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Walkman Creator Leaves Sony

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the walking-shoes dept.

Gammu writes "Nobutoshi Kihara, the engineer behind the Walkman, has left Sony. In the late seventies, one of the co-chairman of Sony, Morita, requested the audio division create a portable tape player capable of playing his operas while he was on transpacific flights to the US. After less than a year, the Walkman was released to the public and revolutionized the music industry. Read about the development of the first Walkman at Low End Mac."

5 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Walkman patent case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article doesn't mention the German inventor that Sony settled with a couple of years ago. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/01/walkman_pa tent_case/

  2. Or, to say it less flamebaitshly by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not so much "left Sony" as "retired". Seriously, both the summary and TFA are like "Sony in major world of poo - engineers leaving", rather than "trailbreaking engineer retires".

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  3. He retired by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Informative

    The man is 80 years old. I think it would be better to say he "retired" rather than he "left". It's not like he quit in disgust or took a better offer somewhere else.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  4. The real inventor by KeepQuiet · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/16/news/profil e.php
    "Inspired by those discussions, Pavel invented the device known today as the Walkman. But it took more than 25 years of battling the Sony Corporation and others in courts and patent offices around the world before he finally won the right to say it: Andreas Pavel invented the portable personal stereo player."

  5. Re:If the Walkman had been released in 2006... by gamer4Life · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well it was released in 2003, and it used a format only used by Sony:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman#Network_Walkm an