People really need to be educated on battery chemistry when they buy battery operated products. Here's a programmer, so I assume he has some technical abilities/interests, and yet even he doesn't seem to know that some batteries can do this.
The author states "however with the newer unibody laptops there is no way you can see this swelling happening."
You can't see it swelling so there's no actionable item here.
Actually, the touch pad tends to pop up when the batteries start swelling. It may not have in this case, but it's common enough that people get _some_ warning.
Or it should be illegal to sell products that can catch fire/explode. I admit to knowing nothing about battery tech but if there were suddenly massive penalties for exploding batteries I don't think it would be long until we had a workable solution. It should not be up to a consumer buying a phone/laptop to learn about how their battery works and how to identify a potentially dangerous situation.
You own a vehicle?