How a Helium Leak Disabled Every iPhone In a Medical Facility (vice.com)

dmoberhaus writes: In one of the strangest system admin tales of all time, one IT guy details how a new MRI machine managed to disable every single iPhone, Apple watch and iPad in a medical facility while leaving the rest of the devices untouched. Eric Woolridge, a system administrator at Morris Hospital in Illinois, said in a detailed post on the r/sysadmin subreddit that helium was to blame for the malfunctioning iPhones. "[T]he MRI installation involves supercooling the giant magnet in the machine by boiling off liquid helium," reports Motherboard. "This evaporated helium is usually pumped out of the facility through a vent, but this vent was leaking the helium into the rest of the facility. In all, about 120 liters of helium (or about 90,000 cubic meters in its gaseous state) was pumped out of the MRI room and an untold amount leaked into the rest of the hospital."

In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."

Comments

Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not try to recapture it

Re:Wasted helium

[DontBeAMoran]

Because they're idiots who don't realize what they're dealing with, that's why.

The only way to prevent such waste is to increase the price of helium to such a point that everyone dealing with helium, when possible, will try to re-capture it once it's been used.

Re: Wasted helium

[BytePusher]

You're a genius. You bring the butterfly nets, I'll bring the tweezers

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not try to recapture it

I tried that already. I thought I had them too but the little bastards kept slipping through my butterfly net.

Re: Wasted helium

[cdsparrow]

Pretty sure you need a helium net... Who wants to catch butterflys?

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

That point may be upon us fairly soon.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/helium-gas-running-bad-news-150200232.html

Re: Wasted helium

[Aighearach]

OK, cdsparrow is going to print out new labels for the nets before we leave. Thanks cdsparrow!

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's more awesome that I can trash an Apple fanboy's iPhone with just some helium.

Re:Wasted helium

[guruevi]

I'm sure at $120k/fill they would love to do this. The problem is how. This is many liters of highly compressed helium that has to escape somewhere in very short time in order to demagnetize the room in case of emergency.

In most cases (as in this), the valve/pipe to the outside simply freezes and the helium dumps through the room via other ways.

Re:Wasted helium

[ErstO]

You don't understand the problem thats why.

The whole concept of a helium shortage was a made up event for corporate America to take over the US Helium reserve.

Many oil production facilities vent out helium because the cost to capture and transport to market are too high compared to the return on the investment on the next quarters finical reports.

And there is nothing more important then next quarters finical reports, our pensions depend on them, our IRA depend on that, sometimes our bonus depends on the next quarters finical reports.

We have to listen to our CorpPolitical overlords, reusing helium will just make the problem worse, the price for helium will go down and thats not good for profits.

Re: Wasted helium

[Dins]

We're going to need something to put it in. I'll bring the mason jars.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't seem that hard to recapture the helium. Just put the fill nozzle to a blimp at the vent. Once the blimp is filled up, fly it to the helium recovery plant where they will liquify it again and reuse it.

dom

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Although you're right on with your view of Corporate America, the impending Helium Shortfall is Worldwide. You fail like most to understand just where Terrestrial Helium comes from. It's the result of billions of years of very slow Alpha Decay from Actinides way deep down. Practically all of it migrates upwards and escapes, first into the atmosphere, and then into space. But in certain kinds of crustal conditions, like in Natural Gas pockets, some of the Helium hangs around. However, most Natural Gas contains little to no measurable Helium at all. (Helium unlike Hydrogen forms no natural Molecular compounds to bind it, at least down here. Yes, we can make Helium Hydride... for a short time and with incredible difficulty. This I have actually done.)
Alpha Decay can't reasonably be speeded up, unlike say Fission, so we are utterly dependent on natural processes here. But wait, there's more!
4He is the result of Alpha Decay from the Actinides. But 3He is the result of the Beta decay from Tritium. Tritium is Primordial here; all of the Tritium within the Earth decayed quite quickly, billions of years ago, leaving 3He in some of those same Gas pockets. At least on Earth, the only sources of new Tritium, and its decay product 3He, comes from our Nuclear Reactors.
I was once involved in the design of a new kind of Neutrino Detector that needed 3He, quite a lot of it. Even at the cut rate prices that the Russians were offering, and that they couldn't deliver in the volume needed, the Detector would have needed some ~$200 Billion in 3He. The design was cancelled.
And for this very reason, absolutely crazy schemes have been put forth to mine 3He from the surface of the Moon, where it is continually produced due to the Solar Wind that our own Magnetic Field protects us from.
But why 3He? What makes it so important?
Aneutronic Fusion.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I buy helium? in bulk.
Pay cash.

Re:Wasted helium

[ShanghaiBill]

Liquid helium costs about $5 per liter. So 120 liters is worth about $600. No recovery effort could possibly be cost effective for such a small leak.

Also 120 liters of liquid Helium is NOT 90,000 cubic meters of gas. It is about 90 cubic meters.

Re:Wasted helium

[ShanghaiBill]

I'm sure at $120k/fill ...

Who said it costs $120k/fill? TFA does not say that. It says 120 liters, which costs about $1k.

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for making a decent post. It's the first one I've read on /. in months.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure at $120k/fill ...

Who said it costs $120k/fill? TFA does not say that. It says 120 liters, which costs about $1k.

That depends if it's market value, of hospital bill value :D

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ok, I have an old parrot cage we can use.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Bring a kid's helium balloon, then pop it. Make funny voices about their iPhones dying . . .

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

You can trash 'em from right here, no shipping or handling fees.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it is 90480 cubic meters of helium. The expansion ratio is 1l of liquid helium to 754l of helium gas.

Re:Wasted helium

[quenda]

Also 120 liters of liquid Helium is NOT 90,000 cubic meters of gas. It is about 90 cubic meters.

Obvious litre / cubic-metre error to anybody who could half-remember their high-school-level chemistry.

Re:Wasted helium

[Spamalope]

Well, they really can't know how much it costs until they run your credit. That's why the hospital admit form asks for everything on a credit app. For major bills, has anyone noticed that the bill is your available cash + available credit + at least 1 year salary? There is a reason they will NOT post pricing up front.

CSB: I paid in full for 3 days of EEG monitoring/reading results etc ($2,600). The company switched the bill from an in network shell, to an out of network shell then changed the charges to $30k/Day and added the day to add and remove the monitoring to make it 5 days for a $150k total. They had language in the original consent for saying 'may be billed under a different name'. :/

Re:Wasted helium

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Every couple of months we hear about a project that needs helium with a *street value" of two hundred billion dollars. Well, I don't know what "street" you live on, but on my street, you can score helium for way less than that.

Re:Wasted helium

[BlackOverflow]

Only google can recaptcha it.

Re:Wasted helium

[guruevi]

Yes, the raw helium may only cost $1k but the cost of ramping a magnet up/down is a lot more. In case of Siemens MRI, they have to fly in special equipment from Germany overnight (a few pallets of basically giant transformers and BeCu tools, shims etc), the repairs associated with a magnet quench are a few thousand (usually you have to outright replace the valves and various other parts that froze) and then it takes a few hours of carefully charging the magnet and monitoring while the helium is slowly being filled. Hopefully you only have to do this once as it is possible that other issues or leaks are found and the helium you just filled boils off. All the while you are paying for at least 3 engineers and the helium delivery guy.

I've been involved with MRI magnet quenches, they're not pretty or cheap. The helium is practically worthless, I've heard of some sites that rather let helium boil off at a certain rate than get a repair done.

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass doesn't know that party helium tanks are waste and heavily contaminated with other gases and moisture. Purified helium isotopes ase expensive as fuck.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's more awesome that I can trash an Apple fanboy's iPhone with just some helium.

Well, at least it does not blow up and burn your genitals off.

Re:Wasted helium

[dj245]

Yes, the raw helium may only cost $1k but the cost of ramping a magnet up/down is a lot more. In case of Siemens MRI, they have to fly in special equipment from Germany overnight (a few pallets of basically giant transformers and BeCu tools, shims etc), the repairs associated with a magnet quench are a few thousand (usually you have to outright replace the valves and various other parts that froze) and then it takes a few hours of carefully charging the magnet and monitoring while the helium is slowly being filled. Hopefully you only have to do this once as it is possible that other issues or leaks are found and the helium you just filled boils off. All the while you are paying for at least 3 engineers and the helium delivery guy.

I've been involved with MRI magnet quenches, they're not pretty or cheap. The helium is practically worthless, I've heard of some sites that rather let helium boil off at a certain rate than get a repair done.

Sounds like the market is ripe for 3rd party repair vendors. Pity this is healthcare we're talking about, so that probably won't happen.

Fixing utility-scale electrical generators in the 1970s and early 1980s used to be an OEM-only affair. Then subvendors started popping up that could handle X subrepair, supply such and such subset of parts, etc. Nowadays there are plenty of companies that can handle all the repairs start-to-finish, a vast network of subcontractors, and the OEMs have been run off a lot of power plants because of their price-gouging and pushy salesmen.

Re:Wasted helium

[Cederic]

Also 120 liters of liquid Helium is NOT 90,000 cubic meters of gas. It is about 90 cubic meters.

Sure, for the first second after the leak. That's the thing about leaks.

But actually, yes, good spot.

Re:Wasted helium

[ceoyoyo]

They do. Scanners normally come with zero boil off systems standard now.

The story in the summary sounds pretty fishy. The story on Reddit is sort of similar but with a lot of "it might have been this but I don't know."

Helium manufacturers take the vents very seriously because if the magnet quenches *all* the helium is going to very quickly boil. 120 L (comes in a can about the size of a BBQ propane canister) boiled off through a leak and dispersed doesn't sound likely to damage anything. The concentration would be very low, and helium floats.

The papers on MEMs and helium do say there's an effect, but they test in pure, pressurized helium atmospheres (inside a pressure vessel) and report slow drift.

Carrying a phone through the magnetic field of a scanner could kill it. During ramping people might have found excuses to wander by and watch.

Re:Wasted helium

[Immerman]

Nope. You forgot to convert from liters to m^3. 120L liquid * (754 L gas/L liquid) = 90,480 liters of gas. And 1m3 = 1000L, so that's only 90.5m^3

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

We're going to need something to put it in. I'll bring the mason jars.

Make sure you punch the holes in the lids; we don't want the helium to suffocate!

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Liquid helium costs about $5 per liter. So 120 liters is worth about $600. No recovery effort could possibly be cost effective for such a small leak.

That was the point of suggesting that the price of helium be increased to the point that re-capture is cost effective.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

And now I know why an MRI costs > $1000.

Because, only in the medical industry is throwing away $600+ of resources ... just doing business.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been involved with MRI magnet quenches, they're not pretty or cheap. The helium is practically worthless, I've heard of some sites that rather let helium boil off at a certain rate than get a repair done.

Because helium is as perfect an example of a non-renewable and critical resource as there is, this story isn't making the case that wasting it is the right thing to do - it's making the case that the true value of helium is not reflected in the current market price. Because price is the only signal in the market to producers and consumers to drive decisions, when a commodity is not appropriately priced it causes poor decision-making. Markets cannot function appropriately when products and services are not priced in a way that accounts for all of the costs associated with their consumption.

Re:Wasted helium

[The Grim Reefer]

Because they're idiots who don't realize what they're dealing with, that's why.

The only way to prevent such waste is to increase the price of helium to such a point that everyone dealing with helium, when possible, will try to re-capture it once it's been used.

Helium prices have increased a lot actually. In 2010 it was about $5 per liter. Which was pretty high considering it was about a third of that in 2006. In 2016 it was $17.35 per liter. I don't know what the cost is currently. Depending on where you live and when you needed it, in the last year it's ranged from $10 to $70 per liter.

Most scanners from the last 20 years do recapture as much He as possible. But still lose some. Philips has a new scanner that is sealed and supposedly does not need to be topped off ever. But I'm not sure how that works. He has is very good at finding a way to escape. I belive that the Philips scanner only uses 20 liters of liquid He. A standard scanner can use 1500 to 3000 liters.

I don't know what happened at this site, but things can go wrong when you're ramping a magnet up. They may have needed to do a partial quench. It wasn't a full quench or there would have been a hell of a lot more than 120 liters of gas. If they were using an old vent pipe from a prior magnet, then who knows what could have been in there. Birds like to build nests. Sometimes when there's too much humidity in the air, ice can form and block or partially block the vent. When a quench happens it takes about 1 minute for 2000 liters of liquid He to convert into gas.

Re:Wasted helium

[The Grim Reefer]

Liquid helium costs about $5 per liter.

What grade helium are you talking about. The stuff you use for balloons is a much lower grade and much cheaper than what is used in a MRI scanner. He for a scanner was $5 back in 2010. That's not what it costs currently.

No recovery effort could possibly be cost effective for such a small leak

Most scanners that were built in the last 20 years do recover the He that leaks out as part of their normal operations. But you can't capture it when you need to quench the scanner. It's simply not safe to do. He displaces oxygen 28:1. With a typical magnet using 2000 liters of helium, you don't fuck around during a quench because you are likely to asphyxiate a lot of people.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

You're keeping it in a strange place if it will burn your genitals off.

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

I made much the same point, but with less colorful language. Because of the Physics involved, Tritium contamination would need to be way less than a part per Trillion, to bring Background Noise down to reasonable levels. Russia was quoting us about $10K a gram delivered in liquid 3He form with the required purity, which sounds like a lot, but it was half the price that we were going to have to charge ourselves. (The US/Canadian Governments do have their own Reactors...)
The sphere for the Neutrino Detector would need about 20 Tonnes of liquid 3He. So we built SNO instead. (FWIW, it would have taken two decades or so for Russia, going full bore, to make that much Tritium=>3He...)
3He was a far better choice. SNO had only about 0.01% of the Detector Efficiency using 1,000 Tonnes of Heavy Water; but it was still just good enough to snag a 2015 Nobel Physics prize.
The "Urban Legend" about needing $200B of 3He for various purposes came right from our Feasibility Studies starting in 1991. Here is a Source for another "Urban Legend":
Whether on a Submarine or Land Based, there are stories about Reactors shutting themselves down for unexplained reasons, only to find out that flushing a particular Toilet caused this. It wasn't a Reactor; it was the Berkeley Bevatron. Because there were so few Women working there originally, there was only one Women's Bathroom, hastily added only when the need was found pressing enough. The Plumbers just tapped into an available but unlabeled Water line, that just happened to provide the Water to the MG Room Ignitrons. Flush the toilet, which happened rarely, and the Water pressure would sometimes drop just low enough to trigger the Ignitrons into dumping ~15MW back into the Grid. Very quickly, and with unintended consequences. It took about a decade to figure this out.

Oh, one last thing: Berkelium does not rhyme with Helium...

Captcha: gabbing

Re:Wasted helium

[ShanghaiBill]

the true value of helium is not reflected in the current market price.

If you truly believe that you are smarter than the market, then buy up the super-cheap helium, pay the storage cost, and sell it at a big profit when the market finally corrects. Then come back here and post a picture of your yacht. Good luck.

Just keep in mind that people have been predicting a "helium crisis" for decades, and so far they have all been wrong. The price of helium is still low, and there are plenty of capped wells available to boost production if needed. Helium is produced as a by product of natural gas liquefaction, and many conventional wells with high helium content are capped because they can't compete on cost with fracked gas from shale, which does not contain helium.

The United States is, by far, the world's largest producer of helium.

Re:Wasted helium

[guruevi]

You don't even need to do that, you just need to buy futures in helium if you think the price is going up. GazProm thinks the helium use crisis may emerge in 2030, so you'll be waiting for a while for your profits to come in. Right now, Helium is cheap and the market has reacted appropriately by raising the prices slightly in response to the looming crisis 20 years down the road but it's nowhere near the levels to start capping and storing Helium today.

And yes, the tech is responding, new MRI's are completely closed loop systems and can quench without losing (all) their helium.

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

You should see how the govt does it. They throw away millions.

Re:Wasted helium

[jwhyche]

It is cheap now but what happens when it becomes scarce? How many other things are causing issues now because the cost of recovery isn't worth the cost to just waste it?

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Iâ(TM)m pretty sure they donâ(TM)t sell the âoeballoon gasâ at Walmart by the liter. And it is definitely not liquefied. Although, that could be really fun at parties. Use an eye dropper to put some liquid helium into a balloon, close it up and (as long as the frozen rubber doesnâ(TM)t crack) watch it inflate and rise. Might not be all that safe though.

Re: Wasted helium

[The Grim Reefer]

IÃ(TM)m pretty sure they donÃ(TM)t sell the Ãoeballoon gasà at Walmart by the liter.

Did anyone say they were looking at it at Walmart? I did a simple Google search for the price of a liter of liquid helium and it came up with a price of $5. I'm also guessing that was what the OP did to get that $5 price per liter. But that is not the same grade of He that's used in a magnet.

Might not be all that safe though.

No, it's not. If you cracked that open you could pretty easily asphyxiate everyone in the house.

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Good vibrations

Re:Wasted helium

[nmr_andrew]

Our current large-ish contract price for liquid helium is about $12/L, and Praxair has been adding a nice $.50/L "contingency" fee to all orders for the past year or so. Cheapest I know of anyone getting it for is about $10/L, I know of places paying as much as $300/liter, it really depends on your contract (or lack thereof), location, usage, etc. There is regular talk of rationing, and for the most part new customers can't get liquid helium period. There's only one grade of liquid helium, BTW. Gas comes in several grades but the price isn't that different except at the really low end (balloon grade which is only about 70-80%) and really high end (99.9999+%).

Helium recapture is becoming more common, and a lot of newer imagers have re-liquefaction systems built it, but for older instruments it really only makes financial sense to recover if you use a lot. I've priced recovery systems for the NMR facility I work in and if we could capture nearly all of the ~3000 L/year that we put into our magnets I calculated a ROI period of about 12 years when helium cost more like $10/L. That excluded costs for routine maintenance of the recovery equipment, BTW.

Grim Reefer's 1500-3000 L is about right for how much it takes to cool down and energize a new system. After that, I think 20-60 L/year is about right for maintaining a newer system with built in recovery, a smaller bore imager I helped fill for about a decade used about 500 L/year.

Re: Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

MRI costs $700 near me. (In the US.) Apparently you're just paying for someone's yaucht.

Re: Wasted helium

[ksw_92]

No, it's not. If you cracked that open you could pretty easily asphyxiate everyone in the house.

Yes, but it might be worth it to have everyone squeak like a chipmunk as they went...

Re:Wasted helium

[Opportunist]

But they'll sure sound funny when they croak. It would be like suffocating Micky Mouse.

Re: Wasted helium

[parkinglot777]

MRI costs $700 near me. (In the US.) Apparently you're just paying for someone's yaucht.

Well, this site gives some ideas about how much a MRI procedure cost. It seems that there are many different types of MRI procedures depending on where they want to look at inside your body. Also, the cost does NOT include physician fees.

Re:Wasted helium

[parkinglot777]

What grade helium are you talking about. The stuff you use for balloons is a much lower grade and much cheaper than what is used in a MRI scanner. He for a scanner was $5 back in 2010. That's not what it costs currently.

Just did a google search and I found this blog site "MRI Helium Refills and Boil-off Rates: The Top Six Magnets" talking about He. The blog was written in Feb 2017 though.

Helium is a commodity and the market price per liter fluctuates periodically. In the last year, we have heard from people getting it for as low as $9.00 per liter or as high as $20.00 per liter.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

Pants pockets are a strange place to keep a phone?

Re: Wasted helium

[illiac_1962]

Yes, if the machine is in a hospital you are paying for someone's yacht. Whole companies have formed that do imaging. Thier differentiators are price and convenience.

Re: Wasted helium

[ShanghaiBill]

There is little correlation between MRI use and medical outcome. For most patients, there appears to be no benefit in terms of diagnosis or effectiveness of treatment. It is mostly just a tool for jacking up hospital bills.

Re:Wasted helium

[ShanghaiBill]

It is cheap now but what happens when it becomes scarce?

Helium is currently worth recovering from natural gas when the concentration is 3 to 4%.

When it becomes scarce, it will be cost effective to recover it from gas containing 1-2%. This helium is currently "wasted" by leaving it in the NG.

How many other things are causing issues now because the cost of recovery isn't worth the cost to just waste it?

America consumes 22 TRILLION cubic feet of natural gas annually, which contains helium. Perhaps you should worry about that rather than the 121 liters that leaked in a one-off accident in a hospital.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

There are third party repair vendors for MRI systems. But they only seem to deal with research machines, not hospital machines. Maybe it has something to do with halving the repair cost being only a small dent compared to the lost revenue from a down machine at a hospital with a bunch of employees sitting idle. Whereas a research machine doesn't usually have a 24/7 schedule full of paying customers and the operators & researchers can be productive for a couple days doing something else while the machine gets repaired, and hence they don't mind it takes twice as long for the discount service.

Re:Wasted helium

[Anonymous Coward]

At a party supply shop. They'll probably want the empty tank back after you've used it though.

I hope they don't have any PET scanners...

[Grog6]

They use PMT tubes, and helium will leak thru glass seals easily, which is what happened to these chips.

They all changed frequency, and aren't working right. :)

The PMT's will just arc internally, glowing a nice bright orange, if you could see them. :D

It will drop the power supply rails, and there's no fixing the tubes, they'll have to be replaced.

Re:I hope they don't have any PET scanners...

[Anonymous Coward]

PMTs? LOL. In a museum maybe.

Avalanche photodiodes have been the standard for PET for decades.

FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Narcocide]

(On earth)

Re:FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Anonymous Coward]

On the bright side, I now know how to make those annoying iFanbois go away: Carry helium.

Re: FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, just a little helium tank and you can have a lot of fun.

Re: FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there was a simple way to get android fanbois to STFU.

Re: FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwww some iZombie is cranky. Too much helium?

Re: FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope clearly no easy way to get android assholes to shut the fuck up.

Re: FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Cito]

NPC's are weak to helium based attacks.

lol

Re:FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Aighearach]

From the sounds of it, the amount needed even makes it a viable technique just for culling the herd at crowded nightclubs, or when you get to the restaurant and there is an hour + wait!

Re: FUCKING HOLDING IT WRONG!

[Aighearach]

If you never say "Apple," they'll probably never even tell you which OS their phone runs.

Seriously?

[msauve]

Using MEMS instead of a quartz crystal is like using an inscribed candle instead of a pendulum. It's a major step in the wrong direction.

Apple may have saved a whole 2 cents per $1000 phone by doing that.

Re:Seriously?

[MightyYar]

It's more than just $$$, it's space. Instead of a discrete quartz crystal somewhere, they can etch a little resonator right on an existing chip.

Re:Seriously?

[msauve]

Meh. You think removing the headphone jack gives more battery capacity, too. Right?

"Space?" They charge a premium for the larger models. Go figure.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

MEMS oscillators are significantly more reliable than quartz oscillators.

Re:Seriously?

[LynnwoodRooster]

MEMS oscillators are significantly more reliable than quartz oscillators.

Until someone spills the helium, that is...

Re:Seriously?

[DontBeAMoran]

And then your voice sounds funny when doing a Facetime call.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably something that Apple shouldn't have changed, since it has consequences beyond just MRI machines. MEMS might be more appropriate in a device that is not portable for this purpose.

Re:Seriously?

[Aighearach]

Right, right, why would anybody care if it can keep accurate time, or if it is reliable? It is just a toy, not a serious device.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until someone spills the helium, that is...

Zero parts per billion of you are at all funny lyin cockwood.

Re:Seriously?

[TheFakeTimCook]

MEMS oscillators are significantly more reliable than quartz oscillators.

Until someone spills the helium, that is...

Yeah, 'cuz that happens ALL the time.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

I happened this time but please by all means keep defending apple like a fucking idiot.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you dont like it here why not leave?
One less apple cheerleader would be just great. A lot less lies.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet you're an idiot everywhere outside your garden.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I hate when my quartz oscillator is off.

But please speak up, it's hard to hear around the balls you're gargling as you worship.

Re:Seriously?

[Tough Love]

Once again, insane Apple engineering blindsides gullible I-phone fans. How many repeats before they get the message?

Re:Seriously?

[sjames]

In hospitals, it isn't that uncommon. Heliox is used for patients with severe obstructive pulmonary conditions.

It also happens in exotic environments like gift shops and grocery stores.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

MEMS timers are designed to be more accurate than quartz. They aren't cheap.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. An idiot would think Apple's removal of the headphone jack wasn't to push people to use bluetooth headphones, particularly those sold by Apple for a premium price. In fact, you'd have to be a totally ignorant fool not to know Steve Jobs desires since the early days of the Apple II were for closed system, incompatible with everything else, in order to maximize profits. You're not just drinking the Kool-Aid, you're pumping it in intravenously!

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they aren't "more accurate than quartz", and they can't be.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quartz crystals used for this sort of purpose aren't exactly large either...

Re:Seriously?

[fisted]

I have never seen, or even heard about, a quartz crystal failing. And given that it's a solid state thing, I can't picture how they could fail in the first place.

So how is MEMS more reliable, especially in the light of this story about them failing en masse?

Third, I wonder if MEMS comes close to the accuracy of a quartz crystal (frequently measured in single digit ppm or even less!)

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize quartz oscillators are incredibly accurate already? Ever wondered why they're typically selling e.g. 16.00000 MHz crystals instead of 16 MHz crystals?

Re: Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you tell us more about how Tesla loses money in every car it makes, and will never be profitable, even after dozens of people tell you that you are wrong?

Zero credibility.

Re:Seriously?

[AmiMoJo]

MEMS resonators are useful for a few reasons. They are now more stable over temperature than crystals, especially when combined with temperature control (TCXO). There is less phase noise too, very handy for RF purposes.

Lots of Android phones do use MEMS oscillators though, e.g. in the cellular modem which is the same one used by Apple (made by Qualcomm or Intel). So either the MEMS oscillator is not the cause of the failure or the claim is not entirely correct.

Re:Seriously?

[Daralantan]

I was assuming something happened to voices in this story as well, especially with the line of: "In one of the strangest system admin tales of all "....... So it's the strangest thing ever, but it's just that a leak messed up phones? Nothing else at all happened? I'd think we could say unexpected or different but... "Strangest of all" seems a bit overblown. Surprised it's not the title of the article. STRANGEST SYSTEM ADMIN TALE YOU'D NEVER BELIEVE, YOU WON'T GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT" etc.

Re:Seriously?

[msauve]

Citations needed. Because it's not that simple. MEMS can be marginally more frequency stable only because of temperature compensation. Without, they're much worse. They have worse phase performance, not better.

Re:Seriously?

[AmiMoJo]

Your link is 404... Initially MEMS was worse, that's true. But the latest generation devices are exceptional. A MEMS TCXO can get down to 0.1 PPM over temperature, e.g. SiT5356. For a crystal that would usually need an OCXO, which of course has insane power and space requirements.

Re:Seriously?

[msauve]

Sorry, try this. I hate how the Google can make it hard to get an actual link.

And, they're not using $50 oscillators in cell phones.

Re:Seriously?

[AmiMoJo]

Sure, my point was that MEMS can exceed crystals for some applications. As ever it's a trade off between price, physical size and manufacturing issues. I wasn't suggesting they use or need 0.1 PPM for a cellular modem.

Re:Seriously?

[GabeGhearing]

Crystal oscillators running at low kHz have ~1ppm, but MHz crystals are closer to 50ppm. Crystals that a CPU would use deviate from their designed frequency quite a bit based on temperature. CPUs are generally designed so that variations in frequency expected from normal quartz crystals under normal temperatures don't effect them by giving extra headroom to everything.

You can add protection against this deviation by cutting the crystal into crazy shapes(e.g. a tuning fork pattern), but it makes the crystal more fragile, larger, more expensive, and the crystal can't oscillate as fast.

Re:Seriously?

[WaffleMonster]

It's more than just $$$, it's space. Instead of a discrete quartz crystal somewhere, they can etch a little resonator right on an existing chip.

MEMS are significantly less accurate than quartz and consume much more power.

Re:Seriously?

[MightyYar]

They have improved recently. For instance, here's the MicroChip marketing for them. Power draw can be lower than quartz. Accuracy can be good enough, and actually more stable with varying temperature.

But not in the presence of helium :)

Re:Seriously?

[MightyYar]

First of all, of course it's a toy - it's a smartphone and a smart watch we are talking about.

Second, don't you think "exposure to high concentrations of helium" is a bit of an edge case???

Re:Seriously?

[MightyYar]

But they can't be integrated on chip.

Re:Seriously?

[TheFakeTimCook]

In hospitals, it isn't that uncommon. Heliox is used for patients with severe obstructive pulmonary conditions.

It also happens in exotic environments like gift shops and grocery stores.

Maybe so; but obviously it hasn't risen to the level that disrupts anything until this "venting".

So, it isn't like modern Apple mobile products are unfit for general-purpose use. This was essentially a "toxic environment" issue.

Re:Seriously?

[jwhyche]

Oh come on. I'm sure the topic of "will this shit work if there is a He leak nearby" never came up in the design meetings. I can't fault apple for this issue.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

For sure, but we're talking about a cheap one in a cheaply made phone. Most certainly they have no temperature regulation -- there's diffiuclty managing the heat from the CPU when a game spins up, there's no way this tiny thing has it's own refridgeration / heating unit.

Re:Seriously?

[sjames]

Or, since those incidents were much smaller scale and helium poisoning is such an unlikely seeming issue for a cellphone, it was just written off as a random failure.

Given how unlikely seeming a problem with helium is, the warnings should be much more prominent at the least.

Re:Seriously?

[TheFakeTimCook]

Or, since those incidents were much smaller scale and helium poisoning is such an unlikely seeming issue for a cellphone, it was just written off as a random failure.

Given how unlikely seeming a problem with helium is, the warnings should be much more prominent at the least.

Possibly.

What I haven't seen is whether the "Helium Poisoning" is FATAL to the MEMS oscillator; or just a temporary issue?

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly some low uid jackoff from slashdot knows better than the most profitable electronics business in the world. Thank you for the enlightenment. Once we were pathetic worms in the world, now uplifted by your grace. .001 cents on the BOM of an iphone is tens of millions of dollars spread out across a product's entire production run.

They got rid of the headphone jack because they knew they'd make more money, even if it means pissing off annoying armchair product analysts.

Re: Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

LUL. Believing what people say on slashdot. You must be new here.

Re:Seriously?

[Tough Love]

Once again, insane Apple engineering blindsides gullible I-phone fans. How many repeats before they get the message?

Apple cheaped out on the processor clock so if a little helium happens to waft over in the general direction of the I-phone, it crashes.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a quartz crystal fail. It was in the sound board of a pinball machine, clocking the Yamaha FM chip. It would pay kinda normally, then the pitches would get all out of tone and go completely nuts, then might return to normal after a bit. Very weird. Replacing only the crystal fixed it (wasn't corrosion on it or anything like that). Only time I'd seen one like that, and I repair electronics quite a bit myself.

Re:Seriously?

[Aighearach]

LOL well, it was more of edge case before this story than it will be after.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that accuracy is quantifiable, and you can find that typical crystals can have ~10 ppm accuracy, while MEMs can have 1 ppm? Not to mention how that varies with temperature.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which means if they fail, then they can be replaced much easier. Oh and they aren't susceptible to helium like this MEMS garbage.

This design is completely indefensible, so I don't know why you're even trying. Vested interest?

Re:Seriously?

[MightyYar]

Right, because exposure to high concentrations of helium is so common... let's design based on that!

It's cheaper, smaller, more stable with temperature, and draws less power. But I'm sure you know better than an EE at Apple.

Remember, these are fancy electronic toys, not pacemakers.

Re: Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Apple totally makes 1,000,000,000,000 of each model of phone.

Why?

[Cmdln Daco]

They quit using quartz based clocks?

Why?

Oh, I know there will be some clever reason why the change is superior. This story just points out where 'clever' sometimes leads.

So we can discreetly pop a canister of helium on the bus to kill all the iGadgets?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

iCatastrophe

Re:Why?

[Bobrick]

Looks like someone never stepped out of his hometown yet is convinced he knows what's "out there". Get out more, will you?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

MEMS oscillators, compared to quartz, are more reliable, have a smaller footprint, and stabilize more quickly on startup.

http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/00002344A.pdf

Where I work, we avoid quartz oscillators due to reliability concerns, although we can usually get away with using the integrated high-speed RC oscillator inside the microcontrollers we use.

Re:Why?

[viperidaenz]

yeah, they're better at handling shock and vibration, so when you drop your phone the cpu keeps running after the screen shatters.
that will let them black list the serial number of the screen, so you can't have a 3rd party repair shop replace the front glass layer.

Re: Why?

[BytePusher]

White poor people making fun of black poor people. Making America great again one big red asshat at a time.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"MEMS oscillators, compared to quartz, are more reliable,"

Yes, I remember the great helium leak of 1999 that stopped all the quartz oscillators. Oh yeah, no.

"have a smaller footprint"

Um, what are you building?

"stabilize more quickly on startup"

Um, what? A quartz oscillator takes longer to start because it has a high Q. A MEMS oscillator is a noise festival. Not stable at all. Cheap, yes.

" we avoid quartz oscillators due to reliability concerns, although we can usually get away with using the integrated high-speed RC oscillator inside the microcontrollers we use."

Bullshit. You work on low-cost stuff.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be kidding because any time I'm on the bus or train, everyone has a iToy (iphone, ipad, ipod, Watch, MacBook) and those that don't tend to be Koreans (who have Samsung phones) and the most nerdy looking creepy dudes who use phones they can get away with peep-shots.

Re:Why?

[superdave80]

They quit using quartz based clocks? Why?

(in my best Cowardly Lion voice) Courage!

Re:Why?

[sjames]

Yes, but his cousin's best friend's older sister's boyfriend knows a guy that actually rode a bus (on a dare) back in the '90s, so he's well informed.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.electronicproducts.com/Passive_Components/Oscillators_Crystals_Saw_Filters/MEMS_oscillators_vs_quartz_technology.aspx

Yup, MEMS has higher resistance to shock, but overall is still worse than Quartz.

Don't be surprised if your ithings stop working at more extreme temps too

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I remember the great helium leak of 1999 that stopped all the quartz oscillators. Oh yeah, no.

This is news because it is so rare. MEMS oscillators are more resistant to vibration and shock than quartz. We have also had quartz oscillators fail due to operation in high electric fields (product used installing or repairing high voltage transmission line).

A quartz oscillator takes longer to start

This is what I was saying.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in power tools, where we have somewhat different ideas of shock and vibration than cell phones.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

MEMS oscillators, compared to quartz, are more reliable, have a smaller footprint, and stabilize more quickly on startup.

They do not stabilize more quickly. The (sales) document you reference does not even pretend to claim this. MEMS clocks have about two orders of magnitude higher total startup times on average vs. quartz.

They do however have more jitter, use more energy, drift more over service life and offer more complex less accurate temperature compensation.

The fact MEMS is better for many applications does not detract from the need to get ones facts straight.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

White poor people making fun of black poor people. Making America great again one big red asshat at a time.

I'd rather live near white poor people any day. You would too even if you won't admit it.

Near black poor people your chances of getting shot are far higher. Black-on-white lethal violence was about 12 times higher than white-on-black lethal violence according to the 2017 FBI crime stats (across all income ranges). You can expect this to be even more pronounced with poor blacks.

Oh, that particular stat also likes to lump Hispanics into the "white" category because it only considers white/Asian/black, so that number is artificially low. Oddly other FBI stats *do* consider a separate Hispanic category, meaning the brown-skinned Spanish speakers you'd expect.

Blacks score lower whenever tested for psychological traits like impulse control, future-time orientation (delayed gratification, the ability to consider consequences), intelligence, and what is called commonweal orientation (the opposite of tribalism, including the ability to trust outsiders at least enough to work with them). My idea based on this data is that everyone sometimes has rash or even violent impulses, but blacks are least likely to think it through and use restraint.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

That article is almost ten years old. MEMs oscillators have had a lot of development in the last couple years, let alone the last decade.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

They do however have more jitter, use more energy,

If you said that a couple years ago, I would have agreed. Now you can get phase noise and energy usage lower than a quartz crystal. Whether or not a particular consumer good does that is another story.

Re:Why?

[Agripa]

They quit using quartz based clocks?

Why?

Oh, I know there will be some clever reason why the change is superior. This story just points out where 'clever' sometimes leads.

So we can discreetly pop a canister of helium on the bus to kill all the iGadgets?

There are a couple of reasons MEMS oscillators are used in place of quartz crystal oscillators:

1. MEMS oscillators are generally smaller than quartz oscillators which is important in portable applications.

2. The integrated (single chip) construction of a MEMS oscillator is more reliable and less expensive than the hybrid construction of a quartz crystal oscillator.

However while MEMS oscillators can have a similar frequency accuracy to quartz crystal oscillators, they have worse short term stability, worse aging, worse phase noise and jitter, worse power consumption, and worse start up time.

High pitch Siri voice

[Anonymous Coward]

I tought they were going to say that Siri stopped working because of all the high pitch voices.

Re: High pitch Siri voice

[Anonymous Coward]

Siri - that high pitched bitch

Apple's standard response:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're using it wrong.

Why would you use a phone near helium? Do you go to birthday parties a lot?

It's not a bug it's a feature. It'll prevent hackers for opening it in helium-filled hacking chambers.

Word verification: apologia

Cool...

[b0s0z0ku]

Obviously the helium concentration wasn't very high -- people could breathe and talk without sounding like Alvin the Chipmunk. I wonder if this can be exploited to mess with iPhone-owning hipsters at a party -- a balloon inflator sized helium tank and the appropriate valve orifice should do it...

OMG! My phone just died! *head explodes*

Re:Cool...

[alvinrod]

You'd need to find something that would mess with all of the different phone brands. People at parties who are checking their phones need to learn how to interact with other people.

Re:Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

a claw hammer

Re:Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why specifically a claw hammer? A ball peen or sledge hammer would be just as good.

Re:Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think nitrous oxide would do the trick.

Re:Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Siri lost her voice due to the helium. That's why the phones went wonky.

BTW, the oil and gas industry captures lots of helium. It is only the cheap helium in the US that is running out.

Re:Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, depends on how much work you are willing to do.

A layer of tin foil under the wall paper will probably make the phones less interesting.
 

Re: Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dropping it onto the floor from shoulder height will work too.

Re:Cool...

[s_p_oneil]

After reading this article, my first thoughts were to wonder whether Party City employees have to avoid iPhones to have a usable cell phone at work, and whether customers walking through stores like that ever have their iPhone die on them. The last time I was in a Party City, they had an employee filling balloons almost non-stop, and every now and then one would explode while being filled.

Re:Cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, let's punish the introverts, because they're not punished enough already...

Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Wanna blame? Blame that cheapskate hospital that still using the antique version of crappy MRI machine

They could have upgraded their MRI to new ones that do not need to consume so much liquid helium in the first place.

http://mriquestions.com/liquid...

In fact, new types of MRI machine no longer require liquid helium !!

You can expect the next generation of superconducting MR scanners to contain no cryogens at all. This is largely due to the development of efficient pulse tube and 2-stage Gifford-McMahon (G-M) cryocoolers that are able to maintain temperatures below the 9.4ÂK required for NbTi superconductivity without liquid helium

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup blame the victim. The iTards best defence for apple crappy products.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[DontBeAMoran]

Just because he wants to blame the hospital for wasting helium doesn't mean Apple becomes free of faults.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup blame the victim. The iTards best defence for apple crappy products.

A victim is someone who suffers through no fault of their own.

Given the history of Apple and the age of the whole "you're holding it wrong!" deal, anyone with a remotely current Apple product either knows what they are buying or reasonably should have known. They are not a victim, but rather, a person who made a risk/reward decision based on their own personal values.

I know if I did the same I wouldn't be crying out for sympathy, though I understand that it's fashionable to do that after making what turns out to have been a bad decision. Participation trophies for all!

This whole idea upsets me, in fact. I need to rereat to my safe space now. There, I am a special snowflake. Personal responsibility is scary and evil. Those who suggest I use it to make informed decisions are true evil. My victimhood makes me a saint. To question that is to commit heresy and blasphemy.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[TheFakeTimCook]

Just because he wants to blame the hospital for wasting helium doesn't mean Apple becomes free of faults.

Right.

Because it is perfectly normal to walk around in a Helium-enriched atmosphere, given it's SOOO commonplace....

Oh, wait...

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Mashiki]

Because it is perfectly normal to walk around in a Helium-enriched atmosphere, given it's SOOO commonplace....

It's used in critical facilities for fireproofing. i.e. inert gas firefighting systems. The other options are argon and nitrogen. It's far more common then you'd think, especially since "inert gas" fire fighting systems have become the green choice instead of stuff like halon and it's derivatives. And also unlike halon, which can be mixed with a secondary to drive it through the system like with how a car airbag works, neutral gas system remain fully or partially pressurized. Especially those in closed rooms, those "check oxygen levels before entry" signs aren't for show.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the hot air that comes out of your lying mouth im surprises your icrap still works.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[TheFakeTimCook]

Because it is perfectly normal to walk around in a Helium-enriched atmosphere, given it's SOOO commonplace....

It's used in critical facilities for fireproofing. i.e. inert gas firefighting systems. The other options are argon and nitrogen. It's far more common then you'd think, especially since "inert gas" fire fighting systems have become the green choice instead of stuff like halon and it's derivatives. And also unlike halon, which can be mixed with a secondary to drive it through the system like with how a car airbag works, neutral gas system remain fully or partially pressurized. Especially those in closed rooms, those "check oxygen levels before entry" signs aren't for show.

So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[arglebargle_xiv]

Since helium is lighter than air, was the problem reported as an Error 4012 3/8ths?

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[k2r]

> It's used in critical facilities for fireproofing. i.e. inert gas firefighting systems.

I don’t think so, that sounds very impractical.
Do you have any sources?

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[ShanghaiBill]

So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?

It is often a blend. Liquid N2 is cheaper if it isn't pure, containing argon as well, which is about 1% of the atmosphere. Then you can add some helium to the mix if the fire danger is expected to be high, along the ceiling. The helium will make the gas blend rise.

If you are more concerned about liquid fires that burn near the ground, you can use a gas mixture of partially or mostly CO2, which is heavier than air and will create a smothering layer on the floor. CO2 is easier to store under pressure since it will liquify at about 5 atm.

Of course you also want to add mercaptan or some other odorant to make it stink, so a leak is immediately noticed. You don't want to smother people instead of fires.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Right.

Because it is perfectly normal to walk around in a Helium-enriched atmosphere, given it's SOOO commonplace....

Oh, wait...

Toy balloons? Making "helium voice", possibly on the phone so your not-present friends can hear you? Or recording for a facebook post?

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, verify this story. This sounds like a twilight zone episode. Title should be "the island of misfit helium toys"

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen this in an IT server room in Prague. There was a cryptic sign with "STOP GAS!" or something, and I asked the IT guys what it meant. Turns out, exactly this, firefighting inert gas.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of helium used for this.

Nitrogen is often used. Extreme value archives and stores can use systems like this. Air in the store rooms is diluted with nitrogen from concentrators, aiming for around 15—17% oxygen concentration.

This is adequate for healthy humans to breathe, but insufficient to allow combustion of most common materials. While objects may be damaged ftom applied heat (such as electrical fault), few materials will ignite and even fewer can sustain combustion in such a hypoxic environment.

https://www.firesuppression.co.uk/hypoxic-air-.aspx

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Mashiki]

This is the company, that the company I work for uses.

Want some tasty data on the differences between non-conducting fluids, CO2, inert gas? 3M is there for you too.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Mashiki]

So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?

Cost, embargo, bean counter pinching pennies. Some components react to high concentrations of inert gases. Remember that inert systems aren't only used in an IT setting, but heavy industry, manufacturing, mining and so on too. Secondary byproducts from the fires can have unintended side effects with an inert gas making it no longer inert. One of the reasons halon was so popular is because it chemically disrupted the ability for a fire to burn. That's why there's a big boom in cabinet only fire suppression systems, and why stuff like NOVEC is becoming a popular choice for cabinet only use.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Mashiki]

With all the hot air that comes out of your lying mouth im surprises your icrap still works.

Don't worry little troll, we all know why you posted without your username visible. My 'lying mouth' must be in much better shape then that raw nerve that got struck in yours.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[TheFakeTimCook]

So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?

It is often a blend. Liquid N2 is cheaper if it isn't pure, containing argon as well, which is about 1% of the atmosphere. Then you can add some helium to the mix if the fire danger is expected to be high, along the ceiling. The helium will make the gas blend rise.

If you are more concerned about liquid fires that burn near the ground, you can use a gas mixture of partially or mostly CO2, which is heavier than air and will create a smothering layer on the floor. CO2 is easier to store under pressure since it will liquify at about 5 atm.

Of course you also want to add mercaptan or some other odorant to make it stink, so a leak is immediately noticed. You don't want to smother people instead of fires.

Interesting. Didn't know any of that about the blends. Thanks!

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[TheFakeTimCook]

So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?

Cost, embargo, bean counter pinching pennies. Some components react to high concentrations of inert gases. Remember that inert systems aren't only used in an IT setting, but heavy industry, manufacturing, mining and so on too. Secondary byproducts from the fires can have unintended side effects with an inert gas making it no longer inert. One of the reasons halon was so popular is because it chemically disrupted the ability for a fire to burn. That's why there's a big boom in cabinet only fire suppression systems, and why stuff like NOVEC is becoming a popular choice for cabinet only use.

Sorry, never heard of "NOVEC".

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, new types of MRI machine no longer require liquid helium !!

True, they don't require liquid helium, but they still require helium.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[AlwinBarni]

So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?

Also deep submersibles, which keep high pressure atmosphere have N2 replaced with He because of human physiology (someone more knowledgeable may provide some details).

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[TheFakeTimCook]

So why would you use anything other than Nitrogen?

Also deep submersibles, which keep high pressure atmosphere have N2 replaced with He because of human physiology (someone more knowledgeable may provide some details).

I was talking in fire-suppression systems.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novec_1230

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[jwhyche]

I'm one of Apple biggest critics and I really can't see any reason to blame apple for this issue at all. I actually find the science behind the issue to be kind of cool.

Re: Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Helium is not used for inert gas fire suppression. You want a gas that is heavier than air and smothers the fire on the floor, not one that clusters around the ceiling.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Navy we used Halon on fire suppression systems.

Re: Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote your comment as the best wording of "you're holding it wrong" for this failure.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Huge_UID]

You don't want to smother people instead of fires.

Depends on where you work.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww that's adorable how the isheep band together to police others and themselves of course.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Mashiki]

Sorry, never heard of "NOVEC".

It's 3M's replacement for halon(aka halon 1301), it's also a HFC, doesn't do as much damage as CFC's, and doesn't cause ozone damage. It's toxic to aquatic life though and is known to cause long-lasting genetic problems in fish. You can read about it here or on 3M's website.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[TheFakeTimCook]

Sorry, never heard of "NOVEC".

It's 3M's replacement for halon(aka halon 1301), it's also a HFC, doesn't do as much damage as CFC's, and doesn't cause ozone damage. It's toxic to aquatic life though and is known to cause long-lasting genetic problems in fish. You can read about it here or on 3M's website.

Thanks! Sounds great, unless you're a fish...

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[Mashiki]

unless you're a fish...

Yeah welcome to the world where something is always toxic to something. We're getting better, but I doubt we'll ever come up with a substance that doesn't have some issue with something. Best case is to limit environmental contamination when you do have to use it.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[TheFakeTimCook]

unless you're a fish...

Yeah welcome to the world where something is always toxic to something. We're getting better, but I doubt we'll ever come up with a substance that doesn't have some issue with something. Best case is to limit environmental contamination when you do have to use it.

Life is hard if you're cold-blooded...

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[k2r]

From their website they seem to use Nitrogen or Argon, not Helium.

Helium is the lightest element, way lighter than air, so it seems not very useful to extinguish a fire.
A cheap and abundant gas of comparable density to air or higher density seems to make more sense, that would be Nitrogen, Argon or 3M stuff.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[k2r]

“Inert gas” does not have to mean “Helium” it could mean any noble gas, and from a practical point of view (depending on the kind of fire you’re expecting) even Nitrogen or CO2.

Re:Stop blaming Apple

[k2r]

Bah, lightest noble gas, not lightest element.

They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[ZorinLynx]

If the helium concentration was high enough to affect phones this way, they're lucky it didn't displace too much oxygen and freaking kill people.

They really should have sensors to detect these conditions in places where large amounts of gas is used.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[b0s0z0ku]

It sounds like the concentration required to affect phones wasn't very high. Though this can be verified experimentally -- anyone want to donate their iDevice? :D

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cvdyt-KZHk

I do wonder if the problem is temporary or if it resolves.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[swillden]

They really should have sensors to detect these conditions in places where large amounts of gas is used.

They did. iPhones.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[davesays]

If the helium concentration was high enough to affect phones this way, they're lucky it didn't displace too much oxygen and freaking kill people.

They really should have sensors to detect these conditions in places where large amounts of gas is used.

They do. They have sensors, and alarms, and they are taken seriously. I'm not bashing, but I have training and work around MRI equipment about once a month. Standard is for the room to be negative pressure vented. Likely, the vent had a leak in a different area with no sensors. It pobably crossed through a wall and leaked above the T-bar ceiling in a hallway or some other room. It's an unfortunate corner case, and one that should be taken into account; but not a horror story.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[guruevi]

That's what I was thinking too, Helium is naturally occuring in the air in various concentrations for various reasons. To penetrate a sufficient percentage (even if we want ~1% of the air to be Helium) across an ENTIRE hospital into people's pockets, into the devices itself into sealed chips, you have to practically circulate the helium throughout the entire building and swap out all the air for the entire building with 1% Helium air.

And on the other hand, Helium is non-reactive, the same size as Hydrogen and a smaller atom than both Oxygen and Nitrogen so why are O/N/H atoms not getting 'stuck'?

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[mysidia]

they're lucky it didn't displace too much oxygen and freaking kill people.

Helium doesn't really displace air -- helium is lighter than air. And the concentration must have been very low, otherwise people would have noticed.

This is clearly an engineering defect in Apple's product that a slightly elevated helium level will cause malfunctioning.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[Anonymous Coward]

Sensor manufacturer here. When safety is concerned, they measure the desired thing directly. e.g. when the concern is asphyxiation, oxygen levels are measured. If the oxygen level goes too low, that's when the alarm goes. If the gas leaks but it isn't displacing oxygen, no alarm. Generally Helium won't displace oxygen, Nitrogen is quite dangerous though, so oxygen sensors are common around LN2 tanks.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[DerekLyons]

If the helium concentration was high enough to affect phones this way, they're lucky it didn't displace too much oxygen and freaking kill people.

Yeah, there's a ton of holes in the story. In the linked article, he admits his test used a far higher concentration of He than would have been possible in the hospital. Plus, if you actually follow up on the kinks... you find the story doesn't tell the whole truth, there were other devices that experienced glitches. And someone else points out that all the Apple devices in question use inductive charging.

So, there's a whole lot of assumptions going on.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[sjames]

Evidently the concentration need not be that high.

This PDF testing the effects of helium on various MEMS suggests (doing a bit of math) that a few hundred ppm helium in the air could be enough. Normal atmosphere has 5 ppm. Meanwhile, replacing 10% of the air (100,000 ppm) wouldn't have much effect on humans as long as they don't attempt aerobic exercise (based on the safety of oxygen depleted data centers).

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[DNS-and-BIND]

If they had started feeling effects from the helium, their voices would have gotten squeaky. This happens before you pass out from helium. Don't ask me how I know.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[Brett Buck]

It takes only *tiny* amounts of helium to have a measurable effect, far, far below the levels that you would need to cause any consequential change in oxygenation. A few PPM can do it, depending on the device.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[Anonymous Coward]

The hypothesis that helium kills Apple devices is an easy one to test. Any volunteers?

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[Anonymous Coward]

They do. They have multiple O2 concentration sensors per floor (generally speaking I can't speak for 100% of them). Any O2 displacement that would cause asphyxiation would be a serious concern no matter the gas type. Also ONE HE atom is enough to start to mess with those chips from what I understand, so the concentration did not have to be at a high amount.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[Anonymous Coward]

No, really. At this point, why DON'T our smartphones/watches act as rad meters, CO etc. monitors? I'd certainly feel better if they did . . . companies could get outed for near-unsafe conditions/ignoring problems that will get bigger.

Re:They were lucky people didn't asphixiate

[Anonymous Coward]

glitches != total failure

iPhone new Feature!

[hcs_$reboot]

Helium detector.

Re:iPhone new Feature!

[dcollins117]

iCanary

Re:iPhone new Feature!

[Anonymous Coward]

That was funny but I'm not laughing.

Re:iPhone new Feature!

[Anonymous Coward]

iCluelesss

Re:iPhone new Feature!

[Anonymous Coward]

iFloat

But not the iPhone 5

[Anonymous Coward]

Rtfm

Aren't the MEMs devices were sealed?

[ClarkMills]

Gyro & Accelerometer don't need exposure to the atmosphere... air pressure sensor perhaps?

Lots of light headed Mickey Mouse voices in radiology that day too no?

Re:Aren't the MEMs devices were sealed?

[hcs_$reboot]

If you RTFS to the end, you'll see that the problem was actually the clock. Not sure why the clock needs air exposure though.

Whodathunkit?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! One more reason to avoid Apple stuff. I might have gotten an Ipad long ago, but I can't replace the battery cheaply, myself, when it dies. Of course, I'd get one at the pawnshop, since Apple stuff is so grossly overpriced.
  Other than those things, I'd already have one.
Now there's this other thing, if I'm ever enveloped in a helium leak I'd already sound silly talking, but at least I don't carry an Apple-thing that's likely to suffer too.
Wow...

Re:Whodathunkit?

[viperidaenz]

if you had an iphone and there was a helium leak, you couldn't call for help.

Damn He All To Hell

[mentil]

He ruined my phone, how dare He?! What have I ever done to He?

Re:Damn He All To Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

He ruined my phone, how dare He?! What have I ever done to He?

Are you assuming Helium's gender?

Typical apple

[Anonymous Coward]

sub standard parts at a premium price.

They're cheaper.

[Grog6]

That's all.

A likely excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason was that creimer sat on every phone. That's what happens when you hide his skinny soy vanilla lattés!

Helium is mined and non-renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminder that helium is mined from the earth, can not be recovered once it's in the atmosphere, and until we start fusing hydrogen atoms, is non-renewable.

If it has important industrial applications, why are we still filling balloons at children's parties with it?

Re:Helium is mined and non-renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the "Think of the Children" crowd has demanded we stop using hydrogen for this. (/S for the sarcasm-impaired).

Re:Helium is mined and non-renewable

[guruevi]

Perhaps we should fill them with hydrogen :D

Re:Helium is mined and non-renewable

[mentil]

Balloons are now filled with 'balloon gas' which is only part helium. Last time this came up on Slashdot, someone pointed out that Helium is basically given away free by the US Govt. because it's a byproduct of mining other stuff and they have little need for it.

Hey Siri...

[Joseph Lam]

Siri (in elevated voice): What can I help you with?

Re:Hey Siri...

[blindseer]

I realize that's a joke based on human exposure to helium but I have to wonder if that wouldn't be what really happens. The video in the article showed the stopwatch on the phone running fast before it crashed. If the helium was leaking into the clock and made everything run fast then it might shift the voice synthesis up in frequency too.

I'd test that theory if I had some helium and a recent model iDevice that I didn't mind crashing.

Helium goes right through things

[raymorris]

Helium goes right through solid objects.
Plastics have molecules, and holes between molecules, about 25,000 times larger than a helium atom. Helium gas is normally single atoms, not molecules.

That's the challenge with helium hard drives. If you try to use a typical rubber seal, the holes between rubber molecules are much larger than helium atoms, allowing the helium to go right through almost as if the rubber wasn't there.

You may have noticed a helium balloon stops floating overnight. That's because the helium goes out right through the rubber. Interestingly, air leaks INTO the balloon due to something called partial pressure.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[guruevi]

If that were the case, oxygen would also affect the devices given those atoms are slightly bigger, highly reactive and much more present in the air.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[BigDukeSix]

I'm guessing you don't have young children. Helium balloons these days last a week, easy. I think the material is mylar?

Re:Helium goes right through things

[Drishmung]

Helium goes right through solid objects. Plastics have molecules, and holes between molecules, about 25,000 times larger than a helium atom. Helium gas is normally single atoms, not molecules.

Helium gas is always single atoms, except for extraordinarily unusual circumstances which assuredly were not in play here.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[burtosis]

I'm guessing you don't have young children. Helium balloons these days last a week, easy. I think the material is mylar?

It's not the base polymer (PET) that is impermeable to gas, it's the metal coating that is vapor deposited over it. That has much smaller holes and acts to contain the helium.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[BigDukeSix]

And that's why the thing is shiny, and anti-static, and gas impermeable. Damn. Crystal structure for the win, every time.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[theycallmeB]

You're right, oxygen is highly reactive. So much so that it is basically only found as part of molecule of one sort or another, and molecules of any sort are much less adept at squeezing through interstitial gaps or performing barrier tunneling tricks.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[jaa101]

If that were the case, oxygen would also affect the devices given those atoms are slightly bigger,

Oxygen in the air is O2, i.e., two atoms stuck together in a molecule. Helium is just a single tiny atom. He has a radius of 31pm. O has a radius of 48nm but the bond length in O2 is 121pm. It's much harder for O2 to leak through gaps on other molecules than He.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[sjames]

Actually, air doesn't diffuse into the balloon. It's just that helium for filling balloons is actually heli-air so kids don't die when they inhale it ( not to mention it's cheaper).

Re:Helium goes right through things

[sjames]

TYhe O2 molecules are significantly bigger, which is why they don't diffuse through the seals in the device like He does.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[quanminoan]

As an engineer I once pressurized an assembly that had a seal created by a kapton tube, was leaking to the point bubbles were trickling out when submerged. Kept tightening, troubleshooting, etc to no avail. I was using helium just because we had a line supply where I was testing; when I switched to nitrogen it made a perfect seal.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[Anonymous Coward]

What about SHe? This comment is so typical.

Re:Helium goes right through things

[Chuk]

Week nothing, my kid got a balloon for her high school grad that was still hovering at ceiling level 3 months later.

Lead us not into temptation... Ah hell! Tempt me!:

[Hartree]

I use a small jet of helium sprayed out of a nozzle to find leaks in vacuum systems.

It is so tempting to direct it at an unsuspecting iPhone user just to test this out.

90K cubic meters of helium

[Applehu Akbar]

For that whole week, everyone in that hospital sounded hilarious.

Re:Who needs the quickie mart

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Indian.

Check your own white privilege for the same.

Can't blame Apple

[viperidaenz]

The user manual says gases like helium can damage the phone.

exposing iPhone to environments having high concentrations of industrial chemicals, including near evaporating liquified gasses such as helium, may damage or impair iPhone functionality

Re:Can't blame Apple

[d0ran$]

Source:

https://help.apple.com/iphone/... ...
Explosive and other atmospheric conditions Charging or using iPhone in any area with a potentially explosive atmosphere, such as areas where the air contains high levels of flammable chemicals, vapors, or particles (such as grain, dust, or metal powders), may be hazardous. Exposing iPhone to environments having high concentrations of industrial chemicals, including near evaporating liquified gasses such as helium, may damage or impair iPhone functionality. Obey all signs and instructions. ...

Re:Can't blame Apple

[DNS-and-BIND]

That's hilarious - the company that eliminated reading the manual buries product disclaimers in the manual that they don't intend anyone to read.

Re:Can't blame Apple

[thegarbz]

Wow. TIL the iPhone has a user manual.

Re:Can't blame Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical apple. Great lawyers; terrible engineers.

Re:Can't blame Apple

[petermgreen]

Aside from the fact that noone reads the manual that paragraph is largely useless because

1. it doesn't define "high concentrations" or "near".
2. noone bothers to monitor for helium because it is regarded as benign. If you were in a place where there could be particularlly big releases you might monitor for oxygen displacement, but from some googling it seems that oxygen depletion sensors warn at 19% and alarm at 17%, normal oxygen level is about 21%, so you are talking about 9.5% of the air having to be displaced before an oxygen displacement meter warns and about 18% of the air having to be displaced before it alarms.

Re: Who needs the quickie mart

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and Iâ(TM)m a woman on slashdot.

Phones should be near MRI

[Misagon]

Mobile phones should not be taken into a facility with a MRI machine anyway.
The radio waves emitted from the phone could interfere with the MRI machine's sensitive sensors ... which is why every such facility has "No cell phones" signs in every room and corridor.

The phones will not emit only when in "use", but will regularly try to connect to the nearest cell tower even when "off". Therefore, it is best not to bring it there at all.

Re:Phones should be near MRI

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but helium is the ultimate escape artist. It will leak through welded nickle, against a vacuum, if you have the tiniest bit of contamination in the weld. Helium will disperse anywhere it wants. Completely believable that a couple of litres of boiling He could destroy an iMasnob 400 meters and 10 walls away just through diffusion.

Re:Phones should be near MRI

[Drishmung]

Mobile phones should not be taken into a facility with a MRI machine anyway.

The phones were nowhere near the MRI. The Helium leaked out of the MRI facility and into the surrounding areas, according to the article.

Siri

[tofleplof]

So Siri started speaking in a weird, high-pitched voice ?

Helium based exploit please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably near impossible to do, but I'd love to see a useful helium based exploit based on this.

half right

[Anonymous Coward]

mems enclosed with CHEAP PLASTIC CASES caused this.

helium could screw up crystal clocks too. if they weren't enclosed in a metal can...

saving .00000001 cents is what caused this.

apple being cheap caused this.

WTF?

[fahrbot-bot]

This evaporated helium is usually pumped out of the facility through a vent, but this vent was leaking the helium into the rest of the facility.

(a) Why isn't the helium captured rather than simply vented/released? It doesn't grow on trees.
(b) People can die if the helium concentration gets too high. Having it leak into a fucking hospital seems rather care/reckless.

Re:WTF?

[HMS_Hexapuma]

This is almost certainly a misunderstanding on the part of the writer. MRIs have emergency vents for Quenches, and while the helium does "Boil off" it's at a very low rate. Most systems also include recondensers to recapture evaporating helium. It's worth noting that most places don't include capture and chill systems because the system requires a lot of space, the system costs a small fortune and you spend more powering the system than you save in recapturing the helium. Also, worth noting, helium isn't toxic but can kill if it displaces the air in a room. As such all places that worth with He should have O2 sensors. A slow leak is safe-ish as the helium rises and just goes away.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not intentionally released. Superconducting magnets can, on rare occasions, experience a phenomenon called quench, where a part of the magnet experiences loss of superconductivity. This causes resistive heating which causes a chain reaction as the heat boils the helium and gets conducted to neighboring parts of the magnet. This can flash boil as much as 1500 litres of helium in a few seconds.

As this causes almost explosive helium gas release, capturing the helium is difficult, and not usually feasible for a small system like an MRI scanner. However large physics experiments running numerous highly strung magnets where quenchrs may be more common, will usually install helium recovery systems capable of handling a quench.

Quench is more likely to occur when the magnet is being disturbed, for example, when the magnet is being charged. This is because superconductors experience slight resistive heating when current is changing, and this degrades operating margins. Once operating current has been reached and the power supply disconnected, these magnets tend to be very stable and quench is rare, outside of cryostat insulation or refrigeration failure, structural damage, or severe magnetic field anomaly (such as due to foreign ferromagnetic objects being brought into the field).

Care is taken with quench handling with large vent pipes to outside areas. However, obstructions to the vent (debris, bird nesting, etc) can occur and inspections are needed (difficult as the vent is a hazardous area). The helium gas volume released is also large, and depending on the prevailing wind some may be ingested by HVAC systems, although building codes should ensure that this is not hazardous. Leakage of helium into the room is a recognised risk of quench, hence MRI rooms always have outward opening doors (to prevent pressure blocking the door), ambient oxygen sensors and an ultra high volume forced air exchange system triggered by the oxygen sensor.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably can't capture it fast enough in the event that it quenches, you would need a refrigeration system more expensive than the MRI

Re: Who needs the quickie mart

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're a malfunctioning iPhone suffering from helium intoxication.

Re:Who needs the quickie mart

[Archfeld]

Indian or Aboriginal/Indigenous/Native American ?

Proud to Pow Wow
https://calendar.powwows.com/e...

I'm afraid I'm going to have to call BS on this.

[HMS_Hexapuma]

Background: I'm on the technical team for a research unit that has an MRI machine of its own and access to another. Plus I do Helium refills for an MEG facility. This does not ring true. An MRI is going to have something like 500L of liquid helium in it. It doesn't cool by "Boiling it off". In fact a high boil-off rate is a bad thing. The unit will have a chiller to keep the temperature of the helium down and probably a recondenser to reduce loss. If the unit quenched during install then all the helium will have boiled off. A lot more than 120L. Also the vents are certified so that *All* the helium that boils off goes up and out safely. Add to that all these facilities have O2 alarm systems, this must have been a very small, slow leak over the course of months. Any leaking helium will have risen straight up to the ceiling and spread out, maybe working its way up into cracks and passing to above floors at a massively reduced concentration. At the levels we're talking about here, if the helium were the problem then we'd be seeing a spate of iPhone failures at children's parties from the helium in the balloons.

Helium is the new laughing gas ...

[Ihlosi]

... when applied to other peoples expensive Apple gadgets.

Not really a issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that helium might have caused this. But its not much of even a rare occurrence for the masses. But don't gt too close to those helium balloons at a party.

accurate time; NTP

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, right, why would anybody care if it can keep accurate time, or if it is reliable? It is just a toy, not a serious device.

How long does the accurate time have to hold for when you can sync via NTP once an hour?

Re:accurate time; NTP

[Aighearach]

Well, golly, Wilbur! My [other brand] device continues to work fine even when outside the service area.

That said, what if a semi-accurate clock is required for the hardware, and it isn't even the same "clock" as the thing in the corner of the screen that tells you the time? What then?!

Re: I'm afraid I'm going to have to call BS on thi

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's more likely that an electromagnetic pulse fried the Apple products. The MRI 5-gauss line is only applicable in steady state operations. When the 500-1000a current in the super conducting coils ramps up or down, it's got a hell of a kick. Leave the electronics in the car when they come to re-charge the coils.

r/sysadmin

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched a while ago.

I just come to /. for the net neutrality and tTump comments...

You're breathing it wrong

[cascadingstylesheet]

n/t

Re: Who needs the quickie mart

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If androids dream of electric sheep, do iOSes dream of Slashdot women?

Whoo hooo!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Louis Rossman will have a field day with this one! Got the popcorn going, waiting for a video from him on YT.

Interesting

[shaitand]

"in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon"

Otherwise known as cheaper and less accurate clocks.

Canary in a coal mine

[ripvlan]

While this has become an iPhone bashing pissing contest.... I really appreciate the craziness of this story.

Now if only the phone died from something poisonous. All the iPhone users run to their Tesla's and turn on the air filter to save their lives. Meanwhile all Android people are like "what?"

The life of the have and have nots :-)

Most Importantly

[Anonymous Coward]

The story is by 99,9% probability B.S.

We are supposed to believe that tiny concentrations of an otherwise chemically unreactive gas will penetrate an electronic component case and disable it ?

Most likely FAKE NEWS.

Yeah DemoRat

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethnic Cleansing is only a problem if applied to Non-Whites ?

BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Our family owns an iphone and a MacBook. Both excellent hardware quality and nice software. Surely it is not perfect; no real world system is.

Overall, Windows and the Wintel cheapstuff has many more issues both in SW and HW.

Having said that, their use of Chinese semi-slave labour should be banned. Hopefully Trump forces them to produce in the US again. That would reduce their profits from super-phantastic to just super.

Of course the Goldman set will whine croco tears about that. All their phantastic profits reduced to super. Boohooo !

Serves Them Right

[Toad-san]

That's what they get for wasting an irreplaceable material.

Letting the helium evaporate away, and making virtually no attempt to collect and save or reuse it? Tch tch.

Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Another excellent reason to stay away from this Spoiled Brats brand.

TIL helium atoms lift nitrogen atoms?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The helium will make the gas blend rise.

Wait--what??

No, 90% of the installed base are toobz.

[Grog6]

Avalanche PD's suck.

They take almost as much voltage as pmt's, and only have a gain around 200.

SiPM's are just coming onto the market, and they will replace both.

There are hundreds of thousands of PMT's in scanners in the World right now.

We used APD's in PET/MR systems, because they work in a magnetic field. Unlike PMT's.

The weirdest thing of all that was that we were seeing Positrons 60" outside the MR bore, ejected by the magnetic field, that "Can't happen!" lol.

Re:No, 90% of the installed base are toobz.

[Anonymous Coward]

The gain isn't an issue for APDs, but the larger noise enhancement factor that means optimal S/N is at lower gain/biasing on the apd itself. You can put additional amplifiers on the output to get whatever total gain you want, which is often now included in off the shelf APD biasing+TIA modules anyway. That noise will bite you though in regimes where PMTs work well because it will affect your energy resolution. But the higher quantum efficiency, responsivity to much broader wavelengths of light than decent photocathodes, and faster recovery time, means APDS dominate in a lot of uses behind PMTs quickly suck outside their optimal operating points. Even the difference in voltage makes a big difference in some non-medical gamma ray detectors, like in aerospace stuff where lower air pressure makes high voltage routing more of a pain ( I think typical APDs we use to replace PMTs drop the voltage from 900-1200 V down to 200-300 V in generic cases, and down below 50 V in some more esoteric kinds).

Doctors high on helium?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great to hear that a hospital has that much helium contaminating the air. Wonder how many doctors performed surgery under the effects of that helium? Wonder if that hospital has a higher incidence of errors and mistakes, deaths, etc. from this.

This comment

[Mats Svensson]

This comment is unavailable.

Re:I'm afraid I'm going to have to call BS on this

[Anonymous Coward]

The way I read this, this was happening during the initial setup of the machine. And there you probably do helium boil-offs, after you've cooled it down enough with nitrogen. I say probably, because this is what happens in the installation of NMR machines in Chemistry departments, but perhaps MRI machines are setup differently...