Samsung May Permanently Disable Galaxy Note 7 Phones In The US As Soon As Next Week (theverge.com) 193
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.
you no longer own your devices (Score:4, Insightful)
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 :(
Re:you no longer own your devices (Score:5, Insightful)
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you are not allowed items that endanger the public with no other function.
How do you get to that conclusion? Clearly it has functions.
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Paperweight for documents you really don't care about.
Pocket hand warmer (bandages not included).
Plate for your Hot Pocket.
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Re:you no longer own your devices (Score:4, Insightful)
In active safety recall it has been carrier disabled for faulty hardware. It has no other function.
Without mobile network access it still has bluetooth, wifi, plays games. It's a fully functioning computer. You're showing a colossal lack of imagination.
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This is a mandatory safety recall for the real risk the model poses.
Nobody disputes that. But the statement:
It has no other function.
Is absolutely moronic.
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Remove the battery, it is no longer a risk.
You're free to do that. The Samsung update disable the charging capability, that's it. As long as you plug it into a power source, you can use it for your embedded purpose.
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Yet the device is not designed for that primarily, so there is not loss of targeted functions. This is a mandatory safety recall for the real risk the model poses.
I argue otherwise. Despite being called a "phone", most people's primary use of their device is not a phone. And even when making calls or messaging, a lot of people use data based apps, not the cellular based comms.
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Samsung pays for returns. The phones are disabled at the carrier. Otherwise you can keep your brick/bomb. In civilized countries you are not allowed items that endanger the public with no other function.
My understanding is that the issue is not the phone but the battery, ie the battery is too densely packed so a fire risk. Couldn't Samsung build a smaller capacity battery so that millions of device can still be safely used?
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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.
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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
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I'll take an Android phone with a slide out keyboard please, my Droid4 is getting a little long in the tooth.
Aaron Z
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You can't link a single carrier in the US who is was not refunding the full price, plus tax, and alloing you to cancel your contract following the recall. ALL of them are offering full refunds on the phone.
Better yet - tell Samsung you bought if off of Craig's List and they'll refund you the full retail price plus $25 per accessory you bought with it, plus $$25 on top of that for your inconvenience. Then simply terminate your contract with the carrier, pay the ETF (usu ~$350) and pocket the extraI say pocke
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How ironic that we are quick to label countries who constantly find themselves involved in warfare as "civilized".
While I may wish it wasn't so, I see no indication from history that civilization and warfare are diametrically opposed.
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Re: you no longer own your devices (Score:2)
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So, you're claiming Germany doesn't let people own rocks or pointy sticks?
Re:civilized countries (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem is not with defining Nazis as "left" or "right," but by the characterization of politics along a single left-right axis itself. Sanders' socialism is nothing at all like Nazism.
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Have experience with the extreme right and having a new government constructed afterwards in particular to avoid repeating that error gives Germany strength.
If you think the Nazis are an example of the "extreme right" then your arrogance and misunderstanding knows no bounds. "Nazi" meant "National Socialist German Workers Party". Remind me again, which political party is it that offers a safe haven to socialism? I certainly don't think it's the big-business first capitalist Republican one. I believe it was your original candidate, Mr. Bernie Sanders, that publicly stated he was a socialist [washingtonpost.com].
Ok, look. Pandering the common man is was easy way to get their backing. There were "socialist" factions within the Nazis who wanted to make sure the common German worker was taken care of. These pretty much all died,, literally, with Rohm in the Night of Long Knives. From then on, they were pretty much a politically extreme right which is to say authoritarian rule, as opposed to the egalitarianism of political left. This is different from the political left or right that is associated with liberal, wantin
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You realize the Nazis were neither socialist or for the workers right? They were absolute fascists. Having socialist in their name doesn't make them so.
Currently the party that wants to tell me who I can marry or what bathroom I'm required to use are the Republicans.
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Freedom is a pretty good reason. If guns scare you, move to someplace like Chicago that makes it nearly impossible to posses one legally. It's a safe haven in a country of chaos, or so you're logic would have us think.
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Guns have been used as hammers by way of grabbing the barrel for the purpose of driving nails or smashing windows.
Also, some guns are in mint condition for purposes of display by collectors.
Then, there's the obvious non-public endangerment of plinking, competition, and hunting.
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I really hope an owner will challenge this in court. It should NOT be legal for an manufacturer to intentionally damage something they sold you, even if it is in your best interest.
Re:you no longer own your devices (Score:5, Informative)
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Please copy the text you believe is relevant to your position.
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Here's the thing. I can read. I read documents like this for a living. In this case, I can read the heading "Guidelines and Requirements for Mandatory Recall Notices," the notices of proposed rulemaking for "Guidelines and Requirements for Mandatory Recall Notices," the final rule for "Guidelines and Requirements for Mandatory Recall Notices," and search the text of the PDFs [cpsc.gov] (example) and understand that
Re: you no longer own your devices (Score:2)
Then again they would probably prefer to be in court for that, than for one of their phones causing bodily harm. There is a fair chance they would win, given even the FAA considers it a danger.
Adding to this that a recent analysis indicates that the battery stress tolerances in the phone are beyond acceptable, it would they work out to be a potentially ticking time bomb.
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They should be forced to reimburse you the full price of the item they damaged. That will teach them. Oh wait...
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They should be forced to reimburse you the full price of the item they damaged. That will teach them. Oh wait...
And reimburse you for any cancellation fees for any carrier plans you may have signed up for, and replace your old phone for the same price you traded it in for. Lets not pretend Samsung fully reimbursed their Note 7 customers.
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I don't know why you and your brother post focus so much on phones bought on contract! If you did so then the provider is the seller and the entity with which you have a sale contract and a telecommunications contract or 2-in-one or whatever labels or combinations they come up with. They should be the ones on the hook for making you whole, as opposed to some company from another continent with which you never had a contract to start with.
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This is the exact logical flip-side of not being able to sign away your various rights, a policy that much (not all) of /. seems to be strongly in favor of.
For instance, in this case, there's no legal structure ('merican here) that would allow Samsung to propose that you can keep your phone in exchange for a waiver of liability for the defects in the product. So basically, the claim of "I want to own my device" implies that (a) you can turn down their request to swap it for a non-exploding device and (b) th
Great that they can control your property (Score:2, Insightful)
This time, they use it for good, but what when its used for bad?
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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.
Re:Great that they can control your property (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I'm not putting the cart before the horse, I'm simply being pragmatic. As long as self-updating phones exist, you cannot prevent the pusher from doing nasty things. If you are worried about nasty things, get a phone that doesn't self update. Or disable the automatic updates (if your carrier has that option). Or download "Package Disabler Pro" and stop the Samsung update service. Or root it. But I think at this point both the carriers and the major vendors seem to be of the opinion that a bunch of unpatched
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I've found the opposite in many cases. Asking for permission is a form of CYA and responsibility dodging. Often if you want something done you need to man up and just do it. In this case, we tried the whole "let people be in charge of their computers" thing for 30 or 40 years. The vast majority of people let things slide, and so I can't blame companies for the approach they are taking. But if they start prison raping us, yeah we should probably push back. As a practical matter, if you give 2 shits you can d
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I expect you would have a consumer group or watchdog with which you can lodge a complaint. At least that is how it work in the EU.
Re:Great that they can control your property (Score:5, Insightful)
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A vendor was selling illegal copies of the works digitally on amazon. The looked as if they had been canned in from paper copies, and the seller did not have rights.
Amazon pulled the digital copies - from users - AND REFUNDED. Consumers were then free to pick up a real, verified, licensed copy.
This was not censorship on Amazon's part, and in some ways was pro
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those were pirated copies from non-legit sellers and Amazon refunded the money and you still had the option to buy from the legit publisher
So? If they had accidentally sold you a physical book they would have no right to come into your house and take it back.
The more things we have that become digital, the more we are going to have to start applying property rights to them.
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Hm, you might actually be right here. Though I think it's a bit more murky with copyright law vs physical objects.
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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 ag
That rarest of events (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
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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...
When you ask?
It is unfortunate that I see the rising "value" of mass censorship as being heralded as some kind of good thing these days, so I see this type of tool coming soon to a Freedom near you, gift-wrapped in pretty best-interest paper...
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When you ask?
It is unfortunate that I see the rising "value" of mass censorship as being heralded as some kind of good thing these days
Wibble, wibble. Regulations are what separates civilised society from the jungle.
so I see this type of tool coming soon to a Freedom near you, gift-wrapped in pretty best-interest paper...
Real freedom means someone stronger and faster than you gets to kill you and take your stuff at will. You think that is a better situation?
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Yes I do. That way I control my environment. I don't need others to do that for me. I'll choose what's best for me and accept all risks. I'm not a child that needs constant supervision. I'm a man.
No you don't. You don't have to face most of those risks because someone else is already protecting you from them.
Your perception of freedom is laughable. Perhaps you should go spend some time is a really free environment like Afghanistan or Syria and see how you manhood holds up under truly free conditions? The USA or any western country is like a Fisher Price playpen by comparison.
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Anarchy isn't freedom. How you were taught that or somehow came to that conclusion is simply wrong. Two entirely different concepts that don't simultaneously exist as you suggest.
Of course it does. Regulations are what prevent the anarchy. You can go too far one way or to far the other, but claiming you are in complete control of all external forces and don't need others to do it for you is childish. "I'll choose what works best for me" only works until you meet someone else that has the exact same opinion and wants what you have.
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An actual case where the manufacturer is disabling the product in the best interest of the public.
In their own interest. If more of their ridiculous phones explode, the lawsuits that Samsung would have to deal with would be epic.
Re:That rarest of events (Score:4, Insightful)
One way or the other (Score:2)
Samsung may permanently disable Galaxy Note 7 Phones before the phones designed by Samsung permanently disable themselves.
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
-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-
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There is little doubt this ability has been or will be exploited, and don't forget, extensive and intrusive government surveillance was discounted as tin-hatter prior to Edward Snowden.
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It depends on how the ink cartridge/print head is designed. Some ink cartridges have the print head built in. Since you typically throw them away when they are empty, running them dry and damaging them isn't really much of a concern.
If the print head assembly is separate from the ink tank, running them dry can result in clogged jets or transfer pads. They might be recoverable if replacement ink is added to dissolve the dried ink. Or it can result in more expensive replacement parts.
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That's exactly why we need open source software. I'm a long time iOS user (for usability reasons) but anything I'm hanging my business on in form of mobile has to be either pure Linux or AOSP-capable Android. I'm even thinking about upgrading out of the iDevice for personal items given that Android 8 or 9 gets a usable input mechanism and AOSP hardware without ANY capacitive buttons (hardware buttons like iOS don't get triggered by hovering over them).
Yes, I do compile my own Android and will send back the
Really? (Score:2)
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Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [ap.org] 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?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
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... [cnet.com] (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.
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I know you and Slashdot have a fetish for removable batteries but is dishonest to pain this as a sealed battery problem.
It has not one single solitary little bitty thing to do with a battery that is sealed in place, versus a removable battery. Where on earth did you ever in a million years get that idea that I was arguing that?
It has 100 percent, not a shadow of a doubt, irrefutable laws of physics, total to do with a battery compartment that is simply and 100 percent clearly - too small.
So unless the laws of physics make replaceable batteries somehow not expand when heated, not expand when charged, simply not expand
So, if you turn the phone off, (Score:2)
Then plug it in - will it charge? On some of my older HTC phones I would turn them off when I charged them when I had some place to be because it was significantly faster.
Then, sometime during all of this, install a non-standard ROM. I've used Cyanogen Mod and Fresh Evo in the past, I'm sure there's a non-Samsung ROM you could put on the thing. That way you have plenty of opportunity to have the thing explode on your own terms.
Re:So, if you turn the phone off, (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Do not try to charge a lipo above *4.2* volts.
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Sorry yes 4.2 volts. Brain was tired.
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My guess would be the answer is no. There seems to be a fair amount of software involved in charging these days. iDevices turn on fully the moment you plug them in, while several generations of my Android devices take a while before they turn on the display to show charging status from a powered down state. I'm guessing whatever they are doing to disable charging, goes into whatever piece of software is running while the device is charging.
But, as I said, that's just a guess. I'm sure someone in the comment
I see what they're going to do (Score:2)
They're going to make the phones self-destruct.
Of course (Score:2)
Interesting they're shutting down devices and not (Score:3)
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.
Hmm... interesting. (Score:2)
Given the small numbers of fires so far and the fact that they already limited charging, this makes me think that they now believe the problem will get worse over time—i.e. it's not just that a few units are affected by the poor design choice with battery tolerances, when exposed to just the right conditions, but that EVERY unit has an elevated likelihood of going up in smoke over time, i.e. the ticking time bomb phenomenon.
"We've analyzed their attack sir, and there is a danger."
Otherwise, this would
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Not really. A single major incident could cost them a million or more in liability. If there are only 100,000 (of the 5M manufactured) in the wild, and they continue to have problems at the original 1/200000 per month, that's 6 potential liability claims a year on a product with no revenue. They're offering a full refund, token refunds of accessories, and $25 in "we're sorry" cash. Aside from being a stubborn asshole, there's no real reason to keep them.
Already modified? (Score:3)
At least, they should have done that.
Why not LIMIT charging to x% max or y% at a time? (Score:2)
- limit charging to some maximum percentage (maybe 80%)
- limit the charging rate (no fast charging)
- limit the amount of time per charge (with some enforced delay between charging periods)
Verizon says Nope! We won't do it. (Score:2)
ref: http://www.theverge.com/circui... [theverge.com]
"In October, Samsung announced a voluntary recall of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 when it was discovered that all available devices could overheat and pose a safety risk to customers. Since that time, a vast majority of Verizon customers who purchased the Note 7 have replaced their phones with other models.
Today, Samsung announced an update to the Galaxy Note 7 that would stop the smartphone from charging, rendering it useless unless attached t
Dec 19 is drop dead date ... (Score:2)
... according to Samsung [samsung.com].
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Great 285,000 potential bombs around the US courtesy of Samsung.
Yeah, nothing could be nearly as bad as the fire risk posed by these phones in the wild: http://www.nfpa.org/public-edu... [nfpa.org]
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This is great and all so far as it goes, and IANAL, but now that you know you have a substantial risk of your phone catching fire, if/when it catches fire someone else is nearby and it injures them or their property they can probably sue you.
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You want to keep on wearing a potentially exploding phone in your pants?
Great idea! This is how natural selection works.
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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.
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And just like with being not vaccinated, you'll cry bloody murder and blame everyone but yourself when the shit hits the fan, right?
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Same basic thing with the touchpad/veer I have. The battery life probably doubled over the 3-4 months as online functionality was shutdown.
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Imagine that, stop using peripherals that naturally consume power, your battery lasts longer.
ITS A CONSPIRACY!!
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Re: Android is just another walled garden (Score:2)