Sony’s Chief Executive Mr. Howard Stringer appeared on stage during the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas accompanied by movie star Tom Hanks. The two put on a show for everyone, with a funny conversation, which began just after a clip of Hanks from Sony’s upcoming movie Angels & Demons. The presentation included a flexible display screen developed using the OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology, a prototype wireless bedside clock/information station, and also a pair of glasses for viewing 3D movies.
The actor talked about his first Sony product, a used Trinitron bought from his girlfriend and also that he has come a long way since then, as his house is now filled with the company’s products. He also mentioned his electronic book, intentionally calling out Amazon’s Kindle: "The Ki ... Sony Digital Reader, which is a fine product in its own right."
Once Tom Hanks finished, Mr. Stringer said, all in good humor, that "I took a risk, it failed, but we'll still be friends, at least until after the movie." He continued by talking about the company’s plans for the future, with Sony aiming high despite the downturn, as its goals are to continue the development and the release of new products and services. "If we keep our sails spread high, history tells us the wind will pick up again," he said.
One of the goals is to get 90 percent of its products to interact with each other through a wireless connection and also be able to connect them to the Internet in the same manner.
The advanced OLED technology brings new features to the viewing experience, and Mr. Stinger demonstrated one of them by flexing the screen during playing a Beyonce video. The plan is to release OLED TVs with 20 to 30 inch-screens, but for now the release date has not been set. The display is excellent in color and contrast (contrast ratio of more than 1 million to 1), extremely thin and the reason it is flexible is because it does not require a backlight like the LCD display. This technology sparked the interest of the US army, which is currently testing the bendable screens for different tasks – one of them is to enable soldiers to receive updates through these screens worn on their wrists.
The wireless bedside clock station was developed with Silicon Valley Web appliance maker Chumby and the 3D prototype glasses, which are still in development, will allow viewing videos while simultaneously looking at the surroundings. The company is very serious about getting involved with 3D videos, promoting its new projection systems for theatres, as the belief is that the trend will spread significantly over the next 12 months.
Mr. Stringer addressed other issues, such as the Blu-ray video format, which even though did not bring a revolution in the industry, is slowly making progress, and also the sales of the PlayStation 3 which did not record the expected figures, but he believes that it will soon pick up.
