ----------------- DRAGUN: Most, if not all, batteries (cellphone included) come with separate warning labels and information. They're usually in the packaging with the battery or directly on the battery itself. This is nothing new >_>. ------------------ The electronics industry is one of the most heavily regulated and restricted industries in the world. The RoHS initiative alone costs billions of dollars to test and enforce. Don't think that these companies are just making product and shoving it out the door, because a lot of thought and testing goes into their development - both in functionality AND safety. With that, I really have to reemphasize my original point: The likelihood of the battery malfunctioning on its own is VERY low.
graemew, I agree with you on what you said both times. Very nice unbiased insight there. Still, a death is a death and one like this is avoidable. I know that the simple effect of recalling products costs lots of money and time and produces some heavy reputation damage. However, in that increasingly paranoid world of ours, any single mistake is forbidden. I reckon, it's insane to see that as some dilemma when you're a company. What I also wanted to say is that this kind of exploding batteries incidents have been more frequent lately... Is it because of some lack of total mastery over changes in technology (unlikely, but still), better diagnosis of troubles or aggressive politics and stricter rules? Seems the same for health and risk for cancers, obesity and other diseases recently. Quite a debate, if you ask me, and nice discussion we have.
I can see both of your points, and recognize their value. I think D_Blade hit it on the head when he was talking about man using technology before he fully understands it completely. No one is even really sure if cell phones cause cancer. Every three months there is a different opinion. No one is sure what burning fossil fuels is doing to the environment (global warming is hard to blame on burning fuel, since we have only been recording temperatures for about a hundred years). Man naively dives into the unknown and uses technology well before he realizes the full effects. A scientist stated once that man, upon realizing a technology, will create it regarless of his understanding of the consequences. I cant say I am any better, but realizing my faults makes me a stronger person, and a better pirate.
Lesson learned. Put stuff in your pocket now.
Imagine one exploding in your back pocket and the first thing someone says is "Dude, couldn't you have held it in? That's really gross.... Oh, you didn't fart..."
shitz I have a nokia phone too :P in my pocket somemore!
Yeah one known effect is that it might make you unable to make babies anymore (I think they say that you're sterile or something), if you keep it too close to your balls.
Don't have a bag handy all the time so I keep mine in my back pocket.
damn thats so scary. and i keep mine in my pocket at all times. @_@
I keep my cell phone on the side of my wheelchair, that way I at least have some titanium between and possible radiation and above mentioned exploding batteries. Also blue tooth helps so I don't even have to touch my phone.
Ha! My phone is from Sony Ericsson! And I switch it on less and take it with me when going out less often. I should be safe.... I think.... eep.....
Nope... he was ran over, and the driver of the construction equipment was trying to cover up the story. If the cell exploded with enough force to cause trauma, don't you think it would be in much worse shape then 'melted'?
Ouch...this reminds me of the old song "Mexican Wine"by Fountains of Wayne. The very first line was this: "He was killed by a cellular phone explosion, they scattered his ashes to the ocean..." I see a lot of old folks put their cellphones in their breast pockets. As if they weren't at risk already.
ouch i read about this in newspaper, poor guy
Sorry for the guy... Luckily, I don't own a handphone and probably be handphoneless till I'm 50 or somthing... Now I just need to get away from people who put their handphones in their front pocket...
ouh S*** i got nokia on my pocket too (O__O) andt thank god the nokia battery is BL-4C (O__O) but still.. is it safe??
OMG, our cellphone is a ticking bomb. Then I better find a new place to hang my phone, otherwise when it explode, I'll lose my manhood as I clip my phone on my waist.
Reminds me of the Dell notebook PC exploding incident. Also due to a faulty battery. http://www.gearlog.com/images/15386.jpg http://nextlust.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/dell%20explode.jpg http://www.laptopdesk.net/images/exploding-laptop2.jpg
yup yup; very true. A friend of mine had the dell laptop and returned it upon hearing about all those exploding incidents.
holy crap!....one of my legs would get the burn if that happened to me.
I keep mine in my pocket. I check the battery of my phone every so often to see if there's an issue that could damage my phone or me so I don't really have to worry about it.
anyone remember one of the earliest motorola cell phone, the black flip one with the green background screen? When u turn it on, the magnetic force is so strong i remember i picked up coins with it. -_-
Saw it on the news when I was in my capsule hotel in Akiba, not that I understood what really happened, of course.
saw this same article on the local papers today.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071129/ap_on_hi_te/skorea_mobile_phone_explosion;_ylt=ApEwOPQLdBAhjbv_dn3iFUgjtBAF It seems that they're still not entirely certain the phone caused all the injuries. Of course, the phone still exploded and probably caused some of the injuries which may then lead to more injuries.
The phone explosion was fake. Read more at: http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200711/200711300015.html
I tried to bring something useful to the table, but it seems it's all been said/stated. Pretty sad though.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/exploding-phone-korea,news-26972.html i don't know if it's true or not
