Blackberry stops designing its own phones

Blackberry is to stop designing smartphones in-house after 14 years, the company has announced.

Once a market leader, the company has struggled to keep pace with modern handsets produced by rivals such as Apple and Samsung.

In May, the company's chief executive, John Chen, said he would know by September whether the hardware business was likely to become profitable.

Now, Blackberry says it will outsource hardware development to partners.

Blackberry is repositioning itself as a software company

The company has not yet confirmed when any further Blackberry phones will be released, but Mr Chen said on Wednesday that further devices including one with the "iconic" physical keyboard would go on sale.

"I always wanted to make sure that we keep having the iconic devices," Mr Chen told BNN.

"I just need to find a way to be efficient and be able to make money. I think we found the model."

The company said it sold about 400,000 smartphones in its second quarter - fewer than the previous three months.

"Blackberry can't keep producing its own phones indefinitely just to serve a small subset of its clients addicted to its home-grown devices," said Ben Wood of the CCS Insight consultancy.

"Blackberry had made no secret of the fact that it might shut down its own phone-making business. Pushing it out to a third party is a sensible solution - but any manufacturer making Blackberry branded devices will ultimately face the same challenges."

'I said a year'

Mr Chen has been candid about the future of Blackberry's handset business, saying he would consider closing the division if it could not become profitable.

In May, he told Bloomberg that he would know by September whether that was likely.

"The first time I made that statement was September a year ago," said Mr Chen.

"When people ask me, 'How long will it take?'... I said a year. So, it's going to be September this year."

In October 2015, Blackberry changed the direction of its handset business by producing its first smartphone running Google's Android operating system, rather than its own BB10 software.

However, Mr Chen has admitted the device, which featured a slide-out physical keyboard, was too expensive to appeal to a mass market.

The company has since launched a less expensive touchscreen-only Android handset, based on a phone released by Alcatel owner TCL.

A bumpy history

The Blackberry 5810 is described as one of the first smartphones

March 2002: Technology company Research In Motion (RIM) released the Blackberry 5810 - a phone, email and mobile web-browsing device with a full Qwerty keyboard. Described as one of the first smartphones, it was able to make and receive calls when connected to a headset.

Kim Kardashian used a Blackberry Curve smartphone in 2008

2007: Now featuring a colour screen, camera and an improved mobile web browser, Blackberry handsets became popular in the business world and soon enjoyed celebrity endorsements from the likes of Kim Kardashian.

Steve Jobs with the iPhone

June 2007: Steve Jobs introduced Apple's iPhone. The device is said to have changed the course of the smartphone industry by introducing downloadable apps and bringing an easy-to-use touchscreen device to the mass market. The iPhone was the first mobile phone to feature a "full" web browser, something Blackberry executives are reported to have thought would cause mobile phone networks to collapse.

The Blackberry Storm was designed to battle the iPhone

November 2008: Under pressure from mobile networks to develop an "iPhone killer", Blackberry produced the Storm. The handset featured a touchscreen that physically clicked when pressed, to emulate the feeling of the firm's famous keyboards. The device ran Blackberry OS - the firm's legacy operating system, which had been built before the advent of downloadable apps. Critics said the Storm was glitchy and slow, and its web browser paled in comparison to the iPhone's offering.

Despite the Storm's poor reception, Blackberry continued to grow its market share until 2010.

Blackberry founder Mike Lazaridis launched the Playbook tablet

April 2011: The company launched its Playbook tablet, its first device to ditch Blackberry OS in favour of a new, modern operating system. The Playbook was marketed as a larger-screen "companion" for the firm's smartphones but lacked basic features such as a built-in calendar and email app. By December, the company had written $485m (£370m) off the value of its unsold tablets.

The firm's chief executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie stepped down soon after.

Thorsten Heins replaces Mr Lazaridis and Mr Balsillie, and introduced BB10

January 2013: RIM became Blackberry Limited and launched its BB10 operating system, six years after the appearance of the iPhone.

The platform struggled to attract app developers, who were already occupied producing software for Android and iOS and were reluctant to support a third platform. Big-name apps such as Google Maps, Instagram and Snapchat never officially made it to BB10.

Blackberry Priv was the final device designed in-house

October 2015: Blackberry released its first Android-powered smartphone, Priv, seven years after rivals produced the first Android devices.

Sales of Priv were thought to have missed targets and the firm's current chief executive John Chen later admitted the device had been too expensive.

Blackberry's latest handset was designed by Alcatel owner TCL

July 2016: The company's first touchscreen-only Android device, Dtek 50, was released. To reduce costs the handset was based on a phone manufactured by Alcatel owner TCL.

UBER IS WORKING ON A VERTICAL-TAKEOFF AIRCRAFT

Uber, the hungry Silicon Valley company that turned people with cars and smartphones into a transportation fleet to rival taxis (while skirting things likelabor regulations in the process), has set its sights on something much larger. Uber is already working on driverless cars, which happily for the company exist outside of labor law, but not even unmanned driving machines are enough to satisfy Uber’s ambitions. The company wants a flying car.

Specifically, Uber products head Jeff Holden is looking at VTOL -- “vertical takeoff and landing” -- technologies. Holden expressed this interest during an interview with Recode executive editor Kara Swisher at the Nantucket Conference last Sunday. As Swisher reports:

Holden said that he has been researching the area, “so we can someday offer our customers as many options as possible to move around.” He added that “doing it in a three-dimensional way is an obvious thing to look at.”

Holden said in the interview that such technology could be in use within a decade, which is an aggressive prediction, given the issues around the complexity of movement in the air above densely populated areas. (Also, you know, the possibility of these VTOL vehicles crashing into each other.)

The advantages of VTOL vehicles are many: they can land and take off using small pads, like helicopters, instead of the large and inconvenient runways of airplanes. And once in the air, VTOL craft often convert to plane-like flight, maximizing efficiency as they soar through the sky with wings, not spinning blades, providing lift.

VTOL is also, it’s worth mentioning again and again, hard. There is a “V/STOL Wheel of Misfortune,” maintained by the American Helicopter Society, that documents 45 different attempts at vertical or short takeoff and landing aircraft. Almost all are failures, with a couple of successes mixed in. Those successes did not come easy. Perhaps the most famous VTOL aircraft, the V-22 troop transport used by the United States Marine Corps and Air Force, had four crashes resulting in 30 total deaths before it was improved and finally declared operational, 16 years after its first flight.

The F-35B, the Pentagon’s VTOL variant of its expensive F-35 fighter program, is the most expensive of the bunch. DARPA is experimenting with new VTOL concepts. Bell Helicopter hopes to outfit the Marines with VTOL attack dronesand the Army with a new VTOL transport or attack helicopter. These are expensive projects, with tricky aerodynamics, and none are designed to navigate a crowded street filled with pedestrians after last call.

That’s assuming Uber goes for true VTOL, where the aircraft takes off like a helicopter and transitions to more efficient, plane-like flight. If Uber is simply interested in helicopter-like flying machines, that idea is already out in the world. China’s Ehang 184 is a “human-carrying drone,” or perhaps, a driverless sky-car. The passenger-carrying quadcopter is cleared for testing in Nevada, where it may some day see use returning the drunk and wealthy from spots along the Strip to waiting penthouse helipads.

WIRELESS SENSORS CAN DETECT PEOPLE'S EMOTIONS

How are you feeling today?

In a paper that will be presented next month at MobiCom, the Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, researchers from MIT's CSAIL announce that they have developed a device that can determine people's emotions by analyzing reflections in wireless signals.

Unlike other emotion detection systems, EQ-Radio doesn't rely on typical emotional cues, like facial expressions, which are not always reliable. Instead, it works like this: a wireless device that the team calls EQ-Radio sends out a wireless signal that bounces off your body. The reflection measures not only your breathing, but also your heart rate.

Using that information, the device can predict whether the person being observed feels happy, sad, angry, or excited. The team reports in the paper that in a sample size of 30 people ranging in age from 19-77, EQ-Radio guesses the emotion correctly 87 percent of the time--a success rate that they say is higher than the competing emotion-detection solutions of rivals likeMicrosoft's Emotion API.

“Our work shows that wireless signals can capture information about human behavior that is not always visible to the naked eye,” Dina Katabi, the leader of the project said. “We believe that our results could pave the way for future technologies that could help monitor and diagnose conditions like depression and anxiety.”

Because it can measure heart rate, it might also be a less invasive way for doctors to monitor patient's heartbeats, potentially watching for conditions like arrhythmias without the need to be hooked up to monitoring devices.

There are also more fun applications for the device. TV and Movie studios could use the tech to get an accurate read on what parts of their movie worked in focus groups, and smart homes could read your emotions and move the mood music and lighting to match, well, your mood.

BMW Built a Power Plant from Old Electric-Car Batteries

Energy

The carmaker is exploring ways to find new life for its spent batteries.

With the electric-car revolution perhaps just a few years off, automakers face a looming question: what do you do with all the spent batteries? One answer: turn a huge pile of them into a grid-scale power plant.

Barring a much-needed breakthrough in battery technology, it looks as if we’re going to be stuck with lithium-ion chemistry for a while yet. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—while progress in the area has been a slog, the batteries are continuing to fall in price and could be nearing a tipping point that will see electric-vehicle sales take off.

But like any batteries, they wear out. The rate at which they currently decline puts their lifetime for powering electric vehicles in the neighborhood of eight to 10 years. It’s not that they’re useless after that, but their capacSo BMW has spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to give spent batteries a second life. It’s experimented, for example, with selling them to consumers in a product similar to Tesla’s Powerwall, to function as a way to store energy at home.

Now It’s gone one bigger. By strapping together batteries from 100 cars, BMW has just completed a grid-scale storage facility in Hamburg, Germany. Capable of storing 2.8 megawatt-hours of energy and delivering up to two megawatts of power at the flip of a switch, the plant is perfect for providing an extra dose of power to the grid during times of peak demand, its operators say.

If electric cars really are about to go mainstream, the rise of used-battery power plants may not be far behind.

BMW and Bosch open new 2.8 MWh energy storage facility built from batteries from over 100 electric cars

BMW has a couple of initiatives to give a second life to used battery packs from its electric vehicles.

 Earlier this year, the German automaker announced a wall mounted battery storage system, not unlike the Tesla Powerwall, using BMW i3 22 kWh or 33kWh battery packs.

Today it announced that it completed and started testing, in partnership with Bosch, a new utility-scale energy storage facility again using used electric vehicle battery packs – but the scale is much more impressive.

The new power station is located in Hamburg, Germany. It uses 2,600 battery modules from more than 100 electric vehicles for a total power capacity of 2 MW and a storage capacity of 2.8 MWh.

The system is used to stabilize the grid and reduce the impact of peak demand. Vattenfall, the energy company operating the project, highlights the advantage of battery packs that can just turn on in a matter of seconds.

Here’s a press release via Bosch:

A second life for used batteries

Vattenfall, BMW and Bosch test power storage in Hamburg

• 2,600 used battery modules from more than 100 electric vehicles are connected together to form a large power storage
• Stored energy is seconds available and helps to keep the power supply stable
• Cordelia Thielitz, Managing Bosch Energy Storage Solutions: “Electricity storage is a critical success factor for the energy transition.”

Hamburg/Munich/Stuttgart – What should be done with still-usable batteries at the end of their life cycle in electric vehicles? The Battery 2nd Life project organized by Vattenfall, BMW and Bosch merges them into a large storage facility in Hamburg, Germany, to keep the electricity grid stable.

Storage stabilizes the electricity grid within seconds

Electromobility and electricity storage are two core elements of the new energy landscape. Used batteries from electric vehicles are being merged to form a large electricity storage facility in Hamburg. The stored energy is available within seconds and can help to keep the electricity grid stable.

Electricity storage is essential to enable a stable electricity supply with alternative energy sources. Natural fluctuations in solar power plants and wind turbines must be compensated as much as possible using storage methods with the greatest possible efficiency.

After successful completion of the design phase, Frank Horch, Hamburg Senator for Trade, Transport and Innovation, today threw the switch for trial operation of an electricity storage facility in the Hamburg Harbour district.

The storage facility developed by Vattenfall, BMW and Bosch is situated near the Steinwerder Cruise Centre and in future will supply electricity to ensure grid stability.

2 600 used battery modules from over 100 electric vehicles

The electricity storage facility consists of 2,600 battery modules from over 100 electric vehicles. It has a power rating of two megawatts (MW) and a storage capacity of 2,800 kilowatt-hours (kWh). This is enough to supply electricity to an average two-person household for seven months. However, the stored energy is not intended for general supply, but instead is sold on the primary control reserve market by Vattenfall, along with power from other flexibly controllable facilities. The storage facility delivers primary control reserve power necessary to keep the 50 Hz grid frequency stable. Primary control reserve power must be available within a few seconds.

The joint project provides a useful second life for batteries previously fitted in BMW electric vehicles which have reached the end of their life cycle in the vehicle. After the used batteries have been tested and wired up, they are merged into the electricity storage facility where they constitute an important resource of the new energy landscape in stationary deployment.

Quotes from the involved companies

“Bosch develops turnkey storage solutions for energy suppliers and industrial enterprises. Electricity storage systems are a key success factor for the new energy landscape. Thanks to smart electronic controllers, these storage systems can absorb excess electricity and release it again very quickly when needed. That way they help to stabilize the electricity grid. We expect to gain valuable knowledge from the Battery 2nd Life development project, and we regard it is as an important step on the way to a more efficient and more decentralized energy system,” says Cordelia Thielitz,

General Manager of Bosch Energy Storage Solutions.

On the occasion of commissioning the facility with the project partners, Pieter Wasmuth, Vattenfall’s Executive Manager for Hamburg and Northern Germany, said: “Our stated goal is to integrate this battery storage facility into the energy system and to give a large number of similar small local facilities access to the market through electricity trading.” Catrin Jung-Draschil, Vice President of Portfolio & Business Development in the Wind Business Unit, added: “Storage of renewable energy is a key aspect of climate protection and the new energy landscape in Germany. Together with our partners, we are making an important contribution to sustainable energy supply by smart control of used vehicle batteries.”

Dr Bernhard Blättel, Vice President Mobility Services and Energy Services, BMW Group: “The BMW Group is fully committed to electromobility with our BMW i model. Initiator projects for the charging infrastructure and energy management play a key role in this. The battery storage facility officially opened today represents an important milestone in the further optimisation of battery management. In future, with BMW Storage we will be able to offer efficient battery storage solutions tailored to customer needs. In the context of the new energy landscape, the BMW Group regards energy storage as the core component of energy management. That applies to storage in vehicles as well as stationary storage systems. In future, battery storage systems will also make a significant contribution to increasing the sustainability of electromobility. We can look back on a successful collaboration, and we have gained valuable insights from this cooperative development project.”

About the Battery 2nd Life project

The Battery 2nd Life development project organized by Vattenfall, BMW and Bosch kicked off in 2013 for a planned term of five years. The project partners hope to learn more about the ageing characteristics and storage capacity of used lithium-ion battery modules. Along with the electricity storage facility near the Steinwerder Cruise Centre in Hamburg, the project encompasses two other measures: Used batteries have been providing interim storage and power buffering for fast-charge stations in Hamburg’s HafenCity district since September 2014. In another application, energy consumption from the photovoltaic facility of Vattenfall’s HafenCity district heating station is being maximized by interim storage of energy in batteries during sunny periods with low electricity demand.

Flickr is shutting down Marketplace, its commercial photo licensing program

Two years ago Flickr rolled out Marketplace, a photo licensing service that was meant to help Flickr users get paid by big websites and media properties that wanted to use that user’s photos.

As of today, Flickr Marketplace is going away. It’ll take a few months for Flickr to wind things down, and Flickr notes that any royalties due to users will be paid, but the program is effectively over.

Flickr announced the closure via an e-mail sent to Marketplace users, citing “consistent feedback” that the service wasn’t up to par. We haven’t heard much about the service since launch, suggesting it wasn’t getting much attention within Flickr — meanwhile, competitors like 500px and EyeEm are raising millions of dollars to battle for the space.

Here’s the text of the email as forwarded to TechCrunch:

“Thank you for being a valuable member of the Flickr Marketplace licensing program. Over the past year we have received feedback from several of you regarding your experience around licensing and royalties. It was our hope to create the right Marketplace for our contributors, but based on consistent feedback, we understand there is more work to be done.

As a result, we have decided to close the Flickr Marketplace licensing program. This closure will take place over the next few months. Once all licensed photos are removed from our distribution channels, we will communicate the completion of the closure to you. Until then, your images may still be licensed, and you will receive any royalties due to you under the current licensing terms.

If you have thoughts and feedback about your experience in the program, we encourage you to fill out the attached survey. Your response could help shape possible decisions for any licensing opportunities in the future. [url removed]

Thank you for your participation in the Flickr Marketplace. We wish you all the best in your future licensing endeavors.

Sincere regards,
The Marketplace Team | Flickr”

And in case anyone is hoping that someone is just trying to prank the handful of Marketplace users out there with a fake shutdown email: Flickr has confirmed the email’s legitimacy .

Samsung Pay now lets you buy shopping using your eyes

Galaxy phone owners can authenticate payments using an iris and back up membership cards with cloud-syncing

The latest update to Samsung Pay now lets owners pay for goods using their iris, after the technology was first made available with the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.

Paying with the iris works in a similar way to fingerprint authentication. After a user makes a purchase with their phone, via the Samsung Pay app, they can then choose to authenticate the payment with either the fingerprint sensor or the iris scanner.Samsung told Mashable that each device can only be programmed to recognise one set of eyes and it is “impossible to trick” the device with a photo.

The company was praised for adding iris-scanning to its latest phone but the phablet has been beset by problems after battery issues caused some of the phones to burst into flames when charging. Samsung has opened its exchange programme in the UK and has asked owners to not use their phones until they receive a replacement device.

Samsung’s mobile payment platform has also benefited from new additional features to the application.

While the iris payment option is limited to the Note 7, all devices will be able to take advantage of cloud syncing in Pay. This allows users to back up all membership, gift and Samsung Reward cards in the app. It is restricted to these cards only as payment details are too sensitive to be backed up and synced.

Smartphone owners can also purchase gift cards from now-supported retailers through the app.

Samsung Pay v2.3 is now available to download on compatible Galaxy devices.

Yahoo is expected to confirm massive data breach, impacting hundreds of millions of users

Yahoo is poised to confirm a massive data breach of its service, according to several sources close to the situation, hacking that has exposed several hundred million user accounts.

While sources were unspecific about the extent of the incursion, since there is the likelihood of government investigations and legal action related to the breach, they noted that it is widespread and serious.

Earlier this summer, Yahoo said it was investigating a data breach in which hackers claimed to have access to 200 million user accounts and was selling them online. “It’s as bad as that,” said one source. “Worse, really.”

The announcement, which is expected to come this week, also possible larger implications on the $4.8 billion sale of Yahoo’s core business — which is at the core of this hack — to Verizon. The scale of the liability could be large and bring untold headaches to the new owners. Shareholders are likely to worry that it could lead to an adjustment in the price of the transaction.

That deal is now moving to completion, but the companies cannot be integrated until it is approved by a number of regulatory agencies, as well as Yahoo shareholders. But representatives of Verizon and Yahoo have started meeting recently to review the Yahoo business, so that the acquisition will run smoothly once complete.

But there’s nothing smooth about this hack, said sources, which became known in August when an infamous cybercriminal named “Peace” said on a website that he was selling credentials of 200 million Yahoo users from 2012 on the dark web for just over $1,800. The data allegedly included user names, easily decrypted passwords, personal information like birth dates and other email addresses.

At the time, Yahoo said it was “aware of the claim,” but the company declined to say if it was legitimate and said that it was investigating the information. But it did not issue a call for a password reset to users. Now, said sources, Yahoo might have to, although it will be a case of too little, too late.

The confirmation of such an extensive hack is is also another blemish on the record of CEO Marissa Mayer, a vaunted former Google exec, who has presided over numerous declines in the business since she arrived four years ago. Her inability to turn Yahoo around or innovate any new products eventually led to the sale.

10 things to disable in Windows 10

Did you just upgrade to Windows 10? Perhaps involuntarily? Welcome to the operating system!

If you used Windows 10's express installation, you might want to tweak some of your settings before you get going. You know, for the sake of privacy, speed and convenience. Here are 10 things -- that are turned on by default -- that you can disable in Windows 10.

File-sharing updates

One of Windows 10's new features is its optimized update delivery system, which lets you download updates from other Windows 10 computers over the Internet (not just from Microsoft's servers). The catch, of course, is that your computer is also used as an update-sharing hub for other Windows 10 users.

This feature is turned on by default, but you can turn it off by going to Settings > Update & security > Advanced options > Choose how updates are delivered. Here's a more detailed guide.

Annoying notifications

The Windows 10 Action Center is a handy central hub for all of your notifications -- apps, reminders, recently installed programs. But notification overload is definitely a thing, especially when you add unnecessary notifications (such as Windows tips or questions from the feedback hub) into the mix.

Get your notifications under control by going to Settings > System > Notifications & actions and turning off things like Show me tips about Windows and individual app notifications.

Start menu ads

Microsoft is really pushing the new Windows Store apps -- so much so, in fact, that you may be seeing apps you never downloaded in your Start menu. These suggested apps are basically ads. Thanks, Microsoft!

urn off these pesky ads by going to Settings > Personalization > Start > Occasionally show suggestions in Start. 

Targeted ads from third-party apps

Microsoft is definitely keeping tabs on your preferences and browsing habits in Windows 10. You even have a unique advertising ID (tied to your Microsoft account), which the company uses to show you targeted ads. Oh, and Microsoft also shares this advertising ID/profile with third-party apps from the Windows Store, unless, of course, you turn this information sharing off.

You can turn this off by going to Settings > Privacy > General > Let my apps use my advertising ID for experiences across apps (turning this off will reset your ID).

Getting to know you

Cortana, your adaptive personal assistant in Windows 10, gets, well, pretty personal with the information she collects about you. Cortana "gets to know you" by collecting information such as speech and handwriting patterns and typing history, which you may consider to be just a little creepy.

ou can stop Cortana from getting to know you, and clear your information from your device, by going to Settings > Privacy > Speech, inking, & typing and clicking Stop getting to know me.

Apps running in the background

In Windows 10, many apps will run in the background -- that means, even if you don't have them open -- by default. These apps can receive information, send notifications, download and install updates, and otherwise eat up your bandwidth and your battery life. If you're using a mobile device and/or a metered connection, you may want to turn this feature off.

To do this, go to Settings > Privacy > Background apps and toggle off each app individually.

The lock screen

Windows 10 is a universal operating system designed for all devices -- mobile and stationary. For this reason, it has a lock screen and a log-in screen, which is...annoying for people who want to quickly log in to their devices. You can disable the lock screen and go straight to the log-in screen, but you'll need to head into the Windows Registry. .

All the syncing

Windows 10 is all about syncing. Everything -- system settings, themes, passwords, search history -- syncs across all your signed-in devices by default. But not all of us want our search history to sync from our phones to our computers, so here's how to turn syncing off.

To turn off settings syncing (including themes and passwords), go to Settings > Accounts > Sync your settings. You can turn off all settings syncing, or you can selectively turn off specific settings.

To turn off search history syncing, open Cortana and go to Settings > My device history and My search history.

The pretty visual interface

Windows 10 has a snazzy interface, but maybe you'd prefer speed and simplicity over visual effects. If that's the case, you can turn off most of Windows 10's visual effects by right-clicking the Start button and going to System > Advanced system settings. Under the Advanced tab, go to Performance and click Settings, then uncheck all the visual effects you'd prefer not to see.

Automatic updates

Windows 10 downloads and installs updates automatically, and you can't really turn them off. And honestly, you shouldn't turn them off -- an up-to-date operating system is a secure operating system. But if for some reason you'd like to prevent your computer from automatically downloading and installing Windows 10 updates (perhaps so you can manually download and install said updates on your own schedule).

Samsung stops sales of the Galaxy Note 7 after battery fire problems

Weeks after unveiling its latest flagship phone – the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – and days before its UK launch, the company has suspended sales of the phone.
After 35 cases of the 5.7-inch screen phone catching fire and an internal investigation, the firm has ceased sales around the world.

"Because our customers' safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note 7," it said in a statement.

"For customers who already have Galaxy Note 7 devices, we will voluntarily replace their current device with a new one over the coming weeks."

Samsung said it "acknowledges" the inconvenience caused to customers and it doesn't know why the devices have been burning up. It is working with suppliers to determine the cause.

First reported by the Yonhap News Agency, it is said Samsung is "expected to announce an unprecedented recall" of the phablet.

An official told the media organisation that a "problematic battery" had been installed in "less than 0.1 per cent of the entire volume sold."

"Global discussions are under way about matters such as how to deal with products delivered to dealers," the source explained.

Online, Samsung customers who have already got their hands on the phone have posted videos showing badly scorched devices.

The burn damage has affected the front and rear of phones, making them completely unusable. YouTube user Ariel Gonzalez, who posted the above video, said they were using the official charger when the damage happened.

"Came home from work, put it on to charge for a little bit before I had class," Gonzalez said. “Went to put it on my waist and it caught fire. Yup. Brand new phone, not even two weeks old. Be careful out there, everyone rocking the new Note 7, might catch fire."

Since the reports, the South Korean-based company has seen its share hit by falls and global reports of the device being recalled.