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Did Your Code Ever Make Anyone Deaf?
theodp writes "Siemens AG anticipates additional costs from a software problem with new mobile phones that has led retailers to suspend sales. Five models of its new 65 series can emit a piercing melody into users' ears if the battery fails during a call, causing hearing damage in extreme cases, according to a statement."
it.slashdot.org made me blind.
But if they looked at it they could have gone blind. Seriously, I've seen some messed up code, but deaf?
Seems like a simple test case to me: battery fails during a call.
Can you hear me now? What?
i know you can't cover every corner case, but, er a cell phone hitting low battery is not what i'd consider a corner case. Now, if there was 3rd party this or that crammed in there after the fact (ie customer did that crap), now way to forsee that, but damn....hearing damage? C'mon, if i had to choose one of two options:
a) batt low, be fucking LOUD to warn of it..
b> batt low, warn, beep, blink, flash, beep more...and then even more...
hell, beep that ass off, but loud enough to damage one's ear? Fuck that. No one to blame, but the dudes that made it...period.
Good.
Sucks for Siemens. Heh... a twofer!
Worse than goatse :(
Any time your ears ring, it's "hearing damage". I play violin, and whenever I practice, and for a few hours afterword, I get a noticable ringing in my ears. It actually doesn't go away fully, I can always hear this ringing (sometimes a lower frequency buzzing) at night. This is hearing damage, but I'm not deaf. However, if this were caused by a cellpone, you bet I'd be suing.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
What is the maximum volume on this phone? Why not just cap the volume at a non-hearing-threatening level and be done with it? If they don't do that, isn't it just a matter of someone cranking the volume too loud, or is the low battery warning allowed to exceed the regular max. volume level?
My gf bought one of these things a couple of days ago, when this statement was released the Dutch news networks thought it was important enough to put in the news on the radio. So I heard it driving home from work.
The first thing I did when I got home was telling the misses that that tune she always hears when the phone is actually ringing on the other side (when every phone user already has the thing to his ear) was not here to stay.
I am not sure if this is how it's done with every Siemens but with her it was menu option 3.8.3 (or Sound Options -> Other Tunes -> Connection Tune (on/off). Get rid of it.
I thought it said "Did Your Code Ever Make Anyone Dead?"
That time will come, but first the killer robots need some touching up around the joints...
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
Gee whiz, what are the chances of a user holding a mobile phone next to their ear? I always keep mine strapped to my elbow.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
That's what happens when you outsource the hardware to Singapore and the software to India.
"Soft beep" in Mandarin probably translates to "Loud, deafening tone" in Hindi.
Anyone know the db and frequency of any of the ring tones?
Could not find the info. Purposelly withheld from the articles?
100% Insightful
Will MS suspend sales of Windows and Office until all the bugs are ironed out?
Why not simply suspend purchases of Windows and Office? Switch to something better.
The driver and transducer should have been selected so that there was no possibility of dangerous sound levels, no matter what the software decided to do.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Often upon seeing my solutions to the labs in my first programming class, the Professor would let out a shriek that caused hearing damage to virtually everyone within a 3 mile radius and killed several Koi fish in a nearby pond.
Take Care
A1miras
I had a Samsung SCH-8500, SprintPCS. Sure it made sounds when the battery died, but it was usually a quiet beep. However, at times (and for causes unknown to me) it would beep really really loudly in my ear. Me being the idiot that I was, I never got it replaced. Probably should have. It may have been a heat problem (talking too long), but I'm not sure. It was loud enough to be painful.
Anyway, I now have a Sanyo PM-8200 and I'm quite happy.
If you think that's funny try "mobile phone exploding" on Google =)
& q= mobile+phone+exploding
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
Isn't there hardware in these devices that prevents very loud noises/extremely high pitched noise? I mean, how hard is it to put a volume hardware filter on these devices. There's no reason to have something as loud or as high pitched as was being described, is there?
As a side note, what if an mp3 is corrupted on my mp3 player and the corrupted data causes an extremely high-pitched tone to be emitted for a long duration...? Do mp3 players have hardware (like a volume filter, or a high pass filter) that would prevent me from going deaf?
The story on El Reg has a bit of helpful information (emphasis mine):
The flaw affects version 11 of the software of the C65, CX65, M65, S65 model phones, and then only if the phone has already issued three low-battery warnings.
With the "only after three" it sounds like this was meant a 'feature' where they assumed that if you didn't do something after the first three beeps, it must be in your pocket or somewhere else you can't hear it - so crank up the volume.
Obviously, they forgot that people won't immediately end their calls - rather, they'll stay on the call, because their phone is about to die, and they want to get as much info across before it kicks the bucket.
Here's a horrible idea I know some l33t3r is probably working on right now. How about a worm that makes the screen strobe-flash red? I wonder how many poor kids some idiot programmer is going to put into convlusions to prove they have skills. Infect 1 million computers with this, and you can expect at least 100 seizures. You know someone is working on it.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Just after the shriek, look for a bystander that hates cell phones, holding a gadget in his hand, and smiling.
I had a user complain that my website gave them a hairy palm.
One of the most serious software problems involved the Therac 25 computerized radiation therapy device. Several patients received exterme overdoses of X-rays due to a programming bug. It's a well-known case covered in some computer ethics classes. Unfortunately, most software is exempt from product liability claims.
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...I got a Blue Screen of Deaf once. Does that count?
<ducks>
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Yes, I know it screws up your tone a little. Better to lose tone than lose hearing. Plus, your neighbours with thank you for it.
the 'feature' has been in siemens phones in one way or another for quite a few years already.
this time they just overdid it.
definetely wasn't about 'saving a buck', just about plain stupidity.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
...but I had a Motorola V120X that showed numerous interesting behaviors, especially when it came to ringing.
My (least) favorite was when I'd answer the phone, and the conversation would be connected, but the phone would continue ringing until the phone call ended. You can bet I made sure those calls were very short.
I hated that phone.
± 29 dB
And it's software is a piece of crap, full of bugs! I know there're software updates out there, but conveniently Siemens didn't supply the phone with a data cable. But hey, I could buy it for 30 euros! Brilliant, I can buy myself a right to patch the phone!! Or, as it turned out, I could find the single provider in my home town who's able to patch the phone. Though, I'm not sure if it's cost free even there..
Enough of personal whine, here're some of the most annoying bugs and misfeatures:
- The sounds are really loud, even in their lowest setting.
- Software crashes if I try to read SMS messages through a shortcut interface. Instead, I must go carefully through few extra menus not to crash the system.
- GUI jams if I cancel a call just after I dialed it in
- The battery dies in just a few days' casual use
- Sometimes during battery charging the screen backlight hangs on, so when you pick up your phone, the backlight has used all the power in the battery and it's all out again.
So, these are the "few" little bugs I'm experiencing. My previous phone was not totally bug free itself, but those few little hickups were nothing considered to these MAJOR bugs Siemens let in the wild with a crappy software on a good looking phone!
__
Zarathustra.fi
Modern man has no goal, no aim, no ideals.
I submitted a comment accidentally without the proper references, but basically, OSHA says that
m ent?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=9735
Sound level:
Maximum allowable duration per day
100 dB: 2 hours
102 dB: 1½ hour
105 dB: 1 hour
110 dB: ½ hour
115 dB: ¼ hour or less
Reference: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_docu
So, unless your cellphone is expressing 115db ringtones, for over 15 minutes, and you're STILL listening to it, you have nothing to worry about. DUH!!!!!! This is a case of hot coffee from McDonalds. If you're having a painful noise injected into your ear, you remove yourself from the source. Hot coffee is even MORE of a reason to sue than this. WAKE UP PEOPLE.
I've owned an Ericsson phone, and it had a similar flaw. After hitting the Automatically Redial option when a number is busy, when the phone is able to go thru, it plays a LOUD tone. And, this is done even when the phone is on "Silent" mode. Newer Sony-Ericsson models only do this when the "Silent" mode is off. Even though, nowhere in the manual does it say that you should NOT hold the phone next to your ear when using the Automatically Redial option.
This brought a smile to my face. Just thinking of chucking a cellphone like a grenade does that. I don't know why...
Older siemens mobile phones had two speakers. One was normal speaker and the other was just for ringing. When batteries reached minimum the ringing speaker sounded with ear piercing beeps but fortunately the speaker was placed on the side of the phone.
Todays phones have one speaker for both communication and ringing. So siemens probably sticked to their software design and implemented it in the modern phones. The result is obviously not so satisfying considering those high pitched tones resonating in your ear.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
So, so very wrong. The instant it opened an eardrum-shattering scream let loose through the mighty, three figure dollar amount speakers. I instantly closed out the game only to find that a persistent buzzing sound was present. At this point I think my friend stopped breathing (fearing the speakers were totally ruined) and I thought, hey no big deal, I'll just reboot. Buzz sound was still there. Well no big deal, let's just power down and unplug everything. Buzz sound still there. I didn't think it was that bad, but this nameless friend of mine couldn't stand it and bought new speakers.
And I now have a pair of Klipsch speakers that make a rather obnoxious buzzing noise. But they were free! So, in a sense, this bad sound code that almost ruined these speakers (they're worthless in dollar terms, no way I could sell them on eBay, etc) also provided me with free speakers that I never would have bought with my own funds.
I must therefore both curse and thank the developers of Acid Tetris, and more likely the folks in charge of backwards compatibility at Microsoft, and my own stupid self for running an old program and trusting XP to not bork itself.
If you've read this whole thing you're a brave, yet sad soul... but stay tuned for further adventures in computing with your hero(or nemesis?), the one and only Michael "Mad" Raymer!
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
As the owner of a Siemens Series 65 phone, you have the responsibility to care for it. If you didn't feed your child, it would cry loudly, would it not?
That the Siemens Series 65 phone emits an ear bleeding shreak when starved for energy (and obviously attention as well) is just survival of the fittest. Other phones may be regularly left to starve until shutdown, but with the Siemens, that is likely to never happen a second time.
I for one welcome our ear destroying, power requiring, attention demanding Cellular Overlord®.
--- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
I'm surprised some of the code from olden days hasn't made anyone deaf yet, with all that shouting..
.. okay, bad joke..
10 REM HELLO WORLD
20 CLS
30 PRINT "HELLO WORLD!"
You'd expect your code to be safety-critical on a jetliner or a radiation therapy machine, but would it occur to you to worry about danger to humans in a cell phone UI?
This makes at least two places that cell phone embedded software has safety implications. The other is charge control on lithium batteries: a lithium fire in your pocket is enough to ruin your whole day.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven