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Whose Invention Is the MP3?
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Quick Answer
The MP3 format was developed mainly by a team at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute led by Karlheinz Brandenburg.
The Full Story
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Society in Erlangen worked for years on ways to compress digital audio without noticeable loss of quality. Their work became part of the MPEG-1 Audio Layer III standard in the early 1990s. The technology removes sounds the human ear is unlikely to notice, reducing file sizes to around a tenth of CD audio. The '.mp3' file extension was chosen in 1995. The format made music easy to share online and helped launch the digital music revolution.
Key Facts
1.Brandenburg repeatedly used Suzanne Vega's song 'Tom's Diner' to test the compression.
2.The last key MP3 patents expired in 2017.
3.Portable MP3 players appeared in 1998.
YouTube Angle
Suggested video title for this topic:
"How one Suzanne Vega song helped invent the MP3."