| abstract
| - Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The original Walkman introduced a change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones. The device was built in 1978 by audio-division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent trans-Pacific plane trips.[1] The original Walkman was marketed in 1979 as the Walkman in Japan, the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden and the Stowaway in the UK.[2] Advertising, despite all the foreign languages, still attracted thousands of buyers in the US specifically.[3] Morita hated the name "Walkman" and asked that it be changed, but relented after being told by junior executives that a promotion campaign had already begun using the brand name and that it would be too expensive to change.[1] The names "Walkman", "Pressman", "Watchman", "Scoopman", "Discman", and "Talkman" are trademarks of Sony, and have been applied to a wide range of portable entertainment devices manufactured by the company. The name "Walkman" was based on its precursor, the Pressman tape recorder. An initial prototype of the Walkman was in fact made by replacing the recording circuit and speaker from the Pressman with a stereo amplifier.[4] Sony continues to use the "Walkman" brand name for most of their portable audio devices, after the "Discman" name for CD players was dropped in the late 1990s. According to Sony, the plural form is "Walkman Personal Stereos", rather than "Walkmans" or "Walkmen". In March 2007, Sony extended the brand by launching its first all-digital, flash-based video Walkman, the A800 series, where A stands for "All in one, Advanced, and Attractive". A portable personal stereo audio cassette player, called Stereobelt, was first invented by the German-Brazilian Andreas Pavel in 1972. Pavel filed a patent for his Stereobelt in Italy in 1977, followed by patent applications in the U.S., Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan by the end of 1978. His patent applications in the U.S. and the U.K. were rejected. In 1979, Sony began selling the popular Walkman, and in 1980 started legal talks with Pavel regarding a royalty fee. In 1986 Sony finally agreed to pay royalties to Pavel, but only for sales in Germany, and only for a few models, and refused to acknowledge him as the inventor of the device. In 2001, Pavel threatened Sony with legal suits in every country in which he had patented his invention. The corporation agreed to resume talks with Pavel and a settlement was finally reached in 2003. The exact settlement fee is a closely guarded secret but European press accounts said that Pavel received a cash settlement for damages in excess of $10,000,000 and is now also receiving royalties on some Walkman sales. The settlement also includes a clause which will prevent Pavel from bringing future law suits. The settlement grants Pavel the recognition from Sony that he was the original inventor of the personal stereo. Walkman MP3Walkman MP3 marked the inclusion of popular codecs such as MP3, AAC and WMA. Walkman MP3 players reside in the same Network Walkman group. Some hardware changes include the exclusion of stick remote control and the usage of new connector for charging, accessories and data transferring. Starting with the NW-S series, Walkmans feature Sony's new proprietary port called WM-PORT which is a USB 2.0 compliant 22-pin connector. Another notable hardware change is a color screen which can display album art. These models also use new power management features which give the device a three-hour battery life after only three minutes of charging. NW-A series models still use the previous connector and can still use the stick remote control. Some early releases in this category are players using flash memory as storage media. Sony called them Portable IC Audio Player. These release include the Walkman Core (NW-E50X and NW-E60X series), the Walkman Circ (NW-E10X series), and the Walkman Bean (NW-E20X and NW-E30X series). All of these lines have Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens. They are not using WM-PORT and support MP3, WMA and ATRAC format only.
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