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How a Leather Cover Crashes the Kindle

An anonymous reader writes "Amazon has started offering refunds to Kindle owners who own the unlit leather case who claim that it causes their Kindles to reboot, but are playing dumb on the cause: "our engineering team is looking into this." People have been wondering how a leather cover could possibly crash an electronic device, and why is Amazon offering money back if they don't think there's a problem? It seems that some of the folks over at Connectify have figured it out, and it's a doozy!"

4 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not unprecedented by mswhippingboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Reminds me of an incident I encountered back in the late '70s in Pensacola, Fl. We had an IBM 4341 mainframe in our data-center that would just shut down regularly every Friday night, around the same time. We had IBM SEs come in and pour over the logs, week after week, but they could find nothing wrong and no indication of why it was shutting down. They installed monitors to check for power surges - nothing. They replaced parts - still nothing. We were in discussions with IBM to have the entire machine removed and replaced with a new machine - something IBM said they had never had to do before. After months of pulling our hair out, we discovered (not sure who made the connection - but it seemed to be a long shot at the time) the shutdown coincided with the approach of the USS Lexington (aircraft carrier) coming into port (some 10 miles or so away) from it's regular training missions. Apparently the radar from the ship was strong enough to play havoc with the circuitry causing it to trigger a shutdown. The SE installed RF shields within the box and the problem occurred no more.

    So much for magic.

    --
    Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
  2. Re:Yikes! by Khyber · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You suppose wrong.

    We used AA batteries in prison to light cigarettes when they took away access to the wall sockets.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  3. Re:KaWow by anUnhandledException · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How exactly do you fry an ebook?

    A demonstration for you:
    1) Purchase Kindle
    2) Purchase and download 1000 ebooks to Kindle
    3) Throw kindle into incinerator
    4) Purchase new Kindle and click "Sync"
    5) 1000 ebooks "magically" appear on new kindle and more remarkable show no signs of fire damage.

  4. Re:Yikes! by Sanat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    His fingers appear to be touching both metal probes of the meter so 2 meg-ohms seems about right for his internal resistance.

    --
    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make