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(Credit: Gizmodo)

Sony is recalling 69,000 Vaio AC adapters, the company announced Wednesday. Insulation inside some VGP-AC19V17 adapters can fail over time, Sony said, posing an electrical shock hazard.

The Sony VGP-AC19V17 AC adapter shows up in computers from the company's VGC-LT, VGC-JS240, VGC-JS250, VGC-JS270, and VGC-JS290 series sold after September 2007. The adapter also appears in VGP-PRBX1 and VGP-PRFE1 notebook docking stations sold after September 2005.

Sony said it has received four reports of adapters short-circuiting, with none of those incidents occurring in the U.S. No injuries have been reported, Sony said. The recall only relates to adapters with certain serial numbers; you can enter your number on Sony's site to see if your product is impacted.

The company said consumers with affected devices should turn off their computers, unplug them, and stop using the recalled AC adapters immediately. They should also contact Sony to arrange for a free replacement of the affected product.

Sony can be reached toll-free at 877-361-4481, or online at esupport.sony.com/ac19adapter.

I should have bought the $31 DVD player.

(Credit: Matt Hickey)

Exploding iPhones are so earlier this week, people. The new scary consumer electronics product that might explode and kill you and your family is the cheap Durabrand DVD player exclusive to Wal-Mart. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a recall of the device, saying the players can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers.

The players retail for less than $30, are made in China, and are full of shrapnel to flay flesh from bone. OK, that last bit was hyperbolic, but still, any Durabrand DVD player bought from Wal-Mart after 2006 can be returned to the nearest store for a full refund.

So far 12 out of approximately 1.5 million units have flamed up, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which adds that the fires have caused property damage but no injuries. While 12 problematic devices don't really add up to epidemic-like numbers, it's still troubling knowing yours could be the 13th. Not that I'm fearmongering or anything.

(Credit: Acer)

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 or stripped," leading the wires to overheat.

Anyone who bought one of these Predators during the period listed above can call Acer for a free repair. See the CPSC Web site for more details.

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.

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

• 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 owning a magenta, flower-patterned Netbook come true.

• That burning smell could be your HP/Toshiba/Dell laptop with a Sony lithium ion battery inside.

• You thought Halloween was scary? Wait 'til you read this.

• And don't forget to check out Crave resident DIY geek Donald Bell's weekend Max/MSP project.

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 it has shipped 260 million of these batteries since 2002.

The HP Pavilion dv1000 is among the models affected by the battery recall.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

According to the CPSC, 32,000 Hewlett-Packard notebooks, 3,000 Toshiba notebooks, and 150 Dell notebooks are said to be affected. Sony has said that its Vaio notebooks are not included in the recall as they use a different type of battery.

The 2.15Ah lithium ion battery is also not the same Sony battery involved in the massive 2006 recall, according to the company. This also, so far, appears to be on a much smaller scale than during 2006, when more than 8 million notebook batteries were recalled.

Sony says it first received reports of problems with the 2.15Ah batteries in June 2005. Since then, PC manufacturers have received reports of 40 overheating incidents worldwide. Some of the overheating resulted in smoke or flames, leading to some "small burns," and about half of the incidents included "minor property damage," according to Sony and the CPSC.

Sony believes the battery problems are isolated to some 2.15Ah batteries manufactured between October 2004 and June 2005.

"Machine settings were adjusted more frequently than usual on one line from October 2004 to June 2005, and we believe that a combination of such adjustments may have affected the quality of cells in certain manufacturing lots, creating the potential for such cells to overheat on rare occasion," said a Sony representative.

Sony says it has not received any reports of overheating on any of the batteries produced after 2006.

HP, Toshiba, and Dell have each set up their own Web sites where customers can fill out a form and receive a replacement battery pack by mail for free.

Affected models include: HP Pavilion dv1000, dv8000, and zd8000, Compaq Presario v2000 and v2400, and HP Compaq nc6110, nc6120, nc6140, nc6220, nc6230, nx4800, nx4820, nx6110, nx6120, nx9600; Toshiba Satellite A70/A75, P30/P5, M30X/M35X, and M50/M55; and Dell Latitude 110L, Inspiron 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150, and 5160.

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.

Some Asus Eee Box PCs have been recalled in Japan.

(Credit: Asus)

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 from the Internet. This causes the computer to slow down and exposes it to security threats.

Li Yusheng, an Asus representative, told ChinaTechNews.com that the incident was an accident and affected only the production line of Eee Box PCs sold to Japan. Li also said that apart from the recall, the computer maker will impose stricter measures on production line management and software protection.

While the virus is disturbing, the good news is that only about 300 allegedly infected Eee Box PCs already sold in the Japanese market need to be recalled.

Toshiba AC adapter model number ADPV16

(Credit: CPSC)

Toshiba's U.S. subsidiary is recalling 142,000 AC adapters sold with the company's portable DVD players, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Tuesday. The adapters can fail, causing the portable DVD player to overheat and posing a burn hazard to consumers.

The voluntary recall involves the ADPV16 AC adapter sold with Toshiba's SD-P1600 portable players. The gadgets were sold in consumer electronics stores nationwide from January 2005 through April 2006 for between $200 and $230.

Toshiba has received two reports of minor damage to the bottom of the DVD player, according to the CPSC, which also says that no injuries have been reported.

Consumers are being urged to stop using the AC adapters immediately and to contact Toshiba Customer Solutions for a replacement adapter.

Canon PowerShot A650 IS

Canon has announced a service advisory for the PowerShot A650 IS, the company's 12-megapixel PowerShot A-series camera. According to Canon, the camera's pivoting, rotating LCD screen exposes the back of the camera and may light leak through when shooting in bright sunlight.

This issue doesn't ruin the camera, it only potentially causes image problems when taking photos in bright light with the screen open. You can still use it with the LCD screen folded against the camera body and facing outward. Still, one of the A650's nicest features is the flip-out LCD, and not being able to use it seems like a waste. Canon says the flaw is specific to A650 IS cameras with serial numbers that contain a zero in the fifth digit (xxxx0xxxxx). Even with those serial numbers, the camera might not have the problem if it features a specific mark inside the battery cover:

(Credit: Canon USA)

If you have an A650 with an eligible serial number and it doesn't have that mark, Canon will repair your camera gratis. For more information, read Canon's full service advisory, or contact Canon's customer service center at 1-800-828-4040 or carecenter@cits.canon.com.

Is your cell phone feeling a little extra toasty after a long chat? Well, if it's one of 46 million made by Nokia it could be part of a massive battery recall.

On Tuesday, Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, said that a batch of cell phone batteries that were made for the company between December 2005 and November 2006 have been overheating. The company said that around 100 incidents of overheating have been reported, but no one has reported serious injuries or property damage.

The phone batteries affected were made by Japanese manufacturer Matsushita Electric Industrial. The company said it didn't expect the phones to catch on fire, but the overheating did cause phones to short-circuit.

Nokia said that the issue has been limited to the 46 million BL-5C batteries made for Nokia between December 2005 and November 2006. Despite the fact that this type of battery is used in over 30 different mobile phone models, Nokia said only a small proportion of devices were affected. The company has listed the specific phones that have been affected on its Web site.

Nokia has several other suppliers for the BL-5C battery, but only the batteries made by Matsushita Electric Industrial during the specified period have been recalled.

Laptop makers have also been forced to recall batteries for overheating. Earlier this summer, Toshiba recalled some 10,000 batteries made by Sony that were used in laptops, because they posed fire risks. And last summer, Dell announced it was recalling 4.1 million batteries made by Sony that could short-circuit and cause a fire. Dell's recall was followed by Apple, which said some 1.8 million Sony batteries had been affected.