MENLO PARK, N.J. (WHTM) — We’re used to sound recordings. Music (in multiple genres), audiobooks, phone messages, recordings of family history, alert boops and beeps on our phones…even the happy ...

Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park whose genius ushered in a new era of light and sound for humankind, invented the phonograph at his New Jersey laboratory on this day in history, Aug. 12, ...

The digital recorders we use today can trace their history back to the 1870s. There were a number of inventors who built the foundation of audio technology, but one stands out. On this date in 1877 ...

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 ...

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, ...

Bruce Peterson has been on a roll since winning first prize in the eighth-grade science fair in Rowland Heights 30 years ago by demonstrating how Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. Peterson’s gig ...

Talking tin foil -- Cylinders in business -- Entertainment for a nickel -- Emile Berliner's disc -- At home with the phonograph -- The improving gramophone -- Europe welcomes the talking machine -- A ...

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 ...

We live in a fast-changing world where industries are constantly having to adapt to new trends and technologies. This Wall Street Journal brief history series helps explain the now, by looking back at ...