They translate analog signals that move through a cable or over the air into digital bits, which form the binary code that's comprehensible to a computer.

FORBES: Magazine Article

On and off blips of light were used to represent the 1s and 0s of binary computer code.

FORBES: Hooked on Photonics

On and off blips of light were used to represent the ones and zeros of binary computer code.

FORBES: Hooked on photonics

Playcast takes the PC versions of games and tweaks them at the binary level (no source code required) to optimize them for streaming.

ENGADGET: PlayCast cloud gaming service is coming to the US in 2013, we go hands-on a bit early

The company also draws on generative programming to automate some parts of code writing and on intentional programming, which captures a programmer's initial design plans as code, in a more natural form than binary algebra.

FORBES: Innovators