The mebibyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The binary prefix mebi means 2²⁰, therefore 1 mebibyte is 1048576bytes. The unit symbol for the mebibyte is MiB. The unit was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in 2000. It was designed to replace the megabyte used in some computer science contexts to mean 2²⁰ bytes, which is similar to but conflicts with the SI definition of the prefix mega (10⁶).

It has been accepted for use by all major standards organizations, but it has seen little real world usage in the computer industry.

The prefix mebi is a binary prefix derived from the words mega and binary, indicating its origin in the closeness in value to the SI prefix mega. One mebibyte (MiB) is 2²⁰ (i.e., 1024 x 1024) bytes, or 1048576bytes. One MiB differs from one megabyte (MB), which means 10⁶ (i.e. 1000 x 1000 = 1000000bytes).

Mebibyte is not commonly used. Instead, megabyte is often used to mean 1000 x 1000, 1024 x 1024 or even 1024 x 1000 by disk manufacturers. Such usage can be confusing and inconsistent, since operating systems will report lower capacities for hard disks than advertised by manufacturers in the labels. Operating systems use Mebibytes for file sizes. For example, all versions of Microsoft Windows operating system shows a file of 2²⁰ bytes as "1.00 MB" in its file properties dialog, while showing a file of 10⁶ (1000000) bytes as 976 kB. All versions of Apple's operating systems had the same behaviour, until Mac OS X version 10.6, which now uses Megabytes for all file and disk sizes, so it reports a 10⁶ byte file as 1 MB.

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Texas's 14th congressional district, which includes Galveston, since 1997, and a three-time candidate for President of the United States, as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and currently 2012. He is an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policies, including the Military–industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, and is known for his libertarian-leaning views, often differing from his own party on certain issues.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul is a graduate of Gettysburg College and Duke University School of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree. He served as a medical officer in the United States Air Force from 1963 until 1968. He worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s, delivering more than 4,000 babies. He became the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate when his son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2010.