Word: analog
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Sony, which introduced the first home-use CD player in 1982, is counting on its new minidisc to win over people who use standard cassette tapes. "The MiniDisc is designed to replace the analog cassette," says Michael Vitelli of Sony. The key is recordability. By making its MiniDiscs recordable, Sony reasoned, the company could ride the coattails of the CD explosion...
First it was the home. Phones, fax machines and PCs made it impossible to leave work at the office. Then the cellular phone made the car, even the golf course, fair game. In 1984 Airfone Inc., a GTE subsidiary, began installing telephones on airplanes. But their old-fashioned analog circuitry, vulnerable to interference, made many calls sound as if they came from Mars. Moreover, plane phones were usually scarce, located either fore or aft or shared, one to a three-seat complex, leaving travelers a reasonable excuse for staying blissfully out of pocket...
What will impress telephone users aloft most, however, is the marked improvement in voice quality. The digital system, which represents and transmits information in strings of 0s and 1s that ensure accuracy, also comes equipped with a built-in computerized noise suppressor. Analog systems, which translate sound waves captured by microphones into electronic representations -- or analogs -- amplify the background noise along with the voice, and wax < and wane depending on atmospheric conditions. Using digital technology, the new phones achieve quality equal to what earthlings get calling across town, even with the faintest signal...
LANCTOT: Things that had acharacteristic sound to it, like an analog drummodule, might have some characteristic sound. Nowwe've got more instruments, and the samplinginstruments are more the sampling, flat sound,true reproductions of sound. So hopefully, youdon't hear the instrument; you just hear thesound...
...long that will take is anybody's guess. To create a successful entertainment medium requires not just flashy new technology but also programs compelling enough to persuade viewers to trade their old systems for the new. NHK has been broadcasting analog HDTV signals since 1989, and last November Japan's networks expanded their offerings from one hour to eight hours daily. Despite bold predictions that the Japanese would sell 500,000 HDTV sets a year by 1991 -- and a price cut that brought the cost of those sets from $30,000 to $7,700 -- few people are buying or watching...