Sony Bets It Can Find the Next Big Thing

Sony is heading toward its sixth annual net loss in seven years. Its top executives have returned their bonuses because of the lackluster performance. But the Japanese electronics maker is continuing to increase its spending on research and development, to 485 billion yen ($4.78 billion) this fiscal year, a 4 percent rise from the previous year. “Although the company’s financial results have fluctuated during the recent years, our stance to spend a certain percentage of the revenue for R&D has not changed,” says spokeswoman Saori Takahashi.

Some of that money (the company wouldn’t say how much) goes to fund the dozens of high-concept projects at Sony Computer Science Laboratories (CSL), a small research arm created in 1988 and housed mostly in a rented two-floor office near Sony’s Tokyo headquarters. Its recent prototypes have included a portable computer that can bend like gummi candy, glasses that annotate the objects the wearer is looking at, and a refrigerator with facial recognition capabilities that only opens for a smile. Researcher Ken Endo is testing prototype prosthetic legs, powered by a rechargeable battery the size of a matchbox, that he hopes will one day propel a person faster than natural limbs. His goal, inspired by his best friend’s amputation because of bone cancer, is to see “Paralympics athletes run faster than the Olympic champion in 2020,” he says.