Alienware–manufacturer of high-performance desktop, notebook, media center, and professional systems–is adding more color to Aurora m9700 notebooks by offering two new color options, Conspiracy Blue and Cyborg Green. In addition, Alienware is packing more graphics firepower into the Aurora m9700 with dual 512MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS graphics cards. Already the first 17-inch mobile system to feature NVIDIA SLI technology, the Aurora m9700 now adds yet another achievement to its resume by becoming the first 17-inch notebook to feature 1GB of graphics memory.

Matsushita said it had started recalling 6,000 PC batteries as they could overheat when subjected to a strong impact–the latest battery recall involving Japanese electronics makers. A Matsushita spokesman declined to identify the supplier of the batteries in question, but said neither the Panasonic brand maker itself nor Sony had made them. The move follows an announcement by Dell last month that it would recall 4.1 million notebook computer batteries made by Sony because they could overheat and catch fire.

PNY announced new solutions for advanced mobile phones. More and more models now come with memory card slots built in to enable customers to use the camera, MP3 player, PDA, and play games. So it’s no surprise that PNY Technologies has enlarged its mobile flash card range with high capacity digital storage solutions. Mini SD, Micro SD, and MMC Mobile cards have now become the main storage formats used in mobile phones. With the launch of the 2GB Mini SD and 1GB Micro SD, PNY can now deliver storage solutions for customers with advanced mobile phones.

Building on the Treo 700 family, Palm announced the availability of the Palm Treo 700wx smartphone running Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition, adding another Palm EvDO product to Sprint’s product offerings. The Treo 700wx combines a great mobile phone, comprising all the functionality and ease of use for which Treo smartphones are known, with the power and security of Windows Mobile favored by many businesses. This announcement marks the availability of Sprint’s first Windows Mobile Treo smartphone on the Sprint Power Vision Network, giving its customer base more choices and complementing the Treo 700p smartphone running on the Palm OS platform.

Game creator Electronic Arts has announced the release of “EA Replay,” a compilation of its ’90s-era titles reprogrammed for use on Sony’s PlayStation Portable. EA plans to jump onto the retro bandwagon on Nov. 7 with “EA Replay,” a set of 14 of the company’s titles that were originally released between 1990 and 1995. The games run the gamut from the martial-arts “Budokan” to the fantasy role-playing “Ultima VII,” which has since morphed into the massive multiplayer online game “Ultima Online.”

Producing big sound from a small device, the new Sansa Base Station from SanDisk enables a Sansa MP3 player to become a digital jukebox and play hours of music through a home stereo system or externally-powered PC speaker set. The SanDisk Sansa Base Station supports the SanDisk e200 series of MP3 players, as well as the new c200 series. The device allows users to dock a player, connect to and play audio content through an external entertainment system instead of a headphone, operate the player with a remote control, automatically charge the internal batteries of the c200 and e200 players, and transfer data between the player and a PC.

SanDisk has introduced the V-Mate Video Memory Card Recorder. The ground-breaking V-Mate is a video memory card recorder, allowing users to record video from video inputs such as over-the-air television as well as cable, satellite, DVD players, personal video recorders (PVRs) like TiVo and video cassette recorders (VCRs) onto their flash memory cards. Consumers can then take their memory card from the V-Mate and insert it into their mobile phone, PDA, handheld game console like the Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable), video music player or notebook computer to play back their videos on the go.

Nokia announced that the N80 Internet Edition, an enriched successor to the N80 multimedia phone, will be available in mid-September. The N80 Internet Edition can be used as both a cell phone and a VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) phone. Users can download and use software for any VoIP service, according to Nokia. In addition to handling work-related functions such as email and text-messaging, the Wi-Fi-capable multimedia phone allows users to find and map locations, take pictures, share photos, browse a book, and record and send instant voice messages.

The Mobile ESPN network is offering live and complete football games for viewing on cell phones. The service will offer subscribers up to 25 games per month from ESPN and ESPN2, starting with Florida State vs. Miami on Sept. 4 and will run throughout the 2006 college football season. The games also will be shown on air and on the ESPN360 broadband channel. Only Mobile ESPN customers who opt for the Total Sports Package tier will get the games, which are included in the price and can be accessed with one touch from the service’s Sideline on-screen menu. The Total Sports Package costs $25 a month in addition to the subscriber’s choice of plans that start at $40.

Nokia said it had agreed to buy mapping software firm gate5 for an undisclosed sum to tap into the fast-growing mobile navigation market. Nokia said after the deal it will offer consumers maps, routing, navigation and other location-based applications on its mobile devices. Nokia said it expects the market for personal navigation devices to reach 15 million units in 2006, compared with 8 million in 2005. It has previously worked with partners like Dutch TomTom and Route 66 or Israel’s Telmap to offer mapping services, and said the deal would not affect these relationships directly.