Once again, I thought I would share something from the web.
I use a laptop so I was very interested in the following article:
Laptops have been really hot lately
ALEX DOBROTA
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Cindy Brown wrapped an Apple laptop and put it under the Christmas tree last
year, thinking about the future of her 11-year-old son in an increasingly
digitalized
world.
Instead, her gift turned into a flaming nightmare.
It started as a quiet April evening. Mrs. Brown and her husband had set the
table of their second-floor dining room in Solon, Iowa. One storey below, their
son Nick left his laptop idling on the living-room carpet and headed into the
basement to play an Xbox video game.
About 30 minutes later, a popping sound rattled the house. Mrs. Brown dropped
her fork and knife and rushed down the stairs to find the carpet already melted
around the laptop.
"Smoke filled the house and we got it outside kind of staring at it [thinking]:
'Okay, computers don't smoke, what in the world?' " Mrs. Brown, a stay-at-home
mother, said.
Seconds later, the laptop erupted in a ball of flames. The family watched in
disbelief as the computer flared up several times on the flagstone walkway.
"You'd like to think that it was an isolated incident," Mrs. Brown said.
It's not. A string of laptop fires, sparked by faulty or overheated batteries,
is raising concern with industry experts and computer manufacturers. As many
as 43 laptop fires have been reported in the United States since 2001, according
to statistics compiled by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
No one died, but some laptop users were severely injured, CPSC spokeswoman Julie
Vallese said.
To curb this trend, laptop companies have recalled more than 150,000 batteries
since Jan. 1, 2005. Hewlett-Packard recalled 15,700 of them in April alone.
Dell retrieved 22,000 batteries in December and Apple recalled about 120,000
batteries in 2005.
While no incidents have been reported in Canada, one Toronto-based research
group says it could be just a matter of time.
"A burning laptop is a burning laptop and it can pretty much happen anywhere,"
said Carmi Levy, a senior analyst with the Toronto-based Info-Tech research
group.
As laptops become faster and acquire more features such as DVD players, their
batteries have to work harder, Mr. Levy said. But the machines are also getting
slimmer, with less room for ventilation. This increases the risk of a meltdown
and a fire, he said.
"On an airplane, I would be very concerned about this kind of thing happening,"
Mr. Levy said, calling for computer companies to pay more attention to the
issue.
The lithium ion batteries that power most laptops produce electricity through a
chemical reaction that releases oxygen, said Linda Nazar, a chemistry professor
at the University of Waterloo. The oxygen reacts with one of the battery's
components, an organic solvent, to produce heat that can melt the battery's
membrane, Prof. Nazar said.
"When that melts, then everything all goes to hell," she said.
That seems to have happened this month in Osaka, Japan, where the most recent
reported laptop fire had people at a boardroom meeting shielding their faces
as a notebook exploded on a table. No one was injured. The laptop was a Dell
machine, witnesses said.
Dell is investigating and believes it was an isolated incident that does not
reflect broader problems, Kevin Kettler, the company's chief technology officer,
told reporters during a briefing on other topics at Dell headquarters in Texas
last week.
But George Bulat, director of hardware research at the research group IDC
Canada, suggested that laptop vendors educate customers about the potential
dangers.
"If you're going to be on a long-distance flight, be cognizant of the heat," he
said. "If it's heating up, don't just put a pillow under it."
An official with Hewlett-Packard Canada said the company does not want to
comment on the issue. Apple did not return calls.
Mrs. Brown said the family is thinking about suing Apple.
Nick has become wary of computers after seeing his first laptop flame up, she
said. Replacing the burned carpet will cost about $15,000, and a charred spot
on the family walkway still reminds the Browns of that April evening.
"Had we not been home or been outside, or not close enough to hear that noise,
it certainly would have burned our house down."
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