Don't know if it's really "news" but in case you haven't heard and are using e-cigarettes this article may be of interest.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/16/electronic-cigarette-explode_n_1281707.html
I don't use e-cigs myself but I know that some people here on BLF do.
It seems they're not so harmless after all, although it is up to date a rare event.
I hope that guy will be ok.
That sounds like a "vent with flame" event to me.
I would be curious to know what type of cells and charger were used, and if safe handling procedures were followed.
My guess: cheapest e-cig, cheapest charger, cheapest cell, user had no clue about LiIon, probably dropped it...
Putting a cheapo 18650 that close to my face scares the sh!t out of me. Especially a no-name brand cell.
Considering li-ion volatility there is actually extremely small number of accidents caused by them overall.
Most of the people are not familiar with current technologies and are completely unaware of potential risks and hazards.
Combining cheap manufacturing process and non existent quality control of devices using high energy batteries with volatile chemistry is certain way to make things go wrong...
Nice. Another reason for them to try to ban them. Loose some teeth or loose a lung? I’d rather take the slim to none chance of loosing a few teeth
There is nicotine in them. Pretty sure big tobacco is using heir pawns in the fda to try to outlaw ecigs
When I was in the market for an AW 17670 battery, I saw a bunch of E-Cigarette web pages show up in google. Apparently these things are loaded with 17670 lithium ion batteries. That poor man is probably in pretty bad shape considering I've seen pictures of flashlights exploding. Who knows if it were the cell, or the e-cigarette. I would have to say maybe the e-cigarette caused the battery to do that. It's law suit time.
I never use e-cig
Almost all big battery mods do have a “weak” spot or holes at the end incase the batteries decide to vent. My guess is it was a homemade mod or a cheap chineese ecig with out a user replaceable battery. The chineese made without user replaceable batteries are anywhere from 90 mah to 1200 mah give or take.
I'm glad i never bought one. I was tempted tho. Currently at 7th day without smoking and counting. Don't plan to fail as it is not that hard. sports perfortmance went up considerably so thats a major bonus along with other benefits.
I suspect the wish to light a cigarette will soon vanish completely. (i quit smoking for almost 3 years time ago and just by a stupid reason started again. Really lame, lesson learned)
I'll stick to the real thing.
e-cigs are bogus anyway, IMHO.
You just don't know what chemicals exactly you are inhaling with those vaporised liquids - word is a bloody big amount of it is ethylene glycol as a carrier substance. I wonder how that affects delicate alveoli? 
i sometime use e-cig and i'm not scared for 1 incident with unknown causes, maybe he made confusion with the chargers.. and i'm sure that ecig batteries will do less deaths of normal cigarette
from tests ecigs are healty, for sure more of analogic xD, if wasn't, the various camel, merit, Marlboro was glad of expose the research to the world imho
I am using an ecig daily for 2+ years (usually a GGTS with a AW-P18650) and I will not stop using it because of some accident ( s ). I didn't stopped driving my car or motorcycle because I might crash, I didn't stopped using electricity because I might be electrocuted and I didn't stopped going out of home because I might get robbed and killed... Sh!t can happen with almost anything, I prefer to take precautions and do it anyway.
We bought cigarette loads from the ”Fireworks Stands” in my teens. The exploding cigar gag was a hoot!
Yes
The main ingredient is usually a blend of pg and vg. They are also the main ingredient in nebulisier medicines. It has also been known to help clear up lung infections and tests on inhaling vapors of it has been done since 40s or 50s. Never hurts to read up on something before you use it. I’ve been almost a year with out a cig and no plans to quit my ecig
I was already assuming that most people here on BLF know quite well what's going on inside an ecig and are taking precautions.
But if you think about the life span of a LiIon battery (cycle wise and time based) and that there's probably no sophisticated electronics included in those small sticks I don't believe that you have to do anything extraordinary stupid to stress the battery more than it's healthy. In cell phones or notebooks the batteries get (nowadays) monitored all the time by the electronics to prevent this kind of thing happen, and we flashlight users are monitoring our LiIon cells manually (at least I hope you all do), but in the (cheap and small) ecigarretes I have seen so far there is no simple way to check the SOC or SOH. This might be easier in more sophisticated or customized devices but the readily available models I have seen in webshops and at friends are sold to just use and recharge, pretty much like a cell phone, only without the safety features. What I mean is, although the ecigarettes start blinking to indicate low battery status you can just continue smoking thus overdischarging the cell inside which can lead to lithium plating. And I'm afraid many users do suck their ecigarettes completely dry (it's still an addiction after all) and/or have some ecigs hooked on the charger all the time to have them ready to use, which isn't a good thing either unless the charging algorithm is really smart which I doubt.
As I said before, I don't use them myself (I rather stick to the "real thing" although smoking is nearly considered a crime in Sweden nowadays, and I am talking about tobacco) but if I did I would probably use one of these:
Still going strong and keep off cigarettes. Will not bother even considering the e-cig. Those are porbably good only to those with not strong enough will to quit. At least they inhale way less junk which it is already a good thing if it does not backfire one day.