The Mp3 was invented by Fraunhofer Institute researchers on July 14, 1995 and today marks its tenth anniversary. Mp3 is the acronym for “MPEG Audio Layer 3.”

The actual e-mail proclaiming the .mp3 extension:

Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 12:29:49 +0200
Subject: Layer3 file extension: .mp3
Hi all,
this is the overwhelming result of our poll:
everyone voted for .mp3 as extension for ISO MPEG Audio Layer 3!
As a consequence, everyone please mind that for WWW pages, shareware,
demos, and so on, the .bit extension is not to be used anymore.
There is a reason for that, believe me
Jürgen Zeller (translated from German)

The audio team 1987 (from left): Harald Popp, Stefan Krägeloh, Hartmut Schott, Bernhard Grill, Heinz Gerhäuser, Ernst Eberlein, Karlheinz Brandenburg and Thomas Sporer.
Photo: Kurt Fuchs / Fraunhofer IIS

I’m sure everyone has downloaded an mp3 - legal or illegal, and know how much of a difference it has been to our lives. Many of us own iPods and the ease that the mp3 made to make music portability is tremendous.

Link here.

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