The ol' boss of Sony is stepping down. After giving up his CEO and presidency of Sony last year, Stringer has decided to also retire from being the chairman of Sony's board. He first became CEO in 2005. It's an end of an era for a company we still miss. [Financial Times via Engadget]

Nikkei is reporting that Kaz Hirai will finally be promoted to President of Sony (in April). If you remember, Hirai has been the Playstation boss for quite some time and was rumored to be in talks of becoming President as far back as November 2010. Sony sure took its time with this one.

We love Sony, even if its products are sometimes outrageously overpriced, impractical or downright unnecessary. The company experiments with ideas and has some of the best engineers to make them reality. But as Businessweek's profile of the company points out, that's not always great for the long term health of a…

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has a bit of iPhone 5-shaped egg on his face this morning as it was revealed late last night the executive accidentally revealed the strength and supplier of the iPhone 5's alleged camera.

Kaz Hirai, head of Sony's Networked Products & Service division (leading their PlayStation department) is tipped as the favorite to take over the Prez role, which has been filled by Stringer since April 2009.

At Sony's IFA press conference, their CEO Sir Howard Stringer talked up Sony's 3D might. Expect to see Sony: Train Driver Simulator! on the PS3 shortly. [TechRadar]

Following today's Google I/O keynote, Sony CEO Howard Stringer mentioned that Sony's Xperia X10 was dominating the iPhone in Japan. When Eric Schmidt reminded him that "Google doesn't dominate," Stringer responded with this, some weird opposite of a backhanded compliment.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sony's gearing up to take on Apple this year, with the long-awaited PSP phone and a netbook/eBook reader/PSP hybrid to fight the iPad.

The words of Sir Howard Stringer, Chief Executive and Lead Turnaroundologist at the listing company, where no amount of superficially revamped game consoles and holiday seasons seem to be able to brighten Sony's outlook.

Why should you care that Sony Ericsson, which has been in all kinds of restructuring turmoil for months, has had its Chief Executive replaced? Because the new guy, Bert Nordberg, has some practical, but distinctly un-Sony-Ericsson-like views on smartphones:

Sony's problem wasn't just that its right hand didn't know what its left hand was doing, it was that its right index finger didn't even know that its right thumb belonged on the same hand. But they're changing. Slowly.

Anyone who knows tech knows certain names—Gates, Jobs, Woz, Kamen, Stringer—but before they became legends, they were busy doing, well, some curious stuff. Here's a glance at their lives circa 1979:

When the largest game publisher in the world threatens to stop making games for your console, what do you do? Do you negotiate, as was their obvious goal? Or do you sarcastically poke fun at their CEO? Ah, right.

Fortune's profile-cum-appraisal of Howard Stringer and his efforts to reform Sony paints a fairly bleak picture. Stringer's got some solid ideas, but implementing them sounds like a nightmare, and the future—even in his hopeful forecast—is alarmingly hazy.

Masaru Ibuka started Sony, humbly, in post-war Japan above a department store, 53 years ago today. Their opening charter warned, "We must avoid problems which befall large corporations."

Howard Stringer, up until now Sony's CEO and most public face, has been named President as well. An interesting move, as he's always been surpisingly frank about Sony's unwieldy size and structure.

This past year, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs began to focus on priorities other than tech. Who will fill their winged sandals and become the new Gadget Gods?

Remember when Howard Stringer said that he "wasn't recession proof" at this CES keynote? Yeah, he wasn't joking. Sony is about to post its first loss in 14 years, and it's a doozy.