By YURI KAGEYAMA

TOKYO (AP) -- Sony executives apologized Tuesday for a global recall in laptop batteries, acknowledging that the troubles had caused worries and inconvenience to consumers.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company said improvements in production, design and inspection have been made to prevent a recurrence of laptop overheating problems, which company officials said were caused by microscopic metal particles that mistakenly got inside the battery, causing short-circuiting.

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