Basically, MP3 (MPEG1 Layer3) is an audio file format for compressing sound (usually a piece of music) into a small file with hardly any loss in quality.

How Does It Work?

In a normal recorded piece of music such as on a CD there are loads of sounds present that are.not audiable to the human ear. MP3 converter programs such as Audio Ripper compress the music by taking out all the bits you can't hear.

Used for?

You can download a piece of music from a web site, store it on your PC in MP3 format and either listen to it on the PC, transfer it to a portable MP3 player or convert it to another format.

What about copyright?

Since it is quite easy to create MP3 files from other sources, CD for instance, and then distribute it using the web or e-mail, people that promote the MP3 format are sometimes accused of encouraging violation of copyright, (it is illegal to copy music and redistribute it unless you have the copyright owner's permission). There are plenty of sites where, for a small fee, you can download music.

What about flashcards?

Early MP3 players tended to use CompactFlash, SmartMedia or MultiMedia cards. These data storage cards are easy to use, small and portable.