Misplaced Pages

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74-430: Floptical refers to a type of floppy disk drive that combines magnetic and optical technologies to store data on media similar to standard 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch floppy disks . The name is a portmanteau of the words "floppy" and "optical". It refers specifically to one brand of drive and disk system, but is also used more generically to refer to any system using similar techniques. The original Floptical technology

148-654: A 70 percent share of the market when it decided to pull the plug on the format in 2010. Sony still develops magnetic tape storage technologies along with IBM , and are one of only two manufacturers of Linear Tape-Open (LTO) cartridges. In 1998, Sony launched the Memory Stick format, the flash memory cards for use in Sony lines of digital cameras and portable music players. It has seen little support outside of Sony's own products, with Secure Digital cards (SD) commanding considerably greater popularity. Sony has made updates to

222-454: A Mac operating system installed on a Floptical; a formatting utility application was provided to erase and format Floptical disks. Likewise, Silicon Graphics's IRIX operating system includes Floptical support. Disk drive (The spelling disk and disc are used interchangeably except where trademarks preclude one usage, e.g., the Compact Disc logo. The choice of a particular form

296-449: A Super Famicom with a built-in CD-ROM drive, named the "Play Station" (also known as SNES-CD ). However, a day after the announcement at CES, Nintendo announced that it would be breaking its partnership with Sony, opting to go with Philips instead but using the same technology. The deal was broken by Nintendo after they were unable to come to an agreement on how revenue would be split between

370-751: A completely separate financial entity owned by Sony, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project (which helped lead to the creation of the DVD ) In 2021, the WIPO 's annual review of the World Intellectual Property Indicators report ranked Sony's as ninth in the world for the number of patent applications published under the PCT System . 1,793 patent applications were published by Sony during 2020. This position

444-490: A few hundred to many thousands of bytes. Gross disk drive capacity is simply the number of disk surfaces times the number of blocks/surface times the number of bytes/block. In certain legacy IBM CKD drives the data was stored on magnetic disks with variable length blocks, called records; record length could vary on and between disks. Capacity decreased as record length decreased due to the necessary gaps between blocks. Digital disk drives are block storage devices . Each disk

518-457: A focus on reducing the major losses from the television business. In February 2014, Sony announced the sale of its Vaio PC division to a new corporation owned by investment fund Japan Industrial Partners and spinning its TV division into its own corporation as to make it more nimble to turn the unit around from past losses totaling $ 7.8 billion over a decade. Later that month, they announced that they would be closing 20 stores. In April,

592-513: A format war with DVD-Audio . Still, neither gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs had been preferred by consumers because of the ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer devices until the early 2000s when the iPod and streaming services became available. In 2015, Sony introduced LDAC , a proprietary audio coding technology which allows streaming high-resolution audio over Bluetooth connections at up to 990 kbit/s at 32 bit/96 kHz. Sony also contributed it as part of

666-399: A life insurance company in 1979, one of its many peripheral businesses. Amid a global recession in the early 1980s, electronics sales dropped and the company was forced to cut prices. Sony's profits fell sharply. "It's over for Sony", one analyst concluded. "The company's best days are behind it." Around that time, Norio Ohga took up the role of president. He encouraged the development of

740-563: A powerful exporter during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, supplying the U.S. Military with bomb parts used in the Vietnam War . It also helped to significantly improve American perceptions of "made in Japan" products. Known for its production quality, Sony was able to charge above-market prices for its consumer electronics and resisted lowering prices. In 1971, Masaru Ibuka handed the position of president over to his co-founder Akio Morita. Sony began

814-431: A second drive to be available. Another similar system was Imation 's LS‑120 SuperDisk in 1996. The LS-120 stored 120 MB of data while retaining the ability to work with normal 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch disks, interfacing as a standard floppy for better compatibility. A later LS-240 version would store up to 240 MB. A smaller competitor was the almost unknown Caleb UHD144 in 1997. Their primary advantage

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888-472: A second set of read/write heads so that it can read from and write to standard 720 KB and 1.44 MB ( 1440  KB) disks as well. To allow for a high degree of compatibility with existing SCSI host adapters, Floptical drives were designed to work as a standard floppy disk drive, and not as a removable hard disk . To ensure this, a "write lockout" feature was added in the firmware , effectively inhibiting writing (including any kind of formatting ) of

962-423: A sequential read or write operation, after the drive accesses all the sectors in a track, it repositions the head(s) to the next track. This will cause a momentary delay in the flow of data between the device and the computer. In contrast, optical audio and video discs use a single spiral track that starts at the innermost point on the disc and flows continuously to the outer edge. When reading or writing data, there

1036-731: A slogan known as "make.believe" in 2009. Despite some successes, the company faced continued struggles in the mid- to late-2000s. In 2012, Kazuo Hirai was promoted to president and CEO, replacing Stringer. Shortly thereafter, Hirai outlined his company-wide initiative, named "One Sony" to revive Sony from years of financial losses and bureaucratic management structure, which proved difficult for former CEO Stringer to accomplish, partly due to differences in business culture and native languages between Stringer and some of Sony's Japanese divisions and subsidiaries. Hirai outlined three major areas of focus for Sony's electronics business, which include imaging technology, gaming and mobile technology, as well as

1110-573: A television of at least 55 inches (140 centimeters) with a price higher than $ 2,500 as well as second largest TV brand by market share and, as of 2020, the third largest television manufacturer in the world by annual sales figures. Although not being a part of any traditional keiretsu , Sony has a weak tie to the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), which traces its roots to the Mitsui zaibatsu . This connection dates back to

1184-570: A wholly owned subsidiary through a takeover bid. On 1 April 2021, Sony Corporation was renamed Sony Group Corporation. On the same day, Sony Mobile Communications Inc. absorbed Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony Imaging Products & Solutions Inc., and Sony Home Entertainment & Sound Products Inc. and changed its trade name to Sony Corporation. Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies, while its success in

1258-572: Is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Minato, Tokyo , Japan. The Sony Group comprises entities such as Sony Corporation , Sony Semiconductor Solutions , Sony Entertainment (including Sony Pictures and Sony Music Group ), Sony Interactive Entertainment , Sony Financial Group , and others. Sony was established in 1946 as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita . This electronics company, known for creating products such as

1332-421: Is divided into logical blocks (collection of sectors). Blocks are addressed using their logical block addresses (LBA). Read from or write to disk happens at the granularity of blocks. Originally the disk capacity was quite low and has been improved in one of several ways. Improvements in mechanical design and manufacture allowed smaller and more precise heads, meaning that more tracks could be stored on each of

1406-451: Is frequently historical, as in IBM's usage of the disk form beginning in 1956 with the " IBM 350 disk storage unit ".) Audio information was originally recorded by analog methods (see Sound recording and reproduction ). Similarly the first video disc used an analog recording method. In the music industry, analog recording has been mostly replaced by digital optical technology where the data

1480-501: Is largely offered in two forms, either chips embedded in smartphones or plastic cards with chips embedded in them. Sony plans to implement this technology in train systems across Asia. In 2019, Sony launched the ELTRES, the company's proprietary low-power wide-area wireless communication ( LPWAN ) standard. Until 1991, Sony had little direct involvement with the video game industry. The company supplied components for other consoles, such as

1554-652: Is no need to stop the flow of data to switch tracks. This is similar to vinyl records, except vinyl records started at the outer edge and spiraled in toward the center. The disk drive interface is the mechanism/protocol of communication between the rest of the system and the disk drive itself. Storage devices intended for desktop and mobile computers typically use ATA ( PATA ) and SATA interfaces. Enterprise systems and high-end storage devices will typically use SCSI , SAS , and FC interfaces in addition to some use of SATA. Sony Sony Group Corporation (formerly Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. and Sony Corporation )

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1628-443: Is organized into the following business segments: Game & Network Services (G&NS), Music, Pictures, Electronics Products & Solutions (EP&S), Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS), Financial Services, and Others. Usually, each business segment has a handful of corresponding intermediate holding companies under which all the related businesses are folded into, such as Columbia Records being part of Sony Music Group ,

1702-545: Is recorded in a digital format with optical information. The first commercial digital disk storage device was the IBM 350 which shipped in 1956 as a part of the IBM 305 RAMAC computing system. The random-access , low-density storage of disks was developed to complement the already used sequential-access , high-density storage provided by tape drives using magnetic tape . Vigorous innovation in disk storage technology, coupled with less vigorous innovation in tape storage, has reduced

1776-451: Is sent from the computer processor to the BIOS into a chip controlling the data transfer. This is then sent out to the hard drive via a multi-wire connector. Once the data is received onto the circuit board of the drive, they are translated and compressed into a format that the individual drive can use to store onto the disk itself. The data is then passed to a chip on the circuit board that controls

1850-573: Is up from their previous ranking as 13th in 2019 with 1,566 applications. Best known for its electronic products, Sony offers a wide variety of product lines in many areas. At its peak, it was dubbed as a "corporate octopus", for its sprawling ventures from private insurance to chemicals to cosmetics to home shopping to a Tokyo-based French food joint, in addition its core businesses such as electronics and entertainment. Even after it has unwound many business units including Sony Chemicals and Vaio PC, Sony still runs diverse businesses. As of 2020, Sony

1924-567: The ATRAC brand, against the more widely used MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 standard natively. In 2004, Sony built upon the MiniDisc format by releasing Hi-MD . Hi-MD allows the playback and recording of audio on newly introduced 1 GB Hi-MD discs in addition to playback and recording on regular MiniDiscs. In addition to saving audio on

1998-795: The Android Open Source Project starting from Android 8.0 " Oreo ", enabling every OEM to integrate this standard into their own Android devices freely. However the decoder library is proprietary , so receiving devices require licenses. On 17 September 2019, the Japan Audio Society (JAS) certified LDAC with their Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification. Currently the only codecs with the Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification are LDAC and LHDC , another competing standard. Sony demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in 1977 and soon joined hands with Philips, another major contender for

2072-613: The Crystal LED Display. Sony used the Compact Cassette format in many of its tape recorders and players, including the Walkman , the world's first portable music player. Sony introduced the MiniDisc format in 1992 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette and as a successor to the Compact Cassette. Since the introduction of MiniDisc, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under

2146-464: The Insider . A few years later, a number of other companies introduced Floptical-like but incompatible systems: Iomega introduced their own ZIP-100 system storing 100 MB in 1994, which would go on to sell into the tens of millions. Later versions would increase the capacity to 250 and 750 MB. These had the disadvantage of not being able to read or write normal floppies, which generally required

2220-523: The Video8 format . Video8 and the follow-on hi-band Hi8 format became popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched the 4 mm DAT or Digital Audio Tape as a new digital audio tape standard. Sony held a patent for its proprietary Trinitron until 1996. Sony introduced the Triluminos Display, the company's proprietary color reproduction enhancing technology, in 2004, featured in

2294-580: The 1950s when it was the only bank the company dealt with. Sony is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (in which it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX Core30 indeces) with an additional listing in the form of American depositary receipts listed in the New York Stock Exchange (traded since 1961, making it one of the oldest Japanese company to be listed on an American exchange), and

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2368-511: The Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro . The company has also released USB flash drive products, branded under the Micro Vault line. Sony introduced FeliCa , a contactless IC card technology primarily used in contactless payment , as a result of the company's joint development and commercialization of Near-Field Communication (NFC) with Philips. The standard

2442-406: The U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the mid-1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5 million units by the end of 1968. Sony co-founder Akio Morita founded Sony Corporation of America in 1960. In the process, he was struck by

2516-456: The access to the drive. The drive is divided into sectors of data stored onto one of the sides of one of the internal disks. An HDD with two disks internally will typically store data on all four surfaces. The hardware on the drive tells the actuator arm where it is to go for the relevant track, and the compressed information is then sent down to the head, which changes the physical properties, optically or magnetically, for example, of each byte on

2590-412: The board. Eventually, Sony President Ohga decided to retain the project after being reminded by Kutaragi of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo. Nevertheless, due to strong opposition from a majority present at the meeting as well as widespread internal opposition to the project by the older generation of Sony executives, Kutaragi and his team had to be shifted from Sony's headquarters to Sony Music ,

2664-490: The compact disc (CD) in the 1970s and 1980s, and of the PlayStation in the early 1990s. Ohga went on to purchase CBS Records in 1988 and Columbia Pictures in 1989, greatly expanding Sony's media presence. Ohga would succeed Morita as chief executive officer in 1989. Under the vision of co-founder Akio Morita and his successors, the company had aggressively expanded into new businesses. Part of its motivation for doing so

2738-562: The company announced that they would be selling 9.5 million shares in Square Enix (roughly 8.2 percent of the game company's total shares) in a deal worth approximately $ 48 million. In May 2014 the company announced it was forming two joint ventures with Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group to manufacture and market Sony's PlayStation game consoles and associated software in China. In 2015, Sony purchased Toshiba's image sensor business. It

2812-425: The company's struggling media businesses, encouraging blockbusters such as Spider-Man while cutting 9,000 jobs. He hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics. Furthermore, he aimed to increase cooperation between business units, which he described as "silos" operating in isolation from one another. In a bid to provide a unified brand for its global operations, Sony introduced

2886-465: The difference in acquisition cost per terabyte between disk storage and tape storage; however, the total cost of ownership of data on disk including power and management remains larger than that of tape. Disk storage is now used in both computer storage and consumer electronic storage, e.g., audio CDs and video discs ( VCD , DVD and Blu-ray ). Data on modern disks is stored in fixed length blocks, usually called sectors and varying in length from

2960-462: The discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of computer files such as documents, videos and photos. In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with a newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio format called SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound). This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at

3034-638: The disks. Advancements in data compression methods permitted more information to be stored in each of the individual sectors. The drive stores data onto cylinders, heads, and sectors . The sector unit is the smallest size of data to be stored in a hard disk drive, and each file will have many sector units assigned to it. The smallest entity in a CD is called a frame, which consists of 33 bytes and contains six complete 16-bit stereo samples (two bytes × two channels × six samples = 24 bytes). The other nine bytes consist of eight CIRC error-correction bytes and one subcode byte used for control and display. The information

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3108-632: The drive, thus storing the information. A file is not stored in a linear manner; rather, it is held in the best way for quickest retrieval. Mechanically there are two different motions occurring inside the drive. One is the rotation of the disks inside the device. The other is the side-to-side motion of the head across the disk as it moves between tracks. There are two types of disk rotation methods: Track positioning also follows two different methods across disk storage devices. Storage devices focused on holding computer data, e.g., HDDs, FDDs, and Iomega zip drives , use concentric tracks to store data. During

3182-477: The early years owes to a smooth capitalization on the Digital Compact Cassette standard introduced by Philips , with which Sony went on to enjoy a decades-long technological relationship in various areas. Sony (either alone or with partners) has introduced several of the most popular recording formats, including the 3.5-inch floppy disk , compact disc and Blu-ray disc. Sony introduced U-matic ,

3256-516: The film studio. According to one report, Sony was set to make a final decision on the possibility of the merger of the TV, film, & gaming businesses by the end of its fiscal year in March of the following year (2017). In 2017, Sony sold its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing . In 2019, Sony merged its mobile, TV and camera businesses. On 1 April 2020, Sony Electronics Corporation

3330-424: The financial sector. In 2021, Sony transformed into a holding company, handing over the name Sony Corporation to its subsidiary as the electronics company. Sony, with its 55 percent market share in the image sensor market, is the largest manufacturer of image sensors, the second largest camera manufacturer, and is among the semiconductor sales leaders. It is the world's largest player in the premium TV market for

3404-561: The floptical technology to a number of companies, including Matsushita , Iomega , Maxell/Hitachi and others. A number of these companies later formed the Floptical Technology Association , or FTA , to try to have the format adopted as a replacement of standard floppy disks. Around 70,000 Insite Flopticals are believed to have been sold worldwide in the product's lifetime. Silicon Graphics used them in their SGI Indigo and SGI Indy series of computer workstations . It

3478-546: The global market, which required labeling their products with a short and easy brand name. While looking for a romanized name, they at first strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK. The company occasionally used the syllabic acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that

3552-513: The marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs. Betamax is, for all practical purposes, an obsolete format. Sony's professional-oriented component video format called Betacam , which was derived from Betamax, was used until 2016 when Sony announced it was stopping production of all remaining 1/2-inch video tape recorders and players, including the Digital Betacam format. In 1985, Sony launched their Handycam products and

3626-416: The media. It is possible to unlock the drive by issuing a SCSI Mode Sense Command, and Insite also issued EPROMs where this feature was not present. At least two models were produced, one with a manual lever that mechanically ejected the disc from the drive, and another with a small pinhole into which a paperclip can be inserted, in case the device rejected or ignored SCSI eject commands. Insite licensed

3700-420: The mobility of employees between American companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time. When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining Sony. The company filled many positions in this manner, and inspired other Japanese companies to do the same. Moreover, Sony played a major role in the development of Japan as

3774-697: The rapid introduction of writable CD-ROM systems in the early 2000s made the market disappear. Support of Floptical drives is present in all Microsoft Windows NT operating systems up to Windows 2000 , where it figures as 20.8 MB drive format option in the FORMAT command options. The FORMAT command in Windows XP and newer lacks support of the Floptical drive. Floptical support exists in SCO OpenServer as well. SCSI -equipped Macintosh computers could boot from

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3848-430: The read/write head in the drive using grooves in the disk being sensed by an infrared LED and sensor (a form of visual servo ). The magnetic head touches the recording surface, as it does in a normal floppy drive. The optical servo tracks allow for an increase in the tracking precision of the magnetic head, from the usual 135 tracks per inch to 1250 tracks per inch. Floptical disks provide 21 MB of storage. The drive has

3922-633: The sound chip for the Super Famicom from Nintendo , and operated a video game studio, Sony Imagesoft . As part of a joint project between Nintendo and Sony that began as early as 1988, the two companies worked to create a CD-ROM version of the Super Famicom, though Nintendo denied the existence of the Sony deal as late as March 1991. At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1991, Sony revealed

3996-580: The specific use of archival data storage, in 1986 and 1988 respectively. In the early 1990s, two high-density optical storage standards were being developed: one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density Disc (SD), supported by Toshiba and many others. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with only one modification. The unified disc format

4070-556: The storage technology, to establish a worldwide standard. In 1983, the two company jointly announced the Compact Disc (CD). In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series, an expansion of the Walkman brand to portable CD players. Sony began to improve performance and capacity of the novel format. It launched write-once optical discs (WO) and magneto-optical discs which were around 125MB size for

4144-505: The technologies developed for the company's optical disc products. In 1983, Sony introduced 90 mm micro diskettes, better known as 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disks , which it had developed at a time when there were 4" floppy disks, and many variations from different companies, to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant. 3.5" floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by current media formats. Sony held more than

4218-509: The time. Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS ( Digital Theatre System ) and Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS. Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format ( S/PDIF ) and the high-fidelity audio system SACD . The latter became entrenched in

4292-422: The transistor radio TR-55 , the home video tape recorder CV-2000 , the portable audio player Walkman , and the compact disc player CDP-101 , embarked on diverse business ventures. In 1988, Sony acquired CBS Records , and in 1989, it acquired Columbia Pictures . The company also introduced the home video game console PlayStation in 1994, which was the first of the eponymous brand . In Japan, Sony expanded into

4366-485: The two companies. The breaking of the partnership infuriated Sony President Norio Ohga , who responded by appointing Kutaragi with the responsibility of developing the PlayStation project to rival Nintendo. At that time, negotiations were still on-going between Nintendo and Sony, with Nintendo offering Sony a "non-gaming role" regarding their new partnership with Philips. This proposal was swiftly rejected by Kutaragi who

4440-455: The world's first LED-backlit LCD televisions. It was widely used in other Sony's products as well, including computer monitors, laptops, and smartphones. In 2013, Sony released a new line of televisions with an improved version of the technology, which incorporated quantum dots in the backlight system. It was the first commercial use of quantum dots. In 2012, the company revealed a prototype of an ultrafine RGB LED display, which it calls

4514-510: The world's first videocassette format, in 1971, but the standard was unpopular for domestic use due to the high price. The company subsequently launched the Betamax format in 1975. Sony was involved in the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when they were marketing the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC . In the end, VHS gained critical mass in

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4588-555: Was a loan word in Japanese, which connoted smart and presentable young men, which Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka considered themselves to be. The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio , appeared in 1955, but the company name did not change to Sony until January 1958. At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji . The move

4662-466: Was also reported that Commodore International had selected the Insite Floptical for its Amiga 3000 . However, this did not take place, and while Flopticals were installed in many Amiga systems, they were sold by either Insite, TTR Development or Digital Micronics (DMI), and not bundled by Commodore . Iomega licensed the Floptical technology as early as 1989 and produced a compatible drive known as

4736-406: Was announced in 1988 and introduced late in 1991 by Insite Peripherals , a venture funded company set up by Jim Adkisson, one of the key engineers behind the original 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch floppy disk drive development at Shugart Associates in 1976. The main shareholders were Maxell , Iomega and 3M . The technology involves reading and writing data magnetically, while optically aligning

4810-520: Was called DVD and was introduced in 1997. Sony was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery. The first Blu-ray players became commercially available in 2006. The format emerged as the standard for HD media over the competing format, Toshiba's HD DVD , after a two-year-long high-definition optical disc format war . Sony's laser communication devices for small satellites rely on

4884-477: Was established as an intermediate holding company to own and oversee its electronics and IT solutions businesses. On 19 May 2020, the company announced that it would change its name to Sony Group Corporation as of 1 April 2021. Subsequently, Sony Electronics Corporation would be renamed to Sony Corporation. On the same day the company announced that it would turn Sony Financial Holdings (currently Sony Financial Group), of which Sony already owns 65.06% of shares, to

4958-543: Was facing increasing criticism over his work with regard to entering the video game industry from within Sony. Negotiations officially ended in May 1992 and in order to decide the fate of the PlayStation project, a meeting was held in June 1992, consisting of Sony President Ohga, PlayStation Head Kutaragi and several senior members of Sony's board. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been working on which involved playing video games with 3D graphics to

5032-509: Was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo ( 東京通信工業 , Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō , Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) . The company built Japan's first tape recorder , called the Type-G. In 1958, the company changed its name to "Sony". Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo founders Morita and Ibuka realized that to achieve success and grow, their business had to expand to

5106-414: Was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui , had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval. According to Schiffer, Sony's TR-63 radio "cracked open

5180-560: Was ranked 88th on the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list. In 2023, the company was ranked 57th in the Forbes Global 2000 . Sony began in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya, a department store building in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo . The company started with a capital of ¥190,000 and a total of eight employees. On 7 May 1946, Ibuka

5254-478: Was reported in December 2016 by multiple news outlets that Sony was considering restructuring its U.S. operations by merging its TV & film business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with its gaming business, Sony Interactive Entertainment. According to the reports, such a restructuring would have placed Sony Pictures under Sony Interactive's CEO, Andrew House, though House would not have taken over day-to-day operations of

5328-464: Was the low cost of their disks. Since 1998, Sony also tried their own Floptical-based format, the Sony HiFD , but quality control problems ruined its reputation. The first version could store 150 MB, but it was soon replaced by a 200 MB version. There was serious consideration that one of these systems would succeed where the Floptical failed and replace the standard floppy disk outright, but

5402-487: Was the pursuit of "convergence", linking film, music and digital electronics via the Internet. This expansion proved unrewarding and unprofitable, threatening Sony's ability to charge a premium on its products as well as its brand name. In 2005, Howard Stringer replaced Nobuyuki Idei as chief executive officer, marking the first time that a foreigner had run a major Japanese electronics firm. Stringer helped to reinvigorate

5476-467: Was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name. The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words: one was the Latin word " sonus ", which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was " sonny ", a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a young boy. In 1950s Japan, "sonny boys"

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