【Japan】

One of the biggest mysteries of the tech world in 2016 might finally be Japanunravelled later this month.

Samsung plans to share the results of an investigation into what caused the Galaxy Note7 smartphone to catch fire, according to South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo. The much anticipated results will be made public sometime this month, the report adds.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note7 smartphone in August, a month ahead of its usual September launch cycle to get a lead on Apple's iPhone 7. However, right off the bat it was becoming clear that something was not right with the device.

Shortly after the Galaxy Note7 went on sale, first reports of the Galaxy Note7 catching fire started to surface. Early September, Samsung said it was halting sales of the Galaxy Note7 and had begun investigation what was causing some of these units to catch fire.

Samsung even sent out replacement units in a jiffy, identifying the problem with one battery supplier, but those units too were plagued with the same problems, leaving the company with no option but to kill the product.

The global recall of the Galaxy Note7 has costed the company billions of dollars. In October, Samsung warned analysts and investors that the Galaxy Note7 could result in as much as $5.1 billion loss in its operating profit over three quarters.

Last month, Samsung told Mashablethat it was working with independent third-party experts to "re-visit every step of our engineering, manufacturing, and quality control processes," as to what may have caused the Galaxy Note7 to abruptly catch fire. In the meanwhile, it was working with different carriers worldwide to render Galaxy Note7 still being used in the wild useless with software updates.

While we await the results of the investigation, the leading belief among people is that Samsung’s efforts to further slim the smartphone could have triggered the issue.

A report by Instrumental, a company that helps technology giants with manufacturing and design issues concluded last month that Galaxy Note7's battery sits too tightly within the device, so that pressure from normal operation could have caused the layers of lithium cobalt oxide and graphite to touch.

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