A number of computer manufacturers have recalled up to 100,000 defective Sony laptop batteries.

At least 40 incidents of overheating were reported, including four which caused minor skin burns. An additional 21 consumers claimed the dangerous batteries caused property damage by emitting excess heat, smoke or flames.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission noted that approximately 32,000 batteries were in the process of being recalled voluntarily, primarily by Hewlett-Packard. The commission recommended that consumers stop using the batteries immediately, as they were prone to overheating and could ignite.

Laptops manufactured by Toshiba have also been affected by the damaged batteries. Toshiba spokeswoman Yuko Sugahara confirmed that approximately 14,400 of its laptops worldwide would be affected by the recall.

The Japanese giant has traced the battery defect to a production line malfunction that occured during the period of October 2004 and June 2005.

It should be noted that Sony was forced to recall almost 10 million laptop batteries in 2006 owing to similiar circumstances, costing the company ¥51.2 billion ($519 million). The lithium-ion batteries were apparently deployed by nine companies, including Dell, Toshiba, Apple and Lenovo.

Sony has also recalled a total of 440,000 Vaio notebooks with sub-standard wiring that caused a number of minor burns. X

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