MP3
MP3 is also known as MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 and is an audio encoding format for music and other audio formats.
It uses a “lossy” compression algorithm that is designed to greatly reduce the amount of data needed to represent an audio recording. It still sounds like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners.
It was invented by a group of European engineers at Philips, CCETT, IRT and the Fraunhofer Society. They worked in the framework of the EUREKA 147 DAB digital radio research program. It became an ISO/IEC standard in 1991.
See also