For the last several years, as clock speeds have inexorably ramped up, the one-gigahertz barrier has for computer buffs taken on the significance of the sound barrier or the four-minute mile.
They are calling on the Highways Agency to install a new road surface and improve the sound barrier to help reduce the levels of noise.
In 1997 at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, he drove Thrust SSC to become the first person to break the sound barrier in a car and set the existing land-speed record of 763mph.
Geely broke the equivalent of the sound barrier in China autos when it emerged as the winning bidder for Volvo, the first Chinese car company to make an overseas acquisition of a premium brand.
In October, Felix Baumgartner broke the sound barrier in a 24-mile space jump, breaking the world record for the highest altitude skydive.
His altitude was 31, 300m (102, 800ft), but his top speed was just short of the sound barrier.
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SNECMA, relied on an after-burner to generate the acceleration needed for takeoff and to break the sound barrier.
It was only a short burn lasting about 16 seconds, but it propelled SS2 beyond the sound barrier to a speed of Mach 1.2.
His SpaceShipOne has flown to the top of the atmosphere and last year became the first privately built aircraft to break the sound barrier.
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In 1953, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier as she piloted a North American F-86 Canadair over Rogers Dry Lake, California.
It's also the place where Andy Green, a British fighter pilot, broke the land speed record in 1997 by driving a jet-powered car through the sound barrier to 763 mph.
Manager Lloyd Cliff says this is where a lot of Army cadets learned to fly among them test pilot Chuck Yeager, who later went on to break the sound barrier.
Ideas of minimizing the noise of a jet as it passes through the sound barrier have been around since Concorde first deafened those living under its flight paths and beyond in 1976.
Breaking the sound barrier is just one of four records expected to be set by Baumgartner and Red Bull Stratos, a project sponsored by the Austrian energy drink manufacturer that is five years in the making.
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Building on the craze for corporate jets--more than 550 are expected to be sold worldwide this year--manufacturers are busily exploring how to create a practical and affordable small-scale model that can let executives fly privately in excess of the sound barrier.
But the report had not mentioned any action to increase the effectiveness of the existing sound barrier.
The limited space available inside a TV cabinet has been a barrier to good on-board TV sound for years.
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