Edison National Historic Site

This 10-second recording was made by a Parisian inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on April 9 1860, when Emperor Napoleon III, the last monarch of France, was on the throne. It was made a whole 17 years before Thomas Edison made his historic message, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on a phonograph, which is the landmark event in the history of recorded sound. Scott de Martinville's gadget, a "phonautograph", was a device that scratched sound waves onto a sheet of paper blackened by the smoke from an oil lamp. However, it wasn't until now that the recording could actually be played back. Using digital ... Read Full Story

According to a Reuters article yesterday U.S. audio historians have discovered and played back a French inventor’s historic 1860 recording of a folk song, the oldest-known audio recording, made 17 years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. “It’s magic,” audio historian David Giovannoni said Thursday. “It’s like a ghost singing to you.” Lasting 10 seconds, the recording is of a person singing “Au clair de la lune, Pierrot repondit” (”By the light of the moon, Pierrot replied”), part of a French song, according to First Sounds, a group of audio historians, recording engineers, sound archivists and others dedicated to preserving humankind’s earliest sound recordings. ... Read Full Story

Some people are too tired to do the thinking and will opt to go with the flow whatever is the trend, be it on fashion, sports and even with businesses without even thinking what it is for. Most businesses find themselves in the need of providing websites for their company and/ or products because everybody else does. If you are one of these people, you may now start knocking your head for a very expensive mistake of not knowing what you do. Websites are being made to support a business and not as mere decoration and attraction, and no matter how dynamic your web ... Read Full Story

Close And then there was light "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison Thomas Edison at a Glance  Thomas Alva Edison (February 11 1847 - October 18 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and a long lasting light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, and therefore is often credited with the creation of ... Read Full Story

For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words “Mary had a little lamb” on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison’s invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades. The 10-second recording of a singer crooning the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune” was discovered earlier this month in an archive in Paris by a group of American audio historians. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, ... Read Full Story