One hundred years ago on a December day in 1877, the world’s first recording session took place in a laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. It was strictly a one-man show. A 30-year-old scientist, Thomas Alva ...

In 1878, Thomas Edison’s early writings concerning his then-new invention—the phonograph—focused largely on the capture of spoken language – not so much on music, which the early technology was not ...

This bizarre invention has almost definitely had a massive impact on your life – and you likely don’t even know what it is. But there’s one man – and a very strange invention we would likely never ...

In the 1870s, Heinrich Beck founded what would eventually become Beck's Brewery. At about the same time, Thomas Edison was hard at work on creating the first phonograph. It's a safe bet neither man ...

Imagine if your couch or your coffee maker suddenly started talking to you — or perhaps launched into the chorus of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.” What would your reaction be? Consider that, ...

One of Thomas Edison's earliest ideas for his phonograph involved recording the audio for talking dolls on a ring-shaped cylinder. You know, for kids. Now researchers have digitally resurrected the ...

While Beck’s Beer was kicking off its first brews in Bemen, Germany, Thomas Edison was dreaming up the first phonograph, which he created in 1877. (His first recorded words were “Mary had a little ...

The first idea of a genuine talking-machine appears to belong to Thomas A. Edison, who, in 1875, took out patents upon a device intended to reproduce complex sounds, such as those of the human voice.