Is that a hot iPod in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 19 August 2008 21:29

Your IT - Home IT

Two iPod related news stories stopped and made us think today. First there are Japanese trousers catching fire as iPod batteries allegedly overheat. Then there is the murder involving Indian iPod porn...

With all the fuss over the iPhone and the various problems users are experiencing rather dominating the news these days, the humble iPod seems to have been rather forgotten.

Just like London buses, no iPod news stories appear for ages then two turn up at once.

The first involves that old favourite, pants on fire. However, on this occasion we are assured that no lair, liars are involved. Instead it would seem that there is a small epidemic of iPod Nano pocket fires in Japan.

OK, so maybe epidemic is an overstatement, there have actually been just three reports of the iPod Nano overheating and setting trouser pockets aflame. But I imagine that if it was your trousers that were feeling the heat then the numbers involved would hardly matter.

Luckily nobody was badly injured, although in two cases there are reports of minor burns to the trouser region. Anyone recall the Atlanta airport worker iPod trouser fire last year when it was claimed that the fires reached out from his pants right up to his chest?

Japanese Trade Ministry officials are said to be investigating a possible connection between Japanese iPod Nanos sold after September 2005 and before September 2006.
 
The iPod news is more serious in India though, where a young girls death seems to be iPod connected. The first was reported to have occurred in West Bengal.

A 14 year old schoolboy is accused of murdering a 10 year old girl who refused to hand over her iPod. Peeved at this, he is alleged to have pushed her off a 9 metre high bridge and then strangled her just to make sure she was dead.

The story gets a little confusing as other reports of the same crime have the victim being as young as six, and introduce iPod porn into the motive.

The Deccan Herald claims she was murdered when she refused to hand over the "iPod containing a porn film."

Whatever the reason, iPod porn appears to be a rapidly growing business. Doing a Google search for iPod porn, purely in the cause of research, revealed a staggering 9 million hits. The first of which promised no less than 2000 adult MP4 videos formatted for the iPod.