A German engineer wanted a cheaper cigarette. The popular crooner Bing Crosby wanted a vacation. Satisfying both desires inadvertently led to the invention of the laugh track. Along the way there were Nazis, spoils of war, and more than one accidental encounter. Tying together this quirky history is the Magnetophon.

What Was the Magnetophon?

The Magnetophon was a high-fidelity reel-to-reel magnetic tape recorder. The hit of the Berlin Radio Show when it debuted in 1935, it was developed by the German electronics manufacturer AEG. The magnetic tape was produced by I.G. Farben (now known as BASF).

German inventor Fritz Pfleumer came up with the idea of recording sound on magnetized paper tape coated with metal.ullstein bild/Getty Images

The tale of that tape runs through German inventor Fritz Pfleumer. In the early 1920s, Pfleumer was working on industrial paper products in Dresden. At the time, fancy cigarettes had gold leaf to decorate the tip. Cheaper manufacturers achieved a similar effect using colored paper, but the dye could stain smokers’ lips, and no one wanted that. Pfleumer devised a less expensive process using powdered bronze to simulate the gold band.

Pfleumer didn’t work in the recording industry, but he was familiar with the technology of electromechanical recording, which was done on metal wire—a 1898 invention of the Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen. Pfleumer thought he could do something similar with paper by replacing his powdered bronze with a magnetized material. He patented his “sounding paper” in 1928 and also invented an audio tape recorder to go with it. The sound quality wasn’t great, and the paper tore easily, but it was the start of a promising idea. Two points in its favor: The paper could be sliced, allowing edits, and it could be erased and re-recorded over.

Pfleumer knew he needed to partner with a larger company to commercialize his idea, and so he signed a contract with AEG in 1932. Hermann Bücher, chairman of the AEG board of directors, took a personal interest in the project, helping shepherd it to completion. Although AEG originally planned on developing both a recorder and the tape, it didn’t take long for Bücher to reach out to his friend Wilhelm Gaus, managing director at I.G. Farben. AEG developed the hardware, while I.G. Farben worked on the tape.

The two teams dubbed their product the Magnetophon, or magnetic phonograph, and planned on launching it at the 1934 Berlin Radio Show to compete directly with machines that recorded on steel tape or wire. But the product wasn’t quite ready. Two days before the show, they canceled the debut.

A year later, the bugs had been worked out. The Magnetophon’s introduction at the 1935 show was a resounding success. AEG fielded inquiries for many variations on the recorder, including one that combined the recorder with a telephone, a player for prerecorded music, and a special version to add artificial reverberation for recording open-air concerts. Over the next three years, AEG developed several iterations, resulting in the Magnetophon K4 in 1938, its first commercially successful tape recorder.

The K4 eliminated the hiss and distortion that magnetic recordings previously suffered from by incorporating AC bias, which added a high-frequency signal, typically around 40 to 150 kilohertz, to the recording. Inaudible to the human ear, the signal reduced distortion, especially when recording quieter passages. The fidelity of the Magnetophon was such that radio listeners couldn’t distinguish between live broadcasts and prerecorded performances.

The Magnetophon During and After the War

This is where the Nazis come in. Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, understood the power of radio. The Magnetophon became a powerful tool for both political messaging and military strategy. Because the device could record and play back sound at the same quality as a live radio broadcast, it allowed Hitler’s recorded speeches to be aired from one radio station while the dictator was in another part of the country. This made it more difficult for the Allies to pinpoint his location.

RELATED: Inside the Third Reich’s Radio

Meanwhile, World War II disrupted the exchange of technical information and prevented Americans from learning about the Magnetophon until after the war. At least, that’s the shorthand version of this history I kept running across during my preliminary research for this column.

During World War II, U.S. Army Signal Corps engineer Jack Mullin [top] came across the Magnetophon. After the war, he got approval [bottom] to ship two of the disassembled machines and reels of magnetic tape back to the U.S.Top: Pavek Museum; Bottom: Richard L. Hess/The Mullin Family Collection/Archive of Recorded Sound/Stanford University

But then I read Friedrich K. Engel’s account in the book Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years, which provides a wealth of detail about the Magnetophon. Among other things, Engel notes that the AEG affiliate in Schenectady, N.Y., received a Magnetophon in November 1937, well before the United States entered the war, and AEG engineers demonstrated it for their colleagues at nearby General Electric. The GE engineers dismissed the technology out of hand, though, and so Americans had to wait until after the war for the Magnetophon to be reintroduced.

We have electrical engineer John T. “Jack” Mullin to thank for that reintroduction. Mullin served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, stationed in the United Kingdom and Paris during the war, and he liked listening to the radio. He realized that “live” orchestral broadcasts coming from Germany in the middle of the night, when no musicians would have actually been in the studio, lacked the telltale hiss and crackle of prerecorded music. Clearly, German engineers had recording technology far superior to the Americans’.

Sent to Germany at the war’s end, Mullin eventually came across that technology at a radio station, and in 1945 when he returned home to California, he shipped two disassembled Magnetophons, a case of tape, schematic drawings, and the determination to change the U.S. recording industry.

Bing Crosby Championed the Magnetophon

Enter Bing Crosby. In the 1940s, Crosby was perhaps the most popular performer on the radio. But he was tired of performing two weekly shows three hours apart (one for each coast). He wanted to prerecord his performances and take a break. He sent in his lawyers to talk to executives at NBC, which aired his program. The audio recording technology at the time used vinyl or shellac transcription discs, but radio listeners could hear the pops and hisses and knew it wasn’t live. NBC refused Crosby’s request, and so Crosby took a year off from radio and then signed with the upstart network ABC, which was willing to let him record his shows for later airing.

Radio producer Murdo MacKenzie [right] arranged for Jack Mullin [left] to demonstrate the Magnetophon to Bing Crosby in 1946.Pavek Museum

Serendipitously, Mullin had begun demoing the Magnetophon in California. In October 1946, Crosby’s technical producer, Murdo MacKenzie, heard about the demonstrations and arranged one for Crosby at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in Hollywood. Crosby was delighted and promptly invested US $50,000 (about $800,000 today) in Ampex, the company working with Mullin to engineer an American version of the Magnetophon. Mullin became Crosby’s chief engineer. 3M developed the magnetic tape.

In 1947, Crosby became the first major radio star in the United States to prerecord performances. Much of the success was due to the recording equipment, but Mullin was also an excellent editor. Crosby and his team would record multiple takes, and Mullin would deftly splice together the best to create a seamless performance.

After seeing a demo of the Magnetophon, Bing Crosby invested $50,000 in Ampex, which developed a U.S. version of the tape recorder. Cinematic/Alamy

One day a guest told a joke that was uproariously funny, but a little too spicy for radio. Even though the joke couldn’t be aired, the audience’s laughter was worth keeping. Soon, the producers created a whole catalog of different laugh tracks. If a joke didn’t land, it didn’t matter. The editor could just add a laugh in postproduction, from polite titters to hearty guffaws.

According to Crosby’s daughter Mary, Bing didn’t have a problem with this type of editing. The live audience was immaterial as long as the jokes were funny. But according to Mullin’s daughter, Eve Mullin Collier, the manipulation didn’t sit well with her father. He disliked the inauthenticity of the moment, of editing joy.

The history of technology is filled with such episodes of unintended consequences. Mullin admired the Magnetophon precisely because it could faithfully record a performance, an event, a moment in time. He worked tirelessly to refine the machine for the benefit of radio audiences everywhere. And so I understand why its appropriation for capturing canned reactions and manipulating reality must have rankled. He championed the technology, but ultimately it moved beyond his control.

Part of a continuing series looking at historical artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of technology.

An abridged version of this article appears in the August 2026 print issue as “Birth of the Laugh Track.”

OpenAI has revealed Astra, an unreleased model designed to tackle complex, long-running tasks, after an internal version produced ten significant advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science.

In a new research post, OpenAI described Astra as “our next major model” and said the problems had seen no progress on their central results for at least a decade, and in most cases, much longer.

According to OpenAI, its internal research focused on a wide range of areas, including high-dimensional geometry, coding theory, arithmetic circuit complexity, group theory, quantum complexity, lattice cryptography, and extremal combinatorics.

OpenAI also says it’s advancing rapidly in science.

Some examples include the existence of non-sofic groups, a disproof of Connes’s rigidity conjecture, new bounds for high-dimensional sphere packing, and results resolving several problems posed by mathematician Paul Erdős.

“The total number of tokens needed to find solutions to these problems would cost roughly $2,000 at Sol API rates,” OpenAI noted.

Human researchers used the same model to prepare the arguments as manuscripts.

Astra then formalized every argument as a Lean certificate, allowing the proofs to be checked using the mathematical verification system.

Astra could launch as GPT-5.7 or GPT-6

The Information also independently confirmed that OpenAI is indeed working on Astra, a new model family built for long-running workloads.

As per OpenAI, Astra is a powerful model that allows AI agents to collaborate on different parts of a larger problem.

BleepingComputer understands that OpenAI has reportedly not decided whether the model will be released as GPT-5.7, GPT-6, or under another name.

At this point, we know that Astra qualifies as a major breakthrough AI model, and it could be subject to Anthropic-like policies where one version is released to consumers, while a more powerful variant requires special approval.

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About a month ago, we brought you word that the commercial rescue mission designed by Katalyst Space to save NASA’s Swift gamma-ray observatory had reached orbit and early indicators were looking good. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for things to start going sideways, and up until very recently, the situation seemed pretty dire. But according to an interview with Katalyst’s CEO published yesterday by Ars Technica, the company has made some impressive progress on getting things back under control.

For reasons unknown, the robotic vehicle started tumbling out of control last week. Shortly after that, mission controllers lost contact with Swift. After 24 hours without contact from the ground, the spacecraft automatically performed a sort of “hard reset” in an attempt to regain communications. That got it talking again, but somewhere along the way the craft overheated, which in turn cooked the control circuitry for the reaction wheels, which would usually be used to control its orientation. Not great, not terrible.

As of yesterday’s update, we now know that engineers have figured out a way to gimbal the thrust from the craft’s xenon-fueled electric thrusters — which were originally intended for orbit-raising — to counteract its spinning. It’s slow going as these thrusters don’t have a lot of kick, but it seems to be working. We’ll keep an eye on this one and let you know when we know more.

Katalyst isn’t the only company producing a robotic savior with an uncertain future. If you enjoy starting the day with some freshly prepared eggs, but never quite mastered the skills required to make them, the Efficient Gastronomic Operational Robot (EGOR) may be for you. The $400 countertop gadget, which can be had for 50% off during the Kickstarter campaign, can not only crack the eggs for you, but can cook them to whatever style you wish. It even has the ability to start the process at a specific time, say a few minutes before your alarm goes off in the morning.

There’s a certain Jetson’s-like appeal to EGOR, but it’s hard to imagine there’s a huge market for a $400 “robot” that’s only function is to cook eggs. At the same time, we don’t think comparisons with the disastrous Juicero Press are entirely accurate. What doomed the Juicero, beyond the $700 price tag, was the fact that it was only capable of squeezing juice out of proprietary pouches that needed to be purchased separately. If you could have put whole fresh fruit into the machine and it could have automatically rendered it into juice, as you can put eggs from the grocer into EGOR, it probably would have stayed on the market for a bit longer.

All that being said, the end result is still going to be the same for folks like us. Eventually somebody is going to take apart an EGOR, and we’ll get to see what makes the breakfast bot tick. Then we just have to wait until these things start hitting the curb to see what the community can do with their guts. Maybe it will be as fun as our teardown of the Quirky Egg Minder.

On the subject of impending gadgetry, 9to5Google has released leaked images of what appears to be Google’s long-awaited answer to Apple’s AirTag. While the search giant has offered their “Find Hub” service for a while now, there hasn’t actually been an official first-party device to utilize it. All we know about Google’s offering is that it’s visually differentiated from Apple’s device thanks to its more oval shape, and goes by the highly imaginative name of “Google Pixel Tag.” More official information is likely to start appearing in the coming weeks, coinciding with the launch of the Pixel 11. We’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out when the company will decide to unceremoniously abandon them all, however.

Finally, we leave you with a recently uploaded video from the USS Cod Submarine Memorial that explores an area of the WWII Gato-class submarine that we had no idea existed, but which makes perfect sense in retrospect. Given the enormous number of vacuum tubes required by the submarine’s 1940s vintage radio equipment, and the vital wartime necessity to minimize the downtime of said systems, the submarine has a dedicated storage compartment specifically for tubes and other spare parts directly under the radio room. The radio operator could simply open a hatch at his feet, descend a small ladder, and have immediate access to shelves full of the parts he would need to keep his station up and running.

Of course, modern naval vessels will have stores of critical spare parts as well. But the unique storage and organization requirements of vacuum tubes, combined with the near certainty that some number of them would need to be replaced while the submarine was on patrol, meant they needed to be kept close at hand at all times.

See something interesting that you think would be a good fit for our weekly Links column? Drop us a line; we’d love to hear about it.

The global memory chip shortage is affecting the availability of Apple’s most popular Mac, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

Gurman said the shortage — caused by the demands of chip-hungry AI companies — had already affected Apple’s more niche computers, the Mac mini and Mac Studio. But it seems the company is now struggling to keep the MacBook Air in stock, with retailers saying that supply seems to be more constrained than ever before.

Indeed, anyone trying to buy a MacBook Air from the Apple website will have to wait until the back half of August — or for certain configurations, until September.

Gurman says Apple is working to address the issue by raising prices and sourcing memory from Chinese suppliers. Meanwhile, the company delayed its latest back-to-school promotion from June. And for the first time, the marketing material is more focused on the base model of the MacBook Pro. It even warns, “MacBook Air subject to availability.”

The entry-level price for an Xbox now starts at 499.99€/£429.99.

Photo credit: Karissa Hosek / RM Sotheby’s
Claudio Zampolli spent years fixing other people’s dreams in Los Angeles before deciding to build his own. A former Lamborghini test driver and development engineer, he wanted something that would make the Countach look ordinary. He found a partner in Giorgio Moroder, the three-time Academy Award-winning composer behind some of the biggest disco and film scores of the era. Together they put their names on a car that carried both: the Cizeta-Moroder V16T. Chassis 001 is the only one that ever wore both names at once. In two weeks it heads to RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction with an estimate between $1.4 million and $1.8 million.

Marcello Gandini envisioned the Chizeta V16T’s body with the stunning, aggressive lines that had originally been given to Lamborghini as a Countach replacement. Chrysler, the business that owned Lamborghini at the time, was not entirely sold on them, preferring a gentler curve with more conventional styling. Gandini wasn’t impressed, so he handed along the rejected design to Zampolli instead. A striking quartet of pop-up headlights sit atop a nose that cuts straight up into a sharply curved windshield. The side intakes are larger and more severely flared than those on later production cars. In profile, this monster is massive: more than 80 inches wide, 3 inches wider than a modern Ferrari Testarossa, and only 43.5 inches tall to boot. Finished in a gorgeous pearl white and featuring a one-of-a-kind red leather interior, the impression is nevertheless confusing, as if you’ve stepped back into another age entirely.

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The power comes from the innovative 6.0-liter V16 engine, which is positioned transversely behind the seats, precisely like the Lamborghini Miura from two decades ago. There are no bolted-together V8s in this beauty, as it is a single, lightweight aluminum block with two flat-plane crankshafts gearing up to a central output shaft and eight overhead camshafts controlling 64 valves. Bosch K-Jetronic injection delivers fuel to the cylinders, and official estimates indicate 540 horsepower at an exhilarating 8,000 rpm and 400 lb-ft of torque all the way down to 6,000 rpm. Power is delivered to the rear wheels via a five-speed ZF manual gearbox. When it was new, the 0-60 mph time was roughly 4 seconds, and the top speed was just north of 200 mph, leaving you breathless. Then there’s the characteristic sound, a deep, rolling V8 “woofle” at idle that transforms into a screaming high-revving roar as the engine starts up.

Chassis 001 made its public debut on December 5, 1988, in Los Angeles, with Jay Leno presenting the event. Giorgio Moroder even composed an original piece of music for the occasion, which he appropriately titled “A Car Is Born”. Chassis 001 appeared at the 89 LA and Geneva auto shows before disappearing when Zampolli and Moroder parted ways, and the production cars were dubbed Cizeta V16Ts instead. In the end, just nine of these were produced. For more than 30 years, this prototype was Moroders’ constant friend.

Canepa Design gave this automobile a complete mechanical repair in 2018, adding extra heat shielding and doing quality control to get it functioning properly, then they completed even more cosmetic and technical work in 2024. This automobile has almost minimal mileage, less than 400 kilometers, as it has rarely been driven at all. It was previously displayed in the Wedge Shaped Concept Cars and Prototypes class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2024. It’s now for sale with a one-of-a-kind NFT and a fairly cool package, including a Giorgio Moroder EP on a four-track record designed specifically for the automobile, a 3D artistic portrayal, an extremely detailed 3D scan, and proper digitized documentation indicating where it came from.

Most of the original nine cars appear identical at first glance, but Chassis 001 stands out in every way that matters. The side intakes are larger, and the lights are different; the mirrors, dashboard, inside the tunnel, seats, and even the steering wheel are all distinctive. The cherry on top is that it’s the only one to have the particular nameplate in the front that tells the entire tale of how it was created.
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