Sony

The corporations on our annual list of the world's 500 largest companies combined to generate $41.7 trillion in revenue over the past year.

Fortune Global 500

Leaders in all industries rely more than ever on Big Tech—and appreciate the giants that deliver, at scale, without drama.

World's Most Admired Companies

The corporations on our annual list posted aggregate revenues of $41 trillion for the second year in a row.

The 26th edition of the list shows how much esteem Big Tech giants command among other business leaders.

The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

Just as it dominates our economy, Big Tech now dominates Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation.

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

After a year in which humanity leaned more heavily than ever on tech giants, see which companies topped Fortune's ranking of corporate reputation.

Total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year—the first decline in half a decade.

G500-2021-088-Sony

It helps to be a gaming juggernaut when people are stuck indoors because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Take Sony, the Japanese electronics conglomerate whose various properties include a music label, a movie business, a video game empire, and a semiconductor and camera technology unit. Sony reported a record $10.7 billion in net income for its fiscal 2020, driven largely by its gaming and network services unit, which includes the PlayStation console business and related video game subscription service. Sony debuted its long-awaited PlayStation 5 console last fall and has since sold 7.8 million units. It’s likely Sony could have sold even more PlayStation 5 consoles, but a worldwide computer chip shortage has stymied production. Sony’s video game business boom helped offset declines in its motion picture business, which suffered as movie theater operators shut down during the pandemic. To help kick-start its movie business, Sony has been inking deals with streaming video providers like Netflix and Disney to feature the company’s movies and TV shows. Later this year, for instance, Netflix is expected to start airing the iconic 1990s sitcom Seinfeld, distributed by Sony Pictures Television. As Kramer would say, “Giddyup!”

For an astounding 13th straight year, Apple claims the top spot in Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a survey of almost 3,800 executives, directors, and analysts.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $33.3 trillion in revenues and $2.1 trillion in profits.

G500-2020-122-Sony

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2019 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.7 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2018 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2017 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2016 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.6 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

The world's 500 largest companies generated $31.2 trillion in revenues and $1.7 trillion in profits in 2014. Together, this year's Fortune Global 500 employ 65 million people worldwide and are represented by 36 countries.

Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

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Sony (SONY): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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 Sen. Sonya Halpern, Georgia State Senator and Vice Chair, Senate Democratic Caucus Bruce LeVell, Trump Senior Campaign Surrogate, Former Executive Director National Diversity Coalition for Trump Dennis Lockhart, Former CEO,  Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Moderator: Diane Brady, Executive Director, Fortune Live Media and CEO Initiative, Fortune   

Impact Initiative 2024: Election 2024 - The Future of ESG and DEI

Photography by Rebecca Greenfield/Fortune

Conferences

Sen. Sonya Halpern, Senate Democratic Caucus, Bruce LeVell, Former Executive Director National Diversity Coalition for Trump, Dennis Lockhart, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Diane Brady, Fortune

You know, we were commenting backstage actually on how calm the music was. And uh and so we started talking about walk up songs. I actually wanna start with that. What would be your walk up song to come on and energize us, what would it be? I said, I'm gonna say send or so and then I'll call you. I said, Stevie Wonder Boogie on reggae woman. Hey, how about for you? Well, the first one was going to fly, you know, rock the rocky theme or another one bites the dust. It depends on how we're going to act. Oh, we have a sunny outlook or a dark outlook here. How about you, Dennis? This is a walk up song. You walk up on the, you know, like let's think of rest, walk on by. How about that? Ok, I like that. So let's now move from our walk up songs to ESG Well, let's talk about climate change because I think one good way to just level set is on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being like it's not important and 10 being it's the most urgent issue. Where do you think in terms of priority for the party. It should be. Let's start with you. Obviously, the Democrat, I mean, I think for the Democratic Party it's way up there. So I think the number would you put, I'm gonna say 778, you know, it's way up there for us. How about for you? I think it's more like for me, a two, a two which, which means that it's just not, I think, well, I've been blessed to world travel. So I think that the US, if you're, we're speaking about the US does a, a leading edge in terms of how we uh govern our emissions, etcetera based on our foreign adversaries and across the country. So um obviously, I, I would hope a lot of our uh neighboring countries would adopt some of our uh initiatives in terms to combat that issue. So that you're speaking obviously as a surrogate, you'd say if, if Trump up here, it would be a two. So that's, yeah, I think for me personally, ok. Yeah, I think there's more critical issues on the domestic side and foreign, you know, our proxy wars that are going on that? Are we talking about the former fed president over here? What would I think I won't paint it politically. I'll just say, I think climate is the defining challenge of our age. So from 1 to 10, where would you rank it as a priority? Nine or 10, 9 or 10? That's interesting. So, that the former fed president ranks higher, the downsides, which are all a matter of probabilities, the downsides are devastating, you know. Well, one of the things I, I'm from New York so it's a bit of a flyover state from an ad perspective. We haven't actually seen many because they just here, of course, I've seen a lot on TV, just in the space of, you know, coming here yesterday. And one of the things I'm curious about is the degree to which this is factoring into politics. And I know this was discussed yesterday, but here we have this situation with, you know, in a natural disaster, we tend to come together as a country. And right now we're seeing, you know, with hurricane Helene, you know, this, this disinformation campaign, I'm actually gonna, I'm gonna go to you first. You know, we've got another major storm. How do you, how is that impacting the discussions around just what's happening with whether it's climate change or otherwise the discussion? I mean, and this is a really important issue for us here, obviously Hurricane Helene devastated parts of Georgia that still don't have power. And of course, with the new one coming, I mean, ultimately, what Georgia has been able to do is work towards recovery. Um, you heard all of the disinformation really, the lies that the president and the vice president hadn't contacted our governor who very clearly articulated that that wasn't true. I mean, I think the challenge is that, you know, we're requiring courageous leadership in areas where it shouldn't require courage. Right. So the governor gets credit for saying the truth. And in fact, you've got a whole other arm of people who want you to believe something different. And when information is flying as quickly as it does, it's easy for people to be in their own echo chamber. That's really the biggest problem. People don't break out of their own echo chamber and the algorithms are made specifically. So you only hear what you wanna hear. Well, and, and let me go to you because do you think, first of all, there's been a big problem with disinformation right now with, with what's happening with, you mean the fake news? I think I'm talking specifically about, you know, the situation around the handling. Well, you know, it's, it's, you know, I, like we said in the green room, you know, obviously the social media apparatus is perpetuated and streamline information more, you know, quicker. But I still think it's, it's historically has always been a pa uh a partisan situation on who react fast or whatever. And, you know, I, I think, you know, for me, you know, respectfully, I've been through hurricane um Alicia when I lived in Houston, I've, I've seen uh uh what happened with Katrina. Our church went there and spent a month down there when Dennis actually came in a month after Katrina, didn't you? Not after but let me, yeah, let me get back. I just wanna focus on the issue at hand, which is really about, um, you know, this is a tight race, this happens to happen right now. It's all fair, sort of in love and war. I mean, because there is, when you look at sort of the politicization of this, I think it gets to really how we talk about climate, how we talk about diversity. Um We've seen, we've heard the president say things, you know, how would you address that? Do you think it's been, this is these are political issues or do you feel like it's been fair how the characterization of the disaster has been handled? I think, you know, it's, you know, this is one of these things where and guys, you know, I, I'm from the take care of your neighbor generation and you're always gonna have, especially during the election season, it's been going on. I think people have short memories, but at the end of the day, it's the resiliency of our ministries and our churches and our families and our community that prevail and they, and, and I, and that's what I mainly focused on and, and, but I will tell you this though and I didn't, I didn't get to finish this though. I long and some of the audience can identify this. I'm dating myself. I want the Monica Kaufmans, the Brenda Woods. I want the real journalists back, not the opinionated folks that just go up there and opinionate everything instead of just report the news. So a lot of it gets, you think it's been misreported then? I mean, I just, I, I don't want to focus too much on this but also, you know, I think that area where you're here as a, as a surrogate, let me go to Dennis because, you know, obviously, um, how do you think? I mean, you've seen the impact impact on the economy but the, these have become partisan issues, issues that, that to some extent really should be factual science based, come together as a nation issues. How you, how do you, what do you see from your perch? Well, I, I see um, an immense amount of noise that should not be taken seriously uh noise in the political campaigns and noise in general, uh uh around the economy, the politicization of matters that we can be relatively certain of by looking at facts and we, we just have gotten away from that. Um, and it's, it's not only the perpetrators, it's the receivers of the information who have gotten away from that and don't exercise discipline in listening to authorities, do you know? II I know it's um always tempting when we talk about diversity to immediately go to race. I think one of the areas in which business in particular has really felt the impact is actually LGBT Q plus. Now, I know there's, there's the transgender issue. But also we've seen Toyota Harley Davidson, John Deere, a lot of them go back on their de I policies, you know, say that they're overtly not gonna support pride parades, et cetera. Give me some sense from, from that, you know, with that issue in particular, how are you thinking about that? And what give us a sense of what's around the corner? I mean, I think more of that is around the court. The thing is that it's, it all depends on who wins, but either way we're gonna see more of that, right? If you have a Kamala Harris as president, whose administration is gonna be pushing to um be much more inclusive, you're gonna still feel a push back against that and loud voices saying this isn't right and this is why she shouldn't be president. If a Donald Trump becomes president, you will see from that administration, a paring back of um e equity of inclusiveness and, and funding of initiatives even at the federal government department level that would help to continue to move people forward. And then you're gonna hear from my side, push back against that. Um to some extent, I think a lot of this conversation, particularly Post George Floyd in 2020 you saw so many businesses say, ok, this is a flashpoint moment. Let me actually embrace and move forward with these initiatives that maybe I've been dabbling in. Um, and I don't think that we have seen that kind of activity since the civil rights movement. And so now operations step up along the way. George Floyd too. That's exactly right. So, but now we're seeing the counter reaction to that and there, the counter reaction aside from where you, and obviously I'm gonna ask you, you're a businessman too to, uh, so I think that it, I think that the way that it's being framed makes it very easy to think that companies took it too far. And I think that whenever you're changing culture in generally in general, right there is a process to doing that and getting people to move along with you. And I do think that the rate of change happened so quickly that a lot of people's heads kind of spun and they couldn't, they wrap their head around what was happening as quickly as the make the change was happening. How do you feel about this Bruce? So I think that is an issue where really there's a sense you wanna be quiet right now about some of these issues. If, especially if you're in the corporate realm where a lot of people in these seats here, the, there's that we've created sort of real partisan divide over it. Yeah. Well, you know, I listen, II, I know some board of trustee folks in some of our fortune 500 companies, I won't mention their names obviously because I do a lot of media. But um I think there was good intentions respectfully. And some of the, especially some of the bigger banks and some of the other, uh, bigger fortune three and 500 companies. I think the intentions were good. But you see where it ended and, you know, I've been in business 29 years in Atlanta and I came here with $35 and, and, um, it's been very good to me. Atlanta ups and downs the financial crash, 08, as well as the pandemic. We went through and I, I think that I, I did speak to a lot of my other employees or business owners about where I was coming today and the philosophy was, and I speak for myself. I, I put all my eggs in my employees and then the customer second. And so I think that the workplace is to, is to, is to afford, you know, put everything you can to help your employee be successful. But, but the social issues, I, I just like them before and after the job where they can come to work and they don't have to, they can just do their job, go home, go to their mosque, go to their temple, go to the church. Let me ask you if you don't mind because you're in this role right now. And then I want to go to Dan's Top with this. But you are, um you are, I think you're in such a unique role where you really are. The voice. President Trump? Are there moments? Have there been any moments? Let's take place where you felt a disconnect yourself out or any disappointment around his rhetoric? And I'll ask you. Yeah. I, I think for me and I said it earlier in the groom, I'm more, I'm strictly a numbers man. I'm just not, but we're emotional creatures. How do you feel when it comes to politics? I'm not. I'm really not. I'm no, because I'm, I'm a community guy. Everyone that knows me in Atlanta all the way back from our great civil rights icons here, which my family were on that side historically, that some of them are on that Montgomery bus boy congress. So how often do you talk to the president? Our former president? I should say Trump, we talk. How often was that? Like, I mean, do you feel like he represents a lot of your views on race and such? Well, II, I think he represents the, the America first agenda which is pushing back on just not, not relying on government, but pushing it where we rely on each other as a, as a country, as a community. And that's something I gravitate to. Then let me, let me, let me ask you in terms of where you sit um talk a little bit with. I mean, I know we're talking about ES CD E I, but obviously the economy is the number one issue. How much are these factors? Um going to impact the economy. It's hard to, hard for me to see that the pendulum swinging on DE I or even ESG is going to have a major impact on the macro economy, macro economy is such a, a, an enormous, uh social system that it's somewhat impervious to some of these pendulum swing kinds of issues on, uh, and the economy is in, in really good shape. I think the issues that we have to worry about are fiscal and because it just doesn't seem to be uh any appetite to address the fiscal situation. And for that matter, the, the solutions are unpalatable and probably not going to pass muster politically. You know, so we have very, with some time left, I'd like you to speak to the audience right now in terms of give us both your perspective, some advice and, and, and from where you sit, I know that you're gonna, you know, you're up, you're taught a lot of people can be up for re-election. What, um how do you think about these issues in terms of how it's both dividing people apart and where we come together, there are a lot of issues that have been politicized and, and if you are an elected, who's a democrat or an elected, who is a Republican, you often feel that pressure of conforming and retreating to your corners that are completely different corners and not actually coming together. I think the challenge is to have more people and I and I do do this. But the challenge is to have more people have the confidence to say that problem solving is more important than actually, you know, constantly fighting. At some point, compromise has become a dirty word. Much more at the federal level than I would say that it. That's not true at every state legislature, but at the federal level, compromise has become such a dirty word for you all in business. What I would tell you is that you already know that this kind of work is about future proofing your business so you can continue to do that work. At this point, there have not been any laws and policies that have been passed, that have held muster in court that would force you to stop at the end of the day, I wanna, I wanna get, I wanna, I wanna give you a chance, Bruce, I wanna give you a chance. What can we expect? You know, if Trump, if there's a next second Trump administration on these issues, especially around race, climate, et cetera, what would you say to the audience? Well, I, well, it's getting back to what is unfinished business was. I think it was more of the, you know, putting the responsibility back to we, the people. Um and not look at the government and, you know, guys, I, I come from a generation where the leadership in your community wasn't the Congress person or the statehouse it was that great preacher down the street. It was that great educator that took every dot He took a penny, do her last dollar out of her purse and bought pencils for her students. It was that, that man, uh that banker that gave you that chance on your first loan when you were 19 years old, you know, that community and in that great church. And I think that's been a part of my life for my whole life. And may I ask one question, Bruce? I'm sorry, because I know time is tight. Um You know, how do you feel, conversations about race and climate are gonna change anything specific there? II, I just, I never see it in the lens of, of, you know, we've had some historical issues granted here in Atlanta, but I think we've gotten a lot better and we're getting better. Let me give some, some last word Haiku almost for you. Just one second here. Well, I'll just, I'll just make a point to the question of what's at stake in this particular election, broadly, the election, not just the presidential election, but the election and that is that is the ability to, to appoint judges because what we've come to in our governance is the courts decide at the end of the day and their decisions are lasting. Yeah, very much. So, listen, I could talk all day. You're all fascinating. Thank you so much. Please join me in. Thanking our speakers.

Insights: Microsoft and Sony Are Teaming for Game Streaming

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The companies are focusing on cloud gaming.

Microsoft and Sony Are Teaming for Game Streaming

[ MUSIC ] The Sony Walkman was really one of the first personal devices that people owned. It was the ultimate portable music machine. The Sony Walkman is number five on this list. It was a huge, huge product for its time when it came out. I personally did not get a Walkman. My parents got me a Toshiba I really coveted the Walkman. I remember that Debbie Gibson, and the fight my sister and I would have a one Sony Walkman. You could walk around with a small thing in your hand and headphones on. Do listen to music that no one else could hear. It was subtle. It was elegant and most importantly it fit into pockets if that person is or into the palm of your hand. [ MUSIC ] 100 greatest designs of modern times is an update of a list at fortune published six decades ago. The exciting thing about the original list that Fortune published with the Institute of Design back at the end of the 50s was it was an exciting time in America and the Global Economy and design was having a Golden age. There were all kinds of incredible product designs, consumer goods Transportation. And so it was really a perfect time to step back and look at this phenomenon of design that was really transforming the way that people looked at the world. And companies presented their products to the world. I discovered the 1959 list while looking in our archives. And I just find it the most fascinating document. It's just perfect encapsulation of mid century design thinking and aesthetics. And I thought this is 60 years since we published this. And I really wanted to see what that list would look like in 2019. [ MUSIC ] I mean, there are so many chairs on the web. There's so many chairs. [ LAUGH ] In the 1950s, design was better understood as How something looked rather than the function of it, yeah. So Fortune approached us about a little bit over a year ago and asked us if we would be interested in rerunning this research on 100 best design products that was done by the director at the time, Jay Doblin. In 1959, we had a lot of healthy debate over the list and what should be included and what should not be included. I was thinking about it more from a product perspective because I, at that time, didn't know that much about design. Yeah, this is a dilemma today. This is like indicates everything that's going on. Because for me as I like A product designer all my life, the designer of things that criteria have changed from 60 years ago. When we were talking with Fortune, we were concerned that they would want a list to be a 100 % product and we really felt like. The design industry had moved forward where it didn't make sense to just limit it to to just products. The world used to be I think more about just individual objects. And now you've got products that learn products out of that. So we expanded the criteria to include services and systems. And we limited it to 100 years. Those were the main criteria. This is a very interesting project that demonstrates the change and design, the view of design in the world. I think a fundamental aspect of this new age of design And why people are so fascinated by design and the great companies that are being driven by design, is that design is no longer being thought of as just designing a physical product that I will put on a shelf and you will buy. It's creating a ecosystem. It's creating a service. It's anticipating how customers are gonna interact with you. 60 years ago, the design of something was much more than afterthought. It was very much synonymous with the style of the products and how it looked rather than how it performed. Now we think of design as a verb, we design something to fit its purpose. Entire companies are built on this. Facebook is on our list is one of the great designs. It's created the social media network. You know, it's not an object. It's the app you have on your phone, but it's the experience. Sometimes the design is a little insidious but it's brilliant in terms of how it anticipates what you as a customer wants and interacts with. [ UNKNOWN ] [ MUSIC ] Welcome aboard. Welcome aboard to spacious cabin, attractively decorated air conditioned but [ UNKNOWN ] Newly designed individual overhead light units are an innovation. Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet was really a marvel of its time and through Epitomize the post war jet liner age. Vertical walls, open spaces, allowing more people to sit becuase it was wider. The ability to move that amount of people on one vehicle across continents. For barely any money in those days. Boeing 747 has been instrumental in making the world a much smaller place. The plane that changed the entire travel Industry as we know it today. [ MUSIC ] When Doblin did the original study, design as a discipline was really quite young. Culturally you can look at Mad Men, for instance, as evocative of the kind of nostalgia we have for that expression of design in that time. But it was a very biased design period to I mean, it was mostly the point of view of white men and predominantly reflective of Western European values. There was a narrow definition of good design. So we really tried to cultivate a list that We felt spoke to the diversity that's characteristic of the design industry today. So the first thing we had to do was compile a list of everyone that we wanted to reach out to. People who've been working in the design industry as it's evolved, now list was pretty diverse. We surveyed Professional designers and educators and influences Each nominator was asked to dominate ten products. So we asked them to give us the criteria on which they chose might employees make a good product? And then we did a word analysis to actually didn't distill out of the 300 nominations we got, what were the main criteria used? We found these common traits to a lot of the designs that were submitted, and those designs were adaptable, that were equitable, that were usable, that were impactful, and that were transformational. So what this allowed us to really do is give a quantitative weight to qualitative assessment. Out of the top 100 products that ended up being 24 industries in there. And that compared to 17, 60 years ago, the new industries that were added to by far the biggest one is internet services. The second key shift we saw more day to day products so closing there was no closing 60 years ago. Third is services. So it's the first time to healthcare, logistics. Those are all that are new. And then lastly just emerging but really the new growth area for design is more science. So biotech, bio design, pharma, those are the new coins which are all in there. And that speaks to the diversity of the people we've surveyed compared to 1959 and just how much design has influenced other parts of our world. And the categories that got dropped off tended to be very high ticket items that weren't really broadly available. Cars, there's 14 cars on that original list. And that was a big boom in the 1950s. They were kind of upper middle class products, but they weren't like daily life items. There were a lot of guns on top ones list, which I thought was interesting. Kitchen devices big boom post war in refrigerators and stove top appliances. Just from the industry point of view, it's interesting to see how design has spread to everyday life we see a clear democratization of design. So that also indicates how the value has shifted or the definition of good design. [ MUSIC ] The poster now is one of the most beautiful pieces of design on the list. There was a scientist who was looking for a very super form of glue, who ended up finding a glue that did the opposite. They stuck some of this newly discovered Sticky but not damaging glue two pieces of paper and who doesn't use it post it now. Since its inception is now everywhere and it's the most useful thing and that's really what makes great design. It is no bigger or more complex than it needs to be. Accidental discovery, Amazing design. 1959 styling was a big part of design and design was transactional and it came at the end of the process. Now designers are navigating so designers work in organizations at the front end of the process, particularly in tech companies to actually identify what should be built identifying gaps. To find an unmet need, need that people don't know they have, versus pushing a need onto people by saying you need newest model of the car. Yeah, I mean, Uber is a great example. It's a service design. We can think about the design of the app. But from a total end user perspective [ MUSIC ] From the moment that you tap to summon a taxi, and the driver receives the notification to come find you. Everything about that is designed and everything about that has a purpose and is as simple as possible. The fewest possible steps which is the beautiful part of the Uber design. The most obvious example of a company that has transformed the world with design is Apple. And that's why you're gonna see seven products out of the 100 top designs from Apple. Number two on the list is the Macintosh computer. It really transformed the way people thought about computers and And a computer being a personal device that you can easily use in your home do stuff with and not just be a giant room for server stuff that you had to be an expert to use. So that was really a transformative moment and that was driven a lot by Steve Jobs, saying we need to have like a user friendly device. In the great tradition of startups, we started Apple because we wanted the product ourselves. So gradually we were pulled into business. It wasn't. We didn't start out to build a large company. We started out to build a few dozen computers for us and our friends. They are a technology company, but they always saw almost from the beginning that design. Was really, in some ways, more important than their bread and butter. This involves some really far out thinking. The whole process, before technology, before anything. The whole origin point of a project is with the design team. 10 years ago, design was talked about but I don't think anybody was particularly interested. That is not the way that a lot of companies are running their organizations. Today Design is being recognized and understood as seen as playing a contribution. So I think a perfect way to understand that shift and design philosophy is with the number one product on our list which is iPhone. iPhone is on there not just because it is a beautifully designed piece of Aluminum and glass. But because of the things that it enables us to do. Watching Steve Jobs climb up on that stage with his black turtleneck. This is a day. I've been looking forward to for two and a half years. A nd very, very elegantly talk about how his team had been working on this amazing product. Today Apple is going to reinvent. [ APPLAUSE ] The phone. And we are calling it iPhone. We were expecting something great, but not world changing, life changing. And for every single human being on this planet. It's our interaction with it. It is the way that it connects us to other devices, whether it be to the internet or other iPhones or the people in our lives. That's why it's on the list, not just because it's a beautiful object. It raised the bar when it came to expecting our devices to provide all of our needs. Needs. From music to media to communications to the news. It's created new industries, it's changed industries, it's royal politics. A simple phone is what we were expecting. What we got, was a revolution. [ MUSIC ]. I think we've just seen a trend Towards design being more disruptive. I actually also think it's a response to our times. Because a lot of the problems that were facing are systemic, and the only way to intervene is through different systems levels approaches. So a lot of these new innovations I think are actually a response to problems we want complicated. So for example on the list there is service and a product. Based on drones delivering medical supplies to remote villages in Africa. The great green wall of Africa, what I really liked about the project was it was really just a community led response to the impending threat of climate change. It's a designed intervention intended to combat desertification. That's just the great example of how designers changed and Now it's just more than a single product. It's an entire system to solve a problem, and I think if we were to do this list again in 50 years, we'll see a lot more projects like that because that's I think, truly where a lot of innovation is happening right now. I think it's really significant that we are thinking about design For longevity and designed for the future. I think Bosworth sort of reflect the priorities of the day. So, the things that we use most in our lives are Internet services. Whereas in the 1950s people drove sports cars or they Bought a suburban house. Right and filled it with beautiful things. Yeah. The AIRBNB is a great example of design thinking and an organization. That really started with this sort of spontaneous idea of creating a place for people to stay is allowed people. To leverage their homes, to get a bit more extra cash. The house became the feedback chain to the employees were part of the design thinking process. And that feedback along with the user feedback really redefined the way Airbnb designed their experiences. Airbnb has revolutionized how a lot of people travel. They took design and applied it to a concept that was 400 people. People didn't want to go and stay in other people's apartment, and then it became appealing. That's a really fascinating triumph of design. One reason it's really important to look at design right now is there's a growing body of data that shows that design really drives Performance of companies and you can see it anecdotally with companies like Netflix, Google and Apple. They're incredibly valuable, but it's much broader than that. McKinsey and Company has done some research a few years ago that show that publicly traded companies and better design practices outperformed in growth in terms of revenue. And shareholder return. And I think that really got a lot of people's attention. Good design is good business. There's a direct correlation of good design, having a direct connection to the bottom line. And when that connection is clear to both parties in the C suite, Sweet. And in the design community, that's when you start getting amazing innovative products that can redefine industries, redefine the bottom and the top line of companies and really change the way we look at the world and live in this world. At the same time McKinsey has done some more recent research that shows they surveyed 1700 companies and They found that only about a third of the CEOs really had an idea of what their lead designers do. And only 10 % said that the design team is involved in setting strategy. So I think there's still a lot of progress to be made for a lot of companies to figure out how to better integrate design into their strategy and to really take advantage of the boosts that you've got from grades. Design thinking. [ MUSIC ] , So, Jay Doblin he was still strongly enough to believe in 59 that commercial design was still not good, design was underutilized and our headline for this report is that JW won't be happy. To see this report 60 years later, because design has become better utility, better social impact, and better aesthetics, or individual joy and use. Products are becoming less important to us in our daily lives. And Uber being on the list is a perfect example of that. There's only four cars on the list in 2019. But Uber ranked higher than all of them, which speaks to this sorta idea of we put less emphasis on the ownership of a car and the ownership of a beautiful car. We wanna get from A to B. I think this list is crucially important to fortune because there's a huge movement in the business world around design and understanding the value of design. And it's transforming the way companies think about reaching their customers and working with their customers. And that's the kind of thing that we of course want to understand explain to our readers. We have at least close to half of our students now who come in with a purpose driven idea of looking at design as a way to build Better, more intelligent futures futures that are sustainable, responsible, equitable, and value generated. I think that this list points toward a potential future but it still shows where we're coming from as a discipline. I can only hope that. It will continue to to provoke conversation and lead us to question the values that we as a discipline, observe [ MUSIC ]

The greatest designs of modern times

Magazine

The iPhone, Sony Walkman, Uber, and many more made the cut.

And what they say about how design is evolving in business.

Watch: The greatest designs of modern times

 DEVIN HANCE: Welcome to What the Tech. And today, we're going to find out where all these earbuds are coming from. [THEME MUSIC] In 2016, Apple unveiled the iPhone 7, the first iPhone without a headphone jack. SPEAKER 1: Now some people have asked why we would remove the analog headphone jack. DEVIN HANCE: This was a pretty big deal. At that same event, Apple also unveiled the AirPods-- SPEAKER 1: It is a breakthrough design. DEVIN HANCE: --wireless earbuds that connected seamlessly to your iPhone. Simply opened up the magnetic case, connected it to your iPhone through Bluetooth connectivity, and that's it. In response to Apple ditching the headphone jack, its competitors ridiculed them. IPhone users weren't too thrilled either. SPEAKER 2: Removing the headphone jack-- I do not understand this move. SPEAKER 3: So I disagree with this move. I think it's a big load of crap. DEVIN HANCE: But what Apple was doing was creating an entirely new market, and its AirPod sales validated this. AirPods earned them $6 billion in 2019 alone. So as you can imagine, Google, Samsung, and other smartphone makers followed suit, ditching their headphone jacks and making their own earbuds. Even Amazon has Echo Buds and Microsoft recently just announced the Surface Earbuds. So in a short amount of time, this market's become pretty competitive. Today, we have arguably two of the best earbuds on the market, Apple's AirPods Pro and Sony's WF 1000XM3s. [MUSIC PLAYING] Overall, after spending a few weeks with both, I'm really impressed with not only the sound quality, but the technology behind the noise cancellation. It's pretty impressive that you can get that experience from such a small device. The AirPods Pro are expensive earbuds. They retail at $250. And what you get is the case, of course, three different sized earbuds, and Lightning cord for charging. The Sonys are slightly cheaper. For $230, it comes with seven different sized earbuds, the case, and a USB-C charging cord. A plus with Sony's earbuds is you have two different materials to pick from. There's this foam type of material and a silicone material that seems a little bit more sweat resistant. On top of that, you have all the sizes to pick from-- small, medium, large. You can really customize it to your ear. When it comes to comfort for these, I definitely preferred the AirPods Pro. These are earbuds that I would definitely work out in. They sealed very easily. They were very comfortable. And the earbud itself was sweat resistant. The Sonys, even when I tried out the different sizes, just was a lot bulkier. I had to really twist it around to get a fit that felt right. So for the AirPods Pro, Apple stuck with their classic white case. It's slightly wider than the original AirPods, but still the same cool magnetic features. These headphones are not going to fall out. Sony's case is definitely the biggest wireless earbuds case out there. It feels super durable. I love the bronze and black coloring of it. As far as the magnetic strip on the inside, the headphones click right in. It's-- they're not going anywhere. So let's take a look at how to pair these earbuds. Connecting their AirPods Pro was super easy. I just pressed the button on the back of the case, and it connected immediately with my iPhone. Setting up the Sonys takes a little bit more time. You actually have to download a Headphones app to get started with this. It definitely takes a few seconds longer than just the quick pair with the AirPods Pro. I love that the AirPods Pro is a plug and play experience. It's very easy to toggle between your listening modes or adjust your volume. For the Sonys, there's so many different features that you can take control of, and this is definitely for the user that wants a more customizable experience. [BEEP] SPEAKER 4: Noise canceling. DEVIN HANCE: What really sets these earbuds apart is noise cancellation. It really reduces the unwanted sounds around you. And where I really noticed this the most was on subways or buses. So noise cancellation for both of these sounded really great. I really didn't think one overpowered the other or was better than the other. My podcasts, my music, it all sounded crisp and with very little interruption. But these headphones also offer transparency mode if you don't want to be muted from the world the whole time. It allows you to hear your surroundings. Let's say your train stop is coming up. You don't need to worry about tuning out everything at all times. SPEAKER 5: This is Point Street. DEVIN HANCE: One unique feature that the Sony earbuds offer is the adaptive sound control. Basically, your level of noise cancellation automatically adjusts based on your surroundings. So if you're in a subway, it'll crank the noise cancellation up. But if you're in a quiet room or studio, it'll pop that noise cancellation down. So I was pretty impressed with the adaptive sound control. It accurately was able to tell what surrounding I was in. The only thing to keep in mind, though, is that it's going to prompt you in your ear as it's switching modes. And I wasn't the biggest fan of that. I really couldn't pick which of the two sounded better. Both of them have exceptional sound, especially if you're coming from the original AirPods. But Sony has an advantage here, because you can go into the app and customize your EQ settings. You can select through different presets or create your own. One area where Sony definitely excels is the battery life. With the noise cancellation on, these earbuds will last you six full hours opposed to the AirPods Pro, which are 4 and 1/2 hours with noise cancellation on. Both of these cases, though, offer 24 hours of battery life before they need to be charged. So both of these earbuds really show how diverse the earbud market really is, especially because they're made for two totally different customers. The AirPods Pro are for more of the casual listener, those who want to plug and play, whereas the Sonys are for those who really want to customize their listening experience and have more options. It's really hard to recommend one over the other. It really depends on what you're looking for in an earbud. But after trying this and experiencing this, it's definitely a product that I don't want to go without. [MUSIC PLAYING] 

Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3

Tech

We look at the best two earbuds on the market. 

Best Earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3

Since the launch of the Airpods in 2016, wireless earbuds have become a billion-dollar industry. We look at the best two earbuds on the market. 

Welcome to what? The Tech. And today we're gonna find out where all these here, but they're coming from. In 2016 Apple unveiled the iPhone seven. The first iPhone without a headphone jack. No. So people held up why we would remove the analog headphone jack. This was a pretty big deal. At that same event, Apple also unveiled the air pot. It is a breakthrough design. Wireless ear buds that connected seamlessly to your iPhone simply opened up the magnetic case connected to your iPhones. Bluetooth connectivity. And that's it. In response to Apple ditching the headphone jack, its competitors ridicule them. IPhone users weren't too thrilled either. Removing the headphone jack. I do not understand this move. I disagree with this move. I think it's a big load of crap. But what Apple was doing was creating an entirely new market and its AirPods feel validated. Airpods earned them $6 billion in 2019 alone. So as you can imagine, Google, Samsung and other smartphone makers followed suit, ditching their headphone jacks and making their own ear buds. Even Amazon has echo Bud and Microsoft recently just announced the surface here, but so in a short amount of time the markets become pretty competitive. Today. We have arguably through the best beer bums on market apples, Airpods Pro and Sony's W F 1000 x mark three overall. After spending a few weeks with both, I'm really impressed with not only the sound quality but the technology behind the noise cancellation pretty impressive that you can get that experience from such a small device. The airport's pro are expensive here, but they retail at $250 on what you get is the case, of course, through different sized earbuds and lightning court for charging the Sunnis are slightly cheaper for $230. It comes with seven different size earbuds, the case and you SPC charging cord Ah, plus Tony's here, but you have two different materials to pick from. There's this foam type of material and a silicon material that seems a little bit more sweat. On top of that, you have all the sizes to pick from small, medium large. You can really that you're here when it comes to comfort for these. I definitely prefer the airport's pro these air earbuds that I would definitely work out in. They feel very easily. They were very comfortable and the ear but itself with sweat resistant. The Tonys, even when I tried all the different sizes, just was a lot full gear. I had to really twist it around, get fit. That felt right. So for the AirPods pro Apple stuck with their classic White case, it's slightly wider than the original air pots but still the same cool magnetic features. These headphones are not gonna fall out, so the case is definitely the biggest wireless earbuds case out there. It feels super durable. I love the bronze and black coloring of it as far as the magnetic strip on the inside. The headphones click right in it. They're not going anywhere. So let's take a look at how to pair these earbuds. Conducting their pods Pro was super easy. I just press the button on the back of the case, and it connected immediately with my iPhone. Sending up the Sony takes a little bit more time. You actually have to download the headphones, apt to get started with this. It definitely takes a few seconds longer than just the quick pair with the Airpods pro. I love that the Airpods pro is a plug and play experience. It's very easy to toggle between your listening mode or adjust your volume for the Tonys. There's so many different features that you can take control of, and this is definitely for the user that wants a more customizable experience. What really sets these airboats apart is noise cancellation. It really reduces the unwanted sounds around you. And where I really noticed this the most was on subways or buses. Noise cancellation, for both of these sounded really great. I really didn't think one overpowered the other or was better than the other. My podcast, my music. It all sounded crisp and with very little interruption. But they also offer transparency. Mood. If you don't want to be muted from the world the whole time, it allows you to hear your surroundings. Let's say your train stop is coming up. You don't need to worry about tuning out everything at all times. One unique feature that the Sunni earbuds offer is the adaptive sound control. Basically, your level of noise cancellation automatically adjust based on your surroundings, so if you're in a subway, it'll crank the north cancellation up. But if you're in a quiet rumor studio. It'll pop that North cancellation down. So I was pretty impressed with the adaptive sound control. It accurately was able to tell what surrounding I was in. The only thing to keep in mind, though, is that it's gonna prompt you in your ear as it's switching mode. And I wasn't the biggest fan of that. I really couldn't pick which of the two sounded better. Both of them have exceptional sounds, especially if you're coming from the original air pot. But Tony has an advantage here because you can go into the app and customize your cue setting. You can select their different precepts or create your own. One area where stony definitely excels is the battery life, with the noise cancellation on these airboats will last you six full hours opposed to the Airpods Pro, which are four and 1/2 hours of noise. Cancellation on both of these cases, though, offers 24 hours of battery life before they need to be charged. So both of these earbuds really show how diverse the urban market really is, especially because they're made for two totally different customers. The Airpods Pro are for more of the casual listener, those who want to plug in play where the Tonys are. For those who really want to customize their listening experience and have more options, it's really hard to recommend one over the other. It really depends on what you're looking for in an ear bud, but after trying this and experiencing this, it's definitely a product that I don't want to go without.

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