100 Amazing Inventions
46. What is MP3 Compression?
MP3:
Audio files in a normal compact disk can be very large. This is because information on a compact disc is stored in the form of binary digits.
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| MP3 Player |
MP3 compression reduces the number of bits by taking out unnecessary information. One of the main advantages of MP3 files is that they still retain acceptable audio quality, even after compression, while greatly reducing the size of the file. MP3 files can be downloaded faster than normal files.
Moreover, they also take up less space in your computer's memory. MP3 technology also made MP3 players possible.
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| Microphone Wave |
So, if you love listening to music wherever you go on your handy little MP3 player, you have to thank the German company Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft which developed MP3 technology.
Two names are mentioned most frequently in connection with the development of MP3. They are Dieter Seitzer and Karlheinz Brandenburg who is often called the 'father of MP3'.
47. Why is the World Wide Web different from the Internet?
WORLD WIDE WEB:
Many people think that the Internet and the World Wide Web are the same thing. While they are closely linked, they are two different things.
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| World Wide Web |
The Internet is a huge network of computers all connected together. The World Wide web or www for short, is a collection of web pages found on this network of computers. Your web browser uses the Internet to access the web.
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| World Wide Web |
In 1989, the World Wide Web was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was trying to find a new way for scientists to easily share the data from their experiments. Web pages are primarily text documents formatted and annotated with Hypertext Markup Language or HTML. The World Wide Web has connected the world in a way that was not possible before. It has made it so much easier for people to communicate.
48. What is a Search Engine?
SEARCH ENGINE:
Think of the Internet as the world's biggest library - but instead of books, its shelves contain billions of individual web pages.
In a library, you have an index to help you track down the book you want. The Internet has something similar in the form of 'search engines'.
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| Search Engine Optimization |
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| Google - One of the popular Search Engine |
Search Engines are special websites that have indexed billions of pages. The first search engine was developed as a school project by Alan Emtage, a student in Montreal.
Today, popular search engines include Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask. To get to a search engine, you just need to go to your browser's address bar and type in the address of the search engine website.
In the search engine's homepage, you'll find a single box. you simply type whatever you want to search for into that box. The search engine then searches its collection of billions of documents, and does two things. First it returns only those results that are relevant to the searcher's query, and second, it ranks those results according to the popularity.
49. Why is the Hubble Space Telescope an awesome invention?
HUBBLE TELESCOPE:
The Hubble Space Telescope is a large telescope that orbits the Earth. It was launched into orbit by space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
Hubble orbits about 547 kilometers above the Earth. It is the length of a large school bus, and weighs as much as two adult elephants.
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| Hubble Telescope in Space |
Hubble does not travel to stars, planets or galaxies. It takes pictures of them as it whirls around the
Earth.
Hubble is named after an American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble. He showed that the galaxy containing the solar system - the Milky Way - was only one of many galaxies.
His work helped show that the universe is expanding, and this has been proved by the Hubble Space Telescope as well. The Hubble Space Telescope helped researchers make important discoveries about our Universe.
50. What is Mega 1?
RADIO CONTROLLED WATCH:
The Mega 1 is a watch, but it is different from ordinary watches. It is a radio controlled watch.
Most people regularly check their watches against a reliable time signal - like the ones you hear before news broadcasts on radio stations.
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| Radio Controlled Watch example |
Now imagine a watch that could listen to those broadcasts, and set itself to the right time automatically! In 1991,cthe Junghans Company did just that. They developed the first radio controlled watch and named it Mega 1.
The Mega 1 used standard radio time signals to synchronize an internal quartz clock once per day. A radio-controlled clock is similar to an ordinary electronic watch, but it has two extra components. It has an antenna that picks up radio signals, and a circuit that decodes them.