Onity, the maker of hotel key readers that are easily hacked and unlocked, may be in the process of subsidizing the cost incurred by its customers to replace the faulty locks.

According to Forbes, memos from some of its top customers indicate that the company is sending out patched circuit boards for its locks. Customers can buy the new hardware from Onity, which will pay back the cost once the customer sends in the compromised circuit board. Its top customers include Marriott and Hyatt.

The trade-in deal is only available for locks purchased after 2005.

Recently, reports circulated about a robbery in a Texas Hyatt involving the Onity locks. A robber stole a laptop out of an HP employee’s hotel room using a hack first uncovered in July. A researcher for Mozilla named Cody Brocious found a way to trick the card readers using an open-sourced piece of hardware he threw together for less than $50. He plugged it into an AC/DC power port below the lock, flipped a switch on the device, and the lock popped open.

We spoke with Onity at the time of the theft. The company reported that its “engineers quickly developed both mechanical and technical solutions to address the issue.” These solutions, according to Onity, have been tested by two separate security firms.  Here’s the full statement:

Onity places the highest priority on the safety and security provided by its products. Immediately following the hacker’s public presentation of illegal methods of breaking into hotel rooms, Onity engineers quickly developed both mechanical and technical solutions to address the issue.

These solutions have been tested and validated by two independent security firms, and are available to customers worldwide. All requests for these solutions have already been fulfilled, or are in the process of being fulfilled.

We are disappointed that hackers are targeting electronic hotel locks and publishing methods to illegally break into hotel rooms under the guise of protecting public safety. We always look for ways we can augment our customers’ security strategies and will continue to do so.

To learn more about these solutions, customers can call Onity’s dedicated customer assistance line, which is staffed with specialists who can immediately help select and implement the best possible solution for that customer’s specific property.

hat tip Ars Technica; Hotel image via Shutterstock

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has issued a recall for 239 of its Karma vehicles, fewer than 50 of which have been sold to customers. The $96,000 luxury electric sedans have an issue with a hose clip in their battery units that could result in a coolant leak and possibly a fire.

All Karma owners have already been contacted by Fisker, and the company aims to have all the batteries replaced in customer cars before Jan. 1, Fisker spokesperson Roger Ormisher told VentureBeat.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, the issue is with all Karma models produced between July 1 and Nov. 3. The battery units, which are produced by A123 Systems, were positioned incorrectly, making it possible for the battery compartment to interfere with the hose clamps, resulting in a leak from the coolant hoses. If the coolant leaks into the battery compartment, the battery could short out and cause a fire. No owners reported any issues related to the battery before the recall.

While the number of vehicles affected may not seem high for a car recall (GM issued a recall for 4,296 vehicles the following day), it is actually a good chunk of all the Karmas that have been produced so far. The Karma only began shipping over the summer, after two years of delays and a disappointing EPA rating. Fisker plans on ramping-up production to between 10,000 and 12,000 Karma vehicles in 2012, slightly down from its earlier goal of 15,000 a year. Currently, it is producing 25 cars a day.

“What was interesting for us was how quickly we did this recall,” said Ormisher. “It can take weeks to get a recall in place and we did it in less than 48 hours.” The company acted immediately after discovering the issue, and had already called all retailers and started the process of replacing batteries when the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report went out.

It’s been a bumpy year for the electric-car startup. In October, the company missed manufacturing goals for its next vehicle, the plug-in extended-range dubbed Project Nina, and had to delay plans for production. The Karma is produced in Finland, but the Nina will be manufactured in a revamped GM plan in Wilmington, Delaware. Ormisher says there’s already a pre-production model of the Nina, and the company plans to start production on the car at the end of 2012.

Fisker Automotive has raised over $760 million in private equity financing so far, and has received $529 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the government’s green jobs initiative. Only $169 million of the U.S. loan money has gone toward production of the Fisker Karma.

via GigaOm

Sony is recalling around 1.6 million of its Bravia TV sets for precisely that reason. A faulty component of sets sold since 2007 may lead in some cases to overheating, smoke, melting parts and even fire. Sony is offering in-home evaluations to Bravia TV owners and will repair defective components free of charge.

The defective part is an inverter transformer used for LCD backlights; the inverter can sometimes overheat and occasionally ignite. And when that happens, it can create a hole in the cabinet of the set.

So far, Sony is only admitting that 11 incidents of TV malfunctions of this nature have been reported since 2008, all in Japan. And according to Sony’s statement, no injuries have been reported yet. However, there are reports on Consumer Affairs’ website of fire-catching Sony Bravia TVs popping up as near as Hawaii and as recently as last month.

“I purchased a 40-inch Bravia Sony LCD TV in December of 2007 from Sears in Hilo, HI,” writes Dan, a consumer from Keaau, Hawaii. “It worked fine until two days ago. Then, it literally caught on fire. Smoke was coming out with an acrid smell… I called Sony customer support. The person that I talked to didn’t have the foggiest idea of what I was talking about and couldn’t care less. She would only send me a flyer that ‘would tell me what to do.’”

Disturbingly, owners of other flaming and melting Sony sets, such as the WEGA did report injuries including burns on the Consumer Affairs site. It seems unlikely that out of 1.6 million sets, no consumers have been burned or lost property due to the faulty components.

Sony is expected to announce recalls in the U.S. an Europe, as well.

Earlier today, we also reported that another division of Sony was suffering a bit of a meltdown, too. The PlayStation Network remains under attack, and so far, hackers have gained access to 93,000 accounts.

All in all, today hasn’t been a red-letter day for the consumer electronics company.

The issue at hand affects models 2.0 and 2.5 (pictured), and involves the 12-volt cable from a backup system that powers the car’s head, tail, turn and hazard lights, as well as the airbags if the primary power system fails.

“This issue is limited to the 12V low voltage auxiliary cable and does not involve the main battery pack or main power system,” a company statement said.

Tesla’s stock is trading today in the $20 range, down from about $22 last Thursday. The company announced the recall Friday at 6 p.m.

This is Tesla’s second recall. The company recalled 345 Roadsters in May 2009 when it discovered some bolts were not properly tightened on the car’s inner hub — a problem that originated at the Lotus factory, which produced the chassis. The issue could have caused vehicles to crash, so Tesla went out on a series of house calls to fix the issue.

The company is undertaking a similar effort for the fix this time around — it has started alerting customers by email and a mailing campaign, and will again offer house and office visits. The correction involves installing a protective casing over the cable and checking the routing and takes about an hour to complete.

As Motor Authority notes, Tesla’s quick move to fix the issue before problems arise isn’t surprising, given the small number of Roadster owners (the company has delivered about 1,300 Roadsters overall). The effort, the article says, is “no doubt intended to instill confidence in the still-nascent car maker’s ability to support its vehicles.”

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Medical-device startups are booming these days, as VCs throw money at everything from artificial spinal-disc fillers to implantable weight-control “neuromodulators” to vacuum devices that suck blood clots out of blocked vessels. (That appears to be in sharp contrast to biotech; see the most recent funding data here.) What relatively few people understand, however, is the degree to which the device industry benefits from looser regulations than those covering biotech — and how that might change if safety problems lead to changes at the FDA.

That’s exactly the sort of issue outlined in this story in today’s WSJ (subscription possibly required), which takes a close look at the faulty defibrillator leads recently recalled by their manufacturer, Medtronic. Those leads, formally known as the Sprint Fidelis 6949 (see photo above and to the left), are linked to five deaths over the past three years because the leads were likely to break and to deliver large, unexpected and sometimes fatal electric shocks to heart patients.

As it turns out, many — possibly even most — medical devices aren’t necessarily subjected to clinical trials, because they’re considered straightforward modifications of existing products. (Truly innovative devices are almost always run through such trials.) Similarly, the FDA doesn’t typically require manufacturers to conduct additional tests once devices are approved. Neither does the agency monitor reports of safety problems in a systematic way, instead relying on doctors and companies to file reports when issues crop up.

All of those factors converged in the Medtronic case to delay a final determination about safety problems with the Sprint Fidelity leads for more than six months. Although doctors at the Minneapolis Heart Institute suspected problems back in January, Medtronic didn’t recall the leads until earlier this month. The FDA played a largely passive role, relying mostly on Medtronics’ analysis of its own safety database even as other doctors raised alarms.

The remedy isn’t clear. The FDA, pushed by Congress, is starting to become somewhat more proactive about tracking and analyzing problems with devices and drugs, but its reforms are still in their infancy. Meanwhile, there’s concern — some of it legitimate — that forcing manufacturers to conduct additional clinical trials could slow the pace of innovation in the field. Should that happen, though, the device makers who have taken advantage of today’s lax rules may have no one but themselves to blame.

UPDATE: The WSJ health blog has a good summary of the WSJ story here.