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B2B (business-to-business): The exchange of products, services, or information between two or more businesses rather than between businesses and consumers.

B2C (business-to-consumer): The retailing part of e-commerce; the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses and consumers.

B2E (business-to-employee): An approach in which the focus of business is the employee, rather than the consumer. It encompasses everything that businesses do to attract and retain qualified staff.

B2G (business-to-government): The concept that businesses and government agencies can use central websites to exchange information and do business with each other more efficiently.

balanced cable: An audio cable that has two conductive wires, a ground, and is often shielded. These cables are used to reduce interference and noise.

bandwidth: The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. For digital devices, bandwidth is usually expressed in bits per second (bps) or bytes per second (Bps). For analog devices, bandwidth is expressed in cycles per second, or hertz (Hz).

banner ad: A graphic image used on websites to advertise a product or service. Banner ads are typically rectangles about 460 pixels wide by 60 pixels high.
biamplification: The practice of using separate amplifiers to power the low-frequency and high-frequency speakers.

Basic (beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code): An early programming language that is still among the simplest and most popular of programming languages. Because of its simplicity, Basic has frequently been used to teach the introductory concepts of programming. Basic continues to be widely used because it can be learned quickly, its statements are easy to read by other programmers, and support is available on most operating systems. Basic is used in many business applications and is still considered a valid choice as a programming language for some purposes. Microsoft's Visual Basic adds object-oriented features and a graphical user interface to the standard Basic.

biometrics: The science of measuring unique physical or behavioral characteristics of the human anatomy. Often portrayed as futuristic technology in spy novels and science fiction films, biometric technologies are now emerging as practical, effective solutions for guarding high-security environments, conducting fraud-free e-commerce, and preventing time and attendance fraud.

bit (binary digit): The smallest element of computer storage. A bit is a single digit (0 or 1) in a binary system. Physically, a bit is a transistor or capacitor in a memory cell, a magnetic domain on disk or tape, a reflective spot on optical media, or a high or low voltage pulsing through a circuit.

bitmap: A binary representation of an image or font consisting of rows and columns of dots.. The braoder the color spectrum, the more bits are required for each pixel. For simple monochrome images, one bit is sufficient to represent each dot, but for colors and shades of gray, each dot requires more than one bit of data, hence "64-bit" graphics.

bitrate: The transmission speed of binary-coded data. See also: data rate.

Bluetooth: Wireless technology that lets computing devices "talk" to each other, or exchange data. Bluetooth synchronizes computers, PDAs, cameras, and cell phones within a range of 30 or more feet. Each device has a microchip transceiver that transmits and receives in a frequency band of 2.45 GHz. The name comes from a 10th-century king of Denmark named Harald Blatand credited with uniting all of Scandinavia and (at least according to legend) eating so many blueberries his teeth turned blue.

Boolean: A system of logic developed by George Boole (1815-1864), an English mathematician and computer pioneer. In Boolean searches, an "and" operator between two values (for example, "pear AND apple") will turn up only documents that contain both terms. An "or" operator between two values (for example, "pear OR apple") will turn up documents with either of the terms. In computer operation with binary values, Boolean logic can be used to describe electromagnetically charged memory locations or circuit states that are either charged (1 or true) or not charged (0 or false).

bouncing: The process of taking multiple audio tracks and mixing them down into either a mono track, stereo track, or a surround sound mix.

Bps (bits per second): The standard measure of data transmission speeds.

break out box: A box that attaches to a sound card and is used to house additional input/ouput jacks.

broadband: Typically used to describe high-speed data transmission over T1 lines (1,544 Mbps) and above. Broadband also more generally describes any type of data transmission in which a single wire can carry several channels at once. Cable TV, for example, uses broadband transmission.

browser: Usually short for Web browser, a software application used to locate and display webpages. Technically, any program that allows you to search through a set of data qualifies as a browser.
bulk dump: A MIDI function that allows the transfer of system-specific data, such as instrument settings, between MIDI devices. Also know as System Exclusive messages or Sys Ex.

burner: A device that writes CD-ROMs. CD burners connect to a computer via a SCSI or USB terminal.

bus (mixer): The output circuit of a mixer. Most mixers have multiple busses, each to route an audio signal to a different place. Both software and digital mixers use this same concept to route signals.

bus: A common pathway, or channel, between multiple devices. The computer's internal bus is known as the local bus, or processor bus. It provides a parallel data-transfer path between the CPU, main memory, and the peripheral buses. A 16-bit bus transfers 2 bytes at a time over 16 wires; a 32-bit bus uses 32 wires, and so on. The bus is comprised of two parts: the address bus and the data bus. Addresses are sent over the address bus to signal a memory location, and the data is transferred over the data bus to that location.

bus speed: The internal speed of the motherboard.

byte: Eight bits, which the computer treats as a single unit. A byte is the unit most computers use to represent a character such as a letter, number, or typographic symbol. A byte can also hold a string of bits that need to be used in some larger unit for application purposes.

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