Sony recalls 100,000 laptop batteries

The Japanese Electronics giant-Sony-on Friday said that it was cooperating in a recall of 2.15Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan and sold around the world in laptops made by HP(Hewlett Packard), Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo and Acer . There have been 40 reports of overheating, in some cases involving smoke or flames, according to a company statement.

Sony-world's second largest Lithium-ion battery manufacturer after Sanyo- two years ago in a similar incident recalled nearly 9 million high-capacity batteries. The result? It affected the economy of all global competing PC manufacturers, and cost Sony close to $400 million! So, why hasn't Sony learned from its previous experiences? Beats me! That's the big question!

Sony stated that the faulty batteries were from the same subsidiary that made the batteries recalled two years ago, Sony Energy Devices in Tochigi, Japan. Sony said efforts to make manufacturing lines there more efficient appeared to have backfired, leading to substandard cells. A possible flaw in the metal foil for electrodes could also have led to overheating, the company said.

Dell and HP have taken immediate measures- HP has a website for its owners to check whether their batteries are defected, and Dell too has a similar website. This is definitely not good news for Sony.

Blu-ray's demise around the corner: Samsung

In a recent interview, the director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK, Andy Griffiths, has put a 5 year limit on the next-gen media format war victor. That's not even as long as the PS3's anticipated shelf life and puts a gloomy future on the thriving format.

"I think it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn't give it 10," Griffiths said. Great, now Samsung is now on Toshiba's side!

Being a seller of stand alone Blu-ray players by itself, I don't think they will make mcuh profit by shooing away their customers.

On the upside, 2008 is going to be a good year for the format, Griffiths reckons[I hope he one day becomes a forcaster!], citing rental services like LoveFilm which have adopted the disc format and are offering a clear path for Blu-ray adoption.

Toshiba propels DVD quality to near HD

Toshiba, which lost out to Sony in the battle for the next-generation DVD format, has announced a new technology that could help extend the life of current DVD libraries.

The technology, called XDE (eXtended Detail Enhancement), upgrades DVD picture quality to a higher definition of up to 1080p, according to Toshiba. The company was quick to point out that XDE does not give true HD, but it said the improved picture quality comes close to it.

A player already on sale from Toshiba will boost picture quality to 720p, 1080i or 1080p, depending on a TV's resolution.

Standard DVD picture quality is 480i/p. Toshiba is offering XDE DVD players for US$149.99.

This could tempt users who are opting to switch over to the new High-Def format to be tempted to continue using the DVD. Toshiba is finally avenging its loss to Sony.

Dad! Mummy is better on Blu-Ray than on Cinema! Dad, are you listening?

Mummy 3 Director reckons that the movie experience is considerably better on Blu-Ray than in theatres! This is huge complement I guess? In what way does it matter to you? It means Blu-Ray kicks HD DVD's arse!
This is apparent since when Blu-Ray won over the official Blu-Ray-HD DVD war and until Toshiba withdrew support from manufacturing HD DVD goods.


"Things that are dimensional, like the dragon lunging at the camera, in Blu-Ray really knock your head off because you are seeing all the details we put in it that are even a little better defined," said Rob Cohen, director of the third CGI -heavy Mummy cinematic debacle. "The dark/light values are better so you can be darker and still see all the detail."

Toshiba Qosmio X305-Insight

What's Qosmio you ask? An extraordinary family of laptops with a―well, far-from-ordinary name. Pronounced “KOZ-me-o,” these amazing machines are designed to be an exciting epicenter for all the entertainment you love, from non-stop gaming action to feature films, home movies, photos, and your favorite songs.The bottom line is that these machines are simply; the ultimate portable gaming machine with massive graphics memory, storage and processing power with new eye–popping designs.

Some Qosmio models include:

• Not two but four(4) high-fidelity Harmon/Kardon speakers with one Sub-Woofer so you'll just be blown away by the crisp, loud sound
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM (the best kind) will allow to enjoy full-throttle action without a single glitch.
• A 17" Diagonal True-Brite display will also allow you to enjoy all the in-your-face realism of today’s hottest 3D games at a full 1680 x 1050 (WSXGA+) resolution. The brightness, contrast, color saturation and overall image quality of this screen is hard to believe—till you see it for yourself.
• The Qosmio X305 laptop comes with up to 400GB of storage on dual 200GB 7200 RPM high-speed hard drive.

This ought to fire up your desire to get one Qosmio for yourself.

Cell processors in Toshiba laptops...!!!

The world's first set of laptops unveiled by Toshiba sport the powerful PS3 Cell processor- but to popularize it among users Toshiba has named the processor as "Toshiba Quad Core HD processor". If you still haven't caught my drift- the Cell processor was used in the PS3 and IBM's world's fastest super computer Road Runner which broke the petaflop barrier.

As per now, the three laptops from Toshiba incorporating the Cell processor technology are the Qosmio G55, Qosmio X305, Qosmio F55 which are designed for processor intensive applications like multimedia and gaming and should go on sale this summer! The X305 will also boast a nVidia 9800GTX graphics processor with 1GB VRAM!!! :)