In Japan, where the technology giant is headquartered, ten customers reported serious problems with their 40-inch Bravia flat-screen televisions after they overheated and set alight. Sony admitted that a component in eight different Bravia models had the potential to “ignite inside the television and possibly result in the melting of the upper casing”. The faulty part is in about 130,000 television sets in the UK and a further 8,000 in Ireland, produced between 2007 and 2008.
The technology giant has written to customers offering them a free inspection of their television set, and a repair if necessary. “If you own one of the products mentioned above and if you notice any abnormality, eg unusual noise, unusual smell or smoking, please turn it off immediately, unplug the power cable, stop using the TV, and contact us,” it said in a notice to customers. The affected models are the KDL-40V3000, KDL-40VL130, KDL-40W3000, KDL-40WL135, KDL-40XBR4 and KDL-40XBR5.
However, Sony has stopped short of recalling the television sets – a move which would have cost it tens of millions of pounds. The technology giant will have learnt lessons from its disaster with Sony’s PlayStation in April, which was shut down for more than a week following a huge security breach by hackers putting a huge dent in the company's profits and reputation.
Meanwhile Sony said the video game network has suffered a fresh security breach. It said this afternoon that it had locked 93,000 user accounts after detecting a spike in unauthorised login attempts. Philip Reitinger, Sony’s chief information security officer, said in a statement on the PlayStation website that only a “small fraction” of the locked accounts showed “additional activity prior to being locked” and urged users to make sure they had “strong” passwords.