Comment by userbinator
7 years ago
It's good that he was able to reproduce it (although with a far higher concentration of helium), but the original story showed up a few weeks ago at an EE forum I lurk, and everyone there was skeptical of helium and suspecting EMP instead:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/helium-in-the-air-kills-i...
But an electromagnetic pulse would have taken out medical equipment in the facility as well, and they were working fine!
I suspect medical equipment is designed to a higher standard of EMP resistance than most other products, especially equipment designed to sustain life. Phones also have antennae specifically designed to pick up EM fields, while medical equipment like an EEG or ECG is specifically designed to reject them.
Likewise, the devices "reviving" after a week is not unusual if they're just resetting due to power loss. Immediately disconnecting and reconnecting the battery would for sure differentiate between helium (device remains dead even after reset) and EMP (device reboots successfully.)
But Android phones were also unaffected.
Any particular reason you're ignoring the fact this only happened to iOS devices? Do the various Android manufacturers incorporate additional shielding to prevent the occasional EMP?
It probably affects a specific chip Apple are using that may not be present in the Androids.
Since that's what the article says ... I'm gonna say you're right
If the issue were specific HF then it could be a geometric feature.