Sony marks 40 years of the Walkman, and launches new wireless earbuds
Walkman anniversary allows a look back at the personal-audio history of the company – and the chance to launch new wireless earbuds
In 2003 I bought my first Sony product. It was a second-hand, barebones Discman with one special feature: "electronic skip protection". This meant I could pop it into a makeshift sock-and-belt combination — my own precursor to the phone-holding armbands of last decade — and take it running.
I loved that Discman and, like my other early technological love from another Japanese company, a Nintendo Game Boy (purchased in 1994, also second-hand), it still works today. Both devices use AA batteries, which has slowed their obsolescence compared to today’s phones, tablet computers, laptops and headphones with their user-irreplaceable and doomed-to-die lithium-ion fuel cells...
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