exploding

Unlocking Ma Bell: How phone phreaks came to be

Imagine a day when it cost an arm and a leg to use the phone, especially for long-distance calls. Then imagine that buried deep within the telephone network infrastructure was a flaw -- a hole that allowed those who were aware of it, and capable of exploiting it, to make all the free calls they want.

These days, phone calls are free -- or nearly so -- and hackers put their energies into computer networks, jailbreaking iPhones, and other more modern pursuits. But back in the 1950s and 1960s, a new group of people emerged, people who were fascinated by … Read more

Samsung cell phone battery explodes in man's pocket

Lithium-ion batteries are notorious for overheating, catching on fire, or exploding. Yet, they're in most electronics that people use daily.

One such battery set ablaze over the weekend while in a man's pants pocket, according to the Associated Press. The man was walking around with his Samsung mobile phone in his pocket when the battery caught on fire, giving him second-degree burns and a one-inch wound on his thigh. Officials said the battery was not inside the phone when it exploded.

The incident took place in South Korea, which is where Samsung is based. According to the local … Read more

iPad Mini coming this year, say reports

On this Thursday, take a whiff and smell those fresh Apple rumors:

New details on a smaller iPad are pouring in. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have sources saying Apple is gearing up to produce an iPad Mini that would arrive sometime this year. We've also heard the same earlier this week from an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch. This would compete with other 7-inch tablets, like the Amazon Kindle Fire (which will likely have a new model out this summer) and the Google Nexus 7 tablet.

But that's not the only hot Apple news today. Just check … Read more

Did iPhone 'explode' in 17-year-old's pocket?

Video footage of an iPhone allegedly exploding in a young man's pocket has been posted online.

17-year-old Henri Helminen is seen pulling out the violently smoking device from his pocket and throwing it on the floor, in security tape footage acquired by Finnish news site Kauppalehti.

"The phone was working perfectly" beforehand, Helminen told Kauppalehti. The unidentified iPhone model bought no more than three months ago was destroyed in the fiery incident, he added.

Apple did not respond to request for comment on Wednesday.

Authenticating the video is nigh on impossible. However, it's not the first … Read more

iPhone goes up in smoke on plane

The finest of electronic items do occasionally malfunction.

Sometimes planes unaccountably drop out of the sky. And sometimes, when a plane comes in for a safe landing, an iPhone might just begin to turn a strange hue of red and release dense smoke.

This, according to Australian airline Regional Express, is precisely what happened Friday on a flight between Lismore and Sydney.

The airline said that the plane was coming into land when the iPhone pyrotechnics began.

The flight crew apparently took swift action, bathing the phone in soft hand lotion. No, actually, all the airline said was that the … Read more

Mediocre marbles

We review a fair number of computer games, and it often seems that we see variations on the same handful of games over and over again. So it goes with Exploding Marbles. This Bejeweled-inspired game is fun to play, just like its predecessors, but we can't say there's anything about it that particularly impressed us.

The program's interface is basic and maybe a touch amateurish. A grid of colored balls is arranged over a busy background image, giving the playing area a slightly cluttered look. Playing the game entails simply dragging balls to create lines of three … Read more

Apple says it's not to blame for 'exploding' iPhones

Apple's iPhone may be the darling of the mobile-phone industry right now, but some users in France aren't singing its praises, claiming that the device explodes or cracks without warning.

However, after conducting an internal investigation into the cause of the broken touch-screen glass, Apple denies that there is an underlying iPhone flaw. In fact, Apple said that in all cases it investigated, some kind of force was applied to the iPhone, causing the glass to break, according to a BBC report Friday.

"The iPhones with broken glass that we have analyzed to date show that in … Read more

Report: Apple tried to silence family over exploding iPod

The father of an 11-year-old girl in the U.K. said Apple tried to keep him from speaking about his daughter's iPod after it exploded last month.

Speaking to The Times in the U.K., Ken Stanborough said after he dropped the iPod Touch, it began hissing and started to get hot. As a precaution, he threw the iPod outside and "within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10 (feet) in the air," he said.

Apple agreed to give Stanborough a refund, but only if he signed a confidentiality … Read more

Battery safety bungles, blunders, and boo-boos

Exploding batteries make headlines, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. If you've read owner's manuals, as I do, you see danger lurking everywhere. A couple examples:

"When not using remote controls, remove batteries. Do not take battery apart, heat it, or throw into fire." Curious kids do that kind of stuff all the time (I did), and the fine print in the owner's manual won't deter them. I suppose that the warnings are in there for legal reasons.

"Do not subject remote control to undue physical stress, such as striking it or dropping it." Wow, who would have thought that by merely dropping a remote, you're at risk. I guess that those of us with bare wood or tiled floors are living dangerously. Heed all warnings!

I haven't yet seen the next warnings in any manual, but it's just a matter of time before they appear.

"Do not put the battery in your mouth or swallow it." That's just common sense, but the tingling sensation of a few volts zapping your insides may...don't do it!

"Do not sit on batteries, and if you do, be aware that flatulence may pose additional risks." Of course.… Read more

Mechanical hammer attempts to destroy phone. Film at--right now!

The Sonim XP1 has been lauded as a "tough and strong" phone. CreativeFeed, a digital marketing agency, has decided to put it to the test.

It's launched a Web site that features "The Destroyer"--a machine-operated hammer that will pummel the phone 24 hours a day live over the Intertubes until it breaks.

Visitors to the Web site have a chance to win the Sonim XP1 handset if they can correctly guess how long it will take for the phone to break/crack/explode, and how many hits it will take before that happens. The … Read more