Whilst it's not exactly 'new' news, few people may have noticed the touching farewell paid to Nobutoshi Kihara, the legendary Sony designer who is famous for creating and fashioning the 'personal music player' paradigm for several generations.
Born 80 years ago and with an obvious early penchant for constructing electronic masterpieces, Kihara spent the early part of his career trying to support his family through the difficult years in Japan following the end of the second World War. He was a founding member of the engineering firm that eventually became Sony, and built steadily on his natural outlook: that the philosophy of aesthetic design should be firmly linked with technological innovation.
Perhaps all of us at some time on our lives, somewhere or somehow, will have become struck by a Sony product. This could be a Walkman, a Trinitron television, a VCR, a minidisc player... and there are many more examples of how Sony became the respected leader of the Japanese consumer electronics field. What we all probably didn't realise that the time though, was that Nobutoshi Kihara was behind all of these.
Sadly, in the last decade the enviable reputation that Kihara helped to build for Sony was severely tarnished by the dissipation of objective thinking at the top of the company. An example of this is the contrasting and destructive views that developed over the move of Sony into the entertainment world, and it was not just the choice of artistic talent which set in motion a sad decline. Ultimately, the ludicrous imposition of the level of digital rights management sealed the fate of a technological and potential world-dominating medium such as the recordable minidisc, and allowed Apple their now-historical takeover of the very market that Sony created.
Indeed the minidisc was the logical successor to Kihara's most famous contribution to his company's legacy, the Sony Walkman. When asked about how he designed things, Kihara used the Walkman as an example. "Back in my days, we had to draw product designs on papers. I would close my eyes and imagine our products. I would imagine joggers with Walkmans to see how the hinges should move or how the products fit into the lives of the users."
He is also philosophical about the substantial commitments that companies must make to sow the seeds of success: "It's very difficult to make technological advances, however small they may be," he said. "People may not know our story -- how we spent money, how we failed, how we had to re-do our work."
Finally revealing the insight that gave Sony the clear edge for so long, and how badly the firm has become disengaged in recent years; Kihara has a final, incisive belief which the company should seek to put right. It is, put simply: "Technological progress ends once we start imitating others."
