Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Photo: Fisker Automotive

After a fire engulfed a Fisker Karma owner’s garage in Sugar Land, Texas, last week, officials claim the plug-in hybrid sedan was the cause of the blaze.

According to a report from Autoweek, Robert Baker, the chief fire investigator for Fort Bend County in Texas, says the “Karma was the origin of the fire, but what exactly caused that we don’t know at this time.”

Baker says the driver parked the Karma in the garage and minutes later, the Fisker was on fire. The sedan was not plugged in at the time and no injuries were reported from the incident.

In a statement released by Fisker, the automaker says the cause of the fire “is not yet known and is being investigated,” going on to state that “multiple insurance investigators are involved, and we have not ruled out the possibility of fraud or malicious intent.”

The release also states that, “We are aware that fireworks were found in the garage in or around the vehicles. Also, an electrical panel located in the garage next to the vehicles is also being examined by the investigators as well as fire department officials. Based on initial observations and inspections, the Karma’s lithium ion battery pack was not being charged at the time and is still intact and does not appear to have been a contributing factor in this incident.”

The automaker will not comment further on the matter, “until all the facts are established.”

The fire comes less than two months after Fisker and its battery partner, A123 Systems, recalled 640 vehicles due to a possible battery defect. The Karma that supposedly started the fire was reportedly a post-recall vehicle.

In the annals of Facebook, this will hardly be remembered as the social network’s finest hour.

On Monday, world-famous author Salman Rushdie, who won the “Booker of Booker” prize for his novel Midnight’s Children, revealed that Facebook had deleted his account at the weekend — and then, when he sent the company a copy of his passport to prove who he said he was, denied him the right to use “Salman” as his first name. (The author’s full given name, which he never uses, is Ahmed Salman Rushdie.)

Facebook compounded the error by failing to respond to Rushdie’s requests — until the author took to Twitter to share his tale of frustration. He encouraged his followers to make light of the situation, thereby attracting the social network’s attention.

It worked. Facebook reinstated Rushdie’s profile in a matter of two hours, and in another hour the company had issued an official apology. Still, the incident throws light on an important and odd Facebook regulation: you can tell the service you are called whatever you like, but if it ever sees your ID, you’ll be forced to go with your given name.

Here, in Joseph Campbell-style storybook form, is how Rushdie’s tweets unfolded.

Marketplace for spaces Airbnb is on the defensive after one user’s gut-wrenching story about coming home to find her place robbed, ransacked and destroyed caught the media’s attention.

The story, posted late last month by “EJ,” explains in vivid detail how criminals used Airbnb to rent out her place for a week, only to return with the place ripped inside-out. All of her valuable possessions were stolen.

Here’s an excerpt from EJ’s blog post:

“They smashed a hole through a locked closet door, and found the passport, cash, credit card and grandmother’s jewelry I had hidden inside. They took my camera, my iPod, an old laptop, and my external backup drive filled with photos, journals… my entire life. They found my birth certificate and social security card, which I believe they photocopied – using the printer/copier I kindly left out for my guests’ use. They rifled through all my drawers, wore my shoes and clothes, and left my clothing crumpled up in a pile of wet, mildewing towels on the closet floor. They found my coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and used the discount, along with my Mastercard, to shop online. Despite the heat wave, they used my fireplace and multiple Duraflame logs to reduce mounds of stuff (my stuff??) to ash – including, I believe, the missing set of guest sheets I left carefully folded for their comfort. Yet they were stupid and careless enough to leave the flue closed; dirty gray ash now covered every surface inside.”

In the last 24 hours, the story has gained traction, thanks to posts on Hacker News, Business Insider, TechCrunch and other sites.

Since the incident, a suspect has been apprehended, according to an Airbnb spokesperson. Here is the company’s full statement on the incident:

“We were shocked to hear about this unsettling event. We continue to work closely with the authorities to bring justice to the victim. We want to reassure our community that, through our security infrastructure, we were able to assist the police in their investigation, and we understand from authorities that a suspect is now in custody.

We’ve created a marketplace built on trust, transparency and authenticity within our community, and we hold the safety of our community members as our highest priority. The vast majority of our community members genuinely respect and protect each other, but we urge users to be careful and discerning with each other and to hold others accountable through reviews, flagging and our customer service channel. Our hearts go out to our host and we will continue to work with her and with the authorities to make this right.”

Earlier this week, the company was in a much happier position. It had just announced that it had raised $112 million in funding, valuing the startup north of $1 billion. Now the most salient criticism of the Airbnb model — that you are essentially inviting a stranger into your home — has been thrust into the spotlight. Airbnb faces an unenviable task: reassuring its customers while simultaneously making sure this kind of incident never happens again.

Lead image courtesy of Flickr, phatcontroller

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook fan page seems to have been hacked, with the hacker posting a message calling on the company to transform into a “social business”.

The message, seemingly posted on Facebook from Mark Zuckerberg’s account, was quickly removed (together with the fan page), but not quickly enough to go by unnoticed, receiving over 1800 likes and hundreds of comments in the process.

The message read: “Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus described it? LINK What do you think? #hackercup2011″

Facebook made no statement about the incident, but if Zuckerberg’s fan page was indeed hacked, it’s a big deal. If the Facebook CEO (more accurately, the PR team who’s handling the page for him) can’t keep his Facebook account safe from intruders, who can?

We’ve reached out to Facebook about the incident and will update the post when we hear back.

via TechCrunch