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HP Notebook Computer Battery Safety Recall and Replacement Program
This is an expansion of the June 2016 recall. It is essential to recheck your battery, even if you did so previously and were informed that it was not affected. If you have already received a replacement battery, you are not affected by this expansion.
 
Toshiba Adds 83K Laptop Batteries To Recall Over Continued Overheating, Burn Hazards
Last March, Toshiba recalled the lithium-ion battery packs used in approximately 91,000 laptops that were found to overheat, posing burn and fire hazards to consumers. Now, the company is expanding the safety initiative, recalling an additional 83,000 units.
 
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall
By now, you’ve probably heard that Samsung is recalling all Galaxy Note 7 units it has shipped so far due to the risk of malfunction and fire. Here’s what you need to know about the Galaxy Note 7 recall process and the Note 7 battery fire issue.
 
HP laptop battery recall
On June 14, 2016 HP announced a worldwide voluntary safety recall and replacement program in cooperation with various government regulatory agencies, for certain notebook computer batteries. The affected batteries were shipped with specific HP, Compaq, HP ProBook, HP ENVY, Compaq Presario, and HP Pavilion Notebook Computers sold worldwide from March 2013 through August 2015, and/or were sold as accessories or spares, or provided as replacements through Support. These batteries have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to customers.
 
Sony laptop battery recall
Dear Valued Sony VAIO Customer,
It has come to our attention that some of the VGP-BPS26 battery packs made by Panasonic may be susceptible to overheating due to a manufacturing issue, which has the potential to cause burns to the battery packs. The battery packs may have come with certain VAIO E Series personal computers released in February 2013, or may have been installed in some VAIO computers during repair. To address this issue we are implementing a free replacement program for affected battery packs.
 
Apple USB-C Charge Cable Replacement Program
A limited number of Apple USB-C charge cables that were included with MacBook computers through June 2015 may fail due to a design issue. As a result, your MacBook may not charge or only charge intermittently when it’s connected to a power adapter with an affected cable.
 
Apple AC Wall Plug Adapter Exchange Program
Apple has determined that, in very rare cases, the two prong Apple AC wall plug adapters designed for use in Continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Argentina and Brazil may break and create a risk of electrical shock if touched. These wall plug adapters shipped from 2003 to 2015 with Mac and certain iOS devices, and were also included in the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit.
 
Microsoft recalls Surface Pro power supplies
Today, in consultation with safety regulators, Microsoft announced a voluntary replacement program for all Surface Pro AC power cords sold before March 15, 2015, in the U.S. and Canada and before July 15, 2015, in other markets where Surface is sold.
 
Apple to replace worn-out anti-reflective coating on MacBook screens
For the last few years, Apple has combatted the glossiness of its glass Mac screens with a special anti-reflective coating. For some MacBook and MacBook Pro owners, though, that coating eventually began to wear off, leaving screens with a nasty mottled appearance.
 
Apple launches repair program for longstanding 2011 MacBook Pro GPU problems
Apple has just launched a MacBook Pro Repair Extension Program for Video Issues to provide out-of-warranty repairs for MacBook Pros and Retina MacBook Pros sold between February of 2011 and December of 2013.
 
What happens when a hard drive crashes
Hard drives, unlike the SSDs slowly replacing them, are mechanical machines with moving parts. Each drive has one or more spinning platters, extremely tiny magnetic read/write heads, two motors, and a fair amount of circuitry. When working properly, one motor spins the platters at a very fast speed—usually 5400rpm or 7200rpm. The other motor moves the read/write head in and out with microscopic precision. The head doesn’t come into physical contact with the platter, but it floats on a cushion of air that may be as little as five nanometers. That’s less than 0.0000002 inch.
 
Lenovo 2014 Power Cord Recall
On December 9, 2014 Lenovo announced a worldwide voluntary recall and replacement program in cooperation with government regulatory agencies. This recall is for affected AC power cords distributed worldwide with Lenovo IdeaPad computers. These computers were sold from February 2011 through June 2012. Lenovo customers affected by this program are eligible to receive a replacement AC power cord for the recalled power cord in their possession.
 
Owners Of MacBooks With Self-Destructing Video Cards File Class-Action Lawsuit
The computers in question in this case are 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro machines manufactured and sold in 2011. The price of these computers started around $1,800 at the time. Users claim that the discrete graphics card, which handles the more graphics-intensive tasks that most people in the market for a lunch tray-sized Macbook use their computers for, is defective. The lawsuit argues that some users had problems with their computers from the very beginning. The problem is that the computers’ three-year-long extended warranties are expiring, but the computers are still in use and still defective.
 
HP recalls 6 million laptop power cords over fire, burn risk
On August 26, 2014 HP announced a worldwide voluntary recall and replacement program in cooperation with various government regulatory agencies, for affected AC power cords distributed worldwide with HP and Compaq notebook and mini notebook computers, as well as with AC adapters provided with accessories such as docking stations, sold from September 2010 through June 2012.
 
9 things you should know about surge protectors
Surge protectors are an inexpensive way to protect your gear against random power spike damage. They're not all the same. Here are a few tips before you start shopping.
 
Text-To-911 Is Available Starting Today, Rollout Expected To Be Complete By Year's End
In some emergency situations it might not be practical or possible to make a voice call to 911, but starting today, you might have another option. It took a bit of wrangling with wireless carriers, but the FCC's deadline for having the necessary wireless infrastructure in place is today. That doesn't mean everyone will be able to text 911 yet, but the pieces are in place.
 
Why cheap phone chargers can cause fires
The USB cable used to charge your device is supposed to be plugged into the wall adapter it came with, but there are plenty of cheap replacements floating around. Is it worth paying Apple’s exorbitant prices for replacement wall chargers?
 
Time to Move On From Windows XP
The world today is a much different place than it was in 2001 when Microsoft released Windows XP. With Windows XP Microsoft combined features to handle games and multimedia for consumers, and to provide stability and reliability for businesses. This strategy made for a wildly popular operating system. Now, thirteen years later, Windows XP comes to an end of sorts on April 8, 2014. After this, Microsoft will cease providing security updates or support for this venerable operating system.
 
Don’t Know The Number? Don’t Return The Call – It’s A Scam, Better Business Bureau Warns
A new scam is targeting the curiosity of consumers and the Better Business Bureau wants to remind you that curiosity killed the cat — or in this case ran up his cell phone bill with excessive charges.
 
Federal judge rules IP address alone not proof of copyright infringement
All too often, we hear about web users who are targeted by litigators and law enforcement agencies, and accused of downloading copyrighted material on the basis of no more evidence than an IP address. But a pivotal ruling by a federal judge may have a significant impact on future lawsuits by copyright holders.
 
What You Should Know About the 2014 Light Bulb Ban
The light bulbs you grew up with are going extinct next year. 2014 will be the next step in the phasing out of incandescent light fixtures, and 40W and 60W bulbs will no longer be brought into the U.S. Don't panic, this doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. Here is your guide to the phase-out and what your options are now.
 
Xerox scanners found to sometimes alter numbers
Xerox scanners have been found to randomly alter numbers on documents when reproducing them if a certain combination of image quality and compression setting is used.
 
The proper care and feeding of SSD storage
Your solid-state drive sits there in silence. It’s sleek. Elegant. More than a little mysterious. The hard drive it replaced was easy to understand: A soft hum assured you that its platters were spinning. A quiet mechanical click informed you of its read/write operations. You’d groom it with the occasional defrag. Times were good.
 
Microsoft discontinues Office 2010 sales, some retailers jack up prices
Some sellers have raised the price of Office 2010's lowest-cost multi-license package after Microsoft discontinued retail sales of the suite.

Giant online retailer Amazon.com, for example, now lists what Microsoft called the "Full Packaged Product" (FFP) of Office Home & Student 2010 at $170, $20 higher than the former list price, representing a 13% surcharge.
 
FCC cracks down on campaign robocalls to cell phones
Two companies face fines of nearly $5 million for allegedly making millions of artificial voice messages without consumers' prior consent.
 
American retailer Genesco sues Visa, demands $13m in PCI-DSS data breach fines paid back
In what seems to be a legal first, the company is taking Visa to court to try to recover penalties it claims it oughtn't to have had to pay at all.
 
Google Removing Ad-Blocking Apps From Play Android Market
Google, which has been a favorite target of privacy advocates for the last few years, has taken another step that's unlikely to endear the company to that crowd or Android users. The company has begun removing ad-blocking apps from the Google Play Android app market.
 
Seagate launches new hybrid hard drive that closes the SSD gap, drops Momentus XT brand
For the last few years, Seagate has pursued a different SSD strategy from other hard drive manufacturers. Instead of releasing standalone SSDs, the company has focused on building a line of hybrid hard drives (HHDs) that incorporate a significant amount of flash memory, but retain a hard drive’s larger capacity. Samsung and Hitachi have also dabbled in this market, but it’s been Seagate that pushed its Momentus XT product line forward with multiple iterations.
 
PC laptops and accidental damage: Best and worst warranties
Basic PC warranties are just that: Basic. They cover faults in the electronics, typically over a one-year period. Anything outside the realm of a malfunction can be deemed as "accidental damage", which gives the OEM an escape route to charge you a lot of money on a repair.
 
'Six Strikes' System Flags P2P Piracy and Throttles Broadband Connections
The entertainment industry is teaming with five major Internet service providers to this week launch a new Copyright Alert System that will first warn online pirates and then start to strangle bandwidth of repeat offenders.
 
100,000+ Americans demand legal right to unlock phones be legal
On Saturday January 26, US citizens lost the right to unlock our mobile phones. On Thursday February 21, two days before the deadline to get enough petition signers to trigger the administration into re-examining an issue, 100,000 annoyed people demanded that that right be given back.
 
Unauthorized unlocking of smartphones becomes illegal January 26th
Starting Saturday, January 26th, it becomes illegal in this great land to unlock a new smartphone without the permission of the carrier that locked it in the first place.
 
The Secret World of Embedded Computers
You may have heard it before: computers are everywhere. It's been a mantra of our computer-controlled world since the 1970s—just as the microprocessor began to find its way into common household appliances, cash registers, cars, and heating/cooling systems.

What launched that invasion, in large part, was the 1974 invention of the microcontroller, a computer-on-a-chip that integrated common computer components like CPU, RAM, and program storage onto a single piece of low-cost silicon. Read more >>
 
Toshiba Satellite Laptops Recalled for Burn Hazard
The U.S. and Canadian governments this week said that Toshiba is voluntarily recalling some Satellite laptops for posing a burn hazard to customers.

The burn hazard results from a faulty component. Laptops being voluntarily recalled include the Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite Pro T130 models. The model and part numbers are located on the bottom of the laptops, and begin with PST3AU, PST3BU, or PST3LU. Toshiba laptop recall >>
 
Important notification for Sony VAIO laptop F11 and CW2 series owners
In rare instances, these notebook computers may overheat due to a potential malfunction of the internal temperature management system, resulting in deformation of the product's keyboard or external casing, and a potential burn hazard to consumers. Sony laptop recall >>
 
Snow Leopard Bug Deletes All User Data
By Gregg Keizer
 
Snow Leopard users have reported that they've lost all their personal data when they've logged into a "Guest" account after upgrading from Leopard according to messages on Apple's support forum. Read More >>
 
How powerful was the Apollo 11 computer?
By Grant Robertson
 
With all the buzz about the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing I got to thinking, how powerful were the computers that "took us to the Moon?"
It turns out, they were nothing short of amazing. Read More >>
 
 
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