Sony have announced a recall on 440,000 of their TZ range of high end portable notebook.

Affected models are:

• VGN-TZ100 series
• VGN-TZ200 series
• VGN-TZ300 series
• VGN-TZ2000 series

The faulty laptops were produced between July 2007 and August 2008.

In the published press release, Sony state that:

“The issue involves a small number of units which may overheat due to a wiring problem. Sony has initiated a voluntary program to perform a free inspection and, if necessary, a repair to ensure these units meet our high quality standards.”

If you have one of these laptops, make sure you check as Sony have said that a number of people have been burnt as a result of the high temperature.

Those with arachnophobia will certainly have been attempting to get away fast this morning from Liverpool’s Lime Street station as a 50 foot spider clung to an old city block in the city. The spiders, built by French company La Machine, weighs 37 tonnes and apparently has 50 axes of movement, which are controlled by 12 people who operate the device whilst on it. But why?

Apparently this whole debacle is part of a five-day “piece of street theatre” to celebrate the city as Capital of Culture. The spider will go to other places of the town to undoubtedly confuse and scare a lot more people over the next couple of days, and is believed to “wake up” on Friday. However, the spider certainly is a great idea to attract some tourists (except summer has just gone, why not a bit earlier?).

Built in Nantes, the spider is made from poplar wood and steel (wood, for a natural feel maybe?) and was built in a secret location to stop sneaky eyes seeing what was going on.

Make this so it can be controlled by one person, and I want one.

Now that the September 9th event has been confirmed, we are just waiting too see whether the rumoured new iPod designs and iTunes 8 will be released. As a result, you may want to wait before the 9th if you plan on buying a new iPod with the Back to School promotion, which ends on the 15th September. No one quites knows what to expect, but if it’s any bet, the iPod Touch and iPod Nano will probably be updated, as well as a new version of iTunes to be expected. So wait until after the 9th to avoid any possible dissapointment.

Let’s have a look at Google Chrome now shall we?

The download is under 1MB. Small compared to the 7MB Firefox, and a minuscule bit of dust in comparison to the epic 100MB+ of Internet Explorer upgrades.

So what do you get when you first start it up?

Well, as you can see, a very uncluttered bit of software. A bar to type bits of text in to get you to a website, and a box underneath to view the bits of website you want to see.

Of course, the URL bar is a bag of tricks, using a similar technique to Firefox 3, by incorporating your History, Bookmarks and the Google Index to ensure that whatever you type into the address bar will get the website you want.

Google Chrome renders all the main website quite snappily and correctly, being that it conforms to XHTML as opposed to the mess that the Internet Explorer renderer is in. Of course, the browser uses tabbed browsing like Firefox and Internet Explorer, but each tab seems to be a seperate entity.

Often I find I have an errant tab which causes the whole of Firefox to crash. Nothing big thanks to the recovery system, but annoying nonetheless.

Chrome includes its own task manager that shows all the plugins and tabs, their memory, and network usage. Fantastic for seeing just how much bandwidth all those youtube videos are using, or closing an errant website that is bogging the computer down.

Developers will have access to more advanced features, such as a JavaScript console with debug and full coloured html source files of any webpage in question.

A new feature called Incognito mode will open up a new window, which looks just like any other, however this little window will let you browse without leaving cookies, history or temporary files on your computer. Absolutely perfect for accessing an Internet Banking site for example.

The move to web application orientated tools are also apparent. Google include an Application Shortcuts tool that let’s you easily make shortcuts from your desktop or start menu to any website online. Clicking on the shortcut runs a cut down version of Chrome without the URL bar, which makes it look like you are simply running an application from your desktop at times. A true step forward in making web apps the norm.

All in all, a very good start for Google in the browser wars. Chrome is a very simple, effective and fast browser, without the frills and buttons that other browsers push in front of you. With prominent advertising on Google’s website, and the exposure already given to it, we can only wait and see just how, and if, the industry is shaken by it.

Google Chrome, the latest beta to come out the ‘don’t be evil’ company, is going to be launched in 200 countries on the Windows Platform later today.

The only leaked screenshot we have came from the Google Chrome webpage which was up yesterday in a broken form, but now redirects to the Google homepage.

As soon as Chrome gets released, a preliminary review will be posted with screenshots and initial reaction, so make sure you watch this space!

UPDATE: Google Chrome Review now available…