LG laptop goes up in flames A journalist was awoken by a hot news story yesterday: the realisation that his LG Electronics laptop had just exploded. The so-far anonymous journalist had apparently put the laptop into sleep mode. Unfortunately, the device was not ready for bye-bye and instead blew itself sky high, belching smoke and flames. The specific …
Just another one of this BBC / ITN style news reporting rubbish.
Just how many Lithium Ion / Polymer gadgets have actually exploded or caught fire in the last decade? Id wager less than 100 in maybe 10 years, if anywhere near that sum.
Now how many Lithium Ion / Polymer batteries have actually been produced over the last 10 years? Go on, how many hundred Billions are we talking about?
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In the same way as we're continually led down the path that we'll all die from the supposed salmonella outbreak some time back, or to some extent the supposed bird flu epidemic due our way, so we take this crap from Journalists.
If we're so caught up on individual cases - I couldn't easily count the amount of LiON batteries I have in my home, and over the abuse I've given some of them over the years, not a one has caused my house to burn down.
Not good journalism guys.
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Overall am I correct in saying theres a higher chance of being hit by the proverbial lightening strike?
One in a billion chance? Not if they're all made the same way - then there's a much greater chance that whatever design defect caused an unplanned disassociation of one battery could cause the same of many others.
Just hope that you're not too near that you get burned, but near enough to put out the flames.
This "unnamed" reporter is obviously some sort of spy. Either that, or he got his laptop mixed up with that of a good old fashioned secret agent.
He must've slept through the warning that all self-destructing spy devices are required to give.
My coat and bag, please. No need for hat or gloves today, as it's quite nice out.
"Overall am I correct in saying theres a higher chance of being hit by the proverbial lightening strike?"
Yes. And that there's a better chance that GW Bush and Osama will sit down and settle their "differences" over a nice cuppa down t'local. Assuming you believe they have any real differences.
True, that is a possibility, and so should be investigated scientifically for real dangers as opposed to scaremongering into thinking all LiON batteries are fundamentally flawed.
For all we know this nameless journo purposefully abused it to try and prove some kind of laptop battery danger conspiracy, but could have ended up deliberately abusing it for weeks or months before it exploded (above that of normal wear and tear) - so isnt it interesting he/she is keeping shtum about who they are and the exact details?
Of course manufacturing techniques (amongst lots of other factors) will increase or decrease the 'susceptibility' to explosion/fire, but have we not already established the event is a rarity in relation to the amount of batteries actually produced? And so individual factors must be quite small.
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