Now, 22 years later, the MP3 truly is dead, according to the people who invented it.

　　22年后的今天，MP3格式的發(fā)明者宣布了它的正式終結(jié)。

　　The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, a division of the state-funded German research institution that bankrolled the MP3s development in the late 80s, recently announced that its licensing program for certain MP3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated.

　　MP3誕生于上世紀(jì)80年代末，由德國(guó)國(guó)立研究機(jī)構(gòu)夫瑯和費(fèi)集成電路研究所資助研發(fā)。近日，該研究所宣布“特藝集團(tuán)和夫瑯和費(fèi)集成電路研究所已經(jīng)終止了某些MP3相關(guān)專利的授權(quán)”。

　　Bernhard Grill, director of that Fraunhofer division and one of the principals in the development of the MP3, told NPR over email that another audio format, AAC — or Advanced Audio Coding, which his organization also helped create — is now the de facto standard for music download and videos on mobile phones. He said AAC is more efficient than MP3 and offers a lot more functionality.

　　夫瑯和費(fèi)集成電路研究所主任伯恩哈德和MP3的一位研發(fā)負(fù)責(zé)人，在一封寄給NPR的郵件中表示，研究所發(fā)明的另一種音頻格式高級(jí)音頻編碼(ACC)已經(jīng)成為了手機(jī)下載音樂(lè)和視頻等內(nèi)容的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，ACC格式擁有更高的效率和更強(qiáng)大的功能。

　　As Stephen Witt illustrates throughout his excellent opening chapters in Witts How Music Got Free, the MP3, before upending the musical world as we knew it, almost died in the research lab.

　　史蒂芬·維特在《音樂(lè)是怎么變得免費(fèi)的》開(kāi)篇中寫(xiě)道，早在MP3顛覆整個(gè)音樂(lè)產(chǎn)業(yè)之前，它就已經(jīng)死在了實(shí)驗(yàn)室里。

　　The team of engineers that invented the format was attempting to make it possible to send audio over telephone lines, which could only transmit small amounts of data. Fraunhofer — in competing for the legitimacy it needed to persuade tech companies to actually use MP3s, and so actually make money.

　　研發(fā)MP3格式的工程師團(tuán)隊(duì)最初試圖要讓音頻格式通過(guò)電話線傳輸--我們知道它的傳輸速率非常慢--爭(zhēng)取到合法性后再將其賣給技術(shù)公司，以獲得收益。

　　It was repeatedly beleaguered by clever corporate sabotage and later by piracy.

　　可惜這些努力總是被盜版等諸多問(wèn)題所阻撓。

　　Other failures hinged on the need for the world to catch up with the technologys possibilities: Along the way, one computer engineer on the team had a patent for a music streaming service denied by the German government because it was technologically absurd at the time.

　　另外，MP3格式的開(kāi)發(fā)團(tuán)隊(duì)在把握技術(shù)態(tài)勢(shì)上也顯得無(wú)所適從。實(shí)驗(yàn)室的一位工程師在當(dāng)時(shí)就提出了音樂(lè)流媒體服務(wù)的構(gòu)想，卻遭到了德國(guó)有關(guān)部門(mén)的駁回，因?yàn)檫@在當(dāng)時(shí)看來(lái)就是天方夜譚。

　　In early 1995, the format was on life support, with one licensing deal being the use of the technology by hockey arenas across the U.S. (That spring meeting in which the MP3 was declared dead came months later, after another failed pitch that denied it being standardized and widely adopted.)

　　早在1995年，MP3格式開(kāi)始了自己的生命周期，它首先被應(yīng)用在美國(guó)的冰球球場(chǎng)上。然而它的生命周期其實(shí)只有一年，因?yàn)楦鞣N各樣的錯(cuò)誤，研究者們始終未能使MP3格式標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化和廣泛接受。

　　A little later, Fraunhofer began giving away the software that consumers needed to turn compact discs into MP3s at home. The rest is recent history.

　　之后，研究所決定向消費(fèi)者免費(fèi)贈(zèng)送軟件，鼓勵(lì)用戶將壓縮磁盤(pán)上的歌曲轉(zhuǎn)存到家用電腦MP3文件中，從此這一格式便得以廣泛傳播。

　　And its not just that more efficient and complete ways of storing music have been developed. There was a deeper problem.

　　盡管MP3比其他存儲(chǔ)音樂(lè)的方式更加高效，但還有一個(gè)嚴(yán)重的問(wèn)題。

　　The engineers who developed the MP3 were working with incomplete information about how our brains process sonic information, and so the MP3 itself was working on false assumptions about how holistically we hear.

　　MP3的開(kāi)發(fā)者們?cè)谶M(jìn)行研發(fā)的時(shí)候，并沒(méi)有完全把握了大腦處理聲音信息的知識(shí)。因此，MP3錯(cuò)誤地拋棄了許多必要的信息量。

　　As psychoacoustic research has evolved, so has the technology that we use to listen. New audio formats and products, with richer information, are arriving.

　　隨著心理聲學(xué)研究的進(jìn)步，相關(guān)技術(shù)也不斷完備，新的音頻格式和產(chǎn)品層出不窮，它們承載著更豐富的信息量。

　　So is it the end of an era? We may still use MP3s, but AAC is indeed much better — its the default setting for iTunes now — and other formats are even better than it, though they also take up mountains of space on our hard drives.

　　那么，MP3時(shí)代是否結(jié)束了?實(shí)際上，我們?nèi)匀豢梢允褂肕P3。然而，作為iTunes默認(rèn)格式的ACC確實(shí)更好一些。雖然其他的一些格式可能比ACC格式更好，但是卻可能占用我們大量的硬盤(pán)空間。

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