HP, Dell, Toshiba Recall Sony Laptop Batteries Again

Three of the biggest laptop computer makers are recalling certain batteries because of a risk they may overheat and catch fire. Sony made the batteries and the recall mirrors -- yet appears a lot smaller than -- a similar one that occurred two years ago.
This time, around 100,000 batteries are affected, a fraction of the 9.6 million [m] recalled in 2006. Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Toshiba have already issued recalls for the batteries that were used in their products and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said "consumers should stop using recalled products immediately."
The batteries in question were manufactured between October 2004 and June 2005 and to date there have been about 40 incidents reportedly globally of overheating, Sony said Friday.
Most of the incidents are believed to be due to manufacturing line adjustments made during the period that may have affected some batteries, Sony said. Additionally some may have been due to raw material flaws.
Of the 100,000 batteries affected, around 35,000 were used in laptops shipped in the U.S. By far the greatest number, about 32,000, were shipped with HP laptops.
The maker said it is recalling batteries that have a barcode label beginning with A0, L0, L1 or GC that were shipped with HP Pavilion dv1000, dv8000 and zd8000 models; with Compaq Presario v2000 and v2400 machines and with HP Compaq nc6110, nc6120, nc6140, nc6220, nc6230,nx4800, nx4820, nx6110, nx6120 and nx9600 computers.
Toshiba's U.S. recall covers around 3,000 Satellite A70/A75, P30/P5, M30X/M35X and M50/M55 laptops and Tecra A3, A5 and S2 computers.
Dell is recalling battery model OU091 in Latitude 110L and Inspiron 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150 and 5160 computers.
Consumers who believe they have batteries that have been recalled should stop using the batteries and check with their PC vendor.
An additional 2,000 batteries were shipped in the Japanese market and the remaining 63,000 went to consumers in other regions, including Europe and Asia. Recall notices for machines shipped in these other regions are expected to be issued shortly.

Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/153110/.html?tk=rss_news

Toshiba's First Netbook Hits Japan, Overseas Sales to Follow

The first netbook-type portable computer from Toshiba hit store shelves in Japan over the weekend, ahead of its upcoming launch in Europe. U.S. sales are currently not planned for the machine.
Like many other netbooks the NB100 is based on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and has an 8.9-inch display with 1,024 pixel by 600 pixel resolution (WSVGA). The machine measures 22.5 centimeters by 19.1cm by 3.3cm. It weighs just over 1 kilogram and battery life is 2.9 hours, according to Toshiba.
In Japan a single version is available, running Windows XP Home and with a 120G-byte hard-disk drive, wireless LAN and Bluetooth.
Store prices for the machine range from ¥63,800 to ¥69,800 (US$677 to $740), according to price comparison site Kakaku.com. At one Tokyo electronics store on Monday the machine was being offered for as low as ¥24,800 if customers signed up for cellular data service.
European models will be offered with up to 160G-byte hard-disk drives on Windows XP models. Versions based on Ubuntu Linux are also planned, although they'll have half the memory of the Windows versions and a maximum hard disk size of 120G-bytes. They also won't support Bluetooth.
Pricing for these overseas models and launch dates are yet to be announced by Toshiba. However, European online electronics stores are already listing variations of the computer at prices between €366 and €403 (US$461 and $508).

Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152851/.html?tk=rss_news

Toshiba Shows Advanced Image Detection Prototypes

Toshiba is using this week's IFA electronics show in Berlin to show off some of its latest image detection technology currently being worked on at its laboratories in Cambridge in the U.K.
One example is a gesture control system that allows for interaction with a TVs interface through hand movements.
It watches for a person to come into its field of view and, once recognized, looks for their hand. Once the hand is identified, the user just makes a fist and can then wave it around in the air as if controlling a mouse. A cursor on the TV interface moves across the screen mirroring the user's fist movements.
The gesture control prototype is being shown a few steps away from a display showcasing Toshiba's new Qosmio laptops that are the first products to include some of the same technology. The laptops feature an earlier version of the system that allows for limited interaction through hand gestures but works in much the same way. Users make a fist to move a cursor on the screen and then raise their thumb to perform a mouse click.
"The major difference with the Qosmio is that it's just smoother and more advanced tracking technology," said Kate Knill, manager of interaction technology at the laboratory, speaking of the research prototype on show. It is also much better at picking out a single user from a crowd and keeping locked on them rather than getting confused by the hands of other people in its picture, she said.
Having developed the prototype to this stage, Toshiba is working on ensuring it will function in real-world situations and sees one possible use for the technology as a secondary interface to a TV in addition to the conventional remote control.
A second video-based system is a pattern recognition system that has a video camera mounted above a TV screen watching for a card -- in this case a German or British flag -- as a cue to change the language on a video that's playing on the TV.
Toshiba sees several possible applications for the technology in the future, including, for example, a children's learning game where kids have to find the correct card in response to a question or instruction on-screen.
The same system could be used to recognize TV viewers and present them with personalized information or switch to their favorite channel when they walk in the room, said Knill।
Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/150512/toshiba.html?tk=rss_news

Toshiba to Launch Cell-based TV in 2009

Toshiba is planning to bring the powerful Cell processor into consumer electronics and launch a TV based on the chip in the second half of 2009, it said Friday at the IFA electronics show in Berlin.
The Cell chip sits at the heart of the PlayStation 3 games console and was developed by Toshiba, Sony and IBM to handle multimedia tasks that required plenty of processing. Each chip contains a single Power PC core and eight co-processors.
Toshiba and Sony have talked about putting the processor into consumer electronics devices for several years. Toshiba demonstrated a Cell-based TV at the CES show in Las Vegas in January but IFA marks the first time that the company has provided a time frame for launch.
"The Cell TV will be released to the Japanese market in autumn 2009," said Nobuhiro Kato, manager of Toshiba's embedded system core technology development department. "For the European market we will release it as soon as possible after Japan. We are planning it for the U.S. but the launch timing is not decided."
During a demonstration at IFA Kato showed how the TV is able to take a single high-definition TV program and analyze the content to create chapters then display several of the chapters simultaneously in windows on the screen for easy navigation.
In four small windows at the bottom of the screen, down-converted high-def streams of four chapters play while in the background filling the screen the selected high-definition video plays. The function requires the Cell chip to simultaneously decode five high-def TV streams -- something that is beyond the capability of many other chips.
In other demonstrations, the Cell chip was put to use handling real-time upconverting of a standard-definition video signal to high-definition and zooming in on a high-definition video. It was also shown streaming 48 standard-definition chapters from a video program for navigation.
Whether the demonstrations at IFA make it in to the first Cell TV set remain to be seen, but if they are anything to go by, the TV should be capable of some quite complex multimedia tasks.
"In the future we would like to create new applications using this feature," said Kato।
Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/150461/.html?tk=rss_news

Toshiba's XDE DVD Players Won't Hurt Blu-ray Disc

When Toshiba announced its new XDE DVD player promising it could convert the picture quality of standard DVDs up to the high definition, industry watchers took note.
The company has been a champion of video technologies for years and its own high definition disc standard, HD DVD (high definition DVD), had been beaten as the HD successor to DVDs earlier in the year by Sony's Blu-ray Disc standard.
It looked like maybe the XDE DVD player was a way for Toshiba to take some revenge on Sony.
Toshiba has already announced a loss of ¥108.5 billion (US$992.2 million) related to its withdrawal from the HD DVD business and said it expects further losses.
But despite some nice technology aboard the XDE DVD player and a lower price, there are several reasons to believe it won't hurt Blu-ray Disc at all.
"The impact will likely be minimal," said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for consumer technology at The NPD Group.
"There is now great industry support behind Blu-ray and the format is moving forward with enhancements that move beyond high-definition such as the BD-Live spec that integrates Internet connectivity options with the disc," he said.
One of the main problems is that DVD technology simply does not measure up to Blu-ray Disc. A person buying an XDE DVD player or any other upconverting DVD player is really making a choice to accept a nice visual experience at a lower cost.
"The reality is that when you start with standard definition, there's only so much you can do to it to make it look better at a higher resolution," said Jake Richter, analyst at Jon Peddie Research.
"The best upscaling technology in the world can't make average quality standard definition content look like high quality HD content because the content just isn't there," he added.
Still, Toshiba's new player strikes a few chords on the economic front.
Pinched by high gas prices, a declining housing market and a greater jobless rate than in the past few years, people may choose to buy DVD upconverters so they can keep using DVD collections they've spent years building.
XDE DVD players cost about half the price of a Blu-ray Disc player.
"Blu-ray is too expensive," said Michelle Abraham, principal analyst at In-Stat. Consumers are interested in Blu-ray Disc, but they are looking more at players that cost less than US$200, she said.
XDE DVD players come with a suggested price of $149.99, which while lower than Blu-ray Disc player prices, is higher than many other DVD players that also upconvert picture quality.
Sony's DVP NS700H/B is also billed as a DVD upconverter that raises picture quality to the best HD levels, but it only costs $79.99, according to Sony.
One advantage the XDE DVD player has over other upconverters is the ability to detect what kind of HDTV it's being used on, and upconvert DVD pictures to the same quality as the TV, 720p/1080i or 1080p.
And there is a wide divergence in quality among DVD players that claim to raise DVD picture quality to high definition.
"Not all up-converters are equal," said Carl Gressum, principal advisor at Premonvision.
"There are different quality levels, as the up-converter guesses how the DVD would look in 720/1080p। A more advanced converter will therefore provide better estimates and therefore its replication will be closer to a native 1080p source," he said.
Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/150458/.html?tk=rss_news