Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and how the tech are you? It is time for
Speaker 1: a classic episode. We are going to conclude the two
Speaker 1: parter that we started last Friday. So if you didn't
Speaker 1: listen to last Friday's classic episode, I recommend you go
Speaker 1: listen to that first because this is the Phillips Story,
Speaker 1: Part two, and this originally published on January two, thousand sixteen. Now,
Speaker 1: clearly we could do an update because it has been
Speaker 1: quite a few years since I did these episodes, so
Speaker 1: maybe I will do that in the future, But first
Speaker 1: let's listen to this classic episode from We'll begin this
Speaker 1: episode with a discussion about what happened to Anton's son,
Speaker 1: Fritz Phillips as much of the world was plunged into
Speaker 1: the con flick known as World War Two. So if
Speaker 1: you remember from our last episode, Anton and his son
Speaker 1: in law Franston or Franz Aughton, fled the Netherlands. They
Speaker 1: went to North America. They had established a North American
Speaker 1: base of operations to work from during the course of
Speaker 1: World War two. Much of Phillip's management followed suit, but
Speaker 1: but Fritz Phillips stayed behind in the Netherlands, and Fritz
Speaker 1: really tried to protect the interests of the company as
Speaker 1: well as the company's employees during the entire Nazi occupation.
Speaker 1: Now from nineteen forty until nineteen forty three, Fritz kept
Speaker 1: things running at Phillips, even resisting the moves by the
Speaker 1: Nazis to switch the operations to more warlike efforts to
Speaker 1: support Germany's UH operations. And Fritz really was all to
Speaker 1: resist that fairly effectively. But in April nineteen forty three,
Speaker 1: things took a very dark turn for Fritz, and obviously
Speaker 1: was a terrible time for much of Europe because in
Speaker 1: April nineteen forty three, the Nazis made a declaration that
Speaker 1: was pretty much the doom for Fritz Phillips at least
Speaker 1: for the next two years. So when Germany invaded the
Speaker 1: Netherlands back in nineteen forty, the three thousand members of
Speaker 1: the Dutch Army had been essentially captured but then released
Speaker 1: after the Netherlands officially surrendered to Germany. So the three
Speaker 1: thousand members of the Dutch army were under German supervision
Speaker 1: for a while and then allowed to go back and
Speaker 1: rejoin Dutch society under the Nazi occupation. But in ninety three,
Speaker 1: Germany declared that those three hundred thousand soldiers would be
Speaker 1: conscripted and forced into labor on behalf of Germany, so
Speaker 1: they'd become, you know, essentially slave labor to the Nazis,
Speaker 1: and the Phillips employees decided to go on strike to
Speaker 1: protest this move. It wasn't and move against Fritz Phillips,
Speaker 1: it was a move against the Nazis. But Germany held
Speaker 1: Fritz Phillips personally responsible and captured him and put him
Speaker 1: in a concentration camp and essentially was trying to use
Speaker 1: him as leverage to force Phillips employees back to work. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: while in captivity, Fritz was put in charge of a
Speaker 1: camp workshop in that concentration camp, and it was staffed
Speaker 1: by Jewish prisoners. So again he did his best to
Speaker 1: protect his workers in the concentration camp, trying to make
Speaker 1: sure that he he made it clear that each one
Speaker 1: of them was necessary for him to do the work
Speaker 1: that the Nazis were demanding. Tragically, uh he started with
Speaker 1: four hundred sixty nine Jewish employees. Only two of them
Speaker 1: survived to the end of the war. Um and I
Speaker 1: say only three two because it's just a tragedy for
Speaker 1: any of those lives to be lost. Obviously, however, it's
Speaker 1: almost I can't even say it's a silver lining, but
Speaker 1: he did manage to protect quite a few of those people.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you compare those numbers with the Dutch
Speaker 1: Jewish population, overall, almost all the Jews in the Netherlands
Speaker 1: had been completely eliminated eradicated. So Fritz Phillips actually did
Speaker 1: succeed in saving lives, and I'm sure that he would
Speaker 1: have wish that he could have saved all of them
Speaker 1: for his efforts. Israel actually decorated Fritz Phillips with the
Speaker 1: Yad Vashiam Medal in nineteen and he was alive to
Speaker 1: accept that that honor. Fritz survived the war, as I
Speaker 1: just indicated. After his release, he dedicated the next several
Speaker 1: years to rebuilding the Phillips presence in the Netherlands because
Speaker 1: during the course of World War Two, Phillips factories were
Speaker 1: hit hard. They had been bombed by the Allies twice
Speaker 1: and then once by the Germans. When the Germans were withdrawing.
Speaker 1: During their retreat, they also bombed the Phillips manufacturing factories.
Speaker 1: He would eventually become the president of Phillips in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one. He retired in nineteen seventy one, and he
Speaker 1: passed away in two thousand five at the age of
Speaker 1: one hundred years old. But going back to just after
Speaker 1: World War Two, during that era, uh, you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was a period of rebuilding and by most
Speaker 1: of the facilities had recovered. Meanwhile, Phillips research focused on
Speaker 1: things like transistors and integrated circuits. Over the next couple
Speaker 1: of decades. Really the nineteen fifties was the era of
Speaker 1: the integrated circuit and the transistor. Uh that work was
Speaker 1: really being pioneered at places like Bell Labs. But Phillips were,
Speaker 1: you know, the companies like Phelips were able to jump
Speaker 1: on that bandwagon, as it were, and add their own
Speaker 1: expertise in advancing the technology of integrated circuits and building
Speaker 1: a foundation for future work in electronics. In nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: Phillips introduced the syncro cyclotron, which sounds like a really
Speaker 1: wicked amusement park ride, but the syncros cyclotron was actually
Speaker 1: a particle accelerator. Now that might sound unusual. You're talking
Speaker 1: about a company that's largely known for its work in
Speaker 1: electronics and stuff, so that's fairly simple things like radios
Speaker 1: and lamps, and a little bit in the medical field
Speaker 1: with X ray technology. But this was another example of
Speaker 1: how Phillips was really valuing pure scientific research. Not only
Speaker 1: was Phillips looking to join and create new markets and electronics,
Speaker 1: but also push our understanding of the fundamental nature of
Speaker 1: the universe. Uh. There was a physicist, a famous physicist
Speaker 1: named Kasimir who worked on this project, and Kasimir was
Speaker 1: a notable scientist. His name was actually used to describe
Speaker 1: a certain physical force that results from a quantized field.
Speaker 1: It's called the Casimir effect. That research would later become
Speaker 1: important for micro electro mechanical systems known as mems. So
Speaker 1: there's another good example of how some fundamental understanding of
Speaker 1: science can end up being a huge benefit further on
Speaker 1: the line, something that you could not possibly have anticipated
Speaker 1: when you first set out to study it. I know
Speaker 1: I'm beating a dead horse here, but I really do
Speaker 1: believe deeply in this philosophy that pure science has value,
Speaker 1: and often it has value that we cannot anticipate when
Speaker 1: we set out to answer questions. And so if you
Speaker 1: happen to ever be in a position where you can
Speaker 1: help fund pure science, I urge you to do it,
Speaker 1: even if you don't have an immediate return on what
Speaker 1: that investment will mean, because you never know what's going
Speaker 1: to turn into in the future. All right, let your over,
Speaker 1: let's get back to it. In ninete, skipping ahead quite
Speaker 1: a bit, Phillips introduced the compact audio cassette. This is
Speaker 1: what we in the eighties called a cassette tape. Cassette
Speaker 1: tape is essentially a little plastic cartridge, inside of which
Speaker 1: is a real that has a ribbon of magnetic tape
Speaker 1: upon which you can record audio. So magnetic tape was
Speaker 1: not a brand new medium. It's not like Phillips invented
Speaker 1: magnetic tape. Previous versions were already in existence and had
Speaker 1: been used for both commercial and home uses. But the
Speaker 1: home use was pretty limited because really, the predecessor to
Speaker 1: the cassette tape was real to real audio. Some people
Speaker 1: had real to real audio sets, but they were pretty expensive.
Speaker 1: So it was one of those things that only people
Speaker 1: with a lot of money and a lot of interest
Speaker 1: in technology actually owned. The average person didn't have a
Speaker 1: real to real tape player, and the cassette tape was
Speaker 1: kind of uh an effort to bring this sort of
Speaker 1: technology into the realm of the consumer market, creating a
Speaker 1: brand new space. UH. The Phillips innovation meant that you
Speaker 1: had a compact, portable, and eventually an expensive alternative to
Speaker 1: real to real tape, and that was great. They debuted
Speaker 1: the cassette tape at the nineteen sixty three Berlin Radio Show.
Speaker 1: It would be introduced to the United States the following year,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four. Other companies were also attempting to
Speaker 1: establish a standard for personal audio at the same time.
Speaker 1: So that raises a question, how did Phillips end up
Speaker 1: making its design the cassette tape the standard. Why? Why
Speaker 1: is that the standard and not something else that was
Speaker 1: being developed at the same time by another company? And
Speaker 1: the answer is mostly due to a strategy that was
Speaker 1: forced on Phillips. Phillips ended up licensing the design for
Speaker 1: free to Sony. The design of the cassette tape to Sony.
Speaker 1: Sony had really been pressuring Phillips to do this. At
Speaker 1: that time. Japanese companies were really on the rise, they
Speaker 1: were hapidly overtaking other companies in other parts of the world,
Speaker 1: and so Phillips the writing was on the wall. If
Speaker 1: Phillips did not do this, than some other company stood
Speaker 1: to gain the most by becoming the standard in home
Speaker 1: audio formats. So they agreed, and as Sony adopted that
Speaker 1: Phillips form factor for cassette tapes, the standard was set,
Speaker 1: and and that is how we have cassette tapes and
Speaker 1: not some other format format. But it wouldn't be until
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies that the cassette form factor really
Speaker 1: became popular among consumers. So it was more than a
Speaker 1: decade later that people actually started to buy cassette tapes
Speaker 1: in large amounts. And the big reason for that was
Speaker 1: because the quality just wasn't there early on, but for
Speaker 1: both playback and for recording, and vinyl records had much
Speaker 1: higher fidelity. The sound was better from a vinyl record.
Speaker 1: If you bought a cassette tape and try to listen
Speaker 1: to the same music that you can get on vinyl,
Speaker 1: you'd be disappointed in the noise that would be present
Speaker 1: on the recording. So cassette tapes originally could not really
Speaker 1: compete with the fidelity of records, but as soon as
Speaker 1: that quality reached a good enough standard, cassettes began to
Speaker 1: overtake vinyl. So this is an example of a format
Speaker 1: that you could argue is of an inferior quality. There
Speaker 1: are people who will argue to their deathbed that vinyl
Speaker 1: records are the highest fidelity you can possibly achieve um
Speaker 1: because it's a very true representation of the sound that
Speaker 1: was generated at the time of recording. But you could
Speaker 1: also argue that ultimately that doesn't matter to the consumer.
Speaker 1: You just have to make the quality good enough and
Speaker 1: make it super convenient, and if it's more convenient than
Speaker 1: the alternative and it's not prohibitively expensive, people will switch
Speaker 1: to that format. That's what happened with cassette tapes. They
Speaker 1: weren't superior in quality to vinyl records, but you could
Speaker 1: carry them around with you much easier than you could
Speaker 1: with records. You could even install something like a tape
Speaker 1: deck in your car and listen to him on the go.
Speaker 1: Couldn't really do that with vinyl, at least not without
Speaker 1: taking the smoothest roads possible, because any bump would totally
Speaker 1: ruin your record collection, and it didn't matter that the
Speaker 1: quality wasn't as good because the convenience was there. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with more about the Philips story after this
Speaker 1: quick break. You might wonder how does magnetic tape work?
Speaker 1: And I thought it might be cool to just quickly
Speaker 1: cover the basics to explain what magnetic tape is actually doing. So,
Speaker 1: the tape itself is a plastic base, So the ribbons
Speaker 1: is plastic, and it has a coating of feric oxide
Speaker 1: powder which is ferro magnetic um, and it's usually paired
Speaker 1: with some sort of binding agent so it sticks to
Speaker 1: the plastic film properly. Now, if you expose that feric
Speaker 1: oxide to a magnetic field, the magnetic field will cause
Speaker 1: the particles to align in a particular way. So if
Speaker 1: you move a ribbon coated with feric oxide powder through
Speaker 1: a varying magnetic field, so you're changing the magnetic field
Speaker 1: over time as the ribbon passes through it. The ribbon
Speaker 1: actually becomes a record of the changes in that magnetic field.
Speaker 1: Like in other words, if you were to visually represent
Speaker 1: the changes of that magnetic field across the ribbon, it
Speaker 1: would be like a timeline your reconstruction, reconstructing the time
Speaker 1: from the beginning to the end of how that magnetic
Speaker 1: field changed. Now that magnetic field represents music or or sound,
Speaker 1: you get an electric current, you put it through an
Speaker 1: electro magnet. The changing current in the electromagnet creates this
Speaker 1: variable magnetic field that gets recorded onto this tape. You
Speaker 1: play the tape back through a playback device. Moving this
Speaker 1: ribbon with the magnetic material past an electro magnet that's
Speaker 1: not turned on will expose the electro magnet to a
Speaker 1: changing magnetic field that ends up inducing electric current to
Speaker 1: flow in the electro magnet, which then can be sent
Speaker 1: to an amplifier, which then can be sent to speakers,
Speaker 1: and then you get your sound. It's really amazing, like
Speaker 1: it's it's actually pretty simple when you think about it.
Speaker 1: It's it's translating one type of energy into another and
Speaker 1: then using magnetic field to record it. But there's something
Speaker 1: in my mind that refuses to dismiss the possibility that
Speaker 1: all of this is magic. I understand on a physical
Speaker 1: level what's happening, but it's so phenomenal to me that
Speaker 1: you might as well have a wand in your hand
Speaker 1: and be speaking faux Latin at any rate. That's how
Speaker 1: magnetic tape works. So let's get back to Phillips. They
Speaker 1: had set the standard for home audio with the cassette tape,
Speaker 1: and as a result they they managed to change the
Speaker 1: world of home media, but it took more than a
Speaker 1: decade for that to really take hold. The nine seventies
Speaker 1: were really challenging for Phillips. I mentioned that Fritz Phillips
Speaker 1: had retired in nineteen seventy one as president after a
Speaker 1: really prosperous decade. The sixties were pretty good, but the
Speaker 1: seventies were getting tough. Uh. The replacement was Hank fun
Speaker 1: reems Ditch. That's my best s at how to pronounce
Speaker 1: his last name, and he became the new president, but
Speaker 1: he was facing some pretty hefty challenges. Those Japanese companies
Speaker 1: were becoming increasingly powerful and competitive, and that really forced
Speaker 1: another round of reorganization over at Phillips. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that reems Ditch did was shut down some
Speaker 1: of the smaller factories that were owned by Phillips because
Speaker 1: these smaller companies, these smaller factories weren't as efficient as
Speaker 1: larger operations. So the smaller ones got shuttered and the
Speaker 1: larger ones were prioritized. In nineteen seventy two, Phillips introduced
Speaker 1: the first successful consumer home video cassette recorder system. The
Speaker 1: company called it Video Cassette Recording or vc R, but
Speaker 1: you shouldn't confuse this with the VHS or Beta Max formats.
Speaker 1: It was a different style of cassette tape. The v
Speaker 1: see our cassettes were actually kind of these chunky squares
Speaker 1: rather than rectangles, and they housed two coaxial reels of
Speaker 1: magnetic tape. They were available in three different varieties. You
Speaker 1: could get them in thirty minute, forty five minute, or
Speaker 1: sixty minute versions, although supposedly the sixty minute ones were
Speaker 1: particularly tricky. They could snag and and foul pretty easily,
Speaker 1: so they were not reliable. Uh and unless you're from Europe,
Speaker 1: you're probably not terribly familiar with the format. Because Phillips
Speaker 1: never sold the devices in any other regions. They were
Speaker 1: looking at getting into North America, and in fact it
Speaker 1: even started marketing campaigns in North America to try and
Speaker 1: introduce the VCR, but before they could, the VHS debuted
Speaker 1: in America and became adopted as the standard um and
Speaker 1: that pretty much foiled the plans of Phillips. During the
Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies to to bring the v CR to
Speaker 1: the US. In nineteen seventy four, Phillips purchased another company
Speaker 1: called Magnavox. Magnavox was an American electronics company that started
Speaker 1: all the way back in nineteen seventeen, and it produced
Speaker 1: a lot of different types of devices, but my favorite
Speaker 1: was the Magnavox Odyssey, which was the first home video
Speaker 1: game console. Now Phillips purchased it, and in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties they would combine Magnavox with a couple of other
Speaker 1: acquisitions that the company had made, phil COO and Sylvania,
Speaker 1: so you had Magnavox, Philco, and Sylvania all combined into
Speaker 1: one division underneath the Phillips brand by the mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: The president, Reems ditch Uh, stepped down in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: He was replaced with a man named Nico Rawdenburg, and
Speaker 1: the next few years saw an increase in sales, but
Speaker 1: revenue didn't really go anywhere. So even though they were
Speaker 1: selling more products, revenues were m meaning kind of static.
Speaker 1: And in Visa Decker became president and chairman of the
Speaker 1: board of Phillips and he restructured the company again so
Speaker 1: you could almost argue that the history of Phillips is
Speaker 1: a series of restructuring and reorganizing to try and uh
Speaker 1: get more focus. It seemed like the company would pare down,
Speaker 1: then build up again, and then the next regime, if
Speaker 1: you will, would come in and pare down all over
Speaker 1: again in order to try and get some some laser
Speaker 1: like focus for this company. Well, Decker's plan ended up
Speaker 1: closing more than a quarter of all the plants located
Speaker 1: in Europe, and so this leanard company was able to
Speaker 1: turn things around and increase revenues once again. But Decker
Speaker 1: also started making some big acquisitions, including buying a lighting
Speaker 1: division from Westinghouse. So again an example of paring down
Speaker 1: but building back up again. Over the next several years,
Speaker 1: Phillips would have a few different presidents, so I thought
Speaker 1: I would lump them all together in this section rather
Speaker 1: than peppering them throughout the rest of the podcast. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just tell you all the people who have
Speaker 1: led Phillips from Decker to present day, so and keep
Speaker 1: in mind restructuring was pretty much a a go to
Speaker 1: strategy with each person. There was a Cornelis van der Kut,
Speaker 1: who led the company in nineteen six. Jan Tremor came
Speaker 1: on board in nineteen nine, Core Boonstra in nine six,
Speaker 1: Gerard Cloister Lee in two thousand eleven, and the current
Speaker 1: CEO is Franz von Houghton. So I decided to just
Speaker 1: sum them up all now so that we could get
Speaker 1: back into the technology. So Phillips the company partnered with
Speaker 1: m c A to develop a new product called the
Speaker 1: Laser Disc that originally was marketed in the United States
Speaker 1: under the name of the m c A Disco Vision,
Speaker 1: which I think is a phenomenal product name I wish
Speaker 1: Disco Vision had been its name forever. Uh. The first
Speaker 1: place it went on sale was actually Atlanta, Georgia in ninet.
Speaker 1: It went on sale there before it appeared anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the United States, so shout out to my hometown
Speaker 1: of Atlanta, Georgia. Now, both m c A and Phillips
Speaker 1: have been working on an optical video technology separately optical
Speaker 1: meaning that you're using some form of light to record
Speaker 1: and read the information off a disk in order for
Speaker 1: you to get the video and audio that has been
Speaker 1: put on that disc. And both m c A and
Speaker 1: Phillips have been working on this at the same time,
Speaker 1: but They both also noted there had just been this
Speaker 1: massive war of formats between VHS and Beta Max and
Speaker 1: m c A, and Phillips came to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: it made more sense for them to join together and
Speaker 1: to combine their knowledge and come out with a united
Speaker 1: product rather than try and have another format war which
Speaker 1: could hurt both companies. So they entered a partnership and
Speaker 1: created LaserDisc, which never really met with widespread success here
Speaker 1: in the United States. There are other markets like in
Speaker 1: Asia where it did quite well, but in the US
Speaker 1: there was a passionate market, but it was very small.
Speaker 1: So there were some home theater enthusiasts, again mostly people
Speaker 1: who had a decent amount of money at their disposal
Speaker 1: who adopted LaserDisc technology, but for the most part it
Speaker 1: was kind of an afterthought. Part of that was because
Speaker 1: you couldn't use it to right stuff to the discs.
Speaker 1: Now you're you're consumer products. They were read only, so
Speaker 1: you could buy movies and watch them, but you couldn't
Speaker 1: record anything. VHS had an advantage there you could record
Speaker 1: stuff from television onto tape and keep it forever. So
Speaker 1: even though LaserDisc quality was better than VHS quality at
Speaker 1: least initially. Again, it didn't matter that the quality was better.
Speaker 1: It wasn't It wasn't practical and convenient enough for people
Speaker 1: who wanted to have that home theater experience. So ultimately
Speaker 1: it didn't really take off here in the US, and uh,
Speaker 1: it still was a very interesting story, but it did
Speaker 1: lead to another partnership. This time it was a partnership
Speaker 1: between Phillips and Sony. They decided to work together to
Speaker 1: develop a digital audio disc. The two companies poured time, money,
Speaker 1: and other resources into research into element and the result
Speaker 1: was the Compact Disc, which became a worldwide standard. And
Speaker 1: there are a lot of interesting stories about the history
Speaker 1: of the Compact disc, including things like how did they
Speaker 1: come to decide what were the standards for things like
Speaker 1: bit rate that you record to on a disk. Maybe
Speaker 1: one day I will do a full episode just about
Speaker 1: the Compact disc and why compact discs are the way
Speaker 1: they are because those were decisions that were made. It's
Speaker 1: not like it it was just the magical properties of
Speaker 1: the CD. But in order to make sure that this
Speaker 1: standard survived the test of time, Sony and Phillips decided
Speaker 1: to do something similar to what Phillips had done with
Speaker 1: cassette tapes. They granted manufacturing rights for CD players to
Speaker 1: other manufacturers. In other words, they gave competition the right
Speaker 1: to make their own CD players because if they didn't,
Speaker 1: the fear was that these other manufacturers would try to
Speaker 1: create standards of their own and that would fracture the market.
Speaker 1: So just imagine that you're trying to buy music and
Speaker 1: there are five different formats out there, hard hard copy
Speaker 1: formats that are similar to c d s, but they
Speaker 1: aren't compatible with each other. So, in other words, you
Speaker 1: have a system at home, it will only play one
Speaker 1: version of the media. You have to go out there
Speaker 1: and hope that whatever album you want is available on
Speaker 1: the media. You have advantage, you know, you can take
Speaker 1: advantage of. That's what Sony and Phillips wanted to avoid.
Speaker 1: They did not want that world to happen because consumers
Speaker 1: wouldn't be very happy. It would end up hurting all
Speaker 1: the parties involved. So that's why they granted the rights
Speaker 1: to other manufacturers to make things like CD players. We
Speaker 1: will conclude the Phillips story to parter. At least as
Speaker 1: of two thousand sixteen. After these messages in, Phillips would
Speaker 1: change its name to Phillips Electronics Envy, which finally is pronounceable,
Speaker 1: so I thank them for that decision. They also introduced
Speaker 1: a console in the home video game market called the
Speaker 1: Phillips c d I c D DASH lowercase I that
Speaker 1: actually stood for Compact Disc Interactive and it was meant
Speaker 1: to combine the functionality of a CD player and a
Speaker 1: video game console while still being less expensive than a
Speaker 1: PC that had a CD ROM drive. In the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: Phillips increased the functionality of the c d I by
Speaker 1: introducing Internet connectivity and making it one of the first
Speaker 1: consoles capable of browsing the web or playing games online.
Speaker 1: In order to do that, you actually had to buy
Speaker 1: an expansion for the c d I, which caused something
Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty bucks, which at the time
Speaker 1: was pretty expensive, I mean six US of now, but
Speaker 1: you have to adjust for inflation because that was the
Speaker 1: mid nineties, with a D fifty dollars on top of
Speaker 1: the price of the c d I by itself. Now,
Speaker 1: what was really interesting to me is that the c
Speaker 1: d I was able to do something that most video
Speaker 1: game consoles have not been able to do, at least
Speaker 1: non Nintendo video game consoles, they were able to license
Speaker 1: characters from Nintendo like Mario and Link and Zelda. They
Speaker 1: were able to license all of those characters and make
Speaker 1: games featuring those characters for a non Nintendo video game system.
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Well, the reason is that originally
Speaker 1: Nintendo was looking into building a CD ROM add on
Speaker 1: to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and so Nintendo and
Speaker 1: Phillips were going to partner together. Phillips was going to
Speaker 1: build the hardware, the CD ROM hardware that would connect
Speaker 1: to the Nintendo console and that would give Nintendo the
Speaker 1: ability to increase it's its range by adding CD capability
Speaker 1: to the Nintendo Entertainment System or Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Speaker 1: But other CD based video game consoles were not doing
Speaker 1: so well in the market, so Nintendo changed its mind.
Speaker 1: The company said, you know, maybe we were a little hasty.
Speaker 1: To me. It looks like this is not the right
Speaker 1: path for us to take right now, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: back off. We're gonna cancel this arrangement. But as sort
Speaker 1: of a consolation prize to Phillips for having to cancel
Speaker 1: this agreed upon partnership, Nintendo said, when you make your
Speaker 1: video game console. You can use these properties for certain
Speaker 1: number of video games, and that's where we got things
Speaker 1: like Hotel Mario Fat A lot of good it did Phillips,
Speaker 1: though the video games were widely considered to be pretty awful,
Speaker 1: so they were not enough to save the system and
Speaker 1: push it to popularity. In fact, a lot of publications
Speaker 1: out there will list the Phillips c d I as
Speaker 1: one of the worst consoles ever in the history of ever.
Speaker 1: It was considered to be that bad, largely not because
Speaker 1: of the hardware, but because of the lackluster games that
Speaker 1: were developed for it. It's a very forward thinking kind
Speaker 1: of console, it just didn't execute well and didn't have
Speaker 1: the support as far as software is concerned. Now, in
Speaker 1: the mid nine nineties, Phillips and Sony would join forces again,
Speaker 1: but this time they also had Teshiba and Panasonic with
Speaker 1: them to develop what was called the Digital Versatile Disc
Speaker 1: or DVD. Now. The reason for that alliance was again
Speaker 1: to avoid another home media format war like that VHS
Speaker 1: Beta MAX battle. Before the DVD, there were two primary
Speaker 1: formats that were racing to become the standard. One of
Speaker 1: those formats was backed by Sony and Phillips and was
Speaker 1: called the Multimedia Compact Disc or mm c D. The
Speaker 1: other was called the Super Density Disc or s D,
Speaker 1: and it was supported by companies like Pioneer, Tshiba, and
Speaker 1: j v C. The alliance actually allowed these various parties
Speaker 1: to collaborate together and incorporate some of the technology they
Speaker 1: had developed separately into a single format, which became the
Speaker 1: new standard DVD, and it also headed off that format
Speaker 1: war in the process. While that strategy worked, it seems
Speaker 1: that Toshiba kind of forgot all about the importance of
Speaker 1: it a few years later when it tried to pit
Speaker 1: its HD DVD standard against Blu Ray. So Phillips was
Speaker 1: part of the Blu Ray Disc Association or b d A,
Speaker 1: and their companies in the b d A included Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of others, essentially everyone who wasn't Ta Shiba.
Speaker 1: And so you had this this fight between Blu Ray
Speaker 1: and HD DVD, and for a while it looked like
Speaker 1: h D DVD might even win, but ultimately they had
Speaker 1: to pull out of the race. Blue Ray obviously one
Speaker 1: you don't see h D DVD sets out there these days.
Speaker 1: I actually got to see the results of this battle
Speaker 1: in person, because when I went to c e S
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, there was a big empty spot
Speaker 1: on the show floor where h D DVD was supposed
Speaker 1: to be, and that is unusual. Usually every square foot
Speaker 1: of c E S has some sort of booth attached
Speaker 1: to it. If it's not a booth, it's a pathway
Speaker 1: between booths. So to have a big area that had
Speaker 1: nothing in it was pretty conspicuous. It was made even
Speaker 1: more conspicuous by the fact that Ray that year had
Speaker 1: designed their booth to look like an enormous pirate ship
Speaker 1: that was modeled after the Pirates of the Caribbean movies,
Speaker 1: So it was very obvious that h D DVD was
Speaker 1: the ship that sunk in that particular battle. In two thousand,
Speaker 1: Phillips closed a chapter in its history by transforming the
Speaker 1: nat Lab that's the research and development facility I talked
Speaker 1: about in Part one. They changed it into the High
Speaker 1: Tech Campus Eindhoven, which is an open research facility that
Speaker 1: has multiple participating organizations. Phillips is one of them, but
Speaker 1: it's not the only one anymore. This followed nearly three
Speaker 1: decades of decline in that lab. It's actually kind of
Speaker 1: a sad story. So Phillips during these restructuring UH processes
Speaker 1: where they kept on having to reorganize and and and
Speaker 1: kind of leaned down. One of the things that was
Speaker 1: happening was that they were pulling resources away from search
Speaker 1: and development. In the process UH, they started to de
Speaker 1: emphasize the importance of pure scientific research and really looked
Speaker 1: at the NAT lab is more of a standard R
Speaker 1: and D lab rather than pushing the envelope of science exploration.
Speaker 1: And then finally they just opened it up to other organizations.
Speaker 1: So now it's no longer a Phillips based organ It's
Speaker 1: Phillips is still involved, but it's no longer the parent
Speaker 1: of that particular facility. Recently, Phillips has also introduced interesting
Speaker 1: systems and healthcare. They've been involved in healthcare since the
Speaker 1: twenties when they were working with X rays, but now
Speaker 1: you can find stuff like the Ambient Experience. That's what
Speaker 1: it's actually called. UH. It's an integrated solution that incorporates
Speaker 1: dynamic lighting, sound, and architecture to improve patient care and
Speaker 1: hospital efficiency. So kind of a hospital that bonds to
Speaker 1: the needs of the doctors and patients who are who
Speaker 1: are there, which is kind of cool. A neat idea.
Speaker 1: Phillips also launched a three D scanner in two thousand
Speaker 1: six that is used to create high quality CT scans,
Speaker 1: and the company continued to invest in X ray development,
Speaker 1: creating new systems that use lower dosages of X ray
Speaker 1: radiation to really limit that exposure both to patients and
Speaker 1: to healthcare professionals and UH and reduce the risk of
Speaker 1: causing damage with that radiation. But Phillips has also pulled
Speaker 1: back from a few industries in an effort to simplify
Speaker 1: and focus its efforts. I've already mentioned that Phillips is
Speaker 1: you know, they no longer manufacture their own branded televisions,
Speaker 1: but they've also pulled out of semiconductor operations. They did
Speaker 1: that back in two thousand five, two thousand six, And
Speaker 1: there's been some other troubles as well. In two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: the European Union find Phillips, along with several other companies,
Speaker 1: with a charge of fixing prices for TV cathode ray tubes. Essentially,
Speaker 1: they said that these companies all colluded to fix cathode
Speaker 1: ray to prices rather than compete against one another. In
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, the company renamed itself again. This time
Speaker 1: they called themselves Royal Phillips, which is the current name
Speaker 1: of the company, and in two thousand fourteen, the company
Speaker 1: announced it would split into two separate entities, so one
Speaker 1: company would be a lighting business and the other company
Speaker 1: would be consumer lifestyle and healthcare. So Royal Phillips would
Speaker 1: become the consumer Lifestyle and healthcare business, and the new company,
Speaker 1: which will launch with an I p O sometime in
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen, at least that's the belief as I
Speaker 1: record this podcast, will become uh Phillips Lighting, So you'll
Speaker 1: have two different Phillips companies at that time, independent one
Speaker 1: of the other h So you have Royal Phillips and
Speaker 1: Phillips Lighting. So let's let's bring this whole story back
Speaker 1: full circle. We started the discussion about Phillips by talking
Speaker 1: about carbon filaments for lightbulbs. I thought it would conclude
Speaker 1: by talking about one of the products Phillips has introduced
Speaker 1: over the last few years, Philips Hugh, which is a
Speaker 1: special kind of light bulb. It's sort of the fitting
Speaker 1: end to the series. So we're talking about LED light
Speaker 1: bulbs that are capable of displaying light in various light
Speaker 1: temperatures in other words, that can change color. UM it's networked,
Speaker 1: so it actually connects to your wireless network at home,
Speaker 1: and you can control the light bulbs using something like
Speaker 1: a tablet or a smartphone. You can set it so
Speaker 1: that they're different colors, or even change colors over time.
Speaker 1: You can even there's certain UM television programs that have
Speaker 1: been designed so that if you have a huge system
Speaker 1: at home and you haven't connected, so that you're television
Speaker 1: viewing and your Hugh lighting are all integrated with each other,
Speaker 1: the hue ight bulbs will change color in reaction to
Speaker 1: what you are watching. In other words, it becomes this
Speaker 1: coordinated immersive experience. So as an example, if there were
Speaker 1: an explosion on the television show you're watching, the lights
Speaker 1: might quickly flash a certain color to create that explosion effect.
Speaker 1: So it's even more immersive in your home, which I
Speaker 1: think is kind of neat. It's also pretty dorky, but
Speaker 1: I'm also extremely dorky, thus pretty neat. Also, it's really expensive,
Speaker 1: you know, to to buy these these bulbs. You first
Speaker 1: have to have a bridge to connect the bulbs to
Speaker 1: your WiFi system, and I think your typical kit comes
Speaker 1: with a bridge and three light bulbs, and it's still
Speaker 1: pretty hefty price. And then you have to add more
Speaker 1: lightbulbs if you want to have, you know, a greater
Speaker 1: amount of lighting in your house. So it gets more
Speaker 1: and more expensive the more light bulbs you add, and
Speaker 1: you have a certain number that you could add up
Speaker 1: to the to a point, and then after that the
Speaker 1: bridge can't handle anymore. So it's not necessarily a practical solution.
Speaker 1: It might be considered more of a toy for people
Speaker 1: who really like electronics and lighting effects. I personally have
Speaker 1: not purchased Phillips Hugh lightbulbs. I've thought about it a
Speaker 1: few times, just haven't made the plunge yet, but maybe
Speaker 1: I will. We'll see, because I do think it's a
Speaker 1: cool idea and I think it's neat to see how
Speaker 1: a company that was founded on creating lightbulbs is still
Speaker 1: innovating in that space. Although of course now there are
Speaker 1: competing products on the market. They're similar to Phillips Hugh,
Speaker 1: so obviously more innovation will be required in order to
Speaker 1: remain relevant. I hope you enjoyed that classic episode from sixteen.
Speaker 1: Like I said, there's a lot that's happened in the
Speaker 1: years since, so we could probably do an update on
Speaker 1: the Philips story. Of course, I always feel weird about
Speaker 1: doing that. I almost feel like I should redo the
Speaker 1: older episodes because the style has adapted over time, and
Speaker 1: it just feels like whenever I do it addendum to
Speaker 1: older episodes, there's a big disconnect. It means a lot
Speaker 1: more work, but it ends up being a more coherent series.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Let me know what you think.
Speaker 1: Does it make sense for me to go back over
Speaker 1: older material and give it a fresh start, or do
Speaker 1: you prefer me just um doing an update, like not
Speaker 1: going back and redoing the older stuff. I'm curious to
Speaker 1: hear what you think. You can get in touch with
Speaker 1: me in a couple of ways. One is you can
Speaker 1: download the I Heart Radio app. It's read to download
Speaker 1: and us. You can navigate over to tech Stuff using
Speaker 1: the search field and leave a little voice message by
Speaker 1: clicking on the microphone icon, or if you prefer, you
Speaker 1: can head on over to Twitter send a message to
Speaker 1: me the uh the handle almost an address, but the
Speaker 1: handle we use for this show is tech Stuff H
Speaker 1: s W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production For more podcasts,
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