A byte is a fundamental unit of digital information storage and processing in computing. It represents eight binary digits, or bits, and can encode a single character of text, a small integer, or other basic data types. The term "byte" was coined by Dr. Werner Buchholz in 1956 while working at IBM. He proposed this name to describe a group of bits used to encode a single character. Bytes have since become a cornerstone of computer architecture, allowing the representation of a wide range of data and forming the basis for various data storage and manipulation operations in modern computing systems.