Filed under: Laptops

Sorry to kick y’all laptop owners when you’re down, but Sony announced that it’s initiating another recall of 340,000 batteries, this time adding Gateway to the list of the affected, in addition to already-affected Fujitsu, Toshiba, and its own batteries. (It’s not immediately apparent if this also includes the 300,000 batteries of their own that they recalled earlier this month.) There are a ton of models being recalled for each company, so we’d ask you visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission for full details; also, if you haven’t already checked your battery, please note the following companies are now initiating recalls:

• Apple
• Dell
• Fujitsu
• Gateway
• Hitachi
• IBM / Lenovo
• Panasonic
• Sharp
• Sony
• Toshiba

Kind of scary, but at this rate it’s probably just safest to assume that no matter what your notebook, your battery is or will be recalled — so be wary, and keep an eye out for battery recall pages.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops, Portable Video

Wouldn’t you know it? Right after we got done throwing away recycling all of our laptop PCs in favor of an explosion-free, desktop computing environment, Consumer Reports comes along with the disturbing news that some of our other favorite gadgets may have been tainted by Sony’s huge batch of crappy batteries as well. In its On Safety blog, CR quotes Consumer Product Safefy Commission spokesperson Julie Vallese as saying that “the upcoming Sony recall [in October] could very well expand beyond notebook computers and could include DVD players and portable gaming devices.” That’s right folks, not only is it unsafe to use a laptop anymore, there’s also a slight chance that all your battery-powered devices are ticking timebombs that could totally ruin a quiet night of Grand Theft Auto or Kill Bill. We’ll keep you posted on the latest developments here, but if you just can’t get enough of this inflammatory (ahem) fear-mongering, head on over to our new spin-off — Engadget Recalls — for round the clock coverage of what has now become the defining issue of our time.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Laptops

We’ve been overdue for a lithium-ion successor since forever, and we can’t deny the urgency has been bumped a notch by the recent spat of battery explosions. Of course, many have pretended to the throne, but newcomer Zinc Matrix Power thinks their new silver-zinc battery packs really have a shot. They just unveiled the tech at the Intel Developers Forum, and they claim their batteries are safer, longer lasting and more environmentally friendly than those lithium-ion clunkers. As much as we treasure our lap in an intact form — which silver-zinc provides for due to a safer “inherent chemistry” of silver, zinc and water — we’re especially happy to hear of the “significant” performance gains over lithium-ion, because if there’s anything we hate worse than shrapnel in the upper thigh, it’s running out of battery mid-way through a high-scoring game of Snood on a cross-country flight. We suppose easy recycling wouldn’t suck either. Zinc Matrix says they’ll have the new power cells in the hands of device manufacturers for evaluation in early ’07, so hopefully we won’t have too long of a wait.

[Via Tech Digest]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras, Laptops

Yeah, we’re trying to hold back the snickering too. It seems the IEEE has chosen now as the time to start looking over those (previously innocent) battery protocols, and the timing couldn’t be any more convenient. Rather than buckling down and getting a finalized 802.11n standard out the door, the task force is being silently forced to take a good, hard look at battery criteria. Currently focused on IEEE P1825 — the designation for lithium-ion and lithium-ion polymer batteries used in digital cameras and camcorders — the crew is hoping to set more uniform regulations for the “design, production, and evaluation” of said cells. The update is supposedly aimed at revising “design analysis, testing and qualification checks” to ensure those QA reports filter out any, um, potentially explosive misfits, and while the project is scheduled to be completed “within 18 months,” we know how quickly these folks let their deadlines slip. But the force isn’t letting those increasingly-concerned computer manufactures get too much of a head start, as the IEEE 1625 is also slated for a (very necessary) revamp — which makes perfect sense considering its label: “laptop battery standard.”

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Laptops

We suppose “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is quite the popular tune around the Sony HQ these days, but, unfortunately, that statement seems to be proving increasingly false. After a recent rash of violent Lenovo battery explosions, Sony claims they’re “investigating” the fires, specifically the LAX incident. Sony apparently thinks there is no official confirmation that the battery in the PC was Sony-made, but we’ve got a lot of empirical evidence that has us betting otherwise. Lenovo wasn’t available for comment, but it doesn’t seem far-fetched that we could have the making of a fourth major Sony battery recall in the recent weeks.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Laptops

After busting out those floating windmills earlier today, you’d think the MIT types would take a little break, maybe relax for a nice evening of D&D, but instead they’re still hard at work, bringing power to the people. This time they’re thinking small, with a new gas-turbine engine the size of a quarter designed to supplant or replace the battery consumer electronics. The new “engine on a chip” technology builds all the traditional parts of a gas-turbine engine using silicon, allowing for utterly tiny, reliable and efficient components. The turbine blades spin at 20,000 revolutions per second, and the mini-generator produces 10 watts of power once up and running. Unfortunately, the MIT wiz-kids haven’t quite got a working model yet. Each component has been successfully built and tested, but they haven’t squeezed them all together, though they should have it all up and running simultaneously by the end of the year. The tech could be a boon to the Army (which is funding the project), since troops are often required to carry up to three days worth of laptop batteries for a field mission, but we’re totally stoked to start smogging it up in Starbucks with our little turbine a-whirring and spreadsheet a-crunching. Other than that spreadsheet part. Those suck.

[Via Slashdot]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Laptops

Aight everybody, we’ve got a fresh one comin’ through here. Sony’s faulty cells apparently made their way into Toshiba Satellite and Dynabook machines — apparently about 340,000 units in all — which are being recalled. (For reference, thus far we’ve racked up Apple, Dell, and Panasonic.) The upshot is that according to Toshiba, no one’s been hurt and no explosions have been caused by their machines (yet). Unfortunately not much other information is readily available at this time, but we’ll be sure to hit you back with the exact models, dates, cell identification numbers, and the rest before somebody’s Satellite falls out of orbit and we get massive guilt complexes for not doing our duty as servants to the battery-using public.

[Thanks, Dave]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Yeah, it’s a somewhat minor-seeming detail, but no one seemed to know how much damned battery life the Zune was going to have at launch. They were pretty tight lipped about it, but our new pal Matt Rosoff, a Microsoft analyst, let us know that according to his contacts, with wireless off we can expect a 12 hours of music playback at 128Kbps, 3.5 hours for video playback, and 4.5 hours when running a slide show. Compare that to the 30GB iPod‘s 14/4 hours and the 80GB iPod‘s 20/6 hours, and it’s a little difficult to fully envision the payoff for that added thickness and height. Still, remember: bigger screen, wireless, bigger screen, wireless. Ah well, we’ll just hope upon hope that’ll be something the fix before release in a couple months.

[Thanks, Matt]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Laptops

In a time when you’re not even allowed to say the word “bomb” in an airport (hey, it’s for good reason), it’s got to be like, really freaking embarrassing to have to run up the jetway at full speed, shoving other passengers out of the way as your flaming laptop explodes on the ground. (Sound familiar?) According to an eyewitness report on the Awful Forums, passersby stared aghast or fled crying terrorist, the ThinkPad (which was quoted to be an IBM, not a Lenovo) apparently had a number of death throes as the fire went through various phases, until eventually a United employee busted out the fire extinguisher and laid the laptop to rest. Apparently the machine’s owner already checked its battery against the recalls and it was not listed — and why would it be? IBM and Lenovo aren’t flagged for bad batteries — yet. (Sony, we’re looking your direction.) But the coup de grâce at LAX: onlookers apparently mumbling that “too many viruses on your computer” can lead to this horrendous fate. How true, indeed.

[Thanks, Peter]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Far be it from Sony to pre-announce future battery recalls and further dampen its Q3/4 financial woes even further, they’re trying to get the word out that Sony’s own laptop line won’t be affected by the same battery recalls that have pulled back nearly six million Dell and Apple cells. Still, this isn’t entirely good news for their business; does this mean that Sony’s been keeping all the best manufactured batteries for their own machines, passing off lesser cells — maybe even those that didn’t pass muster — to their partners? Yeah, we’d really want to get all cozy with a parts OEM that does that kind of stuff, one that might end up possibly endangering our own customers in the process. Cheers!

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Filed under: Laptops

In a brief but pointed statement by Sony, hygienically entitled “Statement Regarding Sony’s Support of Apple’s Recall of Lithium Ion Battery Packs Used in Apple Notebook Computers,” the mass manufacturer of defective batteries announced that the recalls we’ve been hearing so much about in the past few days are due to “microscopic metal particles in the recalled battery cells [that] may come into contact with other parts of the battery cell, leading to a short circuit within the cell. Typically, a battery pack will simply power off when a cell short circuit occurs. However, under certain rare conditions, an internal short circuit may lead to cell overheating and potentially flames.” Ok, got it, we’re with ‘em, especially on the bit where they announced they’re taking additional measures to ensure the safety of future batteries manufactured. So, howsabout putting a pricetag on all this carnage, eh? Well, between Apple‘s and Dell‘s six or so million units that are about to be recalled, it’s going to set Sony back between ¥20 and ¥30 billion, or in dollar terms, between $134.2 and $201.3 million (or in per-unit terms, that’s roughly $22 and $33 per battery). Now that, dear friends, is a spicy damned meatball.

P.S. -Ok, so howsabout that markup on those batteries? Even after shipping, support costs, and costs per unit, your $100-$150 battery is still only going to cost Sony as much as $33 per. As if we weren’t already angry enough.

[Thanks, Tim]

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Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops

If there’s one thing this summer’s taught us, it’s that pleather is never a good idea during a heat wave. But if there’s two things this summer’s taught us, it’s that batteries are extremely combustible, and one company with a recent history of naughty mishaps can spoil a lot of peoples’ fun with some lithium-ion charged explosions. This is probably why Apple, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and other laptop manufacturers are planning to hold a summit in San Jose, California with the intent to tackle some of the issues associated with li-ion cells powering today’s portables, and to come to some agreement about standards for manufacturing processes and quality control. They and the rest of the OEM Critical Components Committee of the IPC-Association Connecting Electronics Industries are expected to lay the groundwork for such battery manufacturing standards with the hopes that no man or woman or child’s box shall ever again unexpectedly explode on their table, in their car, in their home, plane, pocket, or anywhere else for that matter. Gee golly, we are so stoked at the idea of our laptops not, like, totally burning down our home that you guys soo don’t even know.

[Via AppleInsider]

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Filed under: Laptops

Exploding Dell laptops get all the press, but that doesn’t mean other honest, hardworking laptops can’t get their 15-minutes of fame if they play their pyrotechnics right. And who better than Sony to produce an exploding Vaio featuring one of their very own infamous power cells? Today’s story comes from Shawnee, Kansas where firefighters were called after the Vaio burst into flames twice. The first incident, which happened while the computer was idly charging, was quickly snuffed by its owner’s fire extinguisher, but after the laptop burst into flames a second time a few minutes later, the fire department was called in. By the time the firefighters arrived they found the persistent Vaio on the driveway out front, fully contained by the fire extinguisher and its soul already ascending up to laptop heaven. So what’s it going to be Dell, are you going to sit back and let Sony beat you at your own game, or do you have a triple explosion planned to take back the crown?

[Thanks, Jason Taylor]

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Filed under: Laptops

Details are still thin about the specific models affected by this latest battery recall, but it would appear Dell is working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission in recalling what’s been said to be “the largest safety recall in the history of the consumer electronics industry.” We’re talking 4.1 million units installed in Dell machines sold between April 2004 and July 18th, an absolutely mind boggling number compared to their last recall, which was in the thousands. The kicker here is the batteries were actually contracted out to Sony for manufacture, meaning of course that anyone else using Sony-built batteries, like, say Sony (and Apple, should we be looking your way?) may also have their units taken back. While we are a little wary of one Dell exec’s statement that they’re “getting ahead of the issue,” which in our opinion would have actually been issuing this recall four months ago, we’re glad they’re finally taking care of business before someone actually gets hurt.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Laptops

Just when we think these explosive batteries can’t get any worse, then you see a PowerBook that looks like it was hit with a high powered explosive charge — which, in a manner of speaking, it was. This unit was apparently a year old and wasn’t even powered at the time it, um, went off — 6:00AM. Talk about your rude awakenings. So please, people, learn from this rash of Li-ion explosions: you lessen your chances of battery combustion by returning them wherever possible, so return your frickin defective batteries, ok?

[Via Cult of Mac]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation

With laptops blowing up left and right, it's no surprise that the same lithium-ion battery technology has been slow to take off in larger applications, like cars, where the danger of spontaneous combustion is even more serious. But as CNET reports, at least one company says they've managed to create a lithium-ion car battery that's safe enough to power your ride. Valence Technology's U-Charge Power System keeps the fireworks in check by using a metal phosphate cathode instead of the cobalt oxide cathode commonly used in lithium-ion batteries. The downside to that choice is that the battery can only store about 75% of the power of traditional batteries, but then again, it won't catch on fire. While the batteries have so far only been put to use in wheelchairs, scooters and hybrid vehicles, the company says that the technology could eventually be adapted for use in laptops -- though we're sure not everyone's gonna be willing to take a performance hit just for a bit more peace of mind.

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Filed under: Peripherals, NTT DoCoMo, Misc

Countrywide 3G coverage: check. Plethora of gorgeous 3G phones in all shapes, sizes, and platforms: check. 4G development well underway: check. Dismal standby times: check. With battery tech having largely stagnated over the last few years, Japan's NTT DoCoMo has turned their attention to powering all that buttery, broadband goodness via more creative means, showing their direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) recharger last year. The DMFC wasn't a bad first effort, but how about shrinking it by a factor of four, doubling the output, and swapping methanol for water? That's what they've managed to do through a partnership with Aquafairy Co., pumping out a prototype polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) that rocks 800mAh at 3.6V -- enough juice to recharge your average FOMA handset in the same time as a wall wart. The new unit gets shown off this week at Wireless Japan 2006 with production plans slated for next year; availability outside Japan is (as usual) an open question, but with battery life falling to under a day on some modern smartphones, we can only hope manufacturers' hands are going to be forced on this one.

[Via The Raw Feed]

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If you’re not a fan of DIY kits like the Mintyboost to give your portable devices more juice on the road, this external battery from Macally may be more to your taste.

The product page states that it’s “for” iPods, but the miniUSB port and the included cable should allow many other USB compatible devices to be charged. On a full charge, this battery adds 6-8 hours of play-time to your hard drive based iPods. There’s also a LED battery indicator so you know how much juice is left.

Useful device for mp3 players and cellphones that can be charged via their USB ports. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Macally via Coolest Gadgets]

Filed under: Laptops

We were understandably skeptic when we heard in March that UltraCell was hoping to have some of their rugged laptop fuel cells ready for sale by the second half of this year, but it looks like they’re standing by their word. They’ve just announced the immediate available of their Military-grade UltraCell XX25, which claims up to three days of power for a laptop off of one hot-swappable fuel cartridge. You can also have the unit configured for longer life if you need a longer duration for something like remote surveillance. UltraCell hasn’t mentioned prices yet, and we’re guessing you won’t be able to walk out of Best Buy (or onto an airplane) with one of these any time soon, but if you’ve got the cash and the industry cred you should be able to nab your very own fuel cell and start enjoying life untethered.

[Via gizmag]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

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Filed under: Laptops

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Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Video

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Filed under: Portable Audio

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

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Filed under: Studies

We all know that manufacturers’ listed talk times have limited basis in reality, but since the margin of fantasy varies from make to make and from model to model, there’s really no way of accurately judging relative performance as you’re cross-shopping phones. Norwegian site Amobil has undertaken the admirable (but daunting) task of performing 45 talk time tests in real-world conditions, spending countless hours and kroner in the process. To keep the talk times honest, Amobil simply placed a call in the same spot of their office for every handset, letting music continually play on both ends to roughly simulate a conversation until the test phone died. Surprisingly, Sony Ericsson dominated the GSM tests, rocking three models that stayed in the game for 7 hours or longer; less surprisingly, UMTS performance was eclipsed by GSM across the board with the Nokia E60 besting the 3G pack at 5:47. Frankly, if this report doesn’t get you fired up for alternative power sources, we don’t know what will.

[Thanks, Are S.]

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