Update: Circuit City Announces Plans to Close 155 Stores

By Brandon Hill - November 3, 2008 Circuit City's stock price has dropped over 90% since the start of the year and this past Thursday, the company was warned that it could be booted from the New York Stock Exchange. It appears that that closing time is finally arriving for what's left of Circuit City's nationwide chain. The Consumerist reported today that Circuit City plans to close 155 of its 711 stores nationwide. According to sources close to the company, employees of the affected stores were told this morning about the closings. The store closings will be effective 12/31/2008 and according to at least one report, Firedog and car installation employees will likely be fired within 48 hours. Read on -->Link

03 Nov 2008 by J.TECH Tech News, Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

PC makers recall 100,000 Sony laptop battery packs

By Jessica Mintz Oct 31, 2008 Computer makers are recalling 100,000 laptop battery packs made by Sony Corp. after 40 reports of overheating, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission notice Thursday. The voluntary recall applies to certain Sony 2.15Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan and sold around the world in laptops made by Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Toshiba Corp. Some incidents involved smoke or flames, according to Sony. Twenty-one of the reports claimed minor property damage, and small burns were reported in four cases. Sony blamed two factors for the defects: adjustments on its manufacturing line from October 2004 to June 2005, which may have affected the quality of cells in certain production lots; and a possible flaw in the metal foil for electrodes. Read on -->Link

31 Oct 2008 by J.TECH Tech News, Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

Security flaw spotted in G1 Google phone

Security researchers say Android is based on outdated open-source compenents that leave it vulnerable to a perviously known and fixed attack By Nancy Gohring, October 27, 2008 Researchers at Independent Security Evaluators say they've discovered a security flaw in the Android browser that could make users of phones with the browser vulnerable to attack. Android, Google's open-source software that is currently only running on one phone, HTC's G1, is based on outdated open-source components, the researchers say. As a result, the vulnerability they have discovered was previously known and fixed, but Google didn't incorporate the fix into Android, they say. The G1 went on sale last Wednesday from T-Mobile USA, and Google published the source code behind Android on Tuesday. Other manufacturers, including Motorola, are expected to also release phones running Android in the future. The researchers also say, however, that the impact of the attack is limited because of Android's security architecture. An attacker can't, for example, control functions of the phone such as the dialer. Read on -->Link

27 Oct 2008 by J.TECH Tech News, Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

Sony powerless to fix PSP screen problem

By James Sherwood 22nd October 2008 Sony has admitted that it’s powerless to fix display problems on the PlayStation Portable 3000, which gamers have complained displays strange lines on its screen. “On some occasions, scan lines may appear on scenes where brightness changes drastically, due to the hardware features of the new LCD device on PSP-3000,” Sony told PSP FanBoy. One gamer posted a message on the PlayStation message board that his PSP-3000 “now has what look like scan lines that were not visible on PSPs before”. He went on to describe how “there are very visible interlacing issues” and stated that he’s not very happy with his new machine. When Sony launched the PSP 3000 back in August, the firm stated that the 4.3in, 480 x 272, 16:9 ratio LCD screen would allow gamers to see brighter colours and a better-defined on-screen image in natural light. However, Sony's since added that “scan lines have come out to be more visible as a result of improving response time to alleviate the after images on PSP-3000”. The bad news for gamers, according to the firm, is that because this problem is due to the console's “hardware specification”, Sony has no plans for a system software update to fix it. Read on -->Link

22 Oct 2008 by J.TECH Tech News, Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

HP warns of Nvidia problems

38 Slimline models buggered By John Oates, 14th October 2008 HP has offered free repairs for 38 models of its Pavillion Slimline range of desktop machines, which are having problems with Nvidia graphics units. Last week, Apple admitted similar problems with MacBook Pros and offered free repairs to affected customers. HP said on its support site that the problem was "attributable to the computer's motherboard". Some machines either have problems booting or will not show video. The company is offering a free repair for anyone with a non-working machine which is within 12 months of the expiry of its warranty, or until 31 December 2009, whichever is sooner. Read on -->Link

14 Oct 2008 by J.TECH Tech News, Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

Microsoft patches critical bugs in Windows graphics system

By Elizabeth Montalbano, April 08, 2008 Microsoft issued a critical patch for two vulnerabilities in the core graphics subsystem of Windows, one of eight fixes released Tuesday as part of its monthly security updates. Microsoft released a total of five critical patches in its April security bulletin. Two of them fix bugs in Windows, two fix bugs in Windows and IE (Internet Explorer), and one fixes a vulnerability in Microsoft Office. The critical rating means an attacker could potentially exploit the flaws to hack into a victim's computer. The other patches fix vulnerabilities in Windows and Office and were rated "important." Microsoft releases patches on the second Tuesday of every month, which has become known in the industry as "Patch Tuesday." Read on -->Link

08 Apr 2008 by J.TECH Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

Best Buy sells infected digital photo frames

By Mark Raby January 24, 2008 Minneapolis (MN) - Best Buy has sent notices to customers who purchased a certain Insignia brand digital photo frame because it spread malware when connected to a Windows PC. Insignia frame NS-DPF10A has been discontinued because it was "contaminated with a computer virus during the manufacturing process," said the electronics retailer. The virus spreads only to Windows PCs when connected via a USB cable. Insignia is a brand owned and managed by Best Buy. "We apologize for the inconvenience that has been caused as a result of this incident," said Best Buy in a product notice. It did not specify how many of the frames were sold. Read on -->Link

24 Jan 2008 by J.TECH Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

First Trojan Reported for the iPhone

By Jim Dalrymple, January 08, 2008 While not a huge risk, the first Trojan for the iPhone has been discovered. The first reports came from iPhone enthusiast site Modmyifone.com and were later confirmed by security research company F-Secure. The Trojan specifically targets users that have modded their iPhone so they can install third-party applications. The application masks itself as an update to Erica's Utilities and is labeled as "113 prep." According to Modmyifone.com all the app does is say "shoes." However, when uninstalled, the application removes files from the /bin directory on the iPhone, breaking valid apps like Sendfile and Erica's Utilities. The Web site hosting the application was taken offline soon after it was discovered, reports F-Secure. Read on --> Link

08 Jan 2008 by J.TECH Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

Nvidia goes Mental

Taking a shot at Hollywood Blvd. By Wily Ferret: Thursday, 20 December 2007 NVIDIA IS LAYING OUT some big bucks to purchase the amusingly-named Mental Images. The Berlin-based visual effects studio has one major product, the Oscar-winning Mental Ray software used in film special effects. The speculation? That Nvidia is going to bring in the Mental Images software tools folks to create higher-quality in-game graphics tools. The more likely story? Given that Mental counts Lucasfilm, Sony Pictures and Dreamworks amongst its customers, optimising the software for Nvidia and selling systems (complete with Quadro and Cuda systems) to animation houses is too nice a synergy to pass up. Read on -->Link

20 Dec 2007 by J.TECH Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

AMD bungled Barcelona launch - official

Four-core catastrophe By Dirk Figger: Thursday, 13 December 2007 AMD BUNGLED the launch of its quad-core chips chief operating officer Dirk Meyer admitted to analysts today. Barcelona, as the Opteronic version was code-named, was hyped as the best thing since nylon stockings. In the end it was launched six months late, failed to work then, and is now adrift on high seas, apparently following its arch-competitor's Itanic on a trip to Laughing Stock Island. "We haven’t delivered our quad core product according to plan," wept Meyer. "We’ll make good on our promise to deliver hundreds of thousands of quad core processors," he snivelled, "but we’re disappointed." Not half as disappointed as customers persuaded to give the merits of " native " four-cored technology a spin, only to be kept waiting. And waiting. "We blew it, and we're very humbled by it. And we learned from it, and we're not going to do it again," he said. Read on -->Link Comment: To be noted here is this --> Yes upon creating a Native (real) Quad processor AMD has run into a mishap. – However, Intel's poor excuse of slapping 2 duo cores CPU's together and calling it a Quad CPU to avoid the complexities of making a real quad core and decision to take the easy way out is considered Technical cowardice, which only proves at least AMD has more skillful engineers who are willing and able to work and fix it's CPU in order to give consumers a True and Legit Quad offering. AMD may have stumbled this time but Intel has fallen many more times before. So in comparison to Intel's history this is a minor mishap blip for AMD. Even the smaller company with less funds is allowed one screw up compared to Intel many others. So no such thing as a problem free CPU company it seems - The problem however lies is which CPU Company throughout history has had the most Mishaps. Despite the fact, It's now AMD's turn to get a spanking for its bad deeds until they fix their mess.

13 Dec 2007 by J.TECH Recalls & Mishaps Permalink

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Lack of Recall posting on this page is good news in general. It means, I haven't come across any information or the tech industry is doing a good job by making sure defective products are not released to the public. However, odds are I either missed out on some information or haven't done enough fact finding. So if you see anything I missed out on and would like to have it mentioned on this page, feel free to send me the link or e-mail me any documents you feel will benefit other readers .

THANKS!