A Brief History Of iPod

iPod is a digital mp3 / mp4 player developed and marketed by Apple Inc., an American consumer electronics multinational corporation. During their research, Apple found that in comparison to available camcorders, digital cameras, and organizers; digital music players recorded poor sales, primarily due to their awful user interfaces. Apple wanted to do something about it and so Jon Rubinstein, Apple's hardware engineering chief brought together a team comprising of Tony Fadell (who dreamed of a hard disk based music player), Michael Dhuey (hardware engineer), Jonathan Ive (design engineer), and Stan Ng (marketing manager). In less than a year, they designed a hard disk based music player, that had a 5 GB hard drive and capable of storing 1000 songs.

Apple's iTunes software is utilized to operate the iPod (m3 / mp4 player). The software is compatible with all Mac systems. The operating system is stored on its hard disk. A boot loader program is contained in a NOR flash ROM chip (either 1 MB or 512 KB) which instructs the device to load the operating system from the hard disk. The iPod has a 32 MB of RAM, a portion of which is used to hold the operating system from firmware, and the rest is used to cache songs from the hard disk. Apple also invented a technology whereby the hard disk of iPod could spin up once and about 30 MB of upcoming songs could be cached into the RAM. This did not require the hard disk to spin up for every song and thereby saved battery power. Apple also introduced a Windows version of iPod, at a later stage.

The audio files that iPod (mp3 / mp4 player) supports are MP3, AAC/M4A, Protected AAC, AIFF, WAV, Audible audiobook, and Apple Lossless audio file formats. MIDI and WMA files can be played only after a convertor accomplishes conversion, for non-Digital Rights Management (DRM). Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and other open-source audio formats are not supported at all.

Apple wanted an extremely user friendly interface and thus adopted the minimalist interface, which features only five essential buttons, namely, Menu (to access functions and to toggle the backlight); Center (for menu item selection); Play/ Pause (this also works as an off switch when held for few seconds); Skip Forward/ Fast Forward; and Skip Backwards/ Fast Reverse. An additional Hold button is provided for accidental button pressing prevention, and it can reset the iPod if it has frozen or crashed. Functions such as volume control, scrolling are handled by the usage of the rotational click wheel. Later models have some minor changes in the functions of the buttons but overall the number of buttons has remained at five.

To market this path-breaking mp3 / mp4 player, they needed a suitable futuristic name and so they hired a freelance copywriter, Vinnie Chieco, and other writers to give a name. Inspired by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the dialogue "Open the pod bay door, Hal!" with reference to the context of the Discovery One spaceship and its white EVA Pods, Vinnie Chieco proposed the name of the product as iPod. The management of Apple accepted the proposed name and on 23 October 2001, the iPod was officially launched. The rest they say is history.

To enable customers to access songs of their choice, Apple opened up an online media store The iTunes Store on 29 April 2003, where individual songs could be downloaded at prices less than a U.S. dollar per song. The purchased songs can be played only on iPods. Subsequent versions of this iPod (mp3 / mp4 player) also featured video capabilities, and thus iTunes Store started selling short videos from 12 October 2005. From 12 September 2006, full-length movies were also available at the iTunes Store.

iPods have come a long way from their inception, and now the latest fifth generation iPods possess multimedia capabilities and are available in both Mac OS and Windows OS versions. Usually, if a new iPod is plugged into a Mac OS computer, then the hard disk of this mp3 / mp4 player is formatted as per the HFS+ file format, and if it plugged into a Windows OS computer, it is formatted as per the FAT32 file format. From being a digital music player, the iPod has now transformed into a digital media player.

This article can also be accessed in portuguese language from the News Article section of page http://www.polomercantil.com.br/mp3-mp4-audio-portatil.php
Roberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for http://www.PoloMercantil.com.br

Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx Online
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx

Orkutting To Glory

Orkut, a social networking website that helps you make friends and maintain old friends in this busy world. It has emerged as one of the most popular social networking website.

If the name of the website doesn't automatically draw you in, there is a good chance that the website features will. Like many other social networking websites, Orkut has a number of different member benefits. These benefits are what make it worthwhile to become a member of this popular social networking website.

As popular as Orkut is and as much as you would like to join, there are special procedures that you must follow. Unfortunately, Google does not allow just anyone to become a member; you must be invited. Although many internet users refrain from joining Orkut, just because of the invitation requirements, there is a good reason for limited membership. Orkut is a social networking website that is free to use. Unfortunately, free means that many people would wish to use the website. Many online social networking sites, that are free to use, have literally become ridiculous. A large number of Internet users get joy out of creating fake accounts and causing online controversy. Google decided to make Orkut a special membership online website to prevent instances like that from happening.

So, as compared to the early structure where anyone could visit any person's account and get to know the personal details and conversations taking place between individuals there, one has now the option to restrict visitors. Members can create their profiles and display their unique hobbies, interests and other biographical information. You can even add pictures to your profile so your friends know exactly what you look like, even if you have never met in person. Also, you can browse through the large Orkut.com member database to see profiles for individuals who match your interests, hobbies, or other search selections. Orkut seems to have been successful in reaching the markets that other social networking sites haven't. The fact that it is owned by Google lends to a lot of credibility. Recently, Orkut is also being used for job recruitment purposes as well.

Jonathan Popoola specializes in web design in gloucestershire and web design in cheltenham. Visit my site for information on webdesign.

Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx
Streamyx Malaysia
Streamyx