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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Filed under: Laptops

And you thought you could go the whole day without reading a single battery recall-related post; sorry, we’ll try harder tomorrow. So you probably remember yesterday’s scary report which quoted a Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesperson predicting that Sony’s upcoming US battery recall will expand beyond just laptops, and might include portable DVD players and videogame consoles too. Well the same woman who made that statement, Julie Vallese, has now backtracked somewhat by telling CNET that “Any recall that the agency will make will be limited to batteries that power notebook computers. We have no anticipation at this time beyond that.” So, does this mean that those other types of batteries are safe — or that the CPSC knows about problems with them, but since they apparently won’t be part of the recall, there’s no need to worry the public? It’s hard to say at this point, although Vallese’s previous comment was pretty clear — unlike the following response from Sony spokesperson Rick Clancy: “Sony has provided a wealth of technical data to the CPSC involving this tech, and it is omnipresent in a host of portable electronic devices, but as far as we know, from Sony’s perspective, there is no initiative planned at this time that goes beyond what has already been communicated with respect to notebook computers.” Doesn’t sound very reassuring to us. Only time will tell if other kinds of devices are at risk from those little metal particles that tainted many a laptop cell, but if we had to proffer a guess, we’d say it’s pretty unlikely that the QA breakdown which allowed so many batteries to become fire hazards was limited only to the manufacturing processes for notebook power packs. Let’s hope we’re wrong about this one.

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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

Although a Hello Kitty toy might not seem quite as dangerous (read: life threatening) as the notebooks and cellphones we’re toting these days, the explosive tendencies have somehow veered from batteries to stuffed animals. In the latest episode of spontaneous combustion, Takara is being forced to recall specific Hello Kitty dolls which featured a heatable disc that could be warmed and stuffed within the lining to keep kids toasty while resting. Apparently the microwavable pad housed a chemical substance (manufactured by ADEKA) not quite stable enough to handle the heat, sparking a lengthy list of of cases where the liquid erupted from its container and provided an uncomfortable surprise to the poor soul embracing the creature’s volcanic warmth. It was noted that this has “nothing to do” with the scapegoat-of-the-year (Li-ion cells), but if you (or your offspring) just loves to cuddle with this volatile critter, you should probably ice the situation before it unleashes something a bit more serious than a cat’s meow.

[Via Engadget Japanese]

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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: 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: Laptops

We know you’ve all been following closely as Dell investigates the case of their exploding laptop, so you’ll probably be interested to hear about a report claiming that Dell knew dozens of their laptops had sustained extensive heat damageat least two years before initiating any kind of recall. The source, who is claimed to be someone “close to the company,” has said that Dell execs were provided with documents and photographs in 2003 and 2004 showing lappies described as “burned,” “melted” and even “scorched.” Of course we can’t vouch for the legitimacy of the source’s information, but if it’s true, the danger that could be involved makes “dozens” sound like a lot, even compared to the millions Dell sells every year.

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Filed under: Storage

Here’s a new one for you: we’ve all seen product recalls stemming from overheating batteries, defective CCDs, and faulty power cords, but this is the first we’ve heard of a USB thumb drive being called back for “posing a risk of burns to consumers and property damage.” Actually, Lexar — in conjunction with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission — is recalling a total of five different models when all is said and done: the 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, and 2GB flavors of the JumpDrive FireFly and the 1GB version of the JumpDrive Secure II. According to the CPSC, 66,000 of the faulty units were sold between April and May of this year — check the Read link for specific serial number ranges — and although so far no injuries have been reported, consumers are advised to stop using affected models immediately. As usual, the company will hook you up with a new model free of charge if you ask very nicely; as for us, we’re probably gonna hold onto ours and use them to brand new interns with the Lexar logo as part of our geeky hazing ritual.

[Via The Inquirer]

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Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs

Ouch — first the issues with the fans grinding against the chassis on the eo kept TabletKiosk’s UMPC out of the hands of consumers until just recently, but now those early adopters who finally have their eo v7110 are being asked to part with theirs in a voluntary recall due to a “battery life that did not perform as advertised.” Battery life not as long as advertised in a UMPC? Welcome to the club, TabletKiosk. (We kid, we kid!) At least peeps won’t be without their machines more than 72 hours (or so TK claims), and for their trouble they’re offering 24% off “any single eo accessory.” Well, gee, thanks. But hey, good on TabletKiosk for nipping this in the bud early instead of pretending the problem didn’t exist until consumers either shut up or stopped buying.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household

Looks like the worlds most beloved slightly wonky Austrian chef extraordinaire is soon to have a PR fiasco on his hands. Those self-heating single serving Wolfgang Puck branded packs are being pulled from the market faster than you can say Spago. Puck's namesake company demanded brand-licensee BrandSource Inc. pull the products from stores nationwide after complaints of incidents where the cans overheated, leaked, or the calcium oxide found its way into the hot coffee beverage, resulting in some severely burned consumers. It gets sticky though, because BrandSource only licensed the name; OnTech was the company who provided the cans, and they apparently shoddily subcontracted, which has resulted in litigation between the two companies over some very shady dealings. In other words, if you see one of these cans, steer clear, people. The silver lining is, of course, that the recall couldn't have happened at a better time, what with spring officially sprung, and summer just around the corner. Perhaps Wolfgang should start looking into self-cooling Frappucino knockoffs, eh?

[Via Slashdot]

Filed under: Laptops

So PCSIntel is reporting that Apple's effecting a "silent" recall and replacement of first and second week MacBook Pro batteries (which start with the serial numbers W8607 and W8608) due to such symptoms as failure, power cutoffs, mis-reporting of remaining power, and unresponsiveness to status polling. You know, the usual for a 1.0 product. We didn't hear either way from Apple PR (yet -- we'll let you know if we do), but a quick call to Apple support -- which according to PCSIntel should have yielded a quick blanket-return of any part with a serial that started as stated above -- yielded no recommendation for return. In fact the support rep we spoke with researched it and told us he had no documentation or instructions to initiate any such blanket return on MBP batteries. Granted, that doesn't necessarily mean the batteries from the first and second weeks aren't (often) defective, or that Apple isn't necessarily silently recalling them, but, well, it kind of goes without saying that if your new system is having problems you'll be giving them a call no matter what you read here or anywhere else.

[Via The Apple Core]

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Video

We see a lot of product recalls around here, and keep most of them to ourselves (unless, of course, we feel our readership faces certain danger), but we figured you'd be particularly interested in one that could prevent your kids' hands from getting burned. Memcorp, in conjunction with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is recalling 102,000 battery packs for Disney-branded portable DVD players sold at theme parks and through Disney's online catalog from April 2005 through last month due to reports of overheating. Apparently the batteries, which were included with five different models (full list available by following the "Read" link), have drawn 17 complaints with regards to their toasty nature, including three reports each of property damage and minor skin irritation. This certainly isn't the first incidence of faulty batteries that we've seen, but usually manufacturers are thoughtful enough not to package them with products intended for children.