Sony Corp

TOKYO - Sony Corp. said yesterday that it will double production of its PlayStation 2 in the next three months because parts shortages left many consumers empty-handed after introduction of the video game console in Europe and the United States. The world's largest game console maker aims to make up for delays caused by lower-than-expected production capacity for the PlayStation 2's advanced graphics chip. The machine was the must-have item for Christmas, though manufacturing delays forced Sony to scale back shipment targets in the United States by as much as half.

"Here are tax-loss strategies for those investment `dogs,'" says Financial Perspectives newsletter: "Sell losing investments in the same year you realize gains. ... Buy individual stocks instead of mutual funds so you can better control sales and their taxes. ... Buy tax-free municipal bonds; the after-tax return ultimately counts." RISING SUN: "If you'd like to buy some of the hottest technology markets without paying excessive valuations, look to Tokyo. Japanese markets have been hit hard by spillover from Nasdaq weakness.

A real-estate development firm with projects throughout metropolitan Baltimore plans to buy the former 3M plant on Route 140 in Westminster, according to a vice president of the Towson-based company. "We have a contract to purchase," said David M. Strouse, vice president for acquisitions of Continental Realty Corp. He expects the sale to close in early December. Continental hopes to develop the industrially zoned site, but its plans aren't definite, he said. "It's for our own use. We're just sitting down looking at our options," Strouse said.

TOKYO -- Sony Corp. said yesterday that it has modified some video cameras after finding they could be used for filming more of their subjects than meets the eye.Some versions of the Handycam have infrared technology that lets users shoot at night or in darkness in a "night shot" mode.But magazine reports revealed that in some conditions the camera can "see through" clothing -- underwear can show up, especially on those lightly dressed, and people wearing swimsuits look almost naked.Pub Date: 8/13/98

TOKYO -- After months of optimistic statements, Sony Corp. yesterday became the latest Japanese company to acknowledge serious problems with a landmark U.S. investment, announcing that it was taking $3.2 billion in losses on the value of the Hollywood studios that it acquired only five years ago.In a surprise announcement, Sony said that because of poor box office results, a wave of executive resignations and rising costs, it could never hope to recover its...

Kodak gets Japanese patentEastman Kodak Co. said it received a Japanese patent for commonly used video recording technology, strengthening attempts to collect as much as $1 billion in royalties from camcorder makers.The approval earlier this month from a Japanese patent office follows a federal lawsuit Kodak filed against Sony Corp. and Sony Corp. of America. Kodak claims that the recording heads Sony puts in its videocassette recorders and camcorders copy technology that Kodak patented in the U.S. in 1981.

Film animator T. Carlos Williams of Baltimore recently won $2,500 award from Sony Corp. as part of its annual Sony Innovators Awards Program, a national competition recognizing African-American achievements in music and film/video.Mr. Williams was named 1993 Sony Innovator in Animation for his film "Da Bridge." His award includes a mentoring seminar conducted by film and video professionals."Live, Gifted and Black," a Baltimore Symphony Orchestra open rehearsal featuring the world premiere of "Festival Music," a piece by African-American composer Adolphus Hailstork, will begin at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

ZAMA, Japan -- The call came at 4 p.m. Tuesday.The head of Zama's most important employer, the Nissan factory, told Mayor Katsuji Hoshino that Nissan's officers had made an announcement in Tokyo: The plant will close its assembly line and move 2,500 of its 4,000 workers to other parts of Japan by 1995.With that, this Nissan community of 116,000 became the first automaking town in Japan ever to join cities like Flint and Ypsilanti, Mich., on the ever-lengthening list of places where competition and harder times are yanking the hearts out of local economies.

Ouch! English adventurers Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Michael Stroud are more than halfway to the South Pole in the first unassisted crossing of Antarctica, an expedition spokesman said yesterday. The pair had penetrated "well within 400 miles of the South Pole and 1,300 miles of their own destination at Scott Base," said spokesman David Harrison.Mr. Fiennes, 49, and Mr. Stroud, 36, hope to raise $3.2 million for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. They are dragging 400-pound sleds behind them during the estimated 100-day crossing.

Resurrecion "Sony" Florendo, a Baltimore restaurateur whose seven-year losing battle with Japan's giant Sony Corp. became a nationally publicized Goliath-stomps-David story, now faces an even more formidable adversary: the Internal Revenue Service.The IRS has filed liens amounting to $217,203 against Sony's Philippine-Asian Foods, which operates a restaurant at 324 Park Ave. and food stands at Harborplace and Owings Mills Town Center.According to liens filed Jan. 29 and Jan. 30 in Baltimore Circuit Court, the business' troubles with the IRS go back as far as 1984.