Abstract: There are carried out a first measurement operation for measuring the shape of a front surface of a sample held in a held state, a second measurement operation for measuring the shape of a back surface of the sample held in the same state, and a third measurement operation for measuring the shape of the back surface of the sample held so as to cause inverse distortion. First data are acquired on the basis of the front surface shape data obtained through the first measurement operation and the back surface shape data obtained through the second measurement operation. Second data are obtained on the basis of the front surface shape data obtained through the first measurement operation and the back surface shape data obtained through the third measurement operation. Holding distortion is determined on the basis of the first and second data.

Abstract: A streaming content reproduction method establishes a connection with a provider via the Internet, and downloads and reproduces streaming content from the provider. A transmission bit rate of receive data is received from the Internet. A total amount of data of the streaming content and a playback bit rate thereof is obtained from a provider. A target amount of data to be buffered is calculated in advance based on a difference between the transmission bit rate and the playback bit rate and the total amount of data in order to reproduce the streaming data to its end without interruption. The streaming content downloaded from the provider is stored in a buffer. The streaming content is reproduced from the buffer after an amount of data of the streaming content stored in the buffer exceeds the target amount of data.