1.
Sony
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Sony Corporation is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation that is headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified business includes consumer and professional electronics, gaming, entertainment, the company is one of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional markets. Sony was ranked 116th on the 2015 list of Fortune Global 500 and these make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world. The group consists of Sony Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Financial Holdings and others. Sony is among the Semiconductor sales leaders by year and as of 2013, the companys current slogan is BE MOVED. Their former slogans were make. believe, like. no. other, Sony has a weak tie to the SMFG keiretsu, the successor to the Mitsui keiretsu. Sony began in the wake of World War II, in 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in a department store building in Tokyo. The company had $530 in capital and a total of eight employees, in the following year he was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo 東京通信工業. The company built Japans first tape recorder, called the Type-G, in 1958 the company changed its name to Sony. When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK, the company occasionally used the 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 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 boy. In the 1950s Japan sonny boys, was a word into Japanese which connoted smart and presentable young men. The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, 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 was not without opposition, TTKs principal bank at the time and 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 tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Banks chairman gave their approval, according to Schiffer, Sonys TR-63 radio cracked open the U. S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics
2.
Memory Stick
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Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998, and is also used in general to describe the whole family of Memory Sticks. In December 2006, Sony added the Memory Stick PRO-HG, a speed variant of the PRO to be used in high-definition video. Memory Stick cards can be used in Sony PSP, Sony XDCAM EX camcorders via the MEAD-SD01 adapter, SanDisk and Lexar are among few third-party Memory Stick producers. Kingston offers universal microSD to Memory Stick Pro Duo adapters, the largest capacity Memory Stick currently available is 64 GB. According to Sony, the Memory Stick PRO has a maximum size of 2 TB. As of January 2010, it appears that Sony is beginning to support for SD/SDHC. All digital cameras and camcorders announced by Sony at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show can use SD, furthermore, Sony is releasing its own line of SD cards. Many claim this development as the end of the war between Memory Stick and SD card. However, Sony has not abandoned the format, and has indicated it will continue development of the format for the foreseeable future, a prime example is the development of WiFi transfers through a special Memory Stick Pro-Duo which is still in development. Typically, Memory Sticks are used as media for a portable device. For example, Sony digital compact cameras use Memory Stick for storing image files, with a Memory Stick-capable Memory card reader a user can copy the pictures taken with the Sony digital camera to a computer. A special Memory Stick can be inserted in the hindquarters of Sonys AIBO robot pet, the Sticks include a copy protection mechanism used by the robot, allowing users to write programs. These are referred to as programmable or programming, only 8 MB and 16 MB versions are available. Memory Sticks include a range of actual formats, including three different form factors. The original Memory Stick is approximately the size and thickness of a stick of chewing gum and it was available in sizes from 4 MB to 128 MB. It was available both with and without MagicGate support, the MagicGate supporting memory sticks were white colored, while the standard version was purple. The original Memory Stick is no longer manufactured, in response to the storage limitations of the original Memory Stick, Sony introduced the Memory Stick Select. The Memory Stick Select was two separate 128 MB partitions which the user could switch between using a switch on the card and this solution was fairly unpopular, but it did give users of older Memory Stick devices more capacity
3.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
4.
Microsoft
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Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface tablet lineup, as of 2016, it was the worlds largest software maker by revenue, and one of the worlds most valuable companies. Microsoft was founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates on April 4,1975, to develop and it rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Microsoft Windows. The companys 1986 initial public offering, and subsequent rise in its share price, since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion, in June 2012, Microsoft entered the personal computer production market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface, a line of tablet computers. The word Microsoft is a portmanteau of microcomputer and software, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, childhood friends with a passion for computer programming, sought to make a successful business utilizing their shared skills. In 1972 they founded their first company, named Traf-O-Data, which offered a computer that tracked and analyzed automobile traffic data. Allen went on to pursue a degree in science at Washington State University. The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systemss Altair 8800 microcomputer, Allen suggested that they could program a BASIC interpreter for the device, after a call from Gates claiming to have a working interpreter, MITS requested a demonstration. Since they didnt actually have one, Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter and they officially established Microsoft on April 4,1975, with Gates as the CEO. Allen came up with the name of Micro-Soft, as recounted in a 1995 Fortune magazine article. In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office, the company moved to a new home in Bellevue, Washington in January 1979. Microsoft entered the OS business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, however, it was MS-DOS that solidified the companys dominance. For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Since IBM copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS, other companies had to engineer it in order for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOSs available software selection, the company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with a publishing division named Microsoft Press. Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkins disease, while jointly developing a new OS with IBM in 1984, OS/2, Microsoft released Microsoft Windows, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, on November 20,1985. Once Microsoft informed IBM of NT, the OS/2 partnership deteriorated, in 1990, Microsoft introduced its office suite, Microsoft Office
5.
USB
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It is currently developed by the USB Implementers Forum. USB was designed to standardize the connection of peripherals to personal computers. It has become commonplace on other devices, such as smartphones, PDAs, USB has effectively replaced a variety of earlier interfaces, such as serial ports and parallel ports, as well as separate power chargers for portable devices. Also, there are 5 modes of USB data transfer, in order of increasing bandwidth, Low Speed, Full Speed, High Speed, SuperSpeed, USB devices have some choice of implemented modes, and USB version is not a reliable statement of implemented modes. Modes are identified by their names and icons, and the specifications suggests that plugs, unlike other data buses, USB connections are directed, with both upstream and downstream ports emanating from a single host. This applies to power, with only downstream facing ports providing power. Thus, USB cables have different ends, A and B, therefore, in general, each different format requires four different connectors, a plug and receptacle for each of the A and B ends. USB cables have the plugs, and the corresponding receptacles are on the computers or electronic devices, in common practice, the A end is usually the standard format, and the B side varies over standard, mini, and micro. The mini and micro formats also provide for USB On-The-Go with a hermaphroditic AB receptacle, the micro format is the most durable from the point of view of designed insertion lifetime. The standard and mini connectors have a lifetime of 1,500 insertion-removal cycles. Likewise, the component of the retention mechanism, parts that provide required gripping force, were also moved into plugs on the cable side. A group of seven companies began the development of USB in 1994, Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, a team including Ajay Bhatt worked on the standard at Intel, the first integrated circuits supporting USB were produced by Intel in 1995. The original USB1.0 specification, which was introduced in January 1996, Microsoft Windows 95, OSR2.1 provided OEM support for the devices. The first widely used version of USB was 1.1, the 12 Mbit/s data rate was intended for higher-speed devices such as disk drives, and the lower 1.5 Mbit/s rate for low data rate devices such as joysticks. Apple Inc. s iMac was the first mainstream product with USB, following Apples design decision to remove all legacy ports from the iMac, many PC manufacturers began building legacy-free PCs, which led to the broader PC market using USB as a standard. The USB2.0 specification was released in April 2000 and was ratified by the USB Implementers Forum at the end of 2001.1 specification, the USB3.0 specification was published on 12 November 2008. Its main goals were to increase the transfer rate, decrease power consumption, increase power output. USB3.0 includes a new, higher speed bus called SuperSpeed in parallel with the USB2.0 bus, for this reason, the new version is also called SuperSpeed
6.
Bluetooth
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Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, and building personal area networks. Invented by telecom vendor Ericsson in 1994, it was conceived as a wireless alternative to RS-232 data cables. It can connect up to seven devices, overcoming problems that older technologies had when attempting to connect to each other. Bluetooth is managed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, which has more than 30,000 member companies in the areas of telecommunication, computing, networking, the IEEE standardized Bluetooth as IEEE802.15.1, but no longer maintains the standard. The Bluetooth SIG oversees development of the specification, manages the qualification program, a manufacturer must meet Bluetooth SIG standards to market it as a Bluetooth device. A network of patents apply to the technology, which are licensed to individual qualifying devices, the development of the short-link radio technology, later named Bluetooth, was initiated in 1989 by Nils Rydbeck, CTO at Ericsson Mobile in Lund, Sweden, and by Johan Ullman. The purpose was to develop wireless headsets, according to two inventions by Johan Ullman, SE 8902098-6, issued 1989-06-12 and SE9202239, issued 1992-07-24, Nils Rydbeck tasked Tord Wingren with specifying and Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson with developing. Both were working for Ericsson in Lund, the specification is based on frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology. The idea of this name was proposed in 1997 by Jim Kardach who developed a system that would allow mobile phones to communicate with computers, at the time of this proposal he was reading Frans G. Bengtssons historical novel The Long Ships about Vikings and King Harald Bluetooth. The implication is that Bluetooth does the same with communications protocols, the Bluetooth logo is a bind rune merging the Younger Futhark runes and, Haralds initials. Bluetooth operates at frequencies between 2402 and 2480 MHz, or 2400 and 2483.5 MHz including guard bands 2 MHz wide at the end and 3.5 MHz wide at the top. This is in the globally unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical 2.4 GHz short-range radio frequency band, Bluetooth uses a radio technology called frequency-hopping spread spectrum. Bluetooth divides transmitted data into packets, and transmits each packet on one of 79 designated Bluetooth channels, each channel has a bandwidth of 1 MHz. It usually performs 800 hops per second, with Adaptive Frequency-Hopping enabled, Bluetooth low energy uses 2 MHz spacing, which accommodates 40 channels. Originally, Gaussian frequency-shift keying modulation was the modulation scheme available. Since the introduction of Bluetooth 2. 0+EDR, π/4-DQPSK and 8DPSK modulation may also be used between compatible devices, devices functioning with GFSK are said to be operating in basic rate mode where an instantaneous data rate of 1 Mbit/s is possible. The term Enhanced Data Rate is used to describe π/4-DPSK and 8DPSK schemes, the combination of these modes in Bluetooth radio technology is classified as a BR/EDR radio. Bluetooth is a protocol with a master-slave structure
7.
Wi-Fi
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Wi-Fi or WiFi is a technology for wireless local area networking with devices based on the IEEE802.11 standards. Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, which restricts the use of the term Wi-Fi Certified to products that successfully complete interoperability certification testing. Devices that can use Wi-Fi technology include personal computers, video-game consoles, smartphones, digital cameras, tablet computers, digital audio players, Wi-Fi compatible devices can connect to the Internet via a WLAN network and a wireless access point. Such an access point has a range of about 20 meters indoors, hotspot coverage can be as small as a single room with walls that block radio waves, or as large as many square kilometres achieved by using multiple overlapping access points. Wi-Fi most commonly uses the 2.4 gigahertz UHF and 5 gigahertz SHF ISM radio bands, having no physical connections, it is more vulnerable to attack than wired connections, such as Ethernet. In 1971, ALOHAnet connected the Hawaiian Islands with a UHF wireless packet network, ALOHAnet and the ALOHA protocol were early forerunners to Ethernet, and later the IEEE802.11 protocols, respectively. A1985 ruling by the U. S. Federal Communications Commission released the ISM band for unlicensed use and these frequency bands are the same ones used by equipment such as microwave ovens and are subject to interference. In 1991, NCR Corporation with AT&T Corporation invented the precursor to 802.11, the first wireless products were under the name WaveLAN. They are the credited with inventing Wi-Fi. In 1992 and 1996, CSIRO obtained patents for a method used in Wi-Fi to unsmear the signal. The first version of the 802.11 protocol was released in 1997 and this was updated in 1999 with 802. 11b to permit 11 Mbit/s link speeds, and this proved to be popular. In 1999, the Wi-Fi Alliance formed as an association to hold the Wi-Fi trademark under which most products are sold. Wi-Fi uses a number of patents held by many different organizations. In April 2009,14 technology companies agreed to pay CSIRO $1 billion for infringements on CSIRO patents and this led to Australia labeling Wi-Fi as an Australian invention, though this has been the subject of some controversy. In 2016, the local area network Test Bed was chosen as Australias contribution to the exhibition A History of the World in 100 Objects held in the National Museum of Australia. The name Wi-Fi, commercially used at least as early as August 1999, was coined by the brand-consulting firm Interbrand, the Wi-Fi Alliance had hired Interbrand to create a name that was a little catchier than IEEE802. 11b Direct Sequence. Phil Belanger, a member of the Wi-Fi Alliance who presided over the selection of the name Wi-Fi, has stated that Interbrand invented Wi-Fi as a pun upon the word hi-fi. Interbrand also created the Wi-Fi logo, the yin-yang Wi-Fi logo indicates the certification of a product for interoperability
8.
Walkman
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Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette/tape players in the late 1970s. In the 2010s, it was used to market Sonys portable audio, the original Walkman actually introduced a change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry recorded music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones. Owners of the Walkman were able to back their lost time, commuting for example. It was the privatization and personalization offered by the Walkman that led to its success, the prototype was built in 1978 by audio-division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka. Ibuka wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent trans-Pacific plane trips, the original idea for a portable stereo is credited to Brazilian-German inventor Andreas Pavel. The first Walkman was marketed in 1979 in Japan, using the name Walkman, from 1980, it was known as the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden, and the Stowaway in the UK. Advertising, despite all the languages, still attracted thousands of buyers in the US specifically. The names Walkman, Pressman, Watchman, Scoopman, Discman, and Talkman are trademarks of Sony, the name Walkman was based on its precursor, the Pressman tape recorder. An initial prototype of the Walkman was in fact made by replacing the monophonic recording circuit, head and speaker from the Pressman with a stereo playback-only head and amplifier. Sony continues to use the Walkman brand name for most of their portable audio devices, the marketing of the Walkman introduced the idea of Japanese-ness into global culture, synonymous with miniaturization and high-technology. The Walk-men and Walk-women in advertisements were created to be the ideal reflections of the subject watching, the advertising of the Sony Walkman served to portray it as a possession that was not only fashionable but culturally definitive. Owning one proved the owner was up to date and financially able to buy newly marketed commercial products, rather than waiting for them to become established and it became one of the most successful launches of any new product in the past half-century. A major component of the Walkman advertising campaign was personalization of the device, prior to the Walkman, the common device for portable music was the portable radio, which could only offer listeners standard music broadcasts. Having the ability to customize a playlist was a new and exciting revolution in music technology, potential buyers had the opportunity to choose their perfect match in terms of mobile listening technology. The ability to play your own music and listen privately was a selling point of the Walkman, especially amongst teens. Despite all this technological diversity, there must be one which is the choice for you. Sony accomplished the feat of mass individualized and targeted advertisement. Today, Walkman still maintains its role in culture, albeit a diminished one due to the large number of competitors in mobile audio devices today
9.
PlayStation
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It is created and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment since December 3,1994, with the launch of the original PlayStation console in Japan. The original console in the series was the first video game console to ship 100 million units,9 years and 6 months after its initial launch and its successor, the PlayStation 2, was released in 2000. The PlayStation 2 is the home console to date, having reached over 155 million units sold as of December 28,2012. Sonys next console, the PlayStation 3, was released in 2006 and has sold over 80 million consoles worldwide as of November 2013. Sonys latest console, the PlayStation 4, was released in 2013, selling 1 million consoles in its first 24 hours on sale, the first handheld game console in the PlayStation series, sold a total of 80 million units worldwide by November 2013. Its successor, the PlayStation Vita, which launched in Japan on December 17,2011, PlayStation TV is a microconsole and a non-portable variant of the PlayStation Vita handheld game console. The main series of controllers utilized by the PlayStation series is the DualShock, the PlayStation Network is an online service with over 110 million users worldwide. PlayStation Mobile is a framework that provides PlayStation content on mobile devices. Content set to be released under the framework consist of only original PlayStation games currently, 7th generation PlayStation products also use the XrossMediaBar, which is an award-winning graphical user interface. A new touch screen-based user interface called LiveArea was launched for the PlayStation Vita, additionally, PlayStation 2 and original PlayStation 3 consoles also featured support for Linux-based operating systems, though this has since been discontinued. The series has also known for its numerous marketing campaigns. The consoles origins date back to 1988 where it was originally a joint project between Nintendo and Sony to create a CD-ROM for the Super Famicom. 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 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 rejected by Kutaragi who was facing increasing criticism over his work with regard to entering the video game industry from within Sony. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had working on which involved playing video games with 3D graphics to the board
10.
Sony Mobile
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Sony Mobile is a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1,2001 as a joint venture between Sony and Ericsson, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and wholly owned by Sony. It was originally incorporated as Sony Ericsson, but Sony acquired Ericssons share in the venture on February 16,2012, Sony Mobile Communications has research and development facilities in Kenya, Africa, Chennai, India, Lund, Sweden, Beijing, China and Silicon Valley, USA. Sony Mobile was the fourth-largest smartphone manufacturer by market share in the quarter of 2012 with 9.8 million units shipped. In the United States, Ericsson partnered with General Electric in the nineties as Ericsson Mobile Communications, primarily to establish a US presence. Ericsson had decided to obtain chips for its phones from a single source—a Philips facility in New Mexico, on March 17,2000, a fire at the Philips factory contaminated the sterile facility. Philips assured Ericsson and Nokia that production would be delayed for no more than a week, when it became clear that production would actually be compromised for months, Ericsson was faced with a serious shortage. Nokia had already begun to obtain parts from alternative sources, but Ericssons position was much worse as production of current models and the launch of new ones was held up. Ericsson, which had been in the phone market for decades. This was mainly due to fire and its inability to produce cheaper phones like Nokia. To curtail the losses, it considered outsourcing production to Asian companies that could produce the handsets for lower costs, speculation began about a possible sale by Ericsson of its mobile phone division, but the companys president, Kurt Hellström, said it had no plans to do so. Hellström said, Mobile phones are really a core business for Ericsson and we wouldnt be as successful if we didnt have phones. Sony was a player in the worldwide mobile phone market with a share of less than 1 percent in 2000. By August 2001, the two companies had finalised the terms of the merger announced in April, Ericsson contributed a majority of the Ericsson Mobile Communications company, excluding a minor part spun off as Ericsson Mobile Platforms. Sony contributed its entire handset division, the company was to have an initial workforce of 3,500 employees. To this end, it released new models which had built-in digital camera. The joint venture continued to make losses in spite of booming sales. In 2007, the companys first 5-Megapixel camera phone, the Sony Ericsson K850i, was announced followed in 2008 by the Sony Ericsson C905, at Mobile World Congress 2009, Sony Ericsson unveiled the first 12-Megapixel phone, named Satio. In 2005, Sony Ericsson agreed to become the title sponsor for the WTA Tour in a deal worth $88 million US dollars over 6 years
