ANTenna Blog -- Mobile

A strange story about a South Korean construction worker being killed by his exploding cellphone battery has been cleared up. It seems he was killed by a coworker who then framed the cellphone for the murder.

As New York Times blogger Patrick Lyons points out, "It isn't out of the question that an exploding cell phone could cave in someone's ribs — it apparently happened to a welder in China in June, Information Week reported."

But cellphones are often cleared of violent behavior. Last January, a cellphone was initially implicated in a damaging hotel fire that severely burned its owner but it was determined that it couldn't have been the cellphone's fault.

Still, on the heels of the incident in South Korea, a New Zealand man reported that his cellphone burst into flames in the middle of the night.

As NYT's Lyons asks, "Have you ever been so annoyed at some boor yakking too loud and too long on his cellphone that you find yourself wishing the accursed thing would just blow up in his hand?" But the concept of what has become a constant companion for nearly everyone involved in the business world turning against their owners is a frightening thought. It's almost reassuring to know that it's human error or human nature that is more often to blame.