Kilo

Kilo (symbol: k) is a prefix in the SI system denoting 10³ or 1,000. For example:

• kilogram is 1000 grams
• kilometre is 1000 metres
• kilowatt is 1000 watts
• kilojoule is 1000 joules

"Kilo" is often used by itself as an abbreviation for "kilogram". Also, technical people often use the term "k," pronounced like the letter, to refer to a thousand of something, especially units of money or population.

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In computing, kilo does not always exactly denote 1000 but is usually equivalent to 1024 (2¹⁰), most often when denoting storage. For example, a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes. One prominent exception is the field of commodity hard drive manufacturing, where the smaller value is used in advertising and technical specifications. Additionally, kilo and mega often have their traditional SI meanings when referring to rates of data transfer. For instance, 56 kilobits per second is 56,000 bits per second, not 57,344 bits per second.

A common convention is to use k for 1000 and K for 1024. The prefix kibi for "1024" has been introduced, but has not gained much popularity.

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Kilo is also the letter K in the NATO phonetic alphabet