Sony has been at it again and forced another product recall. Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Toshiba are recalling 100,000 laptop battery packs made by Sony after 40 reports of overheating. According to a US Consumer Product Safety Commission notice, the voluntary recall applies to certain Sony 2.15Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan. The batteries found themselves in flaming laptops all over the world. Sometimes there is smoke, other times flames. In 21 cases there were minor property damage and there were reports of small burns.

( www.theinquirer.net )

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Microsoft has doubled a cash reward for information on the whereabouts of a Canadian boy who ran away from home after his father took away his Xbox. Brandon Crisp, 15, legged it from his Barrie, Ontario home in October and has not been seen since. His dad said Brandon left after he had removed Brandon's Xbox. He was worried that his son's behaviour had been changing since he started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare online. Apparently he had been skipping school, stealing money and ignoring his studies, his father said. The local rag, the family's ISP and Child Find offered a $19,500 reward for information leading to his return.

( www.theinquirer.net )

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A scheme to allow people to use one name and password on lots of different websites has got a boost from Google and Microsoft. The two tech giants have unveiled plans that will sign-up their users into the Open ID scheme. The move means the scheme will soon be able to add more than 400 million users to the initiative. The two firms join others, such as Yahoo and AOL, as backers of the single sign-on scheme. ( news.bbc.co.uk )

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The Next Big thing? The memristor, a microscopic component that can "remember" electrical states even when turned off. It's expected to be far cheaper and faster than flash storage. A theoretical concept since 1971, it has now been built in labs and is already starting to revolutionize everything we know about computing, possibly making flash memory, RAM, and even hard drives obsolete within a decade. The memristor is just one of the incredible technological advances sending shock waves through the world of computing. Other innovations in the works are more down-to-earth, but they also carry watershed significance. From the technologies that finally make paperless offices a reality to those that deliver wireless power, these advances should make your humble PC a far different beast come the turn of the decade.

In the following sections, we outline the basics of 15 upcoming technologies, with predictions on what may come of them. Some are breathing down our necks; some advances are still just out of reach. And all have to be reckoned with. ( www.pcworld.com )

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Aiptek introduces the latest in pocket-sized Pico projectors with the official release of its Pocket Cinema V10, a miniature and compact projector with a built-in media player that retails for a penny under £300. You can use Aiptek's latest mini gizmo as a standalone media player or hook it up to your iPod, DV, DSC, games console or mobile phone via the AV-out. File types supported include Mpeg4, Jpeg and MP3 music files. ( www.techradar.com )

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RIM has said it is unlikely to make the BlackBerry OS open source in the near future, despite the success of Android, LiMo and Symbian in recent months. At a RIM developer's conference the question was raised of opening the OS up to let others have a tinker around in there, and while RIM said it had been looking into the idea, making its OS open source was unlikely. "We do have an open source management team that is investigating this," said Cassidy Gentle, a senior RIM Software Developer, according to EE Times. ( www.techradar.com )

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Starting from today, you can own a little bit of history - the world's first laser-powered telly. Mitsubishi America is finally stocking shelves with the LaserVue L65-A90, a 65-inch rear projection set that uses DLP technology (usually found in projectors) to deliver amazing colour depth. The Laservue set claims to be able to deliver twice the colour gamut of HDTV standard, using just 135W - a third of the power of a typical LCD and a quarter of those planet-hating plasmas. ( www.techradar.com )

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Microsoft has a long way to go to prove it can meld Windows and the Web. If it stumbles, Google's more Web-centric approach may gain even greater momentum. It wouldn't be the first time a supposedly invincible technology became obsolete. Google's pitch: Almost all tech tasks should occur out in the cloud, no Windows necessary. ( www.toptechnews.com )

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British scientists at the University of Bristol developed a copycat robotic head, dubbed Jules. The head is able to mimic the facial expressions and lip motions of a human.The Robotic Jules represents an animatronic head developed by David Hanson, American specialist in robotics, who works on the creation of uniquely expressive, incorporeal heads made of flexible rubber skin which moves with the help of 34 servo motors.

The motions of a human face are monitored by a video camera and mapped onto small electronic motors in the skin of the robotic head. The group of scientists at Bristol developed their own software that will help pass the expressions, which the video camera recorded, into commands, thus making servos generate facial motions that are similar to the real ones. But due to the fact that the robot's motors cannot be compared to the real human facial muscles, a little artistic license was needed. ( www.infoniac.com )

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In an attempt to scare the SIM card out of your handset, Sony Ericsson has launched a site designed to create tailored 'horrifying' virals to send out to your friends. On the site, at www.w595-thedarkside.com, users can watch videos of hapless people entering the Darkside pod (which looks a bit like a shed covered in bashed up foil) and can laugh themselves rigid at people screaming.

( www.techradar.com )

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Britons are kings of the Euro geeks according to a consumer trends consultancy - with 11 per cent of the UK prepared to try technology first, leaving the rest of Europe trailing. According to RISC international which describes itself as 'one of the world's leading consumer behaviour and trends consultancies', the European percentage for early adopters or 'innovators' is just six per cent - nearly half the average in the UK. "Society calls these innovators 'Geeks'. In the past the word made reference to people who were excessively absorbed in a specialist field but characterised by a certain lack of social skills", says Sharon Greene, Managing Director of RiSC International. ( www.techradar.com )

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