Machine-readable
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term machine-readable (or computer-readable) refers to information encoded in a form which can be, read (i.e., scanned/sensed) by a machine/computer and interpreted by the machine's hardware and/or software. Theoretically, anything that can be read, can be read by machines, but not necessarily comprehended by machines.
Common machine-readable data storage and data transmission technologies include processing waveforms, optical character recognition (OCR) and barcodes. Any information retrievable by any form of energy can be machine-readable. Examples include:
- Acoustics
- Chemical
- Electrical
- Magnetic storage
- Mechanical
- Pins and holes
- Punch card
- Paper tape
- Music box cylinder or disk
- Grooves (See also Audio Data)
- Phonograph cylinder
- Gramophone record
- DictaBelt (groove on plastic belt)
- Capacitance Electronic Disc
- Pins and holes
- Optics
- Thermodynamic
