***WARNING! The person pictured below may now be deaf!***

Last May, Independent Sources wrote an open letter to plaintiff’s attorneys giving them a way to profit from the iPod craze. Namely claiming that iPods are inherently dangerous because their wearers are often targeted by muggers.

Now it turns out that plaintiff attorneys won’t have to resort to making up such silly claims to be able to participate in one of the biggest consumer product success stories in memory. It turns out that iPods can really be dangerous to one’s hearing.

MUSIC fans have been warned to turn down or switch off their iPods amid fears the craze for MP3 players is storing up catastrophic and irreversible hearing damage for a generation.

You can imagine the joy that this brings to the Juris Doctors around the world. Apple’s profits at an all-time high and sales of the little devices skyrocketing make them an ideal target for lawsuits.

There is even an organization dedicated to helping educate people who somehow don’t know that loud noises can damage your eardrums and they have created this cool graphic:

Did you know?

A bulldozer that is idling (note that this is idling, not actively bulldozing) is loud enough at 85 dB that it can cause permanent damage after only 1 work day (8 hours).

When listening to music on earphones at a standard volume level 5, the sound generated reaches a level of 100 dB, loud enough to cause permanent damage after just 15 minutes per day!

A clap of thunder from a nearby storm (120 dB) or a gunshot (140-190 dB, depending on weapon), can both cause immediate damage.

Next step: lawsuits o’plenty, and don’t forget the shareholder suits against Apple for failing to warn stockholders that they were selling dangerous devices.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2006 at 9:39 am by Insider and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.