Context: In some ways similar to the laser turntable is the IRENE scanning machine for disc records, which images with microphotography in two dimensions, invented by a team of physicists at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories. IRENE will retrieve the information from a laterally modulated monaural grooved sound source without touching the medium itself, but cannot read vertically modulated information. This excludes grooved recordings such as cylinders and some radio transcriptions that feature a hill-and-dale format of recording, and stereophonic or quadraphonic grooved recordings, which utilize a combination of the two as well as supersonic encoding for quadraphonic.

Question: Who is Irene?
Answer: scanning machine for disc records

Question: Where was IRENE developed?
Answer: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories

Question: What is the primary use of IRENE?
Answer: retrieve the information

Question: Can IRENE read vertically modulated information?
Answer: cannot read vertically modulated information

Question: Does IRENE require the  ability to touch the media?
Answer: without touching the medium