Sony Corp., which is emerging from five years of brutal restructuring that gutted its workforce and product lineup, wants to show off a few new things.
There's the Aromastic, a digital smell dispenser, AeroSense self-flying drones and a collection of tech-infused accessories called "wena." These gadgets are being dreamed up by the Seed Accelerator Program (SAP), started by Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai in 2014 to encourage invention and risk-taking.
With Sony back on solid financial footing, shown by its estimate-topping results in the latest quarter, the company has more breathing room to experiment. Instead of focusing on raw, technical innovation, the devices coming out of the lab hark back to an era when Sony was able to take existing technology and combine it with slick marketing to create must-have gadgets such as the Walkman and Handycam. Another hit product could help Hirai cement his legacy as the one who not only turned Sony around, but got it inventing again.