iPhone electrical shock caused death

[sense]

Apple to probe reported iPhone shock death

BEIJING, July 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Apple Inc yesterday announced it would "thoroughly investigate" an accident in which a woman in northwest China was suspected of being killed by an electric shock when making a phone call with a recharging iPhone 5.

Ma Ailun, a 23-year-old flight attendant with China Southern Airlines, was picking up her iPhone 5 to answer a call while the battery was being charged when she was electrocuted and killed last Thursday, police said Sunday.

But police have not confirmed whether a mobile phone was involved as they continue to investigate the case.

A spokeswoman for the technology company said: "We are deeply saddened to learn of this tragic incident and offer our condolences to the ... family. We will fully investigate and co-operate with authorities in this matter."

Ma, who was planning her wedding on August 8, fell to the floor when making a call with her iPhone 5, which was being recharged at the time, Ma's sister said on her microblog account.

Ma Ailun bought the iPhone in December at an official Apple store and was using the original charger to recharge the phone when the incident occurred, her sister said.

"I want to warn everyone else not to make phone calls when your mobile phone is recharging," she tweeted.

The sister's tweet was reposted more than 3,000 times. And the microblogging site was flooded with posts urging fellow users not to make calls while charging their phones.

Experts said mobile phones have a low output of only 3 to 5 volts, which isn't enough to harm the human body.

People will feel an electric shock at about 36 volts.

"However, if the charger or the circuit has a problem, such as a broken wire, it can lead to a shock of 220 volts," a senior physics teacher at a Nanjing high school was quoted as saying in a media report.

Xu Xuelu, an expert with the Nanjing Appliance Repairing Association, recommended people avoid making calls with their mobile phone while it is being recharged.

In 2010, a man in northeast China was killed by an electric shock when making a phone call with a handset that was being recharged with an unauthorized charger, according to the China Consumers Association.

 

[PUNISHER]

Maybe she die of " shock " when she heard that her boyfriend is a gay

 

[Leongsam]

Load of bull from a cheating, lying chink.

 

[singveld]

Chinese woman electrocuted by iphone 4 likely used unauthorized charger

Ma Ailun, the 23-year-old Chinese woman who was killed via electric shock when answering a call on her iPhone last week, was most likely using an unauthorized third party charger, reports the South China Morning Post.

Knockoff chargers often use low cost supplies and fail to meet standards for the adequate isolation of electrical input and output, making them more dangerous than brand name chargers that are subject to safety regulations.


According to Xiang Ligang, a telecommunications expert interviewed by CCTV, the charger Ma had been using may have been a "knockoff" - a fake.

"Knockoff chargers sometimes cut corners," Xiang said. "The quality of the capacitor and circuit protector may not be good, and this may lead to the capacitor breaking down and sending 220 volts of electricity directly into the cell phone battery."

The woman was also reportedly using an iPhone 4 at the time of the incident, rather than an iPhone 5 as was originally stated. The iPhone 4 contains stainless steel, while the iPhone 5 is primarily aluminum. It is still unclear what caused the malfunction, as the iPhone 4 apparently remained functional after the incident.

Xiang said that normally, the electric current from an overloaded charger would overheat the phone’s casing, damaging the circuits inside and rendering the device unusable. In the case of Ma’s iPhone 4, however, authorities said the phone could still be started normally despite severe traces of burning on its exterior. The phone’s data cable, charger, and plug were all intact.

A police investigation into the incident is underway, and Apple has pledged to look into the accident. "We are deeply saddened to learn of this tragic incident," said an Apple spokeswoman. "We will fully investigate and co-operate with the authorities in this matter."

A second iPhone related electrocution has also been reported (via ZDNet), involving a man who was injured while connecting his iPhone 4 to a third party charger 10 days ago. The man, who is currently in a hospital in Beijing, remains in a coma.

 

[singveld]

RIP

 

[laksaboy]

Silly Tiongs. If you want to be a cheapskate and use 山寨货, then don't KPKB when something bad happens.

Plonkers.

 

[Leongsam]

Silly Tiongs. If you want to be a cheapskate and use 山寨货, then don't KPKB when something bad happens.

Plonkers.

The worst nation on the face of this earth.

 

[singveld]

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fake charger - made in china

 

[singveld]

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china boy in coma after using charger

 

[singveld]

A 30-year old man has been in a coma in a Beijing hospital for over ten days after being electrocuted whilst charging his iPhone 4, the second such incident reported in China this week.

Wu Jiantong is now breathing unassisted and undergoing hyperbaric oxygen treatment in an effort to help his brain recover, according to Beijing Evening News.

Wu’s sister told the paper she heard him scream “I’m being electrocuted” as he tried to connect his iPhone 4 to a charger, and found him convulsing on the floor, foaming at the mouth.

She unplugged the charger, apparently feeling an electric current run through her body, and called paramedics who revived Wu with CPR.

A doctor at the Beijing hospital he was taken to apparently diagnosed the cause of his injuries as an electric shock.

The handset and charger in question didn’t show any signs of damage, however the latter was apparently not an “official” Apple peripheral.

Wu’s family told Beijing Evening News that on the night in question the air inside his apartment was humid, which may not have been good for the charger’s wiring.

The incident is the second in a week to emerge from China, after a 23-year-old former air stewardess died after apparently being electrocuted as she answered her iPhone 5 whilst it was charging.

In Chongqing, meanwhile, an iPhone 4 exploded while its owner was asleep, setting fire to his bed.

Apple couldn’t immediately be reached for commen

 

[Lestat]

Handset is original but the charging unit is not. Spend so much money buying an original phone but can't spend that extra few bucks to buy a original charger?

 

[steffychun]

iphone--murdering you when charging.

Good weapon for spies.

 

[blackmondy]

That's the problem when your phone is made of aluminum.

 

[singveld]

 

[singveld]

Another day, another fake iPhone charger accident. Unlike last week’s incident, which reportedly killed Chinese 23-year-old Ma Ailun, her countryman Wu Jian is still alive but in a coma after his counterfeit iPhone 4 charger gave him a severe shock, causing cardiac arrest and depriving his brain of oxygen.

These accidents happen all the time, and not just in China. Apple sells its basic name-brand chargers for around $20, at what experts say are very healthy profit margins. Meanwhile there are millions of counterfeits on the market selling for a dollar or two—a black market that thrives in part because the real thing is so expensive.

These fakes appear virtually identical to the real thing, although a close inspection of the fine print will often turn up text like “Designed by Abble” or “Designed by California” instead of the authentic “Designed by Apple in California.” Inside they are shoddily made, with many of the advanced safeguards eliminated to cut costs.

An authentic charger is actually a marvel of modern technology. As blogger Ken Shirriff explains:

Internally a charger is an amazingly compact switching power supply that efficiently converts line AC into 5 volt DC output. The input AC is first converted to high-voltage DC. The DC is chopped up tens of thousands of times a second and fed into a tiny flyback transformer. The output of the transformer is converted to low-voltage DC, filtered, and provided as the 5 volt output through the USB port. A feedback mechanism regulates the chopping frequency to keep the output voltage stable. Name-brand chargers use a specialized control IC [integrated circuit] to run the charger, while cheap chargers cut corners by replacing the IC with a cheap, low-quality feedback circuit.

Imitation chargers also don’t have the same overrides that prevent short circuits in the event of overheating or a surge in current.

At the very least, cheap chargers may simply not work. More worryingly, they could damage your phone, overheat, or even cause a fire. At the catastrophic end of the spectrum, the charger could expose your body to a deadly dose of electricity. As Sherriff notes, “There’s 340 volts DC inside the charger, which is enough to kill.”

Making safer chargers isn’t actually that expensive. Sherriff estimates the iPhone 4 Apple charger he reviewed “has about a dollar’s worth of additional components inside,” compared with a similar Samsung charger that sells for $8-10, but Apple’s costs considerably more. The iPhone’s proprietary plugs also stand out since the rest of the smartphone industry is moving toward standardized chargers.

Apple has taken steps to make counterfeiting a bit more difficult with the iPhone 5′s new Lightning connector, which has an authentication chip designed to foil imposters. (The Lightning cable is detachable, so it works with older iPhone chargers.) But it only took Chinese knock-off manufacturers a few months to crack the code and start churning out imitation Lightning cables, as Gizmodo reported. They were laughably low-quality—they were even pieced together with masking tape.

The Lightning connectors were widely derided as an Apple money grab by users whose old iPhone accessories no longer worked without a $10 adapter, creating a huge potential market for both Apple and its counterfeiters. But with every new death or injury from a fake Apple charger that hits the news, saving a few bucks seems like less of a bargain.

 

[singveld]

 

[singveld]

 

[singveld]

fake

original

 

[singveld]

 

[singveld]