Slashdot Mirror


Samsung Knew a Third Replacement Note 7 Caught Fire On Tuesday and Said Nothing (theverge.com)

If you had started to feel sympathetic for Samsung, or safer with the Note 7, its latest flagship smartphone, don't be. Another replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has caught fire, making it three of such incident this week alone. Read how poorly Samsung has dealt with the situation, via The Verge: This one was owned by Michael Klering of Nicholasville, Kentucky. He told WKYT that he woke up at 4AM to find his bedroom filled with smoke and his phone on fire. Later in the day, he went to the hospital with acute bronchitis caused by smoke inhalation. "The phone is supposed to be the replacement, so you would have thought it would be safe," Klering told WKYT, saying that he had owned the replacement phone for a little more than a week. "It wasn't plugged in. It wasn't anything, it was just sitting there."The most unsettling part is that Samsung knew of Klering's phone, and didn't say anything.

110 comments

  1. Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The most unsettling part is that Samsung knew of Klering's phone, and didn't say anything.

    That reminds me of how Tesla handled the first few fatal accidents with the Autopilot.

    1. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can we finally admit that we have reached peak thin-ness?

      So what is the real culprit here? I thought it could have been from using the wrong charging IC or someone in the battery department changing the chemistry and not telling the EEs. But they are catching fire without charging.

      What's worse is that the replacement batteries still have the original problem. Now, considering lithium battery packs have been used safely millions of times over, what third thing can we throw into the mix? How about batteries themselves being so thin that internal shorts develop rapidly, and that their fixes are blind stabs in the dark so as to not need to admit they screwed up and now have to completely scrap the note 7 design?

    2. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by geoskd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So what is the real culprit here? I thought it could have been from using the wrong charging IC or someone in the battery department changing the chemistry and not telling the EEs. But they are catching fire without charging.

      Lithium chemistry batteries are finicky little bastards. They are not just dangerous from over-charging (or charging too fast), but also from over-discharging and discharging too rapidly. If they are drawing 1A from a battery that is only designed to handle 1/2A, or worse, if their control circuitry allows the battery to fall below a minimum voltage, then the batteries can go into runaway thermal overload. The worst part is that all of the various factors change with pressure, so at 35k feet, you have to be far more conservative with the batteries to avoid a fire. With Li batteries, getting the extra capacity out of them can be very dangerous, and it only take a small error to end up with fires or explosions. Worse still parameters can vary widely from individual battery to individual battery and is made far worse when the batteries are sloppily made.

      It should also be noted that it is unlikely that the phones have a dedicated battery monitoring chip as these cost a couple bucks, even in large quantities, and all they really are is a small microprocessor and a couple cents worth of transistors. Since cell phones already have the processor, they just use that, and add the couple of small transistors they need to handle the charging and discharge monitoring.

      The root problem could be as simple as a badly chosen set of constants for cutoff voltage and thermal protection, or could be more insidious, such as a thermal protection sub-routine that doesn't work properly because at shutdown the processor looses power and reboots, thus continually drawing power from the battery.

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
    3. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by sjames · · Score: 1

      The sad part is that lmr is an option and is far less touchy. Enough so that they don't need continuous management. They don't use it because it is a little more bulky and then you couldn't use your phone as a chefs knife.

    4. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      it is unlikely that the phones have a dedicated battery monitoring chip as these cost a couple bucks, even in large quantities,

      Complete bollocks.

      --
      No sig today...
    5. Re:Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      The most unsettling part is that Samsung knew of Klering's phone, and didn't say anything.

      That reminds me of how Tesla handled the first few fatal accidents with the Autopilot.

      It's still not as dangerous as this incident: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

      --
      No sig today...
    6. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by geoskd · · Score: 2

      How many battery power devices have you designed?

      Theres a big difference between the LiPo pack you bought for your toy RC car, and the packs that go in commercial devices. Almost any LiPo you can buy "off the shelf" has built in battery protection circuits. That is not true for built in batteries and devices in quantity. It is left to the device manufacturer to decide if they want the built in circuits or not, and in most cases where there is a processor in the device, the manufacturer elects to add their own software to handle the charging and circuit protection as they are cheaper by quite a bit. This is especially true in cell phones and tablets where the battery is custom designed and manufactured, typically for a specific model or line of phones. The cost of adding the protection circuit to the pack is significantly higher, as is the space and weight penalty. The actual circuit to charge the phone or do battery protection is extremely simple and small, the complexity is transfered into the software domain where a processor is used to handle the logic involved. If your device already has a processor (or in the case of phone more than one), this extra chip is a wasted expense.

      Even NiMH packs are supposed to have that thermistor you talked about, but except in rare cases, I have not seen a single pack that actually has the thermistor. Its not much of an expense, but they seem to forego that altogether. Cutting corners in pack manufacturing is the norm, since the packs are high volume low margin devices (All cells and most packs are made in china to varying degrees of quality), and every company making and using them is looking for every opportunity they can find to cut costs.

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
    7. Re:Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you posting from your time machine? So far there's been _one_ fatal accident with Autopilot enabled, or two if you include the claimed one in China where the family are witholding the logs.

    8. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think about what you said. You know these devices can be charged when turned off. That means the processor is not the monitor chip for overcharging. Like all other phones, this is a standalone device used to monitor battery charge.

    9. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by adolf · · Score: 1

      How many battery packs have YOU designed, Internet-guy?

      Over here in facts-based land, the Note 7 has a MAX77838 keeping track of power.

    10. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds worse than a nuclear reactor.

    11. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by geoskd · · Score: 5, Informative

      Over here in facts-based land, the Note 7 has a MAX77838 keeping track of power.

      The MAX77838 is a power management IC. It claims to have some other circuitry for battery management, but since MAXIMs website does not acknowledge that part number, we have no way of knowing what it really has or doesn't have. All outward appearances would suggest that it is a custom chip for Samsung (probably used in several of their product lines). Personally, I expect that the MAX77838 is similar to the MAX77829 (PMIC + single cell Lion charging circuit). This would make some sense since it looks like Samsung elected to use an external PMIC, and since they had to have one anyways, getting one that had the charging circuit built in would not be that big a deal. Unfortunately for Samsung, the charging circuit has to be relatively tuned to the specific battery being used. Generically designed Lion chargers have a habit of failing. (So much so that Tenma actually ships many of their battery chargers with a fireproof pouch to put the battery in while charging it...

      This just goes to show how stupid Samsung is for designing it this way. Since the fault lies either with the Custom Maxim Chip, with the battery itself (or a mismatch between the two), Samsung has backed itself into a corner. They cannot just replace the defective Maxim Chip with an off the shelf component because there is no drop in replacement or they wouldn't have had Maxim build a custom chip in the first place. Nor can they simply change the battery easily, as the batteries are manufactured to spec as well.

      If samsung had offloaded the charging and battery management control into software running on one of the processors in the phone, then they would likely have been able to fix the problem with a firmware update. Now, because they did not have the sense to do what everyone else is doing, they are fucked.

      The best kept open secret in the Phone / Tablet world are the PSOC processors that are used extensively for all of the low level work in these devices. Cypress sells nearly as many processors as Broadcom, and nobody has ever heard of them. Their processors come with built in PMIC, Capacitive touch sense (which is why everyone started using them in the first place), and a host of other powerful features that reduce part count and unit cost. I have personally designed a half dozen devices that used them, two of which had battery charging circuits and charge control software. The irony is that the PSOC processors cost cost about $5 each and they are full featured processors while the Maxim ICs Cost more than that and are just a PMIC.

      TLDR: Samsung is staffed by incompetent engineers. Its no wonder they have exploding phones, their engineers designed a phone with at least $5 more parts than they should have had, but skipped on the thermostat protection on the battery to save $0.50. If they used this same chip in the S5, then they lost more than 60 million dollars in excess unit cost in just the first three months of sales, and now with the S7, its going to cost them billions.

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
    12. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've designed batteries for 30 years, and I can safely say you're a fucking moron.

    13. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except thinness wasn't the issue here. The supplier issued batteries that were out of spec: slightly larger than could fit in the casing. This caused some batteries to be pinched once sealed in the phone.

    14. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by beanpoppa · · Score: 2

      Every phone I've had for the past 15 years, going back to my flip phones, has had to power on to charge. It boots into a striped down firmware for charging only, but my bet is that the main processor is involved.

    15. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Trax3001BBS · · Score: 1

      So what is the real culprit here? I thought it could have been from using the wrong charging IC or someone in the battery department changing the chemistry and not telling the EEs. But they are catching fire without charging.

      Lithium chemistry batteries are finicky little bastards. They are not just dangerous from over-charging (or charging too fast), but also from over-discharging and discharging too rapidly. If they are drawing 1A from a battery that is only designed to handle 1/2A, or worse, if their control circuitry allows the battery to fall below a minimum voltage, then the batteries can go into runaway thermal overload.

      My Samsung S5 came with a 2A charger.

      Thought at first that was the reason as well, charging too fast.

    16. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It may alternatively be a hardware failure. Dissecting a burned out wreck can be hard. Failure causes? Shorts in PCB, capacitors, semiconductors etc are possible. To maximize cost and efficiency shortcuts may have been taken, I would not expect a PTC or over-current sensor in this kit. Multilayer very thin PCB could have marginal insulation in places.
      Being that the failure rate is very low, abeit serious, it is harder to find a root cause. The battery chemistry itself can be a an issue, but millions of phones use these LiPo's so I may not be a primary suspect unless this battery is unique.
      One could add a thin PCB trace from the battery to act as a fuse, thin enough that a shorted load would open, and could be handled by the battery. This could be a last stop safety feature in case other precautions don't work as expected. Or whatever...

    17. Re:Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      They have a driving assist, they don't have a full auto-pilot. The drivers were naive in assuming they could fully relinquish control of their driving. Even self driving google cars have a QA person behind the wheel.

    18. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Depends on who did the software. A bunch of Java application people, who think battery management is just calling UseSafeBatteryMode(true), or programmers who read the data sheets and worked out the math?

    19. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People with RC stuff knows that we might have 1000 batteries without an issue, abuse them in every possible way and they degrade gracefully.
      Then a battery, new or old, might develop a problem, sometimes by an internal short/bad soldering, and it might puff or burn out.
      It is just as much a QC issue as anything else.

    20. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Makes no sense due to the varying nature of phone ignition, some charging, some not charging, some being used, some not being used. The only thing that sort of follows that is high CPU usage in higher temperatures zones and the CPU to close to a poorly insulated (super cheap) battery. This significantly altering the design operating conditions of the battery allowing increased heat development in the battery in conjunction with the heating CPU. So just an overall bad design, so the Note 7 is inherently a bad design and will fail, either early battery failures or spontaneous combustions, definitely a phone to be avoided. The Note is pretty much dead until Samsung go back to a removable battery.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    21. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Bring a knife to a gun fight...

    22. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by Amazing+Proton+Boy · · Score: 2

      Thanks for sharing these detailed responses. This is why slashdot used to be such a wonderful place; informed answers from real experts.

    23. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by adolf · · Score: 1

      I didn't see a fight.

    24. Re: Samsung is starting to behave like Tesla by adolf · · Score: 1

      The MAX77838 is a power management IC.

      Which you said the device wouldn't have had, but there it is.

      All outward appearances would suggest that it is a custom chip for Samsung

      It's not like they're a small customer. This isn't unusual.

      Personally, I expect that the MAX77838 is similar to the MAX77829

      Because you Googled MAX77838 and found MAX77829 in the top few hits, just like anyone else who has used teh Intarwebs can do.

      Unfortunately for Samsung, the charging circuit has to be relatively tuned to the specific battery being used. Generically designed Lion chargers have a habit of failing.

      Gosh, I wonder why they used a custom part. Any guesses?

      Oh.

      So much so that Tenma actually ships many of their battery chargers with a fireproof pouch to put the battery in while charging it...

      Are you seriously using Shenzen China Export products resold by MCM Electronics as a basis for comparison? Tenma has always been garbage. We might as well be discussing electronics from Harbor Freight.

      This just goes to show how stupid Samsung is for designing it this way.

      You say that, but you don't use your words to demonstrate it. Does the term "red herring" ring a bell?

      The irony is that the PSOC processors cost cost about $5 each and they are full featured processors while the Maxim ICs Cost more than that and are just a PMIC.

      You don't know what is in the MAX77838. You've said as much.

      Samsung is staffed by incompetent engineers.

      They fucked this one up, for sure. But are you at all aware of the millions of wildly popular Samsung devices out there which don't tend to autoignite?

      Mistakes happen, even with competent engineers. Sometimes, big ones. I recall a certain incident wherein BMW tried to sell diesel cars in the US, but our (relatively) crappy fuel ate the cylinders and ruined compression. They put a new engine in each car they sold here, with updates to make it not an issue.

      Also, the Ford Pinto.

      Firestone Rollover Tires. Unintended Toyota acceleration. Concrete falling from the roof of the Big Dig tunnels. Et cetera.

      It happens. Engineers are human, just like you.

  2. well.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I left my Samsung Phone in my Tesla and they both went up in flames. Now what should I do?

    1. Re:well.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      you should now troll on irc.

  3. Cue The Apologists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Tell me how this is a good thing for Samsung and how bad this is for Apple.

    I know the drill here.

    1. Re:Cue The Apologists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long as Samsung gets sued by multiple law firms and thousands of customers, in a class action suit that lasts for years, resulting in a coupon for customers and millions in legal fees, I'll be happy.

    2. Re:Cue The Apologists by sjames · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you find yourself stranded on a desert island with an iPhone and no bars, you're screwed. If you have the superior Samsung phone, just activate the signal flare feature when a plane goes by.

    3. Re:Cue The Apologists by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      It's almost as if you don't know there's a place on the Internet where you can type "iphone fire" and make an objective comparison.

      All this is just media frenzy, Samsung is no worse than anybody else. Does anybody else remember "Nokia fire" back in the day?

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:Cue The Apologists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Nokia fire

      You mean the fireball cataclysm that ended the dinosaurs ? Somebody's Nokia just lit up and they dropped it ?

    5. Re:Cue The Apologists by wbr1 · · Score: 1

      If you find yourself stranded on a desert island with an iPhone and no bars, you're screwed. If you have the superior Samsung phone, just activate the signal flare feature when a plane goes by.

      Except for the fact that you are stranded on the island because you phone caught fire and crashed your flight.

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    6. Re:Cue The Apologists by sjames · · Score: 1

      You were probably holding it wrong.

    7. Re: Cue The Apologists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean like this:

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3500697/Girl-s-iPhone-catches-fire-Alaska-Airlines-flight-Hawaii-eight-inch-flames-erupting-smartphone-passengers-scrambled-aisles.html

    8. Re: Cue The Apologists by Trogre · · Score: 2

      Hush, we're slagging off Samsung at the moment.

      Apple will get their turn, some time after HTC and Nexus.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    9. Re:Cue The Apologists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does Apple have to do with this?

  4. Issue with batteries or with phone design? by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm beginning to wonder if it's an issue with something other than just the battery. Otherwise Samsung would be incredibly idiotic to send out replacement parts that suffer from the same problem. The alternatives are that a massive mistake led to sending out defective units as replacements without fixing them first, or that Samsung's battery supplier (I think I read that the source all or most of them from third parties) wasn't fully aware of the extend of their problems and have shipped more bad batteries.

    1. Re: Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It looks like the issue with Android OS remote hacking for Samsung's stock price manipulation. Look who is gaining from it financially. It is too much coincidence that after testing in labs everything is fine, but phones are getting fire anyway. Labs should better look if it is possible to make phone behave overcharging or overheating with a malware installed.

    2. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Samsung has had a lot of quality control issues. My Note 4 could no longer charge after a year because the USB port quit working, making the phone basically worthless. When I looked it up, apparently this is a very well known issue that impacts almost every phone Samsung makes.

      captcha: freezers

    3. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The USB port took a shit on my S5, where I had to wedge the cord at an angle to make it charge. Not long after that, the port got really hot and then it stopped charging.

      There are so many companies other than Samsung and Apple. I really wish people would move on from Samsung.

    4. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Batteries have a higher energy density than explosives. For this reason there are many layers of defence. The charging circuitry knows the maximu safe rate. Inside the battery are thermal cut outs. The circuitry of the battery is designed to control the rate of charging. The battery series as a whole should be extensively tested under all sorts of situations and failure cases.. Each batttery should be tested separately. In the case of most failures of the battery then it should simply stop accepting charge and act dead. In order for something like this to happen many layers of design, manufacturing and testing need to have failed pretty disastrously.

      The people behind this are proper engineers (not the clowns who call themselves "software engineers") and this is their bridge fall down / go to prison moment. The main hope is that Samsung senior management also gets it because such a widespread failure, especially delivered multiple times, clearly doesn't come from the individual engineers alone.

    5. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Batteries have a higher energy density than explosives.

      So does pizza.

      For this reason there are many layers of defence. The charging circuitry knows the maximu safe rate.

      Figures... if you ate a slice fast enough you'd also catch on fire.

      Inside the battery are thermal cut outs. The circuitry of the battery is designed to control the rate of charging. The battery series as a whole should be extensively tested under all sorts of situations and failure cases.. Each batttery should be tested separately. In the case of most failures of the battery then it should simply stop accepting charge and act dead. In order for something like this to happen many layers of design, manufacturing and testing need to have failed pretty disastrously.

      There are previous articles describing joint investigation between ATL and Samsung where evidence was found of heating from the phone itself starting the problem.

    6. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      The USB port took a shit on my S5, where I had to wedge the cord at an angle to make it charge.

      I had this problem with my Kindle 3G, but that was because my dog apparently thought my Kindle was a chew toy.

      Hey, does anyone at Samsung own a dog? That might explain this whole thing!

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    7. Re: Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No batteries do not have a higher energy density than explosives. Don't say stupid and wrong things that a moment spent googling could disprove, in an attempt to sound insightful.

      Nitroglycerin (as an example) has about ten times as much energy per kg than a Li ion battery.

    8. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Samsung was overwhelmed and could have bet on probabilities, the unlikeliness that a different batch would yield the same problem (given that only a few devices had problems out of millions).

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    9. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I'm beginning to wonder if it's an issue with something other than just the battery. Otherwise Samsung would be incredibly idiotic to send out replacement parts that suffer from the same problem.

      How are these two sentences even remotely related?

      Maybe the problem isn't the battery but maybe it is.
      If Samsung knew there's a problem with replacement units it is idiotic to send them out, if not it wasn't. This has nothing at all to do with if it was or wasn't the battery.

    10. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've only ever had usb cables go bad, and I've been with a Galaxy Nexus and an S5...

    11. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Batteries have a higher energy density than explosives.

      Bull fucking shit !

      Ever hear of the Air Force bombing Al Qaeda by dropping batteries on them ?
      Are SpaceX stuffing their rockets full of batteries and igniting them ?

      Of course not.. because they use other stuff that has a higher energy density than a fucking battery.

    12. Re: Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if we shouldn't be making batteries out of nitroglycerin then. It might be safer than Samsung's current batteries.

    13. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Bull fucking shit !

      Ever hear of the Air Force bombing Al Qaeda by dropping batteries on them ?
      Are SpaceX stuffing their rockets full of batteries and igniting them ?

      Of course not.. because they use other stuff that has a higher energy density than a fucking battery.

      Energy density of Lithium Ion batteries is 1 MJ/kg
      Energy density of TNT is ~5 MJ/kg
      Energy density of Pizza is ~50 MJ/kg

      Ever hear of the Air Force bombing Al Qaeda by dropping pizza on them?

      Of course not because the reality is energy density means shit and these comparisons are ALL crap. What makes most bombs dangerous is their POWER not overall ENERGY.

    14. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by nnull · · Score: 1

      Ever hear of the Air Force bombing Al Qaeda by dropping batteries on them ?

      Not Yet, but with this latest Samsung development, we may start seeing that soon.

    15. Re: Issue with batteries or with phone design? by by+(1706743) · · Score: 2

      Unless the problem isn't that the batteries fail under high stress -- it could be that a very small fraction of the batteries fail under normal use. I suspect that this is much nastier to test for...

    16. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Samsung has had a lot of quality control issues.

      So has Apple. Your point is...?

      --
      No sig today...
    17. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by arth1 · · Score: 1

      The alternatives are that a massive mistake led to sending out defective units as replacements without fixing them first, or that Samsung's battery supplier (I think I read that the source all or most of them from third parties) wasn't fully aware of the extend of their problems and have shipped more bad batteries.

      Or that they didn't correctly identify the root cause, but grabbed the first possible cause as gospel, and went from there.

    18. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by EETech1 · · Score: 1

      It's up to 5 now!

    19. Re: Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Made in Korea? The Koreans are idiots, and will do anything to save a buck, just like the other Asiatic countries.

    20. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      "Hey boss, I think I found a bug, but I'm not sure. Can we hire about 10 really expensive consultants to help get down to the root cause?"
      "Can't afford it. I know you're just a software guy, but read some docs and design a test plan for it. By thursday."

    21. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      I used to feel like a lot of software people with this innate inferiority complex about their job. Real engineers they think design things correctly, they follow rigid processes, design things correctly, do proper tests, releasing no product that is not ready, unlike the slap dash programmers. But it's not true. EE people are just as screwed up, they will make bad circuits and hand wave away problems because it's too expensive to redesign. Bridge builders have bridges that fall down, and none of them can accurately predict the true cost (just like any product manager, it's all about making the head boss happy rather than telling the truth).

      Ultimately the problems come from management, usually upper management. They have a product that catches fire and they want the problem fixed as soon as humanly possible, and not an hour longer than that. They give a deadline on finding out the the cause of the fire, and when that deadline is up they go with the best guess from people who aren't the experts, because the experts give an answer they don't like. The real fix probably destroys the last of their wafer thin margins.

    22. Re: Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Why would we drop 'em? Hand 'em out at a kiosk! ;)

    23. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

      Batteries have a higher energy density than explosives.

      So does pizza.

      ... and the funny this is that according to Wikipedia it's actually true about pizza, but not about explosives...

      Lithium batteries are just behind explosives (TNT, Gunpowder), but far behind foodstuffs (Carbohydrates, Protein, Fat). Look it up!

    24. Re: Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your bridge engineering reference may be close to the (general) root cause of this phone issue. I'm a structural engineer who has been around for a while. If you look at the failure of the Tacoma Narrows (ruka chucky, galloping gerty) bridge, it occurred, in part, because engineers were looking for a thinner bridge profile. That thinner section ended up behaving much like an airfoil and the bridge self destructed.

    25. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Samsung has had a lot of quality control issues.

      So has Apple. Your point is...?

      As this article is about Samsung, not Apple, the point is that you’re sounding like a scratched piece of vinyl. We get your point, fanboy, but if the only way you can get by in this conversation is by slagging the competition of the company that’s being discussed, then I’m afraid it doesn’t help your case even the slightest little bit.

    26. Re:Issue with batteries or with phone design? by brantondaveperson · · Score: 1

      They use micro USB. Micro USB is shit, and it's always been shit, and it was a terrible terrible choice. Yes I know it's the standard for charging non-Apple phone, but that doesn't change the fact that it's uniformly terrible.

  5. I see dead phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But I can't talk about it. It's a secret.

  6. "...what he keeps threatening to do do" by JoeyRox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The full Samsung text message was "Just now got this. I can try and slow him down if we think it will matter, or we just let him do what he keeps threatening to do and see if he does it"

    Someone Mr. Klering conveniently failed to share with the news station what exactly he was threatening to do against Samsung that lead to that text message exchange between Samsung employees and which accidentally reached him instead. I'm guessing it was something more than just "I'm going to share what happened to my phone with the authorities".

    1. Re: "...what he keeps threatening to do do" by brunes69 · · Score: 2

      I am guessing this guy tried to blackmail Samsung for lots of money. Which actually makes the whole story suspect. You would think The Verge could do better reporting.

    2. Re: "...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is suspect? Why wouldn't you threaten to sue if someone's product malfunctioned and caused you to be violently ill?

    3. Re:"...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      He threatened to sue most likely. And?

    4. Re:"...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the only evidence of the text is a "picture" that the man took. if this text actually happened, it would exist on the logs of both telecom carriers.

    5. Re:"...what he keeps threatening to do do" by JoeyRox · · Score: 1

      Well the thrust of the article is that it accuses Samsung of hiding this battery event from the media. Yet that's exactly what this guy did by posing a threat to Samsung first. Why wouldn't he just go to the media to share what happened if his interest was really public safety? Sharing what happened wouldn't have precluded him from suing Samsung as well. So it's clear the guys' intentions are suspect here.

    6. Re:"...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Because he was in the hospital and trying to work with Samsung until he got that message sent to him?

    7. Re: "...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As someone who lives outside the USA: because I'm not a litigious cunt, and I don't consider it ethical to profit from the mistakes or misfortunes of others - only by mutual increase in wealth through exchange of values.

      If I was out of pocket with consequential losses as a direct result of someone else's fuck-up, I'd request (without threats - which if made too early can anyway act against your favour as they suggest bad faith) compensation precisely equalling those losses. If I were living in a civilised nation, this would of course not include health costs, because healthcare is precisely the sort of thing the state exists to provide.

      Legal action is something I wouldn't even contemplate until weeks into a failure of negotiation.

    8. Re: "...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't threaten, I'd do it.

    9. Re:"...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Zocalo · · Score: 1

      And... once you threaten to sue, lawyers tend to step in and insist that any and all correspondance relating to the matter be routed through them. Needless to say, this causes delays, even when it really shouldn't like in safety cases such as this. Besides, if it caught fire on Tuesday AM, Klering's priority would have been dealing with the fire then his bronchitis rather than informing Samsung, so figure late Tuesday or even Wednesday before that happened (at the earliest), then a little back and forth with front-line support before Samsung realised what they were dealing with, booted it up the ladder, and got legal involved... It's entirely reasonable that Samsung is still in the process of prepping a PR statement if they've only had a working day or two to process it, and all the while Klering is hyping it up with WKYT for his 15 minutes of fame.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    10. Re:"...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Swave+An+deBwoner · · Score: 1

      I've found that a lot of people just want to "make themselves whole" in the legal sense, meaning they want to recover what they feel has been unjustly taken from them.

      For many, advocating for the public good takes a back seat to that recovery; just think about all of the times that one reads of a settlement that was reached with the provision that the injured party not discuss the matter with anybody.

      Thus he might have been engaging in such a discussion with Samsung, or at least intending to do so.

    11. Re: "...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Blackmail? No. Settle out of court.

      2. Why would a story be suspect if (you suspect) blackmail is happening? Blackmail is only blackmail if the story is true. It would be extortion or petty fraud if false.

    12. Re:"...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Joosy · · Score: 1

      So it's clear the guys' intentions are suspect here.

      And from TFA:

      Samsung asked Klering if they could take possession of the phone and he said no

      Nice of him to want to help solve the problem by letting them examine the phone to try and find the cause.

      --
      I'm sick and tired of these hip, "ironic" sigs. This is an actual, honest-to-goodness no-nonsense sig!
    13. Re:"...what he keeps threatening to do do" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice of him to want to help solve the problem by letting them examine the phone to try and find the cause.

      If you just give them the phone, you've now given up the very evidence you might need to sue them. You'd have to be *very* trusting/foolish to do that. They could come out with any old lies/bullshit like 'phone shows sign of damage due to misuse' etc.

      You might well want it examined by an independent expert before Samsung got hold of it.

  7. It's up to 5 replacement devices now. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/were-now-up-to-five-reports-of-safe-galaxy-note-7s-exploding-worldwide/

    1. Re:It's up to 5 replacement devices now. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Headline has been amended to seven devices now.

  8. It would be much safer ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... if they made the Note 7's case out of asbestos.

  9. Circle the wagons mindset? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

    Is Samsung now in the circle the wagons mindset regarding problems with their latest phone?

  10. The roof is on fire (again) by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    Samsung: We don't need no recall, let the motherfucker burn

    Customer: None of you did anything to prevent this!
    Samsung: There was nothing we could do! We were totally unprepared for this.
    Customer: Oh don't give me unprepared! You knew then! And you did nothing!

    Samsung: We didn't start the fire. Blame it on the battery yeah yeah.

    1. Re:The roof is on fire (again) by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 1

      Samsung should install suicide nets around their customer service support call centers.

  11. fpmita prison time by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    fpmita prison time and it happen on air plane so they can Throw the book at them

    1. Re:fpmita prison time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hahaha... good one. This is America. Wealthy people and corporations don't go to jail. They pay fines that are generally significantly smaller than the profit they made and walk away wealthier than before.

  12. this is really pathetic.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    who's making their batteries... sony?

  13. Unsettling? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Is it unsettling that a company who's in the middle of a problem doesn't straight away come out and shout from the hills when they find a case (probably yet to be investigated) that makes the situation worse?

    Does the submitter even live on planet earth let alone know how businesses normally operate?

  14. It was a couple days ago by Kohath · · Score: 1

    So the big allegation is that a Samsung didn't announce this for a couple days? Shouldn't they investigate it before issuing a press release?

    Their phones are literally starting on fire. That's bad enough. There's no need to hype it into a big secret conspiracy based on when the announcement occurred.

  15. Cultural Pressures by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 0

    This may be a cultural problem more than a technical one. One of the main strengths that US companies have from a technical perspective these days, is that we accept that mistakes can be made. It is often still painful financially to have a recall, but typically, at least on the engineering side, the mistake is rapidly found and a solution put forth. (If you see recall shenanigans, they are typically being run by corrupt management).

    In Japan at least, this can be much more difficult, as making a mistake is seen as tantamount to betraying your company, and company loyalty is huge in Asia. They work 10-12h days and then are expected to go out drinking and socializing with their coworkers after hours. Thus, there have been numerous cases of people actually committing suicide over what amounts to an honest mistake. The recall typically happens eventually, but much later and you often still have obfuscation around the root cause of the problem (see the Toyota problems). Granted Samsung is not a Japanese company, but they still have a much more devout work force that we see here in the US.

    What this is shaping up to look like is a mistake somewhere in the phone hardware (probably around the battery charge/discharge circuit) that was politically blamed on the battery manufacturer. They are probably replacing the original battery with a higher discharge rated battery to try and mask the problem (if they can reduce the CATO battery failures to a rate seen with Apple, they are in the clear). However, whatever the underlying problem is with the phone, it looks like it may not have been fixed with just a new battery, as the most recent failures show. If it is an incorrect board level component (capacitor/resistor/transistor etc.) they may have a much larger problem, as board level rework is very difficult on these phones; (i.e. Apple won't even try it for the iPhone 6 touch disease problem) the parts are tiny and initially placed by robot precision. If they have to scrap 3 million of phones world wide and we are talking $200 cost per phone, they are looking at eating over $1B for this mistake. (I'm guessing around now that extra 2 months of beta testing is looking like a bargain to management)...

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
    1. Re:Cultural Pressures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you don't allow your Samsung phone to blow up and burn you then you are a racist!

  16. Re: batteries or with phone design? WRONG! by BoRegardless · · Score: 1

    This is an indication of a huge problem in Samsung's management in so many ways. Competent engineers all over the world understand the design & manufacturing & use issues.

    High level managers had to pressure the "Note 7" division leaders to ignore everything but getting their advanced phone out in front of the iPhone. Heads must roll.,

  17. Re:Just do what I do... by Swave+An+deBwoner · · Score: 1

    When you’re a star they let you do it.

  18. It's standard procedure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to not report on things like these until the investigation is done, rather than literally "dox" the man named here, as some seem to suggest should have been done.

    Stop trying to make Samsung out as the devil. They've had bad strokes of luck and are doing everything they can to resolve it. And it's still only a matter of 40-50 batteries out of millions sold.

  19. The odds by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

    Samsung has sold millions of these things. Three of them have caught fire. That makes the odds of a device catching fire less than 1 in 1,000,000. Business Insider says that 17 cars catch fire every hour. Where are the cries for recalling cars?

    1. Re:The odds by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Samsung has sold millions of these things. Three of them have caught fire. That makes the odds of a device catching fire less than 1 in 1,000,000. Business Insider says that 17 cars catch fire every hour. Where are the cries for recalling cars?

      I'm going to keep a copy of your post for safe keeping. This "what about y" device is constantly being invoked as justification for everything from mass surveillance to red rum so often in so many different contexts it usually makes me cringe/sigh Al Gore style whenever I encounter it.

      Boldly inquiring about cries for recalling products that catch on fire takes it to a whole new level.

      http://www.reuters.com/article...

      http://q13fox.com/2016/09/30/s...

      http://abcnews.go.com/Business...

      http://www.techtimes.com/artic...

      http://jalopnik.com/5935974/fi...

      http://www.autonews.com/articl...

      http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/01/...

      http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04...

      http://www.popularmechanics.co...

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

      http://www.streetdirectory.com...

      https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2...

      If you want to hear cries from victims themselves click keywords and enter fire. http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/o...

    2. Re:The odds by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      You pretty forcefully made my point. There are literally millions of cars with fire troubles. No one gets on TV and tells us to stop using cars. No one thinks that a car fire is the most important risk of using a car, nor should they. Yet when Samsung "hides" the fact that three of their devices caught fire, we rain fire and brimstone on them.

      The entire point was that the risk may have been a bit overblown. Yes, of course, for the unlucky three people, the impact can be terrible, even catastrophic. But like it or not, life has risks. When you walk outside, you risk your life. When you walk inside, you risk your life. If one of those remote risks became reality for you, ending your life, that would be terrible for you, but that risk should not keep us all from going outside, or inside.

      Batteries inherently carry a risk of fire. All batteries have this risk. We live with it, because the benefit outweighs the risk. Is Samsung's risk higher or lower than the risk of a standard AA battery catching fire? Is it higher than any other cell phone model? I don't think we know that yet. If Samsung has created an unsafe product, they should address it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, the replacement devices haven't yet been proven to be any riskier than any other cell phone.

    3. Re: The odds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do not agree with this. I own numerous radio shack branded nickel cadmium rechargeables since about 1990. I still use them, and none of them or their chargers have ever caught fire.

    4. Re:The odds by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      You pretty forcefully made my point. There are literally millions of cars with fire troubles. No one gets on TV and tells us to stop using cars. No one thinks that a car fire is the most important risk of using a car, nor should they. Yet when Samsung "hides" the fact that three of their devices caught fire, we rain fire and brimstone on them.

      When there are vehicle defects discovered that are known fire hazards vehicles are recalled and people DO get on TV and send letters and make telephone calls to let people know to get their vehicles fixed. The same to varying degrees applies to every other product you purchase with known defects rendering the product unsafe.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      The entire point was that the risk may have been a bit overblown. Yes, of course, for the unlucky three people, the impact can be terrible, even catastrophic. But like it or not, life has risks. When you walk outside, you risk your life. When you walk inside, you risk your life. If one of those remote risks became reality for you, ending your life, that would be terrible for you, but that risk should not keep us all from going outside, or inside.

      This is not a falsifiable statement. Just because risk exists says nothing about whether a risk from a particular problem or defect is acceptable. Replay your exact response above verbatim except substitute battery fire or car fire for exploding Barbie doll or plastic army dudes who sometimes fire real bullets and hurt people. When you make a statement that can't be falsified you are not communicating useful information.

      Batteries inherently carry a risk of fire. All batteries have this risk.

      The problem at hand isn't presence of risk it is defects causing unacceptable unnecessary risks. Some batteries are much safer than others. Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries can be abused overcharged, undercharged, shot, thrown off cliff, submerged and they won't catch fire. The problem isn't batteries the problem is vendors pushing parameters to marginally increase energy and reduce size while decreasing BOM costs that is actively placing people at increasingly unnecessary risk.

      We live with it, because the benefit outweighs the risk. Is Samsung's risk higher or lower than the risk of a standard AA battery catching fire? Is it higher than any other cell phone model? I don't think we know that yet. If Samsung has created an unsafe product, they should address it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, the replacement devices haven't yet been proven to be any riskier than any other cell phone.

      Samsung themselves seems to know the answer to this question because they are halting production.

  20. Pinheaded Fart Eating Third by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lucky little bugger lover. It should have been me.

  21. Over 50 reports of burns/fires by jmcbain · · Score: 1

    I don't know where you are getting your "facts", but there have been much more than 3 phones catching fire.

    As of September 15, 2016, the US CPSC reported 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, including fires in cars and a garage.

    As of October 10, 2016, there have been at least 5 reports of replacement phones catching fire.

    I have bought rechargeable batteries for the last 20 years. Not a single one of them has caught fire. In the case of the Galaxy Note 7, there is obviously a single, focused product that has a critical flaw.

    1. Re:Over 50 reports of burns/fires by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      The 3 reports (now 5) are of the replacement Galaxy Note 7's. So let's use your numbers, totaling 81 fires. By contrast, there have been millions of car fires, but you don't see people on TV telling you not to drive cars because the products are so dangerous! (See other thread on this topic for more details on that, including sources.)

    2. Re:Over 50 reports of burns/fires by jmcbain · · Score: 1

      Your logic is faulty. In this smartphone case, there is one manufacturer, Samsung, and one product, the Galaxy Note 7. It is clear there is a defect. In the case of your "millions of car fires", they are generally spread out randomly over all manufacturers and models. If there is ever a specific case, such as GM's faulty ignition switches in particular models from particular years, then yes, there will be a recall and people on TV will tell folks not to drive those models.

  22. Tone of summary by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Nothing quite gets across the impression of a half-baked, wonky website than a summary written like that. Pretend to be factual, for fucks sakes, even if it breaks your little heart to do it.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  23. Samdung is bordering on criminal negligence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Several have been burned from Samdung's defective by design products and used a "recall" to give an illusion of being reactive when in fact even after the so-called "recalls" have taken place. The government can fine them and they will just write it off on next year's taxes. A better solution is to revoke their corporate charter, arrest all of the execs/major shareholders on numerous charges of criminal negligence, and confiscate all of samdung's assets. As soon as even one person dies as a result of Samdung first degree murder should be added to the charges and the execs should be given capital punishment for their crime. Send a message to the rest of the greedy, capitalistic fucks that we the workers of the world will not tolerate their greed any longer.

    http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12948988/samsung-sued-exploding-note-7-injuries

    http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/8/12855352/samsung-note-7-recall-fires

    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/samsung-galaxy-note-7-explodes-boy/

  24. The unsettling part... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The unsettling part is that people keep their Galaxy Note 7's despite all of the issues reported, let alone USE them...

  25. crap article by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    What did Samsung know about his phone? And why would Samsung need to say anything to the media? my god what kind of crap reporting is this, and what kind of childish behavior of "I need to know everything, if they didn't say anything about it they should have, otherwise they are bad, bad.. oh daddy please make them say everything, I want to know it".