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Sony Announces Global Battery Recall
snafu109 writes "Since the laptop battery recalls initiated by Dell, Apple, IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba & Fujitsu, some may have wondered whether the entire lot should be recalled. Well, over at MarketWatch, a new article reports just that. 'Sony said Thursday it will initiate a global replacement program for certain battery packs that use its lithium-ion cells in notebook computers in order to address concerns related to recent over-heating incidents.' In related news, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has released some tips on how to lower the risk of your laptop batteries exploding, no matter who the manufacturer."
Favorite Quote from the Consumer Products Safety Comission: "Computer batteries can get hot during normal use. Do not use your computer on your lap." Not much good as a LAPtop, then.
Ok, here's the deal. Now sony is going to have millions of highly explosive batteries. Who thinks this might not be a good thing...
Today: Rootkits, and DRM
Tomorrow: Holding the world hostage with boiling lithium..
eeek...
As a rule, I never trust dark brown ketchup.
Sony announced today that, as part of their Global Replacement Program, they will be replacing the entire globe. "Yes, we screwed up so badly, that it is cheaper to leave and start a new planet than to fix everything that Sony has done wrong," said a Sony representative. Among Sony's past transgressions include rootkit-enabled laptop batteries, exploding CDs, and firing Nellie McKay. "On our new planet, we will build a Sonyful utopia, a planet by Sony, for Sony forever. A DRMed paradise for all to behold."
Unknown host pong.
PS3 fiasco
Rootkit
Laptop batteries
BluRay
RIAA/MPAA support
Sony is looking more and more like a company that is poorly led and one that maybe can't be trusted. These are all (so far) huge public relation disasters. I think they need to rethink their strategy, in the meantime, I will be politely avoiding their products.
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
Not only do they have to do a full recall, but it gets dragged out through months of bad press. People will be calling their relatives asking if their laptops have Sony batteries in them. Do you think the laptop companies are going to blame anyone but Sony?
Sony should have seen this coming and bit the bullet at that point. This has turned into a PR disaster. Most people don't understand the concept of a root kit, but they do understand "can't bring laptop on a plane, because it might bring the plane down" (Virgin Atlantic did ban several brands of laptops because of this issue) or "laptop bursts into flame, everybody blames Sony". It's a very simple concept and everybody can understand it. When technology doesn't work properly or worse becomes a hazard, people become angry and scared. And the last thing a company wants is to have its name associated with fear and pain.
So, taking a low-ball figure of 20 million for total notebooks in use from 1/01 thorugh 8/06, that's still just over 2 incidents per million notebooks... I wonder how many incidents there would be per million notebook-use-hours.
To contrast, the rail system in the US was very pround when, in 1993, they were able to reduce reportable safety incidents below 3.0 per million train miles.
What I'm trying to say is that people are getting very worked up over a not-very-big deal (not that the goal shouldn't be 0 incidents per million hours) -- and considering the minor harm that such fires are likely to cause, is it worth the economic and financial impact of these recalls?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I have noticed that until now they never recalled them for their own laptops... i wonder who they get their battiers from
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'