Sony launches “First Flight” to encourage employee innovation and invention

Sony has announced a new phase in their Seed Acceleration Program, “First Flight” which merges crowdfunding and e-commerce site features to help promote ideas and products generated internally by Sony employees. The Seed Acceleration Program is Sony’s means for encouraging new business ideas by employees and if good enough, eventually transforming them into a full-fledged business. The new First Flight initiative is meant to help “move people emotionally through innovation” by connecting creators with possible customers.

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai says,

“Sony’s innovation is ingrained in the company’s founding spirit of `doing what has never been done before.’ Nothing embodies this spirit more than passionate entrepreneurs who give shape to their ground-breaking ideas and introduce them to the world, without fear of failure. The First Flight platform and other Seed Acceleration Program initiatives accelerate and optimize this process. Sony itself originated as a start-up, and through the Seed Acceleration Program we are challenging ourselves to return to our entrepreneurial roots. At Sony we will continue to explore ways of delivering new, emotionally compelling experiences and enhanced customer value.”

To help mark the public launch of First Flight, albeit only in Japan for now, two projects are in the e-commerce stage and one project has launched a crowdfunding effort to see whether there is enough interest. The first product available is MESH, which is described as a “smart DIY kit” to help users become inventors of their own gadgets. Through First Flight, interested consumers can also place an order for the FES Watch, an e-paper based smartwatch. Finally, crowdfunding has commenced for the e-paper based HUIS Remote Controller that will change based on what a user wants to control.

source: Sony First Flight (site), Sony First Flight (press release)

Come comment on this article: Sony launches “First Flight” to encourage employee innovation and invention

Sony has a new crowdfunding website for employee projects

Last year, Sony revealed a business program that encouraged employees to develop the most innovative ideas they can think of in an effort to find new hits. Now, the company has launched a crowdfunding and e-commerce platform called “First Flight” for products that come out of that project. While its main purpose is to raise funds for and sell Sony’s experimental creations, the company’s hoping it can also help connect it with audiences and gauge the public’s interest. For its debut, First Flight is selling two products, which were already crowdfunded through third-party websites in the past: an e-paper smartwatch and a small device called “Mesh” tag that can turn devices into connected gadgets.

It’s also scheduled to run a crowdfunding campaign for an e-paper remote control with a customizable display for six weeks. If you visit First Flight, you’ll see that it’s Japan-only for now, so you can’t buy or support any of its projects if you don’t live in the country. Sony didn’t say whether it plans to launch it Stateside or elsewhere either — we’ll just have to wait for its decision if the venture proves to be a success.

Filed under: Misc, Sony

Comments

Source: Sony, First Flight

Sony Xperia Z4 gets torn down to show pretty much the same story

Since the Sony Xperia Z3 was such a good well rounded device, the community had high expectation for the next iteration of the Xperia device, but Sony had other ideas in mind.

In some parts of the world it’s known as the Xperia Z4, in others the Xperia Z3+, but either way, it’s far from the upgrade we were expecting from Sony.

Either way, the device has been given the traditional tear down treatment, courtesy of witrigs.com, and is the model as found in Japan, so the official Xperia Z4.

One observation is that the components that were very much soldered together and hard to replace on the Z3 are now pretty easy to remove and repair, which is good news for home-DIY’ers. Everything else is pretty much as you’d expect, with the Snapdragon 810 processor taking pride of place, despite the overheating issues.

For full detail of the teardown, head over to the source.

SOURCE: Witrigs.com

The post Sony Xperia Z4 gets torn down to show pretty much the same story appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Sony upsets shareholders with image sensor plan

Sony has decided to issue new shares. This is the first time since 1989 as part of a $3.6 billion capital raising plan to fund their imagine sensor business. Their image sensors are used in all major phones including Apple’s iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices. They said they would raise ¥322 billion ($2.63 billion) by offering new shares and ¥120 billion by selling convertible bonds.

Shareholders were not impressed by the plan and showed so by selling their shares. Sony’s stock closed 8.25% lower that day.

Back in April Sony said it had virtually completed a restructuring and that there were strong sales of digital sensors. It’s projecting a operating profit would more than quadruple to ¥320 billion during the fiscal year ending March 2016.

Sony is miles ahead of the competition when it comes to image sensors. It’s big problem is capacity constraints in trying to reach large demand, especially in China, with all the new affordable headsets that are expected to continue to grow.

Kenichiro Yoshida, Sony Chief Financial Officer said in April that they plan on investing ¥210 billion in image sensors during the current fiscal year and ¥80 billion on camera modules.

Tatsunori Kawai, chief strategist at kabu.com Securities, said

 “The dilution threat is enough to cause short-selling today, but assuming the company uses the funds raised for pro-active purposes—and successfully—it could lead to share gains later,”

Yasuaki Kogure, chief investment officer at SBI Asset Management, said

“Raising cash to beef up the growing units is understandable, but it should do it via a bond offering or bank lending because Sony’s return on equity as a whole is still very low,” he said. “This reminds me of old-and-bad Japan—when companies issued new stock simply because prices were high, without considering damage to existing shareholders.”

Sony’s response was they aim at strengthening the company’s financial base so it can act promptly on necessary investments. That the bond offering will help bring in long term cash at a low cost.

In the past few months Sony has cut all the low profit pieces and is investing in it’s best earners being video games, movies, devices and music. However they haven’t ruled out exiting television or smart phones as it did with computers last year.

Source: WSJ

Come comment on this article: Sony upsets shareholders with image sensor plan

Sony E5663 looks like a high-end, compact phone with impressive cameras

New details have leaked about an upcoming Sony smartphone with the model number E5663. The device looks like it’ll use a 1080p, 4.6-inch screen, which is pretty rare to see these days. Most phones have much bigger screens with as many pixels as possible, but apparently Sony did well enough with the Xperia Z3 Compact that they’re going to keep looking into these smaller devices with good hardware.

Other specs include an octa-core MediaTek MT6795 processor, 3 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of internal storage. The front facing camera appears to be a crazy 13 megapixel shooter, and the rear camera is listed at 21 megapixels. If these specs hold up, this device definitely won’t be a slouch compared to some of its bigger competitors.

There’s nothing official from Sony about what this device is, when it’s expected to launch, and how available it’s going to be, but hopefully they’ll clear some things up with an announcement soon. Sony devices with model numbers that end in 63 tend to stay in India, so this particular version will probably end up being sold exclusively in India, but don’t count out other variants just yet.

source: Xperia Blog

Come comment on this article: Sony E5663 looks like a high-end, compact phone with impressive cameras