Slashdot Mirror
Samsung May Permanently Disable Galaxy Note 7 Phones In The US As Soon As Next Week (theverge.com)
Those who are still clinging on to their Galaxy Note 7, even after Samsung recalled the devices due to faulty batteries in mid-September, may want to seriously reconsider returning them to the Korean company. The Verge has obtained an image of an alert that went out to at least one Note 7 owner on U.S. Cellular today stating that, "As of December 15th, Samsung will modify the software to prevent the Galaxy Note 7 from charging. The phone will no longer work." The Verge reports: It's not clear whether Note 7s will be disabled across the major U.S. carriers as well, but it seems likely that'll be the case. In the past, updates disabling Note 7 features have rolled out across Verizon, ATT, and other carriers within a matter of days. That's probably what'll happen here, as well. By preventing the phone from charging, Samsung takes the final step to making the phone entirely unusable. It's still offering Note 7 owners the ability to fully return the phone or exchange it for another Samsung device. As of November 4th, when Samsung last provided an update, 85 percent of Note 7s sold in the U.S. had been recovered. That still left around 285,000 phones unaccounted for. Completely disabling the phone seems to be Samsung's last-ditch effort to either recover the remaining devices or remove what risk they still pose to consumers.
Even if they are fire hazards, this isn't right, you no longer own your own devices. I didn't realize I was leasing my fire starter brick :(
I'm fairly certain it is impossible to have a self-updating OS on a device and also prevent the controller of the self-update process from installing malware. So, I'd say there is nothing wrong with the system at the moment and our rage is best withheld until such time that they actually abuse their power.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
An actual case where the manufacturer is disabling the product in the best interest of the public. Who knows when we'll see it's like again. Someday you'll get to tell your kids about the day this happened...
-tinfoilhat-
It does make you think a bit that if they have this ability, what's to keep any carrier from nudging down the percentage your phone will charge it's battery over time with each update ? With most batteries soldered in place, it would be a fantastic way to force folks to buy a new phone.
Crazy idea ? Of course it is, then again VW got caught red handed cheating the emissions systems via software. Remember, where money is involved, there is no limit to what companies are willing to do.
While I understand that batteries degrade over time, now I'm curious if it's truly the battery that's giving out or if the folks wanting to sell you more phones have a hand in it.
-/tinfoilhat-
You mean like the time Amazon erased "1984" & "Animal Farm" from EVERYONE'S Kindle? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07...
All they are liable for is the product, other elements are responsibility of carrier. And yes, you can transfer plans. Idiot.
I never understood their decisions...why disable the phone when you can redesign the battery to not blow up and just swap batteries? I mean the battery is a removable part.
They actually gave the battery angle a look for a quick fix, but since they had abandoned the easily removable battery, the initial solution was to limit recharging to 60% of maximum via update.
Now, is the ingrained ability to limit charging capacity a little suspicious?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Normally a fully charged LIPO cell is 4.8v and a fully used lipo cell is at 3.3v. The charging circuit inside the phone will have somewhere a variable set to 4.8v as max cell voltage and that will be where it stops charging the battery. It should be pretty trivial to change that to 3.3v and hence the phone will no longer charge the battery.
You can't dumb charge lipos. If you keep shoving amps into them they will overcharge and go pop. So even if the phone is powered down when plugged into a power source the charging controller would have to be active.
Second what Samsung has been doing til now was installing nag screens and limiting battery charging to sixty percent. I'd be surprised if the US is the first country where they roll out no-charging. All their other methods were first launched in smaller markets.
Thirdly it is interesting they're supposedly software shutting-down the handsets and not simply denying them service. It'd be trivial to place every Note 7 on the blacklist maintained by US carriers for stolen devices.
Of course denying service means the devices are unreachable, so this might be the step before that, to ensure they're not kept around as wifi devices or fancy alarm clocks. Blocking the battery means they're effectively defanged - no charge means no chance of fire.
In my part of the world I haven't seen a Note 7 in weeks. I expect when a clerk points out a Note 7 is keeping a known fire hazard next to their genitals, or in their purse-of-important-stuff, or holding it to their face is asking for trouble, or charging it in their bedroom while sleeping is really scary, and insurance will no longer cover it's damages, the sane ones figure it's time to trade-in.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I'm fairly certain it is impossible to have a self-updating OS on a device and also prevent the controller of the self-update process from installing malware. So, I'd say there is nothing wrong with the system at the moment and our rage is best withheld until such time that they actually abuse their power.
I think you're putting the cart before the horse here, the question is whether it's okay to have automatically self-updating systems where the company that manufactured it by default has full control over it, regardless of whether the owner actually wants the updates or want to apply them now or if critical security updates are baked into huge system upgrades. It's a big trend but I don't think it's a good trend, tomorrow Microsoft can shut down your computer, Samsung your smart-TV, Google your cell phone, Tesla your car, Kindle your eBook-reader and so on. If you go all IoT or "smart house" pretty much anything you own can shut down because somebody out there wants it to. Granted, we're also quite fucked if the bank freezes our bank accounts and all the utilities shut you off, but we're expanding it to everything. It's another way to hollow out what ownership is and means.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I never understood their decisions...why disable the phone when you can redesign the battery to not blow up and just swap batteries? I mean the battery is a removable part.
Apparently the battery is too big physically for the space allotted for it. Batteries expand when heated/charged. A teardown revealed this https://www.cnet.com/news/gala... (beware, the assholes have an autoplaying video.
This is all redolent of the marketing issues I've often spoke about with phones. "Users need longer battery life! Users need thinner phones! Users need wireless charging!"
Size and battery capacity are opposing traits. And while compressing a Li based battery of high energy density is never a good idea, they designed a phone that did just that. reducing the margin of error to no margin of error, and when you get a positive feedback loop like a battery expanding with nowhere to go, yet getting hotter and expanding more, you get the Galaxy Note 7 phone.
So if they did replace the battery with a new one of proper size, it would not have as much capacity, so marketing would be pissed.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Sure, but for consumer safety. Idiocy has no place the adult world.
In the US many people still buy phones as part of a contract and Samsung has not even offered to buy out the new contracts that were bought as part of the purchase. What Samsung has offered is only partial reimbursement of the costs incurred.
On top of this, many people trade in their old phones and were forced to either buy a new phone they didn't want or buy a refurbished version of their old phone at likely $100 more than they traded in the old one. That is what happened to my wife.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
No?
It's part and parcel with all lithium ion batteries that the charge circuitry *must& limit charging or the thing explodes. That's how these chargers work.
No on your no. Limiting charge to 60 percent is exactly what you would expect on a phone that has a battery compartment that is too small for the battery in it. They were desperately trying to eliminate battery expansion and compression within it's compartment. Unfortunately, that didn't work.
At one point, I felt a little badly for Samsung, but after the facts came out, this was engineers bowing to marketing pressure, and marketing has seldom been able to break the laws of physics.
There is an engineering term called a "Blivet". Its defined as trying to put 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound container. the Note 7 phone was a Blivet.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Have experience with the extreme right and having a new government constructed afterwards in particular to avoid repeating that error gives Germany strength.
Lithium charge controllers are simple and cheap analog electronic devices. Leaving this functionality to a processor would make it needlessly complicated and invites problems when the thing inevitably crashes.
Even with a processor based system you'd still need current sensing hardware, which would be nearly as expensive as a dedicated charge controller.
You are a child, give your phone back to your mommy. You're not old enough or responsible enough now.
This is Slashdot, where somehow being a flaming asshole - how appropriate the term - makes a person a man of the highest character. I suspect - hope actually - that AC is just trolling, as it takes a special kind of stupid to actually want to hang on to a phone that has such a nasty design flaw.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Slippery slope alert... Just turn off automatic updates. And if the carrier turns off your signal, you can still use the wifi and you'll have a nice mini tablet..
Eh?? How is this a "slippery slope", I'm not describing a possible future escalation, we're talking about a thing that *Actually Happened*. A book that was bought in good faith was unbought by the seller. That would not be possible with a physical product.
As for the Galaxy Note, you don't actually know that this will be a refusable update, it is technically possible that the remote bricking can happen if you want it or not. You should not have to anticipate (and defend against) your device vendor turning against you, nor is it realistic to ask a normal person to know to do that. This is exactly the sort of reason we have consumer protection laws for.
Given the safety implications, they would want to minimise the chance of anyone disabling updates so I wouldn't be surprised if they have already modified the software and this is notice that 15th December (or 6 days of runtime) is already baked in as a date of death.
At least, they should have done that.
If you can't find a phone you want in 2016 then you may be a bit too picky. Hard to have real feels for such people.
It isn't about finding a phone you want, its about finding a phone you are willing to pay $600-$800 for. If the Note 4 and the Note 5 were the same price, I would pick the Note 5. But it certainly isn't worth $200-$300 more than the Note 4, in my opinion at least. IMO the Note 7 wasn't worth the upgrade either, which is why only my wife upgraded and not me.
There aren't any flagship phones with a stylus and 5.7"+ screen, so right now there aren't any real competitors to the Note line for those who care about those specs.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke