After the Dell battery fiasco, Alan Cox's ThinkPad battery has now went up in flames. Reading his entry, it appears the battery was third-party and not necessarily IBM/Lenovo. Even so, IBM is now investigating.

The post can be found @ http://zeniv.linux.org.uk/~telsa/boom/

Also, a battery recall notification feature may be added to HAL and GNOME Power Manager. See here (with notification screenshot) @ http://hughsient.livejournal.com/4509.html