Monday, June 25, 2001		Bits & Bytes

GMR: Short for giant magnetoresistive, a hard disk drive storage technology. The term is usually referred to in reference to GMR heads. GMR heads are not named ‘giant’ because of their size. The technology is named for the giant magnetoresistive effect, first discovered by two European researchers — Peter Gruenberg and Albert Fert — in the late 1980s. While working with large magnetic fields and thin layers of magnetic materials, Gruenberg and Fert noticed very large resistance changes when these materials were subjected to magnetic fields.

IXC: Short for interexchange carrier, a telephone company that provides connections between local exchanges in different geographic areas. Outlined in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, IXCs provide inter service. Well-known IXCs include AT&T, Sprint and MCI.

Server blade: A single circuit board populated with components such as processors, memory, and network connections that are usually found on multiple boards. Server blades are designed to slide into existing servers. Server blades are more cost-efficient, smaller and consume less power than traditional box-based servers.