http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/ Engadget Comments for 'Mr. Walkman' walks away http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/Nov 10th 2006 12:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/Nov 10th 2006 12:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Good proof that having the best product isn't always enough.]]>Nov 10th 2006 1:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/Nov 10th 2006 1:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Happy retirement!

-dj

ps. sony is still one of the most awesome companies in the world, though crippled down quite a bit by their own wieght. go buy a reader, and you'll thank science for the existence of sony. ]]>Nov 10th 2006 1:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/Nov 10th 2006 1:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/Nov 10th 2006 1:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Innovation is hard to come by these days, so Kihara-san deserves the respect of every tech-loving man, woman and child out there.

re: VHS/Beta - that was probably one of the early instances of Sony starting to get too cocky for it's own good, in not being more open in it's licencing permissions and encouraging more support etc. But all was not lost, because Betamax lived on in camcorders as the Digital8 (and it's Hi8 predecessor) are based on Betamax technology.]]>Nov 11th 2006 3:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Saru mo ki kara ochiru - though in his cas ei cant think of any :)]]>Nov 10th 2006 2:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/it is nice
http://www.topbatteries.co.uk
thanks for this useful post
i will never forget it
http://www.batteries-shop.net]]>Jun 26th 2010 10:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Sony was a fascinating company in the 80's. I couldn't afford their products at the time, but my buddy and I would go to well known department stores and hang out in the stereo department for hours, playing with the latest Sony stereo system. Sony found a way to stick a tiny motor in just about everything!

Thank you, Mr Kihara!]]>Nov 10th 2006 2:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/Nov 11th 2006 8:29AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/Nov 10th 2006 4:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Respect to Nobutoshi Kihara for all his work, but he's not Mr. Walkman, Mr. Pavel is.]]>Nov 10th 2006 4:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/The amplifier circuit was from a Raytheon transistorized hearing-aide design that visiting Sony engineers spotted and got through a technology sharing agreement.
Sony had stringent rules on who could publish movies in Betamax format - the opposing camp did not and let anythgin go through. Therefore "adult" movies came out in VHS and actually opened up the adult movie industry where people did not have to go to (at the time) sleazebag area to watch movies with skin. And as opposed to the stuff today - actual plots. ]]>Nov 10th 2006 5:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Sony did NOT invent the walkman!

It was the german Andreas Pavel ... but you know: One person against a company: impossible.

T . W . G]]>Nov 10th 2006 5:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Just because it may have been patented first doesn't make the Walkman concept stolen. Many similar ideas are developed independently in different parts of the world by completely different people. Then again there always IS that possibility the concept was stolen, who knows? But what I'm saying is that nobody can claim with any certainty that it was. Just because someone contests some concept or patent and eventually wins some royalties it doesn't mean that it was actually a stolen idea.

Anyway...
Sony faced untold obstacles to miniaturise walkmans and commercialise them, for the rest of the industry to follow. Nobody else put in the hard work to make it an actual product like this.

I salute the talented Sony engineers like Nobutoshi Kihara. It's a shame he wasn't asked about SonicStage and Digital Rights Management in general. When Sony became an entertainment business, the hardware suffered. Much like the hardware and software that is suffering now as Microsoft, Sony & Apple kiss up to the entertainment industry (or become part of it, as the case may be).

Interesting quote:
"Technological progress ends once we start imitating others."]]>Nov 10th 2006 6:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/

Betamax which was competing with VHS... is NOT in wide commercial use.

Take a Betamax tape and try playing in a Betacam SP/SX / Digital Betacam deck and tell me how well that works for you.

hint : it's *almost* like they are different things entirely and merely share a vaguely similar case size. ]]>Nov 12th 2006 8:37PM