I’ve been told by many seasoned CES attendees that the Sony booth has consistently been one of the grandest not-to-be-missed spaces at the show. This year is no different. I know a lot of you aren’t able to be at CES, so to make sure you didn’t miss the Sony CES experience our friends at SGNL by Sony created this video tour to highlight some of the gems. I like the giant 90 foot wide, high-definition 3D LED display at the Sony stage pieced together using hundreds of LED tiles as well as the section set up with the Sony professional 3D cameras used to film movies like the Green Hornet (I have a feeling that might have been Melody’s favorite too). We’ve even got Black Beauty, the car from the Green Hornet movie as part of the display. In this video you’ll get to see these spots up close as well as some gems from the booth that even CES badge holders don’t get access to.
If you stopped by the Sony booth drop us a note in the comments below. What was your favorite part of the booth? Did you try the 3D head-mount display? Want to see more, visit our CES album on Flickr. I’ll be updating it daily with new pictures from the booth. Comment if you want to see more of - I have cameras (right now I’m carrying the NEX-VG10 and alpha a33) and I’m happy to use them to share the booth with you!!
We all have our favorite things. Mine: evening baseball games, ski trips and movie night. When it comes to my favorite VAIO notebook, it’s the Z Series hands down. I use a Z Series both at work and at home. And when I got my first sneak peak at the newly redesigned Z Series – as you did at CES last month – I couldn’t have been more excited.
And now, with the new Z Series available for presale on SonyStyle.com, I wanted to offer you a behind-the-scenes look at the year long project to makeover the Z Series.
What could possibly be so different from the original 1st generation Z Series? Surprisingly a lot! From carving the chassis’ core from a single, solid piece of aluminum to adding a backlit keyboard and engineering the world’s first quad SSD configuration in a notebook, there’s so many things to discuss. So, in this four part series – Reinventing the Z – you’ll uncover the innovations, upgrades and detailed thought that went into giving the Z Series a new look – both inside and out – and why it remains my favorite VAIO Series.
To begin, I’d like to have you meet Product Planner Kaya Kanamori and Chief Project Manager Masahiko Suzuki. Both highlight their roles and the team’s mission to develop an all new high-performance, ultra-mobile notebook and why in the end they choose the 1st generation Z Series as their starting point and ultimately, their champion. Check out the video below for the complete story.
In part two, Designer Shimpei Hirano and others open their sketch books to offer you a candid look at the stories behind the design themes of both the original and the new Z Series. They also highlight the unique attention they paid to often overlooked features to enhance usability, look and feel – like removing port covers that feedback proved to be an inconvenience and carving the chassis’ core from a single, solid piece of aluminum to reduce parts and enhance durability. Check out the video below to uncover all the details.
Want to discover more? Uncover answers to questions not answered in these interviews? Post your questions below and I’ll hunt down the answers for you. In the meantime, check back next week for more in this series and visit SonyStyle.com for complete model details.
CES is just about a week behind us but we wanted to show you some of the behind the scenes work that went on before and during the show.
At 25,000 square feet, the Sony booth is the largest on the floor, compete with a theater that hosted live performances and a tower where broadcasters provided updates throughout the show.
Planning takes about a year and building the booth takes several weeks. I was able to get a quick tour from Dan Nicholson and Mark Woudsma, two members of Sony’s events production team. During the show they took me behind the scenes so I could share this inside glimpse.
The story aired is about “Sophie” who wanted a touch screen computer running on Windows 7. She asked, and Sony+Microsoft delivered. You can watch the journey unfold in the commercial.
What you may not know is this fun factoid that I wanted to share: All the Sony designers featured in the commercial are actually real Sony VAIO designers. The casting and location shoot was at the Sony headquarters in Tokyo, Japan and featured over 8 different designers who truly help make our VAIO’s come to life. The commercial was first aired in November in the US but was also aired across the globe including the U.K. in Canada, Germany and Australia.
The morale of the story: Computer designers can act :-)
Don’t believe me? Watch the video for yourself. Now although it would be a little difficult for me to obtain a signed autograph from any of these multi-talented folks for you, I can at least point you to where you can get a VAIO L Touchscreen computer. Enjoy.
This week we wrap up the Making of the X Series with our last two installments.
Throughout this series I’ve introduced you to some of Sony’s best engineers and designers. They’ve taken you behind-the-scenes to offer you a unique glimpse into the many challenges their teams had to overcome to make the X Series possible. And today you’ll uncover two new stories. One takes a look at arguably the most important component of a notebook. Any guesses? The other story follows an inconspicuous engineering team to discover why they were so intent on destroying as many X Series models as they could. And interestingly, they still work for Sony.
First, let’s meet Kataoka Tatsu, Lead Battery Engineer on the X Series project. As you can imagine, the battery is arguably one of the most important components of a notebook – without it, all you have is a desktop. Tatsu-san’s team was tasked with what seemed like an impossible goal – engineering a standard capacity battery to be less 0.5 inches thin and weigh less than 1 pound. And most importantly, all of this had to be done without sacrificing battery life. Remember too that batteries are often the heaviest component of any notebook – which only added to the number of obstacles on this project.
What makes Tatsu-san’s story even more interesting though is that with the production deadline looming over their heads, his team wrapped up the battery project with little time to spare and just as headquarters came to them and requested an additional large capacity battery be developed. This was a huge surprise for the team to say the least and they would have to start from scratch. This time however the development window was much smaller. Was Tatsu-san’s team up for the challenge? Check out the battery they developed and discover the amazing detail that went into it in the video below.
Lastly, I’d like you to meet Kasai Takafumi who’s goal was to destroy as many notebooks as possible. What was behind his motivation? It wasn’t stress or anger but rather something very important. Kasai Takafumi’s job as Lead QA Engineer is to put all VAIO notebooks to the test. It’s his team’s job to design unique test that measure the limits of VAIO construction, design and engineering to ensure that each chassis meets the high standards of Sony quality.
With its incredibly thin profile, his tests were especially important for the X Series. Although it has a stunning design, it was important to ensure the uniquely thin-and-light X Series could withstand the rigors of the road. Twisting, hitting, smashing, heating and dropping were all critical to finding where the weak spots in construction were so that adjustments could be made. Learn all about the story and the unique tests that were performed from Takafumi-san himself in the video below.
Want to discover more? Uncover answers to questions not covered in these interviews? Post your questions below and I’ll hunt down the answers for you.
