Team Digit

Discuss on thinkdigit forum

Posted on 26-03-2009

Comment on article

Tweet

• Nanotechnology creates ultrafast charge and discharge batteries...
• Simmtronics and VIA team up to offer sub-Rs. 10K desktop...
• TMI - 'John Doe: Has just passed gas'

Boom, Like That

Even as we complacently sit with our laptops on our…well…laps, we forget the horrors of days past. Days when no lap was safe. When any normal day could turn to horror as the most innocuous of components — the humble battery — took to revenge. All over the world, they launched kamikaze attacks, going up in flames, and taking with them precious laptops, their data, and sometimes even human flesh. The world of portable computing was plunged into chaos, as users lost the courage to even turn on their machines. There were fragments of Dell and shards of Apple, and Toshiba cowered in the corner. We take a moment now to remember our electronic friends who perished in those blasts.

And to tell you that the danger hasn’t passed. Dell recalled laptops back then, Sony recalled their batteries, there was much criticism, but it hasn’t ended. In October, there was another scare, and Sony has now recalled 100,000 more batteries worldwide. That’s right, those lithium-ion rogues are still out there, just waiting for the opportunity to take something precious with them. Who will it be this time? Will it be you, guy-who-reads-RSS-feeds-in-bed? Or you, lady-who-does-her-accounts-in-public-transportation? Or will it be Innocent Bystander #54, whose only crime is to appreciate the shiny new laptop in his peripheral vision?

Across the US, owners of HP laptops are in panic, for 32,000 of the 35,000 kamikaze batteries are apparently in HP systems. Sixty-five thousand are spread across the world, hiding out in everything from Dells to Tecras to Toshibas. The war on battery terror isn’t over, and it’s time to put your laptops back on your tables once again.