“A woman killed by an electric shock while using her iPhone may have been using a non-Apple-made battery charger at the time of her death, Chinese state media reported,” Jeremy Blum reports for The South China Morning Post.
“The victim, 23-year-old Ma Ailun, had been using what appeared to be an unauthorised iPhone 4 charger, CCTV reported on Tuesday,” Blum reports. “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.'”
Blum reports, “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.”
Read more in the full article here.
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