As chief of new product development for Philips in 1960, Ottens invented the first portable tape recorder. But it was reel-to-reel, a format which he (like many) found frustratingly bulky, so he set out to invent a tape that would fit in a jacket pocket — and wound up transforming the audio world. Yet later, he quite matter-of-factly stated that the cassette had been completely superseded by the CD — which he also had a major hand in developing. – The Guardian