The CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) announced that batteries shipped with laptops sold by Fujitsu, Gateway, Sony and Toshiba will comprise a recall. Sony is expected to make its own official announcement at a Tuesday press conference in Japan, CPSC said in a statement. The worldwide tally of potentially defective batteries used in laptops made by these four PC makers is more than 3 million, according to the Commission.

The U.S. commission's decision to recall the batteries is based on 16 previous reports of notebook batteries overheating, causing minor property damage and two minor burns, the statement says. It cautions that there have been no reported incidents involving batteries sold by Fujitsu, Gateway, Sony or Toshiba. The CPSC determined, in conjunction with Sony, that the battery recall is limited to notebook computers and does not affect other electronic devices with batteries made by Sony, said Julie Vallese, the CPSC's director of information and public affairs.

However, Engadget comes along with the disturbing news that some gadgets may have been tainted by Sony's „huge batch of crappy batteries" as well. In its On Safety blog, ConsumerReports quotes Consumer Product Safefy Commission spokesperson Julie Vallese as saying that "the upcoming Sony recall could very well expand beyond notebook computers and could include DVD players and portable gaming devices." Not only is it unsafe to use a laptop anymore, there's also a slight chance that all your battery-powered devices are ticking timebombs that could totally ruin a quiet night of Grand Theft Auto or Kill Bill, said the same source.

Notified two weeks ago by Sony, Gateway decided to issue a voluntary recall of the batteries contained in 18 of its notebook models, said Lisa Emard, director of media relations for Gateway. "We have not seen any of the types of issues they've described in these batteries in our systems," she said. Emard said the recall will affect approximately 34,000 Gateway notebook PCs in the U.S.

The commission said 40,000 Fujitsu, 85,000 Sony and 210,000 Toshiba notebooks sold in the U.S. are affected by the announcement.

The full background story on this is here.