Similar/realted (from what I can tell) stories:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/10/shattered_apples_jil... (interesting info on Sniper weapons pod use of sapphire in comments).

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/19/gt-advanced-sapphire-fai... (references the WSJ article)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-gtadvanced-bank...