Abstract: A newspaper dispensing apparatus includes a housing having a cavity for storing newspapers. A door is pivotally attached to the housing via a pair of hinges. A locking subassembly releasably engages the door in a closed position. The disclosed apparatus is fabricated entirely from plastic to eliminate concern of corrosion and the risk of sparks. In an alternative embodiment, the apparatus is fabricated from high strength steel, but selected portions of the apparatus including the locking subassembly, hinges and portions of the door, are covered with non-corrosive, spark proof materials to prevent metal-to-metal contact. Thus, the apparatus can be positioned immediately adjacent gasoline pumps at a service station without the risk of creating sparks, fire or an explosion.

Abstract: Disclosed herein is a portable audio recording and playback system comprised of physically separate audio playback and external recording units, which are operably yet removably mateable. The audio playback unit has a power supply, audio storage, an audio playback device, an audio speaker, a first switch and a first connector all disposed in association with the playback unit housing. The first switch prompts the audio playback device to playback at least one of the audio segments stored in the audio storage. The external recording unit has a microphone, a second switch and a second connector all disposed in association with the recording unit housing. The first and second connectors are configured such that each is operably yet removably mateable to the other. The system also includes an audio recording device operably associated with the microphone and the audio storage and operably connected to the second switch toward prompting the recording device to record one of an audio segment.

Abstract: The present invention concerns a parallel multiprocessor-multidisk storage server which offers low delays and high throughputs when accessing and processing one-dimensional and multi-dimensional file data such as pixmap images, text, sound or graphics. The invented parallel multiprocessor-multidisk storage server may be used as a server offering its services to computer, to client stations residing on a network or to a parallel host system to which it is connected. The parallel storage server comprises (a) a server interface processor interfacing the storage system with a host computer, with a network or with a parallel computing system; (b) an array of disk nodes, each disk node being composed by one processor electrically connected to at least one disk and (c) an interconnection network for connecting the server interface processor with the array of disk nodes.