I, V, M. I'm sorry about that, I'm sorry about that... and the native app of course for iOS. If you happen to use a blackberry, we'll record it on tape and send it to you personally.
So what are we discussing today, Chuck? Shall we start with a usual segment? Don't you know what is a simplified episode without? Three, two, one.
So when we take a look at it, I received this fantastic one, which shows I wish our listeners could actually see this. Actually, there's so much in this. It shows a young little Caucasian looking boy with a hat, wearing a little suit and holding what appears to be a very old film camera. And he has underneath him the words, have a great day.
It's what's to the left of him, however, which piques my interest. Life is like a camera. Focus on what's important. Capture the good times.
Develop from the negatives. And if things don't work out, take another shot. Okay, now, let's hand this, there is so much to like you and I. Now, I'm now understanding that in what makes a great watch that forward.
There's a consistent theme, yeah, camera, in this case, the image of a cute kid. The two important lines, good morning and life is like. You know, if you start with life, it's like you just can't go wrong. Yeah, I was on a car once.
Somebody compared a life in the P junction. Yeah, you can compare a life to absolutely anything. But you know what, I offer my own version of this to reflect the real state of affairs in our really lives. Life is indeed like a camera.
A memory card is susceptible to corruption, like politicians or your libido. The batteries like you run out, like your patients or your libido. Don't go around and stick it in other people's faces without their consent, much like your opinion or your libido. And finally, practice using it in private before yanking it out everywhere you go, like a professional and putting your signature on it.
Like pretty much your libido. Yeah. Well, thanks to your libido, you're a professional photographer, the same way ever again. Don't forget to ask him whether he's using a macro or wide angle or zoom or a prime.
GoPro I've been told is best faction shots. If you can hear a dull repeated thought just about now, that's how producer banging his head in frustration on the table. I know. Yeah.
So let's move on. What do we want to talk about today? Is an episode that you've all heard of? Let's just say if you're hearing this episode on a Samsung Galaxy Note 7, quickly remove your plugs through the phone away and run as fast as can.
Check it seems the Korean phone maker Samsung is finally new for something more important than making fun of Apple. One is that their phones are exploding, causing a new type of risk to mobile phone users. And before this, the only risk was getting, only risk for mobile phone users getting hit by a truck or falling off a cliff while taking a selfie, which is of course, as Shakespeare said, a consummation devoutly to be wished. The guy that I tell you, I mean, selfie all over the place.
Yeah. So the third risk now, this is the most exciting one to happen to, is having the phone blast, right? Literally go off like a bomb. And if it happens in the vicinity of your reproductive organs, I guess it's going to be pretty painful.
At the very least. So potential for Jokesler is just way too much over here. Usually when marketers say that the products are going to set the market on fire, they're speaking only metaphorically. Samsung, while not the first product or even mobile phone to go kablu-e has the distinct advantage of doing so, at the time when there are millions of jobless people on Twitter and the next best news story is, I like quote, so now she's in us holidays in the seashells.
Totally. You want the gem from the times of India? I never have. What did you ever guess?
In any case, this should be a warning to marketers, not to use hyper-bolt because these things might actually happen therein. I think after this issue, it's Samsung, nobody will ever want to say that the product is going to cause an explosion in the market, or they're going to be releasing a very hot product, or they're going to give consumers a total blast. These things are totally not there. So let's look at what exactly happened, and why this happened to poor old Samsung, right?
The facts of the case, if you've lived under a rock to, where no technical websites are allowed, are these? As of September 26, 2016, in the US alone, 92 Samsung Note 7 batteries have overheated, 26 of which caused burns and 55 caused damage to property, including cars and garages. In Korea, Samsung's home, there have been over 30 instances of the phone catching fire. This led to 2 and 1 half million Samsung Galaxy Note 7 being recalled over 2 and 1 half million.
2 and 1 half million for less than 100 phones blasting. So in back to the president of Samsung, electronics, North America said, Samsung continues to ensure that customer safety remains are top priority. That's nice. That's really nice.
But a 2012 internal document stated Samsung's top priority was to beat Apple. So not to be fair to Samsung, it didn't state beat Apple in what? If spontaneous combustibility was what they were looking for, they did a pretty good job of it. And the weird part is that here's where the laziness of the world is coming into play.
You have a phone that's like you succinctly put it capable of blowing your balls off. And here's where the laziness of the world is coming into play. You have a phone that's like you've succinctly put it capable of blowing your balls off. And here's where the laziness of the world is coming into play.
People are being very slow about returning the potentially explosive phones. Just about 60, Samsung estimates only 60% of the people are even going to return the phones to get a replacement phone or a refund. Now here's the other even stranger thing. Customers are actually opting for a replacement rather than get a refund altogether.
Keep in mind that when an explosion happens, it's not something cute, like a bubble wrap up next to your ear or something. It's something that could set half your face off. This goes to show on the rain that either people don't care about a faulty device, conflagrating their residence, or they just don't want to go to the hassle of selecting another phone. It's mystifying.
What more incentive do you have? No, no, no, it's not. It's only comes and sort of bites you in the ass. What is going on?
So I kind of agree actually, deciding which phone to buy is a total nightmare. I can see why some people would choose a potentially blasting phone or be able to buy an exultable all over the room. But still, I mean, you know, this is lethal. This is lethal.
And on that lethal, no, let's just take a small break and then we'll come back and actually look at why phones explode. We'll be right back. Stay tuned. Namaste, sashir kal.
Good morning, evening, afternoon. My podcast is Sajal Says. No guys, no topic and no filter say from further bros. That's me, Monday to Friday, Sunday Sunday night.
We have kids. We chat with celebs, you'll never meet traffic jams on streets and people from all professions. Every one day I go live with the show, ask me anything, you follow the questions, I know I'm better than a Mumbai richan driver. I even host a panel discussion called Cocking Bull where we dive into current affairs and wonder why anyone even cares at all.
And Friday releases are always surprise episodes for you all. So tune into CyberSayers on YouTube and all our new streaming platforms. It feels like everyone's talking about two things right now. Pickleball and podcast.
So what happens when someone who's lived her whole life on the court decides to bring those two worlds together? I'm Sanya Mirzam and I'm bringing you a brand new podcast, Serving It Up with Sanya. I've had some incredible conversations with friends, fellow athletes, artists and entrepreneurs. Each episode starts with the game of Pickleball and once the rallies are done, the real talk begins.
So I'm going to bring it up with Sanya, watch and listen on YouTube and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Hi there, thanks for sticking around. But as we have established in the last segment, once a person has decided to stick with the phone, he'll continue to stick with it even if there is a risk of it for blowing up your face. So thank you listeners and you're sure you've simplified it's not flammable?
So now we're going to look at how and why phone batteries explode. And for that we turn to our in-house chemical engineer, Mr. Chuk. Nothing I've told you many times not to slander me by bringing up my dirty past.
One more of these learners and I'll be forced to remind our listeners that you're an MBA. Okay, okay, you know tell, I know tell, which reminds me of a joke. I don't know if you heard it before please forgive me. But you know there's this missionary in the who's gone to Africa and sort of, he's spent a lot of time ingratiating himself with a tribe and converting them to Christianity and everything.
And I think he's going fine till one day the chief's wife has a white baby, right? So the chief is really pissed. So he calls the missionary and he sort of tells his assistant to sharpen their knives. So the missionary is, you know, he says, my son is way apologetically, you know, I'm really sorry for this.
But you know, this is also the large doing. Some black sheep and otherwise white flock. So then the African chief says, okay, okay, you know, tell, I know tell. Oh yeah, you don't tell about my, I don't tell about it.
I don't tell about it. Fair enough. That's a very long winded way to arrive at that point. All right, so let's talk about phones exploding.
So initially when Samsung, so initially what happened was Samsung mysteriously stopped shipping their devices. Not saying why. Without saying why. And here's the weird part was the product was flying with the shelves.
The note seven is one of the note series and the gallery. They're very popular. They're very popular. So something like 400,000 phones or something got sold in the first week, which is which makes it pretty much like a global hit.
And so suspicion would be aroused if the company making money stops the process by which it's making money in the first place unless they turned suddenly socialist. And to a stick. Yeah. So it goes into their 2012 document as well.
Yeah. Yeah. They're not going to beat Apple. Like that's right.
So people suspected something, especially a problem with the stylus, but then a video surfaced. And no, that's not a pun on Microsoft's surface. No, I'd say that. Oh, I see what you did then.
A video, a video, a video, a video surfaced of the Note 7 exploding while it's being charged. And I've seen some of those videos and photos and they look scary. It's enough for anyone to want to rush out and buy a Bluetooth headset instead of ever propping their phones to their faces. A millimeter away from their brains, no matter how sparsely they're used ever, ever again.
Finally Samsung admitted that they indeed was a battery issue after testing and they immediately ordered a recall. So that's a fact. Now to understand exactly what happened and here's where the nonsense of the episode stops. Emporarily.
And the science begins, the simplifying bits, if you will. So, phones use something called lithium ion battery, which sounds nice and fancy, especially to Nirvana fans. Lithium as fans of the periodic table will know is the third element on the periodic table. Oh, Lorraine, I have a joke for you.
What happens when you're in a chemistry class about the periodic table and you get bored? I'm dreading this, what? You mentally leave. Actually, that is clever for a change.
You are in your element. Oh, I see what you did. But let's not go down the rabbit hole of making chemistry jokes. Like a vice person said, there's no point making chemistry jokes.
All of them are gone. So that's a rabbit hole. We'll not get into it. Anyway, lithium by virtue of having just three electrons per atom, hence lotting it at number three in the said prestigious periodic table.
It's very light, a property that's very useful for making lightweight things like batteries. It's useful here to see for a minute how batteries exactly work and I urge you listeners to pay attention. Now, an electronic device like a phone works through electricity and electricity needs to be supplied from somewhere. And since we can't always keep the phone plugged into a wall like a TV or a fridge, the source comes from a battery.
So electricity is basically the flow of electrons. Now the question is how do you get electrons to flow? So these electrons move from a place that's negatively charged to a place that's positively charged. Simple enough, the place that's negatively charged is called an anode.
It has excess electrons and the positively charged place is called a cathode, which is deficient in electrons. Hopefully still with us. Unlike news about Hariana and Arin, an anode is not a natural source of infinite negativity. At the same time, what is the poor cathode to do with all those excess electrons?
So you think about it. So if there was only some way for the cathode to send all those excess electrons back to the anode so that the process could repeat again and again. And guess what? Chemistry is here to save the day.
So you put a fluid between these two electrodes, which you call an electrolyte and make the cathode and anode out of materials. So certain chemical reaction happens. The cathode is made out of lithium, say a compound like lithium, cobalt oxide, because it's light, which when charging sends lithium ions to the anode. The anode and the cathode are actually connected via a metal plate at either end, which is usually aluminum and copper.
And when discharging happens, the aluminum and copper plates get connected and electrons flow from the anode to the cathode. So that's usually be through the circuit. Yeah, through the circuit, which in turn charges the phone. Because of which lithium ions leave the cathode and go to the anode through the electrolyte.
The process is reverse while charging. That's quite a bit of chemistry to stop. Yeah, yeah. So if you're confused, I'm going to recap very, very simply a battery needs electrons to flow in order to work.
And this happens because of an anode and a cathode. That's honestly all you need to know. Alright, if you don't get all those bits about electrolytes and all that, it's absolutely fine. Now, the important thing to take away is there's an anode and a cathode which is responsible for electricity being created.
Now, now, think of the anode and cathode as warring sets of in-laws. Right. Each knows of the other's existence. They know they're in some way probably affected by each other, but should in no circumstance ever known as force to meet.
Because when they do meet, bad things will happen. Oh, very, very bad things will happen. And the person most likely to be affected are the poor fellows holding both sets together, i.e. the married couple.
And will be affected in some bad way, very, very bad way. Like being asked why procreation hasn't happened yet, despite five years. Very, very bad way. No.
So, you know, I don't know chemistry was so much like an attack on the whole life. Potassium being the key element. All those. Now, you must be wondering, anode cathode was all this nonsense.
So when the anode and cathode do meet, all hell actually breaks loose because the whole time electrolyte solution gets charged up. And that leads to a lot of heat being released in a very, very small volume. And just like how when warring in law suddenly start fighting at her marriage function. Think of everybody else who attends the wedding as the electrolyte.
Suddenly everybody gets charged up and all hell breaks loose. So, it's very useful to think of your battery as say a tamarang wedding or something like that. So, a lot of heat is suddenly released, bless you, nothing. A lot of heat is suddenly released in a very, very small volume.
You're talking about a battery, nothing's nose. Like, how in case you... Because I spend a lot of time in Bombay traffic. And I've got like, I don't know, a lot of carbon dioxide and carbon and what not.
You think that humans would have adapted to all this by now. I totally believe that some may be evolve a little further. In Bombay definitely. All this, basically when an anode and cathode meets, lots of heat is released in a very, very small volume.
And that's never a good thing. Look at Mumtav energy for instance, Narain. For warnings as to why there should not be a lot of pent-up energy in such a small volume. So, when the battery explodes, it leaves fire, destructions and potentially loss in its wake.
Why does this happen though? You think batteries have precautions against such things happening, right? Especially by huge companies that make so much money. You would think so, right?
So batteries actually have a separator. Okay, so between the anode and cathode to prevent them from actually accidentally meeting like this, there is a separator. Think of again, Tamara wedding, the one guy who's designated to make sure that these are never met. That's a separator, it's typically graphite.
A physical barrier. In our in-laws analogy again, the physical barrier can be metaphorically represented as distance. For example, one in-laws set is in Jaipur where the other in-laws set is in Seimadas and the two in-laws shall never meet. Now, in a bid to make batteries smaller and lighter and eke out every MH out of the battery, the separator can sometimes get compromised, which is a very bad idea.
In some cases, the barrier will fail and the electrodes shall unfortunately meet. And when that happens? Yeah, and that's almost always what happens when lithium ion battery explodes. Actually, I do see warnings on all of them.
You can't dispose of them by fire. That's probably the reason. Yeah, yeah. So all 90-odd phones that exploded, actually this was the cause.
I should probably add one thing over here as to why lithium ion batteries are so popular. The pros being they hold a lot more energy at a much, much less weight. That's the holy grail of battery. That's the holy grail of battery devices.
They also provide much higher voltage, which is also very useful, especially for say something like electric cars, which needs a lot of voltage. They are faster at recharging also. As much as we may complain, there are phones charged too slowly. Lithium ion actually charges much, much faster than say a lead-based.
If you ever had to recharge your car battery, you know, it's close to a day, right? The flip side of this, of course, is it's more expensive compared to a lead-based battery. But then that's a compromise that we made. And pretty much all mobile devices in the world use some form of lithium ion battery.
And that's what went wrong with the galaxy. What's happened? The separators were flawed and the two electrodes, like the two in-laws, they were made to touch. Oh dear, that just sounds dirty.
That just sounds wrong. I'm so sorry. That, like I said, almost guarantees an explosion. It is also not held by the fact that the electrolytes themselves aren't exactly very stable to begin, to stable themselves to begin with.
Usually what happens is sometimes a small hole is created for this sort of extra heat to be dissipated, which is not there in the case of mobile phone battery. But a lot of times there is software that can sense whether the phone is actually getting too hot and will not allow you to charge your own. That's why they have their automatic things. So it's too hot to do so.
It sometimes just shuts us out. So next time that actually happens, pay attention. And being said, there are a lot of other electronics that do get hot and people worry whether they're going to explode. But unless they have a lithium ion battery in them, I don't think that is because there are many types of electronics used certain types of circuit revives naturally become short.
Like for example, I have a headphone amplifier at home. I don't know the electronics behind it, but it's perfectly safe even though it gets hot enough to maybe be nominated in about half an hour. Wow, that's pretty hot. Yeah, that's pretty hot.
In half an hour it takes a while. Also because it's very conducive to... Well, that's a lot to take in and we'll let our listeners recharge. Electrons filling up in the anode.
Remember? And we'll be back after a small break. Small break, yes. Are you looking for finance products and services that can enhance your personal finance experience?
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See you, folks. It feels like everyone's talking about two things right now. Pickleball and podcast. So what happens when someone who's lived her whole life under court decides to bring those two worlds together?
I'm Sanya Mirza and I'm bringing you a brand new podcast, Serving It Up with Sanya. I've had some incredible conversations with friends, fellow athletes, artists and entrepreneurs. Each episode starts with the game of pickleball and once the rallies are done, the real talk begins. Serving it up with Sanya, watch and listen on YouTube and wherever you get your favorite podcast.
And welcome back to part three of this episode on Samsung phones that seem to be engaging in pyrotechnics. So now we're going to look at what this means for Samsung. So we look at the science behind it and hopefully you guys understood a little bit about it. Always use the in-laws analogy that's the best way to remember this nonsense.
Let's look at what this means for Samsung the company. Actually this is a major disaster for them. They were well on their way to making this full of success. 400,000 sales in week one, like I said, they were looking to increase their 22% global market share, which is increasing.
They were having good profits and generally they were having a good time. This recall has sort of rained on their parade or rather set fire to their party. And when I say set fire to their party, I don't mean in the positive vodka flames or burning man sort of way, but more like the idiot who didn't know how to operate a barbecue sort of way or a drunk idiot wondering how the switchboard would react to be scheming thrown off it. That sort of thing.
Yeah, that sort of fire to their party sort of way. The reputation has gone for a toss and the profits are predictably down. And article I actually ended with a line in light of newest developments, though some analysts expert to reversal. I would think so.
I would think so. That's been obvious. No, sevens are banned on many flights around the world. Airlines, even warning customers not to put them in their handbag is specifically mentioning the brand specifically mentioning the brand and the model.
Yeah, this is quite I went abroad is sometime end of August and this was real-time. Yeah. So it's like the head of marketing at Samsung said, how can we get really well? How can we get our names to be said without paying any marketing money, say on every flight in the world?
So being said, I think Samsung's handled the issue really well unlike a certain automobile manufacturer, a few months back. The primary thing I think was acknowledging it and offering to help, which always appreciated and is seen as good. What of other calls across history? I'm assuming there are plenty of examples.
Yeah, that's there are plenty. I'm opening up a Wikipedia article over here, which has I thought there'll be like five or six huge products across history. But oh boy. It starts with 1959 USA, we called some Cadillacs.
So a lot of the early recalls were mostly cars. Obviously, the brake was not working or some engine issue or something like that. And a whole lot of them, Triumph being the motorcycle brand, then Ford. I know it did some work for them many years ago actually, made some handle grip and some yeah.
And when Narain says V, he means his industrial magnet who makes nuts and bolts and a few others. He does not mean simplified. For calling me an industrial magnet, calling Donald Trump a leading intellectual. Not true.
Anyway, then as we move into the 90s, Narain, this is all the medical records and the auto mobile recall slowly segues into technical recall. So Intel was one of the first ones to recall the original Pentium processors. That's interesting. Yeah.
By what they recall. I'm not exactly sure. There was a bug apparently. But not a safety issue.
Yeah. So not a lot of these many of these are not exactly because of safety issues. So medical, I would imagine would be for safety issues. Yeah.
So Samsung poor guys is the first phone probably to be recalled for safety issues, physical safety. So let's have a look as we go down this huge list. Audi Burger King instantly recalled not their food, but the plastic toys that came along with the food. Yeah.
Not not because they posted suffocation hazard. Oh, okay. So kids, I guess would just swallow their men. It's a stupid.
Let's see more pharmaceutical companies. I'm just looking for interesting ones over here. I'll post the link in the description so people can go across this in their own. In 2006, Sony Notebook computers and Sony and Dell actually they called their laptops because the same issue because their laptop batteries were exploding.
That's scary. I mean, laptop batteries are much bigger than phone batteries. I mean, you do tend to sit with the laptop on your laptop sometimes. So laptop on your laptop and phone next to your clock.
So the future generations are in good hands. That's one way of population. I'm seeing the name Ford here again. I'm comfortably large number of times.
There are at least three times I've seen this over. Let's see. There's Nestle. Yes, there is lead poisoning the one that you wanted.
So there we go. Lead poisoning is there. Oh, this is from the Thomas, those annoying cartoons. Thomas the engine.
Thomas the engine. Those annoying cartoon engines. Let's see. There's Nokia.
Oh, here we go. Nokia recalled 46 million batteries after a primary investigation reveal. Faulty manufactured batteries by March Shushita. Who I think are the Mitsubishi guys?
March Shushita? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Anyway.
I think we have a lot of people who are looking at the radio on the pharmaceutical children's know and sand cars. Look, it's what we call due to sharp edges. I mean, what do you say to that? Anyway, toys.
There's a lot of toys. There's Sony, YO, XSE, PNUT, cooperation. I'm just searching for interesting ones now. McDonald's recalled the Shrek forever after cops due to risk of cadmium poisoning from the cops paint.
So there you go. You have your paint again. Here's a huge one. Two to 28 million eggs were recalled by the right county egg in some place in Iowa because of potential salmonella contamination.
We're getting into 2011. I wonder if Trump's senior would have seen a son or whatever. He'd be able to storms back. You can't ride back there.
Don't want you. Sorry. Okay. That has to be one of the best moments.
Let's see. Okay. We'll end with this one earlier. This year, McDonald's, again, these companies are being featured with alarmingly disturbing regularity.
McDonald's recalled over 30 million happy meal fitness activity track of brands due to risk for skitti mutation burns. And nothing. This is such poetic justice. You're going to McDonald's.
You're given a free gift of a fitness hacker, which gives you skitti mutation and burns. And then you're going to think this is brilliant poetic justice. If they had just given them like free lard. Anyway, how you were saying?
Yeah. So, you know, how much damage does a brand? So, you know, sometimes it looks so impossible. So when the Volkswagen thing happened and everyone thought that, you know, that's the end of the road for Volkswagen.
They have to pay all these gazillion dollars as fines for fixing the emission. They seem to be doing absolutely all that. Actually, I was thinking exactly this. So if you look at the earliest people on the list, you would think like a huge recall might destroy your brand completely, but the Ford Motor Company is still going strong.
Cadillac is still going strong. And it doesn't just need to be recalled. Like if you remember in India itself, a few years back when the whole worms controversy in the area will talk, it was there. It's not going anywhere.
It's still has from there is ever. Similar with Coca-Cola. So I think one, I think is very important for these brands to actually just own up and say that we goofed up. Hang around and at least make a collective measures.
The BP oil spill that happened a few years ago was a major disastrous. And that is actually a case study famous case study on how not to manage a crisis. Because they did everything possible long as it's just, yeah, they did their best to suppress it. And despite so many people being killed, the CEO of BP went on to record saying, you guys have no idea.
I just want a good night's sleep. This is what he said. So I'm not quite sure what the share price of BP is right now. But in case, yeah, I think these are just small blips and they've hung around for so long.
Customers trust them. I mean, the fact of the matter is there was six editions of the Samsung Galaxy Note which did not explode. So obviously, okay, one out of seven is in bad. It's, Egon Musk would have been proud of that with respect to his rockets.
Yeah, so I guess that's all I guess we have this week for you listeners. And thanks for staying with us. It's right at the end. That is, if you didn't see it.
Do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. We are sadly in the two few ratings for ratings to show up list, which is kind of embarrassing. So we could really do with the boost. Only if you have nice things to say about it.
Yeah, otherwise don't bother. Again, the offer stands the best of you gets a hug from Nareem. Yeah. And so see you soon and be back next week.
Bye bye.