Japan Demands Probe of iPod Nano Flameouts 339
iminplaya sends in an item from TechNewsWorld that begins, "Several incidents of iPod Nanos bursting into flames have created consumer jitters in gadget-happy Japan. Apple is downplaying the problem, pointing out that no major injuries or damage have been reported. The problem is due to defective batteries, the company said, and only a tiny percentage of the devices have caught on fire." Japan has seen 14 such incidents so far, two in recent days. iminplaya adds, "I like that. Only a 'tiny percentage'... Is anybody beginning to understand why I would prefer that these devices not be allowed on airplanes?"
Yes, only a tiny percentage (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sorry your honor, I only punched fourteen people in the face after taking their money. That's such a tiny percentage of the people I took money from.
There, fixed it for you.
Re:Yes, only a tiny percentage (Score:5, Funny)
There, fixed that for ya.
Re:Yes, only a tiny percentage (Score:5, Funny)
I'm hoping the /. groupthink is too distracted to notice.
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That's such a tiny percentage of the people from whom I took money.
How do you expect a judge to listen to you when you don't speak correctly!? Silly... :)
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BAM! End a sentence with a preposition!
That's such a tiny percentage of the people from whom I took money.
How do you expect a judge to listen to you when you don't speak correctly!? Silly... :)
As bad as our education system is, do you expect that judge to necessarily notice the bad grammar that you mentioned? Oh wait, let me rephrase that in a way that our grammatically weak overlords will understand: Do you think judges will notice, our not good speakin'!
References for English (Score:2)
Warriner's English Grammar [amazon.com]
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Yeah, that percentage is even smaller considering the fact that most people don't even glue their nanos to their face. Now if they could just get their R&D Department to find a way to make their nano ear buds spontaneously burst into flames, now that would certainly be something.
Flying by statistic (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Flying by statistic (Score:4, Funny)
And only a tiny percentage of planes have snakes on them.
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Re:Yes, only a tiny percentage (Score:4, Insightful)
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
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Entirely false. Vehicles are always recalled if there is a recurring problem. It's not just lawsuits, it's reputation at stake.
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Like when Ford and Firestone sat on the problem of tires blowing out on Explorers while people were being paralyzed or dying, and even after the lawsuits started coming in?
Re:Yes, only a tiny percentage (Score:4, Insightful)
I find your thoughts fascinating, Mr. Durden and would like to know more. Can I subscribe to your newsletter?
Technically that wasn't Tyler Durden, it was our unnamed narrator. Some people (me) speculate that Edward Norton's character's name was Jack, hence I am Jack's raging bile duct, and all of the diaries of Jack's organs, but you never actually find out his real name. Tyler was just a more realized manifestation of his persona, much more so than Rupert or Cornelius. Then again Jack could just be a general moniker similar to John Q. Public or Tom, Dick and Harry.
On that note - Wanna buy some soap?
spontaneous combustion (Score:5, Funny)
Only a tiny percentage of people have ever burst into flames. We shouldn't let them on airplanes either.
Re:spontaneous combustion (Score:5, Insightful)
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You fear the DHS confiscating people that you take onto planes for no reason??? :-p
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...Yeah, pretty much.
Well, I'm not gerf, but I agree with them.
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And I certainly didn't get away with it huh, cuz that sure told me :-/
Why banned on airplanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
At 0.001% of Nanos affected, it's probably more likely that your plane's engine bursts into flame than a Nano brought onto the flight.
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What % of people who fly on planes intent on hijacking them to fly them into buildings? Can't be that high, but airports/etc still try stopping would be hijackers from being able to board planes tho. If something's not essential, even if the chances are low of things going wrong, the risk (potential mass loss of life) usually dictates that the chance is just not worth taking. However, I did figure this was only a risk while the device was charging, in which case they'd be safe on planes, but that's just a g
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(excuse me answering my own question - I read some more of the article hehe)
"I am curious as to the mechanism by which they spontaneously combust"
Article says "Their batteries were short-circuiting and bursting into flame when microscopic metal particles came into contact with other parts"... so there we have it.
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(excuse me answering my own question - I read some more of the article hehe)
"I am curious as to the mechanism by which they spontaneously combust"
Article says "Their batteries were short-circuiting and bursting into flame when microscopic metal particles came into contact with other parts"... so there we have it.
That's what they want you to think. The reality of the matter is that the reality distortion field, colliding with the common sense field, caused a tachyon burst that, coupled with remodulation, opened up a micro wormhole that resulted in the explosion. Oh wait, this isn't the writers meeting for the proposed new Star Trek series? Sorry, moving along.
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"the reality distortion field, colliding with the common sense field, caused a tachyon burst that, coupled with remodulation, opened up a micro wormhole that resulted in the explosion"
Err, no, it does all of that during normal operation, never causes explosions though.
Oh except the common sense field bit, there's obviously no such thing as that, if there was, common sense would increase when you put more people together... or is there just one field, and people put a drain on it, so that explains why the mo
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What % of people who fly on planes intent on hijacking them to fly them into buildings? Can't be that high, but airports/etc still try stopping would be hijackers from being able to board planes tho.
More because many many more people are reactionary idiots than critical thinkers.
If something's not essential, even if the chances are low of things going wrong, the risk (potential mass loss of life) usually dictates that the chance is just not worth taking.
People are essentially irrational. They fear unlikely
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
If something's not essential, even if the chances are low of things going wrong, the risk (potential mass loss of life) usually dictates that the chance is just not worth taking.
Depends how low.
I would actually file this under the pseudo-Ben-Franklin-quote: "Those who would trade essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither."
Ok, it's overkill -- iPods on planes is not essential liberty. But my point is, absolutely everything is a risk, and trying to cover every risk misses the point. For example:
Now what airplanes could do with is lil USB ports to plug memory sticks in with lil headphone jacks so you can copy a bunch of mp3s to listen to during the flight if there really is demand for it.
So now we'll find that there's both faulty and terrorist-created memory stick which burst into flames -- or which launch a virus which somehow makes its way into the navigation system, flying you into a building.
If you're paranoid enough, everything's a risk. Since everything's a risk, the only way you know which risks you should care about is by calculating them -- what's an acceptable loss, which is the greater of two risks (and thus deserves more attention), and so on.
By the way: You can't say "acceptable loss is 0", because then the math won't work. What you can do is start at, say, 99% probability of safety, and keep adding nines until you're happy -- realizing that each nine is going to cost you a fuckton of money and convenience, while providing no visible benefit -- after all, people don't notice when things work, they notice when they break.
Again: If it's more likely that your plane's engine bursts into flame, knowing how much rigor they put into making sure that doesn't ever happen, I think you're pretty safe from your nano. If those odds scare you, you probably shouldn't be flying in the first place -- or going outside.
Also, considering that there have been no major injuries or damage... How much of a risk is this, even if it did go off? How big of an "explosion"?
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:4, Interesting)
If I was doing a Reliability Centered Maintenance program for the airlines, and this failure mode came up, it would rank very very low on my scale in terms of human risk, and we probably wouldn't take any actions to mitigate or prevent it. Someone's battery bursting into flames probably won't cause more than slight injury. It won't cause major damage to the aircraft. It won't cause any environmental impact to speak of.
I'd even go so far as to say the risk to my airline's reputation by continuing to stupidly and arbitrarily ban objects would outweigh the risk to my airline's reputation by one of these things catching fire. It's not like the plane will ever be in any danger.
On the other hand, I stopped being risk-averse when I realised I live in a town where I could be beaten, stabbed, or shot by members of the street gang Indian Posse. Do I hide and give up on life so they can't take mine, or do I live my life, accepting that there are risks in simply leaving the house?
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This probably has more to do with the money generated from flights, more than the safety of passengers. There is a huge industry built up on getting people flying as much as possible, and if people don't feel safe doing this, then this industry loses out big time.
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Opposition to terrorism is mostly for show. Most of this post-9/11 crap is.
Gee, the department of homeland security, eh? Tell me, would their job be DEFENDING people in our country? Maybe we should have a department of defense instead?
Oh wait! We've got one of those, but all it's interested in is bombing the middle east!
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Unless you're talking about Apple's new "iPlane" product...
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At 0.001% of Nanos affected, it's probably more likely that your plane's engine bursts into flame than a Nano brought onto the flight.
The odds of TWO affected Nanos drop well below even that. Decrease the odds, bring your own affected iPod Nano!!
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:4, Insightful)
"handled 16,464 flights in March; 0.001% would be an engine fire every six months, just for Narita"
No, it should be 0.001% of their planes not flights, unless you also multiply the ipods by the amount of times (or amount of time) they're used in the same way that you're multplying the number of planes by the amount of times (or amount of time) they take off and land. Remember, you have to do the same on both sides of the equasion.
"consumer electronics are not supposed to be able to catch fire by their own failure"
The electronics bits yeah, but we're talking a high energy chemical storage device, which makes things slightly different... okay, only slightly, it's still not meant to burst into flames, but it has been happening a lot over past few years in laptop, mobile phones, basically anythings that use lithium-ion batteries can be at risk if there are battery defects.
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Anyway... Narita handled 16,464 flights in March; 0.001% would be an engine fire every six months, just for Narita.
No. You're assuming that every single ipod that catches fire does so on an airplane. How much time does the average ipod actually spend in the air, hm?
What you've actually calculated is that every six months, Narita will host a passenger who owns an ipod which will at some point in time catch fire. These are very different thing.
Gah! Innumeracy everywhere!
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:4, Funny)
I think you'll find that all of the affected iPods were right at the end of their lifetimes
Well thank you, Captian Obvious. Of course they were at the end of their lifetimes, they are dead now!!
Perhaps you are infering that the self-destruct mechanism was meant to initialize at the end of the product's projected life-cycle.
"Poof! Time to buy a new one!(and of course because of the DRM, you will need to keep it in the Apple family)"
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:5, Funny)
It may surprise you to know that airlines regularly transport large quantities of flammable kerosene on their aircraft. Not only that, but they often deliberately set fire to it during the flight. That sounds really dangerous to me and I think it should be stopped.
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would only be a nano-fire anyways...
Besides, of the nearly 0% (0.001% according to BlueG3) of Nanos, of the far less percentage on airplanes at any given moment...
Say one catches fire, what the hell are the odds of anything but "Shit, Not My Nano!" and a puff of smoke happening? Anyone holding/directly attached to one would notice really quick, and its not exactly a bonfire, dropping it would probably put it out, any in luggage, would probably just smolder a bit, but do nothing but wreck a shirt or two... hell, even in optimal conditions, I don't think anything of significance would happen, unless you happen to transport your nano wrapped in a bag of gasoline or something, and even then isn't the luggage compartments at atmosphere (ie: not pressurized like the cabin?)...etc...
How many planes caught fire and crashed when smoking was still legal on planes? (still is on some airlines)... probably zero, and thats an open flame and/or ember... im sure a few seats, or maybe a curtain has caught fire from that... ive never heard of a crash or anyone dying from it though [Citation Please?] If it exists.
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:5, Informative)
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Thanks, although its only a "possible" (albeit very plausible) cause.
I'm a bit suprised there isnt more stories, "Man gets frustrated, burns seat infront of him" etc, or "Bond wannabe catches his martini on fire"... "Man hijacks airliner with lit cigarette, pilot has seizure recalling childhood torture, 87 killed"
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I went through Wikipedia and there were only 2 references (in the in-flight fires category) to aircraft crashes due to smoking. In fact, from what I read in there, it's much more likely for a cargo fire to get out of control and cause the plane to crash.
There were two other notable in-flight fires: the one set by the flight personnel who didn't want to be on that flight, and the Chinese guy who set the passenger area on fire with some gasoline he brought on. The second one is full of WTF material in just
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"dropping it would probably put it out" ... "How many planes caught fire and crashed when smoking was still legal"
I dunno, it's from the batteries getting very hot, so it's not caused by something being ignited, it's a hot high energy chemical fire, so it's not like dropping a lit cigarette which you can stamp out, is more like dropping a bunch of sparklers that would just burn through the rubber on the bottom of your shoes. And it could be in ya pocket, so option for just letting go and dropping it mightn'
Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
No no no no no.
You could get a paper cut tomorrow from a newspaper in a subway station, and it could get infected, and you could die of gangrene! Easy to fix: ban newspapers in subway stations!
What about that keyboard you're using? Did you know there are springs in keyboards? Did you know that a spring could pop out and go directly into your eye? We'd better ban springs in keyboards, it's easy enough to make horrible springless ones.
The proper way to tell what should be fixed is not how easy it is to mitigate. It's how expensive it is to mitigate versus the value of doing so. And note that neither of those are measured in dollars - they're measured in a much more abstract concept, "worth".
Weigh the chance and danger of an iPod bursting into flame on a plane (extremely low, and extremely low, multiplied together) versus the compounded irritation of every traveler in America being unable to bring the most popular music player on the planet with them on a plane (extremely high, times a huge number.) Sure, it would be easy to fix . . . but it's just not worth it.
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Your spring could leap out of the keyboard and hit someone else in the face. The newspaper you're reading could be caught by a sudden gust of wind, and slice a nearby Nobel prizewinner's artery open!
It is, in fact, as simple to write off as "what are the odds". First, you figure out the odds.
They're reasonably simple to guess at - apple has sold somewhere north of 100 million iPods so far, I'd wildly guess there's at least 30 million Minis around, call it an average of about 1.5 years that they've been arou
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Re:Why banned on airplanes? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's certainly going to be a lot more violent than an ember from a cigarrette.
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Which ones? Paper airplanes? Tiny airplanes? Nano airplanes?
If we have an airplane that can easily catch fire because of a tiny little battery that's on fire inside a tiny little nano player, then perhaps we need to start rethinking our entire aeronautic industry. If a nano can take a plane down, then may be next time it will be a mosquito. And if god forbid we're lu
No major injuries... (Score:3, Funny)
Apple is downplaying the problem, pointing out that no major injuries or damage have been reported.
Considering Apple's stance on mouse buttons they'd probably consider losing your right hand a "minor" injury.
Re:No major injuries... (Score:5, Funny)
losing your right hand a "minor" injury.
But in /.-land, a tremendous setback to the love life.
Re:No major injuries... (Score:4, Funny)
Because You're Terrorism's Dream Date? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, now I understand that you can be easily frightened into irrationally giving up reasonably safe conveniences just so long as someone says "airplane" near you.
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You don't have to be frightened to agree. If it's batteries from the first gen nanos sold between sept 05 and dec 06, then any nanos using the same batteries also have a chance of going up as they've come from the same place, many/most likely to have been made using same materials in same quantities, same equipment, and gone through the same QA. Maybe yours hasn't yet due to different usage patterns, maybe they were just a lot unluckier. Seems silly to push ya luck just to listen to some tunes for a few hou
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Either you ban all li-ion batteries, or you ban none, or you use a reasonable metric, like lithium equivalence to determine what is permissible. I feel that all li-ion batteries have a small risk of bur
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"or you use a reasonable metric"
Such as a list of high risk models to be excluded, you could request battery disconnection and provide a usb port that can power it instead for example.
"I feel that all li-ion batteries have a small risk of bursting into flames"
Yeah, but where there is known to be a higher chance of defects in certain batches, it seems silly to ignore that knowledge. I'm sure solutions could be found to leave people on both side of the argument happy with a little bit of thought.
The end of apple as a name of "quality". (Score:5, Informative)
Between their replacement of true color displays with crappy TN models which push their own calibration tools off the charts, their terrible all around macbook quality (mine's 1.5 years old and literally falling to pieces, including the graphics unit), and now these exploding batteries (again!, even dUll didn't pull the same mistake twice!), I say the days of apple as a quality brand are over.
Anyone have suggestions on where to buy quality hardware i can load osx86 on?
Re:The end of apple as a name of "quality". (Score:4, Insightful)
You're aware that Apple's "Pro" line is the one that's rated for unusually high quality, right? Not the consumer grade iMac or MacBooks...
Re:The end of apple as a name of "quality". (Score:5, Interesting)
You're aware that Apple's "Pro" line is the one that's rated for unusually high quality, right? Not the consumer grade iMac or MacBooks...
I'm also aware my friend is now on his third macbook pro in 2 years, and he has to ice-pack it all the time because it overheats.
He's been a user since system 6, and we're both unimpressed.
Re:The end of apple as a name of "quality". (Score:4, Informative)
I have to say I was pretty shocked looking at my friends macbook pro as it was getting incredibly hot, with only a tiny amount of ventilation at the back and a single solid piece of metal covering the bottom. Her system fan was getting very noisy with no easy way to clean it. I could've taken off the whole of the bottom casing, and would've if it was my laptop (leaving aside that if it was mine, it wouldn't be a mac), but it was still under warrenty and she was concerned that doing so could complicate that - better just to take it to an apple shop and let them deal with it. Incidentally this added to the whole pc-vs-mac debate, as whenever a pc of hers has had any kind of trouble, she has been able to sort it herself, but I won't get too much into that as I know many people on here are quite passionate about the whole macs-vs-pcs. So leaving all that aside, all I'm saying is it could at least have some vents on the underside :-p
Re:The end of apple as a name of "quality". (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone have suggestions on where to buy quality hardware i can load osx86 on?
I'd recommend Apple because (despite your cherry-picked examples) they make high quality, reliable hardware which meets the performance and durability needs of most of their customers.
Between their replacement of true color displays with crappy TN models which push their own calibration tools off the charts, their terrible all around macbook quality (mine's 1.5 years old and literally falling to pieces, including the graphics unit), and now these exploding batteries (again!, even dUll didn't pull the same mistake twice!), I say the days of apple as a quality brand are over.
Apple gets a hell of a lot of flack courtesy of their fanatical following of fanboys and fanatical following of trolls. The former crows everytime Apple does anything. The latter throw their hands in the air and cry that the sky is falling whenever any issue is reported, no matter how small.
Frankly, the rest of the internet wishes you'd both shut the hell up.
I've had Dell laptops separate at their hinges. I've had Sony displays with horrible color balance and atrocious response times. I had an IBM workstation that went through three power supplies in a year. Over the nearly two decades that I've been using computers, I have seen hardware from pretty much every manufacturer fail. Somehow, despite that, I don't feel the need to seek out a BBS, newsgroup, or website and bemoan that a few isolated incidents spell the end of "_____ as a quality brand."
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It is incredibly unlikely that your graphics chip is falling apart. It's soldered to the logic board.
since 3 weeks ago, my macbook has continuously thought there was a second monitor (the tv adapter) attached to the mini-dvi.
I powered it down, removed the battery, and let it sit for several days waiting for any and all latent electricity to discharge, restarted it, it's still that way.
The thing sits behind a surge protector and an ac adapater with a fuse which would blow in the event of a power surge..
Actually plugging in the device results in diagonal black bars separated by blue static. A fine stand-alon
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not when you're 5 figures in the hole and about to leave school into the most horrid job market since wed, oct 30th, 1929
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"and let it sit for several days waiting for any and all latent electricity to discharge"
On most systems you can speed this process up to a few seconds. Disconnect anything that could be giving the system charge (power, batteries, cables to powered devices - yes small current from a powered monitor can effect this, speaking from personal experience). Then, with everything unplugged, try turning the system on a few times. Hold the power button in. The system will usually try to switch itself on, drawing any
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You'll forgive me if I don't fall over myself at the magnanimity of following consumer protection laws "some" of the time.
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My 1.5 year MacBook still looks brand new, and I take it to work with me every day. It's my main work machine, in fact, and it's been all over the world with me, and is headed off to a conference in Germany the day after tomorrow...
So um... YMMV?
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Funny, I beat the *shit* out of my laptops, and my MacBook is no worse for wear after 18 months. The last two HPs I owned, however, only lasted 12 months each. I'd love to see what you would have done with them...
How does a "graphics unit" "litterally fall to pieces" anyway?
"Only a 'tiny percentage'..." (Score:5, Insightful)
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"From the article, that translates to 0.001 percent of all first generation Nanos"
Not quite... to be completely accurate, it's 14 out of all the first generation Nanos in Japan. Article says "There have been similar incidents in the United States" and I'd guess other countries if it's happening.
Airplane fire (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the 'won't somebody think of the airplanes!' comment at the end isn't particularly rational. These are not big devices and the only way they will cause more than an inconvenience is if every one on the plane bursts into flame at the same time.
That said, a large chemical fire like you could get from those big battery packs those desktop replacement laptops use would be a special kind of nightmare for any pilot. If they do ever ban lithium batteries and other related things on airplanes it will be very inconvenient but not necessarily stupid.
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There have been several serious incidents involving lithium batteries and air cargo. We've been lucky, so far. Maybe people will take it seriously if the next incident produces a bunch of dead passengers.
http://www.ntsb.gov/events/2006/philadelphiapa/iic_opening_text.htm [ntsb.gov]
iminplaya is a troll (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, sure - and when powerbooks were going off like poprocks and Dells were self incinerating like no tomorrow, did we ban them fro maircraft? No. Why? Wiser heads prevailed. If we went with "iminplaya"'s idea, the next thing you know - "Hey gramps - no batteries on board." "But they power my pacemaker!!!" Obviously, since unterfuhrer Cheney has a
Let's not overreact (Score:2)
I really hate in when people overreact, regardless of why they're doing it. I have no idea what kind of sales numbers have been been recorded for the iPod Nano (I'm assuming this only refers to the most recent version of the device and not any of the earlier incarnations, but TFA is somewhat vague about matters.) in Japan so I can only guess. However, let's run some numbers for the sake of looking at things rationally.
Only 140 iPod Nano devices have been sold in Japan. That would make a 10% failure rate, wh
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It's fairly hard to pin something like this (and the case you mentioned even though it seems more like a flame at Microsoft.) down completely. First of all there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million Xbox (Xboxen?) consoles, which makes the failure rate horribly low. Of course when designing something like that the manufacturer is constantly using different parts from different manufacturers (I know this because I chipped my Xbox and did a bit of reading on the different parts and which were gen
Ultimately, I think we need better chemistry ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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While I agree, I believe things are more problematic with non-standard format battery shapes than with ones shaped like "regular" batteries. I think it has to do with uneven heat distribution during charging within the irregular shapes.
Re:Ultimately, I think we need better chemistry .. (Score:2)
NiMH is extremely stable, quite tolerant of overcharging (not ridiculous so like NiCD, but infinitely better than LiION), etc., while still ALMOST as energy-dense and ALMOST as quick-charging/discharging. They aren't, however, nearly as lightweight as LiION.
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Lithium-ion cells are unstable, intolerant of overcharging, and energy-dense enough to be a real problem when they fail.
LiFePO4 is a possible answer. They're a little more expensive than Li-ion, and have slightly lower energy density, but they don't evolve gasses during charging, which makes them somewhat safer.
Ever See A Flaming LiPo Battery? Very Ugly. (Score:5, Interesting)
Some LiPos are pretty sketchy - we've had a few in prototypes "pillow" (fill with gas), but no explosions yet. Definitely a no-no in medical devices, particularly implantables!
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They are very safe if you stick with quality cells and make sure to monitor case temperature, discharge rate, discharge voltage, charge rate, charge voltage, and discharge levels very carefully (EG to better than 1%).
And how many of those considerations do you figure are observed with these devices?
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Some LiPos are pretty sketchy - we've had a few in prototypes "pillow" (fill with gas), but no explosions yet. Definitely a no-no in medical devices, particularly implantables!
Some LiPo batteries have a special pillow deflating mechanism called LiPoSuction.
The nano is so small.... (Score:2, Funny)
Good for Japan! (Score:4, Interesting)
And the batteries in these iPods? "Made In Japan". Glad to see they take their own QA so seriously.
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Its just DRM (Score:2)
If you try to play something on a nano that doesn't pass DRM checks ... a circuit opens and the battery is told to explode.
"Stop illegally downloading music .. this message will self-destruct"
Lithium Batteries (Score:3, Informative)
It sounds like poor-quality lithium batteries or possibly a defective charging circuit are to blame here.
Lithium batteries have a very high energy density due to the use of highly reactive lithium in metallic and/or ion forms. Overcharging or too-rapid discharge can easily overheat them and result in a fire or even an explosion in extreme cases.
If the quality control is not excellent, they can be incredibly dangerous.
Dell FireAThon and Apple HindenBook (Score:2)
I am not sure if the Dell and Apple laptops had lithium batteries but it does appear that the industry is going to have to look at the flammability of batteries in laptops and MP3 players. Either better batteries or asbestos skivvies. Wait, trying to remember--there is something wrong with asbestos, too??
Too much to ask? (Score:2)
I just want an ipod that won't burst into flames and kill me.
I'm craving a banana...
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The batteries are controlled by circuitry that starts it charging, and stops it when the battery reports that it's full. If this circuitry is defective, charging can happen past its safe charge level causing overheating and eventual spontaneous combustion.
My guess would be (if there is correlation) that as nanos are targetting more towards the lower end of the market; people who are looking for cheap, there's more scope for reducing costs by skimping on the battery, which increases chance of there being def
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Iphone on fire, text in swedish. He was charging it.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article3133594.ab [aftonbladet.se]
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
This is simply a marketing problem.... the new Apple "I-burn"... with crispy icons, and carbonized gestural interface.
It can light cigarettes! Start campfires! and get rid of that pesky leaf pile for you!
Plug one in, and light it up today!!!
The only problem is with all the scorch marks it will look like crap. Maybe they should call it the iSore instead?
Re: (Score:2)
Or "your issue's at least as serious if you're getting that worked up over someone mixing up their you're/your's". Anyone would think that a mixed up your/you're was responsible for the death of your parents or something. Chill out dude, corrective pointers usually work better when not accompanied by rude personal attacks out of nowhere.
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
The worst that could happen (and quite possibly will now) is that the airlines seize this opportunity to make passengers' travel even more unpleasant than it already is by banning or confiscating people's iPods. I wouldn't put it past them at all.
It would be amusing to see a mass boycott of all the airlines by all travellers until they learn to stop being such officious pricks. The way they behave towards passengers is not much better than animals might expect from the live cattle export trade.
The sad thing is that we have largely allowed ourselves to be cowed by this treatment.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)