![\"1024,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/https:\/\/cms-image-bucket-productionv3-ap-northeast-1-a7d2.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com\/images\/9\/6.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nSony\u2019s discarded technology is finding new life, with former employees spinning out startups based on projects the Japanese giant decided to shut down.<\/p>\n
Among them is Tokyo-based Augment AI, led by Teppei Tsushima (pictured below), which has revived Sony\u2019s Wena smartwatch business.<\/p>\n
The company is developing the Wena X, a smartwatch system built around the wristband rather than the watch face. It allows users to turn existing mechanical watches into smartwatches by attaching the band.<\/p>\n
Sony had not released a new Wena product since 2020 and formally ended the business in February.<\/p>\n
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Tsushima, who first developed the concept through an internal Sony competition, acquired the trademark and patents before leaving to launch Augment AI with three former colleagues.<\/p>\n
The startup has already raised about 540 million yen (A$5.1 million) through crowdfunding, more than 50 times its target, and is planning a second round.<\/p>\n
Another Sony spinout, Scale Photonics, is commercialising chip-sized laser technology developed by former Sony researcher Masanao Kamata.<\/p>\n
The laser, small enough to fit on a chip, could be used in wearable health devices, including smartwatch-based blood analysis, as well as mobile robots and advanced distance sensors.<\/p>\n
Sony discontinued the laser project last December as its semiconductor business focused on image sensors.<\/p>\n
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Scale Photonics was founded in January and began selling samples in June after securing investment from Silicon Catalyst Japan.<\/p>\n
The trend highlights a growing willingness among large technology companies to let abandoned internal projects continue outside their walls.<\/p>\n
Sony executives have publicly backed the spinouts, with president and CEO Hiroki Totoki saying Augment AI reflected the company\u2019s manufacturing spirit moving to \u201cthe next stage\u201d.<\/p>\n
The approach could also benefit Sony long-term, with successful former in-house projects potentially returning as partners rather than buried research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sony\u2019s discarded technology is finding new life, with former employees spinning out startups based on projects the Japanese…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-760616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}