Elegy of Japanese CONSUMER Electronics
(1) Daisuke Wakabayashi, How Japan Lost Its Electronics Crown; Sony, Sharp and Panasonic Fixated on Hardware Breakthroughs; 'Sometimes, It's Easier to Run From Behind.' Wall Street Journal, Aug 16, 2012.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... ?mod=googlenews_wsj
("Sony, Sharp and Panasonic combined to lose about $20 billion in the past fiscal year")
(a) Excerpt in the window of print: 'The first runner has to face the wind--sometimes, it's easier to run from behind,' said Sony executive Tadashi SAITO.
(b) Quote:
"Sony, Sharp and Panasonic combined to lose about $20 billion in the past fiscal year.
(c) Note:
(i) The report laments about "Sony Corp's Librie, the first e-book reader with an electronic ink display. * * * The software [or coding] was in Japanese. It required a computer to download a book."
(A) Like all late comers (Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Librie, Sony Reader, Kobo eReader and iRex iLiad), Sony LIBRIe used e-ink developed by the E Ink Corporation (based in Cambridge, Mass, but acquired in 2005 by a Taiwanese company
(B) Peter Rojas and Ryan Block, Five Gadgets Ahead of Their Time: Sony LIBRIé EBR-1000EP, in All-TIME 100 Gadgets; TIME technology editor Peter Ha picks the 100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1923 to the present. Time, Oct 25, 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2023689_2025276_2026974,00.html
("The Sony LIBRIé hit stores in Japan in early 2004, and while early users marveled at its print-like display, they didn't love that books purchased for it expired after 60 days")
(ii) The report says Sony "ranks a distant third in the global market" of e-readers.
(A) In terms of worldwide e-reader market share, Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Nobles Nook (including Color Nook) are first and second, according to Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker, by IDC (which is accessible to paying customers only).
(B) The following eBook (short for electronic book) readers were all black-and-white, based on e ink by E Ink Corp and used ARM chips.
* Amazon Kindle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
(Manufacturer Foxconn; The following descriptions are those of the original Kindle: Storage capacity Internal flash memory (available total:user 256:180 MB), Released date Nov 19, 2007; Introductory price $399; Operating system Linus; section 1 Naming and evolution; section 2.2 First generation)
(I) John P Falcone, Amazon Kindle: Hands-on First Impressions. CNET, Nov 19, 2017
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9820070-1.html
("The Kindle connects to the Web via the 'Amazon Whispernet,' a free high-speed cellular wireless network (Sprint EVDO). Books and other content are available for direct download, without the need for connecting to a PC (though a USB port does provide PC connectivity for transferring files). * * * Once you're online via EVDO, electronic books are available directly from Amazon for up to $10--just click on the title you want, and it's downloaded (and you're charged) in about a minute's time")
(II) Hilary Hewlett, Amazon Kindle eBook Reader Market with EVDO connectivity. DailyTech, Nov 19, 2017 (blog)
http://www.dailytech.com/Amazon+ ... ity/article9706.htm
(III)
Evolution-Data Optimized
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution-Data_Optimized
(EVDO; It was standardized "as part of CDMA2000 family" which is 3G)
* Barnes and Noble Nook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_and_Noble_Nook
(Manufacturer Foxconn; The following descriptions are those of the original Nook: Release date Nov 30, 2009; AT&T 3G and Wi-Fi, Introductory price $259, Operating system Android 1.5, memory 2GB)
* The Iliad e-read by iRex Technologies, a Philips spinoff, was released in July 2006 for $826. In 2010, sales of the iLiad ended when iRex filed for bankruptcy. en.wikipedia.org
For a brief mention of iLiad, see (II) above, under the heading of Amazon Kindle.
(iii) Panasonic president Kazuhiro TSUGA 津賀 一宏
(iv) The report observes, "As the Japanese economy surged, the electronics conglomerates ruled the market for memory chips, color TVs, and videocassette recorders, while their research labs gave birth to gadgets that would define an era: the Walkman, CD and DVD players."
DVD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD
(invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1997)
(v) monozukuri or monotsukuri (I have not seen the latter in English) 物作り; 物造り 【ものづくり; ものつくり】 (n) "manufacturing; craftsmanship; making things by hand"
(A) tsukuru 作る; 造る(P) 【つくる】 (v) "(造る usu. for large-scale building, manufacturing, etc) to make; to produce; to manufacture; to build; to construct
Jim Breen’s online Japanese dictionary
(B) To create a combination word, the “tsu つ” is softened to “zu づ” by adding in the upper right corner. This is similar to American English, where the “i” in the midst of a word is softened to the second vowel of ”pilot”: eg, The first “i” in “California” is like”o” in pilot in American English, but sounds like “i” in “sit” in both Spanish (Mexico) and British English.
(vi) The report comments, "Now Samsung and domestic rival LG Electronics Co each plans to launch a 55-inch OLED television later this year. * * * That is a poignant comedown for Sony, which five years ago became the first manufacturer to sell an OLED television."
comedown (n): "a descent in rank or dignity"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comedown
(vii) The report remarks:
"In 2004, Sony was the first company to introduce LCD televisions that replaced the TV's fluorescent backlight with brighter and more energy efficient light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. It also introduced the first TV that arranged the LEDs around the edges in 2008 to allow the screens to be thinner. When Samsung came out with its models a year later, the company called them 'LED TVs,' a moniker to distinguish the new TVs from existing LCD models. * * * According to research firm NPD, Samsung accounts for nearly half of all the LED televisions sold in North America while Sony didn't rank among the top five sellers in the first half of 2012."
(A) In the critical US market, Vizio and Samsung has run neck and neck in their pursuit of LCD TV market share. See, eg
Vizio Retakes Lead iSuppli, July 10, 2012.
(B) However, the LCD TV marketplace has gravitated from traditional “LCD (CCFL)” toward “LCD (LED).”
2012 LCD TV Forecast Lowered DisplaySearch (a unit of NPD), July 10, 2012
(Figure 1 Worldwide TV Forecast by Technology; "The share of LED-backlit LCD TVs
(C) backlight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlight
(LCD do not produce light themselves; Backlights illuminate the LCD from the side or back of the display panel, unlike frontlights, which are placed in front of the LCD; section 1 Light source types)
(D) The NPD DisplaySearch data (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and annual) on LED TV (actually flat-panel TV as a whole) market shares in North America is proprietary, not available for free in the Web. Please note the NYT report emphasized “LED TV”--otherwise, Vizio still beats Samsung in 2Q12 (but not 1Q12) in LCD TV (LED TV is more advanced technologically than the other main segment of LCD TV: TV based on LCD (CCFL). OLED TV is even more advanced than LED TV.
(viii) The report referred to Tadashi SAITO, Sony's chief strategy officer (CSO; 最高戦略責任者; 兼 業務執行役員 EVP (for executive vice president))
(ix) Masaru IBUKA 井深 大
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Ibuka
(1908-1997; a Sony co-founder)
The "masaru" can be either
(A) 勝る; 優る 【まさる】 (v): "to excel; to surpass"
or (B) 増さる 【まさる】 (v): “to increase; to grow”
(x) Trinitron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitron
(announced in 1966; Patent protection on the basic Trinitron design ran out in 1996; surpassed relatively quickly by plasma and LCD; “The name Trinitron was derived from TRINITY, meaning the union of three, and tron from elecTRON tube, after the way that the Trinitron combined the three separate electron guns of other CRT designs into one”)
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(2) Daisuke Wakabayashi, Japan's Dimwitted Smartphones; Electronics makers Sony and Sharp play catch-up to Apple's iPhone; 'The golden age of TV is over.' Wall Street Journal, Aug 16, 2012.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 74470875390872.html
(a) Excerpt in the window of print: Japan's phones soon came to be known as 'Galapagos' phones--unique creatures that didn't travel to the outside world.
(b) Quote:
"The combined share [of global smartphone shipments] for Sony Corp, Panasonic Corp, Sharp Corp, Fujitsu Ltd and other Japanese manufacturers: 8%. * * * In the most-recent quarter, Fujitsu, NEC, Sharp, and Panasonic all reported losses in their handset segments. What's more, Sony, Panasonic and Sharp are backing away from the [also money-losing] TV business
"Starting in the 1990s, Japanese cellphones were technological marvels packed with hardware breakthroughs. Sharp in 2000 was the world's first company to add a camera to a mobile phone. By 2006, a year before Apple introduced the iPhone, Japanese consumers could watch broadcast TV on their phones.
"The iPhone's debut in 2007 changed everything. While the rest of the world saw the iPhone for what it was—a game-changing product—some executives in Japan dismissed it, believing their phones were already smart enough.
"the first Japanese smartphones running Google Inc's Android operating system appeared in the domestic market in 2010
"With a flurry of new models this fiscal year, Sony plans to ship 34 million smartphones world-wide, surpassing the targeted output of its four closest Japanese rivals combined.
(c) My comment:
(i) feature phone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_phone
(ii) "Panasonic Managing Director Hideaki KAWAI" 河井 英明 (one of 常務取締役)
(iii) "Tadashi ONODERA, chief executive of Japan's No 2 carrier, KDDI Corp" 代表取締役社長 小野寺 正 (a position then at 2008; full-time chairman since 2010)
http://www.kddi.com/corporate/ir/keiei/executive/onodera.html
A public company listed in Tokyo Stock Exchange, KDDI Corp was formed in 2000 through the merger of DDI Corp, KDD Corp, and IDO Corp.
(iv) "Kunio NAKAMURA, a former president and chairman at Panasonic"
中村 邦夫
(v) "NTT DoCoMo Inc President Kaoru KATO" 代表取締役社長 加藤 薰 (In Japanese, 社長 is CEO and 会長, chairman of the board)
(A) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTT_DoCoMo
(The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "DO COmmunications over the MObile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese)
(B) dokomo 何処も 【どこも】
(vi) The report states matter-of-factly, but does not explain: "In order to sell phones abroad, the [Japanese] companies had to modify the handsets to work on foreign networks." So my decade-long puzzle remains: "Why not?" (On the other hand, the history offers a lesson for China, which uses a one-of-a-kind cell phone standard: Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA).
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发表于 8-20-2012 15:26:52
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