recall

There are very few ways to view job openings, book a vacation, or find that perfect home without plowing through multiple websites and advertisements. Alertpedia is a useful website that saves you time by performing filtered searches based on what you're looking for. The search results are delivered in the form of a daily, weekly, or immediate email. The best part? No sign-up required.

Unlike websites like Kayak or Crazedlist, who deliver an immediate search result, Alertpedia saves you time by doing an automatic, periodical search. You can search for weather, traffic, jobs, travel, YouTube videos, and other categories.… Read more

Two owners of Acer Predator gaming PCs reported recently that the desktops got so hot the external casing melted. Accordingly, Acer issued a voluntary recall Thursday.

The recall affects approximately 215 Predator desktops sold by Acer between May and December 2008, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

There have been at least two reported incidents of the PCs short-circuiting, causing both internal components and the exterior casing to melt. Fortunately, there were no injuries as a result, according to Acer.

Acer says the problem is caused by the insulation on the PCs' internal wiring, which can "become bent … Read more

Toyota Motor plans to recall 1.4 million cars throughout the world for minor defects.

About 830,000 cars in Europe, North America, and other regions are being recalled, and another 536,000 in Japan. The defective models include the Yaris (called the Vitz in Japan), Belta, and Ractis models built between January 2005 and April 2008.

The recall concerns the tensioner on seat belts that may melt or catch fire in some collision situations. On some models, there's also concern that the exhaust pipe will crack under extreme heat.

An official safety recall with the National Highway Traffic … Read more

We realize you probably spent a lot of time coming up with your Halloween costume this week (extra bonus points if your creativity went beyond a red power suit, pageant hair, and Tina Fey glasses!). So if you weren't able to keep up with all the goings-on in gadget land over the past five days, no worries, we've got what you need to know right here.

• Prison life just got easier--for the guards at least.

• MP3 player prices are sinking to the bottom of the iriver.

• Showing now, pretty much everywhere: Netflix.

• Hewlett-Packard makes your dream of … Read more

Updated at 2:15 p.m. PDT with the names and quantities of notebooks affected by each manufacturer.

More than two years after the largest battery recall in the electronics industry, Sony batteries have been fingered again as the culprit in more than 40 worldwide incidents of laptops overheating.

Sony and the Consumer Product Safety Commission will announce Thursday afternoon that Sony is supporting the voluntary recall of 100,000 notebook battery packs powered by Sony's 2.15Ah lithium ion cells. Thirty-five thousand of those were sold in the U.S., and 65,000 in international markets. Sony says … Read more

You click OK on a message while surfing the Internet and suddenly your computer is full of malicious software and viruses. That's bad. What could be worse worse, however, is when your brand new computer comes preloaded with malicious software.

Tuesday, according to ChinaTechNews.com, Asus announced a recall of it's Asus Eee Box PCs that it had sold in Japan because it was shipped with a virus.

The computers had a file called recycled.exe, residing on the D drive. Once executed, the file would copy itself to other drives, including USB drives, and install malicious software … Read more

Apple is recalling the USB power adapters sold with the iPhone 3G in North America and Japan amid concerns they are prone to breaking.

The company announced the Apple Ultracompact USB Power Adapter Exchange Program Friday, which applies to iPhone 3G owners who bought the device in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Japan, and selected countries in South America. Apple included a USB power block, shown at right, inside the box for the iPhone 3G in these countries, and the company has received reports that the prongs on that power block can break off and remain inside your wall socket, … Read more

Sony is recalling about 438,000 Vaio TZ-series notebooks worldwide that may overheat and cause burns, the company said Thursday.

The number of recalled laptops sold in the United States is 72,800, a Sony spokesman said.

According to a statement issued by Sony and the Consumer Products Safety Commission, the problem is related to irregularly positioned wires near the computer's hinge and/or a dislodged screw inside the hinge, which can cause a short circuit and overheating.

The problem affects the Vaio VGN-TZ100 series, VGN-TZ200 series, … Read more

2007 has been the year of toy insecurity. Few parents of young kids escaped the unpleasant task of removing a favorite toy--from Aqua Dots to Thomas the Tank Engine--that had been recalled.

And all parents were left with a feeling of unease, that globalization and lax US consumer standards have left us vulnerable to toxic chemicals being routinely used to make our toys (and cosmetics, food, electronics...but that's a larger topic for another day).

I predict that the big story next year will be the growing realization that European and Japanese standards for chemicals used in plastic toys are much more stringent than those in the USA, and that as a result, toys that are banned elsewhere are getting dumped into the US market.

But right now, Christmas is rapidly approaching, and families are busily shopping for gifts, and will unwrap gifts given by others over the next week. What's a parent to do? The Web site HealthyToys.org gives parents way to weed out toxic toys, by searching the HealthyToys database that provides a detailed breakdown of the substances found in over 1,200 toys they tested for lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and PVC plastic. The results are alarming: of the 10 toys with the most lead, two of them are tea sets, with cups and teapots that are inevitably going to be filled with water that little kids will drink. Some plastic bath toys test high for lead and Chlorine/PVC, and these toys tend to go into toddlers' mouths as well.… Read more