Lou Ottens, the Dutch inventor of the cassette tape, died on March 6 at age 94, Philips said.
A structural engineer who trained at the prestigious Technical University in Delft, the Netherlands, he joined Philips in 1952 and was head of the Dutch company’s product development department when he began work on an alternative for existing tape recorders with their cumbersome large spools of tape.
His goal was simple — make tapes and their players far more portable and easier to use.
Photo: AP 照片:美聯社
“During the development of the cassette tape, in the early 1960s, he had a wooden block made that fit exactly in his coat pocket,” said Olga Coolen, director of the Philips Museum in the southern Netherlands city of Eindhoven. “This was how big the first compact cassette was to be, making it a lot handier than the bulky tape recorders in use at the time.” The final product created in 1962 later turned into a worldwide hit, with more than 100 billion cassettes sold, many to music fans who would record their own compilations direct from the radio. Its popularity waned with the development of the compact disc, an invention Ottens also helped create as supervisor of a development team, Philips said.
The cassette tape’s success stemmed from its simplicity, Ottens said in an interview published by the Philips Museum.
“It was a breakthrough because it was foolproof,” he said, adding that players and recorders could also run on batteries, making them very user-friendly and, ultimately, portable.
(AP)
飛利浦公司表示,卡式磁帶發明人、荷蘭籍的路‧歐騰斯,已於三月六日辭世,享壽九十四歲。
歐騰斯為一名結構工程師,出身著名的荷蘭台夫特理工大學,於一九五二年進入荷蘭飛利浦公司。他在飛利浦擔任產品開發部門主管時,開始研發一種新產品,以代替當時使用大而笨重磁帶捲的錄音機。
他的目標很簡單,那就是把磁帶及其播放器變得更輕巧、更容易使用。
飛利浦博物館館長歐哈‧庫倫表示,「一九六○年代初,在他開發卡式磁帶期間,他做了一個木塊,大小正好可以放進他的大衣口袋」。飛利浦博物館位於荷蘭南部城市安荷芬。「這就是第一個小型卡帶的大小,比當時所使用的笨重錄音機要靈巧得多」。卡式錄音帶於一九六二年開發完成,後來風靡全球,售出逾一千億個,其中許多是賣給樂迷,讓他們可以從收音機直接把音樂錄下來,自製成合輯。飛利浦表示,隨著CD的發展,錄音帶便沒落了。歐騰斯亦為發明CD的開發團隊主管。
歐騰斯在飛利浦博物館一次採訪中說,卡式磁帶的成功在於其簡單性。
他表示:「因為它防呆,所以這是個突破」,並補充道,播放器和錄音機也可以用電池供電,這就讓它非常人性化,終究也讓它便於攜帶。
(台北時報林俐凱編譯)
A: Wow, three Taiwanese restaurants just won the 2024 “Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants” awards. B: Awesome! Which three restaurants? A: Taipei’s Logy at No. 22 and MUME at No. 34, and Taichung’s JL Studio at No. 33. B: Actually, there are many more great establishments in Taipei. How about other Asian cities? A: Singapore claimed nine spots this year, making it Asia’s new “food capital.” A: 2024「亞洲50最佳餐廳」名單揭曉了,台灣有3家餐廳上榜。 B: 好厲害,哪3家? A: 台北的Logy和MUME分獲第22和34名,台中的JL Studio獲第33名! B: 其實台北還有很多好餐廳,那其他的亞洲城市呢? A: 新加坡今年入選9家,可說是亞洲美食之都。 (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
Let’s explore another delicacy primarily known to Tainan locals: floating milkfish in thick soup. Despite its peculiar name, this dish is another Tainan specialty that showcases the popularity of milkfish, which is made into fish paste and served in thick soup. Unlike the version with tutuo fish, which also adds other ingredients to its thick soup, the floating milkfish version primarily features the “floating fish” itself in its thick soup, ensuring that the fish paste remains the star of the dish. 讓我們來探索另一道台南人熟悉的美食:浮水魚羹。這道菜名奇特的美食,再再展現了台南虱目魚料理的多樣。浮水魚羹是用虱目魚漿做成的羹品,雖然和𩵚魠魚羹一樣是羹湯,但不像𩵚魠魚羹會在湯中加入其他食材,而是讓虱目魚漿成為這道料理的主角。 peculiar (adj.) 獨特的;古怪的 The belly of a milkfish is considered the most
The practice of freezing embryos as part of in vitro fertilization (IVF) was thrown into chaos in Alabama this year, when the state supreme court ruled that such embryos should be considered children, exposing clinics to wrongful death claims in the event they are destroyed in the thawing process. In 2021, more than 80 percent of US IVF procedures involved the transfer of frozen embryos, according to a recent report by the US Department of Health and Human Services. HOW IS EMBRYO FREEZING USED IN IVF? IVF uses high doses of hormones to stimulate ovaries to produce as many eggs as possible. Once
A situation puzzle is a game in which one person describes a scenario and asks the players to explain it. The situation is deliberately lacking in details, but the players may acquire more information by asking questions — however, these can only be answered with “yes” or “no.” A player wins by describing the approximate events that led up to the situation. To do so, they must use a blend of logical and lateral thinking. A famous example of this is sometimes known as “Turtle Soup.” Here’s the riddle: “A man in a restaurant orders turtle soup, tastes it