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optical disk

(Encyclopedia)optical disk, any of a variety of information storage disks that are played or read using a laser. Optical disks include compact discs (CDs and CD-ROMs), laser discs (see videodisc), and digital versa...

sound recording

(Encyclopedia)sound recording, process of converting the acoustic energy of sound into some form in which it can be permanently stored and reproduced at any time. In 1855 the inventor Leon Scott constructed a devic...

Morita, Akio

(Encyclopedia)Morita, Akio äkˈēō môrˈētä [key], 1921–99, Japanese business executive, b. Nagoya, Japan. The eldest son of a successful sake brewer, Morita joined Masaru Ibuka to found Tokyo Telecommunicat...

videodisc

(Encyclopedia)videodisc or videodisk, disk used with a special player and television to reproduce both pictures and sound. A videodisc player cannot record television programs off the air for later playback, unlike...

Family Compact, in Canadian history

(Encyclopedia)Family Compact, name popularly applied to a small, powerful group of men who dominated the government of Upper Canada (Ontario) from the closing years of the 18th cent. to the beginnings of responsibl...

digital circuit

(Encyclopedia)digital circuit, electronic circuit that can take on only a finite number of states. That is contrasted with analog circuits, whose voltages or other quantities vary in a continuous manner. Binary (tw...

DVD-ROM

(Encyclopedia)DVD-ROM: see digital versatile disc.

DVD

(Encyclopedia)DVD and DVD-ROM: see digital versatile disc. ...

Family Compact, in French and Spanish history

(Encyclopedia)Family Compact, several alliances between France and Spain in the form of agreements between the French and Spanish branches of the Bourbon family. The first of the three compacts, the Treaty of the E...

code, in communications

(Encyclopedia)code, in communications, set of symbols and rules for their manipulation by which the symbols can be made to carry information. By this extended definition all written and spoken languages are codes. ...