Sony plans battery recall

Sony is planning to announce a battery recall of its own, reports CNET News.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has confirmed the recall, which is expected this month.

It is expected to encompass all possibly defective batteries, including those previously announced by manufacturers for specific notebook computers, said Julie Vallese, director of the Office of Public Affairs at the CPSC. But it is not expected to extend to batteries for devices other than laptops.

Blu-Ray disc supporter HP is preparing an external HD-DVD drive, The Register reports.

The company is also equipping two of its consumer-oriented notebook and media centre systems with drives that support the next-generation optical disc format.

The HD100 is a read-only unit but will also read all the familiar writeable media, including single- and dual-layer DVD+/-R/RW and all CDs, but not DVD-RAM, according to HP`s spec sheet.

Music download company Napster has introduced a service in Japan, says BBC News.

Napster Japan will offer over 1.5 million Japanese and foreign music downloads, and follows in the footsteps of rival company Apple, which launched its online music store iTunes in Japan last year.

Chris Gorog, Napster`s chairman and CEO, said: "Napster is very pleased to bring the first music subscription service to Japan`s vibrant music and technology market."

Finnish communications giant Nokia has announced a new technology, Wibree, reports Silicon.com.

Wibree is designed to complement Bluetooth and work with the same hardware, although it can also operate as a standalone technology.

Wibree and Bluetooth both operate at 2.4GHz and have a similar range of around 10m but the difference between the two lies in the continuity of the data being transferred. Wibree is touted as ideal for infrequent bursts of data, where the connected device will need to consume much less power.