Exploding mobile phone kills Chinese man

A Chinese man was reportedly killed at a computer shop last Friday after the cell phone in his chest pocket exploded, severing a major artery in his neck and leading to massive blood loss. According to local news reports, the man worked as a shop assistant at the store. An employee at a neighboring 7-11 convenience store told …

[Anonymous Coward]

For whom the cell tolls

Very bad taste.

But also, I have to admit... very funny.

[Daniel B.]

Dodgy battery?

Hm.... China ... "new" battery ... why does this sound like this guy bought one of the "local" cheapo batteries? If this is the case, well... this guy found out exactly why you should not buy batteries of dubious quality, and it's really sad that he didn't survive to learn this lesson.

Also, it looks like putting your cellphone on your chest is as dangerous as carrying a grenade! Maybe I should stop carrying my cellphone on my belt-clip...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't most reports of exploding cell phones...

...involved exaggeration or outright fabrication?

[Warhelmet]

Hidden Feature?

I would quite like to make some people's phones explode. Is this a hidden feature? Can I access it via Bluetooth?

[Dr Jeep]

It's from China's version of DARPA!

Eek!

[Anonymous Coward]

assassinated by...

...the lizard folk. WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE LEARN?

[Mr B]

Lithium

or Semtex batteries ???

That'll make hijackers happy.

Mine's the one with the made in china tag.

[Anonymous Coward]

Skynet

Nuss faid

[mittfh]

Quite possible...

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/cellcharge.asp

Scroll down to under the "BOOM!" graphic.

As Daniel B noted an hour ago, it's probably a case of a cheapo third party battery. It wouldn't surprise me if the entire phone was a black market rip-off of a famous brand...

[Anonymous Coward]

He knew too much...

I tell you, these phones spy on us all, allow GPS satellites to track us, and - as you can see here - allows THEM to remove us when we become a threat.

[Seanie Ryan]

Why?

How come these articles no longer carry the RotM label?? I miss that.

also, apparently bananas have more than 4 uses.....

[vincent himpe]

some battery experts

publicly admitted that LiIon should never have been released in the field. It is not ready...

[bmuckknock]

oh sh*t

i always put my phone in a pocket of my pants

[Anonymous Coward]

A worrying thought

If these things can explode accidentally, then they must also be capable of being made to explode? Paris, 'cos she's hot too.

[Fozzy]

Please let this be an undocumented feature

There was a guy next to me in the train this morning listening to rap crap at full volume. Detonating that piece of crap would have brightened my day immensely

[Anonymous Coward]

What was his ringtone?

The Boomtown Rats?

[Neoc]

Head, meet desk

<bangs head on desk> So how long before Lion batteries are prohibited on airplanes?

[neal clewlow]

Is that a bomb in your pocket...?

"An employee at a neighboring 7-11 convenience store told local media that she heard a loud bang and saw her colleague lying on the floor in a pool of blood"

It seems the mans neighbours can see through walls...A result of all that microwave radiation no doubt...

N

Oh, wait. do they still have paper thin walls...?

[Matthew]

lithium bombs?

maybe the terrorists will be making them next? It sounds like you just need to give them a shake to make them go bang

[Mark S]

@ David Wiernicki

Not at all. Why, exactly the same thing happened to me just last week.

[Steve Roper]

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

is to proceed to China, track down the source of these counterfeit batteries, identify the individuals involved in manufacturing them, and eliminate them as expediently as possible. As usual, should you or any of your IM team be killed or captured, the Secretary of State will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...

"Cor blimey, have a look at the norks on her will ya?!"

...BOOOOM!...

...<music>Diddleiddleiddleiddle-DAH, dah, dah-dah-DAH, dah, dah-dah-DAH, dah, dah-dah-DAH, dah, dah-dah, Diddle-eeeeeeeeee...Diddle-eeeeeeeeee...Diddle-eeeeeeeeee... etc...</music>

[Vin]

This smacks of Rise of the Machines, to me.

Mine's the one without an iPhone.

[Moss Icely Spaceport]

Hmmm

Maybe he hadn't paid his bill.

Those Chinese businessmen can be ruthless....

[elderlybloke]

Oh what fun

If this fatal event happened in the UK , would you creeps find it funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because I have no decency...

alternate tagline:

"Suicide bomber confuses bomb and detonator"

[It wasnt me]

@Steve Roper

Yep, Ill have some of whatever youre taking please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh

Is the explosive force a battery is capable of producing directly proportionate to its life? Or are they all about the same?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong pocket

He should have had it in his trouser pocket and he would only have lost his Johnson, or as they are known in China, his Kia.

My guess is that he was using a NoKia.

:-)

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

This doesn't have to happen

Just select

Menu

Phone Settings

Power options

Battery settings

Explode

And make sure the Yes box is NOT checked. If your phone doesn't have this option, you may need a firmware upgrade.

[James]

So, let me get this right.....

X zillion phones with batteries in the world and one goes boom and kills one person (allegedly) and that's news.

X billion cars in the world and several thousand go crash every day and kill thousands and that's not news.

Hmmm. Think there's a "sense of proportion imbalance" here.

[Tim J]

A man is dead...

...but hey it only happened in China so we can jest.

He may have bought the replacement battery in good faith thinking it was legit, only for it to turn out to be a counterfeit.

[Pascal Monett]

@elderlybloke

Why yes, of course. Remember the last thing that went through Lady Di's mind ? That one got out barely 12 hours after her death.

This is the Internet. What on Earth did you expect, decency ?

[g e]

@elderlybloke

Definitely as it would prbably reduce the chav population count by 1.

Or more than one as they'd have their chav mates standing close by listening to something tacky

[Alexander]

fake

Feck me Mr Reg slow day to-day this story has been about for years and was as fake then as it is now, check your sources..next we will have the man who married a gaot for 45 th time rehashed

[Wize]

Tough choice...

Have it in breast pocket and blow your heart up, or place it in trouser pocket and blow your 'best friend' away. Shirt pocket please.

Electric cars (like the fast one they fiddled with in Top Gear) use the same technology in their batteries.

So all it will need is a slight tap on the car in front when parking and... bang.

[Craig]

@James

You haven't thought this through, have you? Car crashes happen every day, of course they're not news! I eat my lunch every day, do you expect that to be in a news article? The point is precisely that phones killing people has (allegedly) happened *once*, therefore it *is* news.

[Dan]

@Alexander

who married a goat? when? where? why? can they do that?

[Alexander]

de goat

some guy in nigeria got caught being nice to another mans goat, so the tribal elders forced him to marry the goat as punishment ?....the bbc and sky rehash the story every six months, the exploding chinese mobile phone is another one that gets rehashed and reused every so often, it seems even aisa has slow news days..

[Stevie]

Egad!

We need assurances tootsweet that this poor innocent Chinese man wasn't running the new Russian O/S (ibid) on his phone.

[Sam Radford]

Wind-up

I am a qualified engineer and I don't believe a Li-ion battery can explode like that - at least not without a lot of heat and smoke being emitted beforehand. Mark my words, this is a wind-up.

[Anonymous Coward]

no kiddin...

2 minutes after reading this story, "Mexican Wine" by Fountains of Wayne came on my iTunes

first line: He was killed by a cellular phone explosion

awesome!

[kain preacher]

Hmm

Is this a James bond Film ??? Mission Impossible ???. Sure does sound like holly Wood to me.

[Stevie]

Eh?

[Sam Radford] A clockwork phone? The guy was killed by a Mainspring Excursion Event?

[Paul]

I am skeptical

Was not there a similar case before where it turned out the man was actually killed by some other impact (machinery accident?) and the phone only caught fire because it suffered the same fate.

[Curtis]

@ AC Wednesday 4th February 2009 09:10 GMT

Sir/Madam - you owe my office a new keyboard, monitor, phone (it was a pretty big mouthfull of coffee) as well as my medical bills from biting my hand to try to keep from laughing so my boss doesn't realize I'm reading El Reg from work.

[le jono]

Nature

Im pretty sure it was some sorta foreign device.

China are getting on everyones nerves these days

hoodwinking every nation with there navy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7868863.stm