Sony recalls laptop batteries en-masse

Sony has now advised a dozen laptop makers to recall batteries, as the true extent of the overheating fault the led first Dell and then Apple to offer to replace batteries becomes clear. Over the weekend Toshiba announced that it had extended the scope of its recall, adding batteries supplied with Qosmio, Satellite Portege and Tecra models to the Dynabook units it had already begun replacing and bringing the total size of its recall to 830,000. Fujitsu followed by confirming the recall of batteries supplied with 19 laptop models, though it declined to say how many were being replaced. ...more

BT trials radio broadband

BT is to trial broadband over the air as part of its effort to bring broadband access to everyone by the end of 2005. 105 triallists from four regions (Ballingry in Fife, Scotland, Pwllheli in Wales, Porthleven in Cornwall and Campsie in Northern Ireland) will test the new technology in the pilot that will last until March of next year. Pierre Danon, chief executive, BT Retail, said: 'We want to make broadband services available to everyone in the UK - whether they live in town centres or rural communities should be irrelevant. ...more

mm02 makes full market debut

Officially demerged from BT, the mobile phone company mm02 has begun making its own way in the financial markets. The independently listed business - glorying under the symbol 'OOM' - had finished a week of conditional trading with its shares at 80p (valuing the company at ?7.2bn), but early trading on the London Stock Exchange took its share price over 83p. ...more

Opera on Linux leapfrogs to version 8 beta

Opera has announced a beta version of its next browser for the Linux platform. Work being carried out on version 7.60 has developed into a major release. ...more

LiteOn debuts dual format, double-layer DVD burning

Dual format, double-layer DVD burning has arrived in the UK with LiteOn's SOHW-832S internal drive. The burner writes double-layer discs, which hold 8.5GB per disc, at 2. ...more