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Readings

• Notes, Chapter 3: Compression (PDF)
• MP3 Demonstration
• Shutter Telegraph Codewords
• Graphics Interchange Format (GIF87) Specification (complete, p. 9)
• GIF Patent Controversy
  • Statement by League for Programming Freedom
  • Two Unisys statements: License Information and Web Site LZW Licenses
• Six-page excerpt from JPEG FAQ
• MP3 overview from Fraunhofer Institute, p. 3.

Assignments

• Problem Set 2 (PDF)
• Problem Set 2 Solutions (PDF)

Resources

Technical

• Flag of Germany, the perfect example for run-length encoding
• JPEG FAQ, Part 1 and Part 2
• LZW and GIF explained . . site
• LZW description with example
• PNG, an alternative to GIF

Historical

• Wilson, Geoffrey. The Old Telegraphs. London, UK: Phillimore and Co., 1976. ISBN: 9780900592799.
  Describes several telegraph systems, in many countries, that predate electrical telegraphs.
• Holzmann, Gerard J., and Björn Pehrson. The Early History of Data Networks. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 1994. ISBN: 9780818667824.
• ———. "The First Data Networks." Scientific American 270 (January 1994): 124-129.
  Describes French and Swedish optical telegraphs, from the 1790s.
• Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet. New York, NY: Berkley Books, 1999, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780425171691.
• Unisys/Compuserve GIF Controversy
  • Statement from League for Programming Freedom
  • More general Software Patents Statement by LPF
  • Unisys statements: License info . . for Web sites
  • Historical summary, relatively dispassionate

UNITS: Bits and Codes | Compression | Noise and Errors | Probability | Communications | Processes | Inference | Maximum Entropy | Physical Systems | Energy | Temperature | Quantum Information