Exploding Laptop Video Featured on National TV
Nationally syndicated show America Now recently featured footage from PC Pitstop’s Exploding Laptop research video.
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PC Safety
Malware Triggering Printers to Explode?
Researchers at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science have uncovered a vunerability that leaves tens of millions of common office printers open to devasting malware infections – including attacks that could cause the printers to catch on fire.
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‘Flames & Fire’ Prompt New HP & Compaq Battery Recall
HP has announced the recall of 70,000 lithium ion notebook batteries. Is your model on this list?
According to yesterday’s release from the Consumer Product Safety Commision, the recall was driven by “two reports of batteries that overheated and ruptured, resulting in flames/fire”
Check out our world famous video of what happens when a laptop catches fire.
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A Video is Worth a Hundred Blogs
I was shocked when Dell announced their first battery recall in August 2006, quickly followed by Apple. Being cynical by nature, the only reason that these companies would proactively do an expensive battery recall was to limit liability on a potentially explosive (pun intended) issue. I talked to numerous industry vets and learned that the potential exists for many more battery explosions and recalls. At PC Pitstop, I made it our mission to inform the public of the danger of battery fires, and practical tips to avoid them.
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Notebook PC Explodes
We intentionally created conditions in which the Li-ON battery pack would explode inside a generic portable. The results are dramatic. There are numerous conditions where these fires can occur in real life. Faulty battery packs (driving the recalls), faulty protection circuits inside the PC, exposure to excessive heat, and blunt force are some of the major ways that this could happen to you.
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Playing with Fire: Part II
Tony Olson
CEO D2 Worldwide
Rob: Hi, this is Rob Cheng. It’s October 13th, 2006. I’m here with Tony Olson who is an old friend of mine that I worked with at Gateway. He was the Vice President of Engineering. Tony started a brand new company called D2 Worldwide and he has a lot of insight into the portables and what’s going on there. Tony, first tell me a little bit about D2 Worldwide and how you learned so much about the portables.
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Playing with Fire
Last month, Dell announced they would be replacing over 4 million batteries from notebook computers shipped worldwide during the last 2 years. Shortly, after that Apple announced a similar recall on a smaller scale. Doing a recall on this magnitude is an extremely expensive and complex task, and PC Pitstop applauds these companies for leading the way. The reality is that all portables running LiON batteries have some probability of exploding. Apple and Dell owners should be pleased, not dismayed, that their manufacturers chose to be the leaders in alerting their users to the risks of portable computing.