Japan's showing the rest of the world what to do when it comes to bad tech, and it sounds like a good call on their part.

With news surrounding Dell's exploding laptops and Apple's battery recall, Japan's ministry of trade has ordered Dell and Sony to find out what's causing Sony's batteries on Dell's laptops to become firestarters. The two companies have been given what would be, more or less, an ultimatum: find out what's wrong and tell the government how they'll prevent it from happening again by the end of August, or get fined for breaking consumer safety laws.

The trade ministry told Sony and Dell to check on imports of the Latitude, Inspiron and Precision models and their batteries dating back to 2005. The ministry also urged other manufacturers to check on the safety of their products, unless they wanted to incur the wrath of the Japanese government.

Their sternness regarding the Sony-Dell incidents aren't unfounded, though. One of the earliest reports of an exploding Dell came from Japan (and just so happens to be the source for our usual exploding laptop pictures), so the Japanese government's orders seemed to be right on time. Now would probably be a good time to buy a desktop though, if laptops are going to be this problematic.