Sony is expected to approve a plan to invest around $642 million (50 billion yen) in Olympus. As the Japanese manufacturer of cameras, optics and reprography products is currently facing a trial for having hidden investment losses for the past 20 years, it has been looking for a potential investor for months. By injecting that capital investment, Sony will become the largest shareholder. → Read More
Hasselblad announced today that it will be introducing a new mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC) called the Lunar early in 2013, something which you can be pretty sure will appeal to a very limited pool of potential buyers. Hasselblad is basically saying as much, calling the Italian-designed camera the “ultimate luxury” in MILC systems, and describing a device made of… → Read More
If you’re even a casual gamer, you know that video game systems and platforms have come a long way in the past twenty years. I’m old, so I remember rockin’ out to the Atari 2600, enjoying each and every pixel that passed by on my little TV.
Those days are over, and video game systems like Xbox and PlayStation 3 let you enjoy more than just games, including social networking and multimedia… → Read More
After a bit of on-stage patter (and a rather pointless Wonderbook video), Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai officially pulled back the curtains on a slew of new Xperia handsets — the Xperias T, V, and J — at IFA in Berlin.
The Xperia T (previously known as the Mint) is the clear standout in this crowd with its 4.6 inch display, which also takes advantage of the company’s Mobile Bravia Engine to produce to… → Read More
Microsoft’s Windows 8-powered surface tablet may be nabbing all the headlines (at least partially because some of Microsoft’s myriad hardware partners were miffed by the company’s decision to make it in the first place), but a newly-revealed convertible device from Sony seems like it may be able to give the Surface a run for its money.
PocketNow managed to score some images of the… → Read More
The crunch among handset makers who are not Samsung and Apple continues apace. Today, Android OEM Sony announced that its loss-making mobile handset division Sony Mobile Communications would be laying out 15% of its workforce — 1,000 people approximately — as part of a bigger restructuring. It will also move its HQ and “certain other functions” from Lund, Sweden to Tokyo, Japan in October… → Read More
It’s been a long time since Sony released a smartphone in the U.S. market that had a chance of hitting it off with customers — too many of their recent releases have either been meant for niche markets (the Xperia Play 4G) or were expensive and unlocked (nearly all of these things).
That said, they’re looking to give it another go with the new Xperia ion, and it certainly looks like it… → Read More
Though an errant Google ad gave away some of the surprise a few weeks back, AT&T has just announced that the Sony Xperia ion will be hitting all of the carrier’s sales channels on June 24 for $99 with a two-year contract.
Sony Mobile fans with a hankering for some high-speed data will be glad to know (or be reminded) that the Gingerbread-powered Xperia ion is the company’s first LTE… → Read More
Sony is certainly no stranger to the mobile space — the recently-divorced Sony Mobile Communications branch has been announcing plenty of handsets lately, but the company has decided that their PlayStation-certified hardware efforts need to extend beyond their own walls.
That said, Sony has just revealed that their first non-Sony hardware partner will be none other than HTC. → Read More
Although the vast majority of Sony gaming content is focused on adult/teen titles, a new title called Wonderbook is particularly interesting. Using an augmented-reality book, kids can turn pages and watch themselves and the book animated on the screen. They’re creating educational and gaming content, including unique science and history stories. → Read More
Like Microsoft did in their own press conference earlier today, Sony was quick to point out that their consoles aren’t just gaming gadgets — they’re great for consuming media too.
To further cement that point, Sony Computer Entertainment America chief Jack Tretton just revealed that Hulu Plus and Crackle streaming video apps will soon find their way to the PS Vita. → Read More
Sony’s Android-powered Xperia Play debuted to mixed reviews last year, but according to a newly published patent, Sony was apparently toying with the idea of making something much more interesting before settling on the design they ran with.
Not content with a single physical keypad meant strictly for gaming, the images associated with the patent depict a Sony smartphone with two of them — one… → Read More
While I often prefer to watch analysts hoist themselves with their own petard, it’s not often that one dumps out a bit of drivel so short-sighted as George Colony at Forrester. In short, Colony believes that Apple is the next Sony – a desiccated organization that has nothing new to offer the world. While he’s right about Sony, he’s wrong about Apple.
Analysts, to be fair, do know a thing or two… → Read More
A while ago, people opined that the PS Vita – despite horrible battery life and a dearth of compelling game titles – could become a sort of “gamers iPad,” a tool that ends up being more than just a console. That dream is coming closer to fruition with the announcement of Skype for Vita. → Read More
In light of the recent layoffs by Sony to the tune of 10,000 employees, I think it’s important to see where Sony currently resides in the tech ecosystem and why the company, once the darling of the CE and PC set, went so far off track.
As background, I recommend you read Joel Johnson’s excellent series on Sony. He wrote it two years ago on Gizmodo and it is one of the most thorough and… → Read More
So the reports have proven to be true: Sony has now officially said that it will be reducing its headcount by 10,000 people worldwide, some six percent of its workforce, as the struggling electronics giant reorganizes under new management and its new “One Sony” plan.
Sony says the employee reductions will be made over the course of this fiscal year, and will also include some employees leaving… → Read More
Sony enters a new era April 1st. On that day Kazuo Hirai will replace Sir Howard Stringer as Sony’s president and CEO. The challenges ahead are massive; Sony is facing a financial and organizational calamity. Sony is simply too big and has fallen too far and Hirai is tasked to bring Sony back to glory.
Sony just announced a new corporate organization that shows drastic change is underway. → Read More
Google’s Chromebooks haven’t exactly made a splash, but apparently not everyone has been scared off. Sony seems to think there’s gold in them thar laptops, and they’re making their own. For now it’s known as the VCC111 (probably shorthand for “Vaio Chromebook Computer, series one, 11-inch display”), according to documents and pictures from FCC testing.
The understated look continues with these… → Read More
Sony’s been bringing it lately, with a trifecta of monosyllabic Xperia goodness at CES and MWC. I personally believe that a key ingredient in the secret sauce may be Sony’s ability to keep the new phones classy — the Xperia S, U, and P all got high marks from us in terms of build, feel in the hand, and overall aesthetic quality. But the newest member of the Xperia clan may have trouble… → Read More
Besides a fear of imminent conjunctivitis from handling the same phone as hundreds of others at the Sony Xperia Press Event at the GSMA Mobile World Congress…what else comes to mind?
This phone — a model marketed mostly toward a younger segment — is, to me, reminiscent in some minuscule way of the old Sony W series phones I loved so much (way back in the day). I think it’s the thickness… → Read More
Sony is working on a new technology that authenticates devices via the power outlet, allowing for a few interesting applications. The system, based on the Japanese Felica standard, would allow authenticated power usage, power management for cafes and offices, as well as payments for power use. The system could authenticate with the power outlet via a chip inside the laptop or device or through a… → Read More
If there’s been one complaint my contacts inside large CE companies have had, career-wise, it’s been the inability to rise far in the hierarchy. While there are clear exceptions to this rule, the complaint has always been that succeeding in Asian companies has been contingent on (literally) speaking the language and knowing the rules of the road, as it were, culturally.
When Sir Howard… → Read More
You can’t believe everything you read, nor can you trust everything you hear on TV. Especially if it sounds something like “four out of five people choose LG Cinema 3D over Sony and Samsung for overall 3D experience.”
Apparently the Better Business Bureau (more specifically the National Advertising Division) “has recommended that LG Electronics USA discontinue advertising claims made for the… → Read More
In the market for a new point and shoot? Didn’t think so. Why don’t you take a gander at the new Sony shooters anyway? → Read More
More news on the Sony-Olympus alliance that’s supposed to be announced soon: Japan’s biggest business daily The Nikkei is reporting today that big S is interested in purchasing a stake as large as “20%-30%” in its potential, scandal-hit partner (that would be up from the 0.03% Sony currently owns).
The capital and business alliance would be mainly aimed at bringing together Sony’s strength in… → Read More
Sony has announced a new line of image sensors that will, in all likelihood, end up in dozens of smartphone models. The improvement is not in megapixels, which have more or less hit a ceiling, but in the actual layout of the light-sensitive wells that make up the pixels in the image.
The new sensors have, in addition to the usual red, green, and blue-filtered pixels, an unfiltered pixel element… → Read More
It would be a tie-up between two giants: Diamond Weekly, a major Japanese business journal, is reporting [JP] on its website today that scandal-hit Olympus is about to ink a capital and business alliance deal with Sony. Olympus has been under fire for months, after it was revealed the company has covered up large losses for the past 20 years.
At some point, Olympus was in danger of getting… → Read More
Smartphone maker Sony Ericsson this morning posted a pre-tax loss of 247 million euros ($318 million) in the fourth quarter of 2011, after reporting a profit of 31 million euros in Q3 2011. The company, a 50:50 joint-venture between Sony and Ericsson, blames “intense competition”, “price erosion” and effects from the flooding in Thailand as some of the main drivers for the drop.
Sales for the… → Read More
The Playstation Vita handheld system, unveiled at E3 last year, went on sale just before the holidays in Japan. It saw serious sales: around 325,000 units (500,000 by Sony’s reckoning) were sold in its opening week. Naturally numbers tend to drop after the initial rush, and the next week saw healthy sales of around 72,000. But The numbers kept decreasing, and it is now reported that for the week… → Read More
Sometimes you just need a file transferred onto a flash drive quickly. Enter The Sony MicroVault Mach. These boys are fast. Some would say SuperSpeed fast. → Read More
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