Mr. MP3 turns 70, and the issue is not over
Last week, "Mister MP3" Karlheinz Brandenburg celebrated his 70th birthday. The big party is taking place today, we congratulate him.
Karlheinz Brandenburg is still happy about the good sound today.
(Image: Fraunhofer IDMT/Theiss)
The big party for Karlheinz Brandenburg with DJ and dance orchestra is taking place this Monday in Ilmenau, naturally with a science conference and deep dives with audio demonstrations by his start-up Brandenburg Labs. Brandenburg, who is considered the inventor of MP3 compression for audio files, turned 70 last week.
When MP3 celebrated its 25th birthday in 2020, co-inventor Karlheinz Brandenburg told heise online about the development of audio codecs: "I already said ten years ago: the topic is over now." Even an outstanding scientist can be wrong. A demonstration of the latest research results from Brandenburg Labs at the CES in Las Vegas showed that the topic is far from over.
A look at the program of a colloquium on the 70th birthday of the man with the headphones, who was awarded the German Future Prize in 2000 together with Berhard Grill and Harald Popp, also shows this. The journey from ears to bytes, as one of the lectures was entitled, is not yet over. The presentation on the latest standardization work at MPEG-I Immersive Audio is also intended to show this.
After the presentations by the scientists, the politicians will pay their respects. Among others, Wolfgang Tiefensse, Thuringia's Minister for Economics, Science and Digital Society, and Bodo Ramelow, Head of Government, will deliver laudatory speeches. Contrary to popular belief, the MP3 success story is also an economic one: the publication "MP3 – Research, Development and Marketing in Germany" (PDF) by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) states that MP3 is a success story for Germany as a location for innovation.
"Millions of euros in revenue are generated and invested in new research projects. And the German state benefits from tax revenues and jobs." Both the Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen and the Fraunhofer IDMT in Ilmenau are still profiting from the commercialization of the process, which began as an attempt to transmit music via narrowband ISDN.
Congratulations on the birthday colloquium from the entire editorial team, including hearing-impaired people who benefit from clear speech, a by-product of German audio research.
(mack)
