>>Nokia convinces flip-flopping investigator its phone didn’t start fire; victim's lawyer to speak today
By Paul McNamara on Thu, 01/18/2007 - 5:36am
One mystery solved, and more burning questions arise.
After days of hiding behind a veil of secrecy provided by stumblebum officials in Vallejo, Calif., Nokia has now been identified publicly as the maker of the cell phone that was in a man's pocket when his clothes caught fire and caused him critical burns Jan. 13. The story has received worldwide press attention.
(Friday morning update: More from the fire victim’s attorney and Nokia here … And you can tell the press coverage has run amok when reporters are quoting … uh, me … and the account winds up in 9 newspapers, all with my name misspelled.)
However, Nokia engineers have apparently convinced Vallejo fire investigator William Tweedy to reverse his earlier judgment – unequivocal though it was -- that it was an overheating of the phone enabled by a continuous compression of its buttons that caused the device to ignite. Moreover, Tweedy told me and numerous other reporters that the fire victim's intoxicated state explained why he did not awaken as the phone heated toward ignition. At the time, he ruled out any other possible causes for the fire.
Now he's saying that Nokia has convinced him he was wrong...
Tweedy said the fire department called Nokia in because "they offered their electrical engineers to come in and do testing that we can't afford to do."
The investigation is now over, Tweedy said. The original source of the fire will probably remain a mystery.
"He could have been smoking a cigarette, the cigarette fell into his pocket, and it started on fire," said Tweedy. "We don't know that. We weren't there."
<<
Certainly glad they solved this one.
networkworld.com |
