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Format War
A format war is a competition between similar but mutually incompatible technical standards that compete for the same market, such as for data storage devices and recording formats for electronic media. It is often characterized by political and financial influence on content publishers by the developers of the technologies. Developing companies may be characterized as engaging in a format war if they actively oppose or avoid interoperable open-industry technical standards in favor of their own. A format war emergence can be explained because each vendor is trying to exploit cross-side network effects in a two-sided market. There is also a social force to stop a format war: when one of them wins as ''de facto'' standard, it solves a coordination problemEdna Ullmann-Margalit: ''The Emergence of Norms'', Oxford Un. Press, 1977. (or Clarendon Press 1978) for the format users. 1800s * Rail gauge. The Gauge War in Britain pitted the Great Western Railway, which used broad gauge, ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Data Storage Device
Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are considered by some as data storage. Recording may be accomplished with virtually any form of energy. Electronic data storage requires electrical power to store and retrieve data. Data storage in a digital, machine-readable medium is sometimes called ''digital data''. Computer data storage is one of the core functions of a general-purpose computer. Electronic documents can be stored in much less space than paper documents. Barcodes and magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) are two ways of recording machine-readable data on paper. Recording media A recording medium is a physical material that holds information. Newly created information is distributed and can be stored in four storage media–print, film, magnetic, and optical–and seen or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Current
Direct current (DC) is one-directional flow of electric charge. An electrochemical cell is a prime example of DC power. Direct current may flow through a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through semiconductors, insulators, or even through a vacuum as in electron or ion beams. The electric current flows in a constant direction, distinguishing it from alternating current (AC). A term formerly used for this type of current was galvanic current. The abbreviations ''AC'' and ''DC'' are often used to mean simply ''alternating'' and ''direct'', as when they modify ''current'' or ''voltage''. Direct current may be converted from an alternating current supply by use of a rectifier, which contains electronic elements (usually) or electromechanical elements (historically) that allow current to flow only in one direction. Direct current may be converted into alternating current via an inverter. Direct current has many uses, from the charging of batteries to large power sup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Player Piano
A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern implementations using MIDI. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home, in the late 19th and early 20th century. Sales peaked in 1924, then declined, as the improvement in phonograph recordings due to electrical recording methods developed in the mid-1920s. The advent of electrical amplification in home music reproduction via radio in the same period helped cause their eventual decline in popularity, and the stock market crash of 1929 virtually wiped out production. History In 1896, Edwin S. Votey invented the first practical pneumatic piano player, called the Pianola. This mechanism came into widespread use in the 20th century, and was all-pneumatic, with foot-operated bellows providing a sour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regina Company
The Regina Company was a manufacturer of mechanical musical instruments before it became a major vacuum maker. History In 1889, Gustave Brachhausen, the foreman of the Symphonion music box company based in Leipzig, created the polyphon Musikwerke in partnership with a Symphonion engineer Paul Riessner. Three years later, at the age of 35, Brachhausen expanded his enterprise to America by establishing the Regina Music Box Company. After sailing to America in September 1892, he leased some space in Jersey City, and with financing from Knauth, Nachod & Kuhne in Leipzig, Brachhausen set up shop in partnership with Riessner and Johannas J. Korner. Initially, Regina imported their boxes from Polyphon, selling 11 and 15.5-inch models. Gradually, the movements were imported and assembled into American-made boxes. After a year of immediate success, Brachhausen purchased a 25,000-square foot building at 54 Cherry Street in Rahway. In a few years, Regina was manufacturing their products enti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphon
Polyphon is a disc-playing music box, a mechanical device first manufactured by the Polyphon Musikwerke, located in Leipzig, Germany. Invented in 1870, full-scale production started around 1897 and continued into the early 1900s. Polyphons were exported all over the world and music was supplied for the English, French and German markets, as well as further afield, with pieces cataloged for the Russian, Polish and Balkan regions. Polyphon is also a record label as registered by German Polyphon Musikwerke AG in 1908. Polyphon traded under the Polydor label since 1913 with their trademarks Polyphon Musik and Polyphon Record. Polyphon Musikwerke The German company was founded in 1887 in Wahren, Leipzig, as Firma Brachhausen & Riesener, by Gustav Adolf Brachhausen and Ernst Paul Riessner, for manufacturing their 1870 invention mechanical disc-playing music box Polyphon. The company was renamed to Polyphon-Musikwerke AG in 1895. In 1908 Hugo Wünsch was appointed director, but became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Box
A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'') of a steel comb. The popular device best known today as a "music box" developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and were originally called ''carillons à musique'' (French for "chimes of music"). Some of the more complex boxes also contain a tiny drum and/or bells in addition to the metal comb. History The Symphonium company started business in 1885 as the first manufacturers of disc-playing music boxes. Two of the founders of the company, Gustave Brachhausen and Paul Riessner, left to set up a new firm, Polyphon, in direct competition with their original business and their third partner, Oscar Paul Lochmann. Following the establishment of the Original Musikwerke Paul Lochmann in 1900, the founding Symphonion business contin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Of The Currents
The war of the currents was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It grew out of two lighting systems developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s; arc lamp street lighting running on high-voltage alternating current (AC), and large-scale low-voltage direct current (DC) indoor incandescent lighting being marketed by Thomas Edison's company. In 1886, the Edison system was faced with new competition: an alternating current system initially introduced by George Westinghouse's company that used transformers to step down from a high voltage so AC could be used for indoor lighting. Using high voltage allowed an AC system to transmit power over longer distances from more efficient large central generating stations. As the use of AC spread rapidly with other companies deploying their own systems, the Edison Electric Light Company claimed in early 1888 that high voltages used in an alternating curr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westinghouse Electric Company
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is an American nuclear power company formed in 1999 from the nuclear power division of the original Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It offers nuclear products and services to utilities internationally, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation, control and design of nuclear power plants. Westinghouse's world headquarters are located in the Pittsburgh suburb of Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. Brookfield Business Partners, a Canadian private equity fund and a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management is the majority owner of Westinghouse. On March 24, 2017, parent company Toshiba announced that Westinghouse Electric Company would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of US$9 billion of losses from nuclear reactor construction projects. The projects responsible for this loss are mostly the construction of four AP1000 reactors at Vogtle in Georgia and the Virgil C. Summer plant in South Carolina. Westinghouse filed fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Westinghouse
George Westinghouse Jr. (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914) was an American entrepreneur and engineer based in Pennsylvania who created the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry, receiving his first patent at the age of 19. Westinghouse saw the potential of using alternating current for electric power distribution in the early 1880s and put all his resources into developing and marketing it. This put Westinghouse's business in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who marketed direct current for electric power distribution. In 1911 Westinghouse received the American Institute of Electrical Engineers's (AIEE) Edison Medal "For meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system." Early years George Westinghouse was born in 1846 in Central Bridge, New York (see George Westinghouse Jr. Birthplace and Boyhood Home), the son of Emeline (Vedder) and George Westinghouse Sr., a machine shop owner. His ancestors came fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edison Electric Light Company
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energy, digital industry, additive manufacturing and venture capital and finance, but has since divested from several areas, now primarily consisting of the first four segments. In 2020, GE ranked among the Fortune 500 as the 33rd largest firm in the United States by gross revenue. In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 20 as the 14th most profitable company, but later very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed. Two employees of GE – Irving Langmuir (1932) and Ivar Giaever (1973) – have been awarded the Nobel Prize. On November 9, 2021, the company announced it would divide itself into three investment-grade public companies. On July 18, 2022, GE unveiled the brand names of the companies it will cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory. Edison was raised in the American Midwest. Early in his career he worked as a telegraph operator, which inspired some of his earliest inventions. In 1876, he established his first laboratory facility in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where many of his early inventions were developed. He later established a botanical laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, in co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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