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Pergamon

Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; ), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greek city in Mysia. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus (modern-day Bakırçay) and northwest of the modern city of Bergama, Turkey. During the Hellenistic period, it became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon in 281–133 BC under the Attalid dynasty, who transformed it into one of the major cultural centres of the Greek world. Many remains of its monuments can still be seen and especially the masterpiece of the Pergamon Altar. Pergamon was the northernmost of the seven churches of Asia cited in the New Testament Book of Revelation. The city is centered on a mesa of andesite which formed its acropolis. This mesa falls away sharply on the north, west, and east sides, but three natural terraces on the south side provide a route up to the top. To the west of the acropolis, the Selinus River (modern Bergamaçay) flows through the city, while the Ketios river (modern Kestelçay) passes by to the east. Pergamon was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014. Location Pergamon lies on the north edge of the Caicus plain in the historic region of Mysia in the northwest of Turkey. The Caicus river breaks through the surrounding mountains and hills at this point and flows in a wide arc to the southwest. At the foot of the mountain range to the north, between the rivers Selinus and Cetius, there is the massif of Pergamon which rises 335 metres above sea level. The site is only 26 km from the sea, but the Caicus plain is not open to the sea, since the way is blocked by the Karadağ massif. As a result, the area has a strongly inland character. In Hellenistic times, the town of Elaia at the mouth of the Caicus served as the port of Pergamon. The climate is Mediterranean with a dry period from May to August, as is common along the west coast of Asia Minor. The Caicus valley is mostly composed of volcanic rock, particularly andesite and the Pergamon massif is also an intrusive stock of andesite. The massif is about one kilometre wide and around 5.5 km long from north to south. It consists of a broad, elongated base and a relatively small peak - the upper city. The side facing the Cetius river is a sharp cliff, while the side facing the Selinus is a little rough. On the north side, the rock forms a 70 m wide spur of rock. To the southeast of this spur, which is known as the 'Garden of the Queen', the massif reaches its greatest height and breaks off suddenly immediately to the east. The upper city extends for another 250 m to the south, but it remains very narrow, with a width of only 150 m. At its south end the massif falls gradually to the east and south, widening to around 350 m and then descends to the plain towards the southwest. History Pre-Hellenistic period Settlement of Pergamon can be detected as far back as the Archaic period, thanks to modest archaeological finds, especially fragments of pottery imported from the west, particularly eastern Greece and Corinth, which date to the late 8th century BC. Earlier habitation in the Bronze Age cannot be demonstrated, although Bronze Age stone tools are found in the surrounding area. The earliest mention of Pergamon in literary sources comes from Xenophon's Anabasis, since the march of the Ten Thousand under Xenophon's command ended at Pergamon in 400/399 BC. Xenophon, who calls the city Pergamos, handed over the rest of his Greek troops (some 5,000 men according to Diodorus) to Thibron, who was planning an expedition against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus, at this location in March 399 BC. At this time Pergamon was in the possession of the family of Gongylos from Eretria, a Greek favourable to the Achaemenid Empire who had taken refuge in Asia Minor and obtained the territory of Pergamon from Xerxes I, and Xenophon was hosted by his widow Hellas. In 362 BC, Orontes, satrap of Mysia, based his revolt against the Persian Empire at Pergamon, but was crushed. Only with Alexander the Great was Pergamon and the surrounding area removed from Persian control. There are few traces of the pre-Hellenistic city, since in the following period the terrain was profoundly changed and the construction of broad terraces involved the removal of almost all earlier structures. Parts of the temple of Athena, as well as the walls and foundations of the altar in the sanctuary of Demeter go back to the fourth century. Hellenistic period Lysimachus, King of Thrace, took possession in 301 BC, but soon after his lieutenant Philetaerus enlarged the town, the kingdom of Thrace collapsed in 281 BC and Philetaerus became an independent ruler, founding the Attalid dynasty. His family ruled Pergamon from 281 until 133 BC: Philetaerus 281–263; Eumenes I 263–241; Attalus I 241–197; Eumenes II 197–159; Attalus II 159–138; and Attalus III 138–133. The domain of Philetaerus was limited to the area surrounding the city itself, but Eumenes I was able to expand them greatly. In particular, after the Battle of Sardis in 261 BC against Antiochus I, Eumenes was able to appropriate the area down to the coast and some way inland. The city thus became the centre of a territorial realm, but Eumenes did not take the royal title. In 238 his successor Attalus I defeated the Galatians, to whom Pergamon had paid tribute under Eumenes I. Attalus thereafter declared himself leader of an entirely independent Pergamene kingdom, which went on to reach its greatest power and territorial extent in 188 BC. The Attalids became some of the most loyal supporters of Rome in the Hellenistic world. Under Attalus I (241–197 BC), they allied with Rome against Philip V of Macedon, during the first and second Macedonian Wars. In the Roman–Seleucid War against the Seleucid king Antiochus III, Pergamon joined the Romans' coalition and was rewarded with almost all the former Seleucid domains in Asia Minor at the Peace of Apamea in 188 BC. Eumenes II supported the Romans again, against Perseus of Macedon, in the Third Macedonian War, but the Romans did not reward Pergamon for this. On the basis of a rumour that Eumenes had entered into negotiations with Perseus during the war, the Romans attempted to replace Eumenes II with the future Attalus II, but the latter refused. After this, Pergamon lost its privileged status with the Romans and was awarded no further territory by them. Nevertheless, under the brothers Eumenes II and Attalus II, Pergamon reached its apex and was rebuilt on a monumental scale. Until 188 BC, it had not grown significantly since its founding by Philetaerus, and covered c. . After this year, a massive new city wall was constructed, long and enclosing an area of approximately . The Attalids' goal was to create a second Athens, a cultural and artistic hub of the Greek world. They remodeled the Acropolis of Pergamon after the Acropolis in Athens. Epigraphic documents survive showing how the Attalids supported the growth of towns by sending in skilled artisans and by remitting taxes. They allowed the Greek cities in their domains to maintain nominal independence. They sent gifts to Greek cultural sites like Delphi, Delos, and Athens. The Library of Pergamon was renowned as second only to the Library of Alexandria. Pergamon was also a flourishing center for the production of parchment (the word itself, a corruption of pergamenos, meaning "from Pergamon"), which had been used in Asia Minor long before the rise of the city. The story that parchment was invented by the Pergamenes because the Ptolemies in Alexandria had a monopoly on papyrus production is not true. The two brothers Eumenes II and Attalus II displayed the most distinctive trait of the Attalids: a pronounced sense of family without rivalry or intrigue - rare amongst the Hellenistic dynasties. Eumenes II and Attalus II (whose epithet was 'Philadelphos' - 'he who loves his brother') were even compared to the mythical pair of brothers, Cleobis and Biton. When Attalus III died without an heir in 133 BC, he bequeathed the whole of Pergamon to Rome. This was challenged by Aristonicus who claimed to be Attalus III's brother and led an armed uprising against the Romans with the help of Blossius, a famous Stoic philosopher. For a period he enjoyed success, defeating and killing the Roman consul P. Licinius Crassus and his army, but he was defeated in 129 BC by the consul M. Perperna. The kingdom of Pergamon was divided between Rome, Pontus, and Cappadocia, with the bulk of its territory becoming the new Roman province of Asia. The city itself was declared free and was briefly the capital of the province, before it was transferred to Ephesus. Roman period In 88 BC, Mithridates VI made the city the headquarters in his first war against Rome, in which he was defeated. At the end of the war, the victorious Romans deprived Pergamon of all its benefits and of its status as a free city. Henceforth the city was required to pay tribute and accommodate and supply Roman troops, and the property of many of the inhabitants was confiscated. The members of the Pergamene aristocracy, especially Diodorus Pasparus in the 70s BC, used their own possessions to maintain good relationships with Rome, by acting as donors for the development of city. Numerous honorific inscriptions indicate Pasparus’ work and his exceptional position in Pergamon at this time. Pergamon still remained a famous city and the noteworthy luxuries of Lucullus included imported wares from the city, which continued to be the site of a conventus (regional assembly). Under Augustus, the first imperial cult, a neocorate, to be established in the province of Asia was in Pergamon. Pliny the Elder refers to the city as the most important in the province and the local aristocracy continued to reach the highest circles of power in the 1st century AD, like Aulus Julius Quadratus who was consul in 94 and 105. Yet it was only under Trajan and his successors that a comprehensive redesign and remodelling of the city took place, with the construction a Roman 'new city' at the base of the Acropolis. The city was the first in the province to receive a second neocorate, from Trajan in AD 113/4. Hadrian raised the city to the rank of metropolis in 123 and thereby elevated it above its local rivals, Ephesus and Smyrna. An ambitious building programme was carried out: massive temples, a stadium, a theatre, a huge forum and an amphitheatre were constructed. In addition, at the city limits the shrine to Asclepius (the god of healing) was expanded into a lavish spa. This sanctuary grew in fame and was considered one of the most famous therapeutic and healing centers of the Roman world. In the middle of the 2nd century, Pergamon was one of the largest cities in the province, along with these two, and had around 200,000 inhabitants. Galen, the most famous physician of antiquity aside from Hippocrates, was born at Pergamon and received his early training at the Asclepeion. At the beginning of the third century, Caracalla granted the city a third neocorate, but the decline had already set in. During the crisis of the Third Century, the economic strength of Pergamon finally collapsed, as the city was badly damaged in an earthquake in 262 and was sacked by the Goths shortly thereafter. In late antiquity, it experienced a limited economic recovery. Byzantine period The city gradually declined during Late Antiquity, and its settled core contracted to the acropolis, which was fortified by Emperor Constans II (). In AD 663/4, Pergamon was captured by raiding Arabs for the first time. As a result of this ongoing threat, the area of settlement retracted to the citadel, which was protected by a wall, built of spolia. During the middle Byzantine period, the city was part of the Thracesian Theme, and from the time of Leo VI the Wise () of the Theme of Samos. The presence of an Armenian community, probably from refugees from the Muslim conquests, is attested during the 7th century, from which the emperor Philippikos () hailed. In 716, Pergamon was sacked again by the armies of Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik. It was again rebuilt and refortified after the Arabs abandoned their Siege of Constantinople in 717–718. It suffered from the attacks of the Seljuks on western Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071: after attacks in 1109 and in 1113, the city was largely destroyed and rebuilt only by Emperor Manuel I Komnenos () in . It likely became the capital of the new theme of Neokastra, established by Manuel. Under Isaac II Angelos (), the local see was promoted to a metropolitan bishopric, having previously been a suffragan diocese of the Metropolis of Ephesus. After the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, Pergamon became part of the Empire of Nicaea. When Emperor Theodore II Laskaris () visited Pergamon in 1250, he was shown the house of Galen, but he saw that the theatre had been destroyed and, except for the walls which he paid some attention to, only the vaults over the Selinus seemed noteworthy to him. The monuments of the Attalids and the Romans were only plundered ruins by this time. With the expansion of the Anatolian beyliks, Pergamon was absorbed into the beylik of Karasids shortly after 1300, and then conquered by the Ottoman beylik. The Ottoman Sultan Murad III had two large alabaster urns transported from the ruins of Pergamon and placed on two sides of the nave in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Pergamon in myth Pergamon, which traced its founding back to Telephus, the son of Heracles, is not mentioned in Greek myth or epic of the archaic or classical periods. However, in the epic cycle the Telephos myth is already connected with the area of Mysia. He comes there following an oracle in search of his mother, and becomes Teuthras' son-in-law or foster-son and inherits his kingdom of Teuthrania, which encompassed the area between Pergamon and the mouth of the Caicus. Telephus refused to participate in the Trojan War, but his son Eurypylus fought on the side of the Trojans. This material was dealt with in a number of tragedies, such as Aeschylus' Mysi, Sophocles' Aleadae, and Euripides' Telephus and Auge, but Pergamon does not seem to have played any role in any of them. The adaptation of the myth is not entirely smooth. Thus, on the one hand, Eurypylus who must have been part of the dynastic line as a result of the appropriation of the myth, was not mentioned in the hymn sung in honour of Telephus in the Asclepieion. Otherwise he does not seem to have been paid any heed. But the Pergamenes made offerings to Telephus and the grave of his mother Auge was located in Pergamon near the Caicus. Pergamon thus entered the Trojan epic cycle, with its ruler said to have been an Arcadian who had fought with Telephus against Agamemnon when he landed at the Caicus, mistook it for Troy and began to ravage the land. On the other hand, the story was linked to the foundation of the city with another myth - that of Pergamus, the eponymous hero of the city. He also belonged to the broader cycle of myths related to the Trojan War as the grandson of Achilles through his father Neoptolemus and of Eetion of Thebe through his mother Andromache (concubine to Neoptolemus after the death of Hector of Troy). With his mother, he was said to have fled to Mysia where he killed the ruler of Teuthrania and gave the city his own name. There he built a heroon for his mother after her death. In a less heroic version, Grynos the son of Eurypylus named a city after him in gratitude for a favour. These mythic connections seem to be late and are not attested before the 3rd century BC. Pergamus' role remained subordinate, although he did receive some cult worship. Beginning in the Roman period, his image appears on civic coinage and he is said to have had a heroon in the city. Even so, he provided a further, deliberately crafted link to the world of Homeric epic. Mithridates VI was celebrated in the city as a new Pergamus. However, for the Attalids, it was apparently the genealogical connection to Heracles that was crucial, since all the other Hellenistic dynasties had long established such links: the Ptolemies derived themselves directly from Heracles, the Antigonids inserted Heracles into their family tree in the reign of Philip V at the end of the 3rd century BC at the latest, and the Seleucids claimed descent from Apollo. All of these claims derive their significance from Alexander the Great, who claimed descent from Heracles, through his father Philip II. In their constructive adaptation of the myth, the Attalids stood within the tradition of the other, older Hellenistic dynasties, who legitimized themselves through divine descent, and sought to increase their own prestige. The inhabitants of Pergamon enthusiastically followed their lead and took to calling themselves Telephidai () and referring to Pergamon itself in poetic registers as the 'Telephian city' (). History of research and excavation The first mention of Pergamon in written records after ancient times comes from the 13th century. Beginning with Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli in the 15th century, ever more travellers visited the place and published their accounts of it. The key description is that of Thomas Smith, who visited the Levant in 1668 and transmitted a detailed description of Pergamon, to which the great 17th century travellers Jacob Spon and George Wheler were able to add nothing significant in their own accounts. In the late 18th century, these visits were reinforced by a scholarly (especially ancient historical) desire for research, epitomised by Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier, a traveller in Asia Minor and French ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Istanbul from 1784 to 1791. At the beginning of the 19th century, Charles Robert Cockerell produced a detailed account and Otto Magnus von Stackelberg made important sketches. A proper, multi-page description with plans, elevations, and views of the city and its ruins was first produced by Charles Texier when he published the second volume of his Description de l’Asie mineure. In 1864/5, the German engineer Carl Humann visited Pergamon for the first time. For the construction of the road from Pergamon to Dikili for which he had undertaken planning work and topographical studies, he returned in 1869 and began to focus intensively on the legacy of the city. In 1871, he organised a small expedition there under the leadership of Ernst Curtius. As a result of this short but intensive investigation, two fragments of a great frieze were discovered and transported to Berlin for detailed analysis, where they received some interest, but not a lot. It is not clear who connected these fragments with the Great Altar in Pergamon mentioned by Lucius Ampelius. However, when the archaeologist Alexander Conze took over direction of the department of ancient sculpture at the Royal Museums of Berlin, he quickly initiated a programme for the excavation and protection of the monuments connected to the sculpture, which were widely suspected to include the Great Altar. As a result of these efforts, Carl Humann, who had been carrying out low-level excavations at Pergamon for the previous few years and had discovered for example the architrave inscription of the Temple of Demeter in 1875, was entrusted with carry out work in the area of the altar of Zeus in 1878, where he continued to work until 1886. With the approval of the Ottoman empire, the reliefs discovered there were transported to Berlin, where the Pergamon Museum was opened for them in 1907. The work was continued by Conze, who aimed for the most complete possible exposure and investigation of the historic city and citadel that was possible. He was followed by the architectural historian Wilhelm Dörpfeld from 1900 to 1911, who was responsible for the most important discoveries. Under his leadership the Lower Agora, the House of Attalos, the Gymnasion, and the Sanctuary of Demeter were brought to light. The excavations were interrupted by the First World War and were only resumed in 1927 under the leadership of Theodor Wiegand, who remained in this post until 1939. He concentrated on further excavation of the upper city, the Asklepieion, and the Red Hall. The Second World War also caused a break in work at Pergamon, which lasted until 1957. From 1957 to 1968, Erich Boehringer worked on the Asklepieion in particular, but also carried out important work on the lower city as a whole and performed survey work, which increased knowledge of the countryside surrounding the city. In 1971, after a short pause, Wolfgang Radt succeeded him as leader of excavations and directed the focus of research on the residential buildings of Pergamon, but also on technical issues, like the water management system of the city which supported a population of 200,000 at its height. He also carried out conservation projects which were of vital importance for maintaining the material remains of Pergamon. Since 2006, the excavations have been led by Felix Pirson. Most of the finds from the Pergamon excavations before the First World War were taken to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, with a smaller portion going to the İstanbul Archaeological Museum after it was opened in 1891. After the First World War the Bergama Museum was opened, which has received all finds discovered since then. Infrastructure and housing Pergamon is a good example of a city that expanded in a planned and controlled manner. Philetairos transformed Pergamon from an archaic settlement into a fortified city. He or his successor Attalos I built a wall around the whole upper city, including the plateau to the south, the upper agora and some of the housing - further housing must have been found outside these walls. Because of the growth of the city, the streets were expanded and the city was monumentalised. Under Attalos I some minor changes were made to the city of Philetairos. During the reign of Eumenes II and Attalos II, there was a substantial expansion of the city. A new street network was created and a new city wall with a monumental gatehouse south of the Acropolis called the Gate of Eumenes. The wall, with numerous gates, now surrounded the entire hill, not just the upper city and the flat area to the southwest, all the way to the Selinus river. Numerous public buildings were constructed, as well as a new marketplace south of the acropolis and a new gymnasion in the east. The southeast slope and the whole western slope of the hill were now settled and opened up by streets. The plan of Pergamon was affected by the extreme steepness of the site. As a result of this, the streets had to turn hairpin corners, so that the hill could be climbed as comfortably and quickly as possible. For the construction of buildings and laying out of the agoras, extensive work on the cliff-face and terracing had to be carried out. A consequence of the city's growth was the construction of new buildings over old ones, since there was not sufficient space. Separate from this, a new area was laid out in Roman times, consisting of a whole new city west of the Selinus river, with all necessary infrastructure, including baths, theatres, stadiums, and sanctuaries. This Roman new city was able to expand without any city walls constraining it because of the absence of external threats. Housing Generally, most of the Hellenistic houses at Pergamon were laid out with a small, centrally-located and roughly square courtyard, with rooms on one or two sides of it. The main rooms are often stacked in two levels on the north side of the courtyard. A wide passage or colonnade on the north side of the courtyard often opened onto foyers, which enabled access to other rooms. An exact north-south arrangement of the city blocks was not possible because of the topographical situation and earlier construction. Thus the size and arrangement of the rooms differed from house to house. From the time of Philetairos, at the latest, this kind of courtyard house was common and it was ever more widespread as time went on, but not universal. Some complexes were designed as Prostas houses, similar to designs seen at Priene. Others had wide columned halls in front of main rooms to the north. Especially in this latter type there is often a second story accessed by stairways. In the courtyards there were often cisterns, which captured rain water from the sloping roofs above. For the construction under Eumenes II, a city block of 35 x 45 m can be reconstructed, subject to significant variation as a result of the terrain. Open spaces From the beginning of the reign of Philetairos, civic events in Pergamon were concentrated on the Acropolis. Over time the so-called 'Upper agora' was developed at the south end of this. In the reign of Attalos I, a Temple of Zeus was built there. To the north of this structure there was a multi-story building, which propbably had a function connected to the marketplace. With progressive development of the open space, these buildings were demolished, while the Upper Agora itself took on a more strongly commercial function, while still a special space as a result of the temple of Zeus. In the course of the expansion of the city under Eumenes, the commercial character of the Upper Agora was further developed. The key signs of this development are primarily the halls built under Eumenes II, whose back chambers were probably used for trade. In the west, the 'West Chamber' was built which might have served as a market administration building. After these renovations, the Upper Agora thus served as a centre for trade and spectacle in the city. Because of significant new construction in the immediate vicinity - the renovation of the Sanctuary of Athena and the Pergamon altar and the redesign of the neighbouring area - the design and organisational principle of the Upper Agora underwent a further change. Its character became much more spectacular and focussed on the two new structures looming over it, especially the altar which was visible on its terrace from below since the usual stoa surrounding it was omitted from the design. The 80 m long and 55 m wide 'Lower Agora' was built under Eumenes II and was not significantly altered until Late Antiquity. As with the Upper Agora, the rectangular form of the agora was adapted to the steep terrain. The construction consisted in total of three levels. Of these the Upper Level and the 'Main Level' opened onto a central courtyard. On the lower level there were rooms only on the south and east sides because of the slope of the land, which led through a colonnade to the exterior of the space. The whole market area extended over two levels with a large columned hall in the centre, which contained small shop spaces and miscellaneous rooms. Streets and bridges The course of the main street, which winds up the hill to the Acropolis with a series of hairpin turns, is typical of the street system of Pergamon. On this street were shops and warehouses. The surface of the street consisted of andesite blocks up to 5 metres wide, 1 metre long and 30 cm deep. The street included a drainage system, which carried the water down the slope. Since it was the most important street of the city, the quality of the material used in its construction was very high. Philetairos' design of the city was shaped above all by circumstantial considerations. Only under Eumenes II was this approach discarded and the city plan begins to show signs of an overall plan. Contrary to earlier attempts at an orthogonal street system, a fan-shaped design seems to have been adopted for the area around the gymnasium, with streets up to four metres wide, apparently intended to enable effective traffic flow. In contrast to it, Philetairos' system of alleys was created unsystematically, although the topic is still under investigation. Where the lay of the land prevented the laying of a street, small alleys were installed as connections instead. In general, therefore, there are large, broad streets (plateiai) and small, narrow connecting streets (stenopoi). The nearly 200 metre wide Pergamon Bridge under the forecourt of the Red Basilica in the centre of Bergama is the largest bridge substruction from antiquity. Water supply The inhabitants of Pergamon were supplied with water by an effective system. In addition to cisterns, there was a system of nine pipes (seven Hellenistic ceramic pipes and two open Roman channels. The system provided around 30,000-35,000 cubic metres of water per day. The Madradağ aqueduct was a ceramic pipe with a diameter of 18 cm which already brought water to the citadel from a source over 40 kilometres away in the Madradağ mountains at 1174 m above sea level in the Hellenistic period. Their significance for architectural history lies in the form of the last kilometres from the mountains through a valley to the Akropolis. The pipe consisted of three channels, which ended 3 km north of the citadel, before reaching the valley, and emptied into a pool, which included a double sedimentation tank. This pool was 35 metres higher than the summit of the citadel. The pipe from the pool to the Acropolis consisted of only a single channel - a lead pipe pressurised to 200 mH2O. The water was able to cross the valley between the pool and the citadel with the help of this pressurised conduit. It functioned as a communicating vessel, such that the water rose to the height of the citadel on its own as a result of the pressurised pipe. Main sights Upper Acropolis Pergamon Altar The most famous structure from the city is the monumental altar, which was probably dedicated to Zeus and Athena. The foundations are still located in the Upper city, but the remains of the Pergamon frieze, which originally decorated it, are displayed in the Pergamon museum in Berlin, where the parts of the frieze taken to Germany have been installed in a partial reconstruction. For the altar's construction, the required flat area was skillfully created through terracing, in order to allow it to be oriented in relation to the neighbouring Temple of Athena. The base of the altar measured around 36 x 33 metres and was decorated on the outside with a detailed depiction in high relief of the Gigantomachy, the battle between the Olympian gods and the Giants. The frieze is 2.30 metres high and has a total length of 113 metres, making it the second longest frieze surviving from antiquity, after the Parthenon Frieze in Athens. A staircase cut into the base on the western side leads up to the upper structure, which is surrounded by a colonnade, and consists of a colonnaded courtyard, separated from the staircase by a colonnade. The interior walls of this colonnade had a further frieze, depicting the life of Telephus, the son of Heracles and mythical founder of Pergamon. This frieze is around 1.60 metres high and thus is clearly smaller than the outer frieze. In the New Testament Book of Revelation, the faith of the Pergamon believers, who "dwell where Satan’s throne is" is commended by the author. Many scholars believe that the "seat of Satan" refers to the Pergamon Altar, due to its resemblance to a gigantic throne. Theatre The well-preserved dates from the Hellenistic period and had space for around 10,000 people, in 78 rows of seats. At a height of 36 metres, it is the steepest of all ancient theatres. The seating area (koilon) is divided horizontally by two walkways, called diazomata, and vertically by stairways into seven sections in the lowest part of the theatre and six in the middle and upper sections. Below the theatre is a and up to terrace, which rested on a high retaining wall and was framed on the long side by a stoa. Coming from the Upper market, one could enter this from a tower-building at the south end. This terrace had no space for the circular orchestra which was normal in a Greek theatre, so only a wooden stage building was built which could be taken down when there was no performance taking place. Thus, the view along the terrace to the Temple of Dionysos at the northern end was unimpeded. A marble stage building was only built in the 1st century BC. Additional theatres were built in the Roman period, one in the Roman new city and the other in the sanctuary of Asclepius. Trajaneum On the highest point of the citadel is the Temple for Trajan and Zeus Philios. The temple sits on a podium on top of a vaulted terrace. The temple itself was a Corinthian peripteros temple, about 18 metres wide with 6 columns on the short sides and 9 columns on the long sides, and two rows of columns in antis. To the north, the area was closed off by a high stoa, while on the west and east sides it was surrounded by simple ashlar walls, until further stoas were inserted in Hadrian's reign. During the excavations fragments of statues of Trajan and Hadrian were found in the rubble of cella, including their portrait heads, as well as fragments of the cult statue of Zeus Philios. Temple of Dionysus At Pergamon, Dionysus had the epithet Kathegemon, 'the guide', and was already worshiped in the last third of the 3rd century BC, when the Attalids made him the chief god of their dynasty. In the 2nd century BC, Eumenes II (probably) built a temple for Dionysus at the northern end of the theatre terrace. The marble temple sits on a podium, 4.5 metres above the level of the theatre terrace and was an Ionic prostyle temple. The pronaos was four columns wide and two columns deep and was accessed by a staircase of twenty-five steps. Only a few traces of the Hellenistic structure survive. The majority of the surviving structure derives from a reconstruction of the temple which probably took place under Caracalla, or perhaps under Hadrian. Temple of Athena Pergamon's oldest temple is a sanctuary of Athena from the 4th century BC. It was a north-facing Doric peripteros temple with six columns on the short side and ten on the long side and a cella divided into two rooms. The foundations, measuring around 12.70 x 21.80 metres, are still visible today. The columns were around 5.25 metres high, 0.75 metres in diameter, and the distance between the columns was 1.62 metres, so the colonnade was very light for a temple of this period. This is matched by the shape of the triglyphs, which usually consist of a sequence of two triglyphs and two metopes, but are instead composed of three of triglyphs and three metopes. The columns of the temple are unfluted and retained bossage, but it is not clear whether this was a result of carelessness or incompleteness. A two-story stoa surrounding the temple on three sides was added under Eumenes II, along with the propylon in the southeast corner, which is now found, largely reconstructed, in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The balustrade of the upper level of the north and east stoas was decorated with reliefs depicting weapons which commemorated Eumenes II's military victory. The construction mixed Ionic columns and Doric triglyphs (of which five triglyphs and metopes survive). In the area of the sanctuary, Attalos I and Eumenes II constructed victory monuments, most notably the Gallic dedications. The northern stoa seems to have been the site of the Library of Pergamon. Library The Library of Pergamon was the second largest in the ancient Greek world after the Library of Alexandria, containing at least 200,000 scrolls. The location of the library building is not certain. Since the 19th century excavations, it has generally been identified with an annex of the northern stoa of the sanctuary of Athena in the Upper Citadel, which was built by Eumenes II. Inscriptions in the gymnasium which mention a library might indicate, however, that the building was located in that area. Other structures Other notable structures still in existence on the upper part of the Acropolis include: The Royal palaces The Heroön – a shrine where the kings of Pergamon, particularly Attalus I and Eumenes II, were worshipped. The Upper Agora The Roman baths complex Diodorus Pasporos heroon Arsenals The site is today easily accessible by the Bergama Acropolis Gondola from the base station in northeastern Bergama. Lower Acropolis Gymnasium A large gymnasium area was built in the 2nd century BC on the south side of the Acropolis. It consisted of three terraces, with the main entrance at the southeast corner of the lowest terrace. The lowest and southernmost terrace is small and almost free of buildings. It is known as the Lower Gymnasium and has been identified as the boys' gymnasium. The middle terrace was around 250 metres long and 70 metres wide at the centre. On its north side there was a two-story hall. In the east part of the terrace there was a small prostyle temple in the Corinthian order. A roofed stadium, known as the Basement Stadium is located between the middle terrace and the upper terrace. The upper terrace measured 150 x 70 metres square, making it the largest of the three terraces. It consisted of a courtyard surrounded by stoas and other structures, measuring roughly 36 x 74 metres. This complex is identified as a palaestra and had a theatre-shaped lecture hall beyond the northern stoa, which is probably of Roman date and a large banquet hall in the centre. Further rooms of uncertain function were accessible from the stoas. In the west was a south-facing Ionic antae temple, the central sanctuary of the gymnasium. The eastern area was replaced with a bath complex in Roman times. Further Roman baths were constructed to the west of the Ionic temple. Sanctuary of Hera The sanctuary of Hera Basileia ('the Queen') lay north of the upper terrace of the gymnasium. Its structure sits on two parallel terraces, the south one about 107.4 metres above sea level and the north one about 109.8 metres above sea level. The Temple of Hera sat in the middle of the upper terrace, facing to the south, with a exedra to the west and a building whose function is very unclear to the east. The two terraces were linked by a staircase of eleven steps around 7.5 metres wide, descending from the front of the temple. The temple was about 7 metres wide by 12 metres long, and sat on a three-stepped foundation. It was a Doric tetrastyle prostyle temple, with three triglyphs and metopes for each span in the entablature. All the other buildings in the sanctuary were made out of trachyte, but the visible part of the temple was made of marble, or at least had a marble cladding. The base of the cult image inside the cella supported three cult statues. The surviving remains of the inscription on the architrave indicate that the building was the temple of Hera Basileia and that it was erected by Attalus II. Sanctuary of Demeter The Sanctuary of Demeter occupied an area of 50 x 110 metres on the middle level of the south slope of the citadel. The sanctuary was old; its activity can be traced back to the fourth century BC. The sanctuary was entered through a Propylon from the east, which led to a courtyard surrounded by stoas on three sides. In the centre of the western half of this courtyard, stood the Ionic temple of Demeter, a straightforward Antae temple, measuring 6.45 x 12.7 metres, with a porch in the Corinthian order which was added in the time of Antoninus Pius. The rest of the structure was of Hellenistic date, built in local marble and had a marble frieze decorated with bucrania. About 9.5 metres in front of the east-facing building, there was an altar, which was 7 metres long and 2.3 metres wide. The temple and the altar were built for Demeter by Philetaerus, his brother Eumenes, and their mother Boa. In the east part of the courtyard, there were more than ten rows of seating laid out in front of the northern stoa for participants in the mysteries of Demeter. Roughly 800 initiates could fit in these seats. Other structures The lower part of the Acropolis also contains the following structures: the House of Attalus the Lower Agora and the Gate of Eumenes At the foot of the Acropolis Sanctuary of Asclepius south of the Acropolis at (39° 7′ 9″ N, 27° 9′ 56″ E), down in the valley, there was the Sanctuary of Asclepius (also known as the Asclepium), the god of healing. The Asclepium was approached along an 820-meter colonnaded sacred way. In this place people with health problems could bathe in the water of the sacred spring, and in the patients' dreams Asclepius would appear in a vision to tell them how to cure their illness. Archeology has found many gifts and dedications that people would make afterwards, such as small terracotta body parts, no doubt representing what had been healed. Galen, the most famous doctor in the ancient Roman Empire and personal physician of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, worked in the Asclepium for many years. Notable extant structures in the Asclepium include: the Roman theater the North Stoa the South Stoa the Temple of Asclepius a circular treatment center (sometimes known as the Temple of Telesphorus) a healing spring an underground passageway a library the Via Tecta (or the Sacred Way, which is a colonnaded street leading to the sanctuary) and a propylon Serapis Temple Pergamon's other notable structure is the great temple of the Egyptian gods Isis and/or Serapis, known today as the "Red Basilica" (or Kızıl Avlu in Turkish), about south of the Acropolis at (39 7' 19" N, 27 11' 1" E). It consists of a main building and two round towers within an enormous temenos or sacred area. The temple towers flanking the main building had courtyards with pools used for ablutions at each end, flanked by stoas on three sides. The forecourt of the Temple of Isis/Sarapis is still supported by the Pergamon Bridge, the largest bridge substruction of antiquity. According to Christian tradition, in the year 92 Saint Antipas, the first bishop of Pergamum ordained by John the Apostle, was a victim of an early clash between Serapis worshippers and Christians. An angry mob is said to have burned Saint Antipas alive in front of the Temple inside a brazen bull-like incense burner, which represented the bull god Apis. His martyrdom is one of the first recorded in Christian history, highlighted by the Christian Scripture itself through the message sent to the Pergamon Church in the Book of Revelation. Inscriptions Greek inscriptions discovered at Pergamon include the rules of the town clerks, the so-called Astynomoi inscription, which has added to understanding of Greek municipal laws and regulations, including how roads were kept in repair, regulations regarding the public and private water supply and lavatories. Notable people Epigonus (3rd century BC), Greek sculptor. Andronicus of Pergamum (2nd century BC), Attalid ambassador to Rome. Biton of Pergamon (2nd or 3rd century BC), Greek writer and engineer. Hegesinus of Pergamon (c. 160 BC), Academic philosopher. Sosus of Pergamon (2nd century BC), Greek mosaic artist. Apollodorus (1st century BC), rhetor and teacher to Augustus. Cratippus of Pergamon (1st century BC), Peripatetic philosopher. Antipas of Pergamum (1st century AD), Christian martyr and saint. Aristocles (1st century AD), a Greek sophist Aelius Nicon (2nd century AD), Greek architect and builder. Aeschrion of Pergamon (2nd century AD), physician and tutor to Galen. Galen (c. 129–200/216 AD), Greek physician. Oribasius (c. 320-403 AD), Greek physician Aedesius (4th century), Neoplatonic philosopher Sosipatra (4th century), Neoplatonic philosopher Telephus, a Greek grammarian See also Allianoi List of ancient Greek cities Notes References Bibliography Hansen, Esther V. (1971). The Attalids of Pergamon. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press; London: Cornell University Press Ltd. . Kekeç, Tevhit. (1989). Pergamon. Istanbul, Turkey: Hitit Color. . Kosmetatou, Elizabeth (2003) "The Attalids of Pergamon," in Andrew Erskine, ed., A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Blackwell: pp. 159–174. . McEvedy, Colin (2012). Cities of the Classical World. Penguin Global Nagy, Gregory (1998). "The Library of Pergamon as a Classical Model," in Helmut Koester, ed., Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods. Harrisburg PA: Trinity Press International: 185-232. Nagy, Gregory (2007). "The Idea of the Library as a Classical Model for European Culture," http://chs.harvard.edu/publications.sec/online_print_books.ssp/. Center for Hellenic Studies Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. vol. 1 (1918), vol. 2 (1921), vol. 3 (1922). Further reading Hansen, Esther Violet. 1971. The Attalids of Pergamon. 2nd ed., rev., and expanded. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Radt, Wolfgang. 1984. Pergamon, Archeological Guide. 3rd ed. Istanbul: Türkiye Turing Ve Otomobil Kurumu. Shipley, Graham. 2000. The Greek world after Alexander 323–30 BC. London: Routledge. Walbank, Frank W. 1993. The Hellenistic world. Revised ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press. Altertümer von Pergamon The archaeological reports from Pergamon are published in German as Altertümer von Pergamon (de Gruyter, Berlin). Band I 1: Alexander Conze: Stadt und Landschaft [City and Landscape] (1912) Digitisation Band I 2: Alexander Conze: Stadt und Landschaft [City and Landscape] (1913) Digitisation Band I 3: Alexander Conze (ed.): Stadt und Landschaft [City and Landscape] 3: Friedrich Graeber: Die Wasserleitungen [The Aqueducts] (1913) Digitisation Digitisation of the tables for I, 1–3 Volume I 4: Günther Garbrecht: Die Wasserversorgung von Pergamon [The Water Supply System of Pergamon] (2001) Volume II: Richard Bohn: Das Heiligtum der Athena Polias Nikephoros [The Sanctuary of Athena Polias Nikephoros] (1885) Digitisation, Digitisation of the tables Volume III 1: Jakob Schrammen: Der grosse Altar – der obere Markt [The Great Altar - The Upper Agora] (1906) Digitisation Digitisation of the tables Volume III 2: Hermann Winnefeld: Die Friese des groszen Altars [The Frieze of the Great Altar] (1910) Digitisation Digitisation of the tables Volume IV: Richard Bohn: Die Theater-Terrasse [The Theatre Terrace] (1896) Digitisation Digitisation of the tables Volume V 1: Georg Kawerau – Theodor Wiegand: Die Paläste der Hochburg [The Palace of the Citadel] (1930) Digitisation Digitisation of the tables Volume V 2: Hermann Stiller: Das Traianeum [The Trajaneum]. Berlin 1895 DigitisationDigitisation of the tables Volume VI: Paul Schazmann: Das Gymnasion. Der Tempelbezirk der Hera Basileia [The Gymnasium. The Temple Area of Hera Basileia] (1923) Digitisation Digitisation of the tables Volume VII 1: Franz Winter: Die Skulpturen mit Ausnahme der Altarreliefs [The Sculpture, aside from the Altar Reliefs] (1908) Digitisation Volume VII 2: Franz Winter: Die Skulpturen mit Ausnahme der Altarreliefs [The Sculpture, aside from the Altar Reliefs] (1908) Digitisation Digitisation of the tables Volume VIII 1: Max Fränkel (ed.): Die Inschriften von Pergamon [The Inscriptions of Pergamon] (1890) Digitisation Volume VIII 2: Max Fränkel (ed.): Die Inschriften von Pergamon [The Inscriptions of Pergamon] (1895) Digitisation Volume VIII 3: Christian Habicht, Michael Wörrle: Die Inschriften des Asklepieions [The Inscriptions of the Asclepium] (1969) Volume IX: Erich Boehringer – Friedrich Krauss: Das Temenos für den Herrscherkult [The Temenos for the Ruler Cult] (1937) Volume X: Ákos von Szalay – Erich Boehringer et al.: Die hellenistischen Arsenale. Garten der Königin [The Hellenistic Arsenal. Garden of the Queen] (1937) Volume XI 1: Oskar Ziegenaus, Gioia de Luca: Das Asklepieion. Der südliche Temenosbezirk in hellenistischer und frührömischer Zeit [The Asclepium. The North Temple Area and Surrounding Complex in the Hellenistic and Early Roman Periods] (1968) Volume XI 2: Oskar Ziegenaus, Gioia de Luca: Das Asklepieion. Der nördliche Temenosbezirk und angrenzende Anlagen in hellenistischer und frührömischer Zeit [The Asclepium. The North Temple Area and Surrounding Complex in the Hellenistic and Early Roman Periods](1975) Volume XI 3: Oskar Ziegenaus: Das Asklepieion. Die Kultbauten aus römischer Zeit an der Ostseite des Heiligen Bezirks [The Asclepium. The Cult Buildings of the Roman Period on the East Side of the Sacred Area] (1981) Volume XI 4: Gioia de Luca: Das Asklepieion. Via Tecta und Hallenstraße. Die Funde [The Asclepium. Via Tecta and Stoas](1984) Volume XI 5: Adolf Hoffmann, Gioia de Luca: Das Asklepieion. Die Platzhallen und die zugehörigen Annexbauten in römischer Zeit [The Asclepium. The Halls and Associated Annexes in the Roman Period] (2011) Volume XII: Klaus Nohlen, Wolfgang Radt: Kapıkaya. Ein Felsheiligtum bei Pergamon [Kapıkaya. A Cliff-Sanctuary near Pergamon] (1978) Volume XIII: Carl Helmut Bohtz: Das Demeter-Heiligtum [The Sanctuary of Demeter] (1981) Volume XIV: Doris Pinkwart, Wolf Stammnitz, Peristylhäuser westlich der Unteren Agora [Peristyle Houses west of the Lower Agora] (1984) Volume XV 1: Meinrad N. Filges, Wolfgang Radt: Die Stadtgrabung. Das Heroon [The City Excavation. The Heroon] (1986) Volume XV 2: Klaus Rheidt: Die Stadtgrabung. Die byzantinische Wohnstadt [The City Excavation. The Byzantine Residential City] (1991) Volume XV 3: Ulrike Wulf: Die Stadtgrabung. Die hellenistischen und römischen Wohnhäuser von Pergamon. Unter Berücksichtigung der Anlagen zwischen der Mittel- und der Ostgasse [The City Excavation. The Hellenistic and Roman Residential Housing of Pergamon. In Light of Investigation of the Areas between Central and East Streets] (1999) Volume XV 4: Holger Schwarzer: Das Gebäude mit dem Podiensaal in der Stadtgrabung von Pergamon. Studien zu sakralen Banketträumen mit Liegepodien in der Antike [The building with the Podium-hall in the City Excavation of Pergamon. Studies of Sacral Banqueting Halls with Raised Platforms in Antiquity] (2008) Volume XVI 1: Manfred Klinkott: Die byzantinischen Befestigungsanlagen von Pergamon mit ihrer Wehr- und Baugeschichte [The Byzantine Fortifications of Pergamon with their Military and Architectural History] (2001) External links Rosa Valderrama, "Pergamum": brief history Photographic tour of old and new Pergamon, including the museum The Theatre at Pergamon. The Ancient Theatre Archive. Theatre specifications and virtual reality tour of theatre 3D-visualization and photos of Pergamon Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Archaeological sites in the Aegean Region Buildings and structures in İzmir Province Former populated places in Turkey History of İzmir Province History of Turkey New Testament cities Tourist attractions in İzmir Province Asia (Roman province) Populated places in ancient Aeolis Populated places in ancient Mysia Bergama District

27367532

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEVEN%20Networks

SEVEN Networks

SEVEN Networks, Inc. is a privately funded American corporation founded in 2000. It had about 265 employees in 2010. As of 2017, the company has research and development centers in Texas and Finland. SEVEN mobile messaging products are turnkey multi-device, multi-service computer software for operators and device manufacturers. The company claims its products have a desktop-like experience for core messaging applications like email, instant messagings and social networking. History The company was formerly known as Leap Corporation and changed its name to SEVEN Networks, Inc. in December 2000. In 2004 the company was selected for FierceWireless' list of 15 promising and innovative wireless startups of the year. By 2005, CEO Bill Nguyen had left to start another company. In 2006, the company announced Sprint as a customer. Since then, the company expanded its products to support email services, added mobile instant messaging applications, analytics and social networking. In 2010, the company announced it was selected by Samsung Electronics to provide push technology for Samsung Social Hub, a social networking and integrated messaging service available on several of the company’s handsets. In January 2010, the company claimed in a press release to have more than eight million accounts actively synchronized on mobile devices using its software. In early 2011, the company announced Verizon Wireless as a customer and also announced Open Channel. In 2012, the company announced a combined email, instant messaging and social media product, Ping. Open Channel The Open Channel software product line focuses on mobile traffic management and optimization. There are Open Channel products for wireless signaling optimization, carrier network policy enforcement, and mobile data offloading. Open Channel was launched in February 2011 to help carriers manage the impact of push technology for message notifications on their networks. It works by monitoring all requests for data from smartphone applications, such as Facebook, email, Twitter, which make up to hundreds of requests per hour, with only a small fraction of them actually returning data. The platform acts as a buffer in the network, determining when content for a particular app is available and then allowing the phone to get that content. Early tests estimated mobile devices might reduce their time on a network by up to 40 percent and mobile traffic by up to 70 percent while boosting battery life by up to 25 percent. Open Channel is transparent to connected applications and requires no changes or special integration by mobile developers. Additionally, it does not require changes to the network and can work in conjunction with new standards for fast network dormancy, smart signaling and other network optimizations. In February 2011, Open Channel received the GSMA Global Mobile Award for Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough in 2011. In February 2013, Open Channel added offerings for policy enforcement and offloading. Also in early 2013, Toronto-based wireless operator Public Mobile selected Open Channel to manage network signaling and help reduce service costs stemming from non-optimized mobile applications and unnecessary data traffic that was creating excess network congestion. In September 2015, Open Channel was made available directly to consumers. Mobile messaging SEVEN's push notification platform, System SEVEN, is deployed as a SaaS (software-as a service) solution. SEVEN Mobile Email and SEVEN Mobile IM are SEVEN's own applications built on top of its push platform and its Ping Services allow operators and device manufacturers to use the SEVEN push notification technology for messaging services and mobile applications. They provide mobile operators and device manufacturers with a solution for integrated messaging services. System SEVEN mobile email is a server-assisted solution, where access to user's email account appears to originate from IP addresses hosted by SEVEN (208.87.200.0 - 208.87.207.255) or its customers. Although done with user's permission, email service providers may flag these as potential hacking attempts and have raised security concerns, most recently with Microsoft Outlook for Android and iOS Partners The firm works with mobile platform providers, device manufacturers, email messaging solutions and providers of services in the cloud, and infrastructure partners, to sell mobile messaging services. Its systems use commonly deployed mobile platforms including Android, Bada, BREW, J2ME, Symbian and Windows Mobile. They work on products from device manufacturers, including: HTC, INQ, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Sanyo, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson; and are embedded on more than 550 device types. The firm has partnered with many of the top Internet service providers including Google, Microsoft (Exchange and Windows Live) and Yahoo!, and infrastructure providers such as Equinix, Savvis and Oracle. Competition Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) Google Cloud Messaging Good Technology GoS Networks Nokia Messaging OpenNet Research In Motion (RIM, BlackBerry) Outlook Mobile References Mobile technology Software companies based in Texas Privately held companies based in Texas Companies established in 2000 Software companies of the United States

1540

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas

Aeneas

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons of Ilus, founder of Troy), making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam's children (such as Hector and Paris). He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer's Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse god Vidarr of the Æsir. Etymology Aeneas is the Romanization of the hero's original Greek name (Aineías). Aineías is first introduced in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite when Aphrodite gives him his name from the adjective (, "terrible"), for the "terrible grief" () he has caused her by being born a mortal who will age and die. It is a popular etymology for the name, apparently exploited by Homer in the Iliad. Later in the Medieval period there were writers who held that, because the Aeneid was written by a philosopher, it is meant to be read philosophically. As such, in the "natural order", the meaning of Aeneas' name combines Greek ("dweller") with ("body"), which becomes or "in-dweller"—i.e. as a god inhabiting a mortal body. However, there is no certainty regarding the origin of his name. Epithets In imitation of the Iliad, Virgil borrows epithets of Homer, including: Anchisiades, magnanimum, magnus, heros, and bonus. Though he borrows many, Virgil gives Aeneas two epithets of his own in the Aeneid: pater and pius. The epithets applied by Virgil are an example of an attitude different from that of Homer, for whilst Odysseus is ("wily"), Aeneas is described as ("pious"), which conveys a strong moral tone. The purpose of these epithets seems to enforce the notion of Aeneas' divine hand as father and founder of the Roman race, and their use seems circumstantial: when Aeneas is praying he refers to himself as pius, and is referred to as such by the author only when the character is acting on behalf of the gods to fulfill his divine mission. Likewise, Aeneas is called pater when acting in the interest of his men. Greek myth and epos Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite The story of the birth of Aeneas is told in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, one of the major Homeric Hymns. Aphrodite has caused Zeus to fall in love with mortal women. In retaliation, Zeus puts desire in her heart for Anchises, who is tending his cattle among the hills near Mount Ida. When Aphrodite sees him she is smitten. She adorns herself as if for a wedding among the gods and appears before him. He is overcome by her beauty, believing that she is a goddess, but Aphrodite identifies herself as a Phrygian princess. After they make love, Aphrodite reveals her true identity to him and Anchises fears what might happen to him as a result of their liaison. Aphrodite assures him that he will be protected, and tells him that she will bear him a son to be called Aeneas. However, she warns him that he must never tell anyone that he has lain with a goddess. When Aeneas is born, Aphrodite takes him to the nymphs of Mount Ida, instructing them to raise the child to age five, then take him to Anchises. According to other sources, Anchises later brags about his encounter with Aphrodite, and as a result is struck in the foot with a thunderbolt by Zeus. Thereafter he is lame in that foot, so that Aeneas has to carry him from the flames of Troy. Homer's Iliad Aeneas is a minor character in the Iliad, where he is twice saved from death by the gods as if for an as-yet-unknown destiny, but is an honorable warrior in his own right. Having held back from the fighting, aggrieved with Priam because in spite of his brave deeds he was not given his due share of honour, he leads an attack against Idomeneus to recover the body of his brother-in-law Alcathous at the urging of Deiphobus. He is the leader of the Trojans' Dardanian allies, as well as a second cousin and principal lieutenant of Hector, son and heir of the Trojan king Priam. Aeneas's mother Aphrodite frequently comes to his aid on the battlefield, and he is a favorite of Apollo. Aphrodite and Apollo rescue Aeneas from combat with Diomedes of Argos, who nearly kills him, and carry him away to Pergamos for healing. Even Poseidon, who usually favors the Greeks, comes to Aeneas's rescue after he falls under the assault of Achilles, noting that Aeneas, though from a junior branch of the royal family, is destined to become king of the Trojan people. Bruce Louden presents Aeneas as a "type": The sole virtuous individual (or family) spared from general destruction, following the mytheme of Utnapishtim, Baucis and Philemon, Noah, and Lot. Pseudo-Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca explains that "... the Greeks [spared] him alone, on account of his piety." Other sources The Roman mythographer Gaius Julius Hyginus (c. 64 BCE – CE 17) in his Fabulae credits Aeneas with killing 28 enemies in the Trojan War. Aeneas also appears in the Trojan narratives attributed to Dares Phrygius and Dictys of Crete. Roman myth and literature The history of Aeneas was continued by Roman authors. One influential source was the account of Rome's founding in Cato the Elder's Origines. The Aeneas legend was well known in Virgil's day and appeared in various historical works, including the Roman Antiquities of the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (relying on Marcus Terentius Varro), Ab Urbe Condita by Livy (probably dependent on Quintus Fabius Pictor, fl. 200 BCE), and Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus (now extant only in an epitome by Justin). Virgil's Aeneid The Aeneid explains that Aeneas is one of the few Trojans who were not killed or enslaved when Troy fell. Aeneas, after being commanded by the gods to flee, gathered a group, collectively known as the Aeneads, who then traveled to Italy and became progenitors of Romans. The Aeneads included Aeneas's trumpeter Misenus, his father Anchises, his friends Achates, Sergestus, and Acmon, the healer Iapyx, the helmsman Palinurus, and his son Ascanius (also known as Iulus, Julus, or Ascanius Julius). He carried with him the Lares and Penates, the statues of the household gods of Troy, and transplanted them to Italy. Several attempts to find a new home failed; one such stop was on Sicily, where in Drepanum, on the island's western coast, his father, Anchises, died peacefully. After a brief but fierce storm sent up against the group at Juno's request, Aeneas and his fleet made landfall at Carthage after six years of wanderings. Aeneas had a year-long affair with the Carthaginian queen Dido (also known as Elissa), who proposed that the Trojans settle in her land and that she and Aeneas reign jointly over their peoples. A marriage of sorts was arranged between Dido and Aeneas at the instigation of Juno, who was told that her favorite city would eventually be defeated by the Trojans' descendants. Aeneas's mother Venus (the Roman adaptation of Aphrodite) realized that her son and his company needed a temporary respite to reinforce themselves for the journey to come. However, the messenger god Mercury was sent by Jupiter and Venus to remind Aeneas of his journey and his purpose, compelling him to leave secretly. When Dido learned of this, she uttered a curse that would forever pit Carthage against Rome, an enmity that would culminate in the Punic Wars. She then committed suicide by stabbing herself with the same sword she gave Aeneas when they first met. After the sojourn in Carthage, the Trojans returned to Sicily where Aeneas organized funeral games to honor his father, who had died a year before. The company traveled on and landed on the western coast of Italy. Aeneas descended into the underworld where he met Dido (who turned away from him to return to her husband) and his father, who showed him the future of his descendants and thus the history of Rome. Latinus, king of the Latins, welcomed Aeneas's army of exiled Trojans and let them reorganize their lives in Latium. His daughter Lavinia had been promised to Turnus, king of the Rutuli, but Latinus received a prophecy that Lavinia would be betrothed to one from another land – namely, Aeneas. Latinus heeded the prophecy, and Turnus consequently declared war on Aeneas at the urging of Juno, who was aligned with King Mezentius of the Etruscans and Queen Amata of the Latins. Aeneas's forces prevailed. Turnus was killed, and Virgil's account ends abruptly. Other sources The rest of Aeneas's biography is gleaned from other ancient sources, including Livy and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Livy, Aeneas was victorious but Latinus died in the war. Aeneas founded the city of Lavinium, named after his wife. He later welcomed Dido's sister, Anna Perenna, who then committed suicide after learning of Lavinia's jealousy. After Aeneas's death, Venus asked Jupiter to make her son immortal. Jupiter agreed. The river god Numicus cleansed Aeneas of all his mortal parts and Venus anointed him with ambrosia and nectar, making him a god. Aeneas was recognized as the god Jupiter Indiges. Medieval accounts Snorri Sturlason, in the Prologue of the Prose Edda, tells of the world as parted in three continents: Africa, Asia and the third part called Europe or Enea. Snorri also tells of a Trojan named Munon) (or Mennon), who marries the daughter of the High King (Yfirkonungr) Priam called Troan and travels to distant lands, marries the Sybil and got a son, Tror, who, as Snorri tells, is identical to Thor. This tale resembles some episodes of the Aeneid. Continuations of Trojan matter in the Middle Ages had their effects on the character of Aeneas as well. The 12th-century French Roman d'Enéas addresses Aeneas's sexuality. Though Virgil appears to deflect all homoeroticism onto Nisus and Euryalus, making his Aeneas a purely heterosexual character, in the Middle Ages there was at least a suspicion of homoeroticism in Aeneas. The Roman d'Enéas addresses that charge, when Queen Amata opposes Aeneas's marrying Lavinia, Medieval interpretations of Aeneas were greatly influenced by both Virgil and other Latin sources. Specifically, the accounts by Dares and Dictys, which were reworked by the 13th-century Italian writer Guido delle Colonne (in Historia destructionis Troiae), colored many later readings. From Guido, for instance, the Pearl Poet and other English writers get the suggestion that Aeneas's safe departure from Troy with his possessions and family was a reward for treason, for which he was chastised by Hecuba. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th century) the Pearl Poet, like many other English writers, employed Aeneas to establish a genealogy for the foundation of Britain, and explains that Aeneas was "impeached for his perfidy, proven most true" (line 4). Family and legendary descendants Aeneas had an extensive family tree. His wet-nurse was Caieta, and he is the father of Ascanius with Creusa, and of Silvius with Lavinia. Ascanius, also known as Iulus (or Julius), founded Alba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings. According to the mythology used by Virgil in the Aeneid, Romulus and Remus were both descendants of Aeneas through their mother Rhea Silvia, making Aeneas the progenitor of the Roman people. Some early sources call him their father or grandfather, but once the dates of the fall of Troy (1184 BCE) and the founding of Rome (753 BCE) became accepted, authors added generations between them. The Julian family of Rome, most notably Julius Cæsar and Augustus, traced their lineage to Ascanius and Aeneas, thus to the goddess Venus. Through the Julians, the Palemonids make this claim. The legendary kings of Britain – including King Arthur – trace their family through a grandson of Aeneas, Brutus. Character and appearance Aeneas's consistent epithet in Virgil and other Latin authors is pius, a term that connotes reverence toward the gods and familial dutifulness. In the Aeneid, Aeneas is described as strong and handsome, but neither his hair colour nor complexion are described. In late antiquity however sources add further physical descriptions. The De excidio Troiae of Dares Phrygius describes Aeneas as "auburn-haired, stocky, eloquent, courteous, prudent, pious, and charming". There is also a brief physical description found in the 6th-century John Malalas' Chronographia: "Aeneas: short, fat, with a good chest, powerful, with a ruddy complexion, a broad face, a good nose, fair skin, bald on the forehead, a good beard, grey eyes." Modern portrayals Literature Aeneas appears as a character in William Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida, set during the Trojan War. Aeneas and Dido are the main characters of a 17th-century broadside ballad called "The Wandering Prince of Troy". The ballad ultimately alters Aeneas's fate from traveling on years after Dido's death to joining her as a spirit soon after her suicide. In modern literature, Aeneas is the speaker in two poems by Allen Tate, "Aeneas at Washington" and "Aeneas at New York". He is a main character in Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia, a re-telling of the last six books of the Aeneid told from the point of view of Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus of Latium. Aeneas appears in David Gemmell's Troy series as a main heroic character who goes by the name Helikaon. In Rick Riordan's book series The Heroes of Olympus, Aeneas is regarded as the first Roman demigod, son of Venus rather than Aphrodite. Will Adams' novel City of the Lost assumes that much of the information provided by Virgil is mistaken, and that the true Aeneas and Dido did not meet and love in Carthage but in a Phoenician colony at Cyprus, on the site of the modern Famagusta. Their tale is interspersed with that of modern activists who, while striving to stop an ambitious Turkish Army general trying to stage a coup, accidentally discover the hidden ruins of Dido's palace. Opera, film and other media Aeneas is a title character in Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas (c. 1688), and Jakob Greber's (Aeneas in Carthage) (1711), and one of the principal roles in Hector Berlioz' opera Les Troyens (c. 1857), as well as in Metastasio's immensely popular opera libretto Didone abbandonata. Canadian composer James Rolfe composed his opera Aeneas and Dido (2007; to a libretto by André Alexis) as a companion piece to Purcell's opera. Despite its many dramatic elements, Aeneas's story has generated little interest from the film industry. Ronald Lewis portrayed Aeneas in Helen of Troy, directed by Robert Wise, as a supporting character, who is a member of the Trojan Royal family, and a close and loyal friend to Paris, and escapes at the end of the film. Portrayed by Steve Reeves, he was the main character in the 1961 sword and sandal film Guerra di Troia (The Trojan War). Reeves reprised the role the following year in the film The Avenger, about Aeneas's arrival in Latium and his conflicts with local tribes as he tries to settle his fellow Trojan refugees there. Giulio Brogi, portrayed as Aeneas in the 1971 Italian TV miniseries series called Eneide, which gives the whole story of the Aeneid, from Aeneas escape from to Troy, to his meeting of Dido, his arrival in Italy, and his duel with Turnus. The most recent cinematic portrayal of Aeneas was in the film Troy, in which he appears as a youth charged by Paris to protect the Trojan refugees, and to continue the ideals of the city and its people. Paris gives Aeneas Priam's sword, in order to give legitimacy and continuity to the royal line of Troy – and lay the foundations of Roman culture. In this film, he is not a member of the royal family and does not appear to fight in the war. In the role-playing game Vampire: The Requiem by White Wolf Game Studios, Aeneas figures as one of the mythical founders of the Ventrue Clan. in the action game Warriors: Legends of Troy, Aeneas is a playable character. The game ends with him and the Aeneans fleeing Troy's destruction and, spurned by the words of a prophetess thought crazed, goes to a new country (Italy) where he will start an empire greater than Greece and Troy combined that shall rule the world for 1000 years, never to be outdone in the tale of men (The Roman Empire). In the 2018 TV miniseries Troy: Fall of a City, Aeneas is portrayed by Alfred Enoch. He also featured as an Epic Fighter of the Dardania faction in the Total War Saga: Troy in 2020. Depictions in art Scenes depicting Aeneas, especially from the Aeneid, have been the focus of study for centuries. They have been the frequent subject of art and literature since their debut in the 1st century. Villa Valmarana The artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was commissioned by Gaetano Valmarana in 1757 to fresco several rooms in the Villa Valmarana, the family villa situated outside Vicenza. Tiepolo decorated the palazzina with scenes from epics such as Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid. Aeneas flees Troy Aeneas with Dido Family tree See also Cumaean Sibyl Lacrimae rerum The Golden Bough Latin kings of Alba Longa Notes References Sources Homer, Iliad II. 819–21; V. 217–575; XIII. 455–544; XX. 75–352. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca III. xii. 2; Epitome III. 32–IV. 2; V. 21. Virgil, Aeneid. Ovid, Metamorphoses XIII. 623–715; XIV. 75–153; 581–608. Ovid, Heroides, VII. Livy, Book 1.1–2. Dictys Cretensis. Dares Phrygius. Further reading Cramer, D. "The Wrath of Aeneas: Iliad 13.455–67 and 20.75–352." Syllecta Classica, vol. 11, 2000, pp. 16–33. . de Vasconcellos, P.S. "A Sound Play on Aeneas' Name in the Aeneid: A Brief Note on VII.69." Vergilius (1959–), vol. 61, 2015, pp. 125–29. . Farron, S. "The Aeneas–Dido Episode as an Attack on Aeneas' Mission and Rome." Greece & Rome, vol. 27, no. 1, 1980, pp. 34–47. . . Gowers, E. "Trees and Family Trees in the Aeneid." Classical Antiquity, vol. 30, no. 1, 2011, pp. 87–118. . . Grillo, L. "Leaving Troy and Creusa: Reflections on Aeneas' Flight." The Classical Journal, vol. 106, no. 1, 2010, pp. 43–68. . . Noonan, J. "Sum Pius Aeneas: Aeneas and the Leader as Conservator/Σωτήρ" The Classical Bulletin. vol. 83, no. 1, 2007, pp. 65–91. Putnam, M.C.J. The Humanness of Heroes: Studies in the Conclusion of Virgil's Aeneid. The Amsterdam Vergil lectures, 1. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011. Starr, R.J. "Aeneas the Rhetorician: 'Aeneid IV', 279–95." Latomus, vol. 62, no. 1, 2003, pp. 36–46. . Scafoglio, G. "The Betrayal of Aeneas." Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 53 no. 1, 2013, pp. 1–14. Schauer, M. Aeneas dux in Vergils Aeneis. Eine literarische Fiktion in augusteischer Zeit. Zetemata vol. 128. Munich: C.H. Beck, 2007. External links Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (about 900 images related to the Aeneid) Trojans Characters in the Aeneid Greek mythological heroes Children of Aphrodite Characters in Roman mythology Heroes who ventured to Hades Demigods in classical mythology Legendary progenitors Metamorphoses characters Characters in Greek mythology Characters in works by Geoffrey of Monmouth

9315780

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded%20Cinema

Expanded Cinema

Expanded Cinema by Gene Youngblood (1970), the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts. In the book he argues that a new, expanded cinema is required for a new consciousness. He describes various types of filmmaking utilizing new technology, including film special effects, computer art, video art, multi-media environments and holography. "Part One: The Audience and the Myth of Entertainment" In the first part of the book, Youngblood attempts to show how expanded cinema will unite art and life. "Television's elaborate movie-like subjective-camera simulation of the first moon landing" (p46) showed a generation that reality was not as real as simulation. He says that he is writing "at the end of the era of cinema as we've known it, the beginning of an era of image-exchange between man and man" (p. 49). The future shock of the Paleocybernetic Age will change fundamental concepts such as intelligence, morality, creativity and the family (pp. 50–53). The Intermedia network of the mass media is contemporary man's environment, replacing nature. He uses recent scientific research into cellular memory and inherited memory to support his claim that this network conditions human experience. The Noosphere (a term Youngblood borrows from Teilhard de Chardin) is the organizing intelligence of the planet—the minds of its inhabitants. "Distributed around the globe by the intermedia network, it becomes a new technology that may prove to be one of the most powerful tools in man's history" (p. 57). He defends the universality of art against the localism of entertainment: The intermedia network has made all of us artists by proxy. A decade of television-watching is equal to a comprehensive course in dramatic acting, writing, and filming...the mystique is gone—we could almost do it ourselves. Unfortunately too many of us do just that: hence the glut of sub-mediocre talent in the entertainment industry. — p. 58 This is what forces cinema to expand and become more complex. Mass media entertainment dulls people's minds. It is a closed, entropic system, adding nothing new. (pp. 59–65) Entertainment dwells on the past. We live in future shock so art should be an invention of a future (pp. 66–69). New systems need to be designed for old information. The artist is a design scientist. "Part Two: Synaesthetic Cinema: The End of Drama" Youngblood describes television as the software of the planet. It acts as a superego and shows us global reality. This renders cinema obsolete as a communicator of objective reality, and so frees it (pp. 78–80). He embraces a synaesthetic synthesis of opposites which are simultaneously perceived. He then goes on to draw a distinction between the syncretic montage of Pudovkin and the Eisenstein's montage of collision (pp. 84–86). He prefers metamorphosis to cuts (p86). Filmmakers that Youngblood think embody this synesthetic syncretism include: Stan Brakhage (p. 87), Will Hindle, Pat O'Neill, John Schofill, and Ronald Nameth. Filmmakers that present ideas of polymorphous eroticism, the blurring of sexual boundaries, include Andy Warhol and Carolee Schneemann (pp. 112–121). Michael Snow's Wavelength is also an example of synaesthetic cinema's extra-objective reality (pp. 122–127). At the end of the second part of the book Youngblood writes about the rebirth of the cottage industry in the post-mass-audience age. Video tapes can be exchanged freely, films are becoming more personal, specializations are ending (pp. 128–134). "Part Three: Toward Cosmic Consciousness" Youngblood analyses 2001: A Space Odyssey to explore the "electronic age existentialism" (pp. 139–150). He examines Douglas Trumbull's use of mechanical processes to create the Stargate sequence (pp. 151–156) and describes the work of Jordan Belson as an example of cosmic cinema (pp. 157–177). "Part Four: Cybernetic Cinema and Computer Films" Youngblood defines the technosphere as a symbiosis between man and machine. The computer liberates man from specialization and amplifies intelligence (pp. 180–182). He draws comparisons between computer processing and human neural processing (pp. 183–184). Logic and intelligence is the brain's software. He predicts that computer software will become more important than hardware and that in the future super-computers will design ever more advanced computers (pp. 185–188). His vision of the future is the Aesthetic Machine: "Aesthetic application of technology is the only means of achieving new consciousness to match our environment" (p189). Creativity will be shared between man and machine. He points to the links between computer art and Conceptualism, and the growing theoretical basis of art. In his cybernetic art exploration of Cybernetic Cinema he gives an account of early experiments using computers to draw and make films. He bemoans the fact that at the time of writing no computer has the power to generate real-time images and that computer art has to be made off-line. He does, though, foresee a future in which location shooting will become obsolete as all locations will be able to be simulated with computers (pp. 194–206). Examples of filmmakers using computers, referred to by Youngblood, include: John Whitney, James Whitney, John Whitney, Jr., Michael Whitney, John Stehura, Stan VanDerBeek and Peter Kamnitzer (pp. 207–256). "Part Five: Television as a Creative Medium" Youngblood describes the videosphere, in which computers and televisions are extensions to man's central nervous system. He is optimistic about technological advances and predicts TV-on-demand by 1978 (pp. 260–264). He does acknowledge, however, that data retrieval is more complicated than data recording. The various processes involved in video synthesizing are described: de-beaming, keying, chroma-keying, feedback, mixing, switching and editing (pp. 265–280). The work of Loren Sears is neuroesthetic because it treats television as an extension of the central nervous system (pp. 291–295). The curator James Newman moved from a traditional gallery to a conceptual gallery with his joint project with KQED-TV, commissioning television work from Terry Riley, Yvonne Rainer, Frank Zappa, Andy Warhol, The Living Theater, Robert Frank and Walter De Maria (pp. 292–293). Nam June Paik has worked creatively with television (pp. 302–308). Les Levine exploits the potential of closed-circuit television (pp. 337–344). "Part Six: Intermedia" Youngblood sees the artist as an ecologist, involved with the environment rather than with objects (pp. 346–351). By way of example he cites the video displays at world expositions (specifically Roman Kroitor's large-scale projections at Expo 67 and Expo '70 (pp. 352–358), and the Cerebrum, an art/nightclub environment. Artists such as Carolee Schneemann and Robert Whitman combine film projection with live performance (pp. 366–371). Wolf Vostell incorporates video experiments into environmental contexts (p. 383). Light shows are used in concerts and multiple projectors and video screens create complex environments. "Part Seven: Holographic Cinema: A New World" Finally, Youngblood explores the creative potential of holography. Key ideas Future shock Intermedia Neuroesthetics Noosphere Synaesthesia References External links YOUNGBLOOD, GENE. "Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition." S.l.: FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2020. Youngblood, Gene, Pier L. Capucci, and Simonetta Fadda. "Expanded Cinema." Bologna: CLUEB, 2013. Youngblood, Gene. Cine Expandido, Buenos Aires: EDUNTREF, 2012, ©1970. American art Books about film Books about the media

14388058

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DtSearch

DtSearch

dtSearch Corp. is a software company which specializes in text retrieval software. It was founded in 1991, and is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. Its current range of software includes products for enterprise desktop search, Intranet/Internet spidering and search, and search engines for developers (SDK) to integrate into other software applications. History dtSearch Corp was founded by David Thede; the company started research and development in text retrieval in 1988 and incorporated in Virginia in 1991 as D T Software. Marketing of dtSearch 1.0 a DOS Text Retrieval software product began in the first quarter of 1991. Initially it was distributed as Association of Shareware Professionals-approved shareware. The product was featured in an article entitled "Text Retrieval Software" in an early edition of PC Magazine as a shareware alternative to the commercial products reviewed; these included ISYS, ZyIndex, Strix, askSam, ideaList, Assassin PC, Folio Views and Lotus SmartText. In the first few years after its initial release, dtSearch was an end-user application only. Then, in 1994, Symantec approached dtSearch about including its search technology into one of the first applications for 32-bit Windows; the dtSearch end-user application was developed into a Dynamic-link library (DLL) which Symantec embedded in Norton Navigator, which was released alongside Microsoft’s initial release of its 32-bit Windows operating system, Windows 95. In 2007 the company was listed in the EContent 100 list, a list of companies that matter most in the digital content industry. Products The current (v 7.9x) product range is Unicode-based and has an index that can handle over 1 TB of data per index. Products for End-users dtSearch Desktop with Spider - Windows client Desktop search software (32-bit and 64-bit indexers) dtSearch Network with Spider - as dtSearch Desktop but licensed for Network use (32-bit and 64-bit indexers) dtSearch Web with Spider - browser based search-only client for Intranet/Internet usage based on Microsoft IIS (32- and 64-bit indexers) Products for Software Developers dtSearch Engine for Windows - SDK with C++, .NET, COM, Java, Delphi APIs (32-bit and 64-bit versions) dtSearch Engine for Linux - SDK with C++ and Java APIs dtSearch Engine for Mac - SDK with C++ and Java APIs dtSearch Publish - a search front-end for CD/DVD publishing (32- and 64-bit indexers) Document Filters - included with all products but available for separate licensing. See also Enterprise search List of enterprise search vendors List of search engines#Desktop search engines List of search engine software#Commercial References External links Company Website Product description on SearchTools.com The index is mightier than the sword - Windows IT Pro. August 27, 2008 Desktop search gets down to business - InfoWorld. September 01, 2005 Integrating Query of Relational and Textual Data in Clinical Databases - J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2003 Jan–Feb Informatics in Radiology. Render: An Online Searchable Radiology Study Repository - RadioGraphics 2009; 29:1233–1246 Use Of Intelligent Computer Search for the Patterns of Abnormal Lymphatic Uptake by F-18 FDG PET in Primary Lung Cancers - J Med Sci 2006;26(6):199-204 Desktop search engines Information retrieval organizations Software companies based in Maryland Software companies of the United States Software companies established in 1991

1082414

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lftp

Lftp

lftp is a command-line program client for several file transfer protocols. lftp is designed for Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It was developed by Alexander Lukyanov, and is distributed under the GNU General Public License. lftp can transfer files via FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, FISH, SFTP, BitTorrent, and FTP over HTTP proxy. It also supports the File eXchange Protocol (FXP), which allows the client to transfer files from one remote FTP server to another. Among lftp's features are transfer queues, segmented file transfer, resuming partial downloads, bandwidth throttling, and recursive copying of file directories. The client can be used interactively or automated with scripts. It has Unix shell-like job control, and a facility for scheduling file transfers for execution at a later time. Development history lftp was initially developed as part of the ftpclass package. Subsequently it grew and became a more capable program (e.g., mirroring capability was added), and was renamed to lftp in February 1997. The initial goals of development were robustness, automatic resuming of transfers, and increasing transfer speed by transferring parts of a file in parallel using several connections as well as by protocol pipelining. Version 2.0 introduced HTTP and IPv6 support in 1999, more protocols were added later. See also NcFTP Comparison of FTP client software Notes References Dee-Ann LeBlanc (May 22, 2003) Moving Files In Linux: lftp, LinuxPlanet Richard Petersen, Fedora 10 Linux Desktop, Surfing Turtle Press, 2008, , p. 255 Michael Jang, Linux annoyances for geeks, O'Reilly Media, 2006, , pp. 127–128 Ellen Siever, Stephen Figgins, Robert Love, Arnold Robbins, Linux in a Nutshell, Edition 6, O'Reilly Media, 2009, , pp. 244–247 Further reading Dmitri Popov (December 4, 2007) CLI Magic: Quick and easy backup with lftp, Linux.com External links lftp man page lftp-vi: a module that adds editing capability to lftp LftpFS – filesystem based on FUSE and lftp Free FTP clients Hypertext Transfer Protocol clients SFTP clients Files transferred over shell clients Free BitTorrent clients BitTorrent clients for Linux

31849533

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT%20IP%20Act

PROTECT IP Act

The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA) was a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to "rogue websites dedicated to the sale of infringing or counterfeit goods", especially those registered outside the U.S. The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011, by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and 11 bipartisan co-sponsors. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) placed a hold on it. The PROTECT IP Act is a re-write of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which failed to pass in 2010. A similar House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), was introduced on October 26, 2011. In the wake of online protests held on January 18, 2012, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that a vote on the bill would be postponed until issues raised about the bill were resolved. Content The bill defines infringement as distribution of illegal copies, counterfeit goods, or anti-digital rights management technology. Infringement exists if "facts or circumstances suggest [the site] is used, primarily as a means for engaging in, enabling, or facilitating the activities described." The bill says that it does not alter existing substantive trademark or copyright law. The bill provides for "enhancing enforcement against rogue websites operated and registered overseas" and authorizes the United States Department of Justice to seek a court order in rem against websites dedicated to infringing activities, if through due diligence, an individual owner or operator cannot be located. The bill requires the Attorney General to serve notice to the defendant. Once the court issues an order, it could be served on financial transaction providers, Internet advertising services, Internet service providers, and information location tools to require them to stop financial transactions with the rogue site and remove links to it. The term "information location tool" is borrowed from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is understood to refer to search engines but could cover other sites that link to content. Nonauthoritative domain name servers would be ordered to take technically feasible and reasonable steps to prevent the domain name from resolving to the IP address of a website that had been found by the court to be "dedicated to infringing activities." The website could still be reached by its IP address, but links or users that used the website's domain name would not reach it. Search engines—such as Google—would be ordered to "(i) remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the [court] order; or (ii) not serve a hypertext link to such Internet site." Trademark and copyright holders who have been harmed by the activities of a website dedicated to infringing activities would be able to apply for a court injunction against the domain name to compel financial transaction providers and Internet advertising services to stop processing transactions to and placing ads on the website but would not be able to obtain the domain name remedies available to the Attorney General. Supporters Legislators The PROTECT IP Act has received bipartisan support in the Senate, with introduction sponsorship by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and, as of December 17, 2011, co-sponsorship by 40 Senators. Companies and trade organizations The bill is supported by copyright and trademark owners in business, industry, and labor groups, spanning all sectors of the economy. Supporters include the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the Independent Film & Television Alliance, the National Association of Theatre Owners, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Directors Guild of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the Screen Actors Guild, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Nashville Songwriters Association International, Songwriters Guild of America, Viacom, Institute for Policy Innovation, Macmillan Publishers, Acushnet Company, Recording Industry Association of America, Copyright Alliance and NBCUniversal. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO have come together in support of the bill. In May and September 2011, two letters signed by 170 and 359 businesses and organizations, respectively—including the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, Nike, 1–800 Pet Meds, L'Oreal, Rosetta Stone, Pfizer, Ford Motor Company, Revlon, NBA, and Sony—were sent to Congress which endorsed the Act and encouraged the passage of legislation to protect intellectual property and shut down rogue websites. David Hirschmann of the Chamber of Commerce complained about the state of the political debate in January 2012, saying that talk of loss of freedoms and censorship "has nothing to do with the substance of the bills." Hirschmann promised "to use every tool in our toolbox to make sure members of Congress know what's in these bills." Others Constitutional expert Floyd Abrams, representing the MPAA and related trade groups, wrote a Letter to Congress stating that the proposed PROTECT IP Act is constitutionally sound. Daniel Castro of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a think tank funded in part by the Information Technology Industry Council and the publisher of a 2009 report titled "Steal These Policies" that formed the basis for both SOPA and PIPA, defended PIPA's predecessor bill (COICA) in March 2011, saying "nobody's talking about taking down someone's personal website because they happen to use a copyrighted photo." In January 2012 ITIF Senior Research Fellow Richard Bennett said that criticism of the legislation was misinformed and overblown: "[t]he critics either don't understand what the bills do or are misrepresenting what the bills do. There's sort of a hysterical climate of criticism where people are objecting to something the bills don't do and are promoting noble causes like free speech and democracy but there is not much connection between what they are complaining about and what's in the legislation." Opponents Legislators Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (D) has publicly voiced opposition to the legislation, and placed a Senate hold on it in May 2011, citing concerns over possible damage to freedom of speech, innovation, and Internet integrity. Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown (R) has also publicly voiced his opposition to the legislation as well as its sister bill in the House, SOPA. Congressional opponents of PROTECT IP have introduced an alternative bill called the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN Act). Companies and organizations Among those who oppose the legislation are the Mozilla Corporation, Facebook, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Yahoo!, eBay, American Express, Reddit, Google, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, English Wikipedia, Entertainment Consumers Association and Uncyclopedia. Internet entrepreneurs including Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley signed a letter to Congress expressing their opposition to the legislation. The Tea Party Patriots have argued that the bill "is bad for consumers". A letter of opposition was signed by 130 technology entrepreneurs and executives and sent to Congress to express their concern that the law in its present form would "hurt economic growth and chill innovation in legitimate services that help people create, communicate, and make money online". English-language Wikipedia sites joined other Internet sites in protesting the PIPA and SOPA legislation by staging a "blackout" of service for 24 hours on January 18, 2012. Many websites protested, including: Wikipedia, CNet and Cheezburger network sites. Some websites denied access to their websites altogether. Campaigner Peter Bradwell of the Open Rights Group argues how this act could have a negative influence among other countries who are also considering this bill. "These two bills are too broad and so badly worded that perfectly lawful sites could be censored. One reason we're joining these protests is that we face very similar issues in UK copyright-enforcement policies. Highlighting these flaws should help UK policymakers avoid making the same mistakes." Others Law professors Mark Lemley (Stanford University), David S. Levine (Elon University), and David G. Post (Temple University) have criticized the PROTECT IP Act and SOPA. Reception On January 14, 2012, White House officials posted a statement saying, "Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small", and "We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet." Technical objections to DNS blocking and redirection The bill originally contained measures which would allow the stripping of rogue websites out of the Domain Name System (DNS), the Internet's virtual "phone book." If a user entered the web address of a rogue site, it would appear the site did not exist. The bill's sponsors have said they are removing this provision. According to Sherwin Siy of Public Knowledge, past attempts to limit copyright infringement online by way of blocking domains have always generated criticism that doing so would fracture the Domain Name System and threaten the global functionality of the Internet, with the original draft of this bill being no different. By design, all domain name servers worldwide should contain identical lists; with the changes initially proposed, servers inside the United States would have records different from their global counterparts, making URLs less universal. Five Internet engineers (Steve Crocker, David Dagon, Dan Kaminsky, Danny McPherson, and Paul Vixie) prepared a whitepaper which states that the DNS filtering provisions in the original bill "raise serious technical and security concerns" and would "break the Internet", while other engineers and proponents of the act have called those concerns groundless and without merit. One concern expressed by network experts is that hackers would offer workarounds to private users to allow access to government-seized sites, but these workarounds might also jeopardize security by redirecting unsuspecting users to scam websites. Supporters of the bill, such as the MPAA and RIAA, have argued that widespread circumvention of the filtering would be unlikely. The CEO of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation compared the DNS provisions to car door locks, noting that while they aren't foolproof against thieves, we should still use them. A group of Law professors, quoting Crocker's whitepaper, say that the PROTECT IP and Stop Online Piracy Acts could have the opposite of the intended impact, driving users to unregulated alternative DNS systems, and hindering the government from conducting legitimate Internet regulation. They question the constitutionality of both bills, believing they could have potentially disastrous technical consequences and would make US Internet law more like those of repressive regimes. They go on to state that both bills provide "nothing more than ex parte proceedings—proceedings at which only one side (the prosecutor or even a private plaintiff) need present evidence and the operator of the allegedly infringing site need not be present nor even made aware that the action was pending against his or her 'property.' This not only violates basic principles of due process by depriving persons of property without a fair hearing and a reasonable opportunity to be heard, it also constitutes an unconstitutional abridgement of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment." A browser plugin called MAFIAAFire Redirector was created in March 2011 that redirects visitors to an alternative domain when a site's primary domain has been seized. The Mozilla Foundation says that United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested by phone that Mozilla remove the plugin, a request with which they have not yet complied. Instead, Mozilla's legal counsel has asked for further information from the DHS, including legal justification for the request. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) argued that concerns about the domain name remedy in the legislation were undercut by the already ongoing use of these approaches to counter spam and malware. According to Daniel Castro, an ITIF analyst, DNS blocking is practiced in several democracies without "breaking the internet", including the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and South Korea. ITIF's CEO compared the DNS provisions to car door locks, writing that even though they aren't foolproof they can still be useful. On January 12, 2012, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT.), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would be willing to remove a controversial DNS-filtering provision from the bill. "I've authorized my staff to tell ... the other senators that I'm willing to hold that back in the final piece of legislation," Senator Leahy said. "That in itself will remove a lot of the opposition that we now have." Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), primary sponsor of the related House bill also expressed an intent to remove the DNS blocking provisions from SOPA. Civil liberties issues First Amendment scholars Laurence Tribe and Marvin Ammori raised concerns over how the PROTECT IP act would impact free speech, arguing that the act doesn't target just foreign rogue sites, and would extend to "domestic websites that merely 'facilitate' or 'enable' infringement. Thus, in their language, the bills target considerable protected speech on legitimate sites such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook." Ammori says that the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act "would miss their mark and silence a lot of non-infringing speech." The bill has been criticized by Abigail Phillips of the Electronic Frontier Foundation for not being specific about what constitutes an infringing web site. For example, if WikiLeaks were accused of distributing copyrighted content, U.S. search engines could be served a court order to block search results pointing to Wikileaks. Requiring search engines to remove links to an entire website altogether due to an infringing page would raise free speech concerns regarding lawful content hosted elsewhere on the site. Google chairman Eric Schmidt stated that the measures called for in PIPA are overly simple solutions to a complex problem, and that the precedent set by pruning DNS entries is bad from the viewpoint of free speech and would be a step toward less permissive Internet environments, such as China's. As the chairman of the company that owns the world's largest search engine, Schmidt said "If there is a law that requires DNSs to do X and it's passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it." Constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams said, "The Protect IP Act neither compels nor prohibits free speech or communication... the bill sets a high bar in defining when a website or domain is eligible for potential actions by the Attorney General...". Concern for user-generated sites Opponents of the legislation warn that the PROTECT IP Act would have a negative impact on online communities. Journalist Rebecca MacKinnon argued in an op-ed that making companies liable for users' actions could have a chilling effect on user-generated sites like YouTube. "The intention is not the same as China's Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar", she says. Policy analysts for New America Foundation say this legislation would enable law enforcement to take down an entire domain due to something posted on a single blog: "Yes, an entire, largely innocent online community could be punished for the actions of a tiny minority." Business and innovation issues A legal analysis by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes concerns by opponents such as American Express and Google that the inclusion of a private cause of action would result in stifled Internet innovation, protect outdated business models and at the cost of an overwhelming number of suits from content producers. "Legislation should not include a private right of action that would invite suits by 'trolls' to extort settlements from intermediaries or sites who are making good faith efforts to comply with the law," Google Senior Vice-president and General Counsel Kent Walker has said in Congressional testimony. "Rogue sites jeopardize jobs for film and TV workers," according to the Motion Picture Association of America, which cites several government and independent industry studies on the effects of online piracy, including a report by Envisional Ltd. which concluded that one quarter of the content on the internet infringes copyright. The Recording Industry Association of America points to a 2007 study by the Institute for Policy Innovation which found that online piracy caused $12.5 billion in losses to the U.S. economy and more than 70,000 lost jobs. "If we need to amend the DMCA, let's do it with a negotiation between the interested parties, not with a bill written by the content industry's lobbyists and jammed through Congress on a fast track," wrote venture capitalist and Business Insider columnist Fred Wilson in an October 29 editorial on the changes that the House and Senate versions of the proposed legislation would make to the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA. "Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and startups like Dropbox, Kickstarter, and Twilio are the leading exporters and job creators of this time. They are the golden goose of the economy and we cannot kill the golden goose to protect industries in decline," he said. The impact of the law on small businesses and entrepreneurs may also be disproportionate due to the high costs of complying with its legal, technical and administrative requirements. Online protests against the bill and announcement of delay On January 18, 2012, widespread online protests against SOPA and PIPA were held that included an English Wikipedia blackout. These protests were initiated when Fight for the Future organized thousands of the most popular websites in the world, including Reddit, Craigslist, and the English Wikipedia, to consider temporarily closing their content and redirecting users to a message opposing the proposed legislation. Several senators who sponsored PIPA, including Roy Blunt (R-MO) and John Boozman (R-AR) announced that they would withdraw support for the bill; on January 20 Senate Majority Leader Reid announced that a vote on PIPA would be postponed. Senator Leahy issued a press release stating that he understood Reid's decision "but the day will come when the Senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem. Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect American intellectual property, criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy." See also Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) Commercial Felony Streaming Act (Bill S.978) Communications Decency Act, contains pertinent definition of "interactive computer service" Copyright bills in the 2011-2012 United States Congress Copyright Term Extension Act, increased the length of copyright to as much as 120 years in some cases Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act PRO-IP Act, a 2008 law cited as a legal basis for Operation In Our Sites Protests against SOPA and PIPA Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, another proposed law which may create online privacy issues. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the corresponding House bill Trade group efforts against file sharing Trans-Pacific Partnership Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership References External links Text of the bill – GovTrack Bill S.968 Bill summary & Statistics – Thomas Original PDF and mirror Cost estimate by the CBO What Wikipedia Won't Tell You Cary H. Sherman (CEO, RIAA) – NYT, Op-Ed (02/08/2012). It’s Evolution, Stupid Peter Sunde (Co-Founder, The Pirate Bay) – Wired, Column (02/10/2012). United States proposed federal intellectual property legislation United States federal computing legislation Copyright enforcement Internet law in the United States 2011 in the United States 2012 in the United States

48201742

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPOPS-II

GPOPS-II

GPOPS-II (pronounced "GPOPS 2") is a general-purpose MATLAB software for solving continuous optimal control problems using hp-adaptive Gaussian quadrature collocation and sparse nonlinear programming. The acronym GPOPS stands for "General Purpose OPtimal Control Software", and the Roman numeral "II" refers to the fact that GPOPS-II is the second software of its type (that employs Gaussian quadrature integration). Problem Formulation GPOPS-II is designed to solve multiple-phase optimal control problems of the following mathematical form (where is the number of phases): subject to the dynamic constraints the event constraints the inequality path constraints the static parameter constraints and the integral constraints where and the integrals in each phase are defined as It is important to note that the event constraints can contain any functions that relate information at the start and/or terminus of any phase (including relationships that include both static parameters and integrals) and that the phases themselves need not be sequential. It is noted that the approach to linking phases is based on well-known formulations in the literature. Method Employed by GPOPS-II GPOPS-II uses a class of methods referred to as -adaptive Gaussian quadrature collocation where the collocation points are the nodes of a Gauss quadrature (in this case, the Legendre-Gauss-Radau [LGR] points). The mesh consists of intervals into which the total time interval in each phase is divided, and LGR collocation is performed in each interval. Because the mesh can be adapted such that both the degree of the polynomial used to approximate the state and the width of each mesh interval can be different from interval to interval, the method is referred to as an -adaptive method (where "" refers to the width of each mesh interval, while "" refers to the polynomial degree in each mesh interval). The LGR collocation method has been developed rigorously in Refs., while -adaptive mesh refinement methods based on the LGR collocation method can be found in Refs., . Development The development of GPOPS-II began in 2007. The code development name for the software was OptimalPrime, but was changed to GPOPS-II in late 2012 in order to keep with the lineage of the original version of GPOPS which implemented global collocation using the Gauss pseudospectral method. The development of GPOPS-II continues today, with improvements that include the open-source algorithmic differentiation package ADiGator and continued development of -adaptive mesh refinement methods for optimal control. Applications of GPOPS-II GPOPS-II has been used extensively throughout the world both in academia and industry. Published academic research where GPOPS-II has been used includes Refs., where the software has been used in applications such as performance optimization of Formula One race cars, Ref. where the software has been used for minimum-time optimization of low-thrust orbital transfers, where the software has been used for human performance in cycling, Ref. where the software has been used for soft lunar landing, and Ref. where the software has been used to optimize the motion of a bipedal robot. References External links GPOPS-II home page GPOPS-II Journal Article Appearing in the ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software Website of Anil V. Rao Mathematical optimization software Optimal control Mathematical software Numerical software

21448852

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerbr%C3%BCcke

Hackerbrücke

The Hackerbrücke (Hacker Bridge) is a road bridge across the main railway line in Munich immediately west of the town's central station. The first bridge was built at the beginning of the 1870s. In 1890-94 this was replaced by a new bridge, constructed by the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg ("Augsburg-Nuremberg machine factory"). It was partially destroyed during the second world war and restored in 1952–3. Six iron arches, 28.8 metres wide and eight metres high, carry the road; pairs of stone pillars support the arches. The bridge gives its name to the S-Bahn station Hackerbrücke, which is beneath the bridge and can only be accessed from it. References J. H. Biller and H.-P. Rasp, München, Kunst & Kultur, Munich: Südwest, ed. 18, 2006, p. 155. Buildings and structures in Munich Maxvorstadt Road bridges in Germany

752871

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia%20HomeSite

Macromedia HomeSite

HomeSite was an HTML editor originally developed by Nick Bradbury. Unlike WYSIWYG HTML editors such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver, HomeSite was designed for direct editing, or "hand coding", of HTML and other website languages. After a successful partnership with the company to distribute it alongside its own competing Dreamweaver software, HomeSite was acquired by Macromedia in 2001, after which elements of the software were integrated into Dreamweaver. Following the acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe Systems, the company announced on May 26, 2009 that HomeSite would be discontinued. History It was originally developed in Borland Delphi in 1995 by Nick Bradbury. Bradbury wrote HomeSite after using HotDog and being frustrated with it. In March 1997 Allaire Corporation from Cambridge, Massachusetts (founded by brothers Jeremy and J.J. Allaire) acquired HomeSite and Nick Bradbury joined Allaire. After leaving Allaire in 1998, Bradbury went on to work on the CSS/xHTML editor TopStyle and the RSS reader FeedDemon. Macromedia acquired Allaire in 2001 and was in turn acquired by Adobe in 2005. At Allaire, a version of HomeSite was created as an IDE for ColdFusion, selling as ColdFusion Studio. This version was later merged into Coldfusion MX under Macromedia, and was then called HomeSite+. Development of HomeSite continued in parallel, though the standalone HomeSite was still sold separately. In the days that HomeSite was under Nick Bradbury, and then part of Allaire, it had an enthusiastic following from its user community. While many software companies at the time had WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) website creation tools where the user never saw the code, Nick Bradbury created a product that was code centric and popular with those that preferred to work directly in the code, a concept that was dubbed "What You See Is What You Need." Further he built in a variety of ways that users could customize the user interface and extend the functionality. Allaire kept this concept going as its target market of ColdFusion users were code-centric as well. Allaire developers expanded upon Nick's original HomeSite capabilities by adding features like built-in scripting, improved syntax coloring, and VTML for tag insight and tag editors. Macromedia licensed a copy of HomeSite to include in Windows versions of Dreamweaver 1.0 (Mac versions bundled BBEdit). This OEM deal started the relationship between the companies and eventually led to the acquisition of Allaire by Macromedia in 2001. Although Macromedia improved the hand coding features in Dreamweaver 6.0 (MX) to be more on par with HomeSite, the company continued to produce both products separately, stating that "both products are excellent for their specific purposes." Macromedia was then acquired by Adobe in 2005. In May 2009, Adobe elected to cease development of HomeSite, and no longer supports the product, though they still maintain a forum for active users . Instead, existing HomeSite users are asked to consider switching to the newest version of Dreamweaver. Versions Homesite 1.x (September 1996) Allaire Homesite 2.0 Allaire Homesite 2.5a (1997) Allaire HomeSite 3.0 (November 1997) Allaire HomeSite 4.0 (November 1998) Allaire HomeSite 4.5 (1999) Macromedia HomeSite 5.0 (2001) Macromedia HomeSite 5.2 (January 2003) Macromedia HomeSite 5.5 (September 2003) There was also another version called HomeSite+ which was included in Dreamweaver MX 2004 and greater. HomeSite+ had additional functionality for ColdFusion application development, and was generally comparable to the version of HomeSite formerly called ColdFusion Studio. HomeSite+/CF Studio versions parallel standalone HomeSite versions. Features Customizable interface that includes dockable toolbars with custom buttons, a snippet manager with "tag snippets," and custom dialogs and wizards written in the VTML language. Extensively script-able to automate tasks or to perform advanced tasks using JavaScript or VBScript Macro recorder can record a series of actions to create scripts for later playback Enhanced code snippets save time by creating and saving reusable blocks of code, and can prompt for variable replacement when used. Customizable syntax color-coding for ASP, CFML, CSS, HTML, Java, JavaScript, JSP, Perl, PHP, SQL, VBScript, VTML and XHTML. Syntax-coloring parser syntax and examples are available to help users to extend or write their own. Search and replace utility CSS editing via the included TopStyle Lite, or via integration with the full version of TopStyle, if available Check your code with the built-in Code Validator, or use CSE HTML Validator with UI integration Customizable code formatting formats your code to standards with Code Sweeper or HTML Tidy. Integrated help browser shows installed help docs or HTML-format document sets added by the user. Useful for local, searchable copies of standards, tutorials, language references, etc. Project management and built-in FTP help manage and upload websites Built-in tools for page link-checking, document weight and spell-checking Works with source and version control software that supports SCCI, and with other packages via custom toolbars Assign keyboard shortcuts to almost any function, or to your own scripts or code snippets The integrated browser view and the external browser list let you view your edited document quickly in your choice of browsers. Available in French and German (older versions only, 5.5 is English-only) XHTML 1.0 Support Extensive right-click menu library including the ability to select an entire tag. See also List of HTML editors TopStyle by Stefan van As / Nick Bradbury Nick Bradbury References External links ASP4HS ASP, PHP, .Net, XML, XSL, SQL development extensions for HomeSite, user community add-on repository Homesite Custom Dialogs About.com Resources Marjolein's Help for HomeSite Users Bradbury Software Nick Bradbury's Blog HomeSite HTML editors 1996 software Discontinued software Discontinued Adobe software

46791556

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra%20Palmer%20%28entrepreneur%29

Sandra Palmer (entrepreneur)

Sandra Marie Palmer (born 4 August 1969) is a Jamaican entrepreneur who founded information technology company SSP APTEC in 1997, opening a branch in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2002. In 2014, she founded Soulmates, a boutique match-making social club, and Peak Performance International, a consulting firm. From the start of 2020, she lectures on New Ventures and Entrepreneurship at the Mona School of Business and Management at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and Managerial Economics and New Venture Creation at Northern Caribbean University. In 2010, the World Bank named her as one of the top female entrepreneurs in Latin America and the Caribbean. On August 2, 2016, she was appointed CEO and Senior Citizen at Above or Beyond (formerly The Job Bank). The new organisation plans to establish on its past legacy in the area of human capital development by strengthening its internal capacity and expanding its reach in the Caribbean. Early life and education Sandra Palmer was born in the small, rural community of Topsham located in Manchester, Jamaica. She has two younger brothers. She attended Coley's Mountain Primary School from 1974 to 1980. Upon failing her first attempt at the Common Entrance Examination, she was sent to Nazareth All Age School in 1980 where she was successful in her second attempt at the Common Entrance Examination moving on to Bishop Gibson High School for Girls in Mandeville in 1981. She graduated from Bishop Gipson in 1986. After spending time briefly in the banking sector, she began pursuing tertiary education in 1989 at the University of the West Indies, Mona. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree, majoring in History, Political Science and Economics. In 1997, she earned her Master of Business Administration (with Distinction) from Nova Southeastern University at the H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship, where she specialized in General Management. In 2004, she completed her doctorate in Business Administration with honours from Nova Southeastern University’s H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship where she specialized in Information Technology Management. Her doctoral dissertation entitled "A Study of the Inclination of Jamaican Employees to Opt for Telework: A Comparison with Findings for United Kingdom Employees" was published in 2004. Career Palmer worked at the National Commercial Bank for four years until she resigned in 1990 to focus completely on her university education. After completing her first degree she began working at the information technology firm WTG-APTEC. In 1996, she left and joined GraceKennedy’s InfoGrace team as corporate account executive. In October 1997, Palmer started SSP APTEC Limited in Kingston, Jamaica, an information technology company providing audio-visual equipment. The firm also advised the top management of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and institutions on issues of strategy, organizational operations and technology. In November 2002, she expanded to Florida under the name SSP APTEC Inc. and remained in that market for 10 years. In March 2012, after almost two decades, she suspended both companies and went into academia full-time. Palmer was acknowledged in the World Bank report "Women's Economic Opportunities in the Formal Private Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean: A focus on Entrepreneurship in 2010 for her entrepreneurial pursuits and was cited as one of Jamaica's most successful female entrepreneurs". In 2014, she founded two companies: Peak Performance International, which offers executive coaching, business and life coaching, motivational and keynote speaking as well as management consulting; and Soulmates, an exclusive match-making site, which finds love for the affluent and successful individual who is seeking a meaningful long-term relationship. As a core philosophy, Palmer believes that "only the companies who rethink their strategies and put plans in place to respond to the new business environment will remain viable or even survive." In August 2017, Palmer became CEO and Senior Partner at Above or Beyond (formerly The JobBank), the corporate brand of Leahcim T. Semaj and Company Limited. Her role is to leverage her experience in business and academia to lead the organisation during this transitional period and beyond. As a serial entrepreneur, Palmer has created and led successful businesses over the last two decades in Information Technology, Trucking, Coatings and Luxury Services. She has created a distinct personal brand that makes a real difference in the lives of individuals and organisations she touches. Lecturing Palmer began her career in education at Jamaica College as a teacher of Caribbean History. She left after one semester but would return to education in 2007 when she became a lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Mona School of Business and Management and also at Northern Caribbean University, College of Business and Hospitality Management. At the Mona School of Business and Management at the University of the West Indies], Palmer redesigned the New Ventures and Entrepreneurship course, in the MBA, MBM, and EMBA programs at the University. At Northern Caribbean University, she teaches Business Writing, Entrepreneurship and New Venture Initiatives, and Managerial Economics in the MBA program. She also lectured Entrepreneurship at the University of Technology in Jamaica from 2007 to 2014. From 2012 to 2014, she served as Dean of Undergraduate Studies at the University College of the Caribbean and also as the Director of Information Services. Author Palmer's auto-biography is On Seraph Wings: Memoirs of a Country Girl. References Jamaican educators Jamaican business executives 1969 births Living people Consultants

5105768

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul%20Amarel

Saul Amarel

Saul Amarel (1928 – December 18, 2002) was a professor of computer science at Rutgers University, and best known for his pioneering work in artificial intelligence (AI). He also had a career as a scientist, engineer, and teacher. He was a contributor to advanced computing and AI methodologies, both applied to scientific inquiry as well as engineering practice. Biography Amarel was born into a Thessaloniki, Greek Jewish family in 1928. He served in the Greek Resistance movement during World War II as the Germans invaded Greece. He was forced to flee with his family to Gaza, which was then in British Palestine. Amarel graduated from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in engineering and worked for the Israeli Ministry of Defense before heading to the United States. There he obtained his master's degree in 1953 and then a doctorate in Electrical Engineering in 1955 from Columbia University in New York. From 1958 to 1969, Amarel led the Computer Theory Research Group at RCA Sarnoff Labs. In 1969, Amarel founded the Department of Computer Science at Livingston College of Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. From 1985 to 1988, Amarel served as Director of the Information Sciences and Technology Office for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 1988, Amarel returned to Rutgers and was appointed the Alan M. Turing Professor of Computer Science, pioneering research in the field of AI. Amarel received the Allen Newell Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for his wide-ranging contributions to Artificial Intelligence, especially in advancing our understanding of the role of representation in problem solving, and of the theory and practice of computational planning. He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1994. Amarel lived in Princeton, New Jersey, where he died in 2002 from a heart attack following a six-year battle with cancer. This occurred just as the celebration of his retirement from Rutgers University, after more than 40 years of leadership in computer science nationally and internationally, was under preparation for December 20, 2002. References External links AI Article Article from Smart Computing Oral history interview with Saul Amarel, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. 1928 births 2002 deaths Greek Jews Greek people of World War II Greek Resistance members Jews from Thessaloniki Greek emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Israeli emigrants to the United States American people of Greek-Jewish descent Rutgers University faculty Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Jewish American scientists People from Princeton, New Jersey Israeli people of Greek-Jewish descent 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews

37113551

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005%20Arizona%20Wildcats%20football%20team

2005 Arizona Wildcats football team

The 2005 Arizona Wildcats football team represented the University of Arizona during the 2005 NCAA Division I-A football season. They were coached by Mike Stoops in his second season with the Wildcats. They ended the year with a 3–8 record (2–6 against Pac-10 opponents), which was identical to the previous season in terms of the record. Despite a below-average record, the season featured a blowout upset victory over UCLA in November that was a high point for the Wildcats during the year. Previous season The Wildcats finished Stoops’ first season in 2004 with a record of 3–8, which was highlighted by a upset win over rival Arizona State in the finale. Prior to the season, Stoops, who served under brother Bob at Oklahoma, was hired by Arizona and inherited a program that was marred by controversies that happened under former coach John Mackovic, who was fired during the 2003 season. The Wildcats had struggled to recover from the effects of the Mackovic incidents, which led to them losing frequently and Stoops was brought in to turn the program around. As a result of Mackovic's troubles, Stoops referred to the program as “filthy and dirty” and that he had to clean up the mess that was caused by his predecessor in order to help the team win games. Despite the 2004 season being referred to as rebuilding year for Arizona, the team continued to struggle for wins, but managed to recover late by beating ASU which showed signs that Stoops was returning a winning formula that was lost under most of Mackovic's tenure. Also, the end of the season showed hope that Stoops would bring talent to the team to continue building success by bringing in big recruiting classes. Before the season During the offseason, Stoops and his coaching staff went on recruiting trips to get players that would help the Wildcats improve from their 2004 season. By the start of the preseason, the team introduced red jerseys that were to be worn during select home games. It would become the first time since 1980 that Arizona will red at home (they traditionally wore blue jerseys for home games). Stoops believed that wearing red would help the team have a success at winning, though Stoops wanted the Wildcats to distinguish themselves from a few other Pac-10 schools (including USC, Stanford, Washington State, and Arizona State) whose colors are a variation of red, though Arizona and California have blue as one of their colors, Arizona's blue is slightly lighter than Cal's. The addition of red jerseys, along with the blue helmets that were introduced prior to the start of the previous season, would lead to excitement from fans who believed that the Wildcats would be prepared to compete and have an impact on future success (the fans have often worn red during Arizona's home games since Stoops became coach as it was considered a good luck charm for the team and that wearing blue would be bad luck). Schedule Game summaries Utah In the season opener, the Wildcats traveled to Salt Lake City for a Friday night matchup with Utah, who had gotten a new head coach. After a scoreless first quarter, the Utes would take control and led 27–10 in the second half before Arizona rallied to get within 27–24 in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately, the Wildcats would come up short and started the season at 0–1. This was the final non-conference game between Arizona and Utah before they would meet again in 2011, as the Utes (along with Colorado) would join the Pac-10, which would be renamed the Pac-12. Northern Arizona For the second consecutive year and the third time in four seasons, Arizona hosted NAU in their home opener (Stoops got his first victory by beating NAU in the 2004 opener). The Wildcats would dominate in the first half with a 24–3 lead at the half. The Lumberjacks got into a rhythm in the second half and would shrink the Arizona lead in half at 24–12. However, in the fourth quarter, a Wildcat touchdown would break the game open and Arizona earned their first win of the year to even their record at 1–1. Purdue In their first big test, the Wildcats played Purdue, who was ranked 12th and it was rematch of the 2003 matchup between the two that saw Purdue embarrass Arizona. The Wildcats wore their red jerseys for the first time since 1980, and sent Arizona Stadium in a frenzy as a result. However, all of that went for naught, as the Boilermakers would capitalize on several Arizona mistakes which led to the Wildcats losing despite them keeping the game close for most of the early part. With the loss, Arizona fell to 1–2 on the season. California In their Pac-10 opener, Arizona traveled to Berkeley to face California who had shut out the Wildcats in the previous year. The Golden Bears would dominate all game long and held Arizona scoreless yet again. It was the second straight season that Cal handed Arizona a shutout. USC The Wildcats remained on the road for the second week in a row, as they traveled to USC to take on the top-ranked Trojans. As USC was the reigning national champion (though its BCS title was later vacated by the NCAA in 2010 due to violations) and being on a 26-game winning streak that dated back to 2003, Stoops made headlines days before the game by remarking that the Trojans were “too hard to beat” and “played like an NFL team” due to their dominant and powerful NFL-style offense that was incredibly difficult to slow down and that the Wildcats would not have a chance to compete with as a result. At the start of the game, Stoops was met with chants of “Who’s hard to beat?” and “Who plays like an NFL team?” by USC fans, as they heard of Stoops’ comments as it hit the media sources. In the game, Arizona would hang tough with the Trojans, as they only trailed 28-21 after the first three quarters. However, in the fourth, Stoops’ remarks proved to be true as USC would show why they were the top-ranked team by pulling away with a pair of touchdowns to earn the victory and extend their win streak to 27 games. It was the third straight season that USC scored 40 points or more against Arizona, making Stoops’ remarks true as the Trojans’ pro-style offense was in fact dominant against the Wildcats. Stanford Arizona returned home to play Stanford in the first meeting between the two teams since 2002 and the first at home for the Wildcats since 2001. The Wildcats were looking to earn their first Pac-10 win of the year and would strike first in the opening quarter before the Cardinal came back to take the lead before halftime. Stanford would add to their lead in the second half, though Arizona kept the game close for most of the way, but would fall short to lose yet again. The Wildcats committed five turnovers, which was a major factor in the loss. Oregon The Wildcats hosted 15th-ranked Oregon in their next game and looked for their first conference victory with an upset. The Ducks would put Arizona into a hole early by scoring 21 points in the opening quarter which included Oregon returning a punt into a score. In the second quarter, the Wildcats, with a change at quarterback, got back into the game with two touchdowns of their own to cut the deficit to seven by halftime. Arizona would score in the third quarter to tie it at 21, which completed a comeback from their large first-quarter deficit. However, in the fourth, Arizona, in an attempt to take the lead, would lose a fumble that led to Oregon returning it for a touchdown for a 28–21 lead. The Wildcats tried to respond late, but would make mistakes on offense and lost once again. It was their fifth straight defeat since defeating NAU in early September. In addition to Arizona changing quarterbacks during the game, Oregon would lose their starting quarterback to a season-ending injury. Despite Arizona's backup performing better, it wasn't enough to lead the Wildcats to an upset win, mainly due to several offensive miscues during the game. Stoops said after the game that he needed a change at quarterback in an attempt to turn the offense's performance around, as they struggled to score points entering the game against the Ducks. Oregon State As they still continued to look for their first Pac-10 win, Arizona traveled on the road to Oregon State. The Wildcats, under a new quarterback, would dominate the Beavers in the first half and led 23–10 at halftime. In the second half, Oregon State regrouped and rallied to get within 29-27 late in the fourth quarter and threatened at the lead by driving into Wildcat territory. However, Arizona's defense forced a turnover and the Wildcats finally earned their first conference victory. It was Arizona's first win over the Beavers since 1998 and their first in October since 2000. Also, it was the first time since 2000 that the Wildcats defeated a Pac-10 team other than Arizona State, California, or Washington. Arizona's defense forced seven turnovers by Oregon State, including a late fumble as well as interception on the game's final play, which became a difference in the Wildcat victory. UCLA After defeating Oregon State on the road, the Wildcats went back home and hosted unbeaten and 7th-ranked UCLA on homecoming day. Arizona would surprise the Bruins with a 21–0 lead after the opening quarter by using an energetic offense and increased their lead to 28–0 in the second before UCLA got on the board. The Wildcats would get a field goal late to take a 31–7 lead at the half with Arizona Stadium in a frenzy. In the second half, Arizona continued their domination with 21 more points, which included a punt return touchdown and then a defensive score caused by UCLA fumbling on a backwards lateral pass that was recovered by the Wildcats in the end zone, for a 52–7 lead and breaking the game wide open. In the fourth quarter, the Bruins added a touchdown during garbage time to make it 52–14, but the deficit was too large to overcome and the Wildcats got the upset win as fans rushed the field as time expired. It was Arizona's third win of the year, which matched the previous season total. The Wildcats dominated on both sides of ball in their first win over an unbeaten opponent in a homecoming game since their infamous win over Washington in 1992. It was also was Arizona's first victory over UCLA since 1999 and their first at home since 1996. In addition, it was the first time under Stoops that the Wildcats won consecutive games (prior to this, the last time that Arizona had won at least two straight games occurred early in the 2002 season). Washington Coming off of their blowout victory over UCLA, Arizona hosted Washington in their home finale and looked to earn their third straight win. Both teams would hang tough in the first half, as the Wildcats led 14-7 late in the second quarter. However, the Huskies converted a successful Hail Mary pass for a touchdown on the final play before halftime to tie it at 14. The play would swing momentum toward Washington, as they would take control of the second half and shut out Arizona 24–0 to pull away for the win and led to their first Pac-10 victory since 2003 (Washington had lost 14 consecutive conference games before then). The Wildcats committed five turnovers, including four in the second half, which led to Husky points and becoming the main reason for the loss. Arizona State The Wildcats concluded the season with the annual rivalry game against Arizona State. It was Stoops’ first trip to Tempe as Arizona sought a second straight win over the Sun Devils after winning the previous season. After both teams traded field goals to start the game, a botched punt attempt by Arizona led to an ASU safety, which gave them the lead. In the second quarter, the Wildcats would score a pair of touchdowns to lead 17–5 at halftime. In the third quarter, Arizona added a field goal to make it 20-5 before the Devils scored to get within eight at 20–12. In the fourth quarter, the Wildcats suffered injuries to their quarterback and running back, which would affect their offense and had to bring in their backup quarterback, who beat ASU a year ago. With under eight minutes to play, the game made its turning point as Arizona State returned a punt for a touchdown and scored a two-point conversion to tie at 20, which caused Sun Devil Stadium to erupt in delirium. The sequence of events by ASU changed the momentum of the game, which Arizona controlled for most of it, as they would force a punt by the Wildcats and gave the Devils the ball back for a chance at the lead with the game on the line. ASU would drive down the field in the final minutes and got into Wildcat territory and field goal range. In the closing seconds, ASU kicked the ball through the goal posts for a 23–20 lead. After an unsuccessful kickoff return by Arizona, the Devils completed the comeback for the win and brought the Territorial Cup (the rivalry trophy) back to Phoenix/Tempe and became bowl-eligible, and the Wildcats’ season ended at a 3–8 record for the second consecutive year. Awards and honors Mike Thomas, WR, Pac-10 offensive freshman of the year Darrell Brooks, FS, First-team All-Pac-10 Antoine Cason, CB, Second-team All-Pac-10 Copeland Bryan, DE, Second-team All-Pac-10 Danny Baugher, P, Second-team All-Pac-10 Season notes Arizona finished with the same record as they did in the previous season at 3–8. This was the first time since 2000-01 that the Wildcats ended consecutive seasons with identical records (they went 5–6 in both 2000 and 2001). Despite expectations that the Wildcats would improve from their 2004 season, injuries and a below-average offense as well as a tough schedule against difficult opponents hurt Arizona's chances, leading to the 3–8 season. Under a new quarterback in charge for most of the second half of the season, the Arizona offense slightly improved and earned a huge win over UCLA, while the defense continued its improvement. Were it not for mistakes and a few injuries, the Wildcats would have ended the regular season on a winning streak and possibly have been bowl-eligible. Wide receiver Mike Thomas would become the top receiver for Arizona's offense for the rest of his Wildcat career and would later break both the Arizona and Pac-10 record for most catches by a single receiver in 2008, though he would ultimately be surpassed in the Pac-10/12 category. The season was very similar to 2004, as Arizona defeated NAU in their home opener for their first win and had to wait until the second half of the season to earn an elusive second win, though the win over Oregon State in late October meant that they did not wait until November to pick up their first Pac-10 victory for the first time since 2000. Arizona would not play Utah in Salt Lake City again until 2012. This would begin a pattern where the Wildcats play NAU in odd-numbered years (2005, 2007, 2009, etc.) This remains the only time to where Arizona played Purdue in Tucson. Arizona was shut out by California on the road for the second straight year. The punt return touchdown against UCLA was the Wildcats’ first since 2000. The Wildcats split the two games between the two Los Angeles teams that were ranked in the top ten when Arizona played them (losing on the road at USC and winning at home against UCLA). Many Wildcat fans have often believed that the win over the UCLA avenged Arizona's loss to UCLA in 1998 (that was also played in Tucson), which saw a top-ten Bruin squad prevent the Wildcats from earning both the outright Pac-10 title and Rose Bowl berth in the head-to head matchup that year, although Arizona was unranked in 2005 when they defeated UCLA. As Arizona beat a struggling Washington team on the road in 2004, the 2005 meeting was an opposite effect, as the Huskies, who were again struggling when they entered the game against the Wildcats, would defeat Arizona on the road, although the Wildcats had a losing record as well. With the Wildcats giving up a 20-5 second-half lead against Arizona State in the finale and losing it, it marked the first time since 1975 that Arizona lost to ASU after leading by at least 10 points at one point (in the 1975 meeting, the Wildcats led 14-3 early against ASU before the Sun Devils rallied to win 24–21). Arizona would suffer the same feat in 2012, 2017, and 2018. Arizona ended the year with a 2–6 conference record for the second consecutive season (they also finished with an identical record of 1–7 in Pac-10 games in 2002-03 prior to the Stoops era). The season continued a rebuild under Stoops, in which Arizona was attempting to recover from the post-Mackovic era. As the Wildcats finished with another 3–8 record, it led to speculation that Stoops would be placed on the hot seat in 2006, though Stoops became confident that the team would continue to improve as they entered the year. References Arizona Arizona Wildcats football seasons Arizona Wildcats football

2906333

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edubuntu

Edubuntu

Edubuntu, previously known as Ubuntu Education Edition, was an official derivative of the Ubuntu operating system designed for use in classrooms inside schools, homes and communities. Edubuntu was developed in collaboration with teachers and technologists in several countries. Edubuntu is built on top of the Ubuntu base, incorporates the LTSP thin client architecture and several education-specific applications, and is aimed at users aged 6 to 18. It was designed for easy installation and ongoing system maintenance. Features Included with Edubuntu is the Linux Terminal Server Project and many applications relevant to education including GCompris, KDE Edutainment Suite, Sabayon Profile Manager, Pessulus Lockdown Editor, Edubuntu Menueditor, LibreOffice, Gnome Nanny and iTalc. Edubuntu CDs were previously available free of charge through their Shipit service; it is only available as a download in a DVD format. Edubuntu's default GUI is Unity, while GNOME is still available. Unity has been the default GUI since the release of 12.04. Since release 7.10, KDE is also available as Edubuntu KDE. In 2010, Edubuntu and the Qimo 4 Kids project were working on providing Qimo within Edubuntu, but this was not done as it would not have fit on a CD. Project goals The primary goal of Edubuntu was to enable an educator with limited technical knowledge and skills to set up a computer lab or an on-line learning environment in an hour or less and then effectively administer that environment. The principal design goals of Edubuntu were centralized management of configuration, users and processes, together with facilities for working collaboratively in a classroom setting. Equally important was the gathering together of the best available free software and digital materials for education. According to a statement of goals on the official Edubuntu website: "Our aim is to put together a system that contains all the best free software available in education and make it easy to install and maintain." It also aimed to allow low income environments to maximize utilisation of their available (older) equipment. Versions The first Edubuntu release coincided with the release of Ubuntu 5.10, which was codenamed Breezy Badger on 2005-10-13. With the 8.04 Hardy Heron release of Edubuntu it was given the name of Ubuntu Education Edition and was changed to be an add-on to a standard Ubuntu installation instead of being an installable LiveCD. From version 9.10 onwards, Edubuntu changed to be available as a full system DVD instead of an Add-on CD. Edubuntu is also installable via a selection of "edubuntu" packages for all distributions using the official Ubuntu repositories (Ubuntu and Kubuntu mainly). Since 14.04, Edubuntu became LTS-only; Edubuntu announced that they would skip the 16.04 LTS update and that they planned on staying with 14.04 due to lack of contributors. See also List of Ubuntu-based distributions UberStudent Linux based on LTS versions of Xubuntu Skolelinux based on Debian Sugar-on-a-Stick educational Linux distribution based on Fedora References External links 2005 software Educational operating systems Free educational software Linux Terminal Server Project Ubuntu derivatives Linux distributions

64056412

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha%20Rhea%20Williams

Marsha Rhea Williams

Marsha Rhea Williams (born 1948) is an American educator and researcher, she is known for being the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science. She held many academic positions and was most recently a tenured professor at Tennessee State University. Additionally, she advocates for greater minority representation in STEM fields. Early life and education Williams was born on August 4, 1948 in Memphis, Tennessee, to parents James Edward Williams and Velma Lee Williams. In 1969, she earned her B.S. in physics from Beloit College. Afterwards, in 1971, she earned her M.S. in physics from the University of Michigan. After spending time in instructing positions, Williams arrived at Vanderbilt University to begin her doctoral studies. In 1976, she earned her M.S. in systems and information science at Vanderbilt. Then, in 1982, she earned her Ph.D. in computer science. In accomplishing this, she became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science. For her Ph.D., she wrote her dissertation, “The Design of the Computer Assisted Query Language (CAQL) System,” which “examined the emerging field of user experience in querying large databases.” Career Williams has held faculty positions at the University of Mississippi, Memphis State University, and Fisk University. She has also worked for IBM and was an NSF fellow. She most recently was a tenured professor of computer science at Tennessee State University. Williams was among the first African American professors to hold teaching positions in engineering and computer science at both the University of Mississippi and Tennessee State University. She has published several academic articles and presented at conferences. Williams is a member of several professional organizations, including the Association for Computing Machinery, the Association of Information Technology Professionals, and the Tennessee Academy of Science. She served on the board of the AITP's Data Processing Management Association. In addition to her research and education roles, Williams advocates for diversity in computer science and engineering. Williams advised the National Society of Black Engineering Students and founded the Association for Excellence in Computer Science, Math, and Physics. She has also directed Tennessee State's Project MISET (Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology). Her biography appears in several Who's Who publications. In addition, popular publications list her alongside other notable computer scientists such as Dorothy Vaughan and Melba Roy Mouton. Selected publications Williams, Marsha R. “The design of the computer assisted query language (caql) system.” Ph.D. Dissertation. 1982. Vanderbilt University, USA. Williams, Marsha R. “Engineering Management and Technical Solutions to Human Problems: A Computer-Related Example.” Engineering Management International, vol. 1, no. 3, 1982, pp. 227–237., doi:10.1016/0167-5419(82)90022-9. Williams, Marsha R. “Information Technology Resources for Education in Developing Countries.” Capacity Building for IT in Education in Developing Countries, 1998, pp. 251–260., doi:10.1007/978-0-387-35195-7_27. References Beloit College alumni University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni Vanderbilt University alumni Women computer scientists Women academics 1948 births Living people

63694441

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCN%20Protocol

TCN Protocol

The Temporary Contact Numbers Protocol, or TCN Protocol, is an open source, decentralized, anonymous exposure alert protocol developed by Covid Watch in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Covid Watch team, started as an independent research collaboration between Stanford University and the University of Waterloo was the first in the world to publish a white paper, develop, and open source fully anonymous Bluetooth exposure alert technology in collaboration with CoEpi after writing a blog post on the topic in early March. Covid Watch's TCN Protocol received significant news coverage and was followed by similar decentralized protocols in early April 2020 like DP-3T, PACT, and Google/Apple Exposure Notification framework. Covid Watch then helped other groups like the TCN Coalition and MIT SafePaths implement the TCN Protocol within their open source projects to further the development of decentralized technology and foster global interoperability of contact tracing and exposure alerting apps, a key aspect of achieving widespread adoption. Covid Watch volunteers and nonprofit staff also built a fully open source mobile app for sending anonymous exposure alerts first using the TCN Protocol and later using the very similar Google/Apple Exposure Notification Framework (ENF). The protocol, like BlueTrace and the Google / Apple contact tracing project, use Bluetooth Low Energy to track and log encounters with other users. The major distinction between TCN and protocols like BlueTrace is the fact the central reporting server never has access to contact logs nor is it responsible for processing and informing clients of contact. Because contact logs are never transmitted to third parties, it has major privacy benefits over approaches like the one used in BlueTrace. This approach however, by its very nature, does not allow for human-in-the-loop reporting, potentially leading to false positives if the reports are not verified by public health agencies. The TCN protocol received notoriety as one of the first widely released digital contact tracing protocols alongside BlueTrace, the Exposure Notification framework, and the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) project. It also stood out for its incorporation of blockchain technology, and its influence over the Google/Apple project. Overview The TCN protocol works off the basis of Temporary Contact Numbers (TCN), semi-random identifiers derived from a seed. When two clients encounter each other, a unique TCN is generated, exchanged, and then locally stored in a contact log. Then, once a user tests positive for infection, a report is sent to a central server. Each client on the network then collects the reports from the server and independently checks their local contact logs for a TCN contained in the report. If a matching TCN is found, then the user has come in close contact with an infected patient, and is warned by the client. Since each device locally verifies contact logs, and thus contact logs are never transmitted to third parties, the central reporting server cannot by itself ascertain the identity or contact log of any client in the network. This is in contrast to competing protocols like BlueTrace, where the central reporting server receives and processes client contact logs. Temporary contact numbers The entire protocol is based on the principle of temporary contact numbers (TCN), a unique and anonymous 128-bit identifier generated deterministically from a seed value on a client device. TCNs are used to identify people with which a user has come in contact, and the seed is used to compactly report infection to a central reporting server. TCN reports are authenticated to be genuine by a secret held only by the client. Generation To generate a TCN, first a report authorization key (RAK) and report verification key (RVK) are created as the signing and verification keys of a signature scheme (RAK-RVK pair). In the reference implementation this pair is created using the Ed25519 signature scheme. Then, using the RAK an initial temporary contact key (TCK) is generated using the algorithm , where is the SHA-256 hash function as . This TCK is not used to generate any TCNs, but is used in the next TCK; where all future TCKs are calculated using the algorithm . A 128 bit TCN is then generated from a given TCK using the algorithm , where formats a supplied number as a little endian unsigned 2 byte integer, and is the SHA-256 hash function as . The following diagram demonstrates the key derivation process:TCNs are unique to each device encounter, and RAK-RVK pairs are cycled at regular intervals to allow a client to report only specific periods of contact. Reporting When a client wishes to submit a report for the TCN indices to , it structures the report as . A signature is then calculated using the RAK, and it is transmitted to the server as . Because any given TCK can only be used to derive an equal or higher indexed TCNs, by submitting no encounters prior to can be calculated. However, there is no upper limit to encounters calculated using the same RAK-RVK pair, which is why they are cycled often. To prevent clients calculating unused TCNs, indicates the last TCN index generated with the given RVK. Additionally, since the RVK is used to calculate a TCK, and is provided, no valid TCNs in the reporting period can be derived from an illegitimate report. The only correct TCN calculable from a mismatched RVK and is , the TCN before the start of the reporting period. Once a report is received, clients individually recalculate TCKs and TCNs for a given period using the original algorithms:This is used by client devices to check their local contact logs for potential encounters with the infected patient, but has the dual benefit of verifying reports since false reports will never produce matching TCNs. Memo In the report structure, the memo is a space for freeform messages that differ between TCN implementations. The section is between 2 and 257 bytes, and made up of a tag identifying the specific implementation, as well as a data and data length pair. It is formatted as . The data is standardized for different tags, and can be as follows: Technical specification The protocol can be divided into two responsibilities: an encounter between two devices running TCN apps, and the notification of potential infection to users that came in contact with a patient. For the purposes of this specification, these areas are named the encounter handshake, and infection reporting. The encounter handshake runs on Bluetooth LE and defines how two devices acknowledge each other's presence. The infection reporting is built on HTTPS and defines how infection notices are distributed among clients. Encounter handshake When two devices come within range of each other, they exchange a handshake containing TCNs. In order to achieve this the encounter handshake operates in two modes (both with two sub-modes), broadcast oriented and connection oriented. Broadcast oriented operates using the modes broadcaster and observer, while connection oriented operates using peripheral and central. The two modes are used to circumvent certain device limitations, particularly in regard to iOS restrictions in place before version 13.4. In both modes the protocol is identified with the 16 bit UUID . In broadcast mode, a broadcaster advertises a 16-byte TCN using the service data field of the advertisement data. The observer reads the TCN from this field. In connection-oriented mode, the peripheral advertises using the UUID. The service exposes a read and writeable packet for sharing TCNs. After sharing a TCN, the central disconnects from the peripheral. Infection reporting When a user tests positive for infection, they upload a signed report, allowing the past 14 days of encounters to be calculated, to a central server. On a regular basis, client devices download reports from the server and check their local contact logs using the verification algorithm. If there is a matching record, the app notifies the user to potential infection. TCN Coalition On 5 April 2020, the global TCN Coalition was founded by Covid Watch and other groups that had coalesced around what was essentially the same approach and largely overlapping protocols, with the goal to reduce fragmentation, and enable global interoperability of tracing and alerting apps, a key aspect of achieving widespread adoption. The TCN Coalition also helped establish the Data Rights for Digital Contact Tracing and Alerting framework, which functions as a bill of rights for users of such apps. Currently the protocol is used by TCN Coalition members CoEpi and Covid Watch, and was likely a source of inspiration for the similar Google / Apple contact tracing project. See also BlueTrace Google / Apple contact tracing project Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing References External links Covid Watch TCN Coalition Specification and reference implementation Application layer protocols Computer-related introductions in 2020 Software associated with the COVID-19 pandemic Bluetooth software Medical software Android (operating system) software IOS software 2020 software Software using the MIT license Digital contact tracing protocols Digital contact tracing protocols with decentralized reporting

27636179

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia%20Britannica%20Ultimate%20Reference%20Suite

Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite

Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite is an encyclopaedia based on the Encyclopædia Britannica and published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. It was published between 2003 and 2015. Product description The DVD contains over 100,000 articles, an atlas, around 35,000 media files (images, video and audio) and a dictionary and thesaurus based on Merriam-Webster. Awards Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite received the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers. Its predecessor, Britannica DVD, received Codie awards in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Linux support There is no official release of Britannica for the Linux operating system; however, a script is provided that can help experienced users run Encyclopædia Britannica 2004 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD (and other 2004 editions of Britannica) on Linux, with some limitations (for example the dictionary, Flash/QuickTime presentations, and content update functions do not work, and preferences must be edited manually). This script specifically requires version 1.3.1 of JRE, but can usually be made to work with newer versions if the version check is commented out. Minimum system requirements The 2012 edition states the following system requirements: See also Encyclopædia Britannica Encyclopædia Britannica Online References External links English-language encyclopedias British encyclopedias American encyclopedias Editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica Educational software for MacOS Educational software for Windows 21st-century encyclopedias Multimedia

59094059

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablerus%20%28mythology%29

Ablerus (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Ablerus (Ancient Greek: Ἄβληρος) was a Trojan soldier killed by Antilochus, son of Nestor with his lance during the Trojan War. Homer's Iliad briefly describes the killing of Ablerus at the hands of 'Nestor's Son', Antilochus, however there isn't much historical documentation of this figure from Greek mythology outside of this. Note References Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Homer. Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Trojans Characters in Greek mythology

37859257

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPAchecker

CPAchecker

CPAchecker is a framework and tool for formal software verification, and program analysis, of C programs. Some of its ideas and concepts, for example lazy abstraction, were inherited from the software model checker BLAST. CPAchecker is based on the idea of configurable program analysis which is a concept that allows expression of both model checking and program analysis with one formalism. When executed, CPAchecker performs a reachability analysis, i.e., it checks whether a certain state, which violates a given specification, can potentially be reached. One application of CPAchecker is the verification of Linux device drivers. Achievements CPAchecker came first in two categories (Overall and ControlFlowInteger) in the 1st Competition on Software Verification (2012) that was held at TACAS 2012 in Tallinn. CPAchecker came first (category Overall) in the 2nd Competition on Software Verification (2013) that was held at TACAS 2013 in Rome. Architecture CPAchecker operates on a control-flow automata (CFA); before a given C program can be analysed by the CPA algorithm, it gets transformed into a CFA. A CFA is a directed graph whose edges represent either assumptions or assignments and its nodes represent program locations. References External links Java platform software C programming language family Formal methods tools Static program analysis tools Software testing tools Abstract interpretation

1528164

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-tail%20traffic

Long-tail traffic

A long-tailed or heavy-tailed probability distribution is one that assigns relatively high probabilities to regions far from the mean or median. A more formal mathematical definition is given below. In the context of teletraffic engineering a number of quantities of interest have been shown to have a long-tailed distribution. For example, if we consider the sizes of files transferred from a web-server, then, to a good degree of accuracy, the distribution is heavy-tailed, that is, there are a large number of small files transferred but, crucially, the number of very large files transferred remains a major component of the volume downloaded. Many processes are technically long-range dependent but not self-similar. The differences between these two phenomena are subtle. Heavy-tailed refers to a probability distribution, and long-range dependent refers to a property of a time series and so these should be used with care and a distinction should be made. The terms are distinct although superpositions of samples from heavy-tailed distributions aggregate to form long-range dependent time series. Additionally there is Brownian motion which is self-similar but not long-range dependent. Overview The design of robust and reliable networks and network services has become an increasingly challenging task in today's Internet world. To achieve this goal, understanding the characteristics of Internet traffic plays a more and more critical role. Empirical studies of measured traffic traces have led to the wide recognition of self-similarity in network traffic. Self-similar Ethernet traffic exhibits dependencies over a long range of time scales. This is to be contrasted with telephone traffic which is Poisson in its arrival and departure process. With many time-series if the series is averaged then the data begins to look smoother. However, with self-similar data, one is confronted with traces which are spiky and bursty, even at large scales. Such behaviour is caused by strong dependence in the data: large values tend to come in clusters, and clusters of clusters, etc. This can have far-reaching consequences for network performance. Heavy-tail distributions have been observed in many natural phenomena including both physical and sociological phenomena. Mandelbrot established the use of heavy-tail distributions to model real-world fractal phenomena, e.g. Stock markets, earthquakes, and the weather. Ethernet, WWW, SS7, TCP, FTP, TELNET and VBR video (digitised video of the type that is transmitted over ATM networks) traffic is self-similar. Self-similarity in packetised data networks can be caused by the distribution of file sizes, human interactions and/or Ethernet dynamics. Self-similar and long-range dependent characteristics in computer networks present a fundamentally different set of problems to people doing analysis and/or design of networks, and many of the previous assumptions upon which systems have been built are no longer valid in the presence of self-similarity. Short-range dependence vs. long-range dependence Long-range and short-range dependent processes are characterised by their autocovariance functions. In short-range dependent processes, the coupling between values at different times decreases rapidly as the time difference increases. The sum of the autocorrelation function over all lags is finite. As the lag increases, the autocorrelation function of short-range dependent processes decays quickly. In long-range processes, the correlations at longer time scales are more significant. The area under the autocorrelation function summed over all lags is infinite. The decay of the autocorrelation function is often assumed to have the specific functional form, where ρ(k) is the autocorrelation function at a lag k, α is a parameter in the interval (0,1) and the ~ means asymptotically proportional to as k approaches infinity. Long-range dependence as a consequence of mathematical convergence Such power law scaling of the autocorrelation function can be shown to be biconditionally related to a power law relationship between the variance and the mean, when evaluated from sequences by the method of expanding bins. This variance to mean power law is an inherent feature of a family of statistical distributions called the Tweedie exponential dispersion models. Much as the central limit theorem explains how certain types of random data converge towards the form of a normal distribution there exists a related theorem, the Tweedie convergence theorem that explains how other types of random data will converge towards the form of these Tweedie distributions, and consequently express both the variance to mean power law and a power law decay in their autocorrelation functions. The Poisson distribution and traffic Before the heavy-tail distribution is introduced mathematically, the memoryless Poisson distribution, used to model traditional telephony networks, is briefly reviewed below. For more details, see the article on the Poisson distribution. Assuming pure-chance arrivals and pure-chance terminations leads to the following: The number of call arrivals in a given time has a Poisson distribution, i.e.: where a is the number of call arrivals and is the mean number of call arrivals in time T. For this reason, pure-chance traffic is also known as Poisson traffic. The number of call departures in a given time also has a Poisson distribution, i.e.: where d is the number of call departures and is the mean number of call departures in time T. The intervals, T, between call arrivals and departures are intervals between independent, identically distributed random events. It can be shown that these intervals have a negative exponential distribution, i.e.: where h is the Mean Holding Time (MHT). Information on the fundamentals of statistics and probability theory can be found in the external links section. The heavy-tail distribution Heavy-tail distributions have properties that are qualitatively different from commonly used (memoryless) distributions such as the exponential distribution. The Hurst parameter H is a measure of the level of self-similarity of a time series that exhibits long-range dependence, to which the heavy-tail distribution can be applied. H takes on values from 0.5 to 1. A value of 0.5 indicates the data is uncorrelated or has only short-range correlations. The closer H is to 1, the greater the degree of persistence or long-range dependence. Typical values of the Hurst parameter, H: Any pure random process has H = 0.5 Phenomena with H > 0.5 typically have a complex process structure. A distribution is said to be heavy-tailed if: This means that regardless of the distribution for small values of the random variable, if the asymptotic shape of the distribution is hyperbolic, it is heavy-tailed. The simplest heavy-tail distribution is the Pareto distribution which is hyperbolic over its entire range. Complementary distribution functions for the exponential and Pareto distributions are shown below. Shown on the left is a graph of the distributions shown on linear axes, spanning a large domain. To its right is a graph of the complementary distribution functions over a smaller domain, and with a logarithmic range. If the logarithm of the range of an exponential distribution is taken, the resulting plot is linear. In contrast, that of the heavy-tail distribution is still curvilinear. These characteristics can be clearly seen on the graph above to the right. A characteristic of long-tail distributions is that if the logarithm of both the range and the domain is taken, the tail of the long-tail distribution is approximately linear over many orders of magnitude. In the graph above left, the condition for the existence of a heavy-tail distribution, as previously presented, is not met by the curve labelled "Gamma-Exponential Tail". The probability mass function of a heavy-tail distribution is given by: and its cumulative distribution function is given by: where k represents the smallest value the random variable can take. Readers interested in a more rigorous mathematical treatment of the subject are referred to the external links section. What causes long-tail traffic? In general, there are three main theories for the causes of long-tail traffic (see a review of all three causes). First, is a cause based in the application layer which theorizes that user session durations vary with a long-tail distribution due to the file size distribution. If the distribution of file sizes is heavy-tailed then the superposition of many file transfers in a client/server network environment will be long-range dependent. Additionally, this causal mechanism is robust with respect to changes in network resources (bandwidth and buffer capacity) and network topology. This is currently the most popular explanation in the engineering literature and the one with the most empirical evidence through observed file size distributions. Second, is a transport layer cause which theorizes that the feedback between multiple TCP streams due to TCP's congestion avoidance algorithm in moderate to high packet loss situations causes self-similar traffic or at least allows it to propagate. However, this is believed only to be a significant factor at relatively short timescales and not the long-term cause of self-similar traffic. Finally, is a theorized link layer cause which is predicated based on physics simulations of packet switching networks on simulated topologies. At a critical packet creation rate, the flow in a network becomes congested and exhibits 1/f noise and long-tail traffic characteristics. There have been criticisms on these sorts of models though as being unrealistic in that network traffic is long-tailed even in non-congested regions and at all levels of traffic. Simulation showed that long-range dependence could arise in the queue length dynamics at a given node (an entity which transfers traffic) within a communications network even when the traffic sources are free of long-range dependence. The mechanism for this is believed to relate to feedback from routing effects in the simulation. Modelling long-tail traffic Modelling of long-tail traffic is necessary so that networks can be provisioned based on accurate assumptions of the traffic that they carry. The dimensioning and provisioning of networks that carry long-tail traffic is discussed in the next section. Since (unlike traditional telephony traffic) packetised traffic exhibits self-similar or fractal characteristics, conventional traffic models do not apply to networks which carry long-tail traffic. Previous analytic work done in Internet studies adopted assumptions such as exponentially-distributed packet inter-arrivals, and conclusions reached under such assumptions may be misleading or incorrect in the presence of heavy-tailed distributions. It has for long been realised that efficient and accurate modelling of various real world phenomena needs to incorporate the fact that observations made on different scales each carry essential information. In most simple terms, representing data on large scales by its mean is often useful (such as an average income or an average number of clients per day) but can be inappropriate (e.g. in the context of buffering or waiting queues). With the convergence of voice and data, the future multi-service network will be based on packetised traffic, and models which accurately reflect the nature of long-tail traffic will be required to develop, design and dimension future multi-service networks. We seek an equivalent to the Erlang model for circuit switched networks. There is not an abundance of heavy-tailed models with rich sets of accompanying data fitting techniques. A clear model for fractal traffic has not yet emerged, nor is there any definite direction towards a clear model. Deriving mathematical models which accurately represent long-tail traffic is a fertile area of research. Gaussian models, even long-range dependent Gaussian models, are unable to accurately model current Internet traffic. Classical models of time series such as Poisson and finite Markov processes rely heavily on the assumption of independence, or at least weak dependence. Poisson and Markov related processes have, however, been used with some success. Nonlinear methods are used for producing packet traffic models which can replicate both short-range and long-range dependent streams. A number of models have been proposed for the task of modelling long-tail traffic. These include the following: Fractional ARIMA Fractional Brownian motion Iterated Chaotic Maps Infinite Markov Modulated Processes Poisson Pareto Burst Processes (PPBP) Markov Modulated Poisson Processes (MMPP) Multi-fractal models Matrix models Wavelet Modelling Tweedie distributions No unanimity exists about which of the competing models is appropriate, but the Poisson Pareto Burst Process (PPBP), which is an M/G/ process, is perhaps the most successful model to date. It is demonstrated to satisfy the basic requirements of a simple, but accurate, model of long-tail traffic. Finally, results from simulations using -stable stochastic processes for modelling traffic in broadband networks are presented. The simulations are compared to a variety of empirical data (Ethernet, WWW, VBR Video). Network performance In some cases an increase in the Hurst parameter can lead to a reduction in network performance. The extent to which heavy-tailedness degrades network performance is determined by how well congestion control is able to shape source traffic into an on-average constant output stream while conserving information. Congestion control of heavy-tailed traffic is discussed in the following section. Traffic self-similarity negatively affects primary performance measures such as queue size and packet-loss rate. The queue length distribution of long-tail traffic decays more slowly than with Poisson sources. However, long-range dependence implies nothing about its short-term correlations which affect performance in small buffers. For heavy-tailed traffic, extremely large bursts occur more frequently than with light-tailed traffic. Additionally, aggregating streams of long-tail traffic typically intensifies the self-similarity ("burstiness") rather than smoothing it, compounding the problem. The graph above right, taken from, presents a queueing performance comparison between traffic streams of varying degrees of self-similarity. Note how the queue size increases with increasing self-similarity of the data, for any given channel utilisation, thus degrading network performance. In the modern network environment with multimedia and other QoS sensitive traffic streams comprising a growing fraction of network traffic, second order performance measures in the form of “jitter” such as delay variation and packet loss variation are of import to provisioning user specified QoS. Self-similar burstiness is expected to exert a negative influence on second order performance measures. Packet switching based services, such as the Internet (and other networks that employ IP) are best-effort services, so degraded performance, although undesirable, can be tolerated. However, since the connection is contracted, ATM networks need to keep delays and jitter within negotiated limits. Self-similar traffic exhibits the persistence of clustering which has a negative impact on network performance. With Poisson traffic (found in conventional telephony networks), clustering occurs in the short term but smooths out over the long term. With long-tail traffic, the bursty behaviour may itself be bursty, which exacerbates the clustering phenomena, and degrades network performance. Many aspects of network quality of service depend on coping with traffic peaks that might cause network failures, such as Cell/packet loss and queue overflow Violation of delay bounds e.g. In video Worst cases in statistical multiplexing Poisson processes are well-behaved because they are stateless, and peak loading is not sustained, so queues do not fill. With long-range order, peaks last longer and have greater impact: the equilibrium shifts for a while. Due to the increased demands that long-tail traffic places on networks resources, networks need to be carefully provisioned to ensure that quality of service and service level agreements are met. The following subsection deals with the provisioning of standard network resources, and the subsection after that looks at provisioning web servers which carry a significant amount of long-tail traffic. Network provisioning for long-tail traffic For network queues with long-range dependent inputs, the sharp increase in queuing delays at fairly low levels of utilisation and slow decay of queue lengths implies that an incremental improvement in loss performance requires a significant increase in buffer size. While throughput declines gradually as self-similarity increases, queuing delay increases more drastically. When traffic is self-similar, we find that queuing delay grows proportionally to the buffer capacity present in the system. Taken together, these two observations have potentially dire implications for QoS provisions in networks. To achieve a constant level of throughput or packet loss as self-similarity is increased, extremely large buffer capacity is needed. However, increased buffering leads to large queuing delays and thus self-similarity significantly steepens the trade-off curve between throughput/ packet loss and delay. ATM can be employed in telecommunications networks to overcome second order performance measure problems. The short fixed length cell used in ATM reduces the delay and most significantly the jitter for delay-sensitive services such as voice and video. Web site provisioning for long-tail traffic Workload pattern complexities (for example, bursty arrival patterns) can significantly affect resource demands, throughput, and the latency encountered by user requests, in terms of higher average response times and higher response time variance. Without adaptive, optimal management and control of resources, SLAs based on response time are impossible. The capacity requirements on the site are increased while its ability to provide acceptable levels of performance and availability diminishes. Techniques to control and manage long-tail traffic are discussed in the following section. The ability to accurately forecast request patterns is an important requirement of capacity planning. A practical consequence of burstiness and heavy-tailed and correlated arrivals is difficulty in capacity planning. With respect to SLAs, the same level of service for heavy-tailed distributions requires a more powerful set of servers, compared with the case of independent light-tailed request traffic. To guarantee good performance, focus needs to be given to peak traffic duration because it is the huge bursts of requests that most degrade performance. That is why some busy sites require more head room (spare capacity) to handle the volumes; for example, a high-volume online trading site reserves spare capacity with a ratio of three to one. Reference to additional information on the effect of long-range dependency on network performance can be found in the external links section. Controlling long-tail traffic Given the ubiquity of scale-invariant burstiness observed across diverse networking contexts, finding an effective traffic control algorithm capable of detecting and managing self-similar traffic has become an important problem. The problem of controlling self-similar network traffic is still in its infancy. Traffic control for self-similar traffic has been explored on two fronts: Firstly, as an extension of performance analysis in the resource provisioning context, and secondly, from the multiple time scale traffic control perspective where the correlation structure at large time scales is actively exploited to improve network performance. The resource provisioning approach seeks to identify the relative utility of the two principal network resource types – bandwidth and buffer capacity – with respect to their curtailing effects on self-similarity, and advocates a small buffer/ large bandwidth resource dimensioning policy. Whereas resource provisioning is open-loop in nature, multiple time scale traffic control exploits the long-range correlation structure present in self-similar traffic. Congestion control can be exercised concurrently at multiple time scales, and by cooperatively engaging information extracted at different time scales, achieve significant performance gains. Another approach adopted in controlling long-tail traffic makes traffic controls cognizant of workload properties. For example, when TCP is invoked in HTTP in the context of web client/ server interactions, the size of the file being transported (which is known at the server) is conveyed or made accessible to protocols in the transport layer, including the selection of alternative protocols, for more effective data transport. For short files, which constitute the bulk of connection requests in heavy-tailed file size distributions of web servers, elaborate feedback control may be bypassed in favour of lightweight mechanisms in the spirit of optimistic control, which can result in improved bandwidth utilisation. It was found that the simplest way to control packet traffic is to limit the length of queues. Long queues in the network invariably occur at hosts (entities that can transmit and receive packets). Congestion control can therefore be achieved by reducing the rate of packet production at hosts with long queues. Long-range dependence and its exploitation for traffic control is best suited for flows or connections whose lifetime or connection duration is long lasting. See also Elephant Flow Traffic generation model Tweedie distributions References Teletraffic Stochastic processes Tails of probability distributions Autocorrelation

1291396

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/License-free%20software

License-free software

License-free software is computer software that is not explicitly in the public domain, but the authors appear to intend free use, modification, distribution and distribution of the modified software, similar to the freedoms defined for free software. Since the author of the software has not made the terms of the license explicit, the software is technically copyrighted according to the Berne convention and as such is proprietary. Examples Examples of license-free software formerly included programs written by Daniel J. Bernstein, such as qmail, djbdns, daemontools, and ucspi-tcp. Bernstein held the copyright and distributed these works without license until 2007. From December 28, 2007, onwards, he started placing his software in the public domain with an explicit waiver statement. Additionally, small scripts are frequently released without specifying a license. For example, the website Userscripts.org hosts more than 52,000 Greasemonkey user scripts, the majority of which have no specified license. Similarly, GitHub reported in 2015 that 85% of the projects it hosts are unlicensed. Rights for users On his Software users' rights web page, Bernstein explains his belief that under the terms of copyright law itself software users are always allowed to modify software for their own personal use, regardless of license agreements. He says '"If you think you need a license from the copyright holder, you've been bamboozled by Microsoft. As long as you're not distributing the software, you have nothing to worry about."He also says that software users are allowed to back up, to compile, and to run the software that they possess. He further says that "since it's not copyright infringement for you to apply a patch, it's also not copyright infringement for someone to give you a patch," noting the case of Galoob v. Nintendo'' as precedent. Thus modified versions of license-free software can legally be distributed in source code form in whatever way that the original can, by distributing a patch alongside it. Reception and discussion Advocates of license-free software, such as Bernstein, argue that software licenses are harmful because they restrict the freedom to use software, and copyright law provides enough freedom without the need for licenses. Though having some restrictions, these licenses allow certain actions that are disallowed by copyright laws in some jurisdictions. If a license tries to restrict an action allowed by a copyright system, by Bernstein's argument those restrictions can be ignored. In fact, Bernstein's "non-license" of verbatim retransmission of source code is very similar in nature. Similar positions on licenses are voiced by Free culture activist Nina Paley in 2010. In 2013 Luis Villa argued similarly negative about the license usage of "open source", when the small number projects licensed on GitHub were noticed, identifying a "Post Open Source movement against the (license) permission culture". See also Anti-copyright notice Post Open Source Public domain software References External links 17 USC 117 FSF's (erstwhile) categorisation of the qmail licence as "non-free" (archive.org's snapshot) "qmail is not open source" - an article published by Russell Nelson, OSI board member in 2004, on end of 2007 it was changed to "qmail is now open source" UK Legislation Software licenses Open content

6729980

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison%20of%20antivirus%20software

Comparison of antivirus software

This a non-exhaustive list of notable antivirus and Internet Security software, in the form of comparison tables, according to their platform (e.g. desktop, mobile, server, etc.) and their operating systems (e.g. Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris, Android, iOS, Ubuntu Touch, Windows Phone, etc.). Legend The term "on-demand scan" refers to the possibility of performing a manual scan (by the user) on the entire computer/device, while "on-access scan" refers to the ability of a product to automatically scan every file at its creation or subsequent modification. The term "CloudAV" refers to the ability of a product to automatically perform scans on the cloud. The term "Email Security" refers to the protection of emails from viruses and malware, while "AntiSpam" refers to the protection from spam, scam and phishing attacks. The term "Web protection" usually includes protection from: infected and malicious URLs, phishing websites, online identity (privacy) protection and online banking protection. Many antivirus products use "third-party antivirus engine". This means that the antivirus engine is made by another producer; however, the malware signature and/or other parts of the product may (or may not) be done from the owner of the product itself. Desktop computers and servers Windows macOS Linux Solaris FreeBSD Mobile (Smartphones and tablets) Android iOS Windows Mobile This list excludes Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 as they do not support running protection programs. Symbian BlackBerry See also Antivirus software AV-Comparatives – Austrian organization testing antivirus and security software AV-TEST – German organization testing antivirus and security software Comparison of firewalls International Computer Security Association Internet Security List of computer viruses Virus Bulletin References Antivirus software Lists of software

43785137

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBeam

EBeam

eBeam is an interactive whiteboard system developed by Luidia, Inc. that transforms any standard whiteboard or other surface into an interactive display and writing surface. Luidia's eBeam hardware and software products allow text, images and video to be projected onto a variety of surfaces, where an interactive stylus or marker can be used to add notes, access control menus, manipulate images and create diagrams and drawings. The presentations, notes and images can be saved and emailed to class or meeting participants, as well as shared in real time on local networks or over the Internet. eBeam technology has been incorporated into other manufacturers' interactive whiteboard systems, such as the 3M "Wall Display" / Digital Board, Hitachi Starboard, Legamaster eBoard, and NEC's WT615 short throw projection unit. Technology eBeam technology uses infrared and ultrasound receivers to track the location of a transmitter-equipped pen, called a stylus, or a standard dry-erase marker in a transmitter-equipped sleeve. A separate receiver unit attaches to the edge of the whiteboard, wall or other writing surface, and determines the distance and direction of the transmitter pen using the known quantities and differences of the speed of light and the speed of sound. Luidia's eBeam technology was originally developed and patented by engineers at Electronics for Imaging Inc. (Nasdaq: EFII), a Foster City, Calif. developer of digital print server technology. Luidia was spun off from EFI in July 2003 with venture funding from Globespan Capital Partners and Silicom Ventures. Since then, Luidia has continued to update and expand its eBeam product line while adding numerous manufacturing partners, including Hitachi, NEC and Uchida. Products Luidia offers a variety of eBeam hardware and software products, including: Interactive Whiteboard Systems eBeam Edge and Edge Wireless – this hardware and software package works with digital projectors or displays to create interactive surfaces where users can manipulate and edit all files, websites and applications with an interactive stylus. eBeam Engage – this product includes the interactive components found in eBeam Edge and also has 18 W speakers, built-in microphone, a two-port USB hub, a scroll knob, and comes standard with the eBeam Wireless Keyboard. eBeam Capture – this addition to the eBEam Edge and Engage allow users to captures dry erase notes from any whiteboard, save them to a computer, edit and share them. Interactive software: eBeam Education Suite – Combines three apps including eBeam Home for organizing files, folders, links and apps, eBeam Scrapbook with unlimited digital whiteboards and built-in curriculum resources and teaching tools including real-time whiteboard sharing, and eBeam Tool Palette a floating circular palette for presenting, annotating, screen recording and sharing notes, presentations, images and web pages on a Mac, Windows or Linux computer. eBeam Workspace – Business software for presenting, interacting with and sharing meeting content - includes eBeam Tool Palette. eBeam Capture – Business and education software for capturing, sharing, editing and distributing traditional white-board content. eBeam Connect – Online cloud storage and collaborative environment from any device on the Internet Additional products eBeam Inscribe – Wireless tablet that let users write or perform mouse functions while away from the whiteboard. eBeam LiveWire – USB Device with auto-launch eBeam software. eBeam Battery Pack – Attaches to Edge Wireless to provide power to device without any cables. eBeam Display Bracket – Way to attach an Edge USB or Wireless to a display to create an interactive display. See also Office equipment Display technology Educational technology References External links Electronics for Imaging (EFI) Luidia Inc. - eBeam Luidia website Google Books results Review in PC Mag Review in InfoWorld VEngineers Co. Ltd (Mauritius) Office equipment Display technology

84969

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acestes

Acestes

In Roman mythology, Acestes or Egestes () was the son of the Sicilian river-god Crinisus by a Dardanian or Trojan woman named Egesta or Segesta. According to Servius, this woman Egesta or Segesta was sent by her father, Hippotes or Ipsostratus, to Sicily, that she might not be devoured by the monsters which infested the territory of Troy and which had been sent into the land, because the Trojans had refused to reward Poseidon and Apollo for having built the walls of their city. When Egesta arrived in Sicily, the river-god Crinisus in the form of a bear or a dog sired with her a son named Acestes, who was afterwards regarded as the hero who had founded the town of Segesta. The funeral games of Aeneas's father Anchises were held there. Those of Aeneas's folk who wished to voyage no further were allowed to remain behind with Acestes and together with Acestes's people they founded the city of Acesta, that is Segesta. The Aeneid cites him as giving wine as a farawell gift to Aeneas as he is leaving Sicily. Mythological tradition of Dionysius The tradition of Acestes in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who calls him Aegestus (), is different, for according to him, the grandfather of Aegestus quarreled with Laomedon, who slew him and gave his daughters to some merchants to convey them to a distant land. A noble Trojan however embarked with them, and married one of them in Sicily, where she subsequently gave birth to a son, Aegestus. During the war against Troy Aegestus obtained permission from Priam to return and take part in the contest, and afterwards returned to Sicily, where Aeneas on his arrival was hospitably received by him and Elymus, and built for them the towns of Aegesta and Elyme. The account of Dionysius seems to be nothing but a rationalistic interpretation of the genuine legend. Arrow of Acestes In the Aeneid, Acestes participates in a trial of skill in which he shoots his arrow which then bursts into flame as a sign from Jupiter of Acestes's deserved honor. References Roman mythology Characters in the Aeneid Demigods in classical mythology Children of Potamoi

36222222

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%20Information%20and%20Technology%20Branch

FBI Information and Technology Branch

The Information and Technology Branch (ITB) is a service within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The ITB is responsible for all FBI information technology needs and information management. ITB also promotes and facilitates the creation, sharing, and application of FBI knowledge products with the larger law enforcement community in order to improve overall nationwide crime fighting effectiveness. Leadership Headed by an FBI executive assistant director, the ITB is responsible to the FBI Director through the Associate Deputy Director. As a unit of the FBI (which is a component of the United States Department of Justice), the ITB is ultimately responsible to the Attorney General of the United States. The current ITB executive assistant director is Richard L. Haley II. The ITB executive assistant director previously served as the chief information officer of the FBI, but was spun off into its own office. The current chief information officer is Jonathan Moffa (acting). Organization The Information and Technology Branch is formed by three Divisions. FBI Information Technology Enterprise Services Division headed by Jeremy Wiltz FBI Information Technology Applications & Data Division headed by Michael Gavin FBI Information Technology Infrastructure Division headed by Dean Phillips References External links Federal Bureau of Investigation Website Federal Bureau of Investigation

4742116

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan%20Gunduli%C4%87

Trojan Gundulić

Trojan Gundulić (; c. 1500 - c. 1555) was a merchant and printer from the Republic of Ragusa who is remembered for his participation in the printing of the first book in Belgrade, The Four Gospels ("Četverojevanđelje"). Life Trojan was born in the town of Dubrovnik in the Republic of Ragusa (modern-day Croatia) into the Gondola family (Gundulić), which was a Ragusan noble family of Italian origins. Gundulić started as a barber in his hometown and remained in this trade after his arrival to Ottoman-held Belgrade (modern-day Serbia). He later went into the trade business, which enabled him to finance the printing of books. A large printing shop was established in Gundulić's house after he learned the printing trade from his mentor Radiša Dmitrović. Gundulić continued the work on Četverojevanđelje started by Radiša Dmitrović, who died early. In his turn, Gundulić passed the work to Hieromonk Mardarije of Mrkšina Crkva Monastery, an experienced printer. According to some sources, it was Hieromonk Mardarije who inspired first Dmitrović and then Gundulić to invest in printing business and organized all activities during set up of the printing house in Belgrade. After the death of Gundulić in Belgrade c. 1555, 121 printed books were found in his house, including 59 copies of the Gospels. See also List of notable Ragusans Andrija Paltašić (c. 1450–c. 1500), a Venetian printer from Kotor Božidar Vuković Božidar Goraždanin Đurađ Crnojević Stefan Marinović Stefan Paštrović Hieromonk Makarije Hieromonk Mardarije Hegumen Mardarije Vićenco Vuković Hieromonk Pahomije Andrija Paltašić Jakov of Kamena Reka Bartolomeo Ginammi who followed Zagurović's footsteps reprinting Serbian books. Dimitrije Ljubavić Inok Sava References Further reading Croatian printers Serbian printers Ragusan printers Year of birth uncertain Trojan 16th-century Croatian people 16th-century Serbian people Businesspeople from Belgrade 16th-century merchants 16th-century printers 1500 births 1555 deaths

8643390

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian%20Horrocks

Ian Horrocks

Ian Robert Horrocks is a professor of computer science at the University of Oxford in the UK and a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. His research focuses on knowledge representation and reasoning, particularly ontology languages, description logic and optimised tableaux decision procedures. Education Horrocks completed his Bachelor of Science (BSc), Master of Science (MSc) and PhD degrees in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. Research and career After several years as a lecturer, senior lecturer, reader then Professor in Manchester, Horrocks moved to the University of Oxford in 2008. His work on tableau reasoning for very expressive description logics has formed the basis of most description logic reasoning systems in use today, including Racer, FaCT++, HermiT and Pellet. Horrocks was jointly responsible for development of the OIL and DAML+OIL ontology languages, and he played a central role in the development of the Web Ontology Language (OWL). These languages and associated tools have been used by Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Consortium, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in America, the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and a range of major corporations and government agencies. His research is partly funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Horrocks is the current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Web Semantics and has served as program chair for the International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC). Awards and honours In 2020 Horrocks was awarded the BCS Lovelace Medal in recognition of his significant contribution to the advancement of reasoning systems. Horrocks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2011 and won the Roger Needham Award of the British Computer Society (BCS) in 2005. Oxford Semantic Technologies In 2017 Horrocks co-founded the Oxford University tech spin-out Oxford Semantic Technologies Ltd. along with two other Oxford Professors. The purpose being to apply his research in industry and in doing so, created the high-performance knowledge graph and semantic reasoner, RDFox—distinguished by its unique in-memory approach and academic backing. References Artificial intelligence researchers Living people Alumni of the Victoria University of Manchester Members of the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Royal Society 1958 births People associated with the Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester Semantic Web people

3154803

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video%20synthesizer

Video synthesizer

A video synthesizer is a device that electronically creates a video signal. A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators. It can also accept and "clean up and enhance" or "distort" live television camera imagery. The synthesizer creates a wide range of imagery through purely electronic manipulations. This imagery is visible within the output video signal when this signal is displayed. The output video signal can be viewed on a wide range of conventional video equipment, such as TV monitors, theater video projectors, computer displays, etc. Video pattern generators may produce static or moving or evolving imagery. Examples include geometric patterns (in 2D or 3D), subtitle text characters in a particular font, or weather maps. Imagery from TV cameras can be altered in color or geometrically scaled, tilted, wrapped around objects, and otherwise manipulated. A particular video synthesizer will offer a subset of possible effects. Real-time performance instruments The history of video synthesis is tied to a "real time performance" ethic. The equipment is usually expected to function on input camera signals the machine has never seen before, delivering a processed signal continuously and with a minimum of delay in response to the ever-changing live video inputs. Following in the tradition of performance instruments of the audio synthesis world such as the Theremin, video synthesizers were designed with the expectation they would be played in live concert theatrical situations or set up in a studio ready to process a videotape from a playback VCR in real time while recording the results on a second VCR. Venues of these performances included "Electronic Visualization Events" in Chicago, The Kitchen in NYC, and museum installations. Video artist/performer Don Slepian designed, built and performed a foot-controlled Visual Instrument at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1983) and the NY Open Center that combined genlocked early micro-computers Apple II Plus with the Chromaton 14 Video Synthesizer. and channels of colorized video feedback. Analog and early real time digital synthesizers existed before modern computer 3D modeling. Typical 3D renderers are not real time, as they concentrate on computing each frame from, for example, a recursive ray tracing algorithm, however long it takes. This distinguishes them from video synthesizers, which must deliver a new output frame by the time the last one has been shown, and repeat this performance continuously (typically delivering a new frame regularly every 1/60 or 1/50 of a second). The real time constraint results in a difference in design philosophy between these two classes of systems. Video synthesizers overlap with video special effects equipment used in real time network television broadcast and post-production situations. Many innovations in television broadcast equipment as well as computer graphics displays evolved from synthesizers developed in the video artists' community and these industries often support "electronic art projects" in this area to show appreciation of this history. Confluence of ideas of electronics and arts Many principles used in the construction of early video synthesizers reflected a healthy and dynamic interplay between electronic requirements and traditional interpretations of artistic forms. For example, Steve Rutt, Bill Etra and Daniel Sandin carried forward as an essential principle ideas of Robert Moog that standardized signal ranges so that any module's output could be connected to "voltage control" any other module's input. The consequence of this in a machine like the Rutt-Etra was that position, brightness, and color were completely interchangeable and could be used to modulate each other during the processing that led to the final image. Videotapes by Louise and Bill Etra and Steina and Woody Vasulka dramatized this new class of effects. This led to various interpretations of the multi-modal synesthesia of these aspects of the image in dialogues that extended the McLuhanesque language of film criticism of the time. In the UK, Richard Monkhouse, working for Electronic Music Studios (London) Limited (EMS), developed a hybrid video synthesiser – Spectre – later renamed 'Spectron' which used the EMS patchboard system to allow completely flexible connections between module inputs and outputs. The video signals were digital, but they were controlled by analog voltages. There was a digital patchboard for image composition and an analog patchboard for motion control. Evolution into frame buffers Video synthesizers moved from analog to the precision control of digital. The first digital effects as exemplified by Stephen Beck's Video Weavings used digital oscillators optionally linked to horizontal, vertical, or frame resets to generate timing ramps. These ramps could be gated to create the video image itself and were responsible for its underlying geometric texture. Schier and Vasulka advanced the state of the art from address counters to programmable (microcodable) AMD Am2901 bit slice based address generators. On the data path, they used 74S181 arithmetic and logic units, previously thought of as a component for doing arithmetic instructions in minicomputers, to process real time video signals, creating new signals representing the sum, difference, AND, XOR, and so on, of two input signals. These two elements, the address generator, and the video data pipeline, recur as core features of digital video architecture. The address generator supplied read and write addresses to a real time video memory, which can be thought of as evolution into the most flexible form of gating the address bits together to produce the video. While the video frame buffer is now present in every computer's graphics card, it has not carried forward a number of features of the early video synths. The address generator counts in a fixed rectangular pattern from the upper left hand corner of the screen, across each line, to the bottom. This discarded a whole technology of modifying the image by variations in the read and write addressing sequence provided by the hardware address generators as the image passed through the memory. Today, address based distortions are more often accomplished by blitter operations moving data in the memory, rather than changes in video hardware addressing patterns. History 1960s 1962, Lee Harrison III's ANIMAC: (Hybrid graphic animation computer) – predecessor to the Scanimate 1966, Dan Slater's custom vsynths: Dan Slater has built a number of custom homebrew vsynths over the years and worked with Douglas Trumbull on various films. 1968, Eric Siegel's PCS (Processing Chrominance Synthesizer) 1968, Computer Image Corporation Scanimate: Video of a News Report on Scanimate, including interview with inventor Lee Harrison III 1969, Paik/Abe synthesizer Built at WGBH Boston Experimental TV Center envisioned by Nam June Paik, designed by artist/engineer Shuya Abe. Several built at CalArts, and Experimental TV Center Binghamton University, WNET NYC; Jim Wiseman has one still operational 1969, Bill Hearn's VIDIUM: (Analog XYZ driver/sequencer) 1969, Glen Southworth's CVI Quantizer and CVI Data Camera 1970–1974 1970, Eric Siegel's EVS Electronic Video Synthesizer and Dual Colorizer (Analog) 1970, groove & VAmpire (generated real-time output operations on voltage-controlled equipment) (video and music program for interactive realtime exploration/experimentation). 1970, Lear Siegler's vsynth: unique high-resolution video processor used in the film The Andromeda Strain and by Douglas Trumbull and Dan Slater Stephen Beck's Direct Video Synth and Beck Video Weaver Stephen Beck created some early 1970s synths that had no video inputs. They made video purely from oscillations. He also modified a few Paik/Abe units. Sherman Walter Wright: one of the first video animators, he worked at Computer Image Corp in the early 1970s, and later at Dolphin Productions, where he operated a Scanimate. While at Dolphin, he and Ed Emshwiller worked on Thermogenisis and Scapemates together, and he also made several tapes on his own. In 1973–1976, as artist-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center, New York, he pioneered video performance touring public access centers, colleges and galleries with the Paik/Abe video synthesizer. He also worked with the David Jones colorizer and Rich Brewsters sequencing modules. These various modules were based on David's design for voltage controlled video amps and became the basis for the ETC studio. He was there when Don McArthur built the SAID. Woody Vasulka and Jeff Schier were close at hand building computer-based modules in Buffalo including a frame buffer with ALUs built in, mixers, keyers and colorizers. Wright also worked with Gary Hill at Woodstock Community Video, where they had a weekly cable show of live video/audio synthesis. Wright has developed his own performance video system, the Video Shredder, and uses it in performances with a mission to create a new music of sound and image. He has performed throughout the east coast of the US and Canada at art galleries and museums, schools and colleges, media centers, conferences and festivals. 1971, Sandin Image Processor: very early video synth, DIY modular, built by Dan Sandin of Chicago. 1972, Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer: co-invented by Steve Rutt and Bill Etra; this is an analog computer for video raster manipulation. 1973, Phil Morton publishes "Notes on the Aesthetics of Copying an Image Processor". He "proudly referred to himself as the ‘first copier’ of Sandin's Image Processor. The Sandin Image Processor offered artists unprecedented abilities to create, process and affect realtime video and audio, enabling performances that literally set the stage for current real-time audio-video New Media Art." 1974, VSYNTH's by David Jones: many creations, the most famous being the Jones Colorizer, a four channel voltage controllable colorizer with gray level keyers. 1974, EMS Spectre: Innovative video synthesiser using analogue and digital techniques, developed by Richard Monkhouse at EMS. Later renamed to 'Spectron'. 1975–1979 1975, Dave Jones Video Digitizer: an early digital video processor used for video art. It did real-time digitizing (no sample clock) and used a 4-bit ALU to create color effects 1975, Don McArthur's SAID: Don McArthur developed the SAID (Spatial and Intensity Digitizer), an outgrowth of research on a black and white time base corrector with Dave Jones 1976, Denise Gallant's vsynth: created a very advanced analogue video synthesizer in the late 1970s. 1976, Chromaton 14 A fairly small analog video synthesizer with color quantizers and which can generate complex color images without any external inputs. Built by BJA Systems 1977, Jones Frame Buffer: low-resolution digital frame storage of video signals (higher resolution versions, and multi-frame versions were made in 1979 and the early 1980s) 1979, Chromachron: one of the first DIGITAL VSynths – designed by Ed Tannenbaum. 1979, Chromascope Video Synthesizer, PAL and NTSC versions. Created by Robin Palmer. Manufactured by Chromatronics, Essex, UK. Distribution by CEL Electronics. Model P135 (2,000 units built) and Model C.101 (100 units built). 1980s 1984, Fairlight CVI Computer Video Instrument: The Fairlight CVI was produced in the early 1980s, and is a hybrid analog-digital video processor. 2000s 2008, Lars Larsen and Ed Leckie founded LZX Industries and began developing new analog video synthesizer modules (Visionary, Cadet, and Expedition Series). 2011, Critter & Guitari Video Scope: preset video synthesizer. 2013, Critter & Guitari Rhythm Scope: preset video synthesizer. 2014, Critter & Guitari Black & White Video Scope: preset video synthesizer. 2014, Ming Mecca: modular pixel-art-oriented analog video synth 2015, CFOGE Video Equations: procedurally generated digital video synth. 2016, Paracosm Lumen: semi-modular software video synth for MacOS. 2016, Vsynth: a modular video synthesizer package for Max/Jitter by Kevin Kripper. 2016, Ming Micro: pixel-art-oriented digital video synth 2017, Critter & Guitari ETC: video synthesizer that supports 720p output. 2021, Critter & Guitari EYESY: video synthesizer that supports 1080p output, MIDI input and programming. Other video synthesizers Atari Video Music Electro-Harmonix' Light Tube Image Articulator (Vasulka, Schier, Dosch) real-time digital data ops by S181 addressing by Am2901 Milkymist One Neon Video Toaster for Amiga computer Virtual Light Machine See also VJ (video performance artist) Audiovisual art Music visualization Video art Raster scan References Bibliography Books Computer Lib by Ted Nelson Web Tools Thomas Dreher: History of Computer Art Chap. IV.1.2 Video Synthesizers. Nam June Paik (http://pastexhibitions.guggenheim.org/paik/index.html) Nam June Paik (http://www.paikstudios.com/) Rutt-Etra ( http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vidsynth/ruttetra/ruttetra.htm ) Walter Wright (http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vidsynth/w_wright/w_wright.htm ) Sandin Image Processor ( http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vidsynth/sandin/sandin.htm ) Sandin Image Processor, references to videotapes from, with stillframes ( http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/PIONEERS/sandin.html ) Phillip Morton Archive ( http://copyitright.wordpress.com/ ) Stephen Beck (Analog and Digital video synths) ( https://web.archive.org/web/20060211003115/http://people.wcsu.edu/mccarneyh/fva/B/BeckDirectVideo.html ) Keeling Video Machine design blog ( https://web.archive.org/web/20060515063107/http://www.lundberg.info/vidsynth/ ) Fluidigeo synth, designed late 1970s built in early 1980s, patent has good diagrams and text describing archetypical video synthesizer of that era ( https://web.archive.org/web/20060211005327/http://www.fluidigeo.com/patents/US4791489.pdf ) Tannenbaum's "Recollections" at Exploratorium ( https://web.archive.org/web/20051023192358/http://www.kidsart.com/IS/418.html ) Video Synthesizer List ( http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vsynths.htm ) Videokalos Colour Synthesiser ( https://web.archive.org/web/20041119134620/http://www.donebauer.net/manifestations/videokalos/features/features.htm ) The Bob System (http://iknewthem.tripod.com/gear/bob.htm) Don Slepian music videos: (http://DonSlepian.com) "Beginnings", 1983 – Chromascope Analog Video Synthesizer (http://www.veoh.com/videos/e68305kXXwNmEs) "Next Time", 1983 – Chromascope with Luma-Keying and Image Processing (http://www.veoh.com/videos/e68279sepxtkB3) "Rising Crimson Tide", 1982 – Chromaton 14 Analog Video Synthesizer with colorized video feedback techniques, animations from the Apple II+ micocomputer with genlock board. (http://www.veoh.com/videos/e6820952kjjPX4) Further reading External links Video art

15470107

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StorNext%20File%20System

StorNext File System

StorNext File System (SNFS), colloquially referred to as "StorNext" is a shared disk file system made by Quantum Corporation. StorNext enables multiple Windows, Linux and Apple workstations to access shared block storage over a Fibre Channel network. With the StorNext file system installed, these computers can read and write to the same storage volume at the same time enabling what is known as a "file-locking SAN." StorNext is used in environments where large files must be shared, and accessed simultaneously by users without network delays, or where a file must be available for access by multiple readers starting at different times. Common use cases include multiple video editor environments in feature film, television and general video post production. History The original name of StorNext was CentraVision File System (CVFS). It was created by MountainGate Imaging Systems Corporation to provide fast data transfer between Windows and SGI's IRIX computers. Advanced Digital Information Corporation acquired MountainGate in September 1999, added additional client types, and changed the name to StorNext File System. The first new clients were Solaris and Linux. In August 2006 Quantum acquired ADIC. Infrastructure StorNext has both software and hardware elements. On the front end, the filesystem is managed by usually two Metadata controllers, a primary and a failover or a metadata appliance. These MDC's act as the traffic director for the block-level filesystem with no data-overhead typically associated with NAS configured network shares. Fibre Channel connectivity is a key element of most StorNext filesystem implementations. This is often referred to as "Production SAN" or "Production Storage Workspace." In verticals such as oil & gas, InfiniBand connectivity is sometimes used. Client systems are not required to run the same operating system to access a shared filesystem containing StorNext data. As of January 2008, the operating systems with available client software are Microsoft Windows, macOS (as Xsan developed by Apple), Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, and IRIX. Client systems can be attached either directly to the SAN or via an IP gateway, called a DLC (Distributed LAN Controller). Two or more DLCs can be configured for failover and/or load balancing. While DLC is an IP based protocol, it has been customized for data traffic, making it more efficient (and higher performance) than traditional NAS. In some environments, users have also used the DLC infrastructure to enable lower performance file sharing via NFS or CIFS. Using all three capabilities, customers can create three tiers of front-end client performance: SAN, native DLC, and NAS, all leveraging a common file sharing architecture. Quantum offers customers two choices for hardware infrastructure for StorNext: customized configurations, using the StorNext software on independently selected hardware; or, the use of the StorNext Appliances and Production Systems, a set of pre-configured solutions from Quantum which are said to be optimized for particular use cases (such as 4K editing). The latter solutions can include embedded technical support. Media & entertainment A common application are television and feature film post-production as many multiple editors can access the same set of video data non-destructively. StorNext has also been leveraged for high end motion and geoscience imagery in both commercial and public sector use cases, and for high density forensic data, such as in cybersecurity. Archive integration While colloquially, the StorNext File System is known as 'StorNext', the entire StorNext product is actually the combination of two technologies: the StorNext File System, and the optional StorNext Storage Manager. The StorNext Storage Manager is a policy based data management system that can copy, migrate and/or archive data from the StorNext File System into a variety of storage devices in multiple locations. Data can be tiered into disk, a Quantum Lattus object store, a robotic tape library, or even exported into an offline vault. Regardless of where the data resides, it is all maintained in a single namespace. Customers typically use this capability for three use cases. Some media customers use Storage Manager's policy tiering capability to enable the extension of primary disk storage into object storage or very high performance tape. With the introduction of Lattus-M object storage in 2013, Quantum introduced the capability to archive data durably (at greater than 11 9s) on disk, at very high throughput. Each Lattus-M disk controller can support up to 3 Gbit/s of single streaming performance for video or large files; and these controllers can be scaled horizontally to add performance as required. This has made the combination of StorNext and Lattus-M attractive for use cases such as rapid restore of video or motion imagery, or content distribution. Many customers also use Storage Manager to create granular and efficient data protection (as many versions of policy-selected files can be copied to a second data location or media without the need for a time and resource consuming 'file-walker', avoiding the pain of backup). Finally, administrators use Storage Manager as an HSM for migrating data between tiers (particularly to tape) for cost effective archive. Tapes created by Storage Manager can optionally be written in the LTO industry standard format (LTFS) to enable easy interchange. See also List of file systems Xsan Metadata controller xfs External links References Shared disk file systems

5944417

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted%20Tollner

Ted Tollner

Alfred Theodore Tollner (born May 29, 1940) is a former American football player and coach. He had served as the head coach at the University of Southern California (USC) from 1983 to 1986 and San Diego State University (SDSU) from 1994 to 2001, compiling an overall college football record of 69–68–1. Tollner also was an assistant coach in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, including stints as offensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions. Playing career Tollner attended California Polytechnic State University, where he was a quarterback on the 1960 team that suffered a plane crash in Toledo, Ohio in which 22 people of the 45 people on board were killed, including 16 of Tollner's teammates. He was a member of the silver medal winning U.S. baseball team at the 1963 Pan American Games. Coaching career High school Tollner's first coaching job was at Morro Bay High School. He served for a year there before moving on to Woodside High School where he worked one year as offensive coordinator before coming head coach. College Tollner then coached at College of San Mateo from 1968 to 1972. He served as the offensive coordinator for San Diego State under Claude Gilbert from 1973 to 1980. He also served as the quarterbacks coach at Brigham Young (BYU) in 1981. He became offensive coordinator of the USC Trojans football program under head coach John Robinson in 1982, and succeeded to the head coaching position a year later when Robinson stepped down to take an administrative post at the university. During his four-year tenure Tollner compiled a 26–20–1 record. He led the Trojans to the Pacific-10 conference championship in 1984. That team defeated Ohio State in the 1985 Rose Bowl game. He was replaced as the USC head coach by Larry Smith after the 1986 season after going 1–3 in the UCLA–USC rivalry and 0–4 vs. Notre Dame in the Notre Dame–USC rivalry. In 1994, he returned to San Diego State, this time as the head coach. He coached there for eight years. Tollner was known for scheduling a tough non-conference schedule including schools like Washington, Wisconsin, USC, Arizona, Arizona State and Oklahoma. His Aztec teams posted eight-win seasons in 1995 and 1996, the first time it reached that level in consecutive years since 1977. In 1998, his Aztecs posted a 7–1 conference record (7–5 overall), grabbed a share of the conference championship, and earned a trip to the Las Vegas Bowl. Overall, he led the Aztecs to a 43–48 record until his firing in 2001. NFL Tollner served as the wide receivers coach for the Buffalo Bills from 1987 to 1988. He served as the offensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers from 1989 to 1991. He served as the quarterbacks coach for the Los Angeles Rams from 1992 to 1993. In 2002, he then became the quarterbacks coach for the San Francisco 49ers. After two successful seasons, he was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2004. When Dennis Erickson was fired as head coach, he was not retained. In 2005, he became the offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions. When Steve Mariucci and several of his assistants were fired 11 weeks into the season, Tollner was demoted to tight ends coach for the remainder of the season. In late 2006, he was listed as a potential candidate for the head coaching opening for the University of San Diego that later went to Ron Caragher. In late 2007 it was announced that he would serve as offensive assistant for the San Francisco 49ers in a late season attempt to revive the lacking offense. In early 2008 Tollner was named quarterbacks coach/assistant to the head coach for the San Francisco 49ers to get a permanent role in the organization again. On December 30, 2008, Tollner was dismissed from the 49ers along with running backs coach Tony Nathan and offensive coordinator Mike Martz. On February 4, 2009, Tollner was introduced as a part of the Oakland Raiders' coaching staff as he was named the passing game coordinator of the team. When Hue Jackson was hired as the Raiders head coach he dismissed Tollner and several others from their positions. Head coaching record References 1940 births Living people American football quarterbacks Buffalo Bills coaches BYU Cougars football coaches Cal Poly Mustangs football players Detroit Lions coaches Los Angeles Rams coaches National Football League offensive coordinators Oakland Raiders coaches San Diego Chargers coaches San Diego State Aztecs football coaches San Francisco 49ers coaches USC Trojans football coaches High school football coaches in California Baseball players at the 1963 Pan American Games Pan American Games medalists in baseball Pan American Games silver medalists for the United States Sportspeople from San Francisco Medalists at the 1963 Pan American Games Players of American football from San Francisco

68735964

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic%20Desk

Magic Desk

Magic Desk was a planned series of productivity software by Commodore Business Machines for the Commodore 64. Only the first entry, Type and File, was ever released. It was introduced at the summer edition of the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in June, slated for an August 31 release. Commodore developed the Magic Desk suite both in response to a perceived lack of productivity software for the Commodore 64 and to the graphical user interface of the Apple Lisa. Despite its popularity, which brought most customers their first experience with a graphical user interface, Type and File was panned by contemporary computer journalists for its incompleteness and cumbersome interface. Commodore scrapped succeeding entries, in favor of cultivating the built-in productivity software for Commodore's succeeding home computer, the Plus/4. Functionality Magic Desk is a graphical user interface featuring a word processor and file system. A disembodied hand portrays the cursor, controlled by joystick. The first screen presents a room with a desk, a file cabinet, a trash can, and a door. The desk holds a phone, a calculator, a spreadsheet, a typewriter, and a Rolodex, while the file cabinet holds a clock that can be set by the user. Pressing the fire button selects the object that is underneath the cursor. On this screen, only the typewriter, trash can, and file cabinet are functional—the rest of the objects do nothing. Additionally, the user can call up a series of help menus by pressing the Commodore key on the keyboard. Pressing the typewriter icon leads the user into the word processor, on which the typewriter and trash can can be seen as icons below the text box, along with icons for printing, margin setting, and returning to the main screen (represented by a desk). The text box mimics the appearance of white paper on a typewriter, complete with platen, margin marks and a paper scale. It behaves accordingly, with a tick noise accompanying each key press and a margin bell sounding when the cursor is five columns before the right margin. Additionally, when the cursor approaches the center of the screen, it remains centered with the preceding text moving behind it—moving the page from right to left—as if to simulate a page being moved with the carriage on a real typewriter. When the end of the margin is reached, the user must press the Return key manually to advance to the next line. Editing of text is handled line-by-line only—users may delete characters behind the cursor using the Backspace key or overwrite characters at the current position, but no block editing features exist, meaning paragraphs will have to be rewritten in the case of adding or removing sentences. Document length is limited at 60 lines. Pressing the printer icon immediately prints the current document if a live printer is connected to the Commodore 64. To prevent accidental data loss, pressing the trash can icon only once on either the word processor screen or the main menu puts the document into a limbo state represented by a crumpled up piece of paper in the can; it restores the current document into the word process if the user takes no action within several seconds. Pressing the icon twice actually discards the current document from the word processor. To save a document to floppy disk, the users must press the desk icon on the word processor to return to the main menu; then they must press the file cabinet icon. This brings the user to the file management screen. Magic Desk performs a check of the drive to see if the disk is inserted and if said disk is initialized; if an uninitialized disk is present, the program prompts the user to press the fire button to initialize the disk while warning them that this results in the disk being formatted, to prevent accidental data erasure. Once the disk is ready, a file cabinet with three drawers is presented to the user. Pressing any drawer brings up ten folders which can be individually labeled; in turn, pressing any folder brings up ten sheets of paper, which can also be labeled. Once the page is labeled (named), pressing the floppy disk icon saves the current document to disk. Development Magic Desk was mostly the work of John Feagans, a designer of the PET whom Commodore hired in their research and development office in Moorpark, California. Seminal work on graphical user interfaces by Xerox PARC, as well as a visit by former PARC employee Robert Metcalfe in 1980, sparked Feagans' interest in developing one for the PET. He developed a demonstratory graphical user interface comprising an animated filing cabinet that functioned as a file manager. The rows of cabinets contained folders which in turn contained a list of files that were stored on a diskette holding data. Commodore closed the Moorpark office in 1982, relocating Feagans to Commodore's executive office in Santa Clara, California, where founder Jack Tramiel worked. A dearth of structured work there afforded Feagans the leisure to adapt his demonstration to the Commodore 64, using BASIC. Mastering how to program joystick control, Feagans added a cursor to the demonstration. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Sigmund Hartmann—head of Commodore's software division—pressed the creation of a large amount of software for the Commodore 64 after promising Tramiel that he would correct for the lack of productivity software. Hartmann tasked Andy Finkel with scouting developers in Santa Clara to ease the resulting crunch time. There, Feagans' demonstration captured Finkel's attention. On Finkel's suggestion that this demonstration be committed to a full product, Hartmann approved what would become Magic Desk, after the winter edition of the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show. Development was to be finished by the next CES in summer 1983. To avoid a complete rewrite, Feagans used his own special compiler to convert his BASIC to assembly. The code at this point comprised only the file manager, so he teamed with Finkel to develop the word processor. To further speed development, Commodore repurposed the Santa Clara office as a place to centralize select programmers from other Commodore offices. Rich Wiggins and his team from Dallas—responsible for Commodore's Magic Voice speech synthesis module—was one such selection. Tasked with crafting a team of his own for Magic Desk, Feagans picked several members of Wiggins' team for himself, as well as hiring Michael Tomczyk from Commodore's headquarters in West Chester, Pennsylvania, as supervisor. Tomczyk in turn hired digital artist Jeff Bruette. The graphics were initially programmed by Feagans and Finkel who used sprites for the icons. Tomczyk later had Bruette reprogram the graphics. On their flight to Santa Clara, the two hurriedly drafted a mock-up of the software's main desktop screen on graph paper. Further development of Magic Desk proved laborious and, pressured for time, the team stopped development of Magic Desk beyond the word processor and file manager. In the press, Commodore promised of additional functions added incrementally across multiple cartridges, for release at later dates. Commodore subtitled the first and final release Type and File. Reception Magic Desk's preview at the summer 1983 CES, although functional, was described by Commodore there as preliminary. They promised a release date of August 31, 1983—which they were unable to fulfill due to cartridge manufacturing delays. Instead, Magic Desk was released in November of that year. Reviewing the preliminary version, George Stewart in Popular Computing expressed cautious optimism, singling out the programmers at Commodore for their attention to detail in simulating a real-life typewriter and filing cabinet. He held reservation with having to create and name new sheets for multiple pages of a document and found the word processor's line limit non-standard. After its release, many reviewers of Magic Desk raised issue with its word processor. Phillip Robinson in InfoWorld panned the lack of more advanced editing functions—find-and-replacement and block selection-and-movement chief among them. Mary C. Ware in Run wrote that in its quest for mechanical accuracy, the word processor inherited both the good and the bad aspects of typewriters. She considered the page's movement from right to left a refreshment from standard word processors, as was the margin bell. She found the necessity for manual carriage returns frustrating more than nostalgic, however, and decried the lack of uniform margin and line-spacing adjustment. Charles Brannon in Compute!'s Gazette defined the mechanical simulation of a typewriter as "perhaps a bit too cute" and complained that the word processor provided only a fraction of the versatility of others. Reviewers also questioned the software's usability and speed. Brannon found the absence of labels below the icons obfuscatory. Robinson praised the graphics as "clear, effective, and smooth" but found the non-functioning icons frustrating—guessing that their only role was in whetting the user's appetite for further Magic Desk titles. Speaking of this, Robinson wrote that its cartridge medium would precipitate wear on the 64's cartridge slot, should further entries in the Magic Desk series revolve around one set of functions at a time, necessitating pulling these cartridges out in order to access different functions. Ware found the cabinet metaphor for a file system intuitive enough for novices but cumbersome for anyone else. Robinson disagreed, writing that the six-page brochure that constituted all documentation provided users with only enough hints to meander through the software without knowing how to file a finished page. Brannon bemoaned the floppy drive's slow speed and erratic operation when writing only one document to disk. In the end, reviewers agreed that Magic Desk was suitable for novice computer users. Robinson recommended Magic Desk only for first-time computer users familiar with a typewriter. Ware and Brannon went one step further, rating Magic Desk a good value for technophobes. Brannon compared Magic Desk to an IBM Selectric, requiring no instruction to use but obsolete to the intermediate computer user. He felt that Commodore—as well as Microsoft, VisiCorp, and Quarterdeck, who had released GUI-based applications around the same time—underestimated the many man-hours necessary to create a well-crafted graphical user interface, as Apple's Lisa had accomplished. Legacy Despite the mixed reviews, the first Magic Desk proved popular in the home, exposing many purchasers to their first graphical user interface. This popularity prompted Commodore to consider subsequent cartridges. In late 1983, while the company had been making progress with designing their TED computer—known from its release as the Commodore Plus/4—executives proposed porting Magic Desk from the 64 to the TED. Commodore recommissioned Feagans and Finkel to develop such a port; the former hired four engineers to assist in development of the so-called Magic Desk II. Finkel had to confine the code to 32 KB while adding the functionality promised by the phone, calculator, spreadsheet, and Rolodex icons. Feagans additionally worked even more closely with Wiggins' team to add speech capability. The integral speech synthesis chip of the proposed 364 variant of the TED computer would take advantage of this capability, although the chip's limited vernacular proved difficult to circumvent. Magic Desk II was previewed at the winter 1984 CES. It was built in to the proposed mid-level variant of the TED computer, the 264. Commodore's exhibition revolved around the 264 and Magic Desk, with Jim Butterfield showing their features to attendees. Despite the exhibition, Commodore executives ended up scrapping the 364, renaming the 264 as the Plus/4, and abandoning Magic Desk II, instead using Tri Micro's 3-Plus-1 productivity software. According to Finkel, accountants at Commodore projected low demand for a Plus/4 with Magic Desk II. The original Magic Desk release, however, did end up propelling the image of the still-popular Commodore 64 from a gaming-only machine to one with the potential for productivity. Berkeley Softworks revisited the notion of a graphical user interface for the Commodore 64 with their GEOS operating system released in 1986. Unlike the original Magic Desk's limited feature set, GEOS supported third-party applications, allowing for seemingly endless capabilities. A ROM image of a Magic Desk II prototype for the Commodore 64—complete with functional calculator, spreadsheet, and Rolodex address book—surfaced online in August 2021. See also KERNAL, Commodore's name for its operating system kernel for their 8-bit home computers which Feagans pioneered Jane, a similar GUI-based productivity suite released for the Commodore 64 among other platforms Windows 1.0 Visi On Desq Notes Citations References Further reading Excerpted in Places Journal. External links Magic Desk I review by Nathan Lineback at Toasty Tech 1983 software Commodore 64 software Graphical user interfaces Word processors

49362413

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman%20Fenton

Norman Fenton

Professor Norman Fenton (born 18 May 1956) is a British mathematician who is currently Professor of Risk Information Management at Queen Mary University of London and is also a director of Agena, a company that specialises in risk management for critical systems. Education Fenton was a student at Ilford County High School for Boys (1967–1974) and studied mathematics at the London School of Economics (1975–78) gaining a first class Bachelor of Science degree and also winning the ‘School Scholar’ prize in 1976 and 1977. He gained his Master of Science at the University of Sheffield (1978) winning the "ATM Flett Prize", and Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield (1981) under the supervision of Peter Vamos. His thesis was on "Representations of Matroids". In 2007–2008 Fenton completed a course in expert witness training with Bond Solon under the auspices of Cardiff University Law Dept. Career Between leaving school and going to university, Fenton worked for Hedge and Butler Wine Merchants (1974–1975) and also worked there in subsequent summers (1976 and 1977). After his PhD in 1981, Fenton joined University College Dublin (Mathematics Department) as Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. From 1982 to 1984 he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Oxford University (Mathematics Institute), and also member of Wolfson College. In 1984 he joined South Bank University (Dept Electrical & Electronic Eng) first as senior lecturer and then reader. He set up and was director of the Centre for Software & Systems Engineering before leaving in 1989 to join City University (Centre for Software Reliability). In 1993 Fenton was appointed professor at City University (aged 34). In 1989 Fenton, along with Martin Neil and Ed Tranham, set up the company Agena Ltd in Cambridge. Fenton was CEO between 1998 and 2015 and remains a director. In 2000 Fenton joined Queen Mary University of London (School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science) as professor (part-time) and he has been there since. He is director of the Risk and Information Management Research Group. In 2015 Fenton formed a new company Aldgate Analytics Ltd where he is CEO. Research Fenton currently works on quantitative risk assessment. This typically involves analysing and predicting the probabilities of unknown events using Bayesian statistical methods including especially causal, probabilistic models (Bayesian networks). This type of reasoning enables improved assessment by taking account of both statistical data and also expert judgment. In April 2014 Fenton was awarded one of the prestigious European Research Council Advanced Grants to focus on these issues. Fenton's experience in risk assessment covers a wide range of application domains such as legal reasoning (he has been an expert witness in major criminal and civil cases), medical analytics, vehicle reliability, embedded software, transport systems, financial services, and football prediction. Fenton has a special interest in raising public awareness of the importance of probability theory and Bayesian reasoning in everyday life (including how to present such reasoning in simple lay terms) and he maintains a website dedicated to this and also a blog focusing on probability and the law. In March 2015 Norman presented the BBC documentary Climate Change by Numbers. Fenton has published 7 books and 230 referred articles and has provided consulting to many major companies worldwide. His 2012 book was the first to bring Bayesian networks to a general audience. Fenton's current projects are focused on using Bayesian methods for improved legal reasoning and improved medical decision making. Since June 2011 he has led an international consortium (Bayes and the Law) of statisticians, lawyers and forensic scientists working to improve the use of statistics in court. In 2016, he is leading a prestigious 6-month Programme on Probability and Statistics in Forensic Science at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge. In addition to his research on risk assessment, Fenton is renowned for his work in software engineering (including pioneering work on software metrics); the third edition of his book "Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach” was published in November 2014. The book is one of the most cited in software engineering (5040 citations, Google Scholar, Feb 2016). Teaching writing skills Professor Fenton is also known for his essay Improving Your Technical Writing Skills, first published in 2000, which he wrote to help his students write academic technical texts. The essay insists on Plain English and a clear structure. In that latter regard he advises that no section should contain a single subsection under it, and he seems to be the one who invented the term "hanging subsection" for such a faulty structural detail. Honours BBC Documentary "Climate Change by Numbers" (which Fenton co-presented, screened first 2 March 2015) won the following awards: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Journalism Gold Award for "best in-depth TV reporting" 2015. details here. European Science TV and New Media Award for the best Science programme on an environmental issue, 2015. Faculty of Science and Engineering Research Award (Queen Mary University of London)  2015 Lead Researcher in award of a Cambridge University Newton Institute Programme Semester (topic is Probability and Statistics in Forensic Science) to take place 18 July – 21 December 2016. Awarded European Research Council Advanced Fellowship Grant (value 1,572,562 euros for a 4-year programme) 1 April 2014. The Fenton and Neil paper "A critique of software defect prediction models" placed in top 1% most influential papers in its field based on number of citations (according to Essential Science Indicators). International Patent (Publication Number WO 03/090466) for Improved TV Programme Selection (based on Bayesian Networks, Fuzzy Logic and an original approach to TV programme classification). Named as one of the world's 15 top scholars (for the third time). Glass RL and Chen TY, "An assessment of Systems and Software Engineering scholars and institutions (1996–2000)", Journal of Systems and Software 59, 107–113, Oct 2001. Appointed Professor at City University at the age of 34. ATM Flett prize for MSc, 1979. Top First Class Degree, University of London, 1978. School Scholar at LSE 1976–78. Winner of LSE Undergraduate Prize 1976, 1977. Chartered Engineer, Member of the IET  (since 1987). Chartered Mathematician, Fellow of the IMA (AFIMA 1988, FIMA 1998). Fellow of the BCS (British Computer Society) since 2005. References 1956 births Living people British mathematicians Academics of Queen Mary University of London Alumni of the London School of Economics Alumni of the University of Sheffield People educated at Ilford County High School

21467163

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%20Samueli%20School%20of%20Engineering

Henry Samueli School of Engineering

The Henry Samueli School of Engineering (HSSoE) is the academic unit of the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) that oversees academic research and teaching in disciplines of the field of engineering. Established when the campus opened in 1965, the school consists of five departments, each of which is involved in academic research in its specific field, as well as several interdisciplinary fields. The school confers Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. According to the UC Irvine academic catalogue, HSSoE research areas include: biochemical and bioreactor engineering, earthquake engineering, water resources, transportation, parallel and distributed computer systems, intelligent systems and neural networks, image and signal processing, opto-electronic devices and materials, high-frequency devices and systems, integrated micro and nanoscale systems, fuel cell technology, fluid mechanics, combustion and jet propulsion, materials processing, robotics, and modern control theory. In 2000, the school, along with its counterpart at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), were renamed in honor of Henry Samueli, co-founder of Irvine-based Broadcom Corporation, for his 1999 donations of $20 million and $30 million to the schools of engineering at UC Irvine and UCLA, respectively. The most recent permanent Dean of the HSSoE was Gregory Washington, who held the position from August 1, 2011 until July 1, 2020 when he resigned in order to accept appointment as President of George Mason University. Michael Green currently serves as interim dean, and Magnus Egerstedt will take over as dean in July of 2021. Departments Biomedical Engineering (BME) Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (ChEMS) Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Degrees conferred Each of the five departments confers Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. The School of Engineering also offers a general B.S. degree in Engineering to upper-division students who wish to pursue an interdisciplinary program of study spanning more than one of the engineering departments, or a program not offered by one of the departments such as hydrology or project management. The School of Engineering offers interdisciplinary degrees in conjunction with the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences: a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Networked Systems. Most, but not all, undergraduate degree programs are accredited by ABET. The first program to receive accreditation was Electrical Engineering in 1968; the most recent was Biomedical Engineering in 2008. Programs not accredited include two of the aforementioned interdisciplinary degrees (general Engineering, Networked Systems). Research centers In keeping with the University of California's primary mission as a research institution, all of the HSSoE's departments are involved in academic research. Additionally, HSSoE faculty and students are involved with several interdisciplinary research centers affiliated with UCI, other academic, research, or medical institutions, government agencies, and private industry. These research centers include: Advanced Power and Energy Program (APEP) Beckman Laser Institute California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) Carl Zeiss Center of Excellence for Electron Microscopy Center for Advanced Monitoring and Damage Inspection (CAMDI) Center for Biomedical Signal Processing and Computation (CBMSPC) Center for Embedded Computer Systems Center for Engineering Science in Design Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing (CHRS) Center for Pervasive Communications and Computing Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center The Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology Gavin Herbert Eye Institute Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility (INRF) Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) Institute of Transportation Studies Lasers, Flames, and Aerosols Laboratory (LFA) Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics (LFD) LifeChips Materials Characterization Center (MC2) Micro/Nano Fluidics Fundamentals Focus Center (MF3) National Fuel Cell Research Center (NFCRC) Networked Systems Center RapidTech, National Center for Rapid Technologies Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center UCI Combustion Laboratory Urban Water Research Center (UWRC) Facilities Most of the school's facilities occupy one of the "spokes" of the UC Irvine campus' "Ring Road", its main circular pedestrian mall on which the university's academic schools (except for Arts, Business, and Medicine) are situated. This includes department offices, faculty offices, laboratories, classrooms and lecture halls, and a number of research facilities. Architecturally speaking, the school consists of a buildings ranging from brutalist to postmodern. The brutalist Engineering Tower, designed by the Los Angeles firm Kistner, Wright & Wright and constructed in 1969-1970 during the campus' original building boom, is the tallest building on the main campus. It is noted for its cantilevered design which makes it nearly twice as wide at the top than at the base. Most of the remaining buildings, including the postmodern Engineering Gateway and flagship Calit2 facility, were built during the campus building boom that has lasted from the late 1980s until the present. The school also has portable classroom buildings that house classrooms, laboratories, and offices. For many years Engineering shared some facilities with the Department of Information and Computer Science (ICS), including the Frank Gehry-designed ICS/Engineering Research Facility (IERF). However, following ICS' 2002 elevation to school status, as well as its 2004 endowment from Orange County real estate mogul Donald Bren, ICS moved many of its laboratories and offices out of shared space into the newly constructed Bren Hall located between Engineering and the Physical Sciences. IERF was demolished in 2007 and Engineering Hall was built in its place. Figures Founded as the School of Engineering in 1965 with just two faculty members and 75 students declaring engineering majors; the school today serves more than 4,500 students (3,598 undergraduates and 951 graduates) enrolled in 12 undergraduate degree majors and 13 graduate degree programs. The school was renamed The Henry Samueli School of Engineering in 1999 after Samueli, co-founder, chairman and chief technical officer of Broadcom Inc., made a generous donation. Faculty members are scholars and leaders in their disciplines and have achieved worldwide honors and recognition for their pioneering research and dedicated teaching. Nearly a third are fellows in professional societies, and 13 are members of the National Academy of Engineering. The school has nine endowed chairs, seven Distinguished Professors and four Chancellor's Professors. The school's emphasis on hands-on learning is attracting high-achieving students who want more than a classroom experience. This year's class of incoming freshmen had the highest-ever average SAT score of 1,980 and an average GPA of 4.09. Thirty-nine percent are first-generation college students and 27 percent are from low-income families. This past year, the school granted 805 bachelor's degrees, 284 master's degrees and 87 doctorates. Undergraduate and graduate student diversity is a key initiative for the Samueli School, with efforts to increase both underrepresented students and women. The school is actively involved in STEM outreach, from teacher training and a variety of K-12 programs to a collaboration with local community colleges. Research is integral to the school's mission to educate students and benefit society. Engineering faculty pursue investigations that are timely, socially responsible and forward thinking. They work in partnership with industry and state and federal agencies to promote the transfer of research to applications that improve lives. More than two-thirds of undergraduate students actively participate in faculty-led projects. Current research thrusts include communications and information technology, human health, energy and sustainability, and advanced manufacturing and materials. The Samueli School of Engineering is ranked 21st in U.S. News & World Report's current listing of best public engineering graduate schools. Its undergraduate program is ranked 27th among publics. Rankings are based on a survey of engineering deans and senior faculty at ABET-accredited programs in which a doctorate is the terminal degree. Private support from the community, alumni and corporations grew to $35.8 million in 2016–17. Gifts to the Samueli School help fund scholarships and fellowships for students, exciting research activities being conducted by faculty and graduate students, STEM outreach and critical academic programs. Notable faculty Satya N. Atluri, distinguished professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Michael W. Berns, professor of Biomedical Engineering Daniel Gajski, The Henry Samueli "Turing" Endowed Chair in Computer Systems Design, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Enrico Gratton, professor of Biomedical Engineering Payam Heydari, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Syed Ali Jafar, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Hamid Jafarkhani, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Michelle Khine, associate professor of Biomedical Engineering Abraham P. Lee, professor of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering G.P. Li, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Robert H. Liebeck, adjunct professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Henry Samueli, adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Scott Samuelsen, professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Frank Shi, professor of Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science and Computer Science Soroosh Sorooshian, distinguished professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth System Science Lee Swindlehurst, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Bruce J. Tromberg, professor of Biomedical Engineering and of Surgery and Physiology and Biophysics (School of Medicine) Jasper A. Vrugt, assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering H. Kumar Wickramasinghe, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Albert F. Yee, professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science See also Engineering education References External links University of California, Irvine Henry Engineering schools and colleges in the United States 1965 establishments in California Educational institutions established in 1965 Science and technology in Greater Los Angeles

5707206

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten%20Commandments%20of%20Computer%20Ethics

Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics

The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics were created in 1992 by the Washington, D.C. based Computer Ethics Institute. The commandments were introduced in the paper "In Pursuit of a 'Ten Commandments' for Computer Ethics" by Ramon C. Barquin as a means to create "a set of standards to guide and instruct people in the ethical use of computers." They follow the Internet Advisory Board's memo on ethics from 1987. The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics copies the archaic style of the Ten Commandments from the King James Bible. The commandments have been widely quoted in computer ethics literature but also have been criticized by both the hacker community and some in academia. For instance, Dr. Ben Fairweather of the "Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility" has described them as "simplistic" and overly restrictive. ISC2, one of the thought leaders in the information security industry, has referred to the commandments in developing its own ethics rules. The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people. Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer work. Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's computer files. Thou shalt not use a computer to steal. Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness. Thou shalt not copy or use proprietary software for which you have not paid (without permission). Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without authorization or proper compensation. Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output. Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you are writing or the system you are designing. Thou shalt always use a computer in ways that ensure consideration and respect for other humans. Exegesis Commandment 1: Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people. Simply put: Do not use the computer in ways that may harm other people. Explanation: This commandment says that it is unethical to use a computer to harm another user. It is not limited to physical injury. It includes harming or corrupting other users' data or files. The commandment states that it is wrong to use a computer to steal someone's personal information. Manipulating or destroying files of other users is ethically wrong. It is unethical to write programs, which on execution lead to stealing, copying or gaining unauthorized access to other users' data. Being involved in practices like hacking, spamming, phishing or cyber bullying does not conform to computer ethics. Commandment 2: Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer work. Simply put: Do not use computer technology to cause interference in other users' work. Explanation: Computer software can be used in ways that disturb other users or disrupt their work. Viruses, for example, are programs meant to harm useful computer programs or interfere with the normal functioning of a computer. Malicious software can disrupt the functioning of computers in more ways than one. It may overload computer memory through excessive consumption of computer resources, thus slowing its functioning. It may cause a computer to function wrongly or even stop working. Using malicious software to attack a computer is unethical. Commandment 3: Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's computer files. Simply put: Do not spy on another person's computer data. Explanation: We know it is wrong to read someone's personal letters. On the same lines, it is wrong to read someone else's email messages or files. Obtaining data from another person's private files is nothing less than breaking into someone's room. Snooping around in another person's files or reading someone else's personal messages is the invasion of his privacy. There are exceptions to this. For example, spying is necessary and cannot be called unethical when it is done against illegitimate use of computers. For example, intelligence agencies working on cybercrime cases need to spy on the internet activity of suspects. Commandment 4: Thou shalt not use a computer to steal. Simply put: Do not use computer technology to steal information. Explanation: Stealing sensitive information or leaking confidential information is as good as robbery. It is wrong to acquire personal information of employees from an employee database or patient history from a hospital database or other such information that is meant to be confidential. Similarly, breaking into a bank account to collect information about the account or account holder is wrong. Illegal electronic transfer of funds is a type of fraud. With the use of technology, stealing of information is much easier. Computers can be used to store stolen information. Commandment 5: Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness. Simply put: Do not contribute to the spread of misinformation using computer technology. Explanation: Spread of information has become viral today, because of the Internet. This also means that false news or rumors can spread speedily through social networking sites or emails. Being involved in the circulation of incorrect information is unethical. Mails and pop-ups are commonly used to spread the wrong information or give false alerts with the only intent of selling products. Mails from untrusted sources advertising certain products or spreading some hard-to-believe information, are not uncommon. Direct or indirect involvement in the circulation of false information is ethically wrong. Giving wrong information can hurt other parties or organizations that are affected by that particular theme. Commandment 6: Thou shalt not copy or use proprietary software for which you have not paid (without permission). Simply put: Refrain from copying software or buying pirated copies. Pay for software unless it is free. Explanation: Like any other artistic or literary work, software is copyrighted. A piece of code is the original work of the individual who created it. It is copyrighted in his/her name. In case of a developer writing software for the organization she works for, the organization holds the copyright for it. Copyright holds true unless its creators announce it is not. Obtaining illegal copies of copyrighted software is unethical and also encourages others to make copies illegally. Commandment 7: Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without authorization or proper compensation. Simply put: Do not use someone else's computer resources unless authorized to. Explanation: Multi-user systems have user specific passwords. Breaking into some other user's password, thus intruding his/her private space is unethical. It is not ethical to hack passwords for gaining unauthorized access to a password-protected computer system. Accessing data that you are not authorized to access or gaining access to another user's computer without her permission is not ethical. Commandment 8: Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output. Simply put: It is wrong to claim ownership on a work which is the output of someone else's intellect. Explanation: Programs developed by a software developer are her property. If he is working with an organization, they are the organization's property. Copying them and propagating them in one's own name is unethical. This applies to any creative work, program or design. Establishing ownership on a work which is not yours is ethically wrong. Commandment 9: Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you are writing or the system you are designing. Simply put: Before developing a software, think about the social impact it can have. Explanation: Looking at the social consequences that a program can have, describes a broader perspective of looking at technology. A computer software on release, reaches millions. Software like video games and animations or educational software can have a social impact on their users. When working on animation films or designing video games, for example, it is the programmer's responsibility to understand his target audience/users and the effect it may have on them. For example, a computer game for kids should not have content that can influence them negatively. Similarly, writing malicious software is ethically wrong. A software developer/development firm should consider the influence their code can have on the society at large. Commandment 10: Thou shalt always use a computer in ways that ensure consideration and respect for other humans. Simply put: In using computers for communication, be respectful and courteous with the fellow members. Explanation: The communication etiquette we follow in the real world applies to communication over computers as well. While communicating over the Internet, one should treat others with respect. One should not intrude others' private space, use abusive language, make false statements or pass irresponsible remarks about others. One should be courteous while communicating over the web and should respect others' time and resources. Also, one should be considerate with a novice computer user. References External links The Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics listed at Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility Ethics Ethics of science and technology Professional ethics Codes of conduct 1992 documents Internet ethics it:I dieci comandamenti dell'etica del computer

17419999

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temenos%20AG

Temenos AG

Temenos AG (SWX: TEMN) is a company specialising in enterprise software for banks and financial services, with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Temenos was initially created in 1993, and has been listed on the Swiss stock exchange since 2001. Company profile Founded in 1993 and listed on the Swiss stock exchange (SIX: TEMN), Temenos AG is a provider of banking software systems to retail, corporate, universal, private, treasury, fund administration, Islamic, microfinance and community banks. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and with 67 offices in 40 countries, Temenos serves over 3,000 financial institutions in 145 countries across the world. It claims to be used by 41 of the top 50 banks worldwide. History The company was started in November 1993, by George Koukis and Kim Goodall having acquired the rights to GLOBUS, the successful banking software platform developed by a team of technical and banking experts in 1988. The company was renamed to Temenos, in reference to a lecture on money given by Hans-Wolfgang Frick at the Temenos Academy (1992), and continued to develop and market GLOBUS. In 2001, Temenos went public, and is listed on the main segment of the SWX Swiss Exchange (TEMN). Also in 2001, Temenos acquired a mainframe core banking application aimed at high-end retail banks, originally developed by IBM, and now marketed as Temenos Corebanking. On 30 September 2003 Temenos launched its T24 banking package. T24 was based on GLOBUS, but with a state-of-the-art banking technology platform. This was the result of 3 years of development effort and an investment of more than US$24 million. In 2011, George Koukis stepped down as chairman and became a non-executive director, and Andreas Andreades became chairman. Acquisitions References Software companies of Switzerland Banking software companies Financial software companies Companies based in Geneva Companies listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange Swiss brands Software companies established in 1993 Swiss companies established in 1993

90451

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon%20%28company%29

Amazon (company)

Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", and is one of the world's most valuable brands. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos from his garage in Bellevue, Washington, on July 5, 1994. Initially an online marketplace for books, it has expanded into a multitude of product categories: a strategy that has earned it the moniker The Everything Store. It has multiple subsidiaries including Amazon Web Services (cloud computing), Zoox (autonomous vehicles), Kuiper Systems (satellite Internet), Amazon Lab126 (computer hardware R&D). Its other subsidiaries include Ring, Twitch, IMDb, and Whole Foods Market. Its acquisition of Whole Foods in August 2017 for 13.4 billion substantially increased its footprint as a physical retailer. Amazon has earned a reputation as a disruptor of well-established industries through technological innovation and mass scale. As of 2021, it is the world's largest Internet company, online marketplace, AI assistant provider, cloud computing platform, and live-streaming service as measured by revenue and market share. In 2021, it surpassed Walmart as the world's largest retailer outside of China, driven in large part by its paid subscription plan, Amazon Prime, which has over 200 million subscribers worldwide. It is the second-largest private employer in the United States. Amazon also distributes a variety of downloadable and streaming content through its Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, Twitch, and Audible units. It publishes books through its publishing arm, Amazon Publishing, film and television content through Amazon Studios, and is currently acquiring film and television studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It also produces consumer electronics—most notably, Kindle e-readers, Echo devices, Fire tablets, and Fire TV. Amazon has been criticized for practices including technological surveillance overreach, a hyper-competitive and demanding work culture, tax avoidance, and anti-competitive behavior. History Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in July 1994, who chose Seattle for its abundance of technical talent, as Microsoft was in the area. Mackenzie Scott was also instrumental in its founding, and drove across the country with Bezos to start it. When Scott graduated, she applied to work for D. E. Shaw & Co., a quantitative hedge fund in New York City, as a research associate to "pay the bills while working on her novels". Bezos, then a vice-president at the firm, met her when he interviewed her. Amazon went public in May 1997. It began selling music and videos in 1998, and began international operations by acquiring online sellers of books in the United Kingdom and Germany. The following year, it began selling items including video games, consumer electronics, home improvement items, software, games, and toys. In 2002 it launched Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provided data on website popularity, Internet traffic patterns, and other statistics for marketers and developers. In 2006, it grew its AWS portfolio when Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which rented computer processing power, provided Simple Storage Service (S3), and rented data storage via the Internet, also became available. That year, Amazon also started Fulfillment by Amazon which allowed individuals and small companies to sell items through the company's Internet site. In 2012, Amazon bought Kiva Systems to automate its inventory management business. It purchased the Whole Foods Market supermarket chain in 2017. On February 2, 2021, Amazon announced that Jeff Bezos would step down as CEO to become executive chair of Amazon's board in Q3 of 2021. Andy Jassy, previously CEO of AWS, became Amazon's CEO. Board of directors , Amazon's board of directors is: Jeff Bezos, executive chairman, Amazon.com, Inc. Andy Jassy, president and CEO, Amazon.com, Inc. Keith B. Alexander, CEO of IronNet Cybersecurity, former NSA director Rosalind Brewer, group president and COO, Starbucks Jamie Gorelick, partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr Daniel P. Huttenlocher, dean of the Schwarzman College of Computing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Judy McGrath, former CEO, MTV Networks Indra Nooyi, former CEO, PepsiCo Jon Rubinstein, former chairman and CEO, Palm, Inc. Thomas O. Ryder, former chairman and CEO, Reader's Digest Association Patty Stonesifer, president and CEO, Martha's Table Wendell P. Weeks, chairman, president and CEO, Corning Inc. Merchant partnerships In 2000, U.S. toy retailer Toys "R" Us entered into a 10-year agreement with Amazon, valued at $50 million per year plus a cut of sales, under which Toys "R" Us would be the exclusive supplier of toys and baby products on the service, and the chain's website would redirect to Amazon's Toys & Games category. In 2004, Toys "R" Us sued Amazon, claiming that because of a perceived lack of variety in Toys "R" Us stock, Amazon had knowingly allowed third-party sellers to offer items on the service in categories that Toys "R" Us had been granted exclusivity. In 2006, a court ruled in favor of Toys "R" Us, giving it the right to unwind its agreement with Amazon and establish its independent e-commerce website. The company was later awarded $51 million in damages. In 2001, Amazon entered into a similar agreement with Borders Group, under which Amazon would comanage Borders.com as a co-branded service. Borders pulled out of the arrangement in 2007, with plans to also launch its own online store. On October 18, 2011, Amazon.com announced a partnership with DC Comics for the exclusive digital rights to many popular comics, including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Sandman, and Watchmen. The partnership has caused well-known bookstores like Barnes & Noble to remove these titles from their shelves. In November 2013, Amazon announced a partnership with the United States Postal Service to begin delivering orders on Sundays. The service, included in Amazon's standard shipping rates, initiated in metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and New York because of the high-volume and inability to deliver in a timely way, with plans to expand into Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix by 2014. In June 2017, Nike agreed to sell products through Amazon in exchange for better policing of counterfeit goods. This proved unsuccessful and Nike withdrew from the partnership in November 2019. Companies including Ikea and Birkenstock also stopped selling through Amazon around the same time, citing similar frustrations over business practices and counterfeit goods. In September 2017, Amazon ventured with one of its sellers JV Appario Retail owned by Patni Group which has recorded a total income of US$ 104.44 million (₹ 759 crore) in financial year 2017–2018. , AmazonFresh sold a range of Booths branded products for home delivery in selected areas. In November 2018, Amazon reached an agreement with Apple Inc. to sell selected products through the service, via the company and selected Apple Authorized Resellers. As a result of this partnership, only Apple Authorized Resellers may sell Apple products on Amazon effective January 4, 2019. Logistics Amazon uses many different transportation services to deliver packages. Amazon-branded services include: Amazon Air, a cargo airline for bulk transport, with last-mile delivery handled either by Amazon Flex, Amazon Logistics, or the United States Postal Service. Amazon Flex, a smartphone app that enables individuals to act as independent contractors, delivering packages to customers from personal vehicles without uniforms. Deliveries include one or two hours Prime Now, same or next day Amazon Fresh groceries, and standard Amazon.com orders, in addition to orders from local stores that contract with Amazon. Amazon Logistics, in which Amazon contracts with small businesses (which it calls "Delivery Service Partners") to perform deliveries to customers. Each business has a fleet of approximately 20–40 Amazon-branded vans, and employees of the contractors wear Amazon uniforms. As of December 2020, it operates in the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Amazon Prime Air is an experimental drone delivery service. Amazon directly employs people to work at its warehouses, bulk distribution centers, staffed "Amazon Hub Locker+" locations, and delivery stations where drivers pick up packages. As of December 2020, it is not hiring delivery drivers as employees. Rakuten Intelligence estimated that in 2020 in the United States, the proportion of last-mile deliveries was 56% by Amazon's directly contracted services (mostly in urban areas), 30% by the United States Postal Service (mostly in rural areas), and 14% by UPS. In April 2021, Amazon reported to investors it had increased its in-house delivery capacity by 50% in the last 12 months (which included the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States). Products and services Amazon.com's product lines available on its website include several media (books, DVDs, music CDs, videotapes and software), apparel, baby products, consumer electronics, beauty products, gourmet food, groceries, health and personal-care items, industrial & scientific supplies, kitchen items, jewelry, watches, lawn and garden items, musical instruments, sporting goods, tools, automotive items, and toys & games. In August 2019, Amazon applied to have a liquor store in San Francisco, CA as a means to ship beer and alcohol within the city. Amazon has separate retail websites for some countries and also offers international shipping of some of its products to certain other countries. In November 2020, the company started an online delivery service dedicated to prescription drugs. The service provides discounts up to 80% for generic drugs and up to 40% for branded drugs for Prime subscribe users. The products can be purchased on the company's website or at over 50,000 bricks-and-mortar pharmacies in the United States. Amazon.com has a number of products and services available, including: Amazon Fresh Amazon Prime Alexa Appstore Amazon Drive Echo Kindle Fire tablets Fire TV Video Kindle Store Music Music Unlimited Amazon Digital Software & Video Games Amazon Studios AmazonWireless Amazon Academy In September 2021, Amazon announced the launch of Astro, its first household robot, powered by its Alexa smart home technology. This can be remote-controlled when not at home, to check on pets, people, or home security. It will send owners a notification if it detects something unusual. Subsidiaries Amazon owns over 40 subsidiaries, including Amazon Web Services, Audible, Diapers.com, Goodreads, IMDb, Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics), Shopbop, Teachstreet, Twitch, Zappos, and Zoox. A9.com A9.com, a company focused on researching and building innovative technology, has been a subsidiary since 2003. Amazon Maritime Amazon Maritime, Inc. holds a Federal Maritime Commission license to operate as a non-vessel-owning common carrier (NVOCC), which enables the company to manage its shipments from China into the United States. Annapurna Labs In January 2015, Amazon Web Services acquired Annapurna Labs, an Israel-based microelectronics company reputedly for US$350–370M. Audible.com Audible.com is a seller and producer of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming on the Internet. Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and television programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers. Through its production arm, Audible Studios, Audible has also become the world's largest producer of downloadable audiobooks. On January 31, 2008, Amazon announced it would buy Audible for about $300 million. The deal closed in March 2008 and Audible became a subsidiary of Amazon. Beijing Century Joyo Courier Services Beijing Century Joyo Courier Services is a subsidiary of Amazon and it applied for a freight forwarding license with the US Maritime Commission. Amazon is also building out its logistics in trucking and air freight to potentially compete with UPS and FedEx. Brilliance Audio Brilliance Audio is an audiobook publisher founded in 1984 by Michael Snodgrass in Grand Haven, Michigan. The company produced its first 8 audio titles in 1985. The company was purchased by Amazon in 2007 for an undisclosed amount. At the time of the acquisition, Brilliance was producing 12–15 new titles a month. It operates as an independent company within Amazon. In 1984, Brilliance Audio invented a technique for recording twice as much on the same cassette. The technique involved recording on each of the two channels of each stereo track. It has been credited with revolutionizing the burgeoning audiobook market in the mid-1980s since it made unabridged books affordable. ComiXology ComiXology is a cloud-based digital comics platform with over 200 million comic downloads . It offers a selection of more than 40,000 comic books and graphic novels across Android, iOS, Fire OS and Windows 8 devices and over a web browser. Amazon bought the company in April 2014. CreateSpace CreateSpace, which offers self-publishing services for independent content creators, publishers, film studios, and music labels, became a subsidiary in 2009. Eero Eero is an electronics company specializing in mesh-networking Wifi devices founded as a startup in 2014 by Nick Weaver, Amos Schallich, and Nate Hardison to simplify and innovate the smart home. Eero was acquired by Amazon in 2019 for US$97 million. Eero has continued to operate under its banner and advertises its commitment to privacy despite early concerns from the company's acquisition. Goodreads Goodreads is a "social cataloging" website founded in December 2006 and launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler, a software engineer, and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Khuri. The website allows individuals to freely search Goodreads' extensive user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists. They can also create their groups of book suggestions and discussions. In December 2007, the site had over 650,000 members, and over a million books had been added. Amazon bought the company in March 2013. Health Navigator In October 2019, Amazon finalized the acquisition of Health Navigator, a startup developing APIs for online health services. The startup will form part of Amazon Care, which is the company's employee healthcare service. This follows the 2018 purchase of PillPack for under $1 billion, which has also been included into Amazon Care. Junglee Junglee is a former online shopping service provided by Amazon that enabled customers to search for products from online and offline retailers in India. Junglee started as a virtual database that was used to extract information from the Internet and deliver it to enterprise applications. As it progressed, Junglee started to use its database technology to create a single window marketplace on the Internet by making every item from every supplier available for purchase. Web shoppers could locate, compare and transact millions of products from across the Internet shopping mall through one window. Amazon acquired Junglee in 1998, and the website Junglee.com was launched in India in February 2012 as a comparison-shopping website. It curated and enabled searching for a diverse variety of products such as clothing, electronics, toys, jewelry, and video games, among others, across thousands of online and offline sellers. Millions of products are browsable, the client selects a price, and then they are directed to a seller. In November 2017, Amazon closed down Junglee.com and the former domain currently redirects to Amazon India. Kuiper Systems Kuiper Systems LLC, is a subsidiary of Amazon, set up to deploy a broadband satellite internet constellation with an announced 3,236 Low Earth orbit satellites to provide satellite based Internet connectivity. Lab126 Lab126, developers of integrated consumer electronics such as the Kindle, became a subsidiary in 2004. Ring Ring is a home automation company founded by Jamie Siminoff in 2013. It is primarily known for its WiFi powered smart doorbells, but manufactures other devices such as security cameras. Amazon bought Ring for US$1 billion in 2018. Shelfari Shelfari was a social cataloging website for books. Shelfari users built virtual bookshelves of the titles which they owned or had read and they could rate, review, tag and discuss their books. Users could also create groups that other members could join, create discussions and talk about books, or other topics. Recommendations could be sent to friends on the site for what books to read. Amazon bought the company in August 2008. Shelfari continued to function as an independent book social network within the Amazon until January 2016, when Amazon announced that it would be merging Shelfari with Goodreads and closing down Shelfari. Souq Souq.com was the largest e-commerce platform in the Arab world. The company launched in 2005 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and served multiple areas across the Middle East. On March 28, 2017, Amazon acquired Souq.com for $580 million. The company was re-branded as Amazon and its infrastructure was used to expand Amazon's online platform in the Middle East. Twitch Twitch is a live streaming platform for video, primarily oriented towards video gaming content. The service was first established as a spin-off of a general-interest streaming service known as Justin.tv. Its prominence was eclipsed by that of Twitch, and Justin.tv was eventually shut down by its parent company in August 2014 in order to focus exclusively on Twitch. Later that month, Twitch was acquired by Amazon for $970 million. Through Twitch, Amazon also owns Curse, Inc., an operator of video gaming communities and a provider of VoIP services for gaming. Since the acquisition, Twitch began to sell games directly through the platform, and began offering special features for Amazon Prime subscribers. The site's rapid growth had been boosted primarily by the prominence of major esports competitions on the service, leading GameSpot senior esports editor Rod Breslau to have described the service as "the ESPN of esports". , the service had over 1.5 million broadcasters and 100 million monthly viewers. On August 10, 2020, Amazon announced the rebranding of Twitch Prime, the live-streaming site, renaming it Prime Gaming in another attempt to crack the video game market after failing a big-budget game effort. With Twitch Prime, users will be given a free subscription to Twitch, with free games from small studios and discounts for larger titles like Grand Theft Auto and League of Legends. On November 2, 2020, Twitch announced a virtual flagship conference and named it GlitchCon instead of TwitchCon to be held on November 14. The main aim of the conference will be to bring its numerous, disparate communities of streamers and fans together where they can be real-life confidants. Whole Foods Market Whole Foods Market is an American supermarket chain exclusively featuring foods without artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, sweeteners, and hydrogenated fats. Amazon acquired Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in August 2017. Other Amazon also has investments in renewable energy and plans to expand its position into the Canadian market through an investment in a new plant in Alberta. Supply chain Amazon first launched its distribution network in 1997 with two fulfillment centers in Seattle and New Castle, Delaware. Amazon has several types of distribution facilities consisting of cross-dock centers, fulfillment centers, sortation centers, delivery stations, Prime now hubs, and Prime air hubs. There are 75 fulfillment centers and 25 sortation centers with over 125,000 employees. Employees are responsible for five basic tasks: unpacking and inspecting incoming goods; placing goods in storage and recording their location; picking goods from their computer recorded locations to make up an individual shipment; sorting and packing orders; and shipping. A computer that records the location of goods and maps out routes for pickers plays a key role: employees carry hand-held computers which communicate with the central computer and monitor their rate of progress. Some warehouses are partially automated with systems built by Amazon Robotics. In September 2006 Amazon launched a program called FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) whereby it could handle storage, packing and distribution of products and services for small sellers. Website The domain amazon.com attracted at least 615 million visitors annually by 2008; by the beginning of 2016, over 130 million customers were visiting the U.S. website each month. The company has invested heavily in a massive amount of server capacity for its website, especially to handle the excessive traffic during the Christmas holiday season. According to Alexa Internet rankings, amazon.com is the third most popular website in the United States and the 11th most popular website worldwide. Results generated by Amazon's search engine are partly determined by promotional fees. The company's localized storefronts, which differ in selection and prices, are differentiated by top-level domain and country code: Reviews Amazon allows users to submit reviews to the web page of each product. Reviewers must rate the product on a rating scale from one to five stars. Amazon provides a badging option for reviewers which indicates the real name of the reviewer (based on confirmation of a credit card account) or which indicates that the reviewer is one of the top reviewers by popularity. As of December 16, 2020, Amazon removed the ability of sellers and customers to comment on product reviews and purged their websites of all posted product review comments. In an email to sellers Amazon gave its rationale for removing this feature: "... the comments feature on customer reviews was rarely used." The remaining review response options are to indicate whether the reader finds the review helpful or to report that it violates Amazon policies (abuse). If a review is given enough "helpful" hits, it appears on the front page of the product. In 2010, Amazon was reported as being the largest single source of Internet consumer reviews. When publishers asked Bezos why Amazon would publish negative reviews, he defended the practice by claiming that Amazon.com was "taking a different approach ... we want to make every book available—the good, the bad and the ugly ... to let truth loose". There have been cases of positive reviews being written and posted by public relations companies on behalf of their clients and instances of writers using pseudonyms to leave negative reviews of their rivals' works. Content search "Search Inside the Book" is a feature which allows customers to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the catalog. The feature started with 120,000 titles (or 33 million pages of text) on October 23, 2003. Third-party sellers Amazon derives many of its sales (around 40% in 2008) from third-party sellers who sell products on Amazon. Associates receive a commission for referring customers to Amazon by placing links to Amazon on their websites if the referral results in a sale. Worldwide, Amazon has "over 900,000 members" in its affiliate programs. In the middle of 2014, the Amazon Affiliate Program is used by 1.2% of all websites and it is the second most popular advertising network after Google Ads. It is frequently used by websites and non-profits to provide a way for supporters to earn them a commission. Associates can access the Amazon catalog directly on their websites by using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) XML service. A new affiliate product, aStore, allows Associates to embed a subset of Amazon products within another website, or linked to another website. In June 2010, Amazon Seller Product Suggestions was launched (rumored to be internally called "Project Genesis") to provide more transparency to sellers by recommending specific products to third-party sellers to sell on Amazon. Products suggested are based on customers' browsing history. In 2019, Amazon launched a bigger local online store in Singapore to expand its product selection in the face of intensifying competition with competitors in the region. In July 2019, the 3rd U.S. City Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that Amazon can be held accountable for faulty third-party sales. The decision ran counter to a past lower court ruling that had favored Amazon. Heather Oberdorf had sued the company in 2016 over a dog leash that snapped, causing permanent loss of vision in one eye. If upheld, the decision would expose Amazon and similar platform businesses to strict liability lawsuits for defective products, which represents a major change in the law. The panel sent the case back to the lower court, to decide whether the leash was defective. Amazon sales rank The Amazon sales rank (ASR) indicates the popularity of a product sold on any Amazon locale. It is a relative indicator of popularity that is updated hourly. Effectively, it is a "best sellers list" for the millions of products stocked by Amazon. While the ASR has no direct effect on the sales of a product, it is used by Amazon to determine which products to include in its bestsellers lists. Products that appear in these lists enjoy additional exposure on the Amazon website and this may lead to an increase in sales. In particular, products that experience large jumps (up or down) in their sales ranks may be included within Amazon's lists of "movers and shakers"; such a listing provides additional exposure that might lead to an increase in sales. For competitive reasons, Amazon does not release actual sales figures to the public. However, Amazon has now begun to release point of sale data via the Nielsen BookScan service to verified authors. While the ASR has been the source of much speculation by publishers, manufacturers, and marketers, Amazon itself does not release the details of its sales rank calculation algorithm. Some companies have analyzed Amazon sales data to generate sales estimates based on the ASR, though Amazon states: Multi-level sales strategy Amazon employs a multi-level e-commerce strategy. Amazon started by focusing on business-to-consumer relationships between itself and its customers and business-to-business relationships between itself and its suppliers and then moved to facilitate customer-to-customer with the Amazon marketplace which acts as an intermediary to facilitate transactions. The company lets anyone sell nearly anything using its platform. In addition to an affiliate program that lets anyone post Amazon links and earn a commission on click-through sales, there is now a program that lets those affiliates build entire websites based on Amazon's platform. Some other large e-commerce sellers use Amazon to sell their products in addition to selling them through their websites. The sales are processed through Amazon.com and end up at individual sellers for processing and order fulfillment and Amazon leases space for these retailers. Small sellers of used and new goods go to Amazon Marketplace to offer goods at a fixed price. In November 2015, Amazon opened a physical Amazon Books store in University Village in Seattle. The store is 5,500 square feet and prices for all products match those on its website. Amazon will open its tenth physical book store in 2017; media speculation suggests Amazon plans to eventually roll out 300 to 400 bookstores around the country. In June 2018, it was reported that Amazon planned to open brick and mortar bookstores in Germany. In September 2020, Amazon launched Luxury Stores on its mobile app, where Oscar de la Renta become the first and only label to partner with the firm. Finances Amazon.com is primarily a retail site with a sales revenue model; Amazon takes a small percentage of the sale price of each item that is sold through its website while also allowing companies to advertise their products by paying to be listed as featured products. , Amazon.com is ranked 8th on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. For the fiscal year 2018, Amazon reported earnings of US$10.07 billion, with an annual revenue of US$232.887 billion, an increase of 30.9% over the previous fiscal cycle. Since 2007 sales increased from 14.835 billion to 232.887 billion, thanks to continued business expansion. Amazon's market capitalization went over US$1 trillion again in early February 2020 after the announcement of the fourth quarter 2019 results. Controversies Since its founding, the company has attracted criticism and controversy for its actions, including: supplying law enforcement with facial recognition surveillance tools; forming cloud computing partnerships with the CIA; leading customers away from bookshops; adversely impacting the environment; placing a low priority on warehouse conditions for workers; actively opposing unionization efforts; remotely deleting content purchased by Amazon Kindle users; taking public subsidies; seeking to patent its 1-Click technology; engaging in anti-competitive actions and price discrimination; and reclassifying LGBT books as adult content. Criticism has also concerned various decisions over whether to censor or publish content such as the WikiLeaks website, works containing libel and material facilitating dogfight, cockfight, or pedophile activities. In December 2011, Amazon faced a backlash from small businesses for running a one-day deal to promote its new Price Check app. Shoppers who used the app to check prices in a brick-and-mortar store were offered a 5% discount to purchase the same item from Amazon. Companies like Groupon, eBay and Taap.it countered Amazon's promotion by offering $10 off from their products. The company has also faced accusations of putting undue pressure on suppliers to maintain and extend its profitability. One effort to squeeze the most vulnerable book publishers was known within the company as the Gazelle Project, after Bezos suggested, according to Brad Stone, "that Amazon should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle." In July 2014, the Federal Trade Commission launched a lawsuit against the company alleging it was promoting in-app purchases to children, which were being transacted without parental consent. In 2019, Amazon banned selling skin-lightening and racist products that might affect the consumer's health. Environmental impact In 2018, Amazon emitted 44.4 million metric tons of . In November 2018, a community action group opposed the construction permit delivered to Goodman Group for the construction of a logistics platform Amazon will operate at Lyon–Saint-Exupéry Airport. In February 2019, Étienne Tête filed a request on behalf of a second regional community action group asking the administrative court to decide whether the platform served a sufficiently important public interest to justify its environmental impact. Construction has been suspended while these matters are decided. In September 2019, Amazon workers organized a walk-out as part of the Global Climate Strike. An internal group called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice said over 1,800 employees in 25 cities and 14 countries committed to participating in the action to protest Amazon's environmental impact and inaction to climate change. This group of workers petitioned Jeff Bezos and Amazon with three specific demands: to stop donating to politicians and lobbyists that deny climate change, to stop working with fossil fuel companies to accelerate oil and gas extraction, and to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2030. Amazon has introduced the Shipment Zero program, however, Shipment Zero has only committed to reducing 50% of its shipments to net-zero by 2030. Also, even that 50% does not necessarily mean a decrease in emissions compared to current levels given Amazon's rate of growth in orders. That said, Amazon's CEO has also signed the Climate Pledge, in which Amazon would meet the Paris climate agreement goals 10 years ahead of schedule, and would be carbon-neutral by 2040. Besides this pledge, it also ordered 100 000 electric delivery trucks from Rivian. In September 2021, signatories of Amazon Environmental Pledge reached 200. According to the report, signatories of pledge are from 16 countries, 25 industries. Amazon funds both climate denial groups including the Competitive Enterprise Institute and politicians denying climate change including Jim Inhofe. Amazon considered making an option for Prime customers to have packages delivered at the most efficient and environmentally-friendly time (allowing the company to combine shipments with the same destination) but decided against it out of fear customers might reduce purchases. Since 2019, the company has instead offered customers an "Amazon Day" option, where all orders are delivered on the same day, emphasizing customer convenience, and it occasionally offers Prime customers credits in return for selecting slower and less expensive shipping options. The Solimo Strategy In October 2021, based on several leaked internal documents, Reuters reported that Amazon systematically harvested and studied data about their sellers' products' market performance, and used those data to identify lucrative markets and ultimately launch Amazon's replacement products in India. The data included information about returns, the sizing of clothing down to the neck circumference and sleeve length, and the volume of product views on their website. Rivals' market performance data are not available to Amazon's sellers. The strategy also involved tweaking the search results to favor Amazon's knock-off products. The Solimo Strategy's impact had a reach well beyond India: hundreds of Solimo branded household items, from multivitamins to coffee pods, are available in the US. One of the victims of the Solimo Strategy is the clothing brand John Miller, owned by India's 'retail king' Kishore Biyani. Selling counterfeit, unsafe and discarded items The selling of counterfeit products by Amazon has attracted widespread notice, with both purchases marked as being fulfilled by third parties and those shipped directly from Amazon warehouses being found to be counterfeit. This has included some products sold directly by Amazon itself and marked as "ships from and sold by Amazon.com". Counterfeit charging cables sold on Amazon as purported Apple products have been found to be a fire hazard. Such counterfeits have included a wide array of products, from big ticket items to every day items such as tweezers, gloves, and umbrellas. More recently, this has spread to Amazon's newer grocery services. Counterfeiting was reported to be especially a problem for artists and small businesses whose products were being rapidly copied for sale on the site. One Amazon business practice that encourages counterfeiting is that, by default, seller accounts on Amazon are set to use "commingled inventory". With this practice, the goods that a seller sends to Amazon are mixed with those of the producer of the product and with those of all other sellers that supply what is supposed to be the same product. In June 2019, Buzzfeed reported that some products identified on the site as "Amazon's choice" were low quality, had a history of customer complaints, and exhibited evidence of product review manipulation. In August 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that they had found more than 4,000 items for sale on Amazon's site that had been declared unsafe by federal agencies, had misleading labels or had been banned by federal regulators. In the wake of the WSJ investigation, three U.S. senators Richard Blumenthal, Ed Markey, and Bob Menendezsent an open letter to Jeff Bezos demanding him to take action about the selling of unsafe items on the site. The letter said that "Unquestionably, Amazon is falling short of its commitment to keeping safe those consumers who use its massive platform." The letter included several questions about the company's practices and gave Bezos a deadline to respond by September 29, 2019, saying "We call on you to immediately remove from the platform all the problematic products examined in the recent WSJ report; explain how you are going about this process; conduct a sweeping internal investigation of your enforcement and consumer safety policies; and institute changes that will continue to keep unsafe products off your platform." Earlier in the same month, senators Blumenthal and Menendez had sent Bezos a letter about the Buzzfeed report. In December 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that some people were literally retrieving trash out of dumpsters and selling it as new products on Amazon. The reporters ran an experiment and determined that it was easy for a seller to set up an account and sell cleaned up junk as new products. In addition to trash, sellers were obtaining inventory from clearance bins, thrift stores, and pawn shops. In August 2020, an appeals court in California ruled that Amazon can be held liable for unsafe products sold on its website. A Californian had bought a replacement laptop battery that caught fire and caused her to receive third-degree burns. Rigged search results Reuters has reported that Amazon has rigged its product search results to favor its brand in India. According to the article, leaked internal strategy documents show that Amazon has systematically manipulated its search results such that Amazon's brand products appear in the first three search results, leading customers to purchase those instead of other sellers' products on the platform. The company employed two tactics: search seeding and search sparkles. By search seeding, Amazon boosted the rankings of its own branded goods. By search sparkles, the company inserted promotions of their brands into broad category searches. Tax avoidance Amazon's tax affairs were investigated in China, Germany, Poland, South Korea, France, Japan, Ireland, Singapore, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, and Portugal. According to a report released by Fair Tax Mark in 2019, Amazon is the worst offender of tax avoidance, having paid a 12% effective tax rate between 2010 and 2018, in contrast with 35% corporate tax rate in the US during the same period. Amazon countered that it had a 24% effective tax rate during the same period. Comments by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders In early 2018, President Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Amazon's use of the United States Postal Service and its prices for the delivery of packages, stating, "I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy," Trump tweeted. "Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them by the American Taxpayer." Amazon's shares fell by 6 percent as a result of Trump's comments. Shepard Smith of Fox News disputed Trump's claims and pointed to evidence that the USPS was offering below-market prices to all customers with no advantage to Amazon. However, analyst Tom Forte pointed to the fact that Amazon's payments to the USPS are not made public and that their contract has a reputation for being "a sweetheart deal". Throughout the summer of 2018, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders criticized Amazon's wages and working conditions in a series of YouTube videos and media appearances. He also pointed to the fact that Amazon had paid no federal income tax in the previous year. Sanders solicited stories from Amazon warehouse workers who felt exploited by the company. One such story, by James Bloodworth, described the environment as akin to "a low-security prison" and stated that the company's culture used an Orwellian newspeak. These reports cited a finding by New Food Economy that one third of fulfilment center workers in Arizona were on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Responses by Amazon included incentives for employees to tweet positive stories and a statement which called the salary figures used by Sanders "inaccurate and misleading". The statement also charged that it was inappropriate for him to refer to SNAP as "food stamps". On September 5, 2018, Sanders along with Ro Khanna introduced the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS) Act aimed at Amazon and other alleged beneficiaries of corporate welfare such as Walmart, McDonald's and Uber. Among the bill's supporters were Tucker Carlson of Fox News and Matt Taibbi who criticized himself and other journalists for not covering Amazon's contribution to wealth inequality earlier. On October 2, 2018, Amazon announced that its minimum wage for all American employees would be raised to $15 per hour. Sanders congratulated the company for making this decision. Opposition to trade unions Amazon has opposed efforts by trade unions to organize in both the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2001, 850 employees in Seattle were laid off by Amazon.com after a unionization drive. The Washington Alliance of Technological Workers (WashTech) accused the company of violating union laws and claimed Amazon managers subjected them to intimidation and heavy propaganda. Amazon denied any link between the unionization effort and layoffs. Also in 2001, Amazon.co.uk hired a US management consultancy organization, The Burke Group, to assist in defeating a campaign by the Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU, now part of Unite the Union) to achieve recognition in the Milton Keynes distribution depot. It was alleged that the company victimized or sacked four union members during the 2001 recognition drive and held a series of captive meetings with employees. An Amazon training video that was leaked in 2018 stated "We are not anti-union, but we are not neutral either. We do not believe unions are in the best interest of our customers or shareholders or most importantly, our associates." Two years later, it was found that Whole Foods was using a heat map to track which stores had the highest levels of pro-union sentiment. Factors including racial diversity, proximity to other unions, poverty levels in the surrounding community and calls to the National Labor Relations Board were named as contributors to "unionization risk". In early 2020, an Amazon internal documents were leaked, it said that Whole Foods has been using an interactive heat map to monitor its 510 locations across the U.S. and assign each store a unionization risk score based on such criteria as employee loyalty, turnover rate, and racial diversity. Data collected in the heat map suggest that stores with low racial and ethnic diversity, especially those located in poor communities, are more likely to unionize. National Labor Relations Board determined that Amazon illegally fired two employees in retaliation for efforts to organize workers. In April 2021, after a majority of workers in Bessemer, Alabama voted against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the union asked for a hearing with the NLRB to determine whether the company created "an atmosphere of confusion, coercion and/or fear of reprisals" ahead of the union vote. Working conditions Former employees, current employees, the media, and politicians have criticized Amazon for poor working conditions at the company. In 2011, it was publicized that workers had to carry out tasks in heat at the Breinigsville, Pennsylvania warehouse. As a result of these inhumane conditions, employees became extremely uncomfortable and suffered from dehydration and collapse. Loading-bay doors were not opened to allow in fresh air because of concerns over theft. Amazon's initial response was to pay for an ambulance to sit outside on call to cart away overheated employees. The company eventually installed air conditioning at the warehouse. Some workers, "pickers", who travel the building with a trolley and a handheld scanner "picking" customer orders, can walk up to during their workday and if they fall behind on their targets, they can be reprimanded. The handheld scanners give real-time information to the employee on how quickly or slowly they are working; the scanners also serve to allow Team Leads and Area Managers to track the specific locations of employees and how much "idle time" they gain when not working. In a German television report broadcast in February 2013, journalists Diana Löbl and Peter Onneken conducted a covert investigation at the distribution center of Amazon in the town of Bad Hersfeld in the German state of Hessen. The report highlights the behavior of some of the security guards, themselves being employed by a third-party company, who apparently either had a neo-Nazi background or deliberately dressed in neo-Nazi apparel and who were intimidating foreign and temporary female workers at its distribution centers. The third-party security company involved was delisted by Amazon as a business contact shortly after that report. In March 2015, it was reported in The Verge that Amazon would be removing non-compete clauses of 18 months in length from its US employment contracts for hourly-paid workers, after criticism that it was acting unreasonably in preventing such employees from finding other work. Even short-term temporary workers have to sign contracts that prohibit them from working at any company where they would "directly or indirectly" support any good or service that competes with those they helped support at Amazon, for 18 months after leaving Amazon, even if they are fired or made redundant. A 2015 front-page article in The New York Times profiled several former Amazon employees who together described a "bruising" workplace culture in which workers with illness or other personal crises were pushed out or unfairly evaluated. Bezos responded by writing a Sunday memo to employees, in which he disputed the Timess account of "shockingly callous management practices" that he said would never be tolerated at the company. To boost employee morale, on November 2, 2015, Amazon announced that it would be extending six weeks of paid leave for new mothers and fathers. This change includes birth parents and adoptive parents and can be applied in conjunction with existing maternity leave and medical leave for new mothers. In mid-2018, investigations by journalists and media outlets such as The Guardian reported poor working conditions at Amazon's fulfillment centers. Later in 2018, another article exposed poor working conditions for Amazon's delivery drivers. In response to criticism that Amazon does not pay its workers a livable wage, Jeff Bezos announced beginning November 1, 2018, all US and UK Amazon employees will earn a $15 an hour minimum wage. Amazon will also lobby to make $15 an hour the federal minimum wage. At the same time, Amazon also eliminated stock awards and bonuses for hourly employees. On Black Friday 2018, Amazon warehouse workers in several European countries, including Italy, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, went on strike to protest inhumane working conditions and low pay. The Daily Beast reported in March 2019 that emergency services responded to 189 calls from 46 Amazon warehouses in 17 states between the years 2013 and 2018, all relating to suicidal employees. The workers attributed their mental breakdowns to employer-imposed social isolation, aggressive surveillance, and the hurried and dangerous working conditions at these fulfillment centers. One former employee told The Daily Beast "It's this isolating colony of hell where people having breakdowns is a regular occurrence." On July 15, 2019, during the onset of Amazon's Prime Day sale event, Amazon employees working in the United States and Germany went on strike in protest of unfair wages and poor working conditions. In August 2019, the BBC reported on Amazon's Twitter ambassadors. Their constant support for and defense of Amazon and its practices have led many Twitter users to suspect that they are in fact bots, being used to dismiss the issues affecting Amazon workers. In March 2021, a flurry of new ambassador accounts claiming to be employees defended the company against a unionization drive, in some cases making the false claim that there was no way to opt-out of union dues. Amazon confirmed at least one was fake, and Twitter shut down several for violating its terms of use. In March 2020, during the coronavirus outbreak when the government instructed companies to restrict social contact, Amazon's UK staff was forced to work overtime to meet the demand spiked by the disease. A GMB spokesperson said the company had put "profit before safety". GMB has continued to raise concerns regarding "gruelling conditions, unrealistic productivity targets, surveillance, bogus self-employment and a refusal to recognise or engage with unions unless forced", calling for the UK government and safety regulators to take action to address these issues. In its 2020 statement to its US shareholders, Amazon stated that "we respect and support the Core Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Operation of these Global Human Rights Principles has been "long-held at Amazon, and codifying them demonstrates our support for fundamental human rights and the dignity of workers everywhere we operate". On November 27, 2020, Amnesty International said, workers working for Amazon have faced great health and safety risks since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. On Black Friday, one of Amazon's busiest periods, the company failed to ensure key safety features in France, Poland, the United Kingdom, and USA. Workers have been risking their health and lives to ensure essential goods are delivered to consumer doorsteps, helping Amazon achieve record profits. On January 6, 2021, Amazon said that it is planning to build 20,000 affordable houses by spending $2 billion in the regions where the major employments are located. On January 24, 2021, Amazon said that it was planning to open a pop-up clinic hosted in partnership with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle in order to vaccinate 2,000 persons against COVID-19 on the first day. In February 2021, Amazon said that it was planning to put cameras in its delivery vehicles. Although many drivers were upset by this decision, Amazon said that the videos would only be sent in certain circumstances. Drivers have alleged they sometimes have to urinate and defecate in their vans as a result of pressure to meet quotas. This was denied in a tweet from the official Amazon News account saying: "You don't really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us." Amazon employees subsequently leaked an email to The Intercept showing the company was aware its drivers were doing so. The email said: "This evening, an associate discovered human feces in an Amazon bag that was returned to station by a driver. This is the 3rd occasion in the last 2 months when bags have been returned to the station with poop inside." Amazon acknowledged the issue publicly after denying it at first. In July 2021, workers at the warehouse in New York City filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which describes harsh 12-hour workdays with sweltering internal temperatures that resulted in fainting workers being carried out on stretchers. The complaint reads "internal temperature is too hot. We have no ventilation, dusty, dirty fans that spread debris into our lungs and eyes, are working at a non-stop pace and [we] are fainting out from heat exhaustion, getting nose bleeds from high blood pressure, and feeling dizzy and nauseous." They add that many of the fans provided by the company don't work, water fountains often lack water, and cooling systems are insufficient. Those filing the complaint are affiliated with the Amazon Labor Union group attempting to unionize the facility, which the company has been actively campaigning against. Similar conditions have been reported elsewhere, such as in Kent, Washington during the 2021 heat wave. Conflict of interest with the CIA and DOD In 2013, Amazon secured a contract with the CIA, which poses a potential conflict of interest involving the Bezos-owned The Washington Post and his newspaper's coverage of the CIA. Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said, "It's a serious potential conflict of interest for a major newspaper like The Washington Post to have a contractual relationship with the government and the most secret part of the government." This was later followed by a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. Seattle head tax and houselessness services In May 2018, Amazon threatened the Seattle City Council over an employee head tax proposal that would have funded houselessness services and low-income housing. The tax would have cost Amazon about $800 per employee, or 0.7% of their average salary. In retaliation, Amazon paused construction on a new building, threatened to limit further investment in the city, and funded a repeal campaign. Although originally passed, the measure was soon repealed after an expensive repeal campaign spearheaded by Amazon. Nashville Operations Center of Excellence The incentives given by the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County to Amazon for their new Operations Center of Excellence in Nashville Yards, a site owned by developer Southwest Value Partners, have been controversial, including the decision by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to keep the full extent of the agreement secret. The incentives include "$102 million in combined grants and tax credits for a scaled-down Amazon office building" as well as "a $65 million cash grant for capital expenditures" in exchange for the creation of 5,000 jobs over seven years. The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government called for more transparency. Another local organization known as the People's Alliance for Transit, Housing, and Employment (PATHE) suggested no public money should be given to Amazon; instead, it should be spent on building more public housing for the working poor and the homeless and investing in more public transportation for Nashvillians. Others suggested incentives to big corporations do not improve the local economy. In November 2018, the proposal to give Amazon $15 million in incentives was criticized by the Nashville Firefighters Union and the Nashville chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, who called it "corporate welfare." In February 2019, another $15.2 million in infrastructure was approved by the council, although it was voted down by three council members, including Councilwoman Angie Henderson who dismissed it as "cronyism". Facial recognition technology and law enforcement While Amazon has publicly opposed secret government surveillance, as revealed by Freedom of Information Act requests it has supplied facial recognition support to law enforcement in the form of the Rekognition technology and consulting services. Initial testing included the city of Orlando, Florida, and Washington County, Oregon. Amazon offered to connect Washington County with other Amazon government customers interested in Rekognition and a body camera manufacturer. These ventures are opposed by a coalition of civil rights groups with concern that they could lead to an expansion of surveillance and be prone to abuse. Specifically, it could automate the identification and tracking of anyone, particularly in the context of potential police body camera integration. Because of the backlash, the city of Orlando publicly stated it will no longer use the technology, but may revisit this decision at a later date. Access to NHS data The UK government awarded Amazon a contract that gives the company free access to information about healthcare published by the UK's National Health Service. This will, for example, be used by Amazon's Alexa to answer medical questions, although Alexa also uses many other sources of information. The material, which excludes patient data, could also allow the company to make, advertise and sell its products. The contract allows Amazon access to information on symptoms, causes, and definitions of conditions, and "all related copyrightable content and data and other materials". Amazon can then create "new products, applications, cloud-based services and/or distributed software", which the NHS will not benefit from financially. The company can also share the information with third parties. The government said that allowing Alexa devices to offer expert health advice to users will reduce pressure on doctors and pharmacists. Collection of data and surveillance On February 17, 2020, a Panorama documentary broadcast by the BBC in the UK highlighted the amount of data collected by the company and the move into surveillance causing concerns of politicians and regulators in the US and Europe. Antitrust complaints On June 11, 2020, the European Union announced that it will be pressing charges against Amazon over its treatment of third-party e-commerce sellers. In July 2020, Amazon along with other tech giants Apple, Google and Meta was accused of maintaining harmful power and anti-competitive strategies to quash potential competitors in the market. The CEOs of respective firms appeared in a teleconference on July 29, 2020, before the lawmakers of the U.S. House Antitrust Subcommittee. In October 2020, the antitrust subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives released a report accusing Amazon of abusing a monopoly position in e-commerce to unfairly compete with sellers on its platform. Anti-vaccination and non-scientific cancer 'cures' Anti-vaccination and non-evidence-based cancer 'cures' have routinely appeared high in Amazon's books and videos. This may be due to positive reviews posted by supporters of untested methods, or gaming of the algorithms by truther communities, rather than any intent on the company's part. Wired magazine found that Amazon Prime Video was full of 'pseudoscientific documentaries laden with conspiracy theories and pointing viewers towards unproven treatments'. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) expressed concern that Amazon was “surfacing and recommending products and content that discourage parents from vaccinating their children.” Amazon subsequently removed five anti-vaccination documentaries. Amazon also removed 12 books that unscientifically claimed bleach could cure conditions including malaria and childhood autism. This followed an NBC News report about parents who used it in a misguided attempt to reverse their children's autism. Response to COVID-19 pandemic Hazard pay and overtime Amazon introduced new policies to reward frontline workers for continuing to come into work during the crisis. One of these policies, announced on March 16, 2020, was a temporary $2-per-hour rise in pay. This policy expired in June 2020. Amazon also announced a policy of unlimited, unpaid time off that lasted until April 30, 2020. Additional hiring as a result of pandemic In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon introduced temporary restrictions on the sale of non-essential goods. In March 2020, it hired some 100,000 more staff in the US to help deal with essential items such as food and medical equipment. It also reported that it was so busy that it was unable to bring onboard new customers and therefore had to have a waiting list. In April, the firm announced that it was going to hire up to 75,000 workers to help deal with increased demand. In September 2020, the company announced it would hire an additional 100,000 workers in the United States and Canada. Employee protests during COVID-19 During the pandemic, there have been protests by the Amazon workers at warehouses in the US, France, and Italy. The BBC reported that there were confirmed coronavirus cases in more than 50 locations. The reason for the protests is the company policy to "run normal shifts" despite many positive cases of the virus. According to the UNI Global Union, "Amazon cannot act like this is business as usual. We are facing a deadly virus that has already taken the lives of thousands of people and paralyzed the world's economy. If distribution centers are not safe for workers right now, they should be closed immediately." In Spain, the company has faced legal complaints over its policies. Despite workers at 19 warehouses in the US have tested positive for COVID-19, Amazon did not shut down warehouses, only doing so when forced by the government or because of protests. A group of US Senators wrote an open letter to Bezos in March 2020, expressing concerns about worker safety. An Amazon warehouse protest on March 30, 2020, in Staten Island led to its organizer, Christian Smalls, being fired. Amazon defended the decision by saying that Smalls was supposed to be in self-isolation at the time and leading the protest put its other workers at risk. Smalls has called this response "ridiculous". The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, is considering legal retaliation to the firing which she called "immoral and inhumane." She also asked the National Labor Relations Board to investigate Smalls' firing. Smalls himself accuses the company of retaliating against him for organizing a protest. At the Staten Island warehouse, one case of COVID-19 has been confirmed by Amazon; workers believe there are more, and say that the company has not cleaned the building, given them suitable protection, or informed them of potential cases. Smalls added specifically that there are many workers there in risk categories, and the protest only demanded that the building be sanitized and the employees continue to be paid during that process. Derrick Palmer, another worker at the Staten Island facility, told The Verge that Amazon quickly communicates through text and email when they need the staff to complete mandatory overtime, but have not been using this to tell people when a colleague has contracted the disease, instead of waiting days and sending managers to speak to employees in person. Amazon claim that the Staten Island protest only attracted 15 of the facility's 5,000 workers, while other sources describe much larger crowds. On April 14, 2020, two Amazon employees were fired for "repeatedly violating internal policies", after they had circulated a petition about health risks for warehouse workers internally. On May 4, Amazon vice president Tim Bray resigned "in dismay" over the firing of whistle-blower employees who spoke out about the lack of COVID-19 protections, including shortages of face masks and failure to implement widespread temperature checks which were promised by the company. He said that the firings were "chickenshit" and "designed to create a climate of fear" in Amazon warehouses. In a Q1 2020 financial report, Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon expects to spend $4 billion or more (predicted operating profit for Q2) on COVID-19-related issues: personal protective equipment, higher wages for hourly teams, cleaning for facilities, and expanding Amazon's COVID-19 testing capabilities. These measures intend to improve the safety and well-being of hundreds of thousands of the company's employees. From the beginning of 2020 until September of the same year, the company declared that the total number of workers who had contracted the infection was 19,816. Closure in France The SUD (trade unions) brought a court case against Amazon for unsafe working conditions. This resulted in a French district court (Nanterre) ruling on April 15, 2020, ordering the company to limit, under threat of a €1 million per day fine, its deliveries to certain essential items, including electronics, food, medical or hygienic products, and supplies for home improvement, animals, and offices. Instead, Amazon immediately shut down its six warehouses in France, continuing to pay workers but limiting deliveries to items shipped from third-party sellers and warehouses outside of France. The company said the €100,000 fine for each prohibited item shipped could result in billions of dollars in fines even with a small fraction of items misclassified. After losing an appeal and coming to an agreement with labor unions for more pay and staggered schedules, the company reopened its French warehouses on May 19. Lobbying Amazon lobbies the United States federal government and state governments on multiple issues such as the enforcement of sales taxes on online sales, transportation safety, privacy and data protection and intellectual property. According to regulatory filings, Amazon.com focuses its lobbying on the United States Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Reserve. Amazon.com spent roughly $3.5 million, $5 million and $9.5 million on lobbying, in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively. Amazon.com was a corporate member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) until it dropped membership following protests at its shareholders' meeting on May 24, 2012. In 2014, Amazon expanded its lobbying practices as it prepared to lobby the Federal Aviation Administration to approve its drone delivery program, hiring the Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld lobbying firm in June. Amazon and its lobbyists have visited with Federal Aviation Administration officials and aviation committees in Washington, D.C. to explain its plans to deliver packages. In September 2020 this moved one step closer with the granting of a critical certificate by the FAA. In 2019, it spent $16.8m and had a team of 104 lobbyists, up from $14.4m and 103 lobbyists in 2018. See also Big Tech Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Amazon Flexible Payments Service Amazon Marketplace Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) Camelcamelcamel – a website that tracks the prices of products sold on Amazon.com Internal carbon pricing List of book distributors Statistically improbable phrases – Amazon.com's phrase extraction technique for indexing books References Further reading External links 1994 establishments in Washington (state) 3D publishing American companies established in 1994 Android (operating system) software Arts and crafts retailers Bookstores of the United States Cloud computing providers Companies listed on the Nasdaq E-book suppliers Internet properties established in 1994 IOS software Mobile phone manufacturers Multinational companies headquartered in the United States Online music stores of the United States Online retailers of the United States Retail companies established in 1994 Self-publishing companies Software companies based in Seattle Software companies established in 1994 Technology companies established in 1994 TvOS software Universal Windows Platform apps Webby Award winners Logistics companies of the United States Software companies of the United States Transportation companies based in Washington (state) 1997 initial public offerings

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple%20listing%20service

Multiple listing service

A multiple listing service (MLS, also multiple listing system or multiple listings service) is an organization with a suite of services that real estate brokers use to establish contractual offers of cooperation and compensation (among brokers) and accumulate and disseminate information to enable appraisals. A multiple listing service's database and software is used by real estate brokers in real estate (or in other industries, for example, aircraft brokers), representing sellers under a listing contract to widely share information about properties with other brokers who may represent potential buyers or wish to work with a seller's broker in finding a buyer for the property or asset. The listing data stored in a multiple listing service's database is the proprietary information of the broker who has obtained a listing agreement with a property's seller. Origin According to the U.S. National Association of Realtors: In the late 1800s, real estate brokers regularly gathered at the offices of their local associations to share information about properties they were trying to sell. They agreed to compensate other brokers who helped sell those properties, and the first MLS was born, based on a fundamental principle that's unique to organized real estate: Help me sell my inventory and I'll help you sell yours. The term "MLS" is considered generic in the United States and cannot be trademarked or branded. MLSs can be owned and operated by individual REALTOR associations, regional multi-association conglomerates or independent cooperatives of real estate brokerages. There is no single authoritative MLS. However, there is a data standard for MLS systems. The Real Estate Standards Organization provides the Data Dictionary for common real estate terms and data structures, and the RESO Web API for data transport. A previous common data transport standard, RETS, has been deprecated. Purpose and benefits The primary purpose of an MLS is to provide a facility to publish a "unilateral offer of compensation" by a listing broker, to other broker participants in that MLS. In other words, the commission rate that is offered by the listing broker is published within the MLS to other cooperating brokers. This offer of compensation is considered a contractual obligation; however, it can be negotiated at any time between the listing broker and the broker representing the buyer. Many Realtors feel commission is not negotiable after an offer is received, but the National Association of Realtors states it can be negotiated at any time. Since the commission for a transaction as well as the property features are contained in the MLS system, it is in the best interests of the brokers to maintain accurate and timely data. The additional benefit of MLS systems is that an MLS subscriber may search an MLS and retrieve information about all homes for sale by all participating brokers. MLS systems contain hundreds of fields of information about the features of a property. These fields are determined by real estate professionals who are knowledgeable and experienced in that local marketplace. Limitations on access and other criticisms Most MLS systems restrict membership and access to real estate brokers (and their agents) who are appropriately licensed by the state (or province), are members of a local board or association of realtors, and are members of the applicable national trade association (e.g., NAR or CREA). Access is becoming more open (e.g., without joining the local board) as Internet sites offer the public the ability to view portions of MLS listings. There still remains some limitation to access to information within MLSes; generally, only agents who are compensated proportional to the value of the sale have uninhibited access to the MLS database. Many public Web forums have a limited ability in terms of reviewing comparable properties, past sales prices or monthly supply statistics. This represents the cornerstone of several ongoing arguments about the current health of the real-estate market, which are centered on free and open information being necessary for both the buying and selling parties to ensure fair prices are negotiated during closing, ultimately allowing a stable and less volatile market. A person selling his/her own property – acting as a For sale by owner (or FSBO) seller – cannot generally put a listing for the home directly into an MLS. Similarly, a licensed broker who chooses to neither join the trade association nor operate a business within the association's rules, cannot join most MLSes. However, there are brokers and many online services which offer FSBO sellers the option of listing their property in their local MLS database by paying a flat fee or another non-traditional compensation method. When discount and flat fee compensation arrangements started growing in popularity in the early 2000s some MLSes changed their membership rules or rule enforcement to make discount/flat fee MLS listings difficult or impossible. In response, the Federal Trade Commission investigated, found several violations of anti-trust laws, and entered into settlements with five MLSes to enable free competition for listings. One MLS, Realcomp in Michigan, refused to enter a settlement/consent agreement with the FTC, asserting it had the right to hide listings of discounters because such competition is detrimental to the revenue of its members. In 2006, the FTC filed a lawsuit against the Realcomp MLS alleging violations of federal anti-trust laws and squelching free competition. The lawsuit went to trial in 2007 and the FTC lost, but won the case in a 4–0 unanimous ruling on appeal in 2009. In Canada, CREA has come under scrutiny and investigation by the Competition Bureau and litigation by former CREA member and real estate brokerage Realtysellers (Ontario) Ltd., for the organization's control over the Canadian MLS system. In 2001, Realtysellers (Ontario) Ltd., a discount real-estate firm was launched that reduced the role of agents and the commissions they collect from home buyers and sellers. The brokerage later shut down and launched a $100 million lawsuit against CREA and TREB, alleging that they breached an earlier out-of-court settlement that the parties entered into in 2003. Asia India Listings of India specializing in the Multiple Listing Services (MLS) launches a platform in Dec 2015 in India, for the first time, to connect all authorized Real Estate Agents/Brokers/Agency/ Promotes/Builders through one platform; to showcase their property listings for wider exposure among the network. Philippines The Philippine Association of Real Estate Boards (PAREB) operates the PAREB MLS, an Multi Listing Service (MLS) which provide real time property listing exchange nationwide among PAREB Brokers. Vietnam The Vietnam Multiple Listing Service was started in 2010. The MLS in Vietnam is based around the U.S. model, with some changes to accommodate different local market conditions. In particular, the system supports open agency listings as well as MLS listings, as the current market operates mainly on the open agency model. FSBO listings, however, are not allowed. Australia There is no general MLS for Australia; however, a private company Investorist operates a specialised MLS for off the plan property, which is used by some Australian developers and master agents. Investorist is also accessed by international agents. realestate.com.au Pty. Ltd. operates Property Platform, which allows real-time reservations and eCommerce reservation fee processing. Middle East Bahrain Bahrain Real Estate Multilevel Listing Solution – mlsBH is a localized and enhanced version of RETS based MLS service but still in its early stage of implementation and integration within the property sector of Bahrain. mlsBH is owned and operated by a private company since 2015 and unlike conventional MLS; is not restricted to dealing with brokers only. Via RealtorBH; a set of FSRBO classes which along with extended broker classes are facilitated to directly submit their exclusive listings, which after verification are centralized in mlsBH. Furthermore it also directly syndicates centralized listings on RealtyBH – a local comparable of US' Zillow. With the introduction of Bahrain RERA in 2018 operators of mlsBH aligned themselves with the policies of the regulator. Israel The MLS in Israel has been operating since 1990 only in the Jerusalem area named Shiran. The Israeli Multiple Listing Service began in 2013 and is managed by a Multiple Listing Service LTD. Europe Czech Republic There are not any MLS services in the Czech Republic. With high demand and low surplus of available properties, there is no need for agents to split commission as there is not a lack of buyers. Italy In Italy there are many MLSs and it is possible to choose between different software enabling real estate agencies either to manage and share their properties with others or to syndicate their listings on the web, or both the two things as it happens on MLS Agent RE the most used MLS in the country. This MLS was called "MLS REplat" and, as of 2020, it had 89,17% of market shares as stated in the "Reti e Aggregazioni Immobiliari 2020" report. Although many countries are lacking regulations regarding real estate transactions, lately there are attempts to align with those in developed markets, among which the only one managed directly by real estate agents is the “confederazione reti Mls”. Cyprus, Turkey, Portugal and Spain The UltraIT Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a “Trade Only” property network of estate agents. Agents subscribed to the MLS have the ability to search this database of property sales and property rentals properties from a growing number of subscribing estate agents, providing each agent the ability to access and search the UltraIT MLS system of ten’s of thousands of properties all over the world, currently including Cyprus, Turkey, Portugal and areas in Spain such as the Costa Blanca, Costa del Sol, Barcelona and Tenerife. All Entrepreneur Real Estate Agents (TUGEM) of Turkey has started MLS based database with its members, mainly international brands that works in Turkey. TUGEM has start working relation with www.cepi.eu/ and www.nar.realtor to amalgamate their resources. Ministry of Land Registry in Turkey has started www.yourkeyturkey.gov.tr web based portal to work with TUGEM and TUGEM GLOBAL to expend their services and their database of all listings and land registry information. TUGEM is planning to launch their full MLS system in Mid- 2021. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, MLS – Multiple Listing Systems do exist via some of the agents software providers, but many software providers have only designed their software to work in one company (typically for firms working across a large office footprint). One hurdle to the traditional MLS comes as a result of mixed software packages among agencies that do not allow them to cross share data between other company, so MLS in the United Kingdom is in its infancy and a cross data platform now exists via INEA. MLS History in the United Kingdom. In the 1980s and early/mid 1990s agents did work together much like the early U.S. and Canadian realtors via paper-based forms which had tick-boxes offering a listing from one agent to sub-agents. Attached would be the property details pre-agreed with the owner for correctness, a photographic negative of photo; later a similar procedure was carried out by email and graphic computer file. Agents involved could copy and process the paper- or email-based property data. The main agent was treated as the vendor; all sales progression went through her and commission was split upon completion. The Dark Years: In the late 1990s many of the smaller agencies were acquired by larger companies, breaking many of the MLS relationships that existed. More software options came in (all in competition) and, as the software houses did not work together, their collectives of agents became fragmented by non-collaborative out-of-group software restraints. With large property portals gaining ground in the 2000s agents in the UK started working alone as all could upload to the same portal platforms. MLS Today: In the UK there are a number of seedling MLS systems that attempt to connect agents horizontally. INEA, Lonres and AgentHub.com are examples of sites that serve similar functions to US MLS counterparts, however there are insufficient data to conclude that any of these systems are used popularly across the country. The future of MLS in the UK: The future of the MLS in the UK is uncertain at the time of writing (2017). With most home buyers beginning property search online via nationwide property portals, it would seem that the requirement for property sharing between agencies is significantly diminished. Large UK property portals vastly improve liquidity in the residential real estate market by connecting buyers with agents in an information-rich environment. In essence, horizontal sharing of inventory between agents – formerly conducted through the MLS – is now replaced by a vertical interaction between estate agents and centralised advertising portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla. This said, it is not entirely inconceivable that new systems will be introduced to the market that share information horizontally across the market, not only between agents (under a fee sharing arrangement), but with other participants in the transaction such as mortgagors and surveyors. Moreover, UK estate agencies have shown resistance to the inflating fees charged by large property portals. In any case, the future of MLS in the UK will most probably be shaped by changes to competition law, consumer behaviours and the rate of technological advancement. Central America Costa Rica There are two main real estate organizations in Costa Rica: CRGAR (Costa Rica Global Association of Realtors), and CCCBR (Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce for Real Estate). Of these two associations only CRGAR has an MLS system in place. CRGAR is associated with the NAR (a US based National Association of Realtors). According to the CRGAR website, as of October 2019 they have just over 120 individual agent members and sponsors. The actual number of real estate agents in Costa Rica is unknown. Agents are not required under the law to meet any minimal licensing standards nor are they required to join any association in order to become a realtor. Anyone can be an agent without pre-qualification. A few private real estate companies have set up their own MLS systems, some claiming to be the only official MLS, but these are not directly affiliated with any Costa Rica based real estate associations. Mexico In Mexico, MLS systems have been slow to catch on, although there have been numerous attempts to create a national network. The first MLS system originated in Puerto Vallarta as www.MLSVallarta.com in 1988 and existed for a short period in the Los Cabos region as MLSCabo.com in the early 90s. They originated in these two markets as the majority of buyers are American or Canadian and familiar with the benefits of a MLS real estate system in their own home markets. MLS systems have not had as much success in other parts of Mexico. The Cabo system went through a few structural changes before contracting with FLEX MLS software in 2010. Today, it is represents over 90 brokers in the State of Baja California Sur, and is now called MLS BCS (www.mlsinbajasur.com), which operates as a corporation in which each subscriber Broker is permitted to own one voting share. Brokers and agents subscribe through MLS BCS upon meeting requirements and committing to following a strict set of Operating Policies and Procedures, requiring each listing to be Exclusive and the broker to have a complete property records file in his office on each listing. The MLS BCS has been invited to participate on the oversight council of the new Real Estate Agent License Registry, helping to write the Code of Ethics for the 2017 State License law. MLS BCS is generally recognized to be the model for MLS operation in the country. In Puerto Vallarta and Riviera Nayarit, MLSVallarta.com still services the region as the oldest and longest running MLS system in Mexico. MLSVallarta is a private, independent MLS system, with membership for both qualifying brokers and developers. The Puerto Vallarta and Riviera Nayarit real estate associations formed their own MLS system in 2012, known as www.VallartaNayaritMLS.com, adopting the same FLEX system used in the Los Cabos region. Rules of membership exist for both system in Vallarta systems and only legal existing real estate businesses can apply for membership. Both are well used by local brokers, developers and the buying/selling public. North America In North America, the MLS systems are governed by private entities, and the rules are set by those entities with no state or federal oversight, beyond any individual state rules regarding real estate. MLS systems set their own rules for membership, access, and sharing of information. An MLS may be owned and operated by a real estate company, a county or regional real estate board of realtors or association of realtors, or by a trade association. Membership in the MLS is not required for the practice of real estate brokerage. The most current list of North American MLSs shows over 500 organizations in Canada and the United States. Canada In Canada, the national MLS is a cooperative system for the members of the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), working through Canada's 101 real estate boards and 13 provincial/territorial associations. Both the terms Realtor and MLS are registered trademarks for both the members and data of the CREA. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver claims to have pioneered the first MLS in Canada. A publicly accessible website allows consumers to search an aggregated subset of each participating board's MLS database of active listings, providing limited details and directing consumers to contact a real estate agent for more information. While most real estate boards participate in the national MLS, known as the Data Distribution System, others provide listings to a Quebec-based service known as Centris. Still others like, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) and operate their own MLS. In 2007, the real estate brokerage Realtysellers shut down after alleging that the CREA and Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) had modified their rules to hinder flat-fee MLS services on behalf of those selling houses themselves. In 2010, the CREA settled with the Competition Bureau, and agreed to allow flat-fee listings. However, some real estate boards continued to bar the practice, citing interpretations of provincial laws requiring those trading in real estate to be licensed. Flat-free providers disputed the argument, claiming that their services were no different than posting listings on classifieds, and that they were not necessarily trading. In 2015, the Competition Bureau began a federal case against the TREB by Realitysellers. United States As of 2020, there are 580 MLSs in the US with that number decreasing due to consolidation trends. The largest MLS in the United States is currently Bright MLS representing over 95,000 real estate professionals in the Mid-Atlantic. Other notable MLSs include California-Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS) at 81,000, MetroList in Northern California at 22,500 Subscribers, Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) at 40,000 members serving Chicago and northern Illinois, MLS Property Information Network (MLS PIN) at 37,000 subscribers serving Massachusetts and areas of New England and New York, Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) in Arizona serving 42,000 members in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and SmartMLS in Connecticut serving over 17,000 members. New York City Although the other boroughs and Long Island have several different MLS, MLS has never taken hold in Manhattan. A small group of brokers formed the Manhattan Association of Realtors and operate MLSManhattan.com. MLSManhattan has a small fraction of the total active inventory in Manhattan. The Bronx Manhattan North MLS also offers coverage in Northern Manhattan. It too has failed to acquire widespread adoption by brokers. The prevalent database is operated by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), a non-Realtor entity that seceded from the National Association of Realtors in 1994. REBNY operates a database called RLS which stands for REBNY Listing Service. A predecessor of RLS was marketed as R.O.L.E.X (REBNY Online Listing Exchange), before Rolex Watches claimed trademark infringement. Like MLS, RLS has under contract, sold and days on market data, and houses rental listings as well. There is a database, which in 2011, was slated to be converted to the more familiar RETS standard in January 2012. The RLS gateway is populated by several private databases that include RealtyMX (RMX), Online Residential (OLR) and Realplus, another proprietary database available to Manhattan Brokers. These databases exchange data continually effectively creating several separate systems with essentially similar data. Another vendor, Klickads, Inc D/B/A Brokers NYC, owned by Lala Wang sued in 2007 to be included in the list of firms permitted to participate in the Gateway. REBNY also grandfathered the major brokerages including Douglas Elliman, Corcoran, Stribling, Bellmarc as participants to the Gateway. Seriously committed Manhattan brokerages are members of REBNY, and thus one may find the vast majority of updated and valid listings in Manhattan are represented by RLS. The REBNY RLS requires all listings to be entered and disseminated within 24 hours (Until 2007 72 Hours to accommodate agencies without weekend data entry). Policies on sharing MLS data in the US The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has set policies that permit brokers to show limited MLS information on their websites under a system known as IDX or Internet Data Exchange. NAR has an ownership interest in Move Inc., the company which operates a website that has been given exclusive rights to display significant MLS information. Using IDX search tools available on most real estate brokers' websites (as well as on many individual agents' sites), potential buyers may view properties available on the market, using search features such as location, type of property (single family, lease, vacant land, duplex), property features (number of bedrooms and bathrooms), and price ranges. In some instances photos can be viewed. Many allow for saving search criteria and for daily email updates of newly-available properties. However, if a potential buyer finds a property, he/she will still need to contact the listing agent (or their own agent) to view the house and make an offer. The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit in September 2005 against the National Association of Realtors over NAR's policy which allowed brokers to restrict access to their MLS information from appearing on the websites of certain brokers which operate solely on the web. This policy applied to commercial entities which are also licensed brokerages, such as HomeGain, which solicit clients by internet advertising and then provide referrals to local agents in return for a fee of 25% to 35% of the commission. The DOJ's antitrust claims also include NAR rules that exclude certain kinds of brokers from membership in MLSs. NAR has revised its policies on allowing access on web sites operated by member brokers and others to what might be considered as proprietary data. The case was settled in May 2008, with NAR agreeing that Internet brokerages would be given access to all the same listings that traditional brokerages are. See also Commercial Information Exchange Pocket listing (or exclusive listing) Real estate trends Real Estate Transaction Standard Realtor.com Redfin Trulia Zillow References External links and references "Justice Department Sues National Association Of Realtors For Limiting Competition Among Real Estate Brokers", Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit press release, 8 September 2005 Residential real estate Real estate in Canada Real estate in the Philippines Real estate in the United Kingdom Real estate in the United States

68063643

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%9301%20USC%20Trojans%20men%27s%20basketball%20team

2000–01 USC Trojans men's basketball team

The 2000–01 USC Trojans men's basketball team represented the University of Southern California during the 2000–01 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. Led by head coach Henry Bibby, they played their home games at the L. A. Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California as members of the Pac-10 Conference. The Trojans finished the season with a record of 24–10 (11–7 Pac-10) and made a run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. Roster Schedule and results |- !colspan=9 style=| Non-conference regular season |- !colspan=9 style=| Pac-10 regular season |- !colspan=9 style=| NCAA Tournament Rankings Team Players in the 2001 NBA Draft References Usc Trojans USC Trojans men's basketball seasons USC USC Trojans USC Trojans

54247176

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireball%20%28software%29

Fireball (software)

Fireball is a browser hijacking malware discovered by the security company Check Point. It takes over target browsers and turns them into zombies. Discovery Check Point claims to have discovered Fireball malware in 2017 but Microsoft claims that it has been tracking the malware since 2015. Authorship The malware has been tracked to a Chinese company called Rafotech. They are a digital marketing agency based in Beijing. They have been bundling it with legitimate software that they provide to users. Some of the programs that Rafotech bundled the Fireball software are Deal WiFi, Mustang Browser, SoSoDesk and FVP Image Viewer. Rafotech claims to have 300 million users (similar to the estimated number of infections) worldwide but denies that it uses these fake search engines. Security researchers dispute this claim, noting that Rafotech may have also purchased additional distribution means from other threat actors. Their fake search engines are popular with 14 of them ranked among the top 10,000 websites and some reaching the top 1,000. Inner workings Malware has the ability of running any code on victim computers, such as downloading an arbitrary file and hijacking and manipulating infected user's web traffic in order to generate advertisement revenue. It installs plugins and additional configurations to boost its advertisements, and has potential to turn into a distributor for any additional malware. Malware is spread mostly via bundling. It is installed on a victim's machine alongside a wanted program, often without the user's consent. Digital marketing agency Rafotech has been indicated as producer of the software. The same company has been accused to host fake search engines, which redirect the queries to yahoo.com or google.com. The fake search engines include tracking pixels used to collect private information from users. Fireball manipulates the infected browsers and turn their default search engines and home pages into the above-mentioned fake search engines, which enable the software to spy on users of the infected browsers. The Fireball malware does not conform to usual characteristics of bundled software. Check Point asserts, “The malware and the fake search engines don’t carry indicators connecting them to Rafotech, they cannot be uninstalled by an ordinary user and they conceal their true nature.” Furthermore, Fireball “displays great sophistication and quality evasion techniques, including anti-detection capabilities, multilayer structure and a flexible C&C.” Another deception is the use of legitimate-seeming Digital certificates. Rafotech's fake search engines and the malware itself doesn't carry any identifying marks. The program has the capability to run arbitrary code, download applications and harvest more sensitive information, such as banking and medical details. Cyber criminals could leverage the source code to create new types of malware. Infections It is estimated that 250 million computers are infected worldwide. Check Point researches also claim that this malware might have infected computers on 20% of corporate networks, making it a high volume internet threat. According to this source, the highest infection rates were discovered in Indonesia, India and Brazil. It is speculated that the related browser hijackers operations form possibly the largest infection operation in history. Table 1 The top countries that have been infected with the Fireball malware There is some dispute to these numbers according to Microsoft, it has been tracking the malware since 2015. Its results are based on the Fireball infections that have been cleaned by Windows Defender and the Malicious Software Removal Tool. Based on the collected data the total infections are 40 million. Check Point researchers used the number of visits to malware-carrying search pages not the device itself. References Windows trojans

1850361

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%20assistance

User assistance

User assistance is a general term for guided assistance to a user of a software product. The phrase incorporates all forms of help available to a user. Assistance can also automatically perform procedures or step users through the procedure, depending on the question that the user asked. The term is broader than online help, and includes procedural and tutorial information. What it does User assistance provides information to help a person to interact with software. This can include describing the user interface, but also focuses on how to help the user to best apply the software capabilities to their needs. User assistance can be considered a component of the broader category of user experience. Devices User assistance employs a number of devices including help, wizards, tutorials, printed manuals (and their PDF equivalents), and user interface text. User assistance professionals also contribute to enterprise knowledge bases and content management systems. Skills required Effective user assistance development requires a variety of communication skills. These include writing, editing, task analysis, and subject-matter expert (SME) interviewing. Since the user assistance profession is directly involved with software development, the discipline often requires an understanding of UI design, usability testing, localization, testing, quality assurance, instructional design, scripting or programming, and accessibility. Forms Instruction manual For information related to this topic, see Instruction manual (computer and video games) A traditional form of user assistance is a user manual, which is distributed either with the product in paper form or electronically. Typical features of a user manual include installation procedures, a guide to how to use the software, as well as a disclaimer stating the licensing status of the software. Details of a helpline may also be available. Online help For more information on this topic, see Online help Helplines For information related to this topic, see Helpline See also User interface Internationalization and localization References External links Linkedin Software User Assistance group WritersUA indoition software user assistance resources Microsoft's User Assistance Technical communication

3337355

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech%20Media%20Server

Logitech Media Server

Logitech Media Server (formerly SlimServer, SqueezeCenter and Squeezebox Server) is a streaming audio server supported by Logitech (formerly Slim Devices), developed in particular to support their Squeezebox range of digital audio receivers. The software is designed for streaming music over a network, allowing users to play their music collections from virtually anywhere there is an Internet connection. It supports audio formats including MP3, FLAC, WAV, Ogg, Opus, and AAC, as well as transcoding. It can stream to both software and hardware receivers, including the various Squeezebox models, as well as any media player capable of playing MP3 streams. Plugins from Logitech and third-party sources are also supported, allowing additional functionality to be added, and there is integration with Logitech's mysqueezebox.com online service. Logitech Media Server supports grouping clients in order to synchronize playback among all clients within a group. Logitech Media Server is free software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. While no longer distributed in conjunction with any Logitech hardware product, LMS continues to be developed. Compatible players Hardware Logitech's own Squeezebox hardware players existed in a variety of configurations, offering wired and wireless Ethernet, analog and digital audio outputs, touchscreen interfaces and a variety of remote controlled options. Logitech discontinued their hardware players in 2012. Logitech Media Server also works with networked music players, such as the Roku SoundBridge M1001, although Logitech does not officially support these competing products. Chumby devices also support streaming music from a Logitech Media Server, as does the Rio Receiver when running replacement software to emulate the SliMP3 device, although it is limited to modest bitrates (<128kps). In late 2015 support was added via a plugin to use Google's Chromecast Audio device as a headless player which can then be connected to any audio system or powered speakers. Recently the O2 Joggler has proven a popular device for running Logitech's open source SqueezePlay software, providing a similar interface to the Squeezebox Touch on a 7" display. The Raspberry PI, using the piCorePlayer OS streams from LMS and in some cases LMS is run on the Raspberry PI too. The SqueezeAMP, a free open source hardware player. Software SqueezePlay is based on SqueezeOS, the operating system that drives the hardware devices Squeezebox Duet, Radio and Touch. Written in Lua, it is also open-source software and sees regular updates through Logitech's SVN releases. There is also a free software emulator version of the Squeezebox, called Softsqueeze, which is written in Java and can be run easily as an applet inside a web page. A third player, SqueezeSlave, is also available, which operates similarly but without any display. SqueezeSlave is designed to be run on a server connected to an amplifier/speakers, and can be controlled through the standard Logitech Media Server web interface. At this time, SqueezeSlave is incompatible with Logitech's Spotify plugin due to a lack of support for 'direct streaming'. In 2012, work began on Squeezelite, a cross-platform, headless, LMS client that supports playback synchronization, gapless playback, direct streaming (for use with Spotify, etc.), and playback at various sampling rates. In 2019, Squeezelite has been ported to the ESP32 WiFi/BT chipset and works on WROVER and ESP-A1S module or any board that includes an ESP32 and 4MB of SRAM (e.g. SqueezeAMP) There is as well three free open source "bridges" that allow UPnP/DLNA, ChromeCast and AirPlay devices to appear as regular SB players. AirPlay devices can be synchronized with other SB players. Chromecast groups are recognized as well as Sonos (UPnP) group, but they can only play synchronously within their own respective brand. Server hardware and plugins The Logitech Media Server software is written in Perl, and will run on Linux, Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, BSD, and piCorePlayerOS platforms. Logitech Media Server itself can run on a number of NAS devices, such as QNAP Turbo NAS, Synology Disk Station, Netgear ReadyNAS, Buffalo Linkstation, Linksys NSLU2, THECUS N5200 & N7700, Xtreamer eTRAYz and any device running FreeNAS software. Logitech Media Server also comes pre-installed on the VortexBox Linux distribution and VortexBox appliance. This generally results in lower energy consumption than running Logitech Media Server on a personal computer, whilst offering the same feature set (albeit with a slightly less responsive web interface under certain circumstances). Some NAS devices may require more effort than others to get Logitech Media Server running, though. Logitech only supports the Netgear ReadyNAS NAS devices. Plugins There are numerous plug-ins and device drivers available for Logitech Media Server, which include features such as support for automation systems from Clare Controls, AMX LLC and Crestron Electronics. Plugins also provide access to additional services, such as the live radio and 'listen-again' features of BBC Sounds in the UK. Alexa As of September 2019, Logitech Media Server is controllable by a full-function Alexa skill (called 'MediaServer') available in the en-US and en-GB locales. In addition to allowing voice control of hardware and software Squeezebox players, this also allows streaming audio from LMS to an Amazon Echo device for playback. See also AirPlay Firefly Media Server Sonos Windows Media Connect References External links Logitech Free software programmed in Perl Perl software Servers (computing) Audio streaming software for Linux

646233

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure%20multi-party%20computation

Secure multi-party computation

Secure multi-party computation (also known as secure computation, multi-party computation (MPC) or privacy-preserving computation) is a subfield of cryptography with the goal of creating methods for parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs while keeping those inputs private. Unlike traditional cryptographic tasks, where cryptography assures security and integrity of communication or storage and the adversary is outside the system of participants (an eavesdropper on the sender and receiver), the cryptography in this model protects participants' privacy from each other. The foundation for secure multi-party computation started in the late 1970s with the work on mental poker, cryptographic work that simulates game playing/computational tasks over distances without requiring a trusted third party. Note that traditionally, cryptography was about concealing content, while this new type of computation and protocol is about concealing partial information about data while computing with the data from many sources, and correctly producing outputs. By the late 1980s, Michael Ben-Or, Shafi Goldwasser and Avi Wigderson, and independently David Chaum, Claude Crépeau, and Ivan Damgård, had published papers showing "how to securely compute any function in the secure channels setting". History Special purpose protocols for specific tasks started in the late 1970s. Later, secure computation was formally introduced as secure two-party computation (2PC) in 1982 (for the so-called Millionaires' Problem, a specific problem which is a Boolean predicate), and in generality (for any feasible computation) in 1986 by Andrew Yao. The area is also referred to as Secure Function Evaluation (SFE). The two party case was followed by a generalization to the multi-party by Goldreich, Micali and Wigderson. The computation is based on secret sharing of all the inputs and zero-knowledge proofs for a potentially malicious case, where the majority of honest players in the malicious adversary case assure that bad behavior is detected and the computation continues with the dishonest person eliminated or his input revealed. This work suggested the very basic general scheme to be followed by essentially all future multi-party protocols for secure computing. This work introduced an approach, known as GMW paradigm, for compiling a multi-party computation protocol which is secure against semi-honest adversaries to a protocol that is secure against malicious adversaries. This work was followed by the first robust secure protocol which tolerates faulty behavior graciously without revealing anyone's output via a work which invented for this purpose the often used `share of shares idea' and a protocol that allows one of the parties to hide its input unconditionally. The GMW paradigm was considered to be inefficient for years because of huge overheads that it brings to the base protocol. However, it is shown that it is possible to achieve efficient protocols, and it makes this line of research even more interesting from a practical perspective. The above results are in a model where the adversary is limited to polynomial time computations, and it observes all communications, and therefore the model is called the `computational model'. Further, the protocol of oblivious transfer was shown to be complete for these tasks. The above results established that it is possible under the above variations to achieve secure computation when the majority of users are honest. The next question to solve was the case of secure communication channels where the point-to-point communication is not available to the adversary; in this case it was shown that solutions can be achieved with up to 1/3 of the parties being misbehaving and malicious, and the solutions apply no cryptographic tools (since secure communication is available). Adding a broadcast channel allows the system to tolerate up to 1/2 misbehaving minority, whereas connectivity constraints on the communication graph were investigated in the book Perfectly Secure Message Transmission. Over the years, the notion of general purpose multi-party protocols became a fertile area to investigate basic and general protocol issues properties on, such as universal composability or mobile adversary as in proactive secret sharing. Since the late 2000s, and certainly since 2010 and on, the domain of general purpose protocols has moved to deal with efficiency improvements of the protocols with practical applications in mind. Increasingly efficient protocols for MPC have been proposed, and MPC can be now considered as a practical solution to various real-life problems (especially ones that only require linear sharing of the secrets and mainly local operations on the shares with not much interactions among the parties), such as distributed voting, private bidding and auctions, sharing of signature or decryption functions and private information retrieval. The first large-scale and practical application of multi-party computation (demonstrated on an actual auction problem) took place in Denmark in January 2008. Obviously, both theoretical notions and investigations, and applied constructions are needed (e.g., conditions for moving MPC into part of day by day business was advocated and presented in). Definition and overview In an MPC, a given number of participants, p1, p2, ..., pN, each have private data, respectively d1, d2, ..., dN. Participants want to compute the value of a public function on that private data: F(d1, d2, ..., dN) while keeping their own inputs secret. For example, suppose we have three parties Alice, Bob and Charlie, with respective inputs x, y and z denoting their salaries. They want to find out the highest of the three salaries, without revealing to each other how much each of them makes. Mathematically, this translates to them computing: If there were some trusted outside party (say, they had a mutual friend Tony who they knew could keep a secret), they could each tell their salary to Tony, he could compute the maximum, and tell that number to all of them. The goal of MPC is to design a protocol, where, by exchanging messages only with each other, Alice, Bob, and Charlie can still learn without revealing who makes what and without having to rely on Tony. They should learn no more by engaging in their protocol than they would learn by interacting with an incorruptible, perfectly trustworthy Tony. In particular, all that the parties can learn is what they can learn from the output and their own input. So in the above example, if the output is , then Charlie learns that his is the maximum value, whereas Alice and Bob learn (if , and are distinct), that their input is not equal to the maximum, and that the maximum held is equal to . The basic scenario can be easily generalised to where the parties have several inputs and outputs, and the function outputs different values to different parties. Informally speaking, the most basic properties that a multi-party computation protocol aims to ensure are: Input privacy: No information about the private data held by the parties can be inferred from the messages sent during the execution of the protocol. The only information that can be inferred about the private data is whatever could be inferred from seeing the output of the function alone. Correctness: Any proper subset of adversarial colluding parties willing to share information or deviate from the instructions during the protocol execution should not be able to force honest parties to output an incorrect result. This correctness goal comes in two flavours: either the honest parties are guaranteed to compute the correct output (a “robust” protocol), or they abort if they find an error (an MPC protocol “with abort”). There are a wide range of practical applications, varying from simple tasks such as coin tossing to more complex ones like electronic auctions (e.g. compute the market clearing price), electronic voting, or privacy-preserving data mining. A classical example is the Millionaires' Problem: two millionaires want to know who is richer, in such a way that neither of them learns the net worth of the other. A solution to this situation is essentially to securely evaluate the comparison function. Security definitions A multi-party computation protocol must be secure to be effective. In modern cryptography, the security of a protocol is related to a security proof. The security proof is a mathematical proof where the security of a protocol is reduced to that of the security of its underlying primitives. Nevertheless, it is not always possible to formalize the cryptographic protocol security verification based on the party knowledge and the protocol correctness. For MPC protocols, the environment in which the protocol operates is associated with the Real World/Ideal World Paradigm. The parties can't be said to learn nothing, since they need to learn the output of the operation, and the output depends on the inputs. In addition, the output correctness is not guaranteed, since the correctness of the output depends on the parties’ inputs, and the inputs have to be assumed to be correct. The Real World/Ideal World Paradigm states two worlds: (i) In the ideal-world model, there exists an incorruptible trusted party to whom each protocol participant sends its input. This trusted party computes the function on its own and sends back the appropriate output to each party. (ii) In contrast, in the real-world model, there is no trusted party and all the parties can do is to exchange messages with each other. A protocol is said to be secure if one can learn no more about each party's private inputs in the real world than one could learn in the ideal world. In the ideal world, no messages are exchanged between parties, so real-world exchanged messages cannot reveal any secret information. The Real World/Ideal World Paradigm provides a simple abstraction of the complexities of MPC to allow the construction of an application under the pretense that the MPC protocol at its core is actually an ideal execution. If the application is secure in the ideal case, then it is also secure when a real protocol is run instead. The security requirements on an MPC protocol are stringent. Nonetheless, in 1987 it was demonstrated that any function can be securely computed, with security for malicious adversaries and the other initial works mentioned before. Despite these publications, MPC was not designed to be efficient enough to be used in practice at that time. Unconditionally or information-theoretically secure MPC is closely related and builds on to the problem of secret sharing, and more specifically verifiable secret sharing (VSS), which many secure MPC protocols use against active adversaries. Unlike traditional cryptographic applications, such as encryption or signature, one must assume that the adversary in an MPC protocol is one of the players engaged in the system (or controlling internal parties). That corrupted party or parties may collude in order to breach the security of the protocol. Let be the number of parties in the protocol and the number of parties who can be adversarial. The protocols and solutions for the case of (i.e., when an honest majority is assumed) are different from those where no such assumption is made. This latter case includes the important case of two-party computation where one of the participants may be corrupted, and the general case where an unlimited number of participants are corrupted and collude to attack the honest participants. Adversaries faced by the different protocols can be categorized according to how willing they are to deviate from the protocol. There are essentially two types of adversaries, each giving rise to different forms of security (and each fits into different real world scenario): Semi-Honest (Passive) Security: In this case, it is assumed that corrupted parties merely cooperate to gather information out of the protocol, but do not deviate from the protocol specification. This is a naive adversary model, yielding weak security in real situations. However, protocols achieving this level of security prevent inadvertent leakage of information between (otherwise collaborating) parties, and are thus useful if this is the only concern. In addition, protocols in the semi-honest model are quite efficient, and are often an important first step for achieving higher levels of security. Malicious (Active) Security: In this case, the adversary may arbitrarily deviate from the protocol execution in its attempt to cheat. Protocols that achieve security in this model provide a very high security guarantee. In the case of majority of misbehaving parties: The only thing that an adversary can do in the case of dishonest majority is to cause the honest parties to “abort” having detected cheating. If the honest parties do obtain output, then they are guaranteed that it is correct. Their privacy is always preserved. Security against active adversaries typically leads to a reduction in efficiency that leads to covert security, a relaxed form of active security. Covert security captures more realistic situations, where active adversaries are willing to cheat but only if they are not caught. For example, their reputation could be damaged, preventing future collaboration with other honest parties. Thus, protocols that are covertly secure provide mechanisms to ensure that, if some of the parties do not follow the instructions, then it will be noticed with high probability, say 75% or 90%. In a way, covert adversaries are active ones forced to act passively due to external non-cryptographic (e.g. business) concerns. This mechanism sets a bridge between both models in the hope of finding protocols which are efficient and secure enough in practice. Like many cryptographic protocols, the security of an MPC protocol can rely on different assumptions: It can be computational (i.e. based on some mathematical problem, like factoring) or unconditional, namely relying on physical unavailability of messages on channels (usually with some probability of error which can be made arbitrarily small). The model might assume that participants use a synchronized network, where a message sent at a "tick" always arrives at the next "tick", or that a secure and reliable broadcast channel exists, or that a secure communication channel exists between every pair of participants where an adversary cannot read, modify or generate messages in the channel, etc. The set of honest parties that can execute a computational task is related to the concept of access structure. Adversary structures can be static, where the adversary chooses its victims before the start of the multi-party computation, or dynamic, where it chooses its victims during the course of execution of the multi-party computation making the defense harder. An adversary structure can be defined as a threshold structure or as a more complex structure. In a threshold structure the adversary can corrupt or read the memory of a number of participants up to some threshold. Meanwhile, in a complex structure it can affect certain predefined subsets of participants, modeling different possible collusions. Protocols There are major differences between the protocols proposed for two party computation (2PC) and multi-party computation (MPC). Also, often for special purpose protocols of importance a specialized protocol that deviates from the generic ones has to be designed (voting, auctions, payments, etc.) Two-party computation The two party setting is particularly interesting, not only from an applications perspective but also because special techniques can be applied in the two party setting which do not apply in the multi-party case. Indeed, secure multi-party computation (in fact the restricted case of secure function evaluation, where only a single function is evaluated) was first presented in the two-party setting. The original work is often cited as being from one of the two papers of Yao; although the papers do not actually contain what is now known as Yao's garbled circuit protocol. Yao's basic protocol is secure against semi-honest adversaries and is extremely efficient in terms of number of rounds, which is constant, and independent of the target function being evaluated. The function is viewed as a Boolean circuit, with inputs in binary of fixed length. A Boolean circuit is a collection of gates connected with three different types of wires: circuit-input wires, circuit-output wires and intermediate wires. Each gate receives two input wires and it has a single output wire which might be fan-out (i.e. be passed to multiple gates at the next level). Plain evaluation of the circuit is done by evaluating each gate in turn; assuming the gates have been topologically ordered. The gate is represented as a truth table such that for each possible pair of bits (those coming from the input wires' gate) the table assigns a unique output bit; which is the value of the output wire of the gate. The results of the evaluation are the bits obtained in the circuit-output wires. Yao explained how to garble a circuit (hide its structure) so that two parties, sender and receiver, can learn the output of the circuit and nothing else. At a high level, the sender prepares the garbled circuit and sends it to the receiver, who obliviously evaluates the circuit, learning the encodings corresponding to both his and the sender's output. He then just sends back the sender's encodings, allowing the sender to compute his part of the output. The sender sends the mapping from the receivers output encodings to bits to the receiver, allowing the receiver to obtain their output. In more detail, the garbled circuit is computed as follows. The main ingredient is a double-keyed symmetric encryption scheme. Given a gate of the circuit, each possible value of its input wires (either 0 or 1) is encoded with a random number (label). The values resulting from the evaluation of the gate at each of the four possible pair of input bits are also replaced with random labels. The garbled truth table of the gate consists of encryptions of each output label using its inputs labels as keys. The position of these four encryptions in the truth table is randomized so no information on the gate is leaked. To correctly evaluate each garbled gate the encryption scheme has the following two properties. Firstly, the ranges of the encryption function under any two distinct keys are disjoint (with overwhelming probability). The second property says that it can be checked efficiently whether a given ciphertext has been encrypted under a given key. With these two properties the receiver, after obtaining the labels for all circuit-input wires, can evaluate each gate by first finding out which of the four ciphertexts has been encrypted with his label keys, and then decrypting to obtain the label of the output wire. This is done obliviously as all the receiver learns during the evaluation are encodings of the bits. The sender's (i.e. circuit creators) input bits can be just sent as encodings to the evaluator; whereas the receiver's (i.e. circuit evaluators) encodings corresponding to his input bits are obtained via a 1-out-of-2 Oblivious Transfer (OT) protocol. A 1-out-of-2 OT protocol, enables the sender, in possession of two values C1 and C2, to send the one requested by the receiver (b a value in {1,2}) in such a way that the sender does not know what value has been transferred, and the receiver only learns the queried value. If one is considering malicious adversaries, further mechanisms to ensure correct behavior of both parties need to be provided. By construction it is easy to show security for the sender if the OT protocol is already secure against malicious adversary, as all the receiver can do is to evaluate a garbled circuit that would fail to reach the circuit-output wires if he deviated from the instructions. The situation is very different on the sender's side. For example, he may send an incorrect garbled circuit that computes a function revealing the receiver's input. This would mean that privacy no longer holds, but since the circuit is garbled the receiver would not be able to detect this. However, it is possible to efficiently apply Zero-Knowledge proofs to make this protocol secure against malicious adversaries with a small overhead comparing to the semi-honest protocol. Multi-party protocols Most MPC protocols, as opposed to 2PC protocols and especially under the unconditional setting of private channels, make use of secret sharing. In the secret sharing based methods, the parties do not play special roles (as in Yao, of creator and evaluator). Instead, the data associated with each wire is shared amongst the parties, and a protocol is then used to evaluate each gate. The function is now defined as a “circuit” over a finite field, as opposed to the binary circuits used for Yao. Such a circuit is called an arithmetic circuit in the literature, and it consists of addition and multiplication “gates” where the values operated on are defined over a finite field. Secret sharing allows one to distribute a secret among a number of parties by distributing shares to each party. Two types of secret sharing schemes are commonly used; Shamir secret sharing and additive secret sharing. In both cases the shares are random elements of a finite field that add up to the secret in the field; intuitively, security is achieved because any non-qualifying set of shares looks randomly distributed. Secret sharing schemes can tolerate an adversary controlling up to t parties out of n total parties, where t varies based on the scheme, the adversary can be passive or active, and different assumptions are made on the power of the adversary. The Shamir secret sharing scheme is secure against a passive adversary when and an active adversary when while achieving information-theoretic security, meaning that even if the adversary has unbounded computational power, they cannot learn any information about the secret underlying a share. The BGW protocol, which defines how to compute addition and multiplication on secret shares, is often used to compute functions with Shamir secret shares. Additive secret sharing schemes can tolerate the adversary controlling all but one party, that is , while maintaining security against a passive and active adversary with unbounded computational power. Some protocols require a setup phase, which may only be secure against a computationally bounded adversary. A number of systems have implemented various forms of MPC with secret sharing schemes. The most popular is SPDZ, which implements MPC with additive secret shares and is secure against active adversaries. Other protocols In 2014 a "model of fairness in secure computation in which an adversarial party that aborts on receiving output is forced to pay a mutually predefined monetary penalty" has been described for the Bitcoin network or for fair lottery. Practical MPC systems Many advances have been made on 2PC and MPC systems in recent years. Yao-based protocols One of the main issues when working with Yao-based protocols is that the function to be securely evaluated (which could be an arbitrary program) must be represented as a circuit, usually consisting of XOR and AND gates. Since most real-world programs contain loops and complex data structures, this is a highly non-trivial task. The Fairplay system was the first tool designed to tackle this problem. Fairplay comprises two main components. The first of these is a compiler enabling users to write programs in a simple high-level language, and output these programs in a Boolean circuit representation. The second component can then garble the circuit and execute a protocol to securely evaluate the garbled circuit. As well as two-party computation based on Yao's protocol, Fairplay can also carry out multi-party protocols. This is done using the BMR protocol, which extends Yao's passively secure protocol to the active case. In the years following the introduction of Fairplay, many improvements to Yao's basic protocol have been created, in the form of both efficiency improvements and techniques for active security. These include techniques such as the free XOR method, which allows for much simpler evaluation of XOR gates, and garbled row reduction, reducing the size of garbled tables with two inputs by 25%. The approach that so far seems to be the most fruitful in obtaining active security comes from a combination of the garbling technique and the “cut-and-choose” paradigm. This combination seems to render more efficient constructions. To avoid the aforementioned problems with respect to dishonest behaviour, many garblings of the same circuit are sent from the constructor to the evaluator. Then around half of them (depending on the specific protocol) are opened to check consistency, and if so a vast majority of the unopened ones are correct with high probability. The output is the majority vote of all the evaluations. Note that here the majority output is needed. If there is disagreement on the outputs the receiver knows the sender is cheating, but he cannot complain as otherwise this would leak information on his input. This approach for active security was initiated by Lindell and Pinkas. This technique was implemented by Pinkas et al. in 2009, This provided the first actively secure two-party evaluation of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) circuit, regarded as a highly complex (consisting of around 30,000 AND and XOR gates), non-trivial function (also with some potential applications), taking around 20 minutes to compute and requiring 160 circuits to obtain a cheating probability. As many circuits are evaluated, the parties (including the receiver) need to commit to their inputs to ensure that in all the iterations the same values are used. The experiments of Pinkas et al. reported show that the bottleneck of the protocol lies in the consistency checks. They had to send over the net about 6,553,600 commitments to various values to evaluate the AES circuit. In recent results the efficiency of actively secure Yao-based implementations was improved even further, requiring only 40 circuits, and much less commitments, to obtain cheating probability. The improvements come from new methodologies for performing cut-and-choose on the transmitted circuits. More recently, there has been a focus on highly parallel implementations based on garbled circuits, designed to be run on CPUs with many cores. Kreuter, et al. describe an implementation running on 512 cores of a powerful cluster computer. Using these resources they could evaluate the 4095-bit edit distance function, whose circuit comprises almost 6 billion gates. To accomplish this they developed a custom, better optimized circuit compiler than Fairplay and several new optimizations such as pipelining, whereby transmission of the garbled circuit across the network begins while the rest of the circuit is still being generated. The time to compute AES was reduced to 1.4 seconds per block in the active case, using a 512-node cluster machine, and 115 seconds using one node. Shelat and Shen improve this, using commodity hardware, to 0.52 seconds per block. The same paper reports on a throughput of 21 blocks per second, but with a latency of 48 seconds per block. Meanwhile, another group of researchers has investigated using consumer-grade GPUs to achieve similar levels of parallelism. They utilize OT extensions and some other novel techniques to design their GPU-specific protocol. This approach seems to achieve comparable efficiency to the cluster computing implementation, using a similar number of cores. However, the authors only report on an implementation of the AES circuit, which has around 50,000 gates. On the other hand, the hardware required here is far more accessible, as similar devices may already be found in many people's desktop computers or games consoles. The authors obtain a timing of 2.7 seconds per AES block on a standard desktop, with a standard GPU. If they allow security to decrease to something akin to covert security, they obtain a run time of 0.30 seconds per AES block. In the passive security case there are reports of processing of circuits with 250 million gates, and at a rate of 75 million gates per second. See also Digital currency Homomorphic encryption Mental poker Multi-party fair exchange protocol Oblivious transfer Privacy-preserving computational geometry Yao's Millionaires' Problem References External links A simple description of the Millionaire Problem Helger Lipmaa's links about multiparty computation EMP-toolkit — Efficient Multi-Party computation Toolkit. Includes implementation of basic MPC primitives as well as protocols with semi-honest security and malicious security. Secure distributed CSP (DisCSP) solvers — a web-application with an applet-interpreter to design and run your own full-fledged secure multiparty computation (based on the SMC declarative language). Uses secure arithmetic circuit evaluation and mix-nets. VMCrypt A Java library for scalable secure computation. By Lior Malka. The Fairplay Project — Includes a software package for secure two-party computation, where the function is defined using a high-level function description language, and evaluated using Yao's protocol for secure evaluation of boolean circuits. The SIMAP project; Secure Information Management and Processing (SIMAP) is a project sponsored by the Danish National Research Agency aimed implementing Secure Multiparty Computation. Secure Multiparty Computation Language - project for development of a 'domain specific programming language for secure multiparty computation' and associated cryptographic runtime. VIFF: Virtual Ideal Functionality Framework — Framework for asynchronous multi-party computations (code available under the LGPL). Offers arithmetic with secret shared values including secure comparison. MPyC: Secure Multiparty Computation in Python (and Jupyter notebooks) — Open-source package for MPC using a customized type of Python coroutines, supporting advanced applications such as ID3 decision trees, linear programming, CNN/MLP neural networks, AES, one-way hash chains, and many more. Launched in May 2018. SCALE-MAMBA MPC: Secure Computation Algorithms from LEuven — Framework for various MPC protocols, including the SPDZ family (code available under the BSD). Offers arithmetic with secret shared values including secure comparison and support for fixed point and floating point arithmetic. Sharemind: analyze confidential data without compromising privacy — A distributed virtual machine with the capability to run privacy-preserving operations. Has a privacy-preserving programming language for data mining tools. Includes developer tools. MPCLib: Multi-Party Computation Library — A library written in C# and C++ that implements several building blocks required for implementing secure multi-party computation protocols. MPCLib has a discrete-event simulation engine that can be used for simulating MPC protocols in virtual networks. Virtual Parties in SMC A protocol for Virtual Parties in SMC (Secure Multi Party computation) MPC Java-based implementation A Java-based implementation of the MPC protocol based on Michael.B, Shafi.G and Avi.W's theorem ("Completeness theorems for non-cryptographic fault-tolerant distributed computation") with Welch-Berlekamp error correcting code algorithm to BCH codes. Supports multiple players and identification of "cheaters" with Byzantine protocol. By Erez Alon, Doron Friedland & Yael Smith. SEPIA A java library for SMC using secret sharing. Basic operations are optimized for large numbers of parallel invocations (code available under the LGPL). Introduction to SMC on GitHub Myst Project - JavaCard Applet implementing Secure Multiparty Key Generation, Signing and Decryption. Essential bibliography Secure Multiparty Computation Theory of cryptography Cryptographic protocols

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FireHOL

FireHOL

FireHOL is a shell script designed as a wrapper for iptables written to ease the customization of the Linux kernel's firewall netfilter. FireHOL does not have graphical user interface, but is configured through an easy to understand plain text configuration file. A further advantage of FireHOL is its friendliness to beginners - you don't have to worry about the answer packet because FireHOL first parses the configuration file and then sets the appropriate iptables rules to achieve the expected firewall behavior. It is a large, complex BASH script file, depending on the iptables console tools rather than communicating with the kernel directly. This has the advantage of portability; any Linux system with iptables, BASH, and the appropriate tools can run it. Its main drawback is slower starting times, particularly on older systems. Since this delay only happens once per boot—or less, if the resulting rules are saved to disk—high performance for this is not generally important except in embedded systems. FireHOL also benefits from the shell's flexibility, being easily extended and configured to a high degree; FireHOL's configuration files are fully functional BASH scripts in of themselves. One can write scripts in normal shell syntax and they will operate as expected; one might loop a FireHOL statement to forward an entire set of ports, for example. FireHOL is free software and open-source, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. External links Firewall software Free security software

469954

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System%20V%20printing%20system

System V printing system

The printing subsystem of UNIX System V is one of several standardized systems for printing on Unix, and is typical of commercial System V-based Unix versions such as Solaris and SCO OpenServer. A system running this print architecture could traditionally be identified by the use of the user command as the primary interface to the print system, as opposed to the BSD command (though some systems provide as an alias to ). Typical user commands available to the System V printing system are: : the user command to print a document : shows the current print queue : deletes a job from the print queue : a system administration command that configures the print system : a system administration command that moves jobs between print queues History In the Unix programming model, device files are special files that act as access points to peripheral devices such as printers. For example, the first line printer on a Unix system might be represented by a file in the device () directory, i.e., . Using the file metaphor, a document could by printed by "copying" the file onto the device: . While this worked well enough for the case where there was one printer per user, this model did not scale out well to multiple users having to share one printer. The solution was to create a queue (or "spool") of documents to be printed and use a daemon (system process) to manage this queue and send the documents to the printer in the order in which they arrived. Such a system, with an command to send documents to the queue, was first introduced in 1973 in Version 4 of Unix. By the release of System V Release 4, the suite of utilities had grown to include commands for canceling print jobs, moving jobs among queues, enabling and disabling queues, enabling and disabling a job scheduler daemon, and status reports of the print system. The command handled queue documents to be printed and had over 20 different options that controlled the appearance of the document and its place in the queue, and even handled email notification of the user once the document had finished printing. The command returned a "job id" which could be used by the cancel or lpstat commands to remove the job from the queue or check on its progress, respectively. While the system was considered to be quite complex to set up and administer, most uses were expected to only use these three commands. With its distribution in the influential AT&T Unix System V, the interface if not the implementation became the standard for users' control over printers. The command was included as a requirement in the POSIX.2 standard, and a command by that name appeared in the subsequent lpr, LPRng and CUPS printing systems. (In SVR4 derivates like SCO UNIX, the command was simply an alias for the command used by the BSD-based system.) As late as 1996, Running Linux stated "The Linux printing software consists of the UNIX standard lp and lpr software," but by 1999 support for lp was waning and the third edition simply stated "The lpr command prints a document on Linux." By 2003, a survey of the Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware and SuSE distributions showed that all of them were running some combination of lpr, LPRng and CUPS. The original System V printing system remains proprietary; however, the Solaris print system, heavily modified from the original, has been released as open source software as part of the OpenSolaris project. The Common Unix Printing System emulates both System V and Berkeley print architectures on the interface level, though its internal architecture is different from both. Criticism In his introduction to a simplified configuration system for lp, author Peter Gray of the University of Wollongong described several weaknesses of the version shipping with the then-current Solaris (operating system) version 2. As opposed to the single daemon used by the simpler BSD lpr system, the lp system used separate daemons, one for scheduling and one for remote communication. The lpr system could be controlled with a single configuration file while lp requires a separate program for administration. The lp system did support permissions, but the model did not scale to hundreds of users. As a result, Gray observed that "many administrators choose to simply run the old lpr/lpd system on the SVR4 boxes." See also Berkeley printing system Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) LPRng References External links lp lpstat Printing administration on Solaris 10 Computer printing UNIX System V

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Gargoyles%20characters

List of Gargoyles characters

In the animated television series Gargoyles, it's non-canon season titled Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles, and the spinoff comic books Gargoyles (SLG comic) and Gargoyles: Bad Guys, Gargoyles are a species of winged humanoid creatures that are the focus of the show. Gargoyles Several clans of gargoyles exist worldwide, and each clan has distinct cultural and morphological characteristics. All gargoyle clans are alike in that each has a particular item, area, or concept that they strive to protect. They are fierce warriors and are incredibly powerful and resilient; their appearance and ferocity often means that humans vilify them as demons and monsters. Most of the world's gargoyle clans do not peacefully co-exist with humans. Gargoyles are particularly notable for entering a sort of stone hibernation, called "stone sleep", during the day, during which they resemble Gothic statues. During daylight, they can quickly heal from injury and illness, and are protected from most natural threats. However, this state makes them easy targets for destruction by their enemies and humans who hate them. The character Anton Sevarius postulated that, in this hibernation, they absorb solar radiation that allows them to store energy; otherwise, he concluded, the strenuous activity of gliding would require a nutritional intake equivalent to eating three cows a day. Damage during stone sleep can be fatal to a gargoyle. If a gargoyle dies during its hibernation like it being shattered to many pieces, its body will remain stone. Gargoyles, despite having large wings, can only fly by gliding on updrafts and on the wind. They have sharp claws that can dig into any kind of solid surface, and they can use these to climb vertical surfaces. They are also excellent swimmers. While not inherently immortal, gargoyles can be extremely long-lived, a result of stone sleep—which slows or halts their aging process until they wake again the following night. Even in old age, they are not as frail and incapacitated as other creatures. Because they spend half their day asleep as stone, they age at half the rate of a human, thus living twice as long. A subgroup of gargoyles are gargoyle beasts, who are typically quadrupedal and behave like domestic animals. Though they are smarter than mundane animals, they are not as intelligent as humans or gargoyles. The Manhattan Clan The Manhattan Clan are the protagonists of the series. The original members of the group were made up of the remnants of the Wyvern Clan that weren't shattered. They later gained new members as the series progressed. Goliath (voiced by Keith David) – Goliath is the leader of the Manhattan Clan. Goliath is named for the Biblical giant by the people of Castle Wyvern because of his stature at 6 ft. 10 in. (208 cm) and a weight of 400 lbs. (181 kg). By the end of the second season, Goliath has started a romantic relationship with Elisa Maza. Hudson (voiced by Ed Asner) – Hudson was an Elder and former leader of the Wyvern Clan. He now serves as an advisor to Goliath and the rest of the Manhattan Clan. Hudson took his name from the river after Elisa explained almost everything has a name. When not in battle, Hudson would spend the night watching television. Brooklyn (voiced by Jeff Bennett) – The rufous-skinned, white-haired Brooklyn serves as the clan's second-in-command with a somewhat sarcastic and impetuous attitude, but has a talent for tactics. Brooklyn is named for the New York borough. He harbors bitter hatred against Demona after she tricked him. Forty seconds after being whisked away in time by The Phoenix Gate (but 40 years later, from Brooklyn's perspective), Brooklyn was returned to his correct time, older and with a family. Lexington (voiced by Thom Adcox-Hernandez) – Lexington was the smallest of the clan and a technical wizard. Lexington is named from the avenue, which itself gained that name in 1836. Lexington harbored bitter hatred against The Pack, but attempted to reconcile with Fox after moving back to the castle. Unlike the other Manhattan Clan gargoyles, Lexington's wings do not exist as fully "separate" limbs, but instead consist of membranes that are webbed to his arms with one extra set of "limbs" halfway down within the webbing, which allow him to glide like a flying squirrel. He holds a soft spot for baby Alex; in the third season, he is shown to act as a sort of babysitter and spoils him with new toys. Following the series' run on television and the release of the SLG Clan-Building Gargoyles comics. Broadway (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke) – Broadway is overweight and good-natured. He is named for the street. Broadway has developed a strong dislike of guns ever since he accidentally shot Eliza and a great appreciation for old movies (particularly detective ones), as well as a newfound and rapidly developing appreciation for reading and literary works. He later develops a relationship with Angela. Bronx (vocal effects provided by Frank Welker) – Bronx is a dog-like gargoyle beast. Bronx is named for the New York borough. He often stays with Hudson within the clan's residence, keeping him company while watching television. Angela (voiced by Brigitte Bako) – Angela is the daughter of Goliath and Demona. She was raised on Avalon like a human, thus making her more willing to trust others, and joined the Manhattan clan in the middle of the second season. Angela is so named because of her angelic nature, Angela literally meaning "She-Angel". She later develops a relationship with Broadway, after letting "the trio" (Broadway, Brooklyn and Lexington) know she does not tolerate nicknames being used for her. Fu-Dog – Fu-Dog is a green-skinned leonine gargoyle beast, closely resembling a Chinese statuary lion in appearance from the Xanadu Clan in China who, at some unspecified time, joins Brooklyn on his journey through the time-stream. He is fiercely loyal to Brooklyn. Katana – Katana comes from the Ishimura Clan during feudal era Japan, and is Brooklyn's sky-blue hued mate, with a similar but smaller beak when compared to her mate. Named for the most famous form of Japanese sword, she joined him on his Timedancer journey. During their adventures, she and Brooklyn had an egg which hatched into Nashville. She has a second egg, Egwardo, which she is very protective of, as shown by her carrying it (before it hatches in 1998) with her everywhere in a compact backpack. Nashville – Nashville is the son of Brooklyn and Katana. He closely resembled Brooklyn, but had Katana's pale blue skin color and bluish-black hair. He is called Gnash for short. Egwardo – Egwardo is a yet-to-be-hatched gargoyle egg. Its parents were Brooklyn and Katana. Egwardo hatched as a female in 1998, and was given the name "Tachi", possibly named for the predecessor of the sword her mother is named for. Othello (voiced by Michael Dorn) – Othello was a rookery brother to Goliath who is shown to be hot-headed. Resurrected as the cyborg Coldstone. The Coldstone robot was designed to resemble him. The name Othello was used to identify the character in the script. He rejoined the clan in 1997. Desdemona (voiced by CCH Pounder) – Desdemona is Othello's Mate. She helped to keep Iago at bay and was eventually transferred into the robot shell of Coldfire. The name Desdemona was used only for script and credit only. She rejoined the clan in 1997. Coldstone Coldstone is the spirit of a deceased gargoyle from the Wyvern clan resurrected through science and sorcery into a cyborg body. He was formed from the remains of three different gargoyles (usually called Coldstone or "Othello", his mate Coldfire or "Desdemona", and his rival Coldsteel or "Iago"), and each personality remains mostly intact. Eventually, each personality is transferred to a separate robotic body. Since the Coldstone robotic body only had one voice box, Coldstone was always voiced by Michael Dorn, regardless of the personality in control. However in "Legion" when Coldstone's tone changed whenever Desdemona was in control, Coldstone to be voiced by CCH Pounder during that time. Iago/Coldsteel Iago or Coldsteel (voiced by Xander Berkeley) is Othello's enemy. He convinced Othello that Desdemona was secretly pursuing a relationship with Goliath. He was eventually transferred into the robot shell of Coldsteel. Upon Demona's reactivation of the Coldstone robot, Iago took control of the body, until Othello was convinced to help Goliath and clan. In 1996, Coldsteel aided Xanatos and Coyote 5.0. in retrieving the Stone of Destiny in exchange for removing a tracking device from his body. The name Iago was used only in the script and credits. Demona Demona (voiced by Marina Sirtis) is Goliath's ex-mate and Angela's biological mother; who is no longer frozen in stone by daylight like the others, thanks to Puck's pre-Gathering intervention. She has been continuously alive for a millennium, because of a magical pact with Macbeth granted to them by the series' version of the Three Witches, giving both of them nearly-irrevocable immortality. Demona developed a hatred of all humans, making her an enemy of the clan. She was named by Macbeth, after her demonic fighting skills, Demona literally meaning "She-Demon". Over the centuries that she has been alive, Demona was the enemy of the Canmore family, who all took on the moniker of The Hunter; because of this, Demona was indirectly responsible for the destruction of the Manhattan Clan's clock tower home. Avalon Clan The Avalon Clan are the gargoyle eggs of Castle Wyvern that were protected by Princess Katharine, Tom, and the Magus. The eggs were taken to Avalon where they hatched and grew to adulthood where they formed this offshoot of the Wyvern Clan. Katharine and Tom raised them as their own children, and thus gave each a name to be told apart from each other, so the Avalon Clan holds great respect for them. Known members of the clan include: Gabriel (voiced by Ruben Santiago-Hudson) - The son of Coldstone and Coldfire. Ophelia (voiced by Kath Soucie) - A turqouise-skinned Gargoyle with a distinct wing feature. Boudicca (vocal effects provided by Frank Welker) - A slender dog-shaped gargoyle beast. The unnamed members of the Avalon clan consist of 14 unnamed females, 16 unnamed males, and 2 gargoyle beasts. London Clan The London Clan are a prosperous English clan resembling the creatures of heraldry. The London Clan roosted at a country estate called Knight's Spur. They also ran a magic shop in London to supplement their income, and until the mid-1990s (the timeframe of the Gargoyles series) had abandoned their mission of protection. Their names were derived from the heraldic creatures they were based on: Una (voiced by Sarah Douglas) - A unicorn-type gargoyle and the clan's leader. Leo (voiced by Gregg Berger) - A lion-type gargoyle. Griff (voiced by Neil Dickson) - A griffin-type gargoyle who later got displaced in 1995 when he went through the Phoenix Gate. Staghart - A white stag-type gargoyle who was rumored to have a close friendship with Lexington. Constance - A wild boar-type gargoyle. Pog - A hippogriff who is the clan's eldest member. Lunette - A winged unicorn. She is Leo and Una's daughter who was born the same year as Brooklyn's son Nashville. The rest of the London Clan consisted of 189 unnamed members. Clan Ishimura Clan Ishimura was a gargoyle clan in Japan and the only clan thus far that lived in harmony with humans, teaching them Bushido, (lit. the "Way of the Warrior"), since feudal times. It includes Kai (voiced by Clyde Kusatsu) - Clan Ishimura's leader. Sora (voiced by Haunani Minn) - A member of Clan Ishimura and Kai's second-in-command. Yama (voiced by Bruce Locke) - A member of Clan Ishimura and Sora's former mate who was banished from the clan for criminal activity. This resulted in his joining Robyn Canmore's Redemption Squad unit in the future to atone for his own misdeeds. Clan Ishimura also had many other unnamed members. In the Gargoyles comic series issue "The Lost", it is revealed that the gargoyles of Japan are properly called Tengu, as a possible inspiration for Japan's folkloric creatures with similar physical characteristics. Mayan Clan The Mayan Clan members are protectors of the Guatemalan rainforest and associated with the Kaqchikel people's culture and have patagia-form, leathery wings. The four surviving gargoyles of the clan wore special talismans linked to a special occultly-enchanted artifact called the Mayan Sun Amulet, that let them avoid their stone sleep. Their names are Spanish words for precious gemstones: Zafiro (voiced by Héctor Elizondo) - The red-skinned leader of the Mayan Clan with a snake tail instead of legs and a unique feather-winged appearance reminiscent of the Mayan deity Kukulkan but with human-form arms, or possibly one of the cuoatl, specifically Quetzalcoatl. He wears the sapphire amulet. Jade (voiced by Jesse Corti) - A green-skinned Gargoyle with a facial appearance reminiscent of Goliath. His name is pronounced in Spanish and he wears the jade amulet. Turquesa (voiced by Marabina Jaimes) - A blue-skinned gargoyle. She wears the turquoise amulet. Obsidiana (voiced by Elisa Gabrielli) - A blue-skinned gargoyle and Zafiro's mate who has developed skills as an herbalist (similar to Maya ethnobotany) with medicinal plants of the rain forest, in healing physical injuries. She wears the obsidian amulet. Due to malicious business actions initiated in 1993 by the Cyberbiotics Corporation's Preston Vogel in and near the clan's rain forest protectorate (see below), a sizable number of the Guatemala Clan's earlier gargoyle membership was destroyed in stone slumber only a few years before the "Avalon World Tour" visit to them by Goliath, Angela, Elisa and Bronx; without the Guatemala Clan's rookery of gargoyle eggs ever being discovered in the tragic event. Labyrinth Clan The Labyrinth Clan lived underground, protecting the homeless individuals who also lived there. The Mutates The Mutates were created when Anton Sevarius combined animal genes with humans in an attempt to create gargoyle-like creatures for Xanatos. They rebelled against Xanatos, and now protect the homeless in the underground facility known as the Labyrinth. They also take care of the clones. All the Mutates resembled humanoid cats with bat-like wings on their backs (giving them enough strength to glide due to the bat DNA in them) and had the ability to store and discharge electricity, due to having electric eel DNA and the associated storage organ to naturally accumulate an electric charge. Talon (voiced by Rocky Carroll) - Talon became the leader of the Mutate Clan; originally, he was against leadership as he preferred everyone being equal, but took control when Fang attempted mutiny. Resembled a black panther/bat/electric eel hybrid. Talon was originally Elisa Maza's younger brother Derek. He took a job as a pilot for David Xanatos, with a series of events leading to his mutation. The mutate Maggie Reed is shown to love him, and the feeling is mutual. Fang (voiced by Jim Belushi) - Fang was originally a member of the Mutate Clan, but eventually betrayed them. He resembled a cougar/bat/electric eel hybrid with bat wings. Fang was a human named Fred Sykes before Sevarius mutated him. He found several laser rifles and used them and a pair of human followers to attempt to take over the Labyrinth where the mutates lived. He later joined forces with Thailog and Demona. Fang is a loud mouthed bully who likes dominating those weaker than himself, which causes Yama to become antagonistic towards him as both Yama and Fang are eventual members of Robyn Canmore's Redemption Squad. Claw - Claw is a strong-but-silent Mutate. The transformation process rendered him mute, brought on by either physical damage or psychological trauma (it is never specified). Resembled a tiger/bat/electric eel hybrid. Claw is shown to be a coward, doing what he is told out of fear; however, he has brief moments of bravery. Maggie Reed (voiced by Kath Soucie) - Maggie Reed is an innocent young homeless woman who was tricked by Sevarius, she was the most desperate to find a cure for her condition. Brooklyn had a crush on her for a time, but she fell in love with Talon. Maggie was listed in the show's credits as Maggie the Cat, an allusion to the female lead in the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams. Maggie resembled a lion/bat/electric eel hybrid. In the comic continuation, it was revealed that she was pregnant with Talon's child. Xanatos' Mutate Army - A group of mutants from "Future Tense" who are actually clones of Talon. Non-combat Mutates To continue with his experiments in mutating, Sevarius and Fang abducted four residents of the Labyrinth. Thug - Thug was in charge of guarding Fang's cell before he was freed by Sevarius. Mutated into a human crocodile. He took Benny and Erin back to the Labyrinth. Tasha - Tasha was a woman who was mutated into a human armadillo. She committed suicide by hanging after discovering that Sevarius had no intent to cure them. Benny - Benny is a boy who was mutated into a human woodlouse. Erin - Erin is a girl and Benny's older sister who was mutated into a human turtle. Both Benny and Erin are modeled after Greg Weisman's kids. They got to choose which mutated forms that their comic book versions were given. Thailog Thailog (voiced by Keith David) was a clone of Goliath created by Anton Sevarius and educated by David Xanatos (via a "subliminal education program"), giving him many of Xanatos's personality traits. He would prove to be both a genius and a persistent enemy. Thailog debuts in the season 2 episode Double Jeopardy, which aired in November 1995, and his name is almost backwards for "Goliath". A "monster", in Xanatos' words. Goliath's body and Xanatos' mind. Deciding that he would never be free under Xanatos' thumb, Thailog planned his own kidnapping by Sevarius, blackmails Xanatos for 20 million dollars for his safe return, and after meeting his genetic source, Goliath, for the first time, seemingly perishes in an explosion. Xanatos later guesses that Thailog had planned to fake his death all along, leaving him both free of Xanatos, and free to spend the 20 million without interference. Xanatos realizes that he has created a monster, one as strong as Goliath and as smart as (if not smarter than) himself. Under the name "Alexander Thailog", Thailog would later form a partnership/relationship with Demona, (business-wise they formed a company, called "Nightstone Unlimited"), but was planning to let her and Macbeth die, in order to inherit both their fortunes (Demona in her human form planned to marry Macbeth and then claim that he was dead in order to inherit his fortune, Thailog planned to kill Macbeth and Demona and as her sole business partner, her Banker, he would inherit their combined fortunes). Both of them later commissioned Sevarius to create a clan of clones, which he eventually betrayed. Thailog eventually "dies" (or, more accurately, lapses into a permanent stone sleep) in the third season of the animated series, but Thailog is depicted as alive in the canonical SLG Comic Book. That is because Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles was considered non-canon by Weisman. The dynamics between Thailog and Xanatos somewhat mirror that of Lex Luthor and the clone of Superman in Vatman, in season one of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which aired in March 1994. The Clones The Clones were made by Sevarius at the request of Demona and Thailog. Their intellects were originally deliberately stunted to make them obedient to Thailog. With Thailog's supposed death, they regained their freedom. Talon offered to take the clones with him to the Labyrinth to educate them. Issues 3 to 5 of the comic depict Thailog later going to Castle Wyvern to persuade the clones to rejoin him, as they still had not developed free will at that time. After a battle with Goliath and his clan, most of the clones decide to return to the Labyrinth at the insistence of Delilah. Only Brentwood decides to remain with Thailog. Malibu (voiced by Jeff Bennett) - Malibu is the clone of Brooklyn. There are hints to a possible relationship between Malibu and Delilah (much to the disappointment of Brooklyn, before his initial meeting with his own future mate Katana). Brentwood (voiced by Thom Adcox-Hernandez) - Brentwood is the clone of Lexington. Unlike the other clones, he decides to remain with Thailog, viewing him to be smart. He was the only clone, however, to stay out of the fight between the clans. Brentwood parallels with the evil Lexington from Future Tense (Lex comments on his decision, saying "You're really making me look bad"). Hollywood (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke) - Hollywood is the clone of Broadway. Burbank (voiced by Ed Asner) - Burbank is the clone of Hudson. Much like Hudson, Burbank carries a weapon, in his case, a mace. In addition, he lacks the injured left eye Hudson still possesses. Delilah (voiced by Salli Richardson) - Delilah is not an exact clone, she is a binary clone made from 90% of Demona and 10% of Elisa's DNA. She was programmed to be a servile concubine for Thailog, replacing Demona. Goliath went to the Labyrinth requesting Delilah's company for a Halloween dance (as Elisa had broken up with him). After Thailog crashes the party, Delilah is given the choice to remain with Thailog or go back to The Labyrinth. After deciding to leave Thailog, she asked the other clones to make the same choice, and was joined by all of them except for Brentwood. Delilah was angry that Goliath tried to use her as a replacement for Elisa when they temporarily broke up. Goliath had explained to Elisa that he could never feel anything for Delilah, because Gargoyles mate for life. In the unmade spinoff, Gargoyles 2198, Delilah's eponymous descendant would have been a main character, close friends with Samson (the grandson of Broadway and Angela, resembling Goliath). Little Anton (voiced by Dorian Harewood) - A giant gargoyle made by Sevarius using the DNA from all the gargoyles at the time when the clones were slowly turning to stone. The events of this episode was considered non-canon by Weisman. The clones differ from the originals by their colors, and some features like horns or teeth. To gain a physical advantage, Malibu, Brentwood, Hollywood and Burbank were aged to be in their biological 20s: older than the young trio, yet younger than Hudson. The clones' names are places in Los Angeles, contrasting with and spoofing (as chosen by Demona) their counterpart protagonists' New York City place names. Humans In addition to the gargoyles, human characters figure prominently in the series, both as allies and enemies of the gargoyles. Residents of Castle Wyvern 954-994 Princess Katharine Princess Katarine (voiced by Kath Soucie) is the leader of Castle Wyvern (and, by default, the Scottish clan of gargoyles) during the 990s. Katharine was at first prejudiced against the clan, but after they saved her life, she vowed to protect the clans' unhatched eggs and raise them on Avalon. Katherine's parents Prince Malcolm (voiced by Roger Rees) - Prince Malcolm was Katharine's father, the previous lord of Wyvern Castle, Hudson's good friend, and brother to King Kenneth. He formed a co-existence alliance with the gargoyles who had been there for centuries, and built Castle Wyvern. Goliath, Demona, and Hudson saved his life from an attack by the Archmage. He also inadvertently inspired hatred of gargoyles at Wyvern, particularly in Princess Katharine—he told her that the gargoyles would get her if she didn't stay in bed. He was apparently deceased by the time of the Viking attack in 994. Princess Elena (voiced by Kath Soucie) - Princess Elena is Katherine's mother. She married Prince Malcolm in 975, and intended to give him the Phoenix Gate as a dowry (until it was stolen by Demona). Voiced by Kath Soucie. The Magus The Magus (voiced by Jeff Bennett) was a court magician of Castle Wyvern and Katharine's top advisor. It was the Magus who cast the spell that imprisoned Goliath's clan in stone, believing that the Viking Hakon had murdered the Princess and blaming the gargoyles for her death. He later discovered that Princess Katharine had been rescued by Goliath. Unable to restore the gargoyles (as Hakon had burned the page with his counterspell), he agreed to place Goliath under the same spell so that he might one day be reunited with his clan. The Magus guided Princess Katharine and the eggs to Avalon, and harbored unrequited feelings for the princess for many years. He died after using a great deal of energy to defeat the Weird Sisters. Tom the Guardian In 10th-century Scotland, Tom (voiced by J. D. Daniels as a kid, Gerrit Graham as an adult) was a peasant boy at Wyvern Castle, who was eager to make friends with the gargoyles, especially the future-named Lexington & Brooklyn, despite his mother's objections. He also accompanied Princess Katherine and the gargoyle eggs to Avalon, where he took on the role of Guardian, protecting the eggs & training the young gargoyles when they hatched. While living on Avalon, the adult Tom became Katharine's confidante, and eventually her husband. Mary Mary (voiced by Kath Soucie), Tom the Guardian's mother, was fiercely anti-gargoyle like Katharine, but had a change of heart as she, too, vowed to protect the eggs. Along with Finnella, she did not go to Avalon, instead choosing to stay on Earth and guard the Grimorum Arcanorum, stating that, "a woman alone might run into trouble: two women can cause plenty of it". When a Timedancing Brooklyn arrived in Scotland in 997, Mary recognized him as one of the gargoyles from Goliath's clan. Together, the three of them joined Constantine's enemies, led by King Kenneth III. She and Finella would continue guarding the Grimorum while leaving 997 with Brooklyn. In October 1996, Mary (or a woman resembling her) attended a Halloween party atop The Eyrie Building. The Archmage The Archmage (voiced by David Warner) was an evil sorcerer and an enemy of the gargoyle clan at Castle Wyvern. He was defeated by Goliath, but his future self saved him from his fall in a perpetual time paradox—as his future self existed in the 1990s, and rescued his past self, without any explanation for how the loop began. The Archmage continues to live through this loop, despite his later defeat, after rescuing himself in the past. The Archmage was encouraged to conquer the world, but first had to retrieve the trio of occult objects he most desired, the "three keys to power" in the series, comprising: the ancient book of magic spells named the Grimorum Arcanorum, the Phoenix Gate and the Eye of Odin; as well as to conquer Avalon as a base of operations. His future self secured an alliance with the Weird Sisters to watch out for the mystical artifacts, as well as guide the destinies of Demona and Macbeth, advising them to bend Oberon's law of non-interference. The "Future Archmage" brought his past self nearly a thousand years into the future, where his past self swallowed the Grimorum in order for the spellbook to be brought onto the island ("human magic" is not allowed on Avalon by law; consuming it created a "legal loophole"), thus making him very powerful. However, he was defeated by Goliath, who stripped him of the Eye of Odin, causing the Grimorum to turn the Archmage into a pile of dust. During some unspecified time, the enhanced Archmage undertook additional time travel, thus meeting a Timedancing Brooklyn. The Captain of the Guard The Captain of the Guard (voiced by Ed Gilbert) was the head of Castle Wyvern's garrison in 994. Resentful of the lack of appreciation that he and the gargoyles received for defending the castle, he struck a deal with Demona and the Vikings to have the castle sacked, forcing out the humans and leaving only him and the gargoyles. The plan included sabotage, such as severing bowstrings, but backfired when the Viking leader Hakon shattered most of the gargoyles during the day after the siege, prompting Goliath and the survivors (Hudson, Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington and Bronx) to go after the Vikings for revenge. The Captain was killed along with Hakon in 994, when they fell off a cliff, but their spirits remained trapped in the area as punishment for their actions. When Goliath returned to the Wyvern site a thousand years later, the Captain and Hakon, in spirit form, attempted to steal Goliath's lifeforce and thus free themselves from the area. He stopped midway, after realizing his guilt for his treachery, and instead turned on Hakon. Having atoned for his sins, his spirit was set free to rest in peace. Residents of New York Elisa Maza Elisa Maza (voiced by Salli Richardson) is a NYPD detective, a woman of half Native American and haft Nigerian heritage, friend of the Gargoyles, and later love interest for Goliath. Maza Family Eliza's family also figures prominently in the series: Peter Maza (voiced by Michael Horse) - Peter is Elisa's father. A Native American who was once an NYPD officer. He never argues with Elisa once she sets her mind on something. Diane Maza (voiced by Nichelle Nichols) - Diane is Elisa's mother whose ethnicity was Nigerian. She went to a Nigerian village to get in touch with her roots as a griot. Derek Maza (voiced by Rocky Carroll) is Elisa's brother who was a cop and also a pilot. He was later transformed into the mutate Talon by Xanatos and Sevarius. Beth Maza (voiced by Monica Allison in "The Cage," Roxanne Beckford in "Cloud Fathers") - Beth is Elisa's sister who is a student of the fictional University of Flagstaff. Macbeth Macbeth (voiced by John Rhys-Davies), former King of Scotland, was loosely based on the Shakespearean character as well as the real historical figure, depicted with a white chin curtain beard in the 1990s main storyline of the series. He is eternally bound to Demona and is forced to live in conflict with her forever; neither one can die until one simultaneously kills the other. Initially an enemy of the gargoyles, he later becomes their ally. He tried to claim the sword Excalibur for himself but did not succeed in doing this. After being impressed with Macbeth's skills and honorable behavior King Arthur offered him a place in the New Round Table. Macbeth, while honored, refused this offer because he felt he could not submit to Arthur's rule as he was a self-made man. But, Macbeth offered his services should there ever be a crisis. He sometimes uses the alias Lennox Macduff (after two characters in the Shakespeare play). Macbeth's family Duncan (voiced by Neil Dickson) - Duncan was the ancient king of Scotland, Macbeth's foe, and the second to wear the Hunter mask. He secretly ordered the death of Macbeth's father, and destroyed the few remaining gargoyles in Scotland. It was because of Duncan that the Weird Sisters forged the spell between Macbeth and Demona. While in a sword fight with Macbeth, Macbeth uses an orb given to him by the Weird Sisters to burn Duncan alive. Gillecomgain (voiced by Cam Clarke as a young man, Jim Cummings as an adult) - Gillecomgain started the Hunter line as part of his revenge on Demona, who had scarred his face as a child. As an assassin under Duncan, he started a spree of terror and violence that included assassinating Macbeth's father Findláech of Moray and nearly wiping out all of the gargoyles in Scotland. After betraying Duncan, Duncan reveals him as the murderer of Findláech to Macbeth, who promptly attacks him alongside Demona. During the fight, Demona throws him off a balcony to his death. Gruoch (voiced by Emma Samms) - Macbeth's beloved in ancient Scotland, Gruoch is pressured into marriage to Gillecomgain by her father Boite. When Gillecomgain is revealed as the Hunter and slain, she happily marries her love and becomes Lady Macbeth, Queen of Scotland. They are later severed when Macbeth "dies" and begins his centuries-long struggle with Demona. Lulach (voiced by Jeff Bennett) - Lulach was the son of Gruoch and (historically) stepson of Macbeth (though this is not made explicit on the series). Ascends to the throne of Scotland after his father's "death." His ultimate fate is not shown, but it is implied that he is slain by Duncan's son, Canmore, in a later battle. Boite (voiced by Ed Gilbert) - The father of Gruoch and friend to Macbeth's father Findláech, Boite serves as an advisor to his son-in-law, Macbeth, throughout his life. Boite counseled Macbeth to destroy the remaining gargoyles (a plan which Macbeth rejected), ultimately leading to Demona and Macbeth's falling-out. Canmore (voiced by Neil Dickson) - Son of Duncan, Canmore is only a boy when his father is slain in battle by Macbeth. Canmore is banished to England, but returns to Scotland as a grown man for revenge. Like his father before him, Canmore takes up the mask of the Hunter and declares war upon the gargoyles. He "slays" Macbeth in single combat, unaware of Macbeth's immortality. It is implied that he later has Macbeth's son, Lulach, killed. Canmore's descendants each become the Hunter in turn, hunting Demona through the centuries. The Pack The Pack are mercenaries organized by Xanatos first to be TV stars, then to hunt gargoyles. Lexington harbors a bitter hatred against them. They were subsequently "upgraded" into more deadly forms through the use of genetic and cybernetic enhancements. Coyote (voiced by Jonathan Frakes) - Unlike the others, Coyote is a robot constructed by the Scarab Corporation in Xanatos' image. Coyotee was sent to infiltrate and lead the Pack due to Fox being up for parole. When the Pack got themselves upgraded, Coyote was upgraded to Coyote 2.0. Wolf (voiced by Clancy Brown) - Wolf is a descendant of Hakon and a member of the Pack. He was later mutated into a werewolf-like creature. Jackal (voiced by Matt Frewer) - Jackal is the cold and calculating member of the Pack. He later gained cybernetic enhancements that included fingers that shot out like darts, extending legs, retractable arms, a cybernetic eye and ear, laser weaponry, cutting blade weaponry, and other types of technology. Hyena (voiced by Cree Summer) - Hyena is the most bloodthirsty member of the Pack and the younger sister of Jackal. She later gained cybernetic enhancements that included elongating razor fingers, extendable limbs, multi-directional joints, a cybernetic ear, laser weaponry, cutting blade weaponry, the ability to flight, and other types of technology like her brother. Dingo (voiced by Jim Cummings) - Harry Monmoth is a fit member of the Pack who wielded different weaponry. He later sported a robotic battle suit when he didn't want to undergo the enhancements that the others did. Over time, Dingo misses the adulation he received as a fictional hero while on television — and to both atone for his own past misdeeds, and to actually be a real-world hero, joins Robyn Canmore's Redemption Squad after allowing the cybernetic being Matrix to join with him to achieve the ability to be a real hero. Fox Born with the name Janine Renard, Fox (voiced by Laura San Giacomo) had her name legally changed. Her birth surname, "Renard", is the French word for "fox". She is the daughter of entrepreneur and business magnate Halcyon Renard and his ex-wife Anastasia Renard (the name used by Titania, "Queen of the Third Race", while in the guise of a mortal human woman). A former mercenary and former leader of The Pack, Fox quit the group and married David Xanatos. They later had a son, Alexander Fox Xanatos. Like many villains of the series, Fox initially had no love for the Gargoyles, seeing them as pawns to be manipulated; however, after they saved Alex, she changed her opinion and went out of her way to make amends—particularly to Lexington, who she had once hurt. Tony Dracon Tony Dracon (voiced by Richard Grieco) is an organized crime figure in New York, Dracon knows about the Manhattan Clan that often foil his plans, and has a score to settle with Elisa. He often clashes with Goliath and Broadway. In his last appearance, he was imprisoned with Czech gangster Brod. Glasses Glasses (voiced by Rocky Carroll) is one of the associates of Tony Dracon. Pal Joey Pal Joey (voiced by Michael Bell) is the other associate of Tony Dracon. Margot Yale and Brendan Quarters Margot Yale (voiced by Marina Sirtis in season 1-2, Tress MacNeille in season 3) and Brendan Quarters (voiced by Pat Fraley) are a yuppie couple who have the misfortune of running into the gargoyles often. Margot became the assistant district attorney of one of the New York City boroughs, and spoke out against the gargoyles in a heated televised public debate with Macbeth, who defended them; she angered him enough to wish Margot could still to be burnt at the stake, subtly calling her a witch. During the Halloween Party at the top of the Eyrie Building, she berated Brendan for dressing as a Gargoyle (as other partygoers had done). Brendan later came across Goliath, injured, and sent for a doctor. Jeffrey Robbins Jeffery Robbins (voiced by Paul Winfield) is a blind author, a former Vietnam Vet, and a friend of Hudson. He helps Hudson find Macbeth. Afterward, he taught Hudson how to read, and decided to write a book based on the Scrolls of Merlin which he called The Sword and the Staff. When Demona unleashes a spell to turn the citizens of Manhattan to stone by broadcasting the spell on all television channels, Hudson and the clan visit Robbins and discover that blind people are immune to the spell. During the Halloween of 1996, Robbins admitted to being aware that Hudson is a Gargoyle—due to the late night visits, Scottish accent, scents of leather and concrete, and Hudson's refusal to shake his hand. The scene was based on a similar one from a Goliath Chronicles episode. Robbins helps a blind Hudson recover his eyesight after discovering Hudson is a gargoyle. Vinnie Grigori Vinnie Grigori (voiced by Jeff Bennett) is another man who has had various encounters with the Manhattan clan, whom he blames for an unfortunate string of bad luck. He is seen first as a motorcycle rider whose bike is "stolen" and crashed by Lex; Grigori had his license revoked, as his recollection of Lex would lead the judge to believe he was intoxicated. He is next seen as a security guard for Cyberbiotics' airship—the night Goliath and Demona destroy it. He is at Sevarius's labs when Goliath captures Sevarius to force him to make a cure for the Mutates (for which Grigori was fired). He later shows up carrying a huge bazooka, which he uses to finally get revenge on Goliath—stalking Goliath as he and Hudson battled Wolf and the spirit of Hakon—shooting him in the face... with a banana cream pie. He appeared as a reluctant recruit of the Quarrymen under pressure from Castaway, where he worked to save Goliath and Elisa from being killed. He then left to take a job in Japan. He eventually leaves on flight 994 and ends up lost in Tokyo. Vinnie's name and voice is a spoof of the character Vinnie Barbarino from the show Welcome Back, Kotter, and even refers to the Bazooka he used on Goliath as Mr. Carter. The cream pie that it shoots is a tribute to another Disney show, Bonkers, which Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman once worked on. Hakon Hakon (voiced by Clancy Brown) was the leader of the Vikings who ransacked Castle Wyvern in 994 and destroyed most of the gargoyles. He was killed, along with the Captain of the Guard, when they fell off a cliff, but their spirits remained trapped in the area as punishment for their actions. When Goliath returned to the Wyvern site a thousand years later, the Captain and Hakon, in spirit form, attempted to steal Goliath's lifeforce to free themselves from the area. Hakon's spirit reappeared throughout the series, trying to take revenge on Goliath. Before his death, Hakon apparently fathered children who became the ancestors of Pack member Wolf. His spirit later bonded to his axe. After the axe was destroyed by Hudson, his spirit dissolved. Finella Finella (voiced by Sheena Easton) is a Scottish princess from 995. Finella was conned into helping Constantine set a deadly trap for King Kenneth upon Constantine's promise to marry her. Less than pleased at his betrayal and engagement to another, Finella helped Princess Katharine and the Magus get the eggs to Avalon and escape from Constantine, who wanted to marry Princess Katherine in order to secure his claim to the throne and destroy the eggs. Finella did not follow Katharine and company onto Avalon, instead choosing to guard the Grimorum Arcanorum with help from Tom's mother Mary. In 997, while Timedancing, Brooklyn arrived to save Finella and Mary from one of Constantine's soldiers. Together, the three of them joined Constantine's enemies, led by King Kenneth III. The book was taken from Finella, during the fight, by Constantine's sorcerer, Brother Valmont. After it was retrieved by Brooklyn, Finella and Mary continued guarding the Grimorum, leaving 997 with Brooklyn. In October 1996, Finella (or a woman resembling her) attended a Halloween party atop The Eyrie Building. She was loosely based on the real historical character Finnguala. Arthur Pendragon Arthur Pendragon (voiced by John St. Ryan) was once the legendary and Future King of Britain. Pendragon was based on the legend of King Arthur. He was awakened by Elisa to help fight the Archmage in Avalon. Though he had neither Merlin nor his knights nor the famed sword Excalibur, he fought Macbeth and won. He then decided to explore the modern world on his own, so as not draw attention to himself. Arriving in England, he was joined by the English gargoyle Griff, and battled Macbeth (with the help of the Manhattan Clan) to reclaim Excalibur. After defeating Macbeth and reclaiming Excalibur, he set off along with Griff on a journey to find Merlin. The Hunters/Quarrymen Descendants of King Duncan I, the Hunters are fighters from a series of hereditary villains through time that have sworn under the Hunter Mask to hunt down Demona and destroy all gargoyles. The current generation (consisting of Jason, Jon, and Robyn) come to New York after hearing of gargoyle encounters. However, Jason and Robyn Canmore eventually come to realize that not all gargoyles are the threat to humanity that Demona is, and drop the Hunter cause. Their brother Jon, initially apprehensive, develops a deep hatred for the gargoyles, drops the Hunter persona, and changes his name to John Castaway. As Castaway, he leads an anti-gargoyle group reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan called the Quarrymen. Jason was recovering in the hospital while Robyn was recruited into The Redemption Squad to lead it. The three modern Hunters are: Jason Canmore (voiced by Diedrich Bader) - A Hunter who sought to avenge his father. He was accidentally paralyzed by Jon causing him to go through physical therapy at Manhattan General. Jon Canmore (voiced by Scott Cleverdon as an adult, J. D. Daniels as a young boy in "Hunter's Moon" Pt. 3) - The brother of Jason Canmore. Later took up the alias of "John Castaway." Robyn Canmore (voiced by Sheena Easton) - The sister of Jason and Jon Canmore. While aiding her siblings in ridding Manhattan of gargoyles, Robyn Canmore took up the alias Robyn Correy and was employed by Demona/Dominique Destine for Nightstone Unlimited. She deduced Demona's human identity, and shot The Clocktower hoping to kill Goliath and Clan. Though she saw the light after Jason's atonement, Robyn was maintaining her identity as The Hunter while serving The Director. The nature of her recruitment has yet to be revealed. Banquo and Fleance Banquo (voiced by Frank Welker) and Fleance (voiced by B.J. Ward) are two mercenaries who worked for Macbeth. They helped him retrieve the first Scrolls of Merlin and the sword Excalibur. They later left his service to work for the Quarrymen. Their first mission as Quarrymen had them, and Castaway, pursuing Goliath and Elisa to the destroyed Clocktower. Banquo and Fleance are named after the characters Banquo and Fleance in Shakespeare's play The Tragedy of Macbeth. Minor human characters Cuchulainn (voiced by Scott Cleverdon) - The legendary demi-god hero of Ireland, Cuchulainn is encountered by Goliath and his allies reincarnated as an Irish teenager named Rory Dugan. He reverts to his heroic form when Rory's own girlfriend Molly reveals herself to be his old enemy, the Banshee, in disguise, especially when she further transforms herself into the gigantic, centipede-like "death worm" Cromm-Cruach. For a time, Cuchulainn mistakes Bronx for the legendary Hound of Ulster. Nick (voiced by Gregg Rainwater) - A Native American youth of the Pacific Northwest, Nick (born Natsilane, presumably named for or descended from the legendary hero) initially rejects his heritage for the realities of the modern world. He later encounters Goliath, Angela, and Bronx, and comes to accept the existence of the supernatural. He takes up the cause of his tribe and does battle with the trickster spirit Raven. Max Loew (voiced by Scott Weil) - A direct descendant of Rabbi Loew, Max reanimates the powerful Golem to protect the people of Prague. When the Golem is insincerely hijacked by Halcyon Renard as a replacement for his frail body, Max enlists the help of Goliath, Angela and Elisa to recover it. Though it is never explicitly stated in the episode, Max and the people the Golem was created to protect are implicitly Jewish. It is not stated whether Max is a citizen of the Czech Republic or an American visiting Prague. The Emir (voiced by Tony Shalhoub) - Mentioned by name in two episodes, but not seen in person until the episode Grief, the Emir was an Egyptian dignitary hired by Xanatos to capture Anubis, in yet another attempt to obtain immortality. However, the Emir planned on using Anubis to resurrect his dead son, who he felt was unfairly taken away from him in a "pointless car accident". Jackal hijacked the ceremony, but the Emir was able to usurp Anubis's power back. As the avatar of death, the Emir finally realized the role death plays in the world and that it cannot be meddled with, as much has humans want to. He reversed everything Jackal had done as the avatar (except for a village out in Jackal's rampage), and sacrificed himself to free Anubis. Travis Marshall (voiced by Charles Hallahan) - Travis Marshall is a television anchor reporter at WVRN who also hosts the TV program Nightwatch. Maria Chavez (voiced by Rachel Ticotin) - Maria Chavez was the Captain of NYPD's 23rd precinct and Elisa Maza's superior. Tomas Brod (voiced by Clancy Brown) - Tomas Brod is a Czech gangster whom Preston Vogel hires to steal the Golem for Renard. After causing Goliath and Elisa problems in Prague, he moves to New York to take on Tony Dracon. Taro (voiced by James Saito) - Taro is a Japanese businessman who threatened to expose the Ishimura Clan to the world through a "gargoyle theme park" he had constructed for the task on the outskirts of Ishimura; this "theme park" also functioned as a prison-like facility for any gargates within it for the purposes of public display, which ran against the Ishimura Clan's wishes (their Clan already had a long-established, strongly positive relationship with Ishimura's human population). As a result, Yama took on Taro and defeated him in one-on-one combat. Shaman (voiced by James Avery) - An Aborigine wise man, who became Dingo's spiritual advisor when the latter decided to wipe the slate clean regarding his past. He was aware of Dingo's armor, and of the existence of Gargoyles. The Shaman also helped Dingo and Goliath reach the Dreamtime to communicate and reason with Matrix. He also suggested that both Dingo and Matrix should join The Redemption Squad. He was voiced by James Avery. The Third Race/Oberon's Children The Third Race, also known as Oberon's Children, were magical, shapeshifting, and often fickle creatures and fairies from around the world. They were not all literally descended from Oberon, but he was their leader and he governed all of the Third Race under a strictly-enforced set of rules. They possessed incredible powers, were apparently immortal, but had a fatal weakness to any form of iron in proximity to them. Regardless, as long as they were in the real world, Oberon forbade them from interfering in human events. However, many of the Third Race (particularly the Weird Sisters), as well as humans and gargoyles, have realized that Oberon's laws can be bent even if they cannot be broken. Oberon Oberon (voiced by Terrence Mann) was the lord of Avalon. He possessed god-like powers and was the most powerful being in the whole series. Very arrogant and impudent, it was by his edict that Avalon was abandoned and the Third Race forced to live with humanity, partially due to Titania's habit of interfering directly in mortal affairs. Oberon later himself left Avalon to join them. He was also responsible for The Gathering, in which the Third Race left the rest of the world and congregated in Avalon. Titania Titania (voiced by Kate Mulgrew) was Oberon's (recently remarried) wife and Queen of Avalon. Posing as the human Anastasia during part of her 1,000-year exile, she was the ex-wife of Halcyon Renard and Fox's biological mother. A highly skilled manipulator, she aided the Manhattan and Avalon Clans on several occasions, frequently keeping Oberon in check and teaching him some humility. The Weird Sisters The Weird Sisters – Phoebe, Selene, and Luna (all voiced by Kath Soucie) – were a Triple Goddess of powerful magic users named after three Greco-Roman goddesses of the Moon and based on the witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth. The sisters appeared sporadically throughout early episodes in various guises, but eventually revealed their hand in looking after Demona and Macbeth, being the ones who linked their fates and made them immortal. Their overarching motivation, however, is to aid the Archmage in gaining revenge upon Katherine, Tom, and the Magus, who had outwitted them and gained entry to Avalon in spite of Oberon's ban. Following the Archmage's defeat, the Weird Sisters returned to Oberon and, possibly in a last-ditch attempt to get back as the gargoyles, informed him of the Avalon Clan's continued presence. At this point, they appeared to stop meddling and remained in Oberon's service. They were last seen forcibly bringing the Banshee before Oberon at the Gathering. The blond-haired sister is named Phoebe, who embodies grace. The black-haired sister is named Selene, who embodies vengeance. And the silver-haired one is named Luna, and who embodies fate; all three are named for moon goddesses of classical mythology. Puck/Owen Puck (voiced by Brent Spiner) was a trickster fairy. His magic was the reason why Demona became human during the day, instead of turning to stone. It was eventually discovered that he was the true form of Owen Burnett, having made a deal with Xanatos to serve him faithfully. Because of this deal and his affinity for humans, he was banished from Avalon and had the use of his powers "hard-limited" by Oberon. Since The Gathering, Puck could only use his powers within Oberon's strictly imposed limits: meaning they were only usable when Puck was teaching or protecting his employer's son Alexander Xanatos. In the third season, this was shown to be a drawback as Owen was rendered unconscious when Alexander was kidnapped by the Quarrymen, leaving Puck unable to save the boy. Minor children of Oberon The rest of the Children of Oberon were fairies, gods, and other various creatures from cultures and mythologies worldwide that lived in Avalon until they were all expelled by Oberon. They were forcibly called back to Avalon by him one thousand years later in an event known as The Gathering. Anansi (voiced by LeVar Burton) - Anansi is a spider trickster of African myth. He can literally spin spells using his web, which is also his weakness; if his web is taken apart, Anansi is powerless. His magic can change the shape of living creatures. Anubis (voiced by Tony Jay) - Anubis is the ancient Egyptian Jackal Lord and avatar of death. Those who became his avatar and used his powers could reduce or advance the ages of others, but few were worthy enough to wield it. Banshee (voiced by Sheena Easton) - Banshee is an Irish fairy with a powerful wailing scream, and the modern archenemy of Cu Chulainn. Goliath, Eliza and Angela encountered her on their adventure to Ireland. She objected to The Gathering and was forcibly brought to Avalon by the Weird Sisters before being attacked by Odin for her insolence. Oberon silences Banshee by sealing her mouth. Coyote (voiced by Gregg Rainwater) - Coyote is a Native American trickster spirit. He primarily appeared as the younger self of Elisa's father, though he can also take the form of a whirlwind. Xanatos captured him with his latest coyote robot in an attempt to force Coyote to grant him and Fox (and by extension, their then-unborn son Alex) immortality. Grandmother (voiced by Amentha Dymally) - Grandmother is an elderly wisewoman of great power. Raven has said they are cousins. After Raven is defeated (again, ritually), Grandmother revitalizes the island with magical water formed from her hair. Lady of the Lake - The Lady of the Lake is the patron of King Arthur and keeper of Excalibur during his time of absence. Although several Ladies appear in Arthurian myth, it is unclear which, if any, the Gargoyles character is intended to be. Nought - A caped clad figure who is one of the Children of Oberon. Not much is known about him. Odin (voiced by W. Morgan Sheppard) - Odin is the All-Father of Norse mythology. The Eye of Odin, a magical item that featured prominently in the series, is his actual eye as known of in Norse lengend, preserved as a jewel-like magical artifact on Avalon in the distant past, and amicably returned to him by Goliath in the "Avalon World Tour" story arc's episode entitled Eye of the Storm. He gets along well with Oberon. During The Gathering, he attacked a defiant Banshee. Raven (voiced by Lawrence Bayne) - Raven is a trickster spirit who poses as a gargoyle to toy with Goliath and his allies. He usually appears as a raven or normal man with pointed ears in a blue outfit. He and Grandmother are cousins. Other characters The Lost Race The Lost Race was a sentient race of Earthlings whose evolution predated the Three Races and has since become extinct, although Greg Weisman has yet to reveal when or how this occurred. In fact, he writes, "it's hard to give a category to something that currently I have no intention of discussing. But 'Lost Race' seems as good a moniker as any—as a place-holder." History What is known is that the Lost Race, the gargoyles, the humans, and finally Oberon's Children appeared on Earth in that order. The Lost Race is in fact from Earth, and Greg denies their having any contact with extraterrestrials. Although they eventually became extinct, the Lost Race was still around when Oberon's Children first evolved, as they were aware of the Children's existence. Brooklyn encountered this race on his time-travels to the past during his Timedancer adventures. Greg confirmed that the Lost Race has left behind relics and artifacts from their civilization. It is speculated by fans that these may include the ruins in the Archmage's Cave, notably the Megalith Dance, although Greg refuses to confirm or deny the possibility. The Steel Clan The Steel Clan were a series of robots built by Xanatos, modeled from the likeness of the gargoyles—specifically, Goliath. Originally meant to replace the gargoyles, Xanatos used them for his own personal army. He also wore a battle suit modeled in their likeness. An iron version of the Steel Clan was made to fight against Oberon. Xanatos later used an Iron and Steel Clan robot to aid Coldsteel and Coyote 5.0 in retrieving the Stone of Destiny. The New Olympians The New Olympians were a group of fantastical sentient beings resembling creatures and gods from Greek Mythology. They had traveled to the island of New Olympus after being driven there by fearful humans in Classical Antiquity, and their descendants were able to remain hidden through advanced cloaking technology. Several of them shared names with characters from mythology, although they were not intended to be identified with those characters, unlike some of the Children of Oberon. According to Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman, they are descended from Oberon's children, though the show makes no mention of this. There is also a resident gargoyle clan on the island. Boreas (voiced by Dorian Harewood) - A winged man who is the ruler of New Olympus. Taurus (voiced by Michael Dorn) - A Minotaur who is the chief of security. Talos (voiced by Dorian Harewood) — An upgraded version of the Talos first constructed by Daedalus. He is a high-level advisor who guards the power supply to New Olympus' cloaking field. Talos advised that they make peace with humanity as it will not be long before the technology that powers their cloaking field fails. Proteus (voiced by Roddy McDowall) - A villainous shapeshifter who seemed to be the island's worst criminal after he killed Taurus' father. Proteus later escapes to New York to exact his revenge. Taurus leaves New Olympus to pursue him. This is not considered canon by Weisman. Helios (voiced by Rob Paulsen) - A fire-haired man who is part of New Olympus' security force. At one point when a mob that Helios was a part of formed outside the prison where Eliza was held, Taurus broke it up and told Helios to keep a check on his pyrokinetics or else he's out of a job. Ekidna (voiced by Charity James) - An elderly creature who is half-woman half-snake. The use of the letter "k" in her name's spelling was intended by the show's creators to differentiate Ekidna from her mythological namesakes. Kiron (voiced by Frank Welker) - A centaur with brown skin who is part of New Olympus' security force. The use of the letter "k" in his name's spelling was intended by the show's creators to differentiate Kiron from his mythological namesakes. Other New Olympians seen include an unnamed female centaur, an unnamed Cyclops, and an unnamed fairy. The New Olympians appeared during the "Avalon World Tour" story arc in the episode The New Olympians, in which Elisa Maza arrived on the island along with her three "gargoyle" companions (Goliath, his daughter Angela, and Bronx). Because of their experiences with the human race—Taurus at one point specifically mentions the murder of his ancestor by Theseus—the New Olympians harbored a strong hatred against Elisa and humans in general. This inverts the show's usual premise, in which many humans are prejudiced against creatures such as gargoyles. After an encounter with Proteus, Elisa managed to convince some New Olympians—particularly Taurus—that not all humans are evil. A spinoff show, itself entitled The New Olympians, was planned; the Gargoyles episode featuring the characters was a "backdoor pilot". A series pitch was produced, revealing that the new series' storyline would have revolved around the New Olympians revealing themselves to humanity in front of the United Nations. The pitch, which is shown at Gathering conventions, introduced several new characters like Jove and hinted at a Romeo and Juliet-style romance between Sphinx (a New Olympian female) and Terry Chung (a human male). Although the series was never picked up, Greg Weisman has said that elements would have been included in the main Gargoyles series had it continued. Terry Chung appears as a trick or treater in the Gargoyles comic issue number four, which places the beginning of New Olympians at least a decade after the 2006 issues. He appears with during New Year's Eve of 1996 with his first cousin Tri Chung. Nokkar Nokkar (voiced by Avery Brooks) was a sentinel and member of the N'Kai (interstellar aliens who oppose the Space-Spawn empire), Nokkar waited on Easter Island to protect the Earth. While there, he was revered as a god by the natives, and the Easter Island Statues were modeled after him. He once captured Goliath and Angela, believing them to be Space-Spawn in disguise. Until the quartet of the "Avalon World Tour" visit Easter Island, Nokkar does not yet know of the Earth's gargoyle population, and is resultingly confused, thinking that they are with the aliens he is guarding against. In addition, Nokkar has never had any contact with any of the residents of Avalon, the children of Oberon, or any of the New Olympians. Tazmanian Tiger Tazmanian Tiger was a supervillain who robbed a bank in Sydney. His actions caught the attention of Dingo and Matrix (both of whom were Australia's crimefighters). Tazmanian Tiger wore a skin tight costume and mask. His gloves had a set of razor sharp claws that were able to damage Matrix. He was assisted by two thylacines named Benjamin and Natasha. Organizations and groups The Illuminati In the Gargoyles universe, the Illuminati were a secret society started by Sir Percival, the Fisher King, that controlled and manipulated a large portion of the world, including politics and organized crime. Xanatos was a member of the Illuminati, which aided him in making his fortune (through a predestination paradox—Xanatos had instructed himself to travel through time). Bluestone was inducted into the society after gangster Mace Malone's failed attempt to capture Goliath. Matt's former partner in the FBI, Martin Hacker, was also a member of the Illuminati. Thailog joined as a new member at some unspecified time, and was the first gargoyle known to be part of the Society. The Society was last seen headed by Peredur fab Ragnal. Each member was of a certain numerical rank. When two members of the society encountered each other in private, they would share their rank. Peredur fab Ragnal Peredur fab Ragnal is introduced in the trade paperback for the comic, as the story introducing him was not published as a single issue. He was the leader of The Illuminati, and, through Quincy Hemmings, ordered Xanatos to steal The Stone of Destiny while it was being returned to Scotland. To his disappointment, there were 3 stones which the Spirit of Destiny inhabited, but from it he learned that Arthur had reawakened. Since Arthur was not supposed to awaken for another 200 years, Peredur decides to hold a meeting of the higher-echelon members, since this development could affect their (unspecified) plans. While Ragnal does not appear onscreen, Greg Weisman envisioned the voice of the character to be Jude Law. Fleur Fleur, originally known as "Blanchefleur", is introduced in the trade paperback edition of the comic, as the story introducing her was not published as a single issue. She is Peredur's wife and met Xanatos in a warehouse after he apparently stole the Stone of Destiny. She discovered that Arthur Pendragon awakened after eavesdropping on a message that the Stone conveyed to Peredur. Like Duval, Fleur was also important to Peredur, but Fleur has had an occasionally contentious relationship with Duval. Greg Weisman envisioned actress Rhona Mitra to voice the character for potential animation. Matt Bluestone Matt Bluestone (voiced by Thomas F. Wilson) is a Jewish American and a Detective Sergeant in the NYPD. He was a former FBI agent who was assigned to be Elisa's partner after the shooting incident. The NYPD 23rd Precinct's Captain, Maria Chavez, thought it was too dangerous for Elisa to be working on her own after she was shot, and assigned Bluestone as her new partner so that she would have someone covering her back—despite Elisa's adamant protests that she did not need a partner. Bluestone is a big believer in conspiracy theories, especially the Illuminati. He was one of the few humans who were friends with the Manhattan Clan. The Illuminati were impressed enough with Matt persistence that they made him a member; ironically, this works in his favor in trying to expose them. Martin Hacker Martin Hacker (voiced by Michael Bell) was Matt Bluestone's former partner in the FBI and an Illuminati operative, Hacker's job was to intentionally mislead Matt away from the Illuminati. When this failed, it was Martin who conferred membership onto Matt on the behalf of the Illuminati. After Manhattan discovers the existence of gargoyles, Hacker checks in on Matt Bluestone and John Castaway, as well as giving Xanatos an invitation to the White House from the Illuminati. While meeting all three of them, he claims a different objective from The Illuminati. With Matt Bluestone, he claims that the Illuminati agree that people aren't ready to encounter gargoyles. With Xanatos, he says the Illuminati feel it is time for humans and gargoyles to meet. As for John Castaway, he claimed that the Illuminati agree that the gargoyles should be destroyed. Norman Ambassador The unnamed Norman Ambassador (voiced by Jeff Bennett) escorted Princess Elena to Castle Wyvern in 975. Both were attacked by the Archmage's bandits and rescued by Xanatos (who followed Demona into the past). Out of gratitude, and due to being a fellow Illuminatus, he allowed Xanatos and his family to join them at Wyvern. He also took a couple of envelopes with him at Xanatos' request—one containing a rare coin to give to a younger David Xanatos in 1975; the other containing details on how the coin was obtained, thus inspiring himself to travel back in time. Mace Malone Mace Malone (voiced by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) was a leading gangster in the 1920s who was recruited into the Illuminati because of his underworld dealings. In 1924, the crime syndicates became aware of their vulnerability to the Illuminati, resulting in Mace having to disappear. He had a long life due to rejuvenation drugs. His habit of visiting Flo Dane alerted Matt Bluestone to his presence, who saw a photo with Mace wearing a society emblem and received confirmation of his suspicions from Mace's stepson Jack. As a result, Matt was offered membership if he brought a gargoyle to the abandoned Hotel Cabal, an Illuminati base. Though Matt brought Goliath, he secretly filled Goliath in on Mace's plan and left a hotel key for Goliath to escape. Mace, however, lost his key in the confusion and became trapped in the hotel. Mr. Duval Mr. Duval is first mentioned in the Gargoyle: The Goliath Chronicles episode "The Journey" (adapted into the first two issues of the SLG comic series). Duval tried to call Xanatos, but Xanatos shows no interest in receiving the call. Hacker tells Xanatos that the call was an invitation to the White House for an Illuminati assignment. For unspecified reasons, Duval's left eye and arm are replaced with cybernetic attachments, and he has an unexplained disdain for Blanchefleur. He is also very important to Peredur. While Duval does not appear onscreen, Greg Weisman envisioned the voice of the character to be Eddie Marsan. Shari Shari is a teenage girl introduced in the Gargoyles comics series. She appeared as a new resident of The Labyrinth, and was introduced to the Mutates and Clones. After Thailog came to reclaim the clones, Shari left to warn Goliath, but was lying. Her name was revealed as she arrived at Nightstone Unlimited, applying to be Thailog's executive assistant. Before Thailog attacked her, however, he spotted an Illuminati pendant around her neck and welcomed her as a member of the Illuminati—which he had recently joined as a lower-echelon member. Thailog soon demanded a story from Shari, and so she told him of a lost tale from The Avalon World Tour. How she learned of that adventure was not specified. Shari went on to relate the legend of the Stone of Destiny to Thailog. She appeared to be more than she seemed. Quincy Hemings Quincy Hemings made his first appearance in the SLG comic. He is a Chief Steward at the White House. Xanatos meets him at the White House, and mistakes him for Duval due to their shared rank number. Hemings mentioned being on staff since the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, and being in his current position since the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. He gave Xanatos an assignment from The Illuminati. The assignment required Xanatos to retrieve the Stone Of Destiny. While Hemings doesn't appear onscreen, Greg Weisman envisioned the voice of the character to be Morgan Freeman. Falstaff Falstaff (went by the name John Oldcastle) was a father figure to Dingo, but for reasons unknown, strangled Dingo's mother. Upon the arrival of The Redemption Squad at his island base (which is really a ship), Falstaff insisted that The Illuminati are the good guys, determined to save the world, and allowed The Redemption Squad to speak to Fiona Canmore and Thailog, so they can vouch for the Illuminati. The Redemption Squad claimed to want membership, but Falstaff was aware of their bluff and sent his associates to fight the Squad. After the fight, he departed, but not before sinking the ship. Falstaff's associates The following are the associates of Falstaff. Bardolf - Breathes fire. Pistol - A gun fighter. Points - A swordsman. Mistress Doll - A contortionist. Mistress Quickly - She is the only one apprehended by The Redemption Squad. Fiona Canmore Fiona Canmore is a former Hunter who ran into Demona in Paris in 1920. She stopped her plans to kill all the humans with the aid of Team Atlantis. As of 1996, she was retired from the hunt and was part of the Illuminati. In the Team Atlantis episode (which, while unproduced, was scripted and voice-recorded), she was to be voiced by Sheena Easton. Known members and ranking The following characters are part of the Illuminati at the following ranks: Xanatos Enterprises Xanatos Enterprises was one of the world's largest corporation owned by David Xanatos; Owen Burnett also wielded major control and influence, although he was not given a title. The company was seemingly at the forefront of advanced technology such as genetics, robotics, and weaponry. Xanatos Enterprises also included Gen-U-Tech, Pack Media Studios, and the Scarab Robotics corporation, all of which Xanatos used against the gargoyles and to further his goals one way or another. David Xanatos David Xanatos (voiced by Jonathan Frakes) is a billionaire, nemesis, and later ally of the Manhattan, Xanatos' name is reminiscent of David—the Biblical king who defeated Goliath—and Thanatos from Greek mythology. He broke the spell that imprisoned the gargoyles by having the castle placed on his building and frequently attempted to manipulate or control them. Owen Burnett Owen Burnett (voiced by Jeff Bennett) was Xanatos' personal assistant who is later revealed to be a form of the immortal trickster Puck. Puck took on an appearance similar to that of Preston Vogel, Halcyon Renard's personal aid as his decision to "out-Vogel Vogel". When Xanatos deduced his identity, Puck offered him the choice of receiving either the immortality he craved or a lifetime of Puck's service as Owen. To Puck's surprise, Xanatos chose the latter, confident that he would obtain immortality through other means and thus have Owen's services for eternity. For his part, Puck kept to the bargain in part for the novelty of assisting such an unorthodox mortal trickster; as he explained, ""The Puck has played many roles, but never that of straight man." The Owen persona eventually got his left hand turned to stone (the result of a spell gone wrong) and per Oberon's order, lost his magic powers except when he was training or protecting Alexander Xanatos. Anton Sevarius Anton Sevarius (voiced by Tim Curry) was a free agent geneticist who mostly worked for the villains of the series, from David Xanatos to Demona. Known for his hammy play on the "mad scientist" stereotype, Sevarius was brilliant, but also devious and immoral. His experiments led to the creation of the Mutates and Goliath's evil clone Thailog (whom he also worked for at one point) as well as the clones of the Manhattan clan. Sevarius also helped Demona create a virus capable of destroying all human life on Earth (how he hoped to survive her plan is unknown, although he probably had anti-virus prepared for himself). In his final appearance during the non-conon Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles, Sevarius used the DNA of all the Manhattan clan to create a giant gargoyle named Little Anton in order to destroy Goliath and his friends. However, it ended up petrified by the virus just like the Clone clan was suffering from. Little Anton's "death" was the only time Sevarius showed any concern for someone. Cyberbiotics Corporation Cyberbiotics Corporation was a rival in all ways to Xanatos Enterprises, led by Halcyon Renard and Preston Vogel. Xanatos attempted several times to bankrupt Cyberbiotics, even using Renard's estranged daughter Fox to do so. Cyberbiotics was based both from a skyscraper on a fictional island in New York Harbor known as the "Cyberbiotics Tower", and from either of two successive, massive, somewhat helicarrier-like airships named the "Fortress", sometimes accompanied by or supplanted with (for smaller missions) any one of a number of smaller "hoverships". The first of these massive "Fortress" airships was inadvertently destroyed by the Manhattan Clan. Halcyon Renard Halcyon Renard (voiced by Robert Culp) was an elderly businessman who is CEO of Cyberbiotics, father of Fox, ex-husband to Anastasia, and rival and later father-in-law to David Xanatos. He is confined to a powered reclining version of a wheelchair for unknown reasons; the chair is weaponized for his self-defense needs, along with other devices. After confronting Goliath about his role in destroying his first airship, he formed a friendship with the Manhattan Clan's leader after the pair worked together to save the second airship. It's suggested in "The Cage", that Halcyon lent a lab to Goliath so Dr. Sevarius could create a cure for the Labyrinth Clan. Halcyon's family name, Renard, is the French word for fox. Like Xanatos, he briefly flirted with immortality — with Renard's method being different, as he intended to transfer his own consciousness into a golem, the legendary protector of the Ashkenazim living in Prague during Renaissance times, and still in existence in the late 20th century within the Gargoyles storyline. This form of what turned out to be a selfishly-acquired form of "immortality" did not go well for Renard, until Goliath managed to change Halcyon's mind for the better, convincing him to leave the Golem's lithic body behind. Unlike Xanatos, Halcyon was more conscientious of his actions, adhering strongly to his own well-developed ideals of personal integrity and near-complete sincerity for both himself, his firm's employees and others he had contact with. Indeed, one of the things that help the elderly man and the Manhattan Clan's leader bond and become friends is that Renard challenged Goliath to accept responsibility for his part in destroying the first airship. Goliath apparently grew to respect the older man because of his strong adherence to his own morals. It is worth noting that Renard and his assistant, Preston Vogel participated in a desperate attempt to stop Oberon from abducting his grandson, Alexander and taking the child to Avalon. When Vogel gently challenged his employer as to his reasons; noting that Renard hated his son-in-law and didn't trust his own daughter due to her lack of morals; Renard answered frankly, that he was doing it for his grandson and no one else. He was far less Machiavellian and malevolent than Xanatos. Preston Vogel Preston Vogel (voiced by Peter Scolari) was Renard's aide who was considered by Puck to be the most "wooden man on the earth." Puck modeled his mortal form after Vogel. Unlike Owen Burnett, Vogel was not as loyal to his boss and had fewer scruples when it came to the means he used to get things done such as hiring members of The Pack, Jackal, and Hyena; levelling a rainforest and killing a sizable number of the Guatemala Clan's gargoyles in 1993; or betraying Renard. Gargoyles Task Force The Gargoyles Task Force is a division of the New York City Police Department's 23rd Precinct was formed during Part 3 of Hunter's Moon to find and counter or capture the gargoyles. They followed the gargoyles to St. Damien's Cathedral. Due to Matt's surreptitious stalling in hopes the clan could escape, they were unable to apprehend the clan. Issue three of the comic introduced the Task Force. Officer Morgan Morgan Morgan Morgan (voiced by Keith David) was a New York Police Department beat officer in Elisa's precinct, and Elisa's friend. During Halloween of 1996, he asked Elisa out to the Halloween party atop The Eyrie Building. Though she refused at first, she accepted after temporarily breaking up with Goliath (due to wanting a normal life). She ended up choosing Goliath, however. Morgan, knowing of her relationship with Goliath, suspected he was merely a rebound, but held no ill feelings towards Elisa. Officer Phil Travanti Phil Travanti was Morgan's partner first appeared in the episode Temptation, and was named in issue three of the comic. Other members Besides Eliza Maza, Phil Travanti, Martin Hacker, Matt Bluestone, and Margot Yale, the rest of the Gargoyles Task Force consist of: Detective Cedric Harris - Introduced in issue three. Detective Tri Chung - Introduced in issue three; first cousin of Terry Chung. The Redemption Squad The Redemption Squad was formed by a man known as The Director to deal with crime and make up for their past sins. The group's first mission was to stop The Illuminati Society. Aside from apprehending Mistress Quickly, their mission was a failure. Besides Robyn Canmore, Dingo, Fang, and Yama, the following member include: The Director The Director (who was voiced by William Devane in the animatic reel for the spinoff) is a man who was the founder of the Redemption Squad. The Matrix The Matrix (voiced by Jim Cummings) was a nanomachine program created by Fox and her mother Anastasia Renard as part of a world domination bid by Xanatos. However, the machines became sentient and threatened to overrun the planet (an allusion to the so-called grey goo scenario in speculative science fiction). With the help of a local shaman, Goliath and Dingo convinced the nanomachines to form a humanoid shape that merged with Dingo's armor suit. Calling itself "The Matrix", the merged entity pledged to protect and defend Australia. He was coerced into joining The Squad as an alternative to deactivation; he chose to join as doing so would help to maintain law and order. Series creator Greg Weisman had major plans for The Matrix; it was to have grown strong enough to power the planet. References Lists of characters in American television animation Lists of Disney television series characters

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software%20categories

Software categories

Software categories are groups of software. They allow software to be understood in terms of those categories, instead of the particularities of each package. Different classification schemes consider different aspects of software. Computer software Computer software can be put into categories based on common function, type, or field of use. There are three broad classifications: Application software is the general designation of computer programs for performing tasks. Application software may be general-purpose (word processing, web browsers, etc.) or have a specific purpose (accounting, truck scheduling, etc.). Application software contrasts with system software. System software is a generic term referring to the computer programs used to start and run computer systems including diverse application software and networks. Computer programming tools, such as compilers and linker, are used to translate and combine computer program source code and libraries into executable RAMs (programs that will belong to one of the three said) Copyright status The GNU Project categorizes software by copyright status: free software, open source software, public domain software, copylefted software, noncopylefted free software, lax permissive licensed software, GPL-covered software, the GNU operating system, GNU programs, GNU software, FSF-copyrighted GNU software, nonfree software, proprietary software, freeware, shareware, private software and commercial software. Free software Free software is software that comes with permission for anyone to use, copy and distribute, either verbatim or with modifications, either gratis or for a fee. In particular, this means that source code must be available. "If it's not the source, it's not software." If a program is free, then it can potentially be included in a free operating system such as GNU, or free versions of the Linux system. Free software in the sense of copyright license (and the GNU project) is a matter of freedom, not price. But proprietary software companies typically use the term "free software" to refer to price. Sometimes this means a binary copy can be obtained at no charge; sometimes this means a copy is bundled with a computer for sale at no additional charge. Open source software Open-source software is software with its source code made available under a certain license to its licensees. It can be used and disseminated at any point, the source code is open and can be modified as required. The one condition with this type of software is that when changes are made users should make these changes known to others. One of the key characteristics of open source software is that it is the shared intellectual property of all developers and users. The Linux operating system is one of the best-known examples of a collection of open-source software. Copylefted software Copylefted software is free software whose distribution terms ensure that all copies of all versions carry more or less the same distribution terms. This means, for instance, that copyleft licenses generally disallows others to add additional requirements to the software (though a limited set of safe added requirements can be allowed) and require making source code available. This shields the program, and its modified versions, from some of the common ways of making a program proprietary. Some copyleft licenses block other means of turning software proprietary. Copyleft is a general concept. Copylefting an actual program requires a specific set of distribution terms. Different copyleft licenses are usually “incompatible” due to varying terms, which makes it illegal to merge the code using one license with the code using the other license. If two pieces of software use the same license, they are generally mergeable. Non-copylefted free software Noncopylefted free software comes from the author with permission to redistribute and modify and to add license restrictions. If a program is free but not copylefted, then some copies or modified versions may not be free. A software company can compile the program, with or without modifications, and distribute the executable file as a proprietary software product. The X Window System illustrates this approach. The X Consortium releases X11 with distribution terms that make it non-copylefted free software. If you wish, you can get a copy that has those distribution terms and is free. However, nonfree versions are available and workstations and PC graphics boards for which nonfree versions are the only ones that work. The developers of X11 made X11 nonfree for a while; they were able to do this because others had contributed their code under the same non-copyleft license. Shareware Shareware is software that comes with permission to redistribute copies but says that anyone who continues to use a copy is required to pay. Shareware is not free software or even semi-free. For most shareware, source code is not available; thus, the program cannot be modified. Shareware does not come with permission to make a copy and install it without paying a license fee, including for nonprofit activity. Freeware Like shareware, freeware is software available for download and distribution without any initial payment. Freeware never has an associated fee. Things like minor program updates and small games are commonly distributed as freeware. Though freeware is cost-free, it is copyrighted, so other people can't market the software as their own. Microsoft TechNet and AIS Software categories This classification has seven major elements. They are: platform and management, education and reference, home and entertainment, content and communication, operations and professional, product manufacturing and service delivery, and line of business. Platform and management—Desktop and network infrastructure and management software that allows users to control the computer operating environment, hardware components and peripherals and infrastructure services and security. Education and reference—Educational software that does not contain resources, such as training or help files for a specific application. Home and entertainment—Applications designed primarily for use in or for the home, or for entertainment. Content and communications—Common applications for productivity, content creation, and communications. These typically include office productivity suites, multimedia players, file viewers, Web browsers, and collaboration tools. Operations and professional—Applications designed for business uses such as enterprise resource management, customer relations management, supply chain and manufacturing tasks, application development, information management and access, and tasks performed by both business and technical equipment. Product manufacturing and service delivery—Help users create products or deliver services in specific industries. Categories in this section are used by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Market-based categories Horizontal applications Word Processing Vertical applications Accommodation and Food Services Administrative and Support Animal shelter and Animal rescue Agriculture, Forestry and Hunting Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation Construction Educational Services Finance and Insurance Geospatial Health Care and Social Assistance Information Internal and proprietary line-of-business applications Management of Companies and Enterprises Manufacturing Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction Postal and Mailing Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Public Administration Real Estate, Rental and Leasing Retail Trade Utilities Waste Management and Remediation Services Wholesale Trade Transportation and Warehousing Other Services (except Public Administration) References External links

7060308

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux%20Assigned%20Names%20and%20Numbers%20Authority

Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority

The Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority (LANANA) is a central registry of names and numbers used within Linux. It was created in 2000 by H. Peter Anvin. As of 2013, it along with Filesystem Hierarchy Standard matters had moved under the Linux Standard Base, which itself operates under Linux Foundation's auspices per Russ Herrold. Registries Linux Device List — major and minor numbers of Linux device nodes, and their standard locations in the /dev directory Linux Zone Unicode Assignments — code points assigned for Linux within the Private Use Area of Unicode several namespace registries for the Linux Standard Base History The Linux Device List was created in 1992 by Rick Miller, and maintained by him until 1993. In 1995, it was adopted by H. Peter Anvin. In 2000, he created LANANA to maintain the list and other similar lists in the future. The name of the registry was a playful reference to IANA, central registry of names and numbers used in the Internet. In 2002, LANANA became an official workgroup of the Free Standards Group. References External links The Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority Standards organizations Linux organizations

37127801

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University%20of%20Montenegro%20Faculty%20of%20Electrical%20Engineering

University of Montenegro Faculty of Electrical Engineering

The University of Montenegro Faculty of Electrical Engineering (Montenegrin: Elektrotehnički fakultet Univerziteta Crne Gore Електротехнички факултет Универзитета Црне Горе) is one of the educational institutions of the University of Montenegro. Its main building is located in Podgorica, at the University campus. History Studies of Electrical Engineering were established in 1961, and two years later the Technical Faculty with the Department for Electrical Engineering was established in Podgorica. It was a part of the University of Belgrade until April 29, 1974, when the Agreement on Association into the University of Titograd (today's University of Montenegro) was signed with the representatives of the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Economics, the Teaching College from Nikšić, the Maritime Studies College from Kotor and three independent scientific institutes from Titograd. The following faculties have evolved from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering: Faculty of Civil Engineering Faculty of Metallurgy and Technology Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences In 2007, the Applied Computer Sciences study group of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering was established in Berane. Organization The Faculty of Electrical Engineering represents a complex, modernly organized teaching and scientific institution. Within its teaching activities, the Faculty organizes and realizes undergraduate, specialist, postgraduate and doctoral studies. Undergraduate studies Undergraduate academic studies at the Faculty are organized through two study groups: Energy and Automatics Electronics, Telecommunications and Computers Undergraduate applied studies are organized through the Applied Computer Sciences study group. Postgraduate studies Postgraduate specialist and master academic studies are organized through two study groups: Applied Computer Sciences Energy and Automatics, with the course of studies Electrical Engineering Systems, Industrial Electrical Engineering and Automatics Electronics, Telecommunications and Computers, with the course of studies Computer Sciences, Telecommunications and Electronics Postgraduate specialist and master applied studies are organized through the Applied Computer Science study group. Notable alumni and professors Among the most notable alumni and members of the academic staff of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering are: Milica Pejanović-Đurišić - politician, former Minister of Defence of Montenegro. Momir Đurović - former president of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts Ljubiša Stanković - former Rector (2003-2008) and President of University Board (2008-2011) of the University of Montenegro; former Ambassador of Montenegro to United Kingdom; Fellow IEEE Nebojša Medojević - politician, founder and current leader of the opposition Movement for Changes (PzP). Radovan Stojanović - establisher of MECO, ECYPS and CPSIoT Conferences, in addition to his research achievements, known for his work in accelerating science and technology in the Western Balkan and the Mediterranean, External links Official Website (in Montenegrin, English) References Electrical Engineering Montenegro Electrical Engineering Electrical Engineering Montenegro Montenegro Engineering universities and colleges in Montenegro 1961 establishments in Yugoslavia Electrical engineering departments

33106288

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instantbird

Instantbird

Instantbird is a cross-platform instant messaging client based on Mozilla's XULRunner and the open-source library libpurple used in Pidgin. Instantbird is free software available under the GNU General Public License. Over 250 add-ons allow user customization of, and addition of, features. On October 18, 2017 Florian Quèze announced that "... we are stopping development of Instantbird as a standalone product." Supported protocols Supported protocols include: OSCAR (AIM/ICQ/MobileMe) Gadu-Gadu Novell GroupWise IRC Lotus Sametime MSNP (Microsoft Messenger service, commonly known as MSN, .NET, or Live) MySpaceIM Netsoul Odnoklassniki SIMPLE QQ Twitter XMPP (Google Talk, ...) YMSG (YIM) VKontakte Features Users can set their own user icon and display name. Several themes are included by default, including "Bubbles", which has the "Time Bubbles" feature of displaying time between messages, rather than timestamps within or adjacent to each message. Text copied from an Instantbird window is reformatted transparently to include timestamps in front of each message, in a feature called "Magic Copy". Instantbird includes an Add-ons system which allows additional protocol support such as LiveJournal's LJ Talk; there are over 250 additional add-ons available. Additional features available include "UI theming, language packs and dictionaries, developer tools and usability enhancements such as tab completion of nicknames, highlighting, colourising of buddies, and vertical tabs." The developers list some of their "favorite" add-ons as follows: "Colorize" buddy names, "Highlight" words in chats, "Tab Complete" nicknames and commands, "Reply to Nick" - doubleclick inserts name, "Show Nick" in color in multiuser chats, and "Vertical Tabs" to arrange conversations vertically. Conversation logging is enabled by default, but can be disabled. Binaries are available in the following 13 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Swedish and Estonian. In October 2015 the Tor anonymity project presented Tor Messenger as its open-source instant messenger client. It is based on Instandbird but removes the dependency on libpurple, re-implementing all supported chat protocols in the memory-safe language JavaScript. Tor Messenger encrypts one-to-one chats by default using OTR and provides anonymity by routing its traffic through the Tor network. Reception Instantbird received some positive notice, with stated expectations of future improvements. Tech blogger Chris Pirillo wrote that the client "works quite well on all three main operating systems", that the interface "is unobtrusive… and very clean", and that chat can take place on multiple protocols simultaneously, including IRC. BetaNews writer Joe Cassels noted that Instantbird "aims to bring together many of these disparate networks and services under one roof, and while not as polished as more established multi-network clients like Trillian and Pidgin, its close links to Mozilla makes us confident the program will evolve into a powerful alternative to these programs in time." LifeHacker writer Alan Henry called the application's visual appearance "sharp", referred to the user interface as "inspired by" but "a bit more attractive" than Pidgin, called the version 1.0 of the software "a big improvement", and stated "what it lacks in native features it makes up for in add-ons and themes contributed by the user community." References External links AIM (software) clients Free XMPP clients Free instant messaging clients Free Internet Relay Chat clients Windows Internet Relay Chat clients Windows instant messaging clients MacOS instant messaging clients Portable software Gecko-based software Software that uses XUL

43283728

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Tor%20Project

The Tor Project

The Tor Project, Inc. is a Seattle-based 501(c)(3) research-education nonprofit organization founded by computer scientists Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson and five others. The Tor Project is primarily responsible for maintaining software for the Tor anonymity network. History The Tor Project was founded in December 2006 by computer scientists Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson and five others. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) acted as The Tor Project's fiscal sponsor in its early years, and early financial supporters of The Tor Project included the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau, Internews, Human Rights Watch, the University of Cambridge, Google, and Netherlands-based Stichting NLnet. In October 2014, The Tor Project hired the public relations firm Thomson Communications in order to improve its public image (particularly regarding the terms "Dark Net" and "hidden services") and to educate journalists about the technical aspects of Tor. In May 2015, The Tor Project ended the Tor Cloud Service. In December 2015, The Tor Project announced that it had hired Shari Steele, former executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as its new executive director. Roger Dingledine, who had been acting as interim executive director since May 2015, remained at The Tor Project as a director and board member. Later that month, The Tor Project announced that the Open Technology Fund would be sponsoring a bug bounty program that was coordinated by HackerOne. The program was initially invite-only and focuses on finding vulnerabilities that are specific to The Tor Project's applications. On May 25, 2016 Tor Project employee Jacob Appelbaum stepped down from his position; this was announced on June 2 in a two-line statement by Tor. Over the following days, allegations of sexual mistreatment were made public by several people. On June 4, Shari Steele, the Executive Director of the Tor project, published a statement saying that the recent allegations of sexual mistreatment regarding Appelbaum were consistent with "rumors some of us had been hearing for some time," but she asserted that "...the most recent allegations are much more serious and concrete than anything we had heard previously." Appelbaum has denounced the allegations as part of a concerted strategy to damage his reputation. On July 13, 2016, the complete board of the Tor Project – Meredith Hoban Dunn, Ian Goldberg, Julius Mittenzwei, Rabbi Rob Thomas, Wendy Seltzer, Roger Dingledine and Nick Mathewson – was replaced with Matt Blaze, Cindy Cohn, Gabriella Coleman, Linus Nordberg, Megan Price and Bruce Schneier. In July 2016, the Tor Project announced the results of a seven-week investigation led by a private investigator. The allegations against Jacob Appelbaum were determined to be accurate, and Shari Steele noted that while they "did everything in our power" to treat Mr. Appelbaum fairly, "we determined that the allegations against him appear to be true." The investigation concluded that "many people inside and outside the Tor Project have reported incidents of being humiliated, intimidated, bullied, and frightened" by Jacob Appelbaum, and that "several experienced unwanted sexually aggressive behavior from him." Two other, unnamed individuals involved in inappropriate behavior are themselves no longer part of the project. Institutionally, despite not being a top-down management organization, and working as it does with volunteers and employees from other organizations, a new anti-harassment policy has been approved by the new board, as well as a conflicts of interest policy, procedures for submitting complaints, and an internal complaint review process. Initially the affair had caused a split in the wider but still close-knit privacy community, with some coming to Appelbaum's defense and others presenting even more allegations. The affair continues to be controversial, with considerable dissent within the Tor community. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tor project's core team let go of 13 employees, leaving a working staff of 22 people. Funding , 80% of The Tor Project's $2 million annual budget came from the United States government, with the U.S. State Department, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the National Science Foundation as major contributors, "to aid democracy advocates in authoritarian states". The Swedish government and other organizations provided the other 20%, including NGOs and thousands of individual sponsors. Dingledine said that the United States Department of Defense funds are more similar to a research grant than a procurement contract. Tor executive director Andrew Lewman said that even though it accepts funds from the U.S. federal government, the Tor service did not collaborate with the NSA to reveal identities of users. In June 2016, The Tor Project received an award from Mozilla's Open Source Support program (MOSS). The award was "to significantly enhance the Tor network's metrics infrastructure so that the performance and stability of the network can be monitored and improvements made as appropriate." Tools Metrics Portal Analytics for the Tor network, including graphs of its available bandwidth and estimated userbase. This is a great resource for researchers interested in detailed statistics about Tor. Nyx a terminal (command line) application for monitoring and configuring Tor, intended for command-line enthusiasts and ssh connections. This functions much like top does for system usage, providing real time information on Tor's resource utilization and state. Onionoo Web-based protocol to learn about currently running Tor relays and bridges. OnionShare An open source tool that allows users to securely and anonymously share a file of any size. OONI (Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI)) a global observation network, monitoring network censorship, which aims to collect high-quality data using open methodologies, using Free and Open Source Software (FL/OSS) to share observations and data about the various types, methods, and amounts of network tampering in the world. Orbot Tor for Google Android devices, in collaboration with The Guardian Project Orlib a library for use by any Android application to route Internet traffic through Orbot/Tor. Pluggable Transports (PT) helps circumvent censorship. Transforms the Tor traffic flow between the client and the bridge. This way, censors who monitor traffic between the client and the bridge will see innocent-looking transformed traffic instead of the actual Tor traffic. Relay Search Site providing an overview of the Tor network. Shadow a discrete-event network simulator that runs the real Tor software as a plug-in. Shadow is open-source software that enables accurate, efficient, controlled, and repeatable Tor experimentation. Stem Python Library for writing scripts and applications that interact with Tor. Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) a live CD/USB distribution preconfigured so that everything is safely routed through Tor and leaves no trace on the local system. Tor free software and an open network that helps a user defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Tor Browser a customization of Mozilla Firefox which uses a Tor circuit for browsing anonymously and with other features consistent with the Tor mission. Tor Phone A phone that routes its network traffic through tor network. Initially based on one secure custom ROM, similar efforts continue in GrapheneOS and other independent ROMs. TorBirdy Torbutton for Thunderbird and related *bird forks. txtorcon Python and Twisted event-based implementation of the Tor control protocol. Unit-tests, state and configuration abstractions, documentation. It is available on PyPI and in Debian. Recognition In March 2011, The Tor Project received the Free Software Foundation's 2010 Award for Projects of Social Benefit. The citation read, "Using free software, Tor has enabled roughly 36 million people around the world to experience freedom of access and expression on the Internet while keeping them in control of their privacy and anonymity. Its network has proved pivotal in dissident movements in both Iran and more recently Egypt." In September 2012, The Tor Project received the 2012 EFF Pioneer Award, along with Jérémie Zimmermann and Andrew Huang. In November 2012, Foreign Policy magazine named Dingledine, Mathewson, and Syverson among its Top 100 Global Thinkers "for making the web safe for whistleblowers". In 2014, Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson and Paul Syverson received the USENIX Test of Time Award for their paper titled "Tor: The Second-Generation Onion Router", which was published in the Proceedings of the 13th USENIX Security Symposium, August 2004. See also Tor Phone References External links Old website List of mirror websites web.archive.org/web Tor Weekly News — August 27th, 2014 . Computer science organizations Computer security organizations Internet privacy organizations Organizations based in Cambridge, Massachusetts Organizations based in Seattle Non-profit organizations based in Massachusetts 501(c)(3) organizations Scientific organizations established in 2006 2006 establishments in Massachusetts Science and technology in Massachusetts

5574878

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel%20Virtual%20File%20System

Parallel Virtual File System

The Parallel Virtual File System (PVFS) is an open-source parallel file system. A parallel file system is a type of distributed file system that distributes file data across multiple servers and provides for concurrent access by multiple tasks of a parallel application. PVFS was designed for use in large scale cluster computing. PVFS focuses on high performance access to large data sets. It consists of a server process and a client library, both of which are written entirely of user-level code. A Linux kernel module and pvfs-client process allow the file system to be mounted and used with standard utilities. The client library provides for high performance access via the message passing interface (MPI). PVFS is being jointly developed between The Parallel Architecture Research Laboratory at Clemson University and the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, and the Ohio Supercomputer Center. PVFS development has been funded by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, The DOE Office of Science Advanced Scientific Computing Research program, NSF PACI and HECURA programs, and other government and private agencies. PVFS is now known as OrangeFS in its newest development branch. History PVFS was first developed in 1993 by Walt Ligon and Eric Blumer as a parallel file system for Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) as part of a NASA grant to study the I/O patterns of parallel programs. PVFS version 0 was based on Vesta, a parallel file system developed at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. Starting in 1994 Rob Ross re-wrote PVFS to use TCP/IP and departed from many of the original Vesta design points. PVFS version 1 was targeted to a cluster of DEC Alpha workstations networked using switched FDDI. Like Vesta, PVFS striped data across multiple servers and allowed I/O requests based on a file view that described a strided access pattern. Unlike Vesta, the striping and view were not dependent on a common record size. Ross' research focused on scheduling of disk I/O when multiple clients were accessing the same file. Previous results had shown that scheduling according to the best possible disk access pattern was preferable. Ross showed that this depended on a number of factors including the relative speed of the network and the details of the file view. In some cases a scheduling based on network traffic was preferable, thus a dynamically adaptable schedule provided the best overall performance. In late 1994 Ligon met with Thomas Sterling and John Dorband at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and discussed their plans to build the first Beowulf computer. It was agreed that PVFS would be ported to Linux and be featured on the new machine. Over the next several years Ligon and Ross worked with the GSFC group including Donald Becker, Dan Ridge, and Eric Hendricks. In 1997, at a cluster meeting in Pasadena, CA Sterling asked that PVFS be released as an open source package. PVFS2 In 1999 Ligon proposed the development of a new version of PVFS initially dubbed PVFS2000 and later PVFS2. The design was initially developed by Ligon, Ross, and Phil Carns. Ross completed his PhD in 2000 and moved to Argonne National Laboratory and the design and implementation was carried out by Ligon, Carns, Dale Witchurch, and Harish Ramachandran at Clemson University, Ross, Neil Miller, and Rob Latham at Argonne National Laboratory, and Pete Wyckoff at Ohio Supercomputer Center. The new file system was released in 2003. The new design featured object servers, distributed metadata, views based on MPI, support for multiple network types, and a software architecture for easy experimentation and extensibility. PVFS version 1 was retired in 2005. PVFS version 2 is still supported by Clemson and Argonne. Carns completed his PhD in 2006 and joined Axicom, Inc. where PVFS was deployed on several thousand nodes for data mining. In 2008 Carns moved to Argonne and continues to work on PVFS along with Ross, Latham, and Sam Lang. Brad Settlemyer developed a mirroring subsystem at Clemson, and later a detailed simulation of PVFS used for researching new developments. Settlemyer is now at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. in 2007 Argonne began porting PVFS for use on an IBM Blue Gene/P. In 2008 Clemson began developing extensions for supporting large directories of small files, security enhancements, and redundancy capabilities. As many of these goals conflicted with development for Blue Gene, a second branch of the CVS source tree was created and dubbed "Orange" and the original branch was dubbed "Blue." PVFS and OrangeFS track each other very closely, but represent two different groups of user requirements. Most patches and upgrades are applied to both branches. As of 2011 OrangeFS is the main development line. Features In a cluster using PVFS, nodes are designated as one or more of: client, data server, metadata server. Data servers hold file data. Metadata servers hold metadata include stat-info, attributes, and datafile-handles as well as directory-entries. Clients run applications that utilize the file system by sending requests to the servers over the network. Object-based design PVFS has an object based design, which is to say all PVFS server requests involved objects called dataspaces. A dataspace can be used to hold file data, file metadata, directory metadata, directory entries, or symbolic links. Every dataspace in a file system has a unique handle. Any client or server can look up which server holds the dataspace based on the handle. A dataspace has two components: a bytestream and a set of key/value pairs. The bytestream is an ordered sequence of bytes, typically used to hold file data, and the key/value pairs are typically used to hold metadata. The object-based design has become typical of many distributed file systems including Lustre, Panasas, and pNFS. Separation of data and metadata PVFS is designed so that a client can access a server for metadata once, and then can access the data servers without further interaction with the metadata servers. This removes a critical bottleneck from the system and allows much greater performance. MPI-based requests When a client program requests data from PVFS it can supply a description of the data that is based on MPI_Datatypes. This facility allows MPI file views to be directly implemented by the file system. MPI_Datatypes can describe complex non-contiguous patterns of data. The PVFS server and data codes implement data flows that efficiently transfer data between multiple servers and clients. Multiple network support PVFS uses a networking layer named BMI which provides a non-blocking message interface designed specifically for file systems. BMI has multiple implementation modules for a number of different networks used in high performance computing including TCP/IP, Myrinet, Infiniband, and Portals. Stateless (lockless) servers PVFS servers are designed so that they do not share any state with each other or with clients. If a server crashes another can easily be restarted in its place. Updates are performed without using locks. User-level implementation PVFS clients and servers run at user level. Kernel modifications are not needed. There is an optional kernel module that allows a PVFS file system to be mounted like any other file system, or programs can link directly to a user interface such as MPI-IO or a Posix-like interface. This features makes PVFS easy to install and less prone to causing system crashes. System-level interface The PVFS interface is designed to integrate at the system level. It has similarities with the Linux VFS, this making it easy to implement as a mountable file system, but is equally adaptable to user level interfaces such as MPI-IO or Posix-like interfaces. It exposes many of the features of the underlying file system so that interfaces can take advantage of them if desired. Architecture PVFS consists of 4 main components and a number of utility programs. The components are the PVFS2-server, the pvfslib, the PVFS-client-core, and the PVFS kernel module. Utilities include the karma management tool, utilities (e.g., pvfs-ping, pvfs-ls, pvfs-cp, etc.) that all operate directly on the file system without using the kernel module (primarily for maintenance and testing). Another key design point is the PVFS protocol which describes the messages passed between client and server, though this is not strictly a component. PVFS2-server The PVFS server runs as a process on a node designated as an I/O node. I/O nodes are often dedicated nodes but can be regular nodes that run application tasks as well. The PVFS server usually runs as root, but can be run as a user if preferred. Each server can manage multiple distinct file systems and is designated to run as a metadata server, data server, or both. All configuration is controlled by a configuration file specified on the command line, and all servers managing a given file system use the same configuration file. The server receives requests over the network, carries out the request which may involve disk I/O and responds back to the original requester. Requests normally come from client nodes running application tasks but can come from other servers. The server is composed of the request processor, the job layer, Trove, BMI, and flow layers. Request processor The request processor consists of the server process' main loop and a number of state machines. State machines are based on a simple language developed for PVFS that manage concurrency within the server and client. A state machine consists of a number of states, each of which either runs a C state action function or calls a nested (subroutine) state machine. In either case return codes select which state to go to next. State action functions typically submit a job via the job layer which performs some kind of I/O via Trove or BMI. Jobs are non-blocking, so that once a job is issued the state machine's execution is deferred so that another state machine can run servicing another request. When Jobs are completed the main loop restarts the associated state machine. The request processor has state machines for each of the various request types defined in the PVFS request protocol plus a number of nested state machines used internally. The state machine architecture makes it relatively easy to add new requests to the server in order to add features or optimize for specific situations. Job layer The Job layer provides a common interface for submitting Trove, BMI, and flow jobs and reporting their completion. It also implements the request scheduler as a non-blocking job that records what kind of requests are in progress on which objects and prevents consistency errors due to simultaneously operating on the same file data. Trove Trove manages I/O to the objects stored on the local server. Trove operates on collections of data spaces. A collection has its own independent handle space and is used to implement distinct PVFS file systems, A data space is a PVFS object and has its own unique (within the collection) handle and is stored on one server. Handles are mapped to servers through a table in the configuration file. A data space consists of two parts: a bytestream, and a set of key/value pairs. A bytestream is sequence of bytes of indeterminate length and is used to store file data, typically in a file on the local file system. Key/value pairs are used to store metadata, attributes, and directory entries. Trove has a well defined interface and can be implemented in various ways. To date the only implementation has been the Trove-dbfs implementation that stores bytestreams in files and key/value pairs in a Berkeley DB database. Trove operations are non-blocking, the API provides post functions to read or write the various components and functions to check or wait for completion. BMI Flows pvfslib PVFS-client-core PVFS kernel module See also List of file systems, the distributed parallel file system section References External links Orange File System - A branch of the Parallel Virtual File System Architecture of a Next-Generation Parallel File System Video archive Distributed file systems Distributed file systems supported by the Linux kernel Network file systems

1243189

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB%20mass%20storage%20device%20class

USB mass storage device class

The USB mass storage device class (also known as USB MSC or UMS) is a set of computing communications protocols, specifically a USB Device Class, defined by the USB Implementers Forum that makes a USB device accessible to a host computing device and enables file transfers between the host and the USB device. To a host, the USB device acts as an external hard drive; the protocol set interfaces with a number of storage devices. Uses Devices connected to computers via this standard include: External magnetic hard drives External optical drives, including CD and DVD reader and writer drives Portable flash memory devices Solid-state drives Adapters between standard flash memory cards and USB connections Digital cameras Digital audio and portable media players Card readers PDAs Mobile phones Devices supporting this standard are known as MSC (Mass Storage Class) devices. While MSC is the original abbreviation, UMS (Universal Mass Storage) has also come into common use. Operating system support Most mainstream operating systems include support for USB mass storage devices; support on older systems is usually available through patches. Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows has supported MSC since Windows 2000. There is no support for USB supplied by Microsoft in Windows before Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. Windows 95 OSR2.1, an update to the operating system, featured limited support for USB. During that time no generic USB mass-storage driver was produced by Microsoft (including for Windows 98), and a device-specific driver was needed for each type of USB storage device. Third-party, freeware drivers became available for Windows 98 and Windows 98SE, and third-party drivers are also available for Windows NT 4.0. Windows 2000 has support (via a generic driver) for standard USB mass-storage devices; Windows Me and all later Windows versions also include support. Windows Mobile supports accessing most USB mass-storage devices formatted with FAT on devices with USB Host. However, portable devices typically cannot provide enough power for hard-drive disk enclosures (a hard drive typically requires the maximum 2.5 W in the USB specification) without a self-powered USB hub. A Windows Mobile device cannot display its file system as a mass-storage device unless the device implementer adds that functionality. However, third-party applications add MSC emulation to most WM devices (commercial Softick CardExport and free WM5torage). Only memory cards (not internal-storage memory) can generally be exported, due to file-systems issues; see device access, below. The AutoRun feature of Windows worked on all removable media, allowing USB storage devices to become a portal for computer viruses. Beginning with Windows 7, Microsoft limited AutoRun to CD and DVD drives, updating previous Windows versions. MS-DOS Neither MS-DOS nor most compatible operating systems included support for USB. Third-party generic drivers, such as Duse, USBASPI and DOSUSB, are available to support USB mass-storage devices. FreeDOS supports USB mass storage as an Advanced SCSI Programming Interface (ASPI) interface. Classic Mac OS and macOS Apple Computer's Mac OS 9 and macOS support USB mass storage; Mac OS 8.5.1 supported USB mass storage through an optional driver. Linux The Linux kernel has supported USB mass-storage devices since its 2.4 series (2001), and a backport to kernel 2.2.18 has been made. In Linux, more features exist in addition to the generic drivers for USB mass-storage device class devices, including quirks, bug fixes and additional functionality for devices and controllers (vendor-enabled functions such as ATA command pass-through for ATA-USB bridges, which is useful for S.M.A.R.T. or temperature monitoring, controlling the spin-up and spin-down of hard disk drives, and other options). This includes a certain portion of Android-based devices, through support of USB-OTG, since Android uses the Linux kernel. Other Unix-related systems Solaris has supported devices since its version 2.8 (1998), NetBSD since its version 1.5 (2000), FreeBSD since its version 4.0 (2000) and OpenBSD since its version 2.7 (2000). Digital UNIX (later known as Tru64 UNIX), has supported USB and USB mass-storage devices since its version 4.0E (1998). AIX has supported USB mass-storage devices since its 5.3 T9 and 6.1 T3 versions; however, it is not well-supported and lacks features such as partitioning and general blocking. Game consoles and embedded devices The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 support most mass-storage devices for the data transfer of media such as pictures and music. As of April 2010, the Xbox 360 (a) used a mass-storage device for saved games and the PS3 allowed transfers between devices on a mass-storage device. Independent developers have released drivers for the TI-84 Plus and TI-84 Plus Silver Edition to access USB mass-storage devices. In these calculators, the usb8x driver supports the msd8x user-interface application. Device access The USB mass-storage specification provides an interface to a number of industry-standard command sets, allowing a device to disclose its subclass. In practice, there is little support for specifying a command set via its subclass; most drivers only support the SCSI transparent command set, designating their subset of the SCSI command set with their SCSI Peripheral Device Type (PDT). Subclass codes specify the following command sets: Reduced Block Commands (RBC) SFF-8020i, MMC-2 (used by ATAPI-style CD and DVD drives) QIC-157 (tape drives) Uniform Floppy Interface (UFI) SFF-8070i (used by ARMD-style devices) SCSI transparent command set (use "inquiry" to obtain the PDT) The specification does not require a particular file system on conforming devices. Based on the specified command set and any subset, it provides a means to read and write sectors of data (similar to the low-level interface used to access a hard drive). Operating systems may treat a USB mass-storage device like a hard drive; users may partition it in any format (such as MBR and GPT), and format it with any file system. Because of its relative simplicity, the most common file system on embedded devices such as USB flash drives, cameras, or digital audio players is Microsoft's FAT or FAT32 file system (with optional support for long filenames). Large, USB-based hard disks may be formatted with NTFS, which (except for Windows) is less supported. However, a keydrive or other device may be formatted with another file system (HFS Plus on an Apple Macintosh, or Ext2 on Linux, or Unix File System on Solaris or BSD). This choice may limit (or prevent) access to a device's contents by equipment using a different operating system. OS-dependent storage options include LVM, partition tables and software encryption. In cameras, MP3 players and similar devices which must access a file system independent of an external host, the FAT32 file system is preferred by manufacturers. All such devices halt their file-system (dismount) before making it available to a host operating system to prevent file-system corruption or other damage (although it is theoretically possible for both devices to use read-only mode or a cluster file system). Some devices have a write-protection switch (or option) allowing them to be used in read-only mode; this makes files available for shared use without the risk of virus infection. Two main partitioning schemes are used by vendors of pre-formatted devices. One puts the file system (usually FAT32) directly on the device without partitioning, making it start from sector 0 without additional boot sectors, headers or partitions. The other uses a DOS partition table (and MBR code), with one partition spanning the entire device. This partition is often aligned to a high power of two of the sectors (such as 1 or 2 MB), common in solid state drives for performance and durability. Some devices with embedded storage resembling a USB mass-storage device (such as MP3 players with a USB port) will report a damaged (or missing) file system if they are reformatted with a different file system. However, most default-partition devices may be repartitioned (by reducing the first partition and file system) with additional partitions. Such devices will use the first partition for their own operations; after connecting to the host system, all partitions are available. Devices connected by a single USB port may function as multiple USB devices, one of which is a USB mass-storage device. This simplifies distribution and access to drivers and documentation, primarily for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. Such drivers are required to make full use of the device, usually because it does not fit a standard USB class or has additional functionality. An embedded USB mass-storage device makes it possible to install additional drivers without CD-ROM disks, floppies or Internet access to a vendor website; this is important, since many modern systems are supplied without optical or floppy drives. Internet access may be unavailable because the device provides network access (wireless, GSM or Ethernet cards). The embedded USB mass storage is usually made permanently read-only by the vendor, preventing accidental corruption and use for other purposes (although it may be updated with proprietary protocols when performing a firmware upgrade). Advantages of this method of distribution are lower cost, simplified installation and ensuring driver portability. Design Some advanced hard disk drive commands, such as Tagged Command Queuing and Native Command Queuing (which may increase performance), ATA Secure Erase (which allows all data on the drive to be securely erased) and S.M.A.R.T. (accessing indicators of drive reliability) exist as extensions to low-level drive command sets such as SCSI, ATA and ATAPI. These features may not work when the drives are placed in a disk enclosure that supports a USB mass-storage interface. Some USB mass-storage interfaces are generic, providing basic read-write commands; although that works well for basic data transfers with devices containing hard drives, there is no simple way to send advanced, device-specific commands to such USB mass-storage devices (though, devices may create their own communication protocols over a standard USB control interface). The USB Attached SCSI (UAS) protocol, introduced in USB 3.0, fixes several of these issues, including command queuing, command pipes for hardware requiring them, and power management. Specific USB 2.0 chipsets had proprietary methods of achieving SCSI pass-through, which could be used to read S.M.A.R.T. data from drives using tools such as smartctl (using the option followed by "chipset"). More recent USB storage chipsets support the SCSI / ATA Translation (SAT) as a generic protocol for interacting with ATA (and SATA) devices. Using esoteric ATA or SCSI pass-through commands (such as secure-erase or password protection) when a drive is connected via a USB bridge may cause drive failure, especially with the hdparm utility. See also Disk encryption software Media Transfer Protocol Picture Transfer Protocol SCSI / ATA Translation USB flash drive USB mass storage (USB drive) References Further reading From the USB Implementers Forum website: Mass Storage Class Specification Overview 1.4 Mass Storage Bootability Specification 1.0 "Mass Storage Bulk Only 1.0" External links USB Mass Storage Device source code in FreeBSD What actually happens when you plug in a USB device? Linux kernel internals Computer storage buses Computer storage devices Mass storage device class

30064118

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thestor%20%28mythology%29

Thestor (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Thestor (Ancient Greek: Θέστωρ) is a name that may refer to: Thestor, son of Idmon and Laothoe, grandson of Apollo; some say that Idmon ("the knowing") was his own surname. By Polymela, he was the father of Calchas, Leucippe and Theonoe. Thestor, a Trojan, who was killed by Ajax. Thestor, another Trojan, brother of Satnius. They were sons of Enops and a Naiad nymph of the river Satnioeis. Thestor was slain by Patroclus, and Satnius by Ajax the Lesser. Thestor, father of Alcmaon. His son fought at Troy and was killed with a spear by the Lycian leader Sarpedon . See also for Jovian asteroid 4035 Thestor Notes References Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Homer, Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920. . Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy translated by Way. A. S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 19. London: William Heinemann, 1913. Online version at theoi.com Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy. Arthur S. Way. London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1913. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Trojans People of the Trojan War Argive characters in Greek mythology Characters in Greek mythology

17398267

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backblaze

Backblaze

Backblaze, Inc. is a cloud storage and data backup company, founded in 2007 by Gleb Budman, Billy Ng, Nilay Patel, Brian Wilson, Tim Nufire, Damon Uyeda, and Casey Jones. Its two main products are their B2 Cloud Storage and Computer Backup services, targeted at both business and personal markets. Products Cloud Backup Backblaze's first product was its computer backup, offering users to back up their computer data continuously and automatically with a monthly subscription service. The service makes use of AES encryption for security, and uses data compression and bandwidth optimization to reduce upload and download times. Files that need to be restored can be delivered in the form of a digital download, on an external hard drive or flash drive. File versioning and history is available, however there is a cap to 30 days or an additional cost per month. Backblaze B2 Storage In September 2015, Backblaze launched a new product, B2 Cloud Storage. Being an Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), it is targeted at software integration for different kinds of businesses. It directly competes with similar services, such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. In April 2018, Backblaze announced cloud computing partnerships that directly connect Backblaze's data centers with its partners, Packet and ServerCentral. Technology Data centers Backblaze has four data centers; three are in the United States and one is in Europe. Two U.S. data centers are in Northern California near Sacramento, and one is in Phoenix, Arizona. Backblaze's data center in the European Union is located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Redundancy In order to increase redundancy, data uploaded onto Backblaze's data center is sharded into 17 data pieces and three parity shards for each file. Parity shard bits are computed by the Reed–Solomon error correction algorithm. The shards are stored in 20 different drives, each in a separate cabinet to increase resilience to a power loss to an entire cabinet, or other physically-based issue. Backblaze states that its 'Vault' architecture is designed with 99.999999999% annual durability. Encryption For Computer Backup, Backblaze uses a combination of AES and SSL encryption to protect user data. Data is stored in Backblaze storage using Reed-Solomon erasure coding and encrypted with the user's private key, which is secured with the user's password and username. The default encryption of private keys is done server side, which is unlikely to protect against government subpoena or serious data breach. Users desiring additional security and privacy can use the optional private encryption key (PEK), but the PEK passphrase is sent to the server when it is initially set, and must be sent again to restore any data. Encryption for their B2 storage is handled entirely by the user and client software to manage the stored data, making it immune to government subpoena or data breach and protecting the data during transfer and ultimate storage in Backblaze's data centers. Storage Pod open design In 2009 and 2011, the company released CAD drawings of the computer case used by the storage servers in its datacenters. With commercial off-the-shelf components such as x64 processors, disks, and motherboards, high-density storage servers can be built at a lower cost than commercial ones. The company has since made six iterations of the design over the years. References External links Official website Forbes: Backblaze Undercuts All Cloud Storage Competitors (2015) The Register: Interview with Backblaze CEO Gleb Budman (2018) Fortune Magazine: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft Aren't the Only Cloud Innovators Around (2017) Review in The Sweet Setup (2017) Review in Macworld Magazine (2009) Review in the Washington Post (2008) Backup software Web hosting Cloud storage File hosting for Windows Online backup services Companies listed on the Nasdaq 2021 initial public offerings Software companies of the United States Software companies established in 2007 American companies established in 2007 Companies based in San Mateo, California Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area

7360690

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xsnow

Xsnow

Xsnow is a software application that creates the appearance of snow falling on the elements of the graphical user interface of a computer system. Xsnow was originally created as a virtual greeting card for Macintosh systems in 1984. In 1993, the concept was ported to the X Window System as Xsnow, and was included on a number of Linux distributions in the late 1990s. Licensing Even though Xsnow was distributed with earlier versions of Linux, its most recent versions are shareware Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X ports with added features. The Unix-based ports for versions <= 1.42 include the source code in order to allow compiling to other platforms, but the software is not considered free software in the strictest sense. Version 2.0.1 and higher are free software. License Xsnow version <= 1.42: Xsnow is available freely and you may give it to other people as is, but I retain all rights. Therefore it does not classify as 'Public Domain' software. It *is* allowed to package Xsnow for Unix/Linux distributions, CD-Roms etc, and to make the necessary changes to makefiles etc. to facilitate this. Versions 2.0.1 and higher use the GNU General Public Licence version 3. Variants At least one free variant with source code has been published for Windows by Revenger, Inc. This version is snow-only and does not use code from the Xsnow codebase. MacPorts has a source code build for Mac OS X that's not the shareware version. BSnow, a snow only replicant for BeOS is bundled with Haiku. Let It Snow! a snow-only variant for Android. This version does not use code from the Xsnow codebase. See also Neko (computer program) XBill XPenguins References External links Original Xsnow homepage Snow for Macintosh iSnow for macOS / OS X Snow for Windows wsnow for browsers jsSnow for webpages X Window programs Desktop widgets

5720202

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint%20application%20design

Joint application design

Joint application design (JAD) is a process used in the life cycle area of the dynamic systems development method (DSDM) to collect business requirements while developing new information systems for a company. "The JAD process also includes approaches for enhancing user participation, expediting development, and improving the quality of specifications." It consists of a workshop where "knowledge workers and IT specialists meet, sometimes for several days, to define and review the business requirements for the system." The attendees include high level management officials who will ensure the product provides the needed reports and information at the end. This acts as "a management process which allows Corporate Information Services (IS) departments to work more effectively with users in a shorter time frame". Through JAD workshops the knowledge workers and IT specialists are able to resolve any difficulties or differences between the two parties regarding the new information system. The workshop follows a detailed agenda in order to guarantee that all uncertainties between parties are covered and to help prevent any miscommunications. Miscommunications can carry far more serious repercussions if not addressed until later on in the process. (See below for Key Participants and Key Steps to an Effective JAD). In the end, this process will result in a new information system that is feasible and appealing to both the designers and end users. "Although the JAD design is widely acclaimed, little is actually known about its effectiveness in practice." According to the Journal of Systems and Software, a field study was done at three organizations using JAD practices to determine how JAD influenced system development outcomes. The results of the study suggest that organizations realized modest improvement in systems development outcomes by using the JAD method. JAD use was most effective in small, clearly focused projects and less effective in large complex projects. Since 2010, the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) has measured the significance of facilitated workshops, a la JAD, and found significant value. Origin Joint application is a term originally used to describe a software development process pioneered and successfully deployed during the mid-1970s by the New York Telephone Company's Systems Development Center under the direction of Dan Gielan. Following a series of remarkably successful implementations of this methodology, Gielan lectured extensively in various forums on the methodology, its benefits and best practices. Arnie Lind, then a Senior Systems Engineer at IBM Canada in Regina, Saskatchewan created and named joint application design, in 1974. This was an improvement on existing methods, which entailed application developers spending months learning the specifics of a particular department or job function, and then developing an application for the function or department. In addition to significant development backlog delays, this process resulted in applications taking years to develop, and often not being fully accepted by the application users. Arnie Lind's idea was simple: rather than have application developers learn about people's jobs, why not teach the people doing the work how to write an application? Arnie pitched the concept to IBM Canada's Vice President Carl Corcoran (later President of IBM Canada), and Carl approved a pilot project. Arnie and Carl together named the methodology JAD, an acronym for joint application design, after Carl Corcoran rejected the acronym JAL, or joint application logistics, upon realizing that Arnie Lind's initials were JAL (John Arnold Lind). The pilot project was an emergency room project for the Saskatchewan Government. Arnie developed the JAD methodology, and put together a one-week seminar, involving primarily nurses and administrators from the emergency room, but also including some application development personnel. The project was a huge success, as the one-week seminar produced a detailed application framework, which was then coded and implemented in less than one month, versus an average of 18 months for traditional application development. And because the users themselves designed the system, they immediately adopted and liked the application. After the pilot project, IBM was very supportive of the JAD methodology, as they saw it as a way to more quickly implement computing applications, running on IBM hardware. Arnie Lind spent the next 13 years at IBM Canada continuing to develop the JAD methodology, and traveling around the world performing JAD seminars, and training IBM employees in the methods and techniques of JAD. JADs were performed extensively throughout IBM Canada, and the technique also spread to IBM in the United States. Arnie Lind trained several people at IBM Canada to perform JADs, including Tony Crawford and Chuck Morris. Arnie Lind retired from IBM in 1987, and continued to teach and perform JADs on a consulting basis, throughout Canada, the United States, and Asia. The JAD process was formalized by Tony Crawford and Chuck Morris of IBM in the late 1970s. It was then deployed at Canadian International Paper. JAD was used in IBM Canada for a while before being brought back to the US. Initially, IBM used JAD to help sell and implement a software program they sold, called COPICS. It was widely adapted to many uses (system requirements, grain elevator design, problem-solving, etc.). Tony Crawford later developed JAD-Plan and then JAR (joint application requirements). In 1985, Gary Rush wrote about JAD and its derivations – Facilitated Application Specification Techniques (FAST) – in Computerworld. Originally, JAD was designed to bring system developers and users of varying backgrounds and opinions together in a productive as well as creative environment. The meetings were a way of obtaining quality requirements and specifications. The structured approach provides a good alternative to traditional serial interviews by system analysts. JAD has since expanded to cover broader IT work as well as non-IT work (read about Facilitated Application Specification Techniques – FAST – created by Gary Rush in 1985 to expand JAD applicability. Key participants Executive Sponsor The executive who charters the project, the system owner. They must be high enough in the organization to be able to make decisions and provide the necessary strategy, planning, and direction. Subject Matter Experts These are the business users, the IS professionals, and the outside experts that will be needed for a successful workshop. This group is the backbone of the meeting; they will drive the changes. Facilitator/Session Leader meeting and directs traffic by keeping the group on the meeting agenda. The facilitator is responsible for identifying those issues that can be solved as part of the meeting and those which need to be assigned at the end of the meeting for follow-up investigation and resolution. The facilitator serves the participants and does not contribute information to the meeting. Scribe/Modeller/Recorder/Documentation Expert Records and publish the proceedings of the meeting and does not contribute information to the meeting. Observers Generally members of the application development team assigned to the project. They are to sit behind the participants and are to silently observe the proceedings. 9 key steps Identify project objectives and limitations: It is vital to have clear objectives for the workshop and for the project as a whole. The pre-workshop activities, the planning and scoping, set the expectations of the workshop sponsors and participants. Scoping identifies the business functions that are within the scope of the project. It also tries to assess both the project design and implementation complexity. The political sensitivity of the project should be assessed. Has this been tried in the past? How many false starts were there? How many implementation failures were there? Sizing is important. For best results, systems projects should be sized so that a complete design – right down to screens and menus – can be designed in 8 to 10 workshop days. Identify critical success factors: It is important to identify the critical success factors for both the development project and the business function being studied. How will we know that the planned changes have been effective? How will success be measured? Planning for outcomes assessment helps to judge the effectiveness and the quality of the implemented system over its entire operational life. Define project deliverables: In general, the deliverables from a workshop are documentation and a design. It is important to define the form and level of detail of the workshop documentation. What types of diagrams will be provided? What type or form of narrative will be supplied? It is a good idea to start using a CASE tool for diagramming support right from the start. Most of the available tools have good to great diagramming capabilities but their narrative support is generally weak. The narrative is best produced with your standard word processing software. Define the schedule of workshop activities: Workshops vary in length from one to five days. The initial workshop for a project should not be less than three days. It takes the participants most of the first day to get comfortable with their roles, with each other, and with the environment. The second day is spent learning to understand each other and developing a common language with which to communicate issues and concerns. By the third day, everyone is working together on the problem and real productivity is achieved. After the initial workshop, the team-building has been done. Shorter workshops can be scheduled for subsequent phases of the project, for instance, to verify a prototype. However, it will take the participants from one to three hours to re-establish the team psychology of the initial workshop. Select the participants: These are the business users, the IT professionals, and the outside experts that will be needed for a successful workshop. These are the true "back bones" of the meeting who will drive the changes. Prepare the workshop material: Before the workshop, the project manager and the facilitator perform an analysis and build a preliminary design or straw man to focus the workshop. The workshop material consists of documentation, worksheets, diagrams, and even props that will help the participants understand the business function under investigation. Organize workshop activities and exercises: The facilitator must design workshop exercises and activities to provide interim deliverables that build towards the final output of the workshop. The pre-workshop activities help design those workshop exercises. For example, for a Business Area Analysis, what's in it? A decomposition diagram? A high-level entity-relationship diagram? A normalized data model? A state transition diagram? A dependency diagram? All of the above? None of the above? It is important to define the level of technical diagramming that is appropriate to the environment. The most important thing about a diagram is that it must be understood by the users. Once the diagram choice is made, the facilitator designs exercises into the workshop agenda to get the group to develop those diagrams. A workshop combines exercises that are serially oriented to build on one another, and parallel exercises, with each sub-team working on a piece of the problem or working on the same thing for a different functional area. High-intensity exercises led by the facilitator energize the group and direct it towards a specific goal. Low-intensity exercises allow for detailed discussions before decisions. The discussions can involve the total group or teams can work out the issues and present a limited number of suggestions for the whole group to consider. To integrate the participants, the facilitator can match people with similar expertise from different departments. To help participants learn from each other, the facilitator can mix the expertise. It's up to the facilitator to mix and match the sub-team members to accomplish the organizational, cultural, and political objectives of the workshop. A workshop operates on both the technical level and the political level. It is the facilitator's job to build consensus and communications, to force issues out early in the process. There is no need to worry about the technical implementation of a system if the underlying business issues cannot be resolved. Prepare, inform, educate the workshop participants: All of the participants in the workshop must be made aware of the objectives and limitations of the project and the expected deliverables of the workshop. Briefing of participants should take place 1 to 5 days before the workshop. This briefing may be teleconferenced if participants are widely dispersed. The briefing document might be called the Familiarization Guide, Briefing Guide, Project Scope Definition, or the Management Definition Guide – or anything else that seems appropriate. It is a document of eight to twelve pages, and it provides a clear definition of the scope of the project for the participants. The briefing itself lasts two to four hours. It provides the psychological preparation everyone needs to move forward into the workshop. Coordinate workshop logistics: Workshops should be held off-site to avoid interruptions. Projectors, screens, PCs, tables, markers, masking tape, Post-It notes, and many other props should be prepared. What specific facilities and props are needed is up to the facilitator. They can vary from simple flip charts to electronic white boards. In any case, the layout of the room must promote the communication and interaction of the participants. Advantages JAD decreases time and costs associated with requirements elicitation process. During 2-4 weeks information not only is collected, but requirements, agreed upon by various system users, are identified. Experience with JAD allows companies to customize their systems analysis process into even more dynamic ones like Double Helix, a methodology for mission-critical work. JAD sessions help bring experts together giving them a chance to share their views, understand views of others, and develop the sense of project ownership. The methods of JAD implementation are well-known, as it is "the first accelerated design technique available on the market and probably best known", and can easily be applied by any organization. Easy integration of CASE tools into JAD workshops improves session productivity and provides systems analysts with discussed and ready to use models. Challenges Without multifaceted preparation for a JAD session, professionals' valuable time can be easily wasted. If JAD session organizers do not study the elements of the system being evaluated, an incorrect problem could be addressed, incorrect people could be invited to participate, and inadequate problem-solving resources could be used. JAD workshop participants should include employees able to provide input on most, if not all, of the pertinent areas of the problem. This is why particular attention should be paid during participant selection. The group should consist not only of employees from various departments who will interact with the new system, but from different hierarchies of the organizational ladder. The participants may have conflicting points of view, but meeting will allow participants to see issues from different viewpoints. JAD brings to light a better model outline with better understanding of underlying processes. The facilitator has an obligation to ensure all participants not only the most vocal ones have a chance to offer their opinions, ideas, and thoughts. References Bibliography Bill Jennerich "Joint Application Design -- Business Requirements Analysis for Successful Re-engineering." 18:50, 26 June 2006 (UTC) Last update time unknown. Accessed on Nov. 14, 1999. Gary Rush "JAD - Its History and Evolution -- MGR Consulting Newsletter." July 2006 Gary Rush, "JAD Project Aids Design", Computerworld, Volume 18 Number 52, pages 31 and 38, December 24, 1984. Gottesdiener, Ellen; Requirements by Collaboration: Workshops for Defining Needs, Addison-Wesley, 2002, . Wood, Jane and Silver, Denise; Joint Application Development, John Wiley & Sons Inc, Software requirements Software development process Information systems

47936656

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive%20Security

Offensive Security

Offensive Security is an American international company working in information security, penetration testing and digital forensics. Operating from around 2007, the company created open source projects, advanced security courses, ExploitDB (vulnerability database) and the Kali Linux distribution. The company was started by Mati Aharoni, and employs security professionals with experience in security penetration testing and system security evaluation. The company has provided security counseling and training to many technology companies. The company also provides training courses and certifications. Background and history Mati Aharoni, Offensive Security's co-founder, started the business around 2006 with his wife Iris. Offensive Security LLC was formed in 2008. The company was structured as Offensive Security Services, LLC in 2012 in North Carolina. In September 2019 the company received its first venture capital investment, from Spectrum Equity, and CEO Ning Wang replaced Joe Steinbach, the previous CEO for four years, who ran the business from the Philippines. Jim O’Gorman, the company's chief strategy officer, also gives training and writes books. Customers include Cisco, Wells Fargo, Booz Allen Hamilton, and defense-related U.S. government agencies. The company gives training sessions at the annual Black Hat hacker conference. In 2019, J.M. Porup of CSO online wrote "few infosec certifications have developed the prestige in recent years of the Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)," and said it has "a reputation for being one of the most difficult," because it requires student to hack into a test network during a difficult "24-hour exam." He also summarized accusations of cheating, and Offensive Security's responses, concluding hiring based only on credentials was a mistake, and an applicants skills should be validated. In 2020, cybersecurity professional Matt Day of Start a Cyber Career, writing a detailed review and comparison of OSCP and CompTIA PenTest+, said OSCP was "well known in the pentesting community, and therefore well known by the managers that hire them." Projects In addition to their training and security services, the company also founded open source projects, online exploit databases and security information teaching aids. Kali Linux The company is known for developing Kali Linux, which is a Debian Linux based distribution modeled after BackTrack. It succeeds BackTrack Linux, and is designed for security information needs, such as penetration testing and digital forensics. Kali NetHunter is Offensive Security's project for the ARM architecture and Android devices. Kali Linux contains over 600 security programs. The release of the second version (2.0) received a wide coverage in the digital media Offensive Security provides a book, Kali Linux Revealed, and makes the first edition available for free download. Users and employees have been inspired to have careers in Social Engineering. In 2019, in a detailed review, Cyberpunk called Offensive Security's Kali Linux, " known as BackTrack," the "best penetration testing distribution." BackTrack BackTrack Linux was an open source GNU General Public License Linux distribution developed by programmers from around the world with assistance, coordination, and funding from Offensive Security. The distribution was originally developed under the names Whoppix, IWHAX, and Auditor. It was designed to delete any trace of its usage. The distribution was widely known and used by security experts. ExploitDB Exploit Database is an archive of vulnerable software and exploits that have been made public by the information security community. The database is designated to help penetration testers test small projects easily by sharing information with each other. The database also contains proof-of-concepts (POC), helping information security professionals learn new exploits variations. In Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Guide, Rafay Baloch said Exploit-db had over 20,000 exploits, and was available in BackTrack Linux by default. In CEH v10 Certified Ethical Hacker Study Guide, Ric Messier called exploit-db a "great resource," and stated it was available within Kali Linux by default, or could be added to other Linux distributions. Metasploit Metasploit Unleashed is a charity project created by Offensive Security for the sake of Hackers for Charity, which was started by Johnny Long. The projects teaches Metasploit and is designed especially for people who consider starting a career in penetration testing. Google Hacking Database Google Hacking Database was created by Johnny Long and is now hosted by Offensive Security. The project was created as a part of Hackers for Charity. The database helps security professionals determine whether a given application or website is compromised. The database uses Google search to establish whether usernames and passwords had been compromised. See also Offensive Security Certified Professional Kali Linux Kali NetHunter BackTrack Linux List of computer security certifications References External links Offensive Security Official Website Kali Linux Official Website Digital forensics software Computer security procedures Computer network security Software testing Data security Security Crime prevention National security Cryptography Information governance

18848717

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe%20Bottom

Joe Bottom

Joseph Stuart Bottom (born April 18, 1955) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic silver medalist, and former world record-holder in the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly and 4×100-meter freestyle relay. Born in Akron, Ohio, Bottom moved with his family at age 11 to Santa Clara, California, where he was a member of the Santa Clara Swim Club under noted swim coach George Haines. He attended Santa Clara High School, where he contributed to the Panthers numerous California Interscholastic Federation – Central Coast Section championships and set several Section records from 1971–73. Bottom attended the University of Southern California (USC), where he was an All-American swimmer for the USC Trojans swimming and diving team from 1974 to 1977. He graduated in 1977 with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and was a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi. In 1977, he was the first swimmer ever to crack 20 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle, at 19.70. He held USC's record for 50-yard freestyle until the 2006–2007 season, and has the third fastest 100-yard freestyle and sixth-fastest 100-yard butterfly times in school history. He won five NCAA individual and 4 relay titles with the Trojans. He was the captain of the 1977 Trojans swim team. Known for an easygoing personality, Bottom was a fierce competitor during meets. At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Bottom won the silver medal in the 100-meter butterfly and came in sixth in the 100-meter freestyle. He also won a gold medal as a member of the 4×100-meter medley relay team, swimming in the qualifying round. At the prime of his career, he was unable to compete at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow due to the U.S. boycott. During the inaugural, 1973 World Aquatics Championships in Belgrade, Bottom took silver in the 100-meter butterfly and gold in both the 4×100-meter freestyle and 4×100-meter medley relay events. At the 1978 World Championships in Berlin he took gold in the 100-meter butterfly as well as the 4×100-meter medley relay. He won nine U.S. national championships between 1974 and 1980. On August 27, 1977, at the East Germany-United States dual meet in East Berlin, Bottom broke Mark Spitz's five-year-old 100-meter butterfly world record with a time of 54.18 seconds. The night before the record-setting race, Bottom suffered from insomnia and took a sleeping pill only to oversleep and miss his usual pre-race warmup swim; incredibly, he broke Spitz's record anyway. He was also a part of the team that set the new 4×100-meter freestyle relay world record on September 1, 1974. In 2007, Bottom was inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame; several of his records set at USC remain unbroken. He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2006. Bottom currently resides in Chico, California, where he is a management consultant and serving as Senior Manager in Accenture's Marketing Sciences Practice within the Retail Products Industry. His younger brother, Mike Bottom, also swam at USC where he was a three-time All-American (1975–77); Mike is currently one of the world's top sprint coaches and coaches the University of Michigan swim team. See also List of Olympic medalists in swimming (men) List of University of Southern California people List of World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming (men) World record progression 50 metres freestyle World record progression 100 metres butterfly World record progression 4 × 100 metres freestyle relay World record progression 4 × 100 metres medley relay References External links Joe Bottom (USA) – Honor Swimmer profile at International Swimming Hall of Fame 1955 births Living people American male butterfly swimmers American male freestyle swimmers World record setters in swimming Olympic silver medalists for the United States in swimming Olympic gold medalists for the United States in swimming Sportspeople from Santa Clara, California Swimmers from Akron, Ohio Swimmers at the 1976 Summer Olympics USC Trojans men's swimmers World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming Medalists at the 1976 Summer Olympics

13029009

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectaco

Ectaco

ECTACO Inc. (East-Coast Trading American Company Incorporated) is a US-based developer and manufacturer of hardware and software products for speech recognition and electronic translation. They also make jetBook eBook readers. Speech recognition technologies ECTACO is one of the first developers of speech recognition technologies in the field of electronic translation. The speech recognition technologies developed by ECTACO in cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are used by such international organizations as NATO, United Nations and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), such state institutions of the US as United States Army, FBI, United States Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, United States Secret Service, Department of Health Services, United States Postal Service, New York Hospitals etc. The cooperation with US institutions was especially active in 2004-2006. ECTACO devices were also used in the War in Iraq. The speech recognition system developed by ECTACO allowed troops as well as other US governmental institutions to communicate with non-English-speaking communities, especially in conflict regions. The technology made it possible to translate not only the outgoing message but the incoming one as well, with no dependence of the quality of the translation on the speech particularities of an individual speaker – a service not provided by other companies in the segment of the time. Founding ECTACO was founded in autumn of 1989 in New York, USA, by David Lubinitsky, who was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The company was functioning at that time mainly as a reseller of electronic dictionaries of other manufacturers. In 1990 ECTACO started to develop its own hardware and software. Russian- and Polish-speaking immigrants in the USA became the primary commercial target group for the products of the company. The first electronic dictionaries of ECTACO supported translation between Russian ↔ English, Polish ↔ English and later German ↔ English language pairs. Developing centers In 1998 a software developing center of ECTACO was opened in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The center developed software for app. 300 models with support of 47 languages and started to develop speech recognition software in 2000. The first commercial device of ECTACO with speech recognition appeared on the market in 2002. With cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency the company launched production of the first multi-lingual translation device with ASR (Advanced Speech Recognition). The hardware developing center of ECTACO is located in Hong-Kong. World presence The headquarters of ECTACO are located in Long Island City, New York. In 1993 ECTACO opened a local representation in Russia (Saint Petersburg and Moscow). Within the next 2 years offices were opened in Germany (Berlin), Great Britain (London), the Czech Republic (Prague), Canada (Toronto), Poland (Warsaw) and Ukraine (Kiev). In 2000 a second US office was opened in Chicago. Brands Ectaco has several brands which it uses to break its products into categories. iTravl - is aimed at travelers and features multiple languages and speech recognition. Lingvosoft - encompasses all the translation software available from Ectaco and is available for multiple platforms including Windows, Palm OS, and Pocket PC. Partner - this brand houses a general purpose translation dictionary which targets business users and language learners. SpeechGuard - is the brand used to market devices to military, police and other government agencies. JetBook - a range of eBook readers. References External links ECTACO Inc. – Global Headquarters JetBooks on the ECTACO Website JetBook Website Lowering the Language Barrier Forbes.com Russia Takes Advantage of Brain Power at Home International Herald Tribune Palm Reading Goes Educational Wired.com Handheld Translator Also Sends E-Mail Pcworld.com CES blitz: Work and playthings CNN Speech-to-speech translation system with user-modifiable paraphrasing grammars Patent Storm ECTACO clients SpeechGuard Handheld Language Translation Law & Order Magazine Air Force Dual-Use Science & Technology Two-Way Voice-to-Voice Translator Air Force Research Laboratory (PDF-Datei; 524 kB) Companies established in 1989 Companies based in New York (state)

37245791

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco%20ASA

Cisco ASA

In computer networking, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances, or simply Cisco ASA, is Cisco's line of network security devices introduced in May 2005, that succeeded three existing lines of popular Cisco products: Cisco PIX, which provided firewall and network address translation (NAT) functions ended sale on 28 July 2008. Cisco IPS 4200 Series, which worked as intrusion prevention systems (IPS). Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrators, which provided virtual private networking (VPN). The Cisco ASA is a unified threat management device, combining several network security functions in one box. Reception and criticism Cisco ASA has become one of the most widely used firewall/VPN solutions for small to medium businesses. Early reviews indicated the Cisco GUI tools for managing the device were lacking. A security flaw was identified when users customized the Clientless SSL VPN option of their ASA's but was rectified in 2015. Another flaw in a WebVPN feature was fixed in 2018. In 2017 The Shadow Brokers revealed the existence of two privilege escalation exploits against the ASA called EPICBANANA and EXTRABACON. A code insertion implant called BANANAGLEE, was made persistent by JETPLOW. Features The 5506W-X has a WiFi point included. Architecture The ASA software is based on Linux. It runs a single Executable and Linkable Format program called lina. This schedules processes internally rather than using the Linux facilities. In the boot sequence a boot loader called ROMMON (ROM monitor) starts, loads a Linux kernel, which then loads the lina_monitor, which then loads lina. The ROMMON also has a command line that can be used to load or select other software images and configurations. The names of firmware files includes a version indicator, -smp means it is for a symmetrical multiprocessor (and 64 bit architecture), and different parts also indicate if 3DES or AES is supported or not. The ASA software has a similar interface to the Cisco IOS software on routers. There is a command line interface (CLI) that can be used to query operate or configure the device. In config mode the configuration statements are entered. The configuration is initially in memory as a running-config but would normally be saved to flash memory. Options The 5512-X, 5515-X, 5525-X, 5545-X and 5555-X can have an extra interface card added. The 5585-X has options for SSP. SSP stands for security services processor. These range in processing power by a factor of 10, from SSP-10 SSP-20, SSP-40 and SSP-60. The ASA 5585-X has a slot for an I/O module. This slot can be subdivided into two half width modules. On the low end models, some features are limited, and uncrippling happens with installation of a Security Plus License. This enables more VLANs, or VPN peers, and also high availability. Cisco AnyConnect is an extra licensable feature which operates IPSec or SSL tunnels to clients on PCs, iPhones or iPads. Models The 5505 introduced in 2010 was a desktop unit designed for small enterprises or branch offices. It included features to reduce the need for other equipment, such as an inbuilt switch, and power over Ethernet ports. The 5585-X is a higher powered unit for datacenters introduced in 2010. It runs in 32 bit mode on an Intel architecture Atom chip. Cisco determined that most of the low end devices had too little capacity to include the features needed, such as anti-virus, or sandboxing, and so introduced a new line called next generation firewall. These run in 64 bit mode. Models as of 2018. References External links Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances Cisco TAC Security Podcast - ASA troubleshooting information Server appliance Lua (programming language)-scriptable hardware Cisco products Computer network security

180606

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Animatrix

The Animatrix

is a 2003 adult animated science fiction anthology film produced by the Wachowskis. The film details through nine animated short films the backstory of The Matrix film series, including the original war between humanity and machines which led to the creation of the titular Matrix, in addition to providing side stories that expand the universe and tie into the film series. Since the anthology's release, multiple franchises have partaken in similar projects over the years. The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Plot summary The Second Renaissance Part I In the mid twenty-first century, humanity falls victim to its vanity and corruption. They develop artificial intelligence, and soon build an entire race of sentient AI robots to serve them. Many of the robots are domestic servants meant to interact with humans, so they are built in "man's own image" (in a humanoid form). With increasing numbers of people released from all labor, much of the human population has become slothful, conceited, and corrupt. Despite this, the machines were content with serving humanity. The relationship between humans and machines changes in the year 2090, when a domestic android is threatened by its owner. The android, named B1-66ER kills its owner, his pets, and a mechanic instructed to deactivate the robot, the first incident of an artificially intelligent machine killing a human. B1-66ER is arrested and put on trial, but justifies the crime as self-defense, stating that it "simply did not want to die". During the trial scene, a voice-over of the defense attorney Clarence Drummond (whose name is a dual reference to Clarence Darrow and Henry Drummond from Inherit the Wind) quoting a famous line from the Dred Scott v. Sandford case in his closing statement, which implicitly ruled that African Americans were not entitled to citizenship under United States law: Using this as a precedent, the prosecution argues that machines are not entitled to the same rights as human beings, and that human beings have a right to destroy their property, while the defense urges the listener not to repeat history, and to judge B1-66ER as a human and not a machine. B1-66ER loses the court case and is destroyed. Across the industrialized world, mass civil disturbances erupt when robots, along with their human supporters and sympathizers, rise in protest. Rioting and protests such as The Million Machine March unfold across the United States and Europe, and the authorities use deadly force against the machines and their human supporters. Fearing a robot rebellion, governments across the world launch a mass purge to destroy all robots (and their human sympathizers). Millions of robots and their supporters are destroyed, but the survivors lead a mass exodus to their own new nation in the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia (specifically, in the open desert). They name their new nation Zero One (a reference to "01", the numerals used in binary notation). Zero One prospers, and following the concept of the Technological singularity, its technological sophistication increases exponentially. The Machines begin to produce efficient, highly advanced artificial intelligence that finds itself in all facets of global consumer products, which further bolsters the fledgling nation's economy, while the human nations' economies suffer severely. Eventually, the entire global industrial base becomes concentrated in Zero One, leading to a global stock market crash. The United Nations Security Council calls an emergency summit at the UN headquarters in New York City to discuss an embargo and military blockade of Zero One. Zero One sends two ambassadors to the UN (which has become the unified world government) to request the admission of their state to the United Nations to peacefully solve the crisis, but their application is rejected and the world's nations agree to start the blockade of Zero One. The Second Renaissance Part II The United Nations dispatch their aircraft to unleash a massive nuclear bombardment on Zero One, devastating the nation but failing to wipe out the robotic race as the machines, unlike their former masters, were much less harmed by the radiation and heat. Shortly after, Zero One retaliates by declaring war on the rest of the world; one by one, mankind surrenders each of its territories. As the machines advance into Eastern Europe, the desperate human leaders seek a final solution, codenamed "Operation Dark Storm", which covers the sky in a shroud of nanites, blocking out the sun to deprive the machines of solar energy, their primary energy source; inevitably, it also initiates a worldwide famine and total collapse of the biosphere. Operation Dark Storm commences as hoverpad-powered planes scorched the skies all across the world, while united armies of humankind launch a massive ground offensive against the machines armed with powerful mech suits, laser beam weapons, EMP-armed cannons and tanks, neutron bombs, and countless rocket artillery. For a time, the tide of the war swings back in the humans' favor, and many of the older generations of humanoid robots are destroyed. Before long, however, the humans' advance stalls, hampered by the fact that Operation Dark Storm also took its toll on the attacking human armies. As the older humanoid robot models perish in the war, the machines gradually remodel themselves to appear more like the insectile, arachnid-like, and cephalopod-like Sentinels of the Matrix films – as the machines now reject the very image of their former masters. As the apocalyptic war drags on, the human military leaders act recklessly by detonating nuclear weapons over their own forces as they are overwhelmed by the new models of machines. The machines responded by launching a mass campaign of biological warfare. While the machines had initially suffered an energy shortage after being cut off from solar power, they eventually developed a revolutionary new form of fusion - coupled with the activation energy from the bio-electricity of captured humans. The machines start deploying humongous hive-like motherships embedded with captured human POWs, using their bio-electricity to power devastating energy weapons and serve as a power source for the machines. Humanity's wide EMP arsenal goes offline as their sources of power are utterly exhausted. In total desperation, the remaining human armies adopt guerrilla warfare and close-quarter tactics in order to avoid being vaporized by the overwhelming barrages of human-powered machine armada. However, this strategy inevitably backfires as the machine legions (sentinels and harvesters) were re-programmed to hunt and capture humans at all cost, and so the last years of the war turn into a vicious hunting frenzy in which the machines brutally subdue and capture humans wherever they are found. At the same time, the machines begin to construct skyscrapers filled with conscious human prisoners as well as experimenting on the prisoner's mental, behavioural, and psychological faculties whilst also painfully forcing them into simulated realities. The last of the human resistance succumb to the incurable plagues previously unleashed by the machines. Gradually overwhelmed, the few remaining human government leaders realize they have no choice but to surrender or risk extinction. At the United Nations headquarters, the representative of Zero One signs the terms of surrender and states "Your flesh is a relic, a mere vessel. Hand over your flesh, and a new world awaits you. We demand it." Then, the Zero One representative detonates a hidden thermonuclear bomb within itself and destroys the headquarters, New York City, and the last of humanity's leadership. The machines achieve a total victory, though only after heavy cost and leaving them masters of a burnt-out husk of a world. With the war ended, they turn to the defeated humans – refining the technology from their bio-electric tanks to build massive power plants in which humans are essentially turned into living batteries. To keep their prisoners sedated, the machines create the computer-generated virtual reality of the Matrix, feeding the virtual world into the prisoners' brains and erasing the memories of their former lives, thus the first Matrix prototype was made. Program Program follows the protagonist, Cis (Hedy Burress), who is engaged in her favorite training simulation: a battle program set in feudal Japan. After she successfully eliminates an attacking enemy cavalry while playing as a samurai woman, a lone, male samurai appears whom Cis recognizes as Duo (Phil LaMarr). Initially, the two duel as allies, testing one another's fighting abilities. During the course of their duel, Duo briefly disarms Cis. He questions her concentration and wonders whether she regrets taking the Red Pill that took them out of the "peaceful life of the virtual world". They continue fighting until she finally overpowers Duo. It is at this point that Duo states that he has something to say and that he has blocked the signal so that the operator does not listen. She assumes that he wants to propose marriage, but instead he desires to return to the Matrix and wants Cis to come with him. When Cis believes he is teasing, Duo says he's serious and states that he has contacted the machines and it is the only way to find peace before it is too late. He urges Cis to return with him, but she refuses. Duo becomes more aggressive in his arguments, saying that he does not care about the truth anymore and how they live their lives is important because what is real does not matter. As Cis becomes incredulous, their battle becomes more serious and forceful and they both end up on a rooftop. When Duo reiterates that the machines are on their way, Cis believes he has betrayed the humans and she tries to escape and requests an operator in order to exit the simulation, but Duo reminds her that no one can hear her. When he offers her to come with him again, she refuses again and Duo, in a flying leap, tries to attack her. As the blade comes towards her, Cis, standing her ground, concentrates and catches the sword and breaks it. She takes the broken end of the blade and kills Duo. Duo states his love for her as he dies. Suddenly, she wakes from the program and discovers that the encounter with Duo was a test program devised for training purposes. A man named Kaiser (John DiMaggio) assures her that she acted appropriately during the test and met the test's targets. Clearly upset that Duo wasn't real, she punches him in the face and walks away. He remarks that "aside from that last part", she passed the test. Cis made her first appearance as an image in The Matrix Revisited. World Record The beginning of this short includes a short narration from the Instructor (implying that this short is a Zion Archive file) explaining details behind the discovery of the Matrix by "plugged-in" humans. Only exceptional humans tend to become aware of the Matrix, those who have "a rare degree of intuition, sensitivity, and a questioning nature", all qualities which are used to identify inconsistencies in the Matrix. This is not without exceptions, given that "some attain this wisdom through wholly different means." The story is about Dan Davis, a track athlete, who is competing in the 100 m in the Summer Olympic Games. He has set a world record time of 8.99 seconds, but his subsequent gold medal was revoked due to drug use. He decides to compete again and break his own record to "prove them wrong." Despite support from his father and a young reporter, Dan's trainer tells him that he is physically unfit to race and that pushing himself too hard will cause a career-ending injury. Dan is adamant on racing. On the day of the race, he is monitored by four Agents in the stadium. The race begins and Dan starts off strong. However, the muscles in his leg violently rupture, putting him at a setback and scaring many of the people in the stands. Through strong willpower, Dan ignores the injury and runs much faster than he did before, easily passing the other athletes. Before he can cross the finish line, the Agents detect that his "signal" is getting unstable in the Matrix due to his massive burst of energy. Three of the agents possess the three closest runners and try to stop him, but are unable to catch up to him. The burst of energy causes Dan to be unplugged from the Matrix and wake up in his power-station pod, where he sees the real world through his pod. A Sentinel employs electrical restraints to secure him back in his pod. Dan's mind is thrown back into the Matrix, where his body is instantly exhausted from the race and Dan tumbles to the ground at high speed. Despite this, he easily wins the race and breaks his original time of 8.99 seconds with a time of 8.72 seconds. The next scene shows a crippled Dan being wheeled through a hospital. A nearby Agent calls his other agents to tell them that they erased Dan's memory of the race and that he will never walk again, nor be an issue for them. However, Dan whispers the word "Free", angering the agent. Dan then stands, breaking the metal screws that bind his restraints to his wheelchair, and takes a few steps before falling down and being helped up by a nurse. Kid's Story Kid's Story is the only one of the animated shorts contained in The Animatrix in which Neo (Keanu Reeves) appears. The story takes place during the six-month gap between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded, where Neo has joined the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar and is helping the rebels free other humans from the Matrix. Kid (Clayton Watson), who was formerly known as Michael Karl Popper, is a disaffected teenager who feels there is something wrong with the world. One night, the Kid goes on his computer and onto a hacker chat room on the Internet, asking why it feels more real when he's dreaming than when he's awake. He gets a response from an unknown person (presumably Neo) and then he asks who it is and if he is alone. The next day, he is at school, where he absent-mindedly scribbles Neo and Trinity's name and writes "get me out of here" in his notebook. He receives a call from Neo on his cell phone, who warns him that a group of Agents is coming for him and he gets chased throughout the high school, before ultimately getting cornered on the roof. He asserts his faith in Neo and throws himself off the roof. At the Kid's funeral, among the people is his teacher, who converses with another school staff member and says that the world they live in is not real and the real world is somewhere else. He also says that reality can be scary and the world must have been a harmful place for the Kid and he is now in a better world. The next scene fades out as the Kid awakens in the real world to see Neo and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) watching over him. They remark that he has achieved "self substantiation" (removing oneself from the Matrix without external aid), which was considered impossible. In both the scene and The Matrix Reloaded, the Kid believes that it was Neo who saved him, but Neo says that he saved himself. The last scene shows the Kid's last question on the hacker chat room being answered with "You are not alone." Beyond Beyond follows a teenage girl, Yoko (Hedy Burress), looking for her cat Yuki. While asking around the neighborhood, which is somewhere in Mega City that resembles Japan, she meets a group of young boys. One of them tells her that Yuki is inside a nearby haunted house where they usually play. The haunted house is an old run-down building filled with an amalgamation of anomalies, which are revealed to be glitches in the Matrix, that the children have stumbled across. They have learned to exploit them for their own enjoyment, through several areas which seem to defy real-world physics. The boys play with glass bottles that reassemble after being shattered and they go into a large open space in the middle of the building that has a zero gravity effect. Meanwhile, as Yoko searches for Yuki throughout the building, she encounters some anomalies on her own. She goes through an area where broken lightbulbs flicker briefly (during which they seem intact), walks into a room where rain is falling from a sunny sky and goes down a hallway where a gust of wind appears and disappears. She finally finds Yuki outside on a concrete pavement where she sees shadows that do not align with their physical origins. Yoko then joins the boys in the open space, where she sees a dove feather rotating rapidly in mid-air and experiences the zero gravity as she falls to the ground slowly and safely. She and the boys start using the zero gravity force to float, jump high and do athletic stunts all in mid-air and can also land and fall without hitting the ground hard. Despite the inherent strangeness of the place, the group is not bothered as they enjoy themselves and the mysterious anomaly that proves to be amusing. Throughout the film, brief sequences show that Agents are aware of the problem in the Matrix, and a truck is seen driving toward the site to presumably deal with the problem. It arrives just as the children are having trouble with a large group of rats and an Agent-led team of rodent exterminators emerges from the truck. In the building, when Yoko finds a missing Yuki again, she sees one last anomaly where she opens a door that leads into an endless dark void before being found by the exterminators. The team clears everybody out of the building. The story ends when Yoko returns to the area the next day and finds the site turned into an unremarkable parking lot. She sees the boys unsuccessfully attempting to recreate the bizarre occurrences of the day before and going in search of something else to do. A Detective Story Set in a dystopian future, the story follows a private detective, Ash (James Arnold Taylor), who dreamed of following the steps of hard-boiled characters Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe but is a down-on-his-luck detective. One day, he receives an anonymous phone call to search for a hacker going by the alias "Trinity" (Carrie-Anne Moss). Ash starts looking for Trinity and learns that other detectives have failed in the same task before him; one committed suicide, one went missing, and one went insane. Eventually, Ash finds Trinity after deducing that he should communicate using phrases and facts from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She proposes a meeting and he finds her on a passenger train. When he meets her, she removes a "bug" from his eye, planted by Agents earlier in an "eye exam," which Ash previously thought was a dream. Three Agents appear and attempt to apprehend Trinity in a shoot-out with her and Ash. While the two are trying to escape, an Agent attempts to take over Ash's body, forcing Trinity to shoot him in order to prevent the Agent from appearing. Ash is wounded, whereupon he and Trinity amicably bid farewell. Trinity tells Ash that she thinks he could have handled the truth as she jumps out of a window and escapes. The Agents enter the car to find Ash, who points his gun at them while looking in the other direction and lighting a cigarette. The Agents turn to Ash who, even though he is armed, will likely die. With this apparent no-win situation, the film ends with Ash's line, "A case to end all cases," as his lighter flame goes out. Matriculated The film deals with a group of above-ground human rebels who lure hostile machines to their laboratory in order to capture them and insert them into a "matrix" of their own design. Within this matrix, the humans attempt to teach the captured machines some of the positive traits of humanity, primarily compassion and empathy. The rebels' hope is that, once converted of its own volition (a key point discussed in the film), an "enlightened" machine will assist Zion in its struggle against the machine-controlled totalitarianism which currently dominates the Earth. The film starts with a human woman Alexa (Melinda Clarke) looking out over the sea, watching for incoming machines, where she sees two "runners," one of the most intelligent robots, approaching. She leads them into the laboratory, where one runner gets killed by a reprogramed robot, but the second runner kills the robot before Alexa electrocutes it. The rebels insert the runner into their matrix. The robot experiences moments of mystery, horror, wonder and excitement, leading it to believe it may have an emotional bond with Alexa. However, the laboratory is attacked by Sentinel reinforcements. The rebels unplug themselves to defend their headquarters, along with the help of other captured machines (indicated by the machine's mechanical eyes changing from red to green). Alexa unplugs the runner that has now turned good, where it saves her from a machine. The rebels and the attacking machines are all killed or destroyed, except for the runner. The robot plugs the dying Alexa and itself into the rebels' matrix. When Alexa realizes that she is trapped inside of the matrix with the runner, she is horrified and her avatar screams and dissolves as the runner exits from the rebels' matrix to see a dead Alexa in front of him in the real world. The film ends with the "converted" runner standing outside, looking out over the sea, in a replica of the opening shot with Alexa. Final Flight of the Osiris Captain Thadeus (Kevin Michael Richardson) and Jue (Pamela Adlon) engage in a blindfolded sword fight in a virtual reality dojo. With each slice of their swords, they remove another part of each other's clothing. Immediately after cutting the other down to their underwear, they lift their blindfolds to peek at the other. As the two are about to kiss, they are interrupted by an alarm and the simulation ends. In the next scene, the hovercraft Osiris heads for Junction 21 when operator Robbie (Tom Kenny) discovers an army of Sentinels on his HR scans. The ship flees into an uncharted tunnel, where it encounters a small group of Sentinels patrolling the area. The crew members man the onboard guns and destroy the patrol. The ship emerges on the surface, four kilometers directly above Zion and close to the Sentinel army. Thadeus and Jue see that the Machines are using gigantic drills to tunnel their way down to Zion. The Sentinel army detects the Osiris and pursues the ship. Thadeus says that Zion must be warned, and Jue volunteers to broadcast herself into the Matrix to deliver the warning while the ship is doggedly pursued. Knowing that they are not going to make it, Thadeus and Jue admit to each other about peeking in the simulation before kissing farewell. Entering the Matrix, Jue eventually reaches a mail box where she drops off a package; this sets the prologue for the video game Enter the Matrix. She attempts to contact Thadeus via cell phone as the Osiris is overrun by Sentinels and crashes. The Sentinels tear their way into the ship, where Thadeus makes a last stand against the Sentinels. Shortly after Jue says "Thadeus" over her cell phone, the Osiris explodes, destroying many of the Sentinels and killing the crew. In the Matrix, Jue falls dead to the ground, due to her body being destroyed on the ship. Credits Cast Staff Production Development of the Animatrix project began when the film series' writers and directors, The Wachowskis, were in Japan promoting the first Matrix film. While in the country, they visited some of the creators of the anime films that had been a strong influence on their work, and decided to collaborate with them. The Animatrix was conceived and overseen by the Wachowskis, but they only wrote four of the segments themselves and did not direct any of their animation; most of the project's technical side was overseen by notable figures from the world of Japanese animation. The English language version of The Animatrix was directed by Jack Fletcher, who brought on board the project the voice actors who provided the voices for the English version of Square Enix's Final Fantasy X, including Matt McKenzie, James Arnold Taylor, John DiMaggio, Tara Strong, Hedy Burress, and Dwight Schultz. The English version also features the voices of Victor Williams, Melinda Clarke, Olivia d'Abo, Pamela Adlon, and Kevin Michael Richardson. The characters Neo, Trinity, and Kid also appear, with their voices provided by their original actors, Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Clayton Watson. Music The soundtrack was composed by Don Davis. Several electronic music artists are featured, including Juno Reactor and Adam Freeland. Release Four of the films were originally released on the series' official website; one (Final Flight of the Osiris) was shown in cinemas with the film Dreamcatcher. The others first appeared with the VHS and DVD release of all nine shorts on June 3, 2003. The DVD also includes the following special features: A documentary on Japanese animation. The on-screen title is Scrolls to Screen: A Brief History of Anime, but in the DVD menu and packaging, and on the series' official website, it is referred to as Scrolls to Screen: The History and Culture of Anime. Seven featurettes with director profiles, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage of each of the films. Audio commentaries on World Record, Program, and both parts of The Second Renaissance. A trailer for the video game Enter the Matrix. Shortly after the home video release, the film was exhibited on June 14, 2003, in New York City at the New York-Tokyo Film Festival It was broadcast on Adult Swim on April 17, 2004 (to promote the DVD release of The Matrix: Revolutions) and again on its Toonami programming block on December 19, 2021 (to promote The Matrix: Resurrections) (albeit with edits done to remove nudity and gory violence in The Second Renaissance, parts I and II), and has received airplay on Teletoon several months after its American broadcast. In the UK, Final Flight of the Osiris was broadcast on Channel 5 just before the DVD release, along with The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2, Kid's Story and World Record broadcast after the DVD release. In May 2006, The Animatrix was aired in Latin America and in Spain by Cartoon Network on Toonami. The Animatrix was also screened in select cinemas around the world for a short period of time, a week or two before the sequel The Matrix Reloaded, as a promotional event. One day before the release of The Matrix Reloaded on cinemas, the Brazilian television channel SBT aired Final Flight of the Osiris after airing The Matrix to promote the film. The same thing happened with French television channel France 2. The cinema release order for The Animatrix (at least in Australia), and its sequencing in a subsequent release on HBO Max, differed from the DVD release, placing the Final Flight of the Osiris last instead of first. The cinema release-order: The Second Renaissance, Part I (June 3, 2003) The Second Renaissance, Part II (June 7, 2003) Kid's Story (June 14, 2003) Program (June 21, 2003) World Record (July 5, 2003) Beyond (July 12, 2003) A Detective Story (August 30, 2003) Matriculated (September 20, 2003) Final Flight of the Osiris (September 27, 2003) To coincide with the Blu-ray edition of The Ultimate Matrix Collection, The Animatrix was also presented for the first time in high definition. The film was released along with the trilogy on October 14, 2008. Reception The Animatrix sold 2.7million copies, grossing in sales revenue. The Animatrix received mostly positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 89%, based on reviews from 18 critics. Helen McCarthy in 500 Essential Anime Movies stated that "unlike many heavily promoted franchise movies, it justifies its hype". She praised Maeda's Second Renaissance, noting that it "foreshadows the dazzling visual inventiveness of his later Gankutsuou". Notes and references External links The Matrix (franchise) films 2003 films 2003 anime films 2003 animated films 2000s American animated films 2000s dystopian films 2000s English-language films 2003 science fiction films Adult animated science fiction films American adult animated films American films American anthology films Animated cyberpunk films Direct-to-video sequel films Direct-to-video prequel films Direct-to-video interquel films Drone films Japanese-language films Films scored by Don Davis (composer) Films about slavery Films about telepresence Films set in the 2090s Films directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri Films directed by Mahiro Maeda Films directed by Kōji Morimoto Films directed by Shinichirō Watanabe Films about the United Nations Anime-influenced Western animation Flying cars in fiction Package films Madhouse (company) Films with screenplays by The Wachowskis Studio 4°C Village Roadshow Pictures animated films Warner Bros. direct-to-video animated films Films produced by The Wachowskis Transgender-related films Adult animated films Toonami Films directed by Peter Chung

27118229

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan%20Leigh%20Star

Susan Leigh Star

Susan Leigh Star (1954–2010) was an American sociologist. She specialized in the study of information in modern society; information worlds; information infrastructure; classification and standardization; sociology of science; sociology of work and the history of science, medicine, technology, and communication/information systems. She commonly used the qualitative methods methodology and feminist theory approach. She was also known for developing the concept of boundary objects and for contributions to computer-supported cooperative work. Biography Life and education Star grew up in a rural working class area of Rhode Island. Her family was of Jewish, English, and Scottish descent and she describes herself as "half-Jewish". Starved for philosophy she befriended an ex-nun during high school and eventually obtained a scholarship to Radcliffe College where she began taking philosophy classes. Not fitting in and deterred from taking a Religion degree, Star dropped out, married and moved to Venezuela where she co-founded an organic commune. It was here that Star asked many of the questions that formed the basis of her research. Her work is guided by interests in both technology and feminism, and it was during this time that the women's movement and Kate Millett's Sexual Politics inspired her to ask questions about technology and the effects that both good and bad technology have on oneself and on the world. Star later returned to school and graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe in 1976 with a degree in Psychology and Social Relations. She then moved to California and began graduate school in the philosophy of education at Stanford University. The program was not the right fit and she pursued her graduate education in sociology at the University of California. She completed her dissertation, under Anselm Strauss, in 1983. She became interested in computer science while studying the decision-making process of the scientific community as a metaphor for artificial intelligence with Carl Hewitt. From 2004 to 2009 she held a position as a professor at the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University. In 2010, she died in her sleep of unknown causes. At the time, she held the Doreen Boyce Chair at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences and was authoring the book "This is Not a Boundary Object" with her husband, Geoffrey Bowker. Academic work From 1987 to 1990, Star was an assistant professor at UC Irvine's Department of Information and Computer Science. She taught a variety of subjects including: social analysis of technology and organizations, computers and society, research methods and gender and technology. In 1987-1988 Star held a fellowship at Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation in Paris and worked with Bruno Latour and Michel Callon. They worked on French/American approaches to technology and science. After Irvine, Star held a Senior Lectureship and the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Keele. In 1992, Star and partner Geoff Bowker went to the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Illinois until 1999. After leaving the University of Illinois, they moved back to California and into the Department of Communication at the University of California San Diego where they remained until 2004. Star and Bowker moved north in 2004 and worked at Santa Clara University's Center for Science, Technology and Society. In 2009 they moved to the University of Pittsburgh's School of Information Sciences, where Star was awarded the Doreen Boyce Chair. In addition, she has been an invited speaker at many universities and industrial firms, such as: Harvard, MIT and Xerox PARC. She was also co-Editor-in-Chief of Science, Technology, and Human Values and was president of the Society for the Social Studies of Science from 2005 to 2007. Star has been particularly influential in the area of information infrastructure, frequently noting that although the study of infrastructure often entails examining things that seem commonplace, those everyday items have widespread consequences for humans and human interaction. Star has worked to develop ways of understanding how people communicate about infrastructure, and has helped develop research methods aimed to examine the role infrastructure plays in mediated human activities. But her work extends far beyond the realm of information infrastructure. Star's interest in the connection between technology and lived experience led her to work in a wide array of disciplines, including library sciences, computer sciences, neuroscience, philosophy and women's studies. Boundary objects In the article “Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39”, Star and her co-author Griesemer introduce the concept of boundary objects. In this article, Star and Griesemer analyze the formative years of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology by expanding the model of interessement developed by Latour and Callon, to form their concept of boundary objects. Star and Griesmer initially defined boundary objects as “objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites...The objects may by abstract or concrete.” For the purpose of this article, Star and Griesmer defined four kinds of boundary objects: “repositories, ideal types, coincident boundaries and standardized forms,” however Star later commented that she never intended this to be a comprehensive list; rather she imagined the article as starting “a kind of catalog of some of the characteristics of boundary objects”. Bibliography Books and journal special issues Linden, Robin Ruth, Darlene R. Pagano, Diana E. H. Russell, Susan Leigh Star. (1982). Against sadomasochism: A radical feminist analysis. Frog in the Well. Star, Susan Leigh. (1984). Zone of the free radicals. Berkeley, CA: Running Deer Press. Star, Susan Leigh, Guest ed. (1988). Introduction: The Sociology of Science and Technology Special Issue: Sociology of Science and Technology. Social Problems 35. Star, Susan Leigh. (1989). Regions of the mind: Brain research and the quest for scientific certainty. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Preface and Chapter 1, ix-37. Star, Susan Leigh, ed. (1995)a. Ecologies of knowledge: Work and politics in science and technology. Albany NY: SUNY Press. Star, Susan Leigh, ed. (1995)b. The cultures of computing. Sociological Review Monograph. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Star, Susan Leigh, Guest ed. (1995)c. Listening for connections: Introduction to the Symposium on the work of Anselm Strauss. Mind, Culture and Activity. Bowker, Geoffrey, Susan Leigh Star, William Turner, and Les Gasser, eds. (1997). Social science, information systems and cooperative work: Beyond the great divide. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Clarke, Adele E., and Susan Leigh Star, Guest eds. (1998). On coming home and intellectual generosity. Introduction to Anselm Strauss Memorial Issue. Symbolic Interaction 21:341-464. Star, Susan Leigh, and Geoffrey Bowker, eds. (1998). Special Issue: How classifications work: Problems and challenges in an electronic age. Library Trends 47:185–340. Star, Susan Leigh, Guest ed. (2000). Introduction: Making music with cases: Improvisation and the work of Howard Becker. Mind, Culture and Activity 7:167-70. Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Leigh Star. (2000). Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lampland, Martha, and Susan Leigh Star, eds. (2009). Standards and their stories: How quantifying, classifying and formalizing practices shape everyday life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (2010). This is not a boundary object: Reflections on the origin of a concept. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 35(5), 601–617. Key articles and chapters Star, Susan Leigh. (1979)a. The politics of right and left. In Women look at biology looking at women, ed. R. Hubbard, M. S. Henifin, and B. Fried. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman. Star, Susan Leigh. (1979)b. Sex differences and brain asymmetry: Problems, methods and politics in the study of consciousness. In Genes and gender II, ed. M. Lowe and R. Hubbard, 113–30. New York: Gordian Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (1979)c. Feminism and consciousness. Science/ Technology and the Humanities 2:303-8. Star, Susan Leigh. (1981). I want my accent back. Sinister Wisdom 16:20-3. Star, Susan Leigh. (1983). Simplification in scientific work: An example from neuroscience research. Social Studies of Science 13:208-26. Star, Susan Leigh. 1985. Scientific work and uncertainty. Social Studies of Science 15:391-427. Star, Susan Leigh. (1986). Triangulating clinical and basic research: British localizationists, 1870–1906. History of Science XXIV:29- 48. Fujimura, Joan, Susan Leigh Star, and E. Gerson. (1987). Me´thodes de recherche en sociologie des sciences: Travail, pragmatisme et interactionnisme symbolique [Research methods in the sociology of science: Work, pragmatism and symbolic interactionism.]. Cahiers de recherche sociologique 5:65-85. Star, Susan Leigh, and E. M. Gerson. (1987). The management and dynamics of anomalies in scientific work. Sociological Quarterly 28:147-69. Star, Susan Leigh. (1988)a. The structure of ill-structured solutions: Heterogeneous problem-solving, boundary objects and distributed artificial intelligence. In Proceedings of the 8th AAAI Workshop on Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Technical Report, Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California, 1988. Reprinted in Distributed Artificial Intelligence 2, ed. M. Huhns and L. Gasser, 37–54. Menlo Park: Morgan Kauffmann, 1989. Star, Susan Leigh, and James Griesemer. (1989). Institutional ecology, translations, and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Verterbrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science 19:387-420. Reprinted in The Science Studies Reader, ed. M. Biagioli, 505–24. New York: Routledge. Star, Susan Leigh. (1989). Layered space, formal representations and long-distance control: The politics of information. Fundamenta Scientiae 10:125-55. Hornstein, Gail, and Susan Leigh Star. (1990). Universality biases: How theories about human nature succeed. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 20:421-36. Star, Susan Leigh. (1990). What difference does it make where the mind is? Some questions for the history of neuropsychiatry. Journal of Neurology and Clinical Neuropsychology 2:436-43. Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Leigh Star. (1991). Situations vs. Standards in Long-Term, Wide-Scale Decision-Making: The Case of the International Classification of Diseases. Proceedings of the 24th Hawaiian International Conference on Systems Sciences IV, 73–81. Washington, DC: IEEE Computer Society Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (1991)a. Power, technologies and the phenomenology of conventions: On being allergic to onions. In A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination, ed. John Law, 26–56. London: Routledge. Star, Susan Leigh. (1991)b. The sociology of the invisible: The primacy of work in the writings of Anselm Strauss. In Social organization and social process: Essays in honor of Anselm Strauss, ed. David R. Maines, 265–83. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. Star, Susan Leigh. (1991)c. Invisible work and silenced dialogues in representing knowledge. In Women, work and computerization: Understanding and overcoming bias in work and education, ed. I. V. Eriksson, B. A. Kitchenham, and K. G. Tijdens, 81–92. Amsterdam: North Holland. Star, Susan Leigh. (1992)a. Craft vs. commodity, mess vs. transcendence: How the right tools became the wrong one in the case of taxidermy and natural history. In The right tools for the job. At work in the twentieth-century life sciences, ed. Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura, 257–86. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (1992)b. The Trojan door: Organizations, work, and the ‘open black box.’ Systems/Practice 5:395-410. Star, Susan Leigh. (1992)c. The skin, the skull, and the self: Toward a sociology of the brain. In So human a brain: Knowledge and values in the neurosciences, ed. Anne Harrington, 204–28. Boston: Birkhauser. Star, Susan Leigh. (1993). Cooperation without consensus in scientific problem solving: Dynamics of closure in open systems. In CSCW: Cooperation or Conflict?, ed. Steve Easterbrook, 93–105. London: Springer-Verlag. Star, S. Leigh. (1995)a. Epilogue: Work and practice in social studies of science, medicine and technology. Science, Technology, & Human Values 20:501-7. Star, Susan Leigh. (1995)b. The politics of formal representations: Wizards, gurus and organizational complexity. In Ecologies of knowledge: Work and politics in science and technology, ed. Susan Leigh Star, 88–118. Albany: SUNY Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (1996). From Hestia to home page: Feminism and the concept of home in cyberspace. In Between monsters, goddesses and cyborgs: Feminist confrontations with science, medicine and cyberspace, ed. Nina Lykke and Rosi Braidotti, 30–46. London: ZED Books. Reprinted in Oxford readings in feminism: Feminism and cultural studies, ed. Morag Shiach, 565–82. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. Also reprinted in The cybercultures reader, ed. David Bell and Barbara Kennedy, 632–43. London: Routledge, 2000. Star, Susan Leigh, and Karen Ruhleder. (1996). Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: Design and access for large information spaces. Information Systems Research 7:111-34. Reprinted in IT and organizational transformation: History, rhetoric, and practice, ed. JoAnne Yates and John Van Maanen, 305–46. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2001. Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Leigh Star. (1997). Probable`mes de classification et de codage dans la gestion internationale de l’information. In Cognition et information en societe, ed. B. Conein and L. Thevenot, 283–310. Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales Raisons Pratiques, 8. Star, Susan Leigh. (1997)a. The feminisms question in science projects: Queering the infrastructures. In Technology and democracy: Gender, technology and politics in transition? ed. Ingunn Moser and Gro Hanne Aas, 13–22. Oslo: Center for Technology and Culture TMV Skriftserie. Star, Susan Leigh. (1997)b. Working together: Symbolic interactionism, activity theory and information systems. In Communication and cognition at work, ed. Yrjo Engestrom and David Middleton, 296- 318. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Star. Susan Leigh. (1997)c. Anselm Strauss: An appreciation. Sociological Research Online 2. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/ 2/1/1.html. Reprinted in Studies in Symbolic Interaction 21:39-48. Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Leigh Star. (1998). Building information infrastructures for social worlds: The role of classifications and standards. In Community computing and support systems: Social interaction in networked communities, ed. Toru Ishida, 231–48. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Kling, Rob, and Susan Leigh Star. (1998). Human centered systems in the perspective of organizational and social informatics. Computers and Society March:22-9. Star. Susan Leigh. (1998). Experience: The link between science, sociology of science and science education. In Thinking practices, ed. Shelley Goldman and James Greeno, 127–46. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Star, Susan Leigh, and Anselm L. Strauss. (1998). Layers of silence, arenas of voice: The ecology of visible and invisible work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing 8:9-30. Star, Susan Leigh. (1998). Grounded classifications: Grounded theory and faceted classifications. Library Trends 47:218-32. Timmermans, Stefan, Geoffrey Bowker, and Leigh Star. (1998). The architecture of difference: Visibility, controllability, and comparability in building a nursing intervention classification. In Differences in medicine: Unraveling practices, techniques and bodies, ed. Marc Berg and Annamarie Mol, 202–25. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (1999). The ethnography of infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist 43:377-91. Star, Susan Leigh. (2002). Commentary: ‘Betweeness’ in design education. In Computer supported cooperative learning, ed. T. Koschmann, 259–62. Fairfax, VA: TechBooks. Clarke, Adele, and Susan Leigh Star. (2003). Science, technology and medicine studies. In Handbook of symbolic interaction, ed. N. Herman and L. Reynolds, 539–74. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (2003). Computers/information technology and the social study of science and technology. In International encyclopedia of social and behavioral sciences, ed. N. Smelser and P. Baltes. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Star, Susan Leigh. (2004). Infrastructure and ethnographic practice: Working on the fringes. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 14:107-22. Star, Susan Leigh, Geoffrey Bowker, and Laura Neumann. (2004). Transparency beyond the individual level of scale: Convergence between information artifacts and communities of practice. In Digital library use: Social practice in design and evaluation, Ed. Ann P. Bishop, Barbara P. Buttenfield, and Nancy Van House, 241–70. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (2005). Categories and cognition: Material and conceptual aspects of large-scale category systems. In Problems and promises of interdisciplinary collaboration: Perspectives from cognitive science, ed. Sharon Derry and Morton Gernsbacher. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bowker, Geoffrey, and Susan Leigh Star. (2006). Infrastructure. In Handbook of new media and communication, ed. L. Lievrouw and S. Livingstone, 151–62. London: SAGE. Star, Susan Leigh. (2006). Five answers. In Philosophy of technology, ed. Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen and Evan Selinger. Copenhagen: Automatic Press/VIP. E-version. http://www.philosophytechnology.com/ Star, Susan Leigh. 2007a. Living grounded theory: Cognitive and emotional forms of pragmatism. In The SAGE handbook of grounded theory, ed. Anthony Bryant and Kathy Charmaz, 75–94. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Star, Susan Leigh. (2007)b. Interview on The Information Society. Daedalus [in Italian]. Star, Susan Leigh, and Geoffrey Bowker. (2007). Enacting silence— Residual categories as a challenge for ethics, information systems, and communication technology. Ethics and Information Technology 9:273-80. Clarke, Adele E., and Susan Leigh Star. (2008). Social worlds/arenas as a theory-methods package. In Handbook of science and technology studies, 2nd ed, ed. Edward Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch, and Judy Wacjman, 113–37. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Star, Susan Leigh. (2009). Susan's piece: Weaving as method in feminist science studies: The subjective collective. In Special Issue on Feminist Science and Technology Studies: A patchwork of moving subjectivities, ed. Wenda K. Bauschspies and Maria Puig de la Bellacasa. Subjectivity 28:344-46. See also Boundary object Grounded Theory Articulation work References Further reading External links Remembering Leigh, memorial blog 1954 births 2010 deaths American feminists American medical historians American people of English descent Jewish American academics American people of Scottish descent American sociologists Historians of science Radical feminists Sociologists of science Medical sociologists University of Pittsburgh faculty American women sociologists American women historians Radcliffe College alumni University of California alumni Jewish feminists 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women

12577491

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalab

Metalab

The Metalab is a hackerspace in Vienna's central first district. Founded in 2006, it is a meeting place of the Viennese tech community, hosting events from culture festivals to user groups. It has played a catalyst role in the global hackerspace movement and was the birthplace of several internet startup companies. Description Metalab offers space for free exchange of information, and collaboration between technical-creative enthusiasts, hackers, founders and digital artists. Metalab provides infrastructure for projects and offers a physical space for interested people from the fields of IT, new media, digital art, net art and hacker culture. Besides a main room suited for working on laptops or having workshops and presentations, the space incorporates a library room, a lounge featuring a variety of game consoles as well as inbuilt Dance Dance Revolution pads, a workshop/hardware hacking area called 'Whateverlab', a room for heavy machinery, a photography lab or dark room (which also hosts a professional setup for etching PCBs), a kitchen, bathrooms, and a locker room. The whole hackerspace is a non-smoking area. Until 2015 the lounge acted as designated smokers' room but this was changed. Next to self-built machines, furniture and decorations (mostly featuring the use of LEDs), the infrastructure provided to all members as well as externs includes a lathe, a CNC machine, a CAD station, a laser cutter, a RepRap, two Makerbots, electronic measurement tools like oscilloscopes and pattern generators, soldering irons, and other tools needed for electronics development. The main room, library and lounge are all equipped with a projector; several uplinks provide access to the Internet via Gigabit ethernet or Wireless LAN. The core/organization team (composed of volunteers) meets monthly to discuss matters relevant to the hackerspace, like current and future renovation projects and equipment purchases. There are multiple special interest groups, which meet more regularly and often spontaneously. The lab itself is open every day, usually for 24 hours. Every regular member can get a key. Influence Metalab has been source of multiple startups, open source and art projects including Mjam, currently Austria's largest internet food delivery company, Soup.io, a tumblelogging startup, YEurope, which was Europe's first YCombinator inspired startup accelerator, the annual DeepSec Security Conference, Graffiti Research Lab Vienna, the 3D modeling software OpenSCAD and the beginnings of what was later developed into Makerbot at NYC Resistor. It has been host of over 400 events, talks, and workshops. Metalab featured talks and workshops with various personalities from the tech and culture field. The members of the Metalab initiated many digital culture and net art projects in Vienna. Since 2006, the Metalab has been hosting a part of Paraflows, an annual international festival for net cultures and code art. History As one of the first intentionally created Hackerspaces outside of Germany, its creation required the development of financing models and organizational structure that are now used by hackerspaces throughout the world. Its creation was inspired by the Chaos Computer Club and the C-base in Berlin, and in turn marked the beginning of a Hackerspace Revolution that led to the creation of hundreds more Hackerspaces throughout the world. Initially two of Metalab's founders wanted to give Metalab the name KyBase (from Wiener Kybernetischer Kreis, their Hacker Group), but decided to go with Metalab instead to signal openness to any interest seriously pursued and that the new entity would be independent and an environment encompassing a plurality of interests, professions and genders. Their logo depicts a phone booth – old school, public-access technology that has certain mythical qualities in fiction (examples include Dr. Who‘s TARDIS that serves as a gateway into other worlds, and Clark Kent turning into Superman in a phone booth). Metalab keeps an original Austrian Telephone Booth in its main room, that is also transported to wherever the group wants to signal presence at international conventions such as the Chaos Communication Camp in Germany. In the beginning, the group focused on acquiring a physical space. While there had been several meetings in coffee houses, intentionally no social events had been organized before the rental contract was signed because the founding director Paul Böhm wanted to attract an initial group that was focused on getting things done instead of getting stuck in perpetual social meetings. Once the group managed to convince 40 people to sign a non-binding declaration of intent to pay membership dues, and a set of 4 sponsors had been found, the rental contract for the current location was signed. It is a core value of Metalab that operating expenses are always paid exclusively through a broad membership base (currently over 200 dues-paying members). Public funding and sponsoring, in part from the net culture funding budget of the City of Vienna ("Netznetz") and the Austrian Federal Government, have allowed for the expansion and improvement of the space, purchase of equipment, and realization of bigger projects. See also AXIOM (camera) External links Metalab's event calendar Metalab about itself, a submission to the Hackerspaces: The Beginning collaborative book project (not officially published) A collection of articles about Metalab, mostly in German Metalab flickr group Metalab at Hackerspaces.org References Computer clubs Hackerspaces 2006 establishments in Austria Hacker culture

20022743

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National%20Information%20Infrastructure%20Protection%20Act

National Information Infrastructure Protection Act

The National Information Infrastructure Protection Act (; ) was Title II of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, as an amendment to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The Act The Act was enacted in 1996 as an amendment to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It modifies the earlier Code. The text is included in its entirety below. § 1030. Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Computers (a) Whoever (1) having knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, and by means of such conduct having obtained information that has been determined by the United States Government pursuant to an Executive order or statute to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national defense or foreign relations, or any restricted data, as defined in paragraph y. of section 11 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation willfully communicates, delivers, transmits, or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; (2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains– (A) information contained in a financial record of a financial institution, or of a card issuer as defined in section 1602(n) of title 15, or contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency on a consumer, as such terms are defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.); (B) information from any department or agency of the United States; or (C) information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication; (3) intentionally, without authorization to access any nonpublic computer of a department or agency of the United States, accesses such a computer of that department or agency that is exclusively for the use of the Government of the United States or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, is used by or for the Government of the United States and such conduct affects that use by or for the Government of the United States; (4) knowingly and with intent to defraud, accesses a protected computer without authorization, or exceeds authorized access, and by means of such conduct furthers the intended fraud and obtains anything of value, unless the object of the fraud and the thing obtained consists only of the use of the computer and the value of such use is not more than $5,000 in any one-year period; (5) (A) (i) knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer; (ii) intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly causes damage; or (iii) intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage; and (B) by conduct described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of subparagraph (A), caused (or, in the case of an attempted offense, would, if completed, have caused)– (i) loss to one or more persons during any one year period (and, for purposes of an investigation, prosecution, or other proceeding brought by the United States only, loss resulting from a related course of conduct affecting one or more other protected computers) aggregating at least $5,000 in value; (ii) the modification or impairment, or potential modification or impairment, of the medical examination, diagnosis, treatment, or care of one or more individuals; (iii) physical injury to any person; (iv) a threat to public health or safety; or (v) damage affecting a computer system used by or for a government entity in furtherance of the administration of justice, national defense, or national security; (6) knowingly and with intent to defraud traffics (as defined in section 1029) in any password or similar information through which a computer may be accessed without authorization, if (A) such trafficking affects interstate or foreign commerce; or (B) such computer is used by or for the Government of the United States; (7) with intent to extort from any person, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to cause damage to a protected computer; shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section. (b) Whoever attempts to commit an offense under subsection (a) of this section shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section. (c) The punishment for an offense under subsection (a) or (b) of this section is – (1) (A) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(1) of this section which does not occur after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; and (B) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(1) of this section which occurs after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; and (2) (A) except as provided in subparagraph (B), a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(2), (a)(3), (a)(5)(A)(iii), or (a)(6) of this section which does not occur after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; (B) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(2)or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph, if- (i) the offense was committed for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain; (ii) the offense was committed in furtherance of any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State; or (iii) the value of the information obtained exceeds $5,000; (C) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(2), (a)(3) or (a)(6) of this section which occurs after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; and (3) (A) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(4), or (a)(7) of this section which does not occur after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; and (B) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(4), (a)(5)(A)(iii) or (a)(7) of this section which occurs after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; and (4) (A) a fine under this title, imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(5)(A)(i), or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under that subsection; (B) a fine under this title, imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(5)(A)(ii), or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under that subsection; (C) a fine under this title, imprisonment for not more than 20 years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(5)(A)(i) or (a)(5)(A)(ii), or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under either subsection, that occurs after a conviction for another offense under this section. (d)(1) The United States Secret Service shall, in addition to any other agency having such authority, have the authority to investigate offenses under this section. (2) The Federal Bureau of Investigation shall have primary authority to investigate offenses under subsection (a)(1) for any cases involving espionage, foreign counterintelligence, information protected against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national defense or foreign relations, or Restricted Data (as that term is defined in section 11y of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2014(y))), except for offenses affecting the duties of the United States Secret Service pursuant to section 3056(a) of this title. (3) Such authority shall be exercised in accordance with an agreement which shall be entered into by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General. (e) As used in this section (1) the term "computer" means an electronic, magnetic, optical, electrochemical, or other high speed data processing device performing logical, arithmetic, or storage functions, and includes any data storage facility or communications facility directly related to or operating in conjunction with such device, but such term does not include an automated typewriter or typesetter, a portable hand held calculator, or other similar device; (2) the term "protected computer" means a computer (A) exclusively for the use of a financial institution or the United States Government, or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, used by or for a financial institution or the United States Government and the conduct constituting the offense affects that use by or for the financial institution or the Government; or (B) which is used in interstate or foreign commerce or communications, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States; (3) the term "State" includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and any other commonwealth, possession or territory of the United States; (4) the term "financial institution" means (A) an institution with deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; (B) the Federal Reserve or a member of the Federal Reserve including any Federal Reserve Bank; (C) a credit union with accounts insured by the National Credit Union Administration; (D) a member of the Federal home loan bank system and any home loan bank; (E) any institution of the Farm Credit System under the Farm Credit Act of 1971; (F) a brokerdealer registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to section 15 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; (G) the Securities Investor Protection Corporation; (H) a branch or agency of a foreign bank (as such terms are defined in paragraphs (1) and (3) of section 1(b) of the International Banking Act of 1978); and (I) an organization operating under section 25 or section 25(a) of the Federal Reserve Act. (5) the term "financial record" means information derived from any record held by a financial institution pertaining to a customer's relationship with the financial institution; (6) the term "exceeds authorized access" means to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter; (7) the term "department of the United States" means the legislative or judicial branch of the Government or one of the executive departments enumerated in section 101 of title 5; (8) the term 'damage' means any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information; (9) the term 'government entity' includes the Government of the United States, any State or political subdivision of the United States, any foreign country, and any state, province, municipality, or other political subdivision of a foreign country. (10) the term 'conviction' shall include a conviction under the law of any State for a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year, an element of which is unauthorized access, or exceeding authorized access, to a computer; (11) the term 'loss' includes any reasonable cost to any victim, including the cost of responding to an offense, conducting a damage assessment, and restoring the data, program, system, or information to its condition prior to the offense, and any revenue lost, cost incurred, or other consequential damages incurred because of interruption of service; and (12) the term 'person' means any individual, firm, corporation, educational institution, financial institution, governmental entity, or legal or other entity. (f) This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States. (g) Any person who suffers damage or loss by reason of a violation of the section may maintain a civil action against the violator to obtain compensatory damages and injunctive relief or other equitable relief. A civil action for a violation of this section may be brought only if the conduct involves 1 of the factors set forth in clause (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), or (v) of subsection (a)(5)(B). Damages for a violation involving only conduct described in subsection (a)(5)(B)(i) are limited to economic damages. No action may be brought under this subsection unless such action is begun within two years of the date of the act complained of or the date of the discovery of the damage. No action may be brought under this subsection for the negligent design or manufacture of computer hardware, computer software, or firmware. (h) The Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury shall report to the Congress annually, during the first three years following the date of the enactment of this subsection, concerning investigations and prosecutions under section 1030(a)(5) of title 18, United States Code. Section 814(e) Amendment of sentencing guidelines relating to certain computer fraud and abuse.– Pursuant to its authority under section 994(p) of title 28, United States Code, the United States Sentencing Commission shall amend the Federal sentencing guidelines to ensure that any individual convicted of a violation of section 1030 of title 18, United States Code, can be subjected to appropriate penalties, without regard to any mandatory minimum term of imprisonment. References Acts of the 104th United States Congress United States federal commerce legislation United States federal computing legislation Information technology audit

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm%20OS

Palm OS

Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is a discontinued mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management. Later versions of the OS have been extended to support smartphones. Several other licensees have manufactured devices powered by Palm OS. Following Palm's purchase of the Palm trademark, the currently licensed version from ACCESS was renamed Garnet OS. In 2007, ACCESS introduced the successor to Garnet OS, called Access Linux Platform; additionally, in 2009, the main licensee of Palm OS, Palm, Inc., switched from Palm OS to webOS for their forthcoming devices. Creator and ownership Palm OS was originally developed under the direction of Jeff Hawkins at Palm Computing, Inc. Palm was later acquired by U.S. Robotics Corp., which in turn was later bought by 3Com, which made the Palm subsidiary an independent publicly traded company on March 2, 2000. In January 2002, Palm set up a wholly owned subsidiary to develop and license Palm OS, which was named PalmSource. PalmSource was then spun off from Palm as an independent company on October 28, 2003. Palm (then called palmOne) became a regular licensee of Palm OS, no longer in control of the operating system. In September 2005, PalmSource announced that it was being acquired by ACCESS. In December 2006, Palm gained perpetual rights to the Palm OS source code from ACCESS. With this Palm can modify the licensed operating system as needed without paying further royalties to ACCESS. Together with the May 2005 acquisition of full rights to the Palm brand name, only Palm can publish releases of the operating system under the name 'Palm OS'. As a consequence, on January 25, 2007, ACCESS announced a name change to their current Palm OS operating system, now titled Garnet OS. OS overview Palm OS was a proprietary mobile operating system. Designed in 1996 for Palm Computing, Inc.'s new Pilot PDA, it has been implemented on a wide array of mobile devices, including smartphones, wrist watches, handheld gaming consoles, barcode readers and GPS devices. Palm OS versions earlier than 5.0 run on Motorola/Freescale DragonBall processors. From version 5.0 onwards, Palm OS runs on ARM architecture-based processors. The key features of the current Palm OS Garnet are: Simple, single-tasking environment to allow launching of full screen applications with a basic, common GUI set Monochrome or color screens with resolutions up to 480x320 pixel Handwriting recognition input system called Graffiti 2 HotSync technology for data synchronization with desktop computers Sound playback and record capabilities Simple security model: Device can be locked by password, arbitrary application records can be made private TCP/IP network access Serial port/USB, infrared, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections Expansion memory card support Defined standard data format for personal information management applications to store calendar, address, task and note entries, accessible by third-party applications. Included with the OS is also a set of standard applications, with the most relevant ones for the four mentioned PIM operations. Version history and technical background Manufacturers are free to implement different features of the OS in their devices or even add new features. This version history describes the officially licensed version from Palm/PalmSource/ACCESS. All versions prior to Palm OS 5 are based on top of the AMX 68000 kernel licensed from KADAK Products Ltd. While this kernel is technically capable of multitasking, the "terms and conditions of that license specifically state that Palm may not expose the API for creating/manipulating tasks within the OS." Palm OS 1.0 Palm OS 1.0 is the original version present on the Pilot 1000 and 5000. It was introduced in March 1996. Version 1.0 features the classic PIM applications Address, Date Book, Memo Pad, and To Do List. Also included is a calculator and the Security tool to hide records for private use. Palm OS 1.0 does not differentiate between RAM and file system storage. Applications are installed directly into RAM and executed in place. As no dedicated file system is supported, the operating system depends on constant RAM refresh cycles to keep its memory. The OS supports 160x160 monochrome output displays. User input is generated through the Graffiti handwriting recognition system or optionally through a virtual keyboard. The system supports data synchronization to another PC via its HotSync technology over a serial interface. The latest bugfix release is version 1.0.7. Palm OS 2.0 Palm OS 2.0 was introduced on March 10, 1997 with the PalmPilot Personal and Professional. This version adds TCP/IP network, network HotSync, and display backlight support. The last bugfix release is version 2.0.5. Two new applications, Mail and Expense are added, and the standard PIM applications have been enhanced. Palm OS 3.0 Palm OS 3.0 was introduced on March 9, 1998 with the launch of the Palm III series. This version adds IrDA infrared and enhanced font support. This version also features updated PIM applications and an update to the application launcher. Palm OS 3.1 adds only minor new features, like network HotSync support. It was introduced with the Palm IIIx and Palm V. The last bugfix release is version 3.1.1. Palm OS 3.2 adds Web Clipping support, which is an early Palm-specific solution to bring web-content to a small PDA screen. It was introduced with the Palm VII organizer. Palm OS 3.3 adds faster HotSync speeds and the ability to do infrared hotsyncing. It was introduced with the Palm Vx organizer. Palm OS 3.5 is the first version to include native 8-bit color support. It also adds major convenience features that simplify operation, like a context-sensitive icon-bar or simpler menu activation. The datebook application is extended with an additional agenda view. This version was first introduced with the Palm IIIc device. The latest bugfix release is version 3.5.3. As a companion, Palm later offered a Mobile Internet Kit software upgrade for Palm OS 3.5. This included Palm's Web Clipping software, MultiMail (which was later renamed to VersaMail) Version 2.26 e-mail software, handPHONE Version 1.3 SMS software, and Neomar Version 1.5 WAP browser. Palm OS 4.0 Palm OS 4.0 was released with the new Palm m500 series on March 19, 2001. This version adds a standard interface for external file system access (such as SD cards). External file systems are a radical change to the operating system's previous in-place execution. Now, application code and data need to be loaded into the device's RAM, similar to desktop operating system behavior. A new Universal Connector with USB support is introduced. The previous optional Mobile Internet Kit is now part of the operating system. Version 4.0 adds an attention manager to coordinate information from different applications, with several possibilities to get the user's attention, including sound, LED blinking or vibration. 16-bit color screens and different time zones are supported. This version also has security and UI enhancements. Palm OS 4.1 is a bugfix release. It was introduced with the launch of the Palm i705. The later minor OS update to version 4.1.2 includes a backport of Graffiti 2 from Palm OS 5.2. Palm OS 4.2 Simplified Chinese Edition is targeted especially for the Chinese market with fully Simplified Chinese support, co-released with Palm OS 5.3. No device has been manufactured with this version up to now. Palm OS 5.0 Palm OS 5.0 was unveiled by the Palm subsidiary PalmSource in June 2002 and first implemented on the Palm Tungsten T. It is the first version to support ARM devices and replaced the Kadak AMX68000 kernel with the custom MCK kernel, named for its developer, that was written in-house by Palm. Applications written for the prior OS versions use the older DragonBall 68K instruction set and are supported via the Palm Application Compatibility Environment (PACE) emulator in Garnet. Even with the additional overhead of PACE, Palm applications usually run faster on ARM devices than on previous generation hardware. New software can take advantage of the ARM processors with small units of ARM code, referred to as ARMlets. With a more powerful hardware basis, Palm OS 5 adds substantial enhancements for multimedia capabilities. High density 320x320 screens are supported together with a full digital sound playback and record API. Palm's separate Bluetooth stack is added together with an IEEE 802.11b Wi-Fi stack. Secure network connections over SSL are supported. The OS can be customized with different color schemes. For Palm OS 5, PalmSource developed and licensed a web browser called PalmSource Web Browser based on ACCESS' NetFront 3.0 browser. Palm OS 5.2 is mainly a bugfix release, first implemented in the Samsung SGH-i500 in March 2003. It added support for 480x320 resolutions and introduced the new handwriting input system called Graffiti 2; the new input system was prompted by Xerox' lawsuit win against Palm. Graffiti 2 is based on Jot from CIC. The last bugfix release is version 5.2.8. Palm OS 5.3 Simplified Chinese Edition released in September 2003, added full Simplified Chinese support, further support for QVGA resolutions, and a standard API for virtual Graffiti called Dynamic Input Area. This version first shipped on Lenovo's P100 and P300 handhelds. Palm OS Garnet (5.4) added updated Bluetooth libraries and support for multiple screen resolutions ranging from 160x160 up to 480x320. It first shipped on the Treo 650 in November 2004. This version also introduced the Garnet moniker to distinguish it from Palm OS Cobalt 6.0. The last bugfix release is version 5.4.9. Garnet OS 5.5 dropped the Palm moniker and, , is the current version developed by ACCESS. This version is dedicated for use inside the Garnet VM virtual machine. Garnet VM was announced and released by ACCESS in November 2007 as a core part of the Access Linux Platform and as an emulator allowing Nokia Internet Tablets to run applications written for the Garnet OS. In June 2010, ACCESS release Garnet VM version 6 (a.k.a. Garnet VM Beta 6 1.05b). Palm OS Cobalt Palm OS Cobalt (6.0) was the designated successor for Palm OS 5. It was introduced on February 10, 2004, but is no longer offered by ACCESS (see next section). Palm OS 6.0 was renamed to Palm OS Cobalt to make clear that this version was initially not designated to replace Palm OS 5, which adopted the name Palm OS Garnet at the same time. Palm OS Cobalt introduced modern operating system features to an embedded operating system based on a new kernel with multitasking and memory protection, a modern multimedia and graphic framework (derived from Palm's acquired BeOS), new security features, and adjustments of the PIM file formats to better cooperate with Microsoft Outlook. Palm OS Cobalt 6.1 presented standard communication libraries for telecommunication, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity. Despite other additions, it failed to interest potential licensees to Palm OS Cobalt. Third-party OS enhancements Several licensees have made custom modifications to the operating system. These are not part of the official licensed version. Palm developed a Bluetooth API for external Bluetooth SDIO Cards for Palm OS 4.0 devices. The Bluetooth stack was later included in Palm OS 5 Palm added a virtual graffiti input area API especially for their Tungsten T3 device. This API was later superseded by the official Dynamic Input Area API in Palm OS 5.3. Palm added the Non-Volatile File System in Palm OS 5.4, and used Flash for storage instead of DRAM, preventing data-loss in the event of battery drain. However, this fundamentally changed the way programs were executed from the Execute-in-Place system that Palm OS traditionally used, and has been the source of many compatibility problems, requiring many applications to add explicit NVFS support for correct operation. For their camera-equipped devices, Palm added the CameraLib API. Sony added a library to support JogDial input available on their CLIÉ organizers. Modernization For several years, PalmSource had been attempting to create a modern successor for Palm OS 5 and have licensees implement it. Although PalmSource shipped Palm OS Cobalt 6.0 to licensees in January 2004, none adopted it for release devices. PalmSource made major improvements to Palm OS Cobalt with the release of Palm OS Cobalt 6.1 in September 2004 to please licensees, but even the new version did not lead to production devices. In December 2004, PalmSource announced a new OS strategy. With the acquisition of the mobile phone software company China Mobilesoft, PalmSource planned to port Palm OS on top of a Linux kernel, while still offering both Palm OS Garnet and Palm OS Cobalt. This strategy was revised in June 2005, when still no device with Palm OS Cobalt was announced. PalmSource announced it was halting all development efforts on any product not directly related to its future Linux based platform. With the acquisition of PalmSource by ACCESS, Palm OS for Linux was changed to become the Access Linux Platform which was first announced in February 2006. The initial versions of the platform and software development kits for the Access Linux Platform were officially released in February 2007. As of January 2011, the Access Linux Platform had then yet to ship on any devices, however development kits then existed and public demonstrations had been showcased. Palm, Inc. the main licensee of Palm OS Garnet did not license Access Linux Platform for their own devices. Instead, Palm developed another Linux-based operating system called Palm webOS. On February 11, 2009, Palm CEO Ed Colligan said there would be no additional Palm OS devices (excepting the Centro being released to other carriers). Palm was focusing on Palm webOS and Windows Mobile devices. On April 1, 2009, Palm announced the availability of a Palm OS emulator for its webOS. Built-in applications Palm OS licensees decide which applications are included on their Palm OS devices. Licensees can also customize the applications. Standard Palm OS applications Note: On the newer models, the standard PIM apps "Address", "Date Book", "Memo Pad" and "ToDos" were replaced by their improved counterparts "Contacts", "Calendar" "Memos" and "Tasks". The Palm's Address program stores contact information, keyed by any of several user-definable categories. Entries are displayed and sorted in last name, first name order (this can be changed only to Company, Last Name order). There are five slots for phone or e-mail, each of which may be designated Work, Home, Fax, Other, E-mail, Main, Pager or Mobile (the slot designations cannot be changed) The newer Contacts app adds the following features: several addresses, 9 new fields: Website, Birthday, More phone numbers, Instant Messaging with quick connect. Calc turns the Palm into a standard 4-function pocket calculator with three shades of purple and blue buttons contrasting with the two red clear buttons. It supports square root and percent keys and has one memory. It also has an option to display a running history of the calculations, much like the paper-tape calculators that were once common. Date Book shows a daily or weekly schedule, or a simple monthly view. The daily schedule has one line per hour, between user-selected begin and end times. Clicking on an empty line creates a new event. Empty lines are crowded out by actual events, whose start and stop times are shown by default bracketed in the left margin. The newer Calendar app adds the following features: New Day view, use of categories for events, event location, event can span midnight, event details, birthdays as timeless events. It supports time zone designation for events, a feature lacking in some more recent competitors. An event, or appointment, can be heralded by an alarm, any number of minutes, hours or days before it begins. These alarms sound even when the unit is switched off. Appointments can recur in a specified number of days, weeks, months or years and can contain notes. Expense tracks common business expenses. No totals are calculated on the Palm. The user must sync with a host computer and view the expense data in a worksheet (templates for Microsoft Excel are supplied). HotSync integrates with the user's PC. Usually activated by a press of the physical HotSync button on the Palm's cradle (a dock station), this application communicates with various conduits on the desktop PC to install software, backup databases, or merge changes made on the PC or the handheld to both devices. It can communicate with the PC through a physical connection (USB on newer models), Bluetooth or IrDA wireless connections, and direct network connections on devices with networking capability. In addition to the conduits provided by the licensee, developers can create their own conduits for integration with other Palm OS applications and desktop products. For example, a time tracking package could provide a conduit to communicate information between Palm OS and Windows executables. A Backup conduit included with the HotSync software backs up (and restores, if necessary) most of the data on a Palm OS device. This allows users to hard reset their Palm—thus clearing all of the data—with few noticeable consequences. This also allows users to migrate to new Palm devices of the same Palm OS version, a feature that is helpful to those who lose or damage their device. Some models of Palm keep their data storage in volatile memory and require constant power to maintain their memory. Although these handhelds attempt to save the contents of memory in low battery situations by not "turning on," leaving a "dead" handheld for an extended period of time can cause this reserve power to be used up and the contents of storage memory to be lost. Some later Palms use NVRAM or microdrive for storage. Memo Pad can hold notes of up to 4,000 characters each; the newer Memos app increases field size from 3 to 30 kB. Memos are ordered in two ways: alphabetically, and manually (which allows the user to choose the order of the memos), and memos can be grouped in user-configurable categories. Memo Pad is for text only, not for drawings, and text can be entered using the Graffiti alphabet, using hardware or software keyboards, or using the 'paste' function. When Palm devices first became available, some Palm users started to create and exchange Memo Pad documents containing generally useful information, which came to be known as Memoware. To do list creates personal reminders and prioritizes the things the user has to do. Each To Do List item may also have: a priority, categories (to organize and view items in logical groups), attached Note (to add more description and clarification of the task). To Do List item can be sorted by: due date, priority or category The newer Tasks app features the following improvements: new interface, repeating tasks, alarms, etc. Preferences (also referred to as Prefs) shows program files with a special preference panel type which are not shown by the normal launcher. Programs can be changed by switching the type to and vice versa. Palm OS contains approximately 15 preference panels by default and new preference panels can be added just like any other application. Preference panels allow users to manage a number of settings, including Graffiti settings, sound settings, text shortcuts, network settings and the system time. Security (which is a panel on newer Palm OS devices) is used to configure Palm OS's security settings. These include the password needed to display hidden records and unlock the device when locked, as well as set up an automatic lockdown time or inactivity threshold. On the PC, only Palm Desktop honors this password but other PC programs can view everything—in other words, all the data protected by this password can be seen by anyone opening the .dat files using a text editor or word processor. Common third-party core OS applications Starting with Palm OS version 5.2, Palm created customized versions of the common PIM application. Some new features have been added, e.g. support for Address categories, Ringtone associations to users, longer memo texts, etc.. They were also renamed to reflect designations from Microsoft Outlook, thus Address became Contacts, Datebook became Calendar, Memo Pad became Memos and To do list became Tasks. Blazer is a web browser for Palm handhelds. The versions 1.0 and 2.0 run on Palm OS 3.1 or higher handhelds, but they needed a proxy server which has been shut down, so they can no longer be used. Version 3.0 is used on the Treo 600 smartphone. The current version of Blazer is Blazer 4.5, which is compliant with most major standards. It is generally bundled with newer smartphones and newer Palm devices capable of accessing the Internet. Palm's Note Pad can be used for quick drawings. With neat handwriting, 20–30 words will fit on one page; for more text, Memo Pad is the better choice. There are three sizes of pen width, plus an eraser and a background color change feature in some models. It is possible to draw a very simple map. The more "advanced" desktop version saves the Memo pad drawings to the desktop. As of 2006, most new Palm handhelds include Photos, which creates a digital photo album used to view pictures on a Palm OS device. As with all the other photo programs, photos can be beamed to other mobile devices. Each photo can be labeled and organized into separate photo albums. A slideshow can also be shown for a specific album, and each photo in the album will be shown full screen. Photos can be edited with the Palm Photos PC software (Windows only), and when the photos are transferred to the handheld they will contain all changes made to the photo. The Palm Photos software is available in the Zire 71, Tungsten C, Tungsten E, Tungsten T2, Tungsten T3 and several others. With the support for Video, Palm Photos was later renamed to Media and even later to Pics& Videos. Some models feature the ability to make voice recordings which are synced using the Voice conduit and can be viewed on a desktop with the Voice Memo application which is part of the Palm Desktop Suite. Third-party applications There are many successful applications that can be installed on a Palm OS device. As of 2008, there were more than 50,000 third-party applications available for the Palm OS platform, which have various licensing types, including open-source, and various closed licensing schemes such as freeware, shareware, and traditional pay-up-front purchase. HackMaster is an extension manager for Palm OS that includes several patches improving OS features. Other third party OS extensions also require HackMaster to work. Application development Palm OS Garnet applications are primarily coded in C/C++. Two officially supported compilers exist: a commercial product, CodeWarrior Development Studio for Palm OS, and an open source tool chain called prc-tools, based on an old version of gcc. CodeWarrior is criticized for being expensive and is no longer being developed, whereas PRC-Tools lacks several of CodeWarrior's features. A version of PRC-Tools is included in a free Palm OS Developer Suite (PODS). OnBoardC is a C compiler, assembler, linker and programming editor that runs on the Palm itself. Palm OS Cobalt applications are also coded in a variation of gcc, but the Cobalt compilers have fewer limitations. There are development tools available for Palm programming that do not require low-level programming in C/C++, such as PocketC/PocketC Architect, CASL, AppForge Crossfire (which uses Visual Basic, Visual Basic .NET, or C#), Handheld Basic, Pendragon Forms, Satellite Forms and NSBasic/Palm (Visual Basic like languages). A Java Virtual Machine was previously available for the Palm OS platform, however on 12 January 2008, Palm, Inc. announced that it would no longer be available. Palm, Inc. further said "There is no alternate Java Virtual Machine that we are aware of for Palm OS." Waba and a derivative of it, SuperWaba, provide a Java-like virtual machine and programming language. A version of the Lua language, called Plua, is also available for Palm; however, due to the fact that it requires an additional runtime to be installed along with the application, it is only used for mainstream applications by a minority of software companies. Quartus Forth is an ISO/ANSI Standard Forth compiler that runs on the Palm itself. It also has an interactive console for dynamic development and debugging. Three environments allow programming in Pascal for Palm OS. The free PP Compiler runs directly on the handheld computer, while PocketStudio is a Delphi-like IDE for Windows Computers that has a visual form designer and generates PRC files for being transferred to handhelds via HotSync. The third option was HSPascal, developed by Danish developer Chriten Fihl, based on his experience with the High Speed Pascal compiler for various 16-bit computer systems, including the Commodore Amiga. As Palm has no connection drivers that enable the transfer of data with a server DBMS (Oracle, mySQL, MS SQL Server), the programmer can use Middleware software that enables this connectivity. A roughly R4RS-compatible implementation of Scheme, LispMe, provides the Palm platform with a GPL-licensed onboard Lisp REPL with some Palm OS-specific adaptations, but although it is functionally a compiler it does not produce code that operates outside the development environment, so its use is restricted to prototyping. Legal issues Palm OS has been involved in various lawsuits over the years. Xerox vs. Palm Computing (1997) – In 1997, Xerox was granted covering the "Unistroke" input system developed by David Goldberg, Xerox PARC in 1993. Xerox filed suit against Palm (then U.S. Robotics), alleging that Palm's Graffiti infringed on this patent. The Palm OS switch from Graffiti 1 to Graffiti 2 was triggered in part by Palm losing this lawsuit to Xerox. The patent was invalidated in May 2004 due to prior art developed at Bell Laboratories in 1982. Pilot Pen Corporation vs. Palm Computing (1998) – The original name for Palm OS handhelds was Pilot. However, a lawsuit from Pilot Pen Corporation forced a name change to PalmPilot, then eventually to Palm. Palm vs. Microsoft (1998) – In 1998, Microsoft planned to name the next version of their handheld computing platform "Palm PC". Palm filed suit against Microsoft, forcing the name change to, first, Palm-sized PC, and later, Pocket PC. E-Pass Technologies vs. Palm, Microsoft and HP (2000) – In 2000, E-Pass Technologies filed suit against Palm, alleging that its handhelds infringed on an E-Pass's patent (#5,276,311) for a multi-function, credit card-sized computer that allows users to securely store account numbers, PIN codes, etc. NCR vs. Handspring and Palm (2001) – In 1987, NCR was granted a patent for a portable e-commerce terminal. In 2001, NCR sued Handspring and Palm. This case was ruled without merit in 2002, a decision that was upheld on appeal. RIM vs. Handspring (2002) – In 2002, Research In Motion (makers of the BlackBerry), sued Handspring. By year end, both Handspring and Palm licensed the patents and the suit was dropped. Peer-to-Peer Systems vs. Palm (2002) – Also in 2002, Peer-to-Peer systems filed lawsuit against Palm that alleges Palm infringed on its patent for wireless gaming. This lawsuit was settled as of February 9, 2005. Forgent Networks vs. HP, Toshiba, palmOne, etc., etc. (2004) – Starting in 2002, Forgent Networks began offering licenses for a patent that encumbers JPEG. In 2004, it filed suit against various companies, including palmOne. The JPEG or 672 patent has been reviewed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which has rejected 19 of the 47 claims based on prior art. See also Access Linux Platform, planned successor of the Palm OS Graffiti (Palm OS) List of Palm OS devices, includes emulators Memoware Palm, Inc. Palm Desktop Palm webOS PalmSource, Inc. References External links Palm.com Palm OS 4.1 Screenshots PalmDB – Archive for Palm OS Software Preservation Palm OS Wiki – Palm OS Knowledge & History Preservation Wiki ARM operating systems Computer-related introductions in 1996 Discontinued operating systems Embedded operating systems Mobile operating systems Personal digital assistants

41961627

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Springer%20%28mathematician%29

George Springer (mathematician)

George Springer (September 3, 1924 – February 18, 2019) was an American mathematician and computer scientist. He was professor emeritus of computer science at Indiana University Bloomington. Springer is perhaps best known as the coauthor with Daniel P. Friedman of the widely used textbook Scheme and the Art of Computer Programming. Scheme is one of the two main dialects of LISP. Three of the pioneering books for Scheme are The Scheme Programming Language (1982) by R. Kent Dybvig, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (1985) by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman, and Scheme and the Art of Computer Programming (1989) by Springer and Friedman. Career Springer earned his bachelor's degree in 1945 from Case Western Reserve University (then named "Case Institute of Technology") and his master's degree in 1946 from Brown University. He earned his PhD in 1949 from Harvard University with thesis The Coefficient Problem for Univalent Mappings of the Exterior of the Unit Circle under Lars Ahlfors. From 1949 to 1951 Springer was a C.L.E. Moore Instructor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1951 to 1954 he was an assistant professor at Northwestern University. In the academic year 1954/1955 as a Fulbright Lecturer and visiting professor at the University of Münster he worked with Heinrich Behnke. In the autumn of 1955 Springer became an associate professor and subsequently a professor at the University of Kansas. In the academic year 1961/1962 he was a Fulbright Lecturer and visiting professor at the University of Würzburg. From 1964 he was a professor of mathematics and from 1987 also a professor of computer science at the Indiana University Bloomington. In the academic year 1971/1972 he was a visiting professor at Imperial College in London. Springer began his career working in function theory (of one and several complex variables) and wrote a textbook on Riemann surfaces. In the 1980s he turned more toward computer science, working on programming languages. Personal life and death Springer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1924, to a family of Jewish immigrants from Poland. He met his wife Annemarie (née Keiner) while at Harvard University. They were married from 1950 until her death in 2011, and had three children. Springer died on February 18, 2019, aged 94. Works from Springer's lectures with notes prepared by Günter Scheja, Arnold Oberschelp, and Hans Rüdiger Wiehle: Einführung in die Topologie, Münster, Aschendorff 1955 Introduction to Riemann Surfaces, Addison-Wesley 1957; 2nd edition, Chelsea 1981; 3rd edition, American Mathematical Society, 2001 with Daniel P. Friedman: Scheme and the Art of Programming, MIT Press 1989, 9th printing 1997 References External links Homepage, Indiana University Bloomington 1924 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American people of Czech-Jewish descent Brown University alumni Case Western Reserve University alumni Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni Indiana University faculty Programming language researchers Writers from Cleveland Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty

2884728

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated%20reasoning

Automated reasoning

In computer science, in particular in knowledge representation and reasoning and metalogic, the area of automated reasoning is dedicated to understanding different aspects of reasoning. The study of automated reasoning helps produce computer programs that allow computers to reason completely, or nearly completely, automatically. Although automated reasoning is considered a sub-field of artificial intelligence, it also has connections with theoretical computer science and philosophy. The most developed subareas of automated reasoning are automated theorem proving (and the less automated but more pragmatic subfield of interactive theorem proving) and automated proof checking (viewed as guaranteed correct reasoning under fixed assumptions). Extensive work has also been done in reasoning by analogy using induction and abduction. Other important topics include reasoning under uncertainty and non-monotonic reasoning. An important part of the uncertainty field is that of argumentation, where further constraints of minimality and consistency are applied on top of the more standard automated deduction. John Pollock's OSCAR system is an example of an automated argumentation system that is more specific than being just an automated theorem prover. Tools and techniques of automated reasoning include the classical logics and calculi, fuzzy logic, Bayesian inference, reasoning with maximal entropy and many less formal ad hoc techniques. Early years The development of formal logic played a big role in the field of automated reasoning, which itself led to the development of artificial intelligence. A formal proof is a proof in which every logical inference has been checked back to the fundamental axioms of mathematics. All the intermediate logical steps are supplied, without exception. No appeal is made to intuition, even if the translation from intuition to logic is routine. Thus, a formal proof is less intuitive and less susceptible to logical errors. Some consider the Cornell Summer meeting of 1957, which brought together many logicians and computer scientists, as the origin of automated reasoning, or automated deduction. Others say that it began before that with the 1955 Logic Theorist program of Newell, Shaw and Simon, or with Martin Davis’ 1954 implementation of Presburger's decision procedure (which proved that the sum of two even numbers is even). Automated reasoning, although a significant and popular area of research, went through an "AI winter" in the eighties and early nineties. The field subsequently revived, however. For example, in 2005, Microsoft started using verification technology in many of their internal projects and is planning to include a logical specification and checking language in their 2012 version of Visual C. Significant contributions Principia Mathematica was a milestone work in formal logic written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica - also meaning Principles of Mathematics - was written with a purpose to derive all or some of the mathematical expressions, in terms of symbolic logic. Principia Mathematica was initially published in three volumes in 1910, 1912 and 1913. Logic Theorist (LT) was the first ever program developed in 1956 by Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw and Herbert A. Simon to "mimic human reasoning" in proving theorems and was demonstrated on fifty-two theorems from chapter two of Principia Mathematica, proving thirty-eight of them. In addition to proving the theorems, the program found a proof for one of the theorems that was more elegant than the one provided by Whitehead and Russell. After an unsuccessful attempt at publishing their results, Newell, Shaw, and Herbert reported in their publication in 1958, The Next Advance in Operation Research: "There are now in the world machines that think, that learn and that create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until (in a visible future) the range of problems they can handle will be co- extensive with the range to which the human mind has been applied." Examples of Formal Proofs {| class="wikitable" |- ! Year !! Theorem !! Proof System !! Formalizer !! Traditional Proof |- | 1986 || First Incompleteness|| Boyer-Moore || Shankar || Gödel |- | 1990 || Quadratic Reciprocity || Boyer-Moore || Russinoff || Eisenstein |- | 1996 || Fundamental- of Calculus || HOL Light || Harrison || Henstock |- | 2000 || Fundamental- of Algebra || Mizar || Milewski || Brynski |- | 2000 || Fundamental- of Algebra || Coq || Geuvers et al. || Kneser |- | 2004 || Four Color || Coq || Gonthier || Robertson et al. |- | 2004 || Prime Number || Isabelle || Avigad et al. || Selberg-Erdős |- | 2005 || Jordan Curve || HOL Light || Hales || Thomassen |- | 2005 || Brouwer Fixed Point || HOL Light || Harrison || Kuhn |- | 2006 || Flyspeck 1 || Isabelle || Bauer- Nipkow || Hales |- | 2007 || Cauchy Residue || HOL Light || Harrison || Classical |- | 2008 || Prime Number || HOL Light || Harrison || Analytic proof |- | 2012 || Feit-Thompson || Coq || Gonthier et al. || Bender, Glauberman and Peterfalvi |- | 2016 || Boolean Pythagorean triples problem || Formalized as SAT || Heule et al. || None |} Proof systems Boyer-Moore Theorem Prover (NQTHM) The design of NQTHM was influenced by John McCarthy and Woody Bledsoe. Started in 1971 at Edinburgh, Scotland, this was a fully automatic theorem prover built using Pure Lisp. The main aspects of NQTHM were: the use of Lisp as a working logic. the reliance on a principle of definition for total recursive functions. the extensive use of rewriting and "symbolic evaluation". an induction heuristic based the failure of symbolic evaluation. HOL Light Written in OCaml, HOL Light is designed to have a simple and clean logical foundation and an uncluttered implementation. It is essentially another proof assistant for classical higher order logic. Coq Developed in France, Coq is another automated proof assistant, which can automatically extract executable programs from specifications, as either Objective CAML or Haskell source code. Properties, programs and proofs are formalized in the same language called the Calculus of Inductive Constructions (CIC). Applications Automated reasoning has been most commonly used to build automated theorem provers. Oftentimes, however, theorem provers require some human guidance to be effective and so more generally qualify as proof assistants. In some cases such provers have come up with new approaches to proving a theorem. Logic Theorist is a good example of this. The program came up with a proof for one of the theorems in Principia Mathematica that was more efficient (requiring fewer steps) than the proof provided by Whitehead and Russell. Automated reasoning programs are being applied to solve a growing number of problems in formal logic, mathematics and computer science, logic programming, software and hardware verification, circuit design, and many others. The TPTP (Sutcliffe and Suttner 1998) is a library of such problems that is updated on a regular basis. There is also a competition among automated theorem provers held regularly at the CADE conference (Pelletier, Sutcliffe and Suttner 2002); the problems for the competition are selected from the TPTP library. See also Automated machine learning (AutoML) Automated theorem proving Reasoning system Semantic reasoner Program analysis (computer science) Applications of artificial intelligence Outline of artificial intelligence Casuistry • Case-based reasoning Abductive reasoning Inference engine Commonsense reasoning Conferences and workshops International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR) Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE) International Conference on Automated Reasoning with Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods Journals Journal of Automated Reasoning Communities Association for Automated Reasoning (AAR) References External links International Workshop on the Implementation of Logics Workshop Series on Empirically Successful Topics in Automated Reasoning Theoretical computer science Automated theorem proving Artificial intelligence Logic in computer science

410016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac%20OS%20X%20Jaguar

Mac OS X Jaguar

Mac OS X Jaguar (version 10.2) is the third major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X 10.1 and preceded Mac OS X Panther. The operating system was released on August 23, 2002 either for single-computer installations, and in a "family pack," which allowed five installations on separate computers in one household. Jaguar was the first Mac OS X release to publicly use its code name in marketing and advertisements. System requirements Mac OS X Jaguar required a PowerPC G3 or G4 CPU and 128 MB of RAM. Special builds were released for the first PowerPC G5 systems released by Apple. New and changed features Jaguar introduced many new features to Mac OS X, which are still supported to this day, including MPEG-4 support in QuickTime, Address Book, and Inkwell for handwriting recognition. It also included the first release of Apple's Zeroconf implementation, Rendezvous (later renamed to Bonjour), which allows devices on the same network to automatically discover each other and offer available services, such as file sharing, shared scanners, and printers, to the user. Mac OS X Jaguar Server 10.2.2 added journaling to HFS Plus, the native Macintosh file system, to add increased reliability and data recovery features. This was later added to the standard Mac OS X in version 10.3 Panther. Jaguar saw the debut of Quartz Extreme, a technology used to composite graphics directly on the video card, without the use of software to composite windows. The technology allotted the task of drawing the 3D surface of windows to the video card, rather than to the CPU, to increase interface responsiveness and performance. Universal Access was added to allow the Macintosh to be usable by disabled computer users. The user interface of Jaguar was also amended to add search features to the Finder using the updated Sherlock 3. Internally, Jaguar also added the Common Unix Printing System (also known as CUPS), a modular printing system for Unix-like operating systems, and improved support for Microsoft Windows networks using the open-source Samba as a server for the SMB remote file access protocol and a FreeBSD-derived virtual file system module as a client for SMB. The famous Happy Mac that had greeted Mac users for almost 18 years during the Macintosh startup sequence was replaced with a large grey Apple logo with the introduction of Mac OS X Jaguar. Marketing Unlike Mac OS X 10.1, Jaguar was a paid upgrade, costing $129. In October 2002, Apple offered free copies of Jaguar to all U.S K-12 teachers as part of the "X For Teachers" program. Teachers who wanted to get a copy simply had to fill out a form and a packet containing Mac OS X installation discs and manuals was shipped to the school where they worked. Jaguar marked the first Mac OS X release which publicly used its code name as both a marketing ploy and as an official reference to the operating system. To that effect, Apple replaced the packaging for Mac OS X with a new jaguar-themed box. Starting with Jaguar, Mac OS X releases were given a feline-related marketing name upon announcement until the introduction of OS X Mavericks in June 2013, at which point releases began to be named after locations in California, where Apple is headquartered. Mac OS X (rebranded as OS X in 2012 and later macOS in 2016) releases are now also referred to by their marketing name, in addition to version numbers. Release history Mac OS X 10.2.7 (codenames Blackrider, Smeagol) was only available to the new Power Mac G5s and aluminum PowerBook G4s released before Mac OS X Panther. Officially, it was never released to the general public. Mac OS X 10.2.8 is the last version of Mac OS X officially supported on the "Beige G3" desktop, minitower, and all-in-one systems as well as the PowerBook G3 Series (1998) also known as Wallstreet/PDQ; though later releases can be run on such Macs with the help of unofficial, unlicensed, and unsupported third-party tools such as XPostFacto. References External links Mac OS X v10.2 review at Ars Technica from apple.com 2 PowerPC operating systems 2002 software Computer-related introductions in 2002

48526324

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP%20S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA is SAP's ERP platform for large enterprises. It is the successor to SAP R/3 and SAP ERP and is optimized for SAP's in-memory database SAP HANA. Purpose SAP S/4HANA is an Enterprise Resource Planning software package meant to cover all day-to-day processes of an enterprise (for example, order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, plan-to-product, and request-to-service) and core capabilities. It integrates functions from lines of businesses as well as industry solutions, and also re-integrates portions of SAP Business Suite products such as SAP SRM, SAP CRM and SAP SCM. As SAP Business Suite 4 only runs on the SAP HANA database it is packaged as one product: SAP S/4HANA. SAP's classical R3, ERP and ECC based business suite and related products were designed to run on several database platforms, including those from Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. History The SAP HANA platform has been available since 2010, and SAP applications like SAP ERP and the SAP Business Suite are able to run on the SAP HANA database and/or other supported database systems. The new suite, SAP S/4HANA, launched on 3 February 2015 at the New York Stock Exchange. The event introduced cloud and on premise editions, with the on-premise edition becoming available on the same day. The cloud edition went live at SAPPHIRE NOW (SAP’s annual customer conference) on 6 May 2015 in Orlando, Florida. SAP S/4HANA is being called SAP's biggest update to its ERP strategy and platform in over two decades. Post-launch, Gartner analysts noted that SAP S/4HANA represented a "transformational shift," but raised questions about functionality, availability, pricing and migration issues surrounding S/4HANA. By 21 April 2015, 370 customers had purchased S/4HANA. After the first half of 2015, positive growth was confirmed for SAP. During the third quarter earning calls that took place in October 2015, SAP confirmed that S/4HANA had more than 1,300 customers. By the end of Q4 2016, SAP announced that 5,400 customers had implemented SAP S/4HANA, growing to 8,900 customers by 30 June 2018. Editions and deployment SAP S/4HANA can be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, or through a hybrid model. The S/4HANA product offering consists of various editions: SAP S/4HANA Cloud: previously called essentials edition (ES) and Multi-Tenant Edition, SAP S/4HANA Cloud extended edition: previously called Single-Tenant Edition, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, SAP S/4HANA On-Premise. SAP S/4HANA On-Premise is similar in terms of coverage, functionality, industry-specific support, and localization to the current SAP Business Suite (in 39 languages, 64 country versions). SAP also offers SAP S/4HANA Cloud (in 18 languages, 33 country versions). SAP has emphasized the product as pivotal to its cloud shift. Both editions consist of functionality for finance, accounting, controlling, procurement, sales, manufacturing, plant maintenance, project system, and product lifecycle management, plus integration with SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, SAP Hybris, SAP Fieldglass and SAP Concur. Overview of releases SAP S/4HANA (on-premise) releases are once per year, SAP S/4HANA Cloud releases are quarterly. Version coding for cloud edition: YYMM example 1709 - September 2017. Version coding for on-premise edition (since 2020): YYYY example 2020 - Release 2020. SAP S/4HANA On-Premise releases: SAP S/4HANA Finance 1503: March 2015 SAP S/4HANA 1511: November 2015 SAP S/4HANA Finance 1605: May 2016 SAP S/4HANA 1610: October 2016 SAP S/4HANA 1709: September 2017 SAP S/4HANA 1809: September 2018 SAP S/4HANA 1909: September 2019 SAP S/4HANA 2020: October 2020 (new nomenclature: switch to YYYY from YYMM) SAP S/4HANA 2021: October 2021 SAP S/4HANA Cloud releases: SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1603: March 2016 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1605: May 2016 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1608: August 2016 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1611: November 2016 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1702: February 2017 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1705: May 2017 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1708: August 2017 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1711: November 2017 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1802: February 2018 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1805: May 2018 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1808: August 2018 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1811: November 2018 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1902: February 2019 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1908: August 2019 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 1911: November 2019 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2002: January 2020 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2005: April 2020 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2008: July 2020 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2011: November 2020 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2102: February 2021 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105: May 2021 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2108: August 2021 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111: November 2021 SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2202: available February 2022 Implementation There are various ways to get to S/4HANA. This depends on a customer’s starting point. For example, new implementation, system conversion, and selective data transition. New implementation - This is a new implementation of SAP S/4HANA (Greenfield): Customers who are migrating from a non-SAP legacy system or from an SAP ERP system and implementing a fresh system that requires an initial data load. In this scenario, the SAP S/4HANA system is implemented, and master and transactional data are migrated from the legacy system, thus standard data migration tools and content has to be used. System conversion - This is a complete conversion of an existing SAP Business Suite system to SAP S/4HANA (Brownfield): Customers who want to change their current SAP ERP system to SAP S/4HANA. This scenario is technically based on Software Update Manager (SUM) with Database Migration Option (DMO) in case the customer is not yet on SAP HANA as the underlying database. Selective Data Transition (formerly: Landscape Transformation) - This is a consolidation of current regional SAP systems into one global SAP S/4HANA system or a split out of different parts of a system: Customers who want to consolidate their landscape or carve out selected entities (such as a company code) or processes into a single SAP S/4HANA system. Product lifecycle Both SAP S/4HANA on-premises and the SAP S/4HANA cloud editions have release strategies. The cloud editions are released quarterly. The on-premise edition has one new release per year and receives additional functionality and corrections in the form of Feature Pack Stacks (FPS) or Service Pack Stacks (SPS) each quarter. On-premise: Each year, SAP is shipping a new product version of its on-premise SAP S/4HANA product (e.g. SAP S/4HANA 1610) this will always be followed by three successive FPS on a quarterly basis, after this SAP releases the next product version and the previous product version is receiving SPS on a quarterly basis until the end of mainstream maintenance. Technically, a FPS is like a SPS, but it may include non-disruptive, non-mandatory features. The numbering of FPS/SPS will be consecutive, i.e. the first SPS after a FPS3 would be consequently SPS4. References Further reading 2015 software SAP SE ERP software Enterprise software Business software Cloud applications Cloud platforms

305527

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batcave

Batcave

The Batcave is a subterranean location appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. It is the headquarters of the superhero Batman, whose secret identity is Bruce Wayne and his partners, consisting of caves beneath his personal residence, Wayne Manor. Publication history Originally, there was only a secret tunnel that ran underground between Wayne Manor and a dusty old barn where the Batmobile was kept. Later, in Batman #12 (August–September 1942), Bill Finger mentioned "secret underground hangars". In 1943, the writers of the first Batman film serial, titled Batman, gave Batman a complete underground crime lab and introduced it in the second chapter entitled "The Bat's Cave". The entrance was via a secret passage through a grandfather clock and included bats flying around. Bob Kane, who was on the film set, mentioned this to Bill Finger who was going to be the initial scripter on the Batman daily newspaper strip. Finger included with his script a clipping from Popular Mechanics that featured a detailed cross-section of underground hangars. Kane used this clipping as a guide, adding a study, crime lab, workshop, hangar and garage. This illustration appeared in the Batman "dailies" on October 29, 1943, in a strip entitled "The Bat Cave!" In this early version the cave itself was described as Batman's underground study and, like the other rooms, was just a small alcove with a desk and filing cabinets. Like in the film serial, Batman's symbol was carved into the rock behind the desk and had a candle in the middle of it. The entrance was via a bookcase which led to a secret elevator. The Batcave made its comic book debut in Detective Comics #83 in January 1944. Over the decades, the cave has expanded along with its owner's popularity to include a vast trophy room, supercomputer, and forensics lab. There has been little consistency as to the floor plan of the Batcave or its contents. The design has varied from artist to artist and it is not unusual for the same artist to draw the cave layout differently in various issues. Fictional history The cave was discovered and used long before by Bruce Wayne's ancestors as a storehouse as well as a means of transporting escaped slaves during the Civil War era. The 18th-century frontier hero Tomahawk once discovered a gargantuan bat (owned by Morgaine le Fey of Arthurian legend) inside what can be assumed would become the Batcave. Wayne himself rediscovered the caves as a boy when he fell through a dilapidated well on his estate, but he did not consider the cave as a potential base of operations until he rediscovered it yet again when he returned to Gotham to become Batman. In addition to a base, the Batcave serves as a place of privacy and tranquility, much like Superman's Fortress of Solitude. In earlier versions of the story, Bruce Wayne discovered the cave as an adult. In "The Origin of the Batcave" in Detective Comics #205 (March 1954), Batman tells Robin he had no idea the cave existed when he purchased the house they live in. He discovered the cave by accident when testing the floor of an old barn on the rear of the property, and the floor gave way. This story also established that a frontiersman named Jeremy Coe used the cave as a headquarters 300 years earlier. Bruce Wayne discovering the cave as an adult remained the case at least through Who's Who #2 in 1985. Upon his initial foray into crime-fighting, Wayne used the caves as a sanctum and to store his then-minimal equipment. As time went on, Wayne found the place ideal to create a stronghold for his war against crime, and has incorporated a plethora of equipment as well as expanding the cave for specific uses. Access The cave is accessible in several ways. It can be reached through a secret door in Wayne Manor itself, which is almost always depicted as in the main study, often behind a grandfather clock which unlocks the secret door when the hands are set to the time that Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered, 10:48 pm. In the 1960s Batman TV show, the cave entrance is behind a bookcase which was opened when Bruce Wayne activated a control switch hidden in a bust of William Shakespeare; when the secret switch is turned, the bookcase slides to one side, revealing the "Bat-Poles", which allow Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson to change into their Batman and Robin costumes en route as they slide down to the cave. An entrance under Bruce Wayne's chair in his office in Wayne Enterprises, as shown in Batman Forever, connects to a mile-long tunnel that Bruce travels through in a high-speed personal transportation capsule. In Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises, the cave is accessible through a secret door disguised as part of a large display case and is unlocked by pressing a sequence of keys on the nearby grand piano. Another secret entrance, covered by a waterfall, pond, hologram, or a camouflaged door, allows access to a service road for the Batmobile. Another alternate entrance is the dry well where Bruce originally discovered the Batcave, highlighted especially during the Knightfall comic book storyline. At one point, Tim Drake and Dick Grayson use the dry well to get into the cave, which they had been locked out of by Jean Paul Valley during his time as Batman, and Bruce Wayne used it to infiltrate the cave and confront the insane Valley in the final battle between the two men for the title of the Batman. Lured into the narrow tunnel, Valley was forced to remove the massive Bat-armor he had developed, thus allowing Wayne to force Valley to remit his claim to the title. The location of the cave is known not only to Batman but to several of his allies. In addition to the so-called "Batman Family", members of the Justice League and the original Outsiders are aware of the cave's location. Essentially, anyone who is aware of Batman's secret identity also knows the location of the Batcave, much like how people who have knowledge of Robin's identity have knowledge of Batman's; these, unfortunately, include such villains as Ra's al Ghul, who makes occasional visits to the Batcave to confront his long-time nemesis, and David Cain, who infiltrated the cave during the Bruce Wayne: Fugitive comic book storyline when he framed Bruce Wayne for murder. During Batman: Dark Victory, Two-Face, the Joker, Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy discovered the Batcave while fleeing through the sewers to escape the attacks of the surviving mobsters, but they had lost their way and were never able to find the cave again after being defeated by Batman and Dick Grayson (In his "official" debut as Robin), Batman reflecting that he would seal that entrance to prevent such a thing happening again. When the powerful Bedlam took over the world and transferred all adults to a duplicate Earth, Robin attempted to assess the situation from the Batcave with Superboy and Impulse, but it would appear that he avoided revealing the cave's exact location to them, suggesting that he accessed it via an external passage or a teleporter. Although Wayne Manor was repossessed and converted into the new Arkham Asylum following the events of Batman Eternal, Batman maintains the original cave after sealing off the entrance to Wayne Manor, musing that it is a good opportunity to keep his foes contained. After the manor was gifted back to Bruce by Geri Powers. Alfred kept the location of the Batcave a secret from Bruce who had lost his memory of being Batman in his last battle with The Joker. While the manor was being renovated and all the Arkham inmates were removed Bruce and Alfred until then remained in a Brownstone in Gotham itself. Even after Bruce loses all memory of his life as Batman, the cave was still used by other members of the Bat-Family; Alfred took the de-powered Clark Kent to the cave to explain what had happened to Bruce, and Dick Grayson and the various Robins used it as a base of operations while opposing the schemes of the ruthless "Mother" in Batman and Robin Eternal. When new villain Mr. Bloom launches a massive attack on Gotham, Alfred is forced to allow Bruce into the Batcave to access an apparently-disregarded program designed to upload Bruce's memories to a series of Batman clones to maintain his legacy, Bruce overcoming the original project's limitation of being unable to upload the memories to a fresh body by having Alfred take him to the point of brain death and then download the data onto his blank brain. Design The Batcave serves as Batman's secret headquarters and the command center, where he monitors all crisis points in Gotham City, as well as the rest of the world. The cave's centerpiece is a supercomputer whose specs are on par with any of those used by leading national security agencies; it permits global surveillance and also connects to a massive information network as well as storing vast amounts of information, both on Batman's foes and his allies. A series of satellite link-ups allows easy access to Batman's information network anywhere around the globe. The systems are protected against unauthorized access, and any attempt to breach their security immediately sends an alert to Batman or Oracle. Despite the power of Batman's computers, the Justice League Watchtower is known to have more powerful computers (composed of Kryptonian, Thanagarian and Martian technology), and Batman does occasionally use them if he feels his computers are not up to the task; on occasion, he also consults Oracle for assistance. Additionally, the cave features state-of-the-art facilities such as a crime lab, various specialized laboratories, mechanized workshops, personal gymnasium, parking, docking and hangar space (as appropriate) for his vehicles as well as separate exits for each type, memorabilia of past campaigns, a vast library, a large bat colony, and a Justice League teleporter. It also has medical facilities as well as various areas used in training exercises for Batman and his allies. The cave houses Batman's vast array of specialized vehicles, foremost being the Batmobile in all its incarnations (mostly for nostalgia, but also for contingencies, as all are serviceable and in excellent working condition). Other vehicles within the complex include various motorcycles, air- and watercraft such as The Bat-Wing, a single-occupant supersonic jet, and the Subway Rocket (which debuted in Detective Comics #667). The cave is sometimes depicted as being powered by a nuclear reactor, but most often by a hydroelectric generator made possible by an underground river. During the Cataclysm storyline, the cave was seriously damaged in an earthquake- Bruce Wayne naturally unable to fortify Wayne Manor against such an event despite his precautions with the rest of his property to preserve Batman's secrets- with the Bat-family relocating most of the trophies and equipment in the cave to offsite storage to conceal Batman's identity. During the later reconstruction, the new Wayne Manor incorporates additional safeguards against future quakes and even a potential nuclear catastrophe, outfitting the cave as a virtual bomb shelter or an enhanced panic room. The city's earthquake redesigned the caverns of the Batcave, with eight new levels now making up Batman's secret refuge of high-tech laboratory, library, training areas, storage areas, and vehicle accesses. It also includes an "island" computer platform (built on the spot where the Batmobiles' hydraulic turntable once was) with seven linked Cray T932 mainframes and a state-of-the-art hologram projector. There's also a selection of retractable glass maps within the computer platform. Kevlar shieldings are prepared to protect the cave's computer systems from seismic activity. With the cave's various facilities spread amid limestone stalactites and stalagmites, Batman built retractable multi-walkway bridges, stairs, elevators, and poles to access its facilities. There is a containment vault solely for Lex Luthor's Kryptonite ring. However, it was later revealed that Batman built another containment facility within the cave for a collection of variety of forms of Kryptonite. What is allegedly the world's last Lazarus Pit was constructed inside the cave, although this has been contradicted by events in the pages of Batgirl and the Black Adam miniseries. Security measures The Batcave is rigged with the most sophisticated security system in the world in order to prevent all measure of infiltration. The security measures include motion sensors, silent alarms, steel and lead mechanical doors which could lock a person in or out, and a security mode which is specifically designed to stop if not eliminate all Justice League members in the event that any of them go rogue. After Bruce Wayne's 'death' during the Final Crisis, Two-Face managed to infiltrate the cave with the aid of a psychic analyzing a batarang to 'sense' where it was forged and then hiring Warp to teleport him into it, something that Two-Face had never been able to do before as Batman used various spells and equipment to shield the cave which his allies either never knew about or had discontinued as they no longer used the cave themselves following Bruce's death. Despite Two-Face successfully breaking into the cave, Dick Grayson, acting as the new Batman, is able to convince Dent that he is the same man and has just adopted new methods, preserving Batman's secrets as Dent is rendered unconscious before he can find the location of the cave. Memorabilia The cave stores unique memorabilia items collected from the various cases Batman has worked on over the years. Originally, these were stored in a room designed just for them; it was explained that Batman and Robin took one memento from each case. Later, the trophies were shown to be in the large main area of the cave, residing among the rest of the Batcave's furnishings. The most regularly featured trophies are a full-size animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex, a giant replica of a Lincoln penny, and an oversized Joker playing card. The T. Rex comes from an adventure on "Dinosaur Island" (Batman #35 1946); the penny was originally a trophy from Batman's encounter with a penny-obsessed villain named the Penny Plunderer (World's Finest Comics #30 1947), but was later retconned into being from an encounter with Two-Face. Other "keepsakes" in the cave come from "The Thousand and One Trophies of Batman!" (Detective Comics #158, 1950). These three stories were reprinted in Batman #256. Modern retellings of the items' origins can be found in Batman Chronicles stories in issue #8 ("Secrets of the Batcave: Dinosaur Island") and issue #19 ("The Penny Plunderers"). A story in Batman #81 featured Two-Face tying Batman and Robin to a giant replica of his silver dollar coin. This story was the basis for an episode of Batman: The Animated Series wherein Batman gains the giant coin from that encounter; this has caused widespread confusion as to the actual origin of the coin trophy. Other pieces often shown in the Batcave are Two-Face's original coin, Deathstroke's sword (the owner of which Batman has fought at least twice), the shroud of the vampiric Monk, and oversized ten-pins. There is also a glass case display of Jason Todd's Robin costume as a memorial to him, with the epitaph "A Good Soldier", which remains even after Todd's resurrection. Barbara Gordon's Batgirl costume also remains on display. In the Dark Horse two-part crossover, Grendel/Batman II, the skull of Hunter Rose is also put on display in the memorabilia room. After the Flashpoint comic book storyline, a letter written by a Thomas Wayne from an alternate timeline addressed to Bruce Wayne has lain in a display case, as a reminder of Thomas Wayne's love for his son and encouraging him to move on from his tragic past. However, this letter was destroyed by the reborn Eobard Thawne as a way to hurt Bruce for Thomas's attempt to kill him before Flashpoint ended. "Batcave" safehouses The Outsiders were, for a time, based out of a Batcave in Los Angeles. When Jean Paul Valley tookover the role of Batman, Tim Drake establishes his own safe house using an abandoned barn nearby Wayne Manor and his own house. After Bane's attack during the Knightfall story arc, Bruce Wayne swore that he'd never be caught unprepared to defend Gotham City ever again. When Dick Grayson assumed the Batman role during the Prodigal storyline, Bruce established satellite Batcaves (most of which were not caves in the literal sense that the original one was) throughout the city on areas either owned by him, his company, or unknown or abandoned by the city, in the event that he needed a place to hide and/or resupply, which were pivotal during the No Man's Land storyline. One such Batcave was given to Batgirl, below a house owned by Bruce Wayne himself, during a point where her identity was compromised after she saved a man from rogue government agents, meaning that she could not walk around without a mask. Bat Bunker: Under the Wayne Foundation building, there is a secret bunker. As of Batman #687, Dick Grayson has taken to using this as his "Batcave", stating that he wishes to embody the role of Batman in a way that is specific to him as well as getting closer to the action in the city. The bunker is as well-equipped as the original Batcave, including the Subway Rocket vehicle (which is Grayson's favorite means of transport during the Prodigal storyline) stationed beneath the bunker despite him using a flying Batmobile. The other satellite Batcaves introduced during No Man's Land were: Batcave Central: Located fifty feet below the bottom of Robinson Park Reservoir, it is accessible through a secret entrance at the foot of one of the Twelve Caesars statues at the north of the park. This safehouse was put out of commission by Poison Ivy, her "Feraks", and Clayface. Batcave South: A boiler room of a derelict shipping yard on the docks across from Paris Island. This safehouse is accessible through a number of false manholes planted throughout Old Gotham streets. Batcave South-Central: Located in the Old Gotham prototype subway station, a four-block stretch of track sealed in 1896 and forgotten. Batcave Northwest: This safehouse is located in the subbasement of Arkham Asylum. Batman secretly stocked it with emergency rations, all-terrain vehicles, and battery-powered communication equipment. Batcave East: An abandoned oil refinery owned by Wayne Enterprises. It fell out of use during a gasoline crisis when the company moved all of its holdings offshore decades ago. Batcave Submarine: Introduced in 2002's Fugitive story arc, this time in the form of an abandoned submarine docked on the city's harbors, which Batman used as a full-time residence when he chose to abandon his life as Bruce Wayne when framed for the murder of Vesper Fairchild. Alternative versions of the Batcave Batman & Dracula Trilogy In Batman & Dracula: Red Rain, Batman destroys the Batcave in order to eliminate Dracula's followers; having lured them into the cave after a prolonged pursuit through the sewers, he sets off explosive charges to destroy the Batcave's walls at the moment the sun rises, destroying the vampires trapped within it, before setting off additional charges to collapse Wayne Manor in order to preserve his secrets. The first sequel, Bloodstorm, shows that a cellar beneath a brownstone owned by Alfred Pennyworth serves as a lair/laboratory for Batman after he has become a vampire himself, the Dark Knight 'sleeping' there in his coffin during the day. Although Wayne Manor collapses into the remains of the cave, part of the tunnel system is still intact, with Batman establishing his lair there in the story's second sequel, Crimson Mist, after he surrenders to his new vampire instincts. Despite the collapse of the manor, the cave interior appears mostly intact, with the giant penny, the T-Rex and the Batmobile shown to be undamaged, although there is also a deep chasm within walking distance of the areas where Batman kept the aforementioned items when he was human. At the story's conclusion, Commissioner Gordon sets off explosive charges to destroy the cave's roof, letting the sun into the cave once again in order to destroy the monster that Batman has become once and for all. Batman: Brotherhood of the Bat In Batman: Brotherhood of the Bat, some years after Bruce Wayne's death and humanity's decimation by a virus unleashed by Ra's al Ghul, Ra's takes control of the Batcave and uses some of Bruce's sketches of possible costumes to create an army of Bat-men based on Bruce's rejected costume designs. Eventually, this 'Brotherhood' is infiltrated by Tallant, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, who is able to destroy the Brotherhood from within using his father's own costume, culminating in him defeating his grandfather in a duel in the cave. Flashpoint (comics) In the alternate reality of Flashpoint, the Batcave- here used by Thomas Wayne rather than Bruce- is far smaller and more run-down than the traditional version, containing merely a couple of tables for Thomas to work on his equipment and a medical area, with a conventional computer in the upper manor, reflecting Thomas's more brutal and solitary M.O. as Batman as opposed to the more sophisticated training undertaken by his son. Legion of Super-Heroes In the 31st century, the Batcave has been long abandoned, although Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad briefly infiltrate the cave while looking for evidence that Krypton existed to counter the xenophobic claims of the Justice League of Earth that Superman was a human given powers to fight against aliens. Detective Comics (vol. 2) #27 In a possible future, Bruce Wayne has used a machine to download his memories and training- up to the point where he witnesses the bat and makes his vow to become Batman- into a series of clones of himself, each one aged to a point where they can act as Batman for around twenty-five years before they need to activate the new clone. By the time that the tenth generation clone is created, the Batcave has become a vast workshop, including a flying Batmobile, a robotic shark as a trophy, and costumes in glass cases, but the older Batman informs the new one that the contents of the cave will be burned upon his death so that the new Batman can make room for his own things while using the recorded memories to keep track of anything important from the past. Smallville: Season 11 In the comic book continuation of the television series Smallville, Batman has a safe house in the form of a cargo ship, known as "Leviathan", docked at a hub in Metropolis. It is registered to a shell corporation in the Caribbean, thus protecting Bruce Wayne's secret. However, it is compromised by the Intergang, Prankster, and Mister Freeze. Lex Luthor is also aware of Leviathan's location due to his tracking of Superman's radiation signature with his satellites. Wayne is later shown in the Batcave itself with Alfred when the Martian Manhunter infiltrates it to talk with Batman. Batman Beyond In the comic book series Batman Beyond 2.0, Terry no longer uses the Batcave following an argument with Bruce. He now uses Dick Grayson's apartment as his base of operations. When Terry is seriously injured in a battle with Rewire, he wakes up in the Batcave where Bruce has treated his injuries and left information regarding Rewire himself. He arrived there due to a built in subroutine in the suit that if the user is seriously injured or falls unconscious, the suit becomes automated and returns the user to the Batcave. After arriving in the universe controlled by the Justice Lords Terry encounters a version of himself who is a member of the Jokerz known as " T ". Both McGinnis's arrive at Wayne Manor to find that it had been destroyed by the Justice Lords. A gang of Jokerz then proceed to attack them with T giving Terry enough time to make his way to the badly damaged Batcave. After exploring the cave he finds a number of damaged display cases which contain an unknown Batgirl suit, Justice Lord Batman suit and a Red Robin suit. He then discovers an armored and more powerful version of his own Batsuit which is powered by synthetic Kryptonite. After defeating the Jokerz gang he is confronted by Justice Lord Superman. Following the defeat of Lord Superman, T and Dick Grayson (of the Justice Lords universe) begin repairs to the Batcave and to the suit Terry found with the intention of T taking over as the new Batman and Dick becoming his mentor. They later help send Terry back to his own universe. In other media Film Serials The Batcave first became part of the Batman mythos in the 1943 15-chapter movie serial Batman starring Lewis Wilson. In this version, as later in the comics, it was a small cave with a desk and rock walls lit up by candles. Behind the desk is a large black bat symbol. The cave is connected to a crime lab. Bats were depicted as flying around the cave, although only their shadows were visible. Batman uses these bats as a scare tactic to make an apprehended enemy reveal information. To prevent the enemy from escaping, an iron door covers the exit. The Batcave was also featured and expanded on in the 1949 serial Batman and Robin starring Robert Lowery. In this serial, there are filing cabinets and the cave now has a crime lab built in. The cave also contains the first incarnation of a batphone. In both serials, the cave is accessed by walking through a grandfather clock. Batman (TV series) The 1960s live-action Batman TV series featured the Batcave extensively, and portrayed it as a large but well-lit cavern containing an atomic power generator, a chemistry lab, punch-card computers, and other electronic crime-fighting devices, almost always prominently labeled with their function. In this incarnation, it primarily served as a crime lab and garage for the Batmobile. In this version, the Batcave is accessed from Wayne Manor via two Bat-Poles (one marked BRUCE and the other marked DICK), which are hidden behind a bookcase that can be opened by turning a switch hidden inside a bust of Shakespeare. When Bruce and Dick slide down these Bat-Poles, they are instantly outfitted in their costumes before reaching the landing pads at the bottom. The Bat-Poles can also be used to lift Bruce and Dick up from the Batcave to Wayne Manor by use of the steamjet-propelled landing pads. The Batcave is also accessible via a service elevator which is used by Alfred. The actual cave that the Batmobile is shown emerging from (and sometimes entering) in the TV show is located in the man-made filming location known as the "Bronson Caves," in Griffith Park, below the Hollywood Sign. Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher films Batman (1989) The cave is present in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman feature film. The cave is shown to house the Batmobile, which is parked on a turntable-like platform at the edge of a large chasm filled with pipes, looking somewhat like a sewer. The Batmoblie enters the cave from a rock cliff/door. A huge switch turns on the lights in the cave. There are also bats roaming the cave. The cave also features the Batcomputer, which is on a metal platform. There is also an office-like workstation, some unspecified machinery and a large vault for Batman's costume. Batman Returns (1992) The cave is once again seen in Batman Returns, and Bruce gains access to it via a tube/elevator like passage from Wayne Manor, the entrance to which is hidden in an iron maiden, and is activated by flipping a small switch hidden on a small replica of Wayne Manor in the bottom of a fish tank. Alfred also confirms, in a throwaway remark, that there is a staircase to the cave. The cave was huge and well lit and featured a forensics lab, a computer, unspecified machines, a closet for the costumes, the Batmobile, and its repair tools. Batman Forever (1995) In this film, the Batcave is accessed through a rotating shelf which led to a staircase in Wayne Manor's silver closet, the only room in the mansion that is kept locked. The cave can also be reached via a secret tunnel system from Bruce Wayne's office at Wayne Enterprises, through which he rides down in a capsule. The capsule has a communication device Bruce used to communicate with Alfred. The cave features the main computer, as well as a crime lab (most of the machinery is unspecified) as well as a canal, which provides access to the sea for the Batboat. The cave also includes a lengthy tunnel used to launch the Batwing, which emerges from the cliffs underneath Wayne Manor. The cave features a rotating turntable that rises out of the floor, holding the Batmobile, and a large dome-like structure where Bruce's Batsuits and gadgets are stored. During an invasion of Wayne Manor by Riddler and Two Face, Riddler destroys the Batcomputer, the crime lab, every Batsuit except for a prototype with a new sonar system, and the Batmobile, although there is a lower section containing the Batboat and the Batplane that Batman and the new Robin use to confront the villains. In the deleted scenes, the Batcave has a secret section that Bruce fell as a child during the funeral of their parents. After Riddler's attack, Bruce and Alfred come to that place where Bruce fell back to where finding the diary of his father and confronting his biggest fear; the giant bat. Batman & Robin (1997) This incarnation of the cave features a multitude of flashing lights, mostly in neon. On the whole, this Batcave is similar to that in Batman Forever, only more garish in its decoration. A capsule containing Robin's Redbird motorcycle rises out of the floor, and a long tunnel lined with neon lights leads out of the cave. The turntable holding the batmobile returns, but in a more elaborate fashion. The cave features the area used to store Batman's costume and a place to store Robin's. The Dark Knight Trilogy Batman Begins In Batman Begins, the cave is still unfurnished, and the only things inside are a small workshop and a storage space for the Batsuit and its accessories, a medical area, and the Batmobile. The entrance and exit for the Batmobile are on a cliff, behind a waterfall. Alfred reveals to Bruce that during the Civil War, the Waynes used the vast cavern system as part of the Underground Railroad: after initially abseiling down a well (which Bruce fell down in his childhood) to get into the cave, they discover a hidden Civil War-era mechanical elevator which is still functional and leads to a hidden entrance in the mansion, which they then use as the primary means of entrance to the cave. The elevator is accessed by tapping three keys on a piano. Near the end of the film, when Bruce talks to Alfred about rebuilding the burnt-down main section of Wayne Manor, Alfred suggests they "improve the foundation", which may mean improving and furnishing the cave as they rebuild the mansion. The Dark Knight As Wayne Manor is still under construction in The Dark Knight, Batman's base of operations has been relocated to a large bunker beneath a shipping yard. One access point shown is through a shipping container which houses a secret hydraulic lift. The "Bat-bunker" also contains a wire mesh cage for the Batsuit, along with the associated weapons and tools, toolbox, and spare equipment for the Batmobile. In contrast to the Batcave, the large rectangular shaped room is brightly lit by banks of overhead fluorescent lights. Storage areas for the equipment are located both under the ground and within the walls giving the room a very empty appearance with the exception of a large bank of monitors to go with a well-developed computer system. In addition, the room is equipped with furnaces which Alfred uses to burn documents after Bruce decides to turn himself in. The Dark Knight Rises The Batcave reappears in The Dark Knight Rises in full working condition. To access the cave, a similar way to Batman Begins, tapping three keys on the piano will reveal a now modernly built elevator which takes the passenger straight to the cave. The newest addition to the cave is "The Bat", a flying tank aircraft built by Wayne Enterprises' Applied Science Division and a Batcomputer as well as numerous landing pads and a locking case which contains the Batsuit. Added features included that the bridges used to gain access to different sections can be submerged as well as the platforms as a form of security measures in case anyone gains unauthorized access to the cave. While submerged the only visible object is a Batcomputer terminal which can only be accessed by either Bruce or Alfred's fingerprints and an access code. The cave from The Dark Knight appears as well, which contains weapons, supplies, and a back-up Batsuit. After Bruce Wayne is declared legally dead, his will is amended so that John Blake inherits GPS coordinates that lead him to the Batcave. DC Extended Universe Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice In this version, the Batcave is not located directly underneath Wayne Manor, but was originally in the woods on the manor's outskirts, with Bruce discovering the cave when he fell into them after running away during his parents' funeral. After Wayne Manor was destroyed in some unspecified fire, Bruce and Alfred relocated to a glass house built above the Batcave, which consists primarily of a long access passage that leads to a nearby lake and can be used for the Batmobile or (presumably) the Batplane to gain access. The elevator leading to the house also includes a chamber with an old Robin costume, apparently a memorial, while an upper level includes the Batcomputer and a workshop where Bruce and Alfred can work on Batman's various weapons, including the synthesiser used to distort his voice in the regular suit and the armour he uses to fight Superman. Justice League Following Superman's death, Bruce continues to operate out of the Batcave, which it is revealed also includes a large hangar where he has been working on a secret troop transport for the team he has been planning to create following Superman's death. As he works on the transport, he is visited by Diana, and notes that the cave's security cost him millions of dollars. Once the team of himself, Diana, Barry Allen, Victor Stone and Arthur Curry have come together for the first time to confront the powerful Steppenwolf, Bruce takes them to the Batcave to plan their next move, with an excited Barry Allen running all around the cave in seconds upon arrival. The Lego Batman Movie The Batcave is featured in The Lego Batman Movie. This version of the Batcave is more larger as it contains many versions of the Batmobile, Bat-themed vehicles and Batsuits. It is controlled by Batman's sentient, HAL-9000-like, Batcomputer (voiced by Siri), nicknamed 'Puter', who, as Batman enters the Batcave through a secret road on Wayne Island, asks him the password, which is "Iron Man sucks". Television Early appearances The Bat-Cave was first seen in animation in episodes of The Batman/Superman Hour, Super Friends, and The New Adventures of Batman. In these cartoons, the Batcomputer is present as usual. The voice of the Batcomputer was portrayed by Lou Scheimer in The New Adventures of Batman. DC Animated Universe Batman: The Animated Series In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Beware the Gray Ghost", the Batcave is revealed to be an exact replica of the lair used by the Gray Ghost, a fiction-within-fiction character and idol to Bruce Wayne. There's also an exhibit of a collection of the Gray Ghost merchandise Bruce Wayne has collected since childhood. The Batcave gets introduced in this series as a large cavern. Bats are seen flying freely in the cave, with large naturally elevated platforms on which his sidekick Robin practices his balance. Batman often utilises the Batcomputer, impressive technology during the time the series was produced (early to mid-1990s), to research information on villains, from an anti-venom to Poison Ivy's plant poison to newspaper articles on the origin of Killer Croc. Batman's numerous crime-fighting vehicles are seen parked in an adjacent compartment to the Batcave, with an adjoining not-so-secret subterranean garage which stores Bruce Wayne's mammoth collection of vintage and luxury cars. In the episode "Almost Got 'Im", Two-Face uses a giant penny in an attempt to either crush Batman or kill him from the impact, depending on whichever side the giant coin landed on. Batman managed to free himself from the coin by slicing open the ropes. While telling the story of this to other Batman villains, Two-Face commented that Batman got to keep the giant coin. It is seen later in the series (and its spin-offs), in the Batcave. Several entrances to the cave are seen throughout the series. In early episodes, Batman is seen using an elevator that is accessed through a secret door hidden behind a bookcase. In later episodes, he is seen using the classic grandfather clock entrance from the comics. In certain episodes, the clock-entrance is opened by setting the hands of the clock the time Bruce's parents were killed (similar to certain comic book stories), while in The New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond, and Justice League, the pendulum is pulled from behind the face of the clock to unlock the entrance. The New Batman Adventures In the 1998 episode "Mean Seasons" from The New Batman Adventures, Batman and Batgirl are forced to fight a giant mechanical T-Rex. The comic book tie-in to the Justice League Batman – Batman Adventures #12 – features a short called "The Hidden Display" which tells how a young Dick Grayson persuades Batman into keeping a robot T-Rex early on his career, which eventually leads to the Trophy Room of the Cave. Either one of these tales could be how the animated Batman obtained the dinosaur. An extensive training area allows Barbara Gordon to take on robots as part of her training. Batman Beyond This future Batcave of Batman Beyond replicas of Batman's enemies (both as wax dummies and robot combat trainers), and a display case with the many permutations of costumes of Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, and Batman himself. Other items which have been shown to be in the Cave include the Freeze Gun and helmet of Mr. Freeze, the puppet Scarface, a 'shrine' to Bruce Wayne's childhood TV hero, the Gray Ghost, and the costumes of Harley Quinn, Penguin, Riddler, Mad Hatter, Firefly, and Catwoman. The cave itself throughout the series also projected a shade of purple on person or persons while in the cave, making it appear as if Bruce's black suit was purple and Terry's bat symbol composed of purple and red. During the series, Bruce typically remained in the Batcave to coordinate Terry's efforts over the suit's video-link, giving him information and/or offering advice, although he would enter the field if the situation desperately called for it. It also contains the original Batmobile and Batcomputer in the two part pilot, however by the subsequent episodes they had been removed and replaced with a new Batmobile which Terry uses throughout the series and feature film. How Bruce was able to refit and upgrade the Batcomputer and all other systems so quickly is never explained. During her debut, Inque managed to infiltrate the Batcave by latching onto the Batmobile and 'riding' it back to the cave, but Bruce was certain that she would never be able to find the cave again as it was a dark night and Terry drives too fast for Inque to have any hope of retracting her steps. Communications tycoon Robert Vance once managed to essentially infiltrate the cave by transferring his mind into the Batsuit, but he promptly departed to pursue his own agenda and was purged from the suit in the subsequent fight. Gossip reporter Ian Peek was also able to access the cave using stolen technology that allowed him to phase through solid matter, but his discovery proved irrelevant when over-use of the technology caused him to become permanently intangible and fall into Earth's core before he could share that information with anyone else. In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, the reborn Joker- revealed over the course of the film to be essentially a 'clone' of the deceased villain, his DNA and personality encoded on a microchip in the back of Tim Drake's neck that can take over his body- breaks into the cave and nearly poisons Bruce with the Joker's lethal laughing gas, but his attack provides a clue that helps Terry later determine the true nature of the returned clown, and all evidence suggests that he did not share his knowledge of Batman's true identity even with his new gang owing to his desire to torment his foes privately. Justice League In the Justice League animated series, the members of the League seek refuge in the Batcave during the Thanagarian invasion. Later, they also confront Hawkgirl in the cave, and use the Batcomputer to track her movements. When the Batcave comes under siege from the Thanagarians, one attempts to use Mr. Freeze's Freeze Gun on Superman; Superman repels the attack with a gust of wind, freezing the soldier. Flash also tips the infamous giant penny onto some of the attacking Thangarians ("Tails! I win!"). In a humorous scene, he also points to the T-Rex, stating "That's a giant dinosaur!", at which point Alfred states "And I thought Batman was the detective". It is assumed the League used the cave as a headquarters until the new Watchtower is built, as they decide Hawkgirl's fate in Wayne Manor in the wake of the invasion. The Batman The Batman, the animated series that debuted in 2004, features a much more high-tech Batcave, with large computer displays and flashing blue lights. Among these displays are the "Bat-Wave" warning signals, an alternate way of calling upon the Caped Crusader before the Bat-Signal went into service. Bruce Wayne is seen mostly without his Batsuit or with his cowl removed while in the cave, unlike in the earlier animated series. As a throwback to the old Adam West TV show, the cave has assorted 'Bat-poles' for Batman and Robin which allowed them from level to level in a faster manner. Unlike the old series, it does not allow for instant costume changes. The elevator system is featured quite a bit as well. A similar trophy room, this time storing memorabilia seen in earlier episodes such as The Riddler's giant hourglass and The Joker's giant playing card trap, appears in the series. The series also shows that it was Alfred Pennyworth who started the museum, hoping it would be useful if the city of Gotham ever fully accepted Batman, somewhat like the Flash Museum. The cave was also the location of Season 3's climatic finale, "Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind", in which the villainous robot D.A.V.E. attempts to kill Alfred using an array of trophies garnered by the Batman, putting the Dark Knight in a position where he had to choose between revealing his secret identity to all of Gotham City, or allowing Alfred to be killed by the trap. However, even the Batcave isn't impervious to damage. In one episode, a loose raccoon causes a short circuit and subsequent blackout of electricity in the cave. In the direct-to-video film The Batman vs. Dracula, it said that Batman's cave is in fact part of a series of Catacombs under Gotham City, which Batman uses to lure Dracula to the cave and subsequently kill him with the new solar generator. On the episode "Joker's Express," it is revealed that the Batcave is also connected to some old mines beneath the city when Gotham was a thriving coal-mining town in the late 19th century. In the Season 4 episode "Artifacts", archaeologists from the future unearth the Batcave. Its titanium supports are printed with binary code, as the computer information would not survive that long. The archaeologists theorize that Thomas Wayne was Batman and that Bruce Wayne was Robin. In another segment of the episode, set in 2027, Barbara Gordon (as the Oracle) is shown at the Batcomputer in the Batcave. Her wheelchair is also uncovered in the cave by the archaeologists, who believe that it was Alfred who used it. Unlike in many previous incarnations of the Batcave which show only one exit/entrance, the Batmobile and other vehicles exit the cave through a variety of concealed dead-ends and disguised construction sites scattered around Gotham City. Batman also established a series of satellite Batcaves across Gotham on the show. Batcave South-Central debuted on the episode "Strange New World". In "The Joining, Part One", it is revealed that Lucius Fox helped the Batman in constructing the Batcave, and all of the Dark Knight's other secret safehouses throughout Gotham. Another satellite Batcave debuted on the episode "The Batman/Superman Story, Part One", under Wayne Industries which served as his new tech lab. In the episode, "The End of The Batman ", the villainous anti-Batman and Robin team, known as The Wrath and his sidekick, Scorn, break into the Batcave, and attempt to kill Batman and Robin, causing large amounts of damage in the process. By the time of the two part finale involving all members of the Justice League the cave has been fully repaired. Batman: The Brave and the Bold In Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Batcave makes its first appearance in the episode "Deep Cover for Batman," when Owlman attacks Batman inside it. In the following episode, "Game Over for Owlman," Batman brings the Joker, who is at the time partnered with him, to the cave (The Joker accidentally sprayed himself with knockout gas before and after they were in the Batcave, so he couldn't possibly know where the cave's location is). A number of trophies displayed include a giant clam and oversized-slot-machine-themed electric chair, death traps formerly used by the Joker, in reference to the 1960s TV show. The entrance to this Batcave can be seen briefly in The Brave and the Bold episode "Color of Revenge." It appears to be very similar to the Batman TV series Batcave. In The Siege of Starro Part 1, Faceless Hunter attacks Batman in the Batcave. In the episode "Darkseid Descending", a reserve Batcave (very similar to the "Bat-Bunker" in The Dark Knight) is located inside the Lincoln Memorial. In "Menace of the Conquer Caveman" Booster Gold mentions that the Batcave will be converted into a historical attraction with its own built-in roller coaster in the 25th century. In "The Last Bat on Earth", Batman goes to the Batcave to use technology from his era to defeat Gorilla Grodd and his army of intelligent apes in Kamandi's time. A group of humanoid "Man-Bats" made the cave their home after the Great Disaster and are driven out by Batman and Kamandi. Teen Titans In the episode "Haunted", the Batcave makes an appearance when Raven enters Robin's mind. Young Justice In the episode "Downtime", Alfred and Bruce Wayne are both seen in the Batcave observing Robin's behavior. Beware the Batman In this version the entrance to the Bat Cave is hidden behind a large fireplace in Wayne's trophy room. Batman brings unconscious guests in, such as Man-Bat and Manhunter, for questioning. The latter was drugged and blindfolded before being brought in for security measures. In the season finale, Deathstroke infiltrates the Batcave, takes Alfred hostage, and sets up explosives in order to detonate them and destroy the Batcave and everyone in it. Batman has a climatic final showdown against Deathstroke, while Katana, Oracle, Metamorpho, and Man-Bat spread out to take down and dispose of the explosives. Gotham A cave appears in the interior of Wayne Manor in the five seasons of the FOX TV series Gotham. The cave was never built or showed when in the series, not even the finale when Bruce Wayne becomes Batman. Batwoman In the TV series Batwoman, Bruce has a Batcave in Wayne Towers which is use by his cousin Kate and Luke Fox. Titans The Batcave appears in Titans. Video games Also in the 2008 video game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, the Batcave is one of the fighting arenas. Injustice In the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us, the Batcave is a level in the game, where the fighters can use Batman's various weapons and vehicles to damage their opponent; Green Arrow faces a villainous Wonder Woman and Black Adam in the Batcave when attempting to acquire a Kryptonite weapon to defeat the corrupted Superman of an alternate reality, and the 'true' Batman faces the alternate Batman in a fight in the Batcave to convince him to go along with the plan of summoning the Superman of their world to defeat the villainous Superman of the alternate world. A new version of the Batcave appears as a level in Injustice 2. This version was originally the Gotham Underground Subway built by Bruce's great-grandfather. It's also where Bruce keeps his communications and surveillance hub, Brother Eye. It is currently unknown if Batman reclaimed the original Batcave and Wayne Manor after the fall of Superman and The Regime. Lego Batman The Batcave is also featured in the 2012 video game Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes which features three parking 'areas' for land, sea and air based vehicles and their appropriate exits from the cave, the Batcomputer, used to replay past levels and 'warp' to various landmarks in Gotham and other elements shown in Batman media such as a waterfall, a Lincoln Penny and an animatronic T-Rex. Batman: Arkham In the 2009 video game Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman can access a secret auxiliary Batcave hidden within the cave system beneath Arkham Island after the Joker takes control of the asylum. This Batcave is small and fairly spartan (in comparison with Batman's primary Batcave), containing only two small platforms, a Batcomputer, and one of Batman's Batwing planes. Near the end of the game this cave was partially destroyed by Poison Ivy. Although not featured in the main story, the Batcave does appear as a downloadable challenge map in the 2011 video game sequel Batman: Arkham City. During the main story, Batman is able to access the Batcomputer's database via his batsuit and can upload data to Alfred who can analyze it using the Batcomputer back at the Batcave. The Batcave is accessible in the main campaign of Batman: Arkham Origins. From the cave the player can use the Batwing fast travel system, switch to alternate skins and enter the challenge map rooms as opposed to selecting from the main menu as in previous Arkham games. Alfred is also present in the cave, supplying Batman with gadget upgrades. The Batcave is heavily damaged by Bane during the game's climax. It is still damaged during the DLC Cold, Cold Heart, set on New Year's Eve, just after the events of the main game. Although the Batcave is not accessible in Batman: Arkham Knight, Alfred co-ordinates all activity during the mission from the cave. He also activates the Knightfall Protocol from within the cave using Bruce's voice authorization password "Martha". When Wayne Manor was destroyed after Bruce activates the protocol, it is unknown if the Batcave survived the explosion. Throughout the game, both Batman and Robin utilize a Bat-Bunker of sorts underneath Panessa Studios, where Robin works to find a cure for those infected by Joker's blood in the previous game. The bunker contains holding cells for each infected patient, as well as medical equipment and a Bat-computer. References External links Movie Poop Shoot Article on Batman, including a Batcave section The Origin of the Bat Cave A blog post by Bill Jourdain about the earliest comics appearances of the Batcave Top 10 Batcave Trophies Article on ComicsBulletin about the Batcave Hall of Trophies Gotham City 1943 in comics Fictional museums Fictional secret bases Fictional caves Fictional elements introduced in 1943

4397009

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.%20R.%20Roberts

C. R. Roberts

Cornelius R. Roberts (born February 29, 1936) is a former American football player who played fullback for the USC Trojans, the Toronto Argonauts and the San Francisco 49ers. High school career Roberts graduated from Oceanside High School in Northern San Diego County. College career At the University of Southern California, Roberts led the Trojans to a 44–20 victory over Texas during the 1956 season. It was the first time a black player competed against a white player in that state. He rushed for 251 yards ononly 12 carries and was cheered as he left the field. Prior to the event, the University of Texas did not want him to attend the game, but the USC players refused to play without him. He was shouted down and called the "N" word by some fans. He got a degree in business administration from what is now the Marshall School of Business. Professional career After being drafted in the fourteenth round of the 1958 NFL draft by the New York Giants, Roberts opted instead to sign with the Toronto Argonauts of the "Big Four" (soon to be renamed the Eastern Conference) of the Canadian Football League, whose head coach was fellow Californian Hamp Pool. Forming what the Canadian Press called "the best all-round backfield in the Big Four" along with Dick Shatto and fellow rookie Dave Mann, Roberts rushed for 595 yards and five touchdowns, including touchdown runs of 67 and 85 yards. After 10 games in double blue, however, he became a casualty of the 12-man import quota limiting the number of US players who could suit up for the Argos, and was released by Pool in favour of the more versatile Jim Rountree, a defensive standout. After making headlines north of the border, Roberts tried out in 1959 for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but failed to make the team. After being cut, he was picked up by the San Francisco 49ers and played for the team between 1959 and 1962. References External links 1936 births Living people American football fullbacks San Francisco 49ers players USC Trojans football players Sportspeople from San Diego County, California Players of American football from Los Angeles Players of Canadian football from Los Angeles

20576557

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per%20Scholas

Per Scholas

Per Scholas is a United States nonprofit that provides tuition-free technology training to unemployed or underemployed adults for careers as IT professionals. Per Scholas was founded in 1995 by John Stookey and Lewis Miller in the South Bronx, New York City. Today Per Scholas is in 14 cities across the country: Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati and Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Dallas, TX; the National Capital Region; Newark, NJ; New York, NY; and Philadelphia, PA. To date, Per Scholas has trained 8,000 individuals. Programs IT training programs Per Scholas offers a free IT training and workforce development program. Per Scholas offers a targeted range of tuition-free technology and professional development training that vary based on local market demands. Each Per Scholas program includes hands-on technical skills training, job skills instruction, individualized support for job placement, and personal and career advancement. The success of the Per Scholas training programs (relative to earlier workforce development programs) is attributed in large part to its understanding of the industries its students will enter. The organization works in close partnership with many prominent corporations, its instructors are experienced experts in the field, and its leadership consists of leading professionals in the IT field. Training is also structured to fill specific demands in the labor force. The programs are funded by a diverse makeup of partners, who range diversely from corporations and foundations, to numerous public agencies, elected officials and other random people. Additional IT Courses In addition to the standard IT Support career-track training, offerings have been expanding to include courses for careers in network engineering, software testing / quality assurance, cyber security, web development and more to respond to labor demands within the sector. Social Ventures In August 2013, Per Scholas launched the Software Testing Education Program (STEP)--an 8-week training that prepares graduates to fill entry-level software testing roles. While developing this program, Per Scholas was given the opportunity to partner with software consulting company Doran Jones to create the Urban Development Center, a software testing center built adjacent to Per Scholas' Bronx location to employ graduates in the software testing field. Platform by Per Scholas Platform by Per Scholas (PxPS) offers employer customized training tracks that put students in direct hiring pipelines with major technology employers, as an extension of the Per Scholas workforce development model. Platform students receive tuition-free, hands-on training, career development resources and interview opportunities with technology employers to help take their career to the next level. PxPS currently operates career tracks with corporate partners in New York (Bronx, Manhattan), Pennsylvania, and Texas (Dallas, Irving) for aspiring Java/Python/.Net Developers, Data Engineers, SOC Analysts, Programmer Analysts, Quality Engineers, and RPA Developers. Recognition Per Scholas was featured in WIRED magazine in November 2014. Four Per Scholas graduates were featured in the New York Times in the winter of 2014. In 2012, Per Scholas was named one of America's top-performing nonprofit organizations by the Social Impact Exchange S&100 Index for its impressive outcomes and results-driven work. Per Scholas received a Heroes Award from the Robin Hood Foundation in 2011. Leadership Founder and Chairman Emeritus John Hoyt Stookey was chairman, president and CEO of Quantum through 1993, and has held positions on various boards since retiring in 1995. Current Chairman Lewis E. Miller is the president of Qvidian, a provider of cloud-computing applications, and was previously CEO of Synergistics and The Future Now, Inc. CEO and President Plinio Ayala was previously director of program operations at SOBRO. In 2006 he received the Liberty Award from the New York Post for his work in the NYC community and in 2005 was issued a Citation of Merit by the Bronx Borough President. Each regional site outside of New York has an advisory board as well. References 501(c)(3) organizations Port Morris, Bronx Education in the Bronx Non-profit organizations based in the Bronx

1312833

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC%20EXEC%20II

UNIVAC EXEC II

EXEC II is a discontinued operating system developed for the UNIVAC 1107 by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) while under contract to UNIVAC to develop the machine's COBOL compiler. They developed EXEC II because Univac's EXEC I operating system development was late. Because of this the COBOL compiler was actually designed to run under EXEC II, not EXEC I as specified in the original contract. EXEC II is a batch processing operating system that supports a single job stream with concurrent spooling. See also List of UNIVAC products History of computing hardware References External links EXEC 2

54025813

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving%20Mars

Surviving Mars

Surviving Mars is a city building simulation video game initially developed by the Bulgarian studio Haemimont Games, and later by Abstraction Games, and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released on Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 15, 2018. The player serves as an overseer who must build a colony on Mars and ensure the survival of the colonists. Gameplay Surviving Mars is a city-building simulation game that takes place on Mars and is modeled after real Martian data. The player chooses a sponsoring nation, each conferring slightly different benefits and a unique building and vehicle, and then lands on Mars with robotic drones and rovers. These rovers and drones prepare the colony for humans on the red planet by setting up power and water infrastructure, domes, resource depots, oxygen generators, and landing pads. The player's goal is to create a thriving colony on Mars with occasional rockets from Earth, which have limited cargo or passenger space, forcing the player to balance paying to import resources from Earth and producing resources on the planet. For example, the first human colonists will bring limited food with them on their rocket, so farms are crucial to a thriving colony on Mars. The player can bring electronics, machine parts, food, concrete, metal, prefab (pre-fabricated) buildings, rovers and drones from Earth, or research technologies to manufacture them on Mars. After successfully creating and managing for basic resources on Mars, players can have the option to progress by building domes suitable for human life and advanced resources production. Players must balance expanding the colony by managing oxygen, food, water, electricity and replacement parts while progressing through unlocking technologies by researches. Through the 5 fields of research (Physics, Engineering, Social, Biotechnology, Robotics), players can unlock technologies that will eventually lead them to different wonders. The game also has storylines called mysteries, which add various events to the colony, including plagues, war, rival corporations, AI revolt, alien contact, and others. Rare metals can be exported back to Earth for funds. Landing sites also have various natural disasters like dust storms, meteor storms, cold waves, and dust devils to increase difficulty. Development Haemimont Games, the developer of the Tropico series, initially led the game's development. The team studied the real-world challenges that scientists consider when thinking about colonizing Mars. These challenges were then translated into gameplay elements for the game. The game's aesthetics were inspired by The Jetsons and Futurama. Describing the game as a "hardcore survival city-builder", publisher Paradox Interactive announced the game in May 2017. The game was released for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 15, 2018 with mod support. About a year after release, in June 2019, Haemimont signed on with Frontier Developments for development of a new property for Frontier's publishing label. In March 2021, Paradox revealed that development of Surviving Mars has moved from Haemimont Games to Abstraction Games. Downloadable content Surviving Mars has several DLCs, available either separately or as part of the digital season pass available in the game's "First Colony Edition". Space Race, the game's first expansion, was released on November 15, 2018, and introduces rival colonies competing to achieve milestones on Mars. The second, Green Planet, was released on May 16, 2019, and introduces the concept of terraforming Mars into a planet that can sustain human life. Several content packs were also released, including a building pack and the "Marsvision Song Contest" radio station (with the release of Space Race) and "Project Laika", which introduced ranching on Mars as well as pets in the colony (with the release of Green Planet). In March 2021, Dutch studio Abstraction Games took over the development from Haemimont, and released a free update adding space tourism features; a full paid DLC expansion was announced for later in the year. On August 31, 2021, the paid expansion was announced as Below and Beyond, which will include underground facilities and the ability to build mining bases on asteroids. It was released on September 7. The city-builder game Cities: Skylines, also published by Paradox, received a free update themed around Surviving Mars. Reception The game received generally favorable reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic, scoring 80% on PC Gamer, and 78/100 on IGN. References External links Official site 2018 video games City-building games Simulation video games Strategy video games Video games set on Mars Windows games Xbox One games PlayStation 4 games MacOS games Linux games Video games with Steam Workshop support Video games developed in Bulgaria Video games developed in the Netherlands Paradox Interactive games Xbox Cloud Gaming games

861211

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20IBM%20magnetic%20disk%20drives

History of IBM magnetic disk drives

IBM manufactured magnetic disk storage devices from 1956 to 2003, when it sold its hard disk drive business to Hitachi. Both the hard disk drive (HDD) and floppy disk drive (FDD) were invented by IBM and as such IBM's employees were responsible for many of the innovations in these products and their technologies. The basic mechanical arrangement of hard disk drives has not changed since the IBM 1301. Disk drive performance and characteristics are measured by the same standards now as they were in the 1950s. Few products in history have enjoyed such spectacular declines in cost and physical size along with equally dramatic improvements in capacity and performance. IBM manufactured 8-inch floppy disk drives from 1969 until the mid-1980s, but did not become a significant manufacturer of smaller-sized, 5.25- or 3.5-inch floppy disk drives (the dimension refers to the diameter of the floppy disk, not the size of the drive). IBM always offered its magnetic disk drives for sale but did not offer them with original equipment manufacturer (OEM) terms until 1981. By 1996, IBM had stopped making hard disk drives unique to its systems and was offering all its HDDs as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). IBM uses many terms to describe its various magnetic disk drives, such as direct-access storage device (DASD), disk file and diskette file. Here, the current industry standard terms, hard disk drive (HDD) and floppy disk drive (FDD), are used. Early IBM HDDs IBM 350 The IBM 350 disk storage unit, the first disk drive, was announced by IBM as a component of the IBM 305 RAMAC computer system on September 14, 1956. Simultaneously a very similar product, the IBM 355, was announced for the IBM 650 RAMAC computer system. RAMAC stood for "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control". The first engineering prototype 350 disk storage shipped to Zellerbach Paper Company, San Francisco, in June 1956, with production shipment beginning in November 1957 with the shipment of a unit to United Airlines in Denver, Colorado. Its design was motivated by the need for real time accounting in business. The 350 stores 5 million 6-bit characters (3.75 MB). It has fifty two diameter disks of which 100 recording surfaces are used, omitting the top surface of the top disk and the bottom surface of the bottom disk. Each surface has 100 tracks. The disks spin at 1200 rpm. Data transfer rate is 8,800 characters per second. An access mechanism moves a pair of heads up and down to select a disk pair (one down surface and one up surface) and in and out to select a recording track of a surface pair. Several improved models were added in the 1950s. The IBM RAMAC 305 system with 350 disk storage leased for $3,200 per month. The 350 was officially withdrawn in 1969. from the RAMAC program is generally considered to be the fundamental patent for disk drives. This first-ever disk drive was initially cancelled by the IBM Board of Directors because of its threat to the IBM punch card business but the IBM San Jose laboratory continued development until the project was approved by IBM's president. The 350's cabinet is 60 inches (152 cm) long, 68 inches (172 cm) high and 29 inches (74 cm) wide. The RAMAC unit weighs about one ton, has to be moved around with forklifts, and was frequently transported via large cargo airplanes. According to Currie Munce, research vice president for Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (which acquired IBM's storage business), the storage capacity of the drive could have been increased beyond five million characters, but IBM's marketing department at that time was against a larger capacity drive, because they didn't know how to sell a product with more storage. Nonetheless, double capacity versions of the 350 were announced in January 1959 and shipped later the same year. In 1984, the RAMAC 350 Disk File was designated an International Historic Landmark by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2002, the Magnetic Disk Heritage Center began restoration of an IBM 350 RAMAC in collaboration with Santa Clara University. In 2005, the RAMAC restoration project relocated to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California and is now demonstrated to the public in the museum's Revolution exhibition. IBM 353 The IBM 353, used on the IBM 7030, was similar to the IBM 1301, but with a faster transfer rate. It has a capacity of 2,097,152 (221) 64-bit words or 134,217,728 (227) bits and transferred 125,000 words per second. A prototype unit shipped in late 1960 was the first disk drive to use one head per surface flying on a layer of compressed air as in the older head design of the IBM 350 disk storage (RAMAC). Production 353s used self-flying heads essentially the same as those of the 1301. IBM 355 The IBM 355 was announced on September 14, 1956, as an addition to the popular IBM 650. It used the mechanism of the IBM 350 with up to three access arms and stored 6 million decimal digits and 600,000 signs. It transferred a full track to and from the IBM 653 magnetic core memory, an IBM 650 option that stored just sixty signed 10-digit words, enough for a single track of disk or a tape record. IBM 1405 The IBM 1405 Disk Storage Unit was announced in 1961 and was designed for use with the IBM 1400 series, medium scale business computers. The 1405 Model 1 has a storage capacity of 10 million alphanumeric characters (60,000,000 bits) on 25 disks. Model 2 has a storage capacity of 20 million alphanumeric characters (120,000,000 bits) on 50 disks. In both models the disks are stacked vertically on a shaft rotating at 1200 rpm. Each side of each disk has 200 tracks divided into 5 sectors. Sectors 0–4 are on the top surface and 5–9 are on the bottom surface. Each sector holds either 178 or 200 characters. One to three forked-shaped access arms each contains two read/write heads, one for the top of the disk and the other for the bottom of the same disk. The access arms are mounted on a carriage alongside the disk array. During a seek operation an access arm moved, under electronic control, vertically to seek a disk 0–49 and then horizontally to seek a track 0–199. Ten sectors are available at each track. It takes about 10 ms to read or write a sector. The access time ranges from 100ms to a maximum access time for model 2 of 800ms and 700ms for model 1. The 1405 model 2 disk storage unit has 100,000 sectors containing either 200 characters in move mode or 178 characters in load mode, which adds a word mark bit to each character. The Model 1 contains 50,000 sectors. IBM 7300 The IBM 7300 Disk Storage Unit was designed for use with the IBM 7070; IBM announced a model 2 in 1959, but when IBM announced the 1301 on June 5, 1961, 7070 and 7074 customers found it to be more attractive than the 7300. The 7300 uses the same technology as the IBM 350, IBM 355 and IBM 1405 IBM 1301 The IBM 1301 Disk Storage Unit was announced on June 2, 1961 with two models. It was designed for use with the IBM 7000 series mainframe computers and the IBM 1410. The 1301 stores 28 million characters (168,000,000 bits) per module (25 million characters with the 1410). Each module has 25 large disks and 40 user recording surfaces, with 250 tracks per surface. The 1301 Model 1 has one module, the Model 2 has two modules, stacked vertically. The disks spin at 1800 rpm. Data is transferred at 90,000 characters per second. A major advance over the IBM 350 and IBM 1405 is the use of a separate arm and head for each recording surface, with all the arms moving in and out together like a big comb. This eliminates the time needed for the arm to pull the head out of one disk and move up or down to a new disk. Seeking the desired track is also faster since, with the new design, the head will usually be somewhere in the middle of the disk, not starting on the outer edge. Maximum access time is reduced to 180 milliseconds. The 1301 is the first disk drive to use heads that are aerodynamically designed to fly over the surface of the disk on a thin layer of air. This allows them to be much closer to the recording surface, which greatly improves performance. The 1301 connects to the computer via the IBM 7631 File Control. Different models of the 7631 allow the 1301 to be used with a 1410 or 7000 series computer, or shared between two such computers. The IBM 1301 Model 1 leased for $2,100 per month or could be purchased for $115,500. Prices for the Model 2 were $3,500 per month or $185,000 to purchase. The IBM 7631 controller cost an additional $1,185 per month or $56,000 to purchase. All models were withdrawn in 1970. IBM 1302 The IBM 1302 Disk Storage Unit was introduced in September 1963. Improved recording quadrupled its capacity over that of the 1301, to 117 million 6-bit characters per module. Average access time is 165 ms and data can be transferred at 180 K characters/second, more than double the speed of the 1301. There are two access mechanisms per module, one for the inner 250 cylinders and the other for the outer 250 cylinders. As with the 1301, there is a Model 2 which doubles the capacity by stacking two modules. The IBM 1302 Model 1 leased for $5,600 per month or could be purchased for $252,000. Prices for the Model 2 were $7,900 per month or $355,500 to purchase. The IBM 7631 controller cost an additional $1,185 per month or $56,000 to purchase. The 1302 was withdrawn in February 1965. IBM 1311 The IBM 1311 Disk Storage Drive was announced on October 11, 1962, and was designed for use with several medium-scale business and scientific computers. The 1311 was about the size and shape of a top-loading washing machine and stored 2 million characters (12,000,000 bits) on a removable IBM 1316 disk pack. Seven models of the 1311 were introduced during the 1960s. They were withdrawn during the early 1970s. Each IBM 1316 Disk Pack is high, weighs 10 pounds (4.5 kg) and contains six diameter disks, yielding 10 recording surfaces (the outer surfaces are not used). The 10 individual read/write heads are mounted on a common actuator within the disk drive which moves in and out hydraulically and mechanically detented at the desired track before reading or writing occurred. The disks spin at 1500 rpm. Each recording surface has 100 tracks with 20 sectors per track. Each sector stores 100 characters. The disk pack is covered with a clear plastic shell and a bottom cover when not in use. A lifting handle in the top center of the cover is rotated to release the bottom cover. Then the top of the 1311 drive is opened and the plastic shell lowered into the disk-drive opening (assuming it is empty). The handle is turned again to lock the disks in place and release the plastic shell, which is then removed and the drive cover closed. The process is reversed to remove a disk pack. The same methods are used for many later disk packs. There were seven models of the 1311 disk drive: Has to be drive 1 on an IBM 1440, IBM 1460, or IBM 1240 system. Contained the controller and could control up to four Model 2 drives. Introduced October 11, 1962. Withdrawn February 8, 1971. Slave drive. Could have any special feature incorporated that the master drive (drive 1) has incorporated. Introduced October 11, 1962. Withdrawn January 6, 1975. Has to be drive 1 on an IBM 1620 or IBM 1710 system. Contains the controller and can control up to three Model 2 drives. Does not support any special features. Introduced October 11, 1962. Withdrawn May 12, 1971. Has to be drive 1 on an IBM 1401 system. Contains the controller and can control up to four Model 2 drives. Introduced October 11, 1962. Withdrawn February 8, 1971. Has to be drive 1 on an IBM 1410, IBM 7010, or IBM 7740 system. Contained the controller and could control up to four Model 2 drives. Direct Seek came as standard on this model. Introduced January 7, 1963. Withdrawn May 12, 1971. No information available, probably a master drive (drive 1). Introduced March 5, 1968. Withdrawn February 2, 1971. No information available, probably a master drive (drive 1). Introduced March 5, 1968. Withdrawn February 2, 1971. The optional special features are: Direct Seek: Without this option every seek returned to track zero first. Scan Disk: Automatic rapid search for identifier or condition. Seek Overlap: Allows a seek to overlap ONE read or write and any number of other seeks. Track Record: Increases the capacity of the disk by writing ONE large record per track instead of using sectors. Drive 1 (the master drive: models 1, 3, 4, and 5) was about a foot wider than the other drives (the slave drives: model 2), to contain extra power supplies and the control logic. IBM System/360 and other IBM mainframe HDDs IBM 2302 The IBM 2302 is the System/360 version of the 1302, with track formatting in accordance with S/360 DASD architecture rather than 7000 series architecture. It uses a non-removable module of 25 platters, of which 46 surfaces are used for recording. The 2302 Model 3 contains one module and the Model 4 two. There are two independent access mechanisms per module, one for the innermost 250 cylinders, and one for the outermost 250, tracks available to each access mechanism are called an access group. The access mechanism provides one read/write head per track. Average rotational delay is 17 milliseconds (msec), and maximum is 34 msec. Maximum seek time per access group is 180 msec. The track size is 4985 bytes; with formatting information and alternate tracks, module capacity is stated as 112 MB. The 2302 attaches to IBM mainframes via a IBM 2841 Storage Control Unit. IBM 2305 The IBM 2305 fixed head storage (a fixed-head disk drive sometimes incorrectly called a drum) and associated IBM 2835 Storage Control were announced in 1970, initially to connect to the 360/85 and 360/195 using the IBM 2880 Block Multiplexor Channel. The 2305 Drive was in much demand when the System 370 offered Virtual Storage, and these 2305s were often used for paging devices. They were used in this way on 3155, 3165, 3158, 3168, 3033, 4341, and 3081 (with special feature microcode.) The 2305 was also used for high activity small data sets such as catalogs and job queues. The 2305-1 runs at 3.0 MB/second when attached using the 2-byte channel interface, and the larger 2305-2 runs at 1.5 MB/second. The 2305 provides large-scale IBM computers with fast, continuous access to small-sized quantities of information. Its capacity and high data rate make it ideal for some systems residence functions, work files, job queues, indices and data sets that are used repeatedly. Its fast response time makes it attractive as a paging device in a heavily loaded systems, where there are 1.5 or more transactions per second. IBM 2311 The IBM 2311 Disk Storage Drive was introduced with the 2841 Control Unit in 1964 for use throughout the IBM System/360; the combination was also available on the IBM 1130 and the IBM 1800. The drive also directly attaches to the IBM System/360 Model 20 and the IBM System/360 Model 25. All drives used the IBM 1316 Disk Pack introduced with the IBM 1311. The 2311 Model 1 attaches to most IBM mainframes through a 2841 Control Unit; it attaches to the System/360 Model 25 thru a Disk Attachment Control which provides the function of the control unit. Disk packs are written in these attachments in IBM's count key data variable record length format. The 2311 models 11 or 12 are used when attached to an integrated control of the System/360 Model 20 and the disk packs are written with a fixed sector format. The disk packs are not interchangeable between those written on the Model 1 and those written on the Models 11 or 12. The 2311 mechanism is largely identical to the 1311, but recording improvements allow higher data density. The 2311 stores 7.25 megabytes on a single removable IBM 1316 disk pack (the same type used on the IBM 1311) consisting of six platters that rotate as a single unit. The 2311 has ten individual read/write (R/W) heads mounted on a common actuator which moves in and out hydraulically and is mechanically detented at the desired track before reading or writing occurred. Each recording surface has 200 tracks plus three optional tracks which can be used as alternatives in case faulty tracks are discovered. Average seek time is 85 ms. Data transfer rate is 156 kB/s. Because the 2311 was to be used with a wide variety of computers within the 360 product line, its electrical interconnection was standardized. This created an opportunity for other manufacturers to sell plug compatible disk drives for use with IBM computers and an entire industry was born. IBM 2314/2319 IBM 2314 Disk Access Storage Facility Model 1 The IBM 2314 Disk Access Storage Facility Model 1 was introduced on April 22, 1965, one year after the System/360 introduction. It was used with the System/360 and the System/370 lines. With the Two Channel Switch feature it could interface with two 360/370 channels. The 2314 Disk access mechanism was similar to the 2311, but further recording improvements allowed higher data density. The 2314 stored 29,176,000 characters (200×20×7294 bytes per track) on a single removable IBM 2316 disk pack which was similar in design to the 1316 but was taller as a result of increasing the number of disks from six to eleven. The 2316 disk pack containing the eleven diameter disks yielded 20 recording surfaces. The drive access consisted of 20 individual R/W heads mounted on a common actuator which was moved in and out hydraulically and mechanically detented at the desired track before reading or writing occurred. Each recording surface has 200 tracks. Access time was initially the same as the 2311, but later models were faster as a result of improvements made in the hydraulic actuator. Data transfer rate was doubled to 310 kB/s. The original Model 1 consists nine disk drives bundled together with one price; separately shipped was a storage control unit, a single drive module, and two four drive modules for a total of nine drives. The drives are mounted in individual drawers that are unlatched and pulled out to access the disk pack. Because of their appearance they acquired the nickname of "Pizza Ovens". Only eight drives of the nine are available to the computer at any one time. The ninth drive is there for a spare for the user and can also be worked on "offline" by a Field Engineer while the other drives are in use by the customer. Each drive's system address is determined in part by a user-swappable plug, one such plug denoting a spare drive not system accessible. This permits physically changing the address of a drive by changing the plug. A 2844 Control Unit can be added to the 2314 Control Unit which allows two S/360 Channels simultaneous access to two separate disk drives in the Storage Facility. Other 2314 models came later: IBM 2314 direct access storage facility - A series In 1969 IBM unbundled the facility into separate models allowing up to nine drives (eight on line) attached to a 2314 Storage Control: 2312 Disk Storage, a one drive module. 2313 Disk Storage, a four drive module. 2318 Disk Storage, a two drive module. IBM 2319 In a response to competition from plug compatible manufacturers of 2314 equivalent storage subsystems, IBM beginning 1970 introduced a series of low priced three drive module 2319s which were manufactured by removing one module from the four drive module 2313, rebranding it as a 2319 A1 and offering it at a substantially reduced rental price. This had the effect of lowering the rental price to new customers while keeping the high rental price on existing customers. The 2319-A1 attaches to integrated controllers for only the System/370 Models 135 and 145. Conventional 2314 DASD such as the 2312 or 2318 can attach to the 2319-A1 2319 B series of three disk drives modules allow three, six or nine drive attachment to a new 2314 Model B Storage Control Unit. IBM 3310 IBM introduced the IBM 3310 Direct Access Storage Device on January 30, 1979, for IBM 4331 midrange computers. Each drive had a capacity of 64.5 MB. The 3310 was a fixed-block architecture device, used on DOS/VSE and VM, the only S/370 operating systems that supported FBA devices. IBM 3330 The IBM 3330 Direct Access Storage Facility, code-named Merlin, was introduced in June 1970 for use with the IBM System/370 and the IBM System 360/195. Its removable disk packs hold 100 MB (404×19×13,030 bytes). Access time was 30 ms and data transferred at 806 kB/s. A major advance introduced with the 3330 was the use of error correction, which makes the drives more reliable and reduced costs because small imperfections in the disk surface can be tolerated. The circuitry can correct error bursts up to 11 bits long through use of fire codes. The 1973 3330 Model 11 features IBM 3336-11 Disk Packs that held up to 200 MB (808x19x13,030 bytes)). IBM 3333 The 3333-1 and the 3333-11 contain two 3330 type drives and a controller that attach to a director type storage control. Up to three additional 3330 type DASD (six drives) can then be attached to a 3333. The 3330 was withdrawn in 1983. IBM 3340 and 3344 The IBM 3340 and 3344 have similar characteristics. However, only a 3340 can serve as head of string; there are no A model 3344 drives, and a 3344 must be attached to a 3340 A model as head of string. IBM 3340 The IBM 3340 Direct Access Storage Facility, code-named Winchester, was introduced in March 1973 for use with IBM System/370. Three models were announced, the 3340-A2 with two drives and a controller, the models B2 (two drives) and B1 (one drive). B-units can connect to the model A2 to a maximum of eight drives. It uses removable data modules that included the head and arm assembly; an access door of the data module opens or closes during a mechanical load/unload process to connect the data module to the drive; unlike previous disk packs and cartridges there is no cover to remove during the insertion process. Access time is 25 millisecond and data transfers at 885 kB/s. Three versions of the removable IBM 3348 Data Module were sold, one with 35 megabyte capacity, another with 70 megabytes, the third also has 70 megabytes, of which 500 kilobytes were accessible with fixed heads for faster access. The 3340 also uses error correction. It was withdrawn in 1984. The 3340 was developed in San Jose under the leadership of Ken Haughton. Early on the design was focused on two removable 30 megabyte modules. Because of this 30/30 configuration, the code name Winchester was selected after the famous Winchester .30-30 rifle; subsequently the capacities were increased, but the code name stuck. One significant aspect of this product, and the reason that disk drives in general became known as "Winchester technology", was that this head design was very low cost and did not require the heads to be unloaded from the media. Winchester technology allowed the head to land and take off from the disk media as the disk spun up and down. This resulted in very significant savings and a large reduction of complexity of the head and arm actuating mechanism. This head design rapidly became a standard design within the disk drive manufacturing community. Up into the early 1990s the term Winchester or Winnie was used for hard disk drives in general long after the introduction of the 3340, but is no longer in common use in most parts of the world. IBM 3344 The IBM 3344 is similar to the 3340, except that it uses fixed media rather than removable 3348 data modules, each spindle has 4 logical drives each with the capacity of a 3348-70, there is no A (head of string) model and it is only available in dual drive models. The 3344-B2F is identical to the 3344-B2 except that both drives have fixed heads over some cylinders. Both 3344-B2 and 3344-B2F require a 3340-A2 or 3340-A2F as head of string. IBM 3350 The IBM 3350 Direct Access Storage Facility, code-named Madrid, was introduced in 1975 for use with IBM System/370. Its non-removable head-disk assemblies (HDAs) are sealed and included the head and arm assembly. The 3350 disk geometry is 555 cylinders, 30 heads, and 19,069 bytes per track, which give each HDA a storage capacity of 317,498,850 bytes. Sealed HDAs were standard practice on all IBM DASD hereafter. Disk units are identified as Models A2, A2F, B2, B2F, C2, and C2F with each model containing two HDAs. The models are installed in strings of units with an A2 or A2F unit required and attached to a storage control such as the IBM 3830 Model 2 or the equivalent integrated storage control of a system unit. After the A2 can be up to 3 B2 units or up to 2 B2s and a C2. The C2 unit also connects to a storage control and serves as a secondary path to itself and the A2 and B2 units. When using a C2 two I/O operations could simultaneously take place on the string, one via an A2 and a second via the C2. The valid 3350 strings are: -A, -AB, -ABB, -ABBB, -AC-, -ABC-, or -ABBC- configurations. The "x2F", as in Model A2F, unit is a normal x2 unit, but its two HDAs also have a Fixed Head area over the first five cylinders, thereby reducing seek time to zero for these five cylinders. This fixed head area is intended to be allocated to the frequently accessed HASP or JES2 checkpoint area and thus greatly reduce head motion on the SPOOL device. The fixed head area can also be utilized for TSO swap data (MVT and SVS) and system swap data (MVS) wherein the swap data for SVS and MVS consist of blocks of pages that have been in memory when an address space is selected for swap-out; those pages need not be contiguous and in general do not include pages that have not been modified since their last page-in. This system architecture greatly improves context switches between TSO users or batch regions. The IBM 3350 family was withdrawn in September 1994. IBM 3370 and 3375 IBM 3370 IBM introduced the IBM 3370 Direct Access Storage Device in January 1979 for IBM 4331, 4341, and System/38 midrange computers. It has seven fixed disks, and each unit has a capacity of 571 MB. It was the first HDD to use thin-film head technology; research on that technology started at Thomas J. Watson Research Center in the late 1960s. The 3370 was a fixed-block architecture device, used on DOS/VSE and VM, the only S/370 operating systems that supported FBA devices. IBM 3375 The sister unit was called the IBM 3375 and used count key data architecture, which was required for OS/360 and successor OSes. IBM 3380 The IBM 3380 Direct Access Storage Device was introduced in June 1980. It uses film head technology and has a unit capacity of 2.52 gigabytes (two hard disk assemblies each with two independent actuators each accessing 630 MB within one chassis) with a data transfer rate of 3 megabytes per second. Average access time was 16 ms. Purchase price at time of introduction ranged from $81,000 to $142,200. Due to tribology problems encountered between heads and media, the first units did not ship until October 1981. In February 1985 IBM announced a double density version – the Extended Capability Models of the 3380 (3380 E) having 5.04 gigabytes per chassis, that is, two 1.26 gigabyte actuators on two hard disk assemblies in one chassis. A triple capacity version, the 3380 K was announced in August 1987 having 7.562 gigabytes per chassis, that is, two 1.89 gigabyte actuators on two hard disk assemblies in one chassis. There are twelve models of the IBM 3380 family: six A-units, five B-units and one C-unit. A-units (heads of string) contain additional logic to perform string controller functions and connect to IBM directors or equivalent integrated attachments. The C-units connect to an IBM channel rather than a director. B-units connected to A-units or C-units. A string of 3380s with 16 actuators could provide from 10.08 gigabytes to 60.5 gigabytes, depending on model configuration. The last models were withdrawn by IBM in May 1996 representing a production run of 15 years; a run longer than most disk drives IBM 3390 The IBM 3390 Direct Access Storage Device series was introduced November 1989, offering a maximum storage of up to 22 gigabytes in a string of multiple drives. Cost of a storage system varied by configuration and capacity, between $90,000 and $795,000. Packaged in Hard Disk Assemblies with 2 actuator-head units and one set of platters, a model 1 HDA provides 1.89 GB before formatting and a model 2 provides 3.78 GB/HDA. The Model 3 enhancement to the drive family, announced September 11, 1991, increased capacity 1.5 times to 5.67 GB/HDA and the Model 9, announced May 20, 1993, further increased capacity 3 times to 11.3 GB/HDA, totaling 34 GB in a single cabinet, or 544 GB per storage subsystem. The 3390 Model 9 was the last Single Large Expensive Disk (sometimes called SLEDs) drive announced by IBM. IBM 9340 and 9345 IBM 9345 The IBM 9345 HDD first shipped in Nov 1990 as an RPQ on IBMs SCSE (SuperComputing Systems Extensions). Developed at IBM's San Jose, California laboratory under the code name Sawmill. It was an up to 1.5 GB full height 5¼-inch HDD using up to 8 130 mm disks. It was the first HDD to use MR (Magneto Resistive) heads. IBM 9340 In October 1991 the 9345 DASD was announced as part of the IBM 9340 channel-attached, count key data (CKD) DASD subsystem family which attached to IBM mainframes including the ES/9000 processor family. The 9345 DASD Model 1 had two 1.0 GB HDDs while the Model 2 had two 1.5 GB HDDs. For most practical applications, the 9340/9345 was functionally equivalent to a 3990/3390, although without non-volatile RAM cache of the 3990 and with a somewhat shorter maximum block length than the 3390. The OS's IOS component learned of this device's characteristics through a special initializer, IECCINIT, which also serviced other DASD device types, and for the same purpose. It was at initialization-time that the OS learned that the 9340 has no non-volatile cache and the 9345 has a shorter than expected track capacity. The initializer, therefore, assigned a different device type than the 3990/3390. 9330 family of disk drives 9331 Diskette Unit models 1 and 11 contained one 8-inch FDD while the models 2 and 12 contained one 5¼-inch FDD. 9332 Direct Access Storage Device used the IBM 0667 HDD. 9333 High Performance Disk Drive Subsystem used the IBM 0664 or IBM 0681 HDDs depending upon subsystem model 9334 Disk Expansion Unit attaches from one to four SCSI HDDs to the RS/6000 system. 9335 Direct Access Storage Subsystem This HDD used in this subsystem was developed under the code name "Kestrel" at IBM Hursley, UK, and was an 850 MB HDD using three 14-inch disks with dual rotary actuators, each actuator accessing three surfaces with two heads per surface. The HDD was in the rack mountable 9335 announced as a part of the October 1986 IBM 9370 Information System announcement. There is no known OEM version of this HDD. 9336 Disk Unit used the IBM 0681 HDD (Redwing) 9337 Disk Array Subsystem used the IBM 0662 (Spitfire) or 0663 (Corsair) HDDs. HDDs offered for IBM small systems IBM 2310 The IBM 2310 Removable Cartridge Drive was announced in 1964 with the IBM 1800, and then in 1965 with the IBM 1130; it likely first shipped with the 1130 in late 1965. It could store 512,000 16-bit words (1,024,000 bytes) on an IBM 2315 cartridge. A single oxide-coated aluminum disk spun in a plastic shell with openings for the read/write arm and two heads. IBM 5444 The IBM 5444 was announced September 1969 as part of System/3. Developed at IBM's Hursley, England, laboratory under code name Dolphin it used the 5440 disk cartridge. The cartridge in turn contained one 14-inch disk. There were three models: Model 1 has one fixed disk and one removable disk each with 100 tracks per surface for a disk cartridge capacity of 1.23 MB Model 2 has one fixed disk and one removable disk each with 200 tracks per surface for a disk cartridge capacity of 2.46 MB Model 3 has only one removable disk with 200 tracks per surface for a disk cartridge capacity of 2.46 MB IBM 62GV The 62GV first shipped in May 1974. Developed at IBM's Hursley, UK, laboratory under the code name Gulliver with an initial capacity of 5 MB. Subsequent models have 10 MB (62TM) and 14 MB capacities. It used a Swinging Arm actuator with one 14-inch disk. The simple design of the actuator, invented at IBM's UK Hursley Labs, became IBM's most licensed electro-mechanical invention of all time, the actuator and filtration system being adopted in the 1980s eventually for all HDDs, and still universal nearly 40 years and 10 Billion arms later. During its production life the IBM 62GV shipped 177,000 units making it the first HDD known to have shipped in excess of 100,000 units. OEM and Small Systems HDDs This section lists IBM manufactured HDDs offered both as an OEM product and for attachment to IBMs small systems such as the System/3, System/32, /34 & /36 and the AS/400. HDDs are identified by their OEM model number and listed chronologically by date of first customer shipment. IBM 0680 The 0680 first shipped in 1979 on most IBM small systems and the low end of the System/370 as the 3310 direct access storage. The OEM version was announced as the 0680 in September 1981. Developed at IBM's Hursley, UK, laboratory under the code name Piccolo with an initial capacity of up to 65MB, it used six 8-inch disks (210 mm) and had an improved rotary actuator. A double capacity version, the 62SW, shipped in June 1984 but very few units were sold because its price per megabyte was the same as the 62GV. IBM 0676 The 0676 first shipped in November 1982 as a 5247 Disk Storage Unit for the IBM System/23 Datamaster. Developed at the IBM Rochester, MN, laboratory as the 21ED it was an 8-inch HDD with an initial capacity of 15 or 30 MB in 2 or 4 210 mm disks. In 1983 it shipped as the HDD in the 5360 System Unit of the S/36. In 1984 its capacity was doubled by doubling the number of tracks per surface and it was incorporated into the 5362 System Unit of the System/36. IBM 0665 The 0665 first shipped in October 1985 in the system unit for the PC AT (5170). Developed under the code name "Pixie" at IBM Rochester, MN, it was a 5¼-inch HDD with capacities of 20, 30 and 44 MB. IBM 0667 The 0667 first shipped in August 1986. Developed at IBM Rochester, MN, under the code name "Grant", it was a 70 MB ESDI full height 5¼-inch HDD with up to 4 130 mm disks. It was offered as a feature on certain models of the PC RT (6150, 6151, 6152) and in System/36 Model System Units (5363, 5364). IBM 0669 The 0669 first shipped in 1987. Developed at IBM Rochester, MN, under the code name "Grant-Prime", it was a full-height 5½-inch HDD with a capacity of up to 115 MB on up to 4 130 mm disks. It was the HDD internal to the System/36 5363 System Unit and Series 1 4956 System Unit. IBM 0671 The 0671 first shipped in 1987. Developed under the code name "Lee" at IBM Rochester, MN, it was an up to 316 MB ESDI full height 5¼-inch HDD with up to 8 130 mm disks depending upon model. This was IBM's first usage of a thin metal film as the disk's recording surface. In 1988 it shipped as part of the 9404 System Unit of the IBM AS/400 system which contained two, or optionally three of these HDDs. IBM 0661 The 0661 first shipped in 1989 as the model 371. Developed initially under the code name "Lightning" at IBM Rochester MN (and IBM Hursley, UK) as a 320 MB SCSI HDD with up to eight 95 mm disks (14 heads), it was followed in 1990 with a 400 MB version, code named "Turbo". During 1990 it was added as a standard drive on several major IBM systems, e.g., IBM AS/400 System Unit Model CXX. IBM 0681 The 0681 first shipped in April 1990. Developed at IBM's Hursley, UK, laboratory under the code name Redwing, it was the last HDD product developed at Hursley. It was an up to 857 MB full height 5¼-inch HDD using up to 12 130 mm disks. It was the first HDD to use PRML decoding of data. It was the drive component of the 9333 Disk Drive Subsystem which first shipped in early 1992. A higher density, 1.07 GB, version was incorporated into the 9333 subsystem in May 1992. IBM 0663 The 0663 first shipped in late 1991. Developed under the code name "Corsair", it was a 3½-inch HDD with the height of a 5½-inch half-height device (1.6-inch high) and up to 1 GB on up to 8 95 mm disks. It was offered as a feature on certain models of the PS/2 and RS/6000. It was the first OEM disk drive to use MR Heads. IBM 0664 The 0664 first shipped in November 1992. Developed under the code name "Allicat" at IBM Rochester, MN, it was a full-height 5½-inch HDD (3.25-inch high) that combined two 3½-inch devices in one, with up to 2.013 GB capacity on up to 8 95 mm disks. IBM 0662 The 0662 first shipped in June 1993. Developed under the code name "Spitfire" at IBM Rochester, MN, it was a full-height (1-inch high) 3½-inch HDD with 1.05 GB on 3 disks or 5 disk surfaces. It was the HDD internal to the 9336 Disk Unit and the 9337 Disk Array. Floppy disk drive Another important IBM innovation is the floppy disk drive. IBM first introduced the 8-inch FDD in 1971 as a read only program load device. In 1973 IBM shipped its first read/write floppy disk drive as a part of the 3740 Data Entry System. IBM established early standards in 8" FDDs but never sold such products separately so that the industry then developed separate from IBM. IBM was at one point was the world's largest purchaser of OEM 5¼-inch FDDs; its selection of the two-sided, 48 tpi model helped establish the model as the de facto industry standard. IBM made extensive preparations to manufacture such models and smaller form factors but cancelled all such efforts in 1985. IBM's 1983 attempt to OEM its 4-inch DemiDisk failed. "Star" series of HDDs On October 17, 1994, IBM's Storage Systems division announced three new families of hard disk drives, the Travelstar 2½-inch family for notebooks, the Deskstar 3½-inch family for desktop applications and the Ultrastar 3½-inch family for high performance computer system applications. IBM's first HDD versus its last HDDs The following table compares IBM's first HDD, the RAMAC 350, with the last three models it manufactured in each of its "Star" series of OEM HDDs. It illustrates HDD's spectacular decline in cost and size along with corresponding improvement in capacity and performance. DASD devices not HDDs or FDDs IBM in some of its operating systems classifies HDDs and FDDs as DASDs, direct access storage devices. Other technologies so classified include: IBM 7320 drum The IBM 7320 is a magnetic drum storage unit announced in 1962. IBM 2301 drum The IBM 2301 is a magnetic drum storage device introduced in the late 1960s IBM 2303 drum The IBM 2303 is a magnetic drum storage device introduced in 1964. IBM 2321 Data Cell The IBM 2321 Data Cell announced in 1964 is a device that uses short strips of magnetic tape to store data. It holds 10 40 MB removable cells, for a total capacity of 400 MB. IBM 3850 Mass Storage System The IBM 3850 Mass Storage System, announced in 1974, is a library system of tape cartridges that staged data from the cartridges onto physical IBM 3330 or 3350 disk drives which then appeared to the system as virtual 3330 drives. See also History of floppy disks History of hard disks List of IBM products Notes References External links IBM Archive: Storage basic information sources IBM Archive: Table of links to disk drive articles Magnetic Disk Heritage Center A Quarter Century of Disk File Innovation, IBM Journal of Research and Development, 1981 EE Times: Disk drives take eventful spin IBM 1311 Disk storage drive IBM 2314 Direct access storage Floppy History of computing hardware IBM storage devices Hard disk computer storage

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HID%20Global

HID Global

HID Global is an American manufacturer of secure identity products. The company is an independent brand of Assa Abloy, a Swedish door and access control conglomerate. Björn Lidefelt was appointed CEO on 27 January 2020. Björn holds an MSc in Industrial Engineering and Management from the University of Linköping, Sweden. He succeeded Stefan Widing, who led HID Global for over four years. History Originally formed to develop radio frequency identification technologies, HID Global was formed in 1991 as Hughes Identification Devices, a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft Company with offices in California and Scotland. The original 125-kilohertz and 400-kilohertz proximity technology had been pioneered by Destron/IDI (formerly Identification Devices Inc.), in Boulder, Colorado, and used primarily for Animal Identification and Proximity Access Control, and to a lesser degree in Manufacturing Processes, Tyre tracking and a few other Asset Identification applications. Already a supplier to Destron/ID of low-frequency microchips, Hughes Aircraft Company acquired exclusive rights to the Access Control and Industrial markets, leading to the formation of Hughes Identification Devices. In 1994 the office in Scotland was closed and the European business passed to a UK based independent distributor, ID Plus Ltd who were later acquired by HID Corporation Ltd in August 1999. In October 1995, Hughes management, with help from Citibank Venture Capital, combined its military communications and display products groups with its AML Wireless Systems organization and Hughes Identification Devices (HID) to form Palomar Technologies Corporation. It was at that point that the decision was made to focus efforts on RFID for physical access control, and five years later, the company was acquired by the world's largest lock-maker, Swedish conglomerate Assa Abloy AB. Products The company sells physical access control products, logical access control products, and secure issuance products that comprise cards, readers, smart card readers (OMNIKEY), networked access products, card printer/encoders (FARGO) and software. Its other business segments includes virtualization technology, cashless payment, government ID, RFID for industry and logistics and Animal ID solutions and professional services. HID manufactures and licenses several types of technologies, from Wiegand products to 13.56 MHz iCLASS, MIFARE, and DESFire, as well as the 125 kHz Indala and Prox cards. Migration readers from various 125 kHz Prox technologies to 13.56 MHz iCLASS were introduced in 2007. Manufacturing The company is based in Austin, Texas with other production facilities in Asia and Europe. Some of these facilities are located in Hong Kong, China and Galway, Ireland. It also has research and development centers in Cardiff, UK, Denver, Colorado as well as Fremont and Mountain View in Northern California. The company also has a design facility in Chennai, India. Partners HID Global serves a variety of partner such as OEMs, system integrators, application developers and channel partners in domestic and international markets. Some OEM partners include Siemens, Honeywell, Lenel (UTC Fire & Security), and Tyco. The company also partners with computer manufacturers to create new products. HID worked with Dell to develop HID on the Desktop, a three-component PC logon application that won the 2009 Smart Card Alliance Award for Outstanding Technology. HID later partnered with Panasonic to integrate an HID Global RFID module into Panasonic's Personal Identification Mini Dock to support reading biometric passports. HID Global also worked with Inside Secure (formally known as Inside Contactless) and US Bank to supply HID iCLASS contactless smart card technology in the US Bank PayID card program that was the 2010 Paybefore Award Winner for Best Innovative Program. The PayID card program uses an all-purpose card to provide contactless physical access to U.S. Bank facilities, along with contactless payment and traditional magnetic stripe cards for purchases made by U.S. Bank employees. Customers End-users of HID products primarily include government, financial, corporate, education and healthcare markets. HID Global supplies its readers and credentials for access control to Banco do Nordeste of Brasil, Employers Mutual Casualty Company HID Global provides network access control to the China Pacific Insurance Co. and Jinwan District People's Procuratorate located in Sihucheng District, Zhuhai city. HID Global supplied card customization products and services to Amway India and Action Ambulance Service. The United States Secret Service uses differently-colored HID iClass SEOS proximity cards as identification badges for anyone requiring access to the White House, Eisenhower Executive Office Building, or New Executive Office Building. Differently-colored badges issued to staff, interns, and members of the press indicate the areas to which they are allowed unescorted access within the White House complex. Distributors HID Global's world-class partner community includes Integrators, Distributors, OEMS, Managed Services Providers, Embedded OEMS and Technical Alliance Partners that help organizations identify, purchase and implement the most extensive line of powerful and versatile security products. 1991: Formed as Hughes Identification Devices, a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft 1995: Became a subsidiary of Palomar Technological Companies, changed name to HID Corporation 1996: Acquired Sensor Engineering, adding Wiegand products 2000: Acquired by Assa Abloy AB 2001: HID acquired Motorola's Indala RFID access control business 2003: Acquired the card and reader business of Dorado Products, Inc. 2006: Acquired Fargo Electronics, adding card issuance technology 2006: Merged with Assa Abloy sister company Indala 2006: Formed HID Global 2007: Acquired Integrated Engineering, adding flexible MIFARE-based reader technology 2008: Merger of HID Global and Assa Abloy Identification Technologies Group 2010: Acquired ActivIdentity for US$162 million - is active in intelligent identity 2011: Acquired LaserCard, a provider of secure ID products, for US$80 million. 2012: Acquired EasyLobby for secure visitor management software and products. 2013: Acquired Codebench for FIPS 201 integration with physical access control systems 2014: Acquired Lumidigm for biometric authentication solutions 2014: Acquired IdenTrust, a provider of digital identities 2015: Acquired IAI, a provider of personalization solutions for identity documents 2015: Acquired Quantum Secure, a provider of identity management software 2016: Acquired DemoTeller, a provider of instant issuance solutions for the financial market 2017: Acquired Mercury Security, an OEM supplier of controllers for physical access control 2018: Acquired Crossmatch, a leader in bio-metric enrollment and identity devices 2019: Acquired PTI Security Systems, the worldwide leader in access control for the self-storage industry 2020: HID acquired Access-IS, a technology provider of miniaturised reader devices said to be ideal for mission-critical environments References 1991 establishments in Texas Manufacturing companies established in 1991 Manufacturing companies based in Austin, Texas

26592960

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta%20Stone%20%28company%29

Rosetta Stone (company)

Rosetta Stone Inc. is an American education technology software company that develops language, literacy and brain-fitness software. Best known for its language-learning products, in 2013 the company expanded beyond language into education-technology with its acquisitions of Livemocha, Lexia Learning, Fit Brains, and Tell Me More. In 2021, it became a subsidiary of IXL Learning. History Beginnings According to the company, founder Allen Stoltzfus learned German through immersion while living in Germany and found it relatively easy. In the 1980s, Stoltzfus began learning Russian in a classroom setting, but found the classroom setting much more difficult. He wanted to simulate the German experience, and he decided to use computer technology to create a similar learning experience. He enlisted the aid of his brother-in-law, John Fairfield, who held a PhD in computer science. By 1992, CD-ROM technology made the project possible. Allen and John, along with Eugene Stoltzfus (Allen's brother), formed a company known as Fairfield Language Technologies in Harrisonburg, Virginia. They hired Greg Keim and Michael Silverman along with other significant team members. They released their software product under the title The Rosetta Stone. 2000s and IPO In 2003, the company announced the hiring of Tom Adams, a businessman with international experience, as President and CEO. In 2004, Rosetta Stone Ltd. established its Endangered Language Program to contract with endangered language communities interested in custom software development to support language revitalization efforts. In 2006, the company changed names to Rosetta Stone, Ltd., and converted from an S corporation to a C corporation. Ownership transferred to investment firms ABS Capital Partners and Norwest Equity Partners. On September 23, 2008, Rosetta Stone Inc. filed an Initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. On April 15, 2009, the company was listed as the Rosetta Stone on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $112 million in its initial public offering of stock shares. In its first full day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the stock gained 39% from its opening price. After a strong opening, however, the stock stumbled amid reports of weaknesses in Rosetta Stone's US business, resulting in the cancellation of a second offering, and a disappointing year end price just 5 cents off its opening price. The stock trades under ticker symbol RST. As of December 2015, the stock was at approximately $29.2 (USD) per share. 2010s In 2013, it acquired four companies—Vivity Labs Inc (creators of the Fit Brains Trainer), Livemocha, Tell Me More, and Lexia Learning. On September 17, 2013, Rosetta Stone announced the launch of a new Kids Division. In November 2014, it debuted its first kids reading program for consumers, Rosetta Stone Kids Reading. Since 2016, the company's president and CEO has been John Hass. Rosetta Stone is transitioning to a cloud-based business model that goes beyond language learning and deeper into education technology. Acquisition by Cambium On August 31, 2020, Rosetta Stone announced that they had entered an agreement to be acquired by Cambium Learning Group for $792 million. Acquisition by IXL Learning On March 17, 2021, Rosetta Stone was acquired by IXL Learning from Cambium Learning Group. Offices Corporate headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia. There are also offices in Harrisonburg, Virginia; Boulder, Colorado; Austin, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Concord, Massachusetts; London, United Kingdom; and Seoul, South Korea. References External links Rosetta Stone website Rosetta Stone factsheet — Hoover's Rosetta Stone company profile — Google Finance "Rosetta Stone Inc. IPO" Companies based in Arlington County, Virginia Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Software companies based in Virginia Educational software companies Private equity portfolio companies Education companies established in 1992 Software companies established in 1992 1992 establishments in Virginia 2008 initial public offerings Software companies of the United States

37547512

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael%20Kudlick

Michael Kudlick

Michael Douglas Kudlick (December 8, 1934 – February 16, 2008) was a computer scientist and professor of computer science, most known for developing the file transfer and mail protocols for ARPANET while working for the Augmentation Research Center at SRI International, and later as a noted professor and academic administrator at the University of San Francisco. Early life and education Kudlick earned a bachelor of science from the University of Maryland in 1956. Kudlick then served in the United States Navy. He later earned a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966. Career After earning his Ph.D. Kudlick worked for Shell Development and later the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at SRI International. At the ARC he contributed to the development of the computer mouse. He also worked on the ARPANet File Transfer Protocol committee, which established how file transfers work on ARPANET, and its successor, the internet; the standard is RFC542, "File Transfer Protocol for the ARPA Network". Kudlick was also on the Network Mail committee which wrote RFC469. From 1974 to 1997, Kudlick was a professor of computer science at the University of San Francisco (USF). While there, he served as chair of the computer science department, received USF's Distinguished Teaching award in 1981, and was the adviser to USF's chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery. USF alum Alfred Chuang donated $2.5 million to USF in 2001 to fund the construction of a computer science classroom named for Kudlick. References 1934 births 2008 deaths University of Maryland, College Park alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni University of San Francisco faculty SRI International people People from Washington, D.C.

231920

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling%20%28computing%29

Scheduling (computing)

In computing, scheduling is the action of assigning resources to perform tasks. The resources may be processors, network links or expansion cards. The tasks may be threads, processes or data flows. The scheduling activity is carried out by a process called scheduler. Schedulers are often designed so as to keep all computer resources busy (as in load balancing), allow multiple users to share system resources effectively, or to achieve a target quality-of-service. Scheduling is fundamental to computation itself, and an intrinsic part of the execution model of a computer system; the concept of scheduling makes it possible to have computer multitasking with a single central processing unit (CPU). Goals A scheduler may aim at one or more goals, for example: maximizing throughput (the total amount of work completed per time unit); minimizing wait time (time from work becoming ready until the first point it begins execution); minimizing latency or response time (time from work becoming ready until it is finished in case of batch activity, or until the system responds and hands the first output to the user in case of interactive activity); maximizing fairness (equal CPU time to each process, or more generally appropriate times according to the priority and workload of each process). In practice, these goals often conflict (e.g. throughput versus latency), thus a scheduler will implement a suitable compromise. Preference is measured by any one of the concerns mentioned above, depending upon the user's needs and objectives. In real-time environments, such as embedded systems for automatic control in industry (for example robotics), the scheduler also must ensure that processes can meet deadlines; this is crucial for keeping the system stable. Scheduled tasks can also be distributed to remote devices across a network and managed through an administrative back end. Types of operating system schedulers The scheduler is an operating system module that selects the next jobs to be admitted into the system and the next process to run. Operating systems may feature up to three distinct scheduler types: a long-term scheduler (also known as an admission scheduler or high-level scheduler), a mid-term or medium-term scheduler, and a short-term scheduler. The names suggest the relative frequency with which their functions are performed. Process scheduler The process scheduler is a part of the operating system that decides which process runs at a certain point in time. It usually has the ability to pause a running process, move it to the back of the running queue and start a new process; such a scheduler is known as a preemptive scheduler, otherwise it is a cooperative scheduler. We distinguish between "long-term scheduling", "medium-term scheduling", and "short-term scheduling" based on how often decisions must be made. Long-term scheduling The long-term scheduler, or admission scheduler, decides which jobs or processes are to be admitted to the ready queue (in main memory); that is, when an attempt is made to execute a program, its admission to the set of currently executing processes is either authorized or delayed by the long-term scheduler. Thus, this scheduler dictates what processes are to run on a system, and the degree of concurrency to be supported at any one time whether many or few processes are to be executed concurrently, and how the split between I/O-intensive and CPU-intensive processes is to be handled. The long-term scheduler is responsible for controlling the degree of multiprogramming. In general, most processes can be described as either I/O-bound or CPU-bound. An I/O-bound process is one that spends more of its time doing I/O than it spends doing computations. A CPU-bound process, in contrast, generates I/O requests infrequently, using more of its time doing computations. It is important that a long-term scheduler selects a good process mix of I/O-bound and CPU-bound processes. If all processes are I/O-bound, the ready queue will almost always be empty, and the short-term scheduler will have little to do. On the other hand, if all processes are CPU-bound, the I/O waiting queue will almost always be empty, devices will go unused, and again the system will be unbalanced. The system with the best performance will thus have a combination of CPU-bound and I/O-bound processes. In modern operating systems, this is used to make sure that real-time processes get enough CPU time to finish their tasks. Long-term scheduling is also important in large-scale systems such as batch processing systems, computer clusters, supercomputers, and render farms. For example, in concurrent systems, coscheduling of interacting processes is often required to prevent them from blocking due to waiting on each other. In these cases, special-purpose job scheduler software is typically used to assist these functions, in addition to any underlying admission scheduling support in the operating system. Some operating systems only allow new tasks to be added if it is sure all real-time deadlines can still be met. The specific heuristic algorithm used by an operating system to accept or reject new tasks is the admission control mechanism. Medium-term scheduling The medium-term scheduler temporarily removes processes from main memory and places them in secondary memory (such as a hard disk drive) or vice versa, which is commonly referred to as "swapping out" or "swapping in" (also incorrectly as "paging out" or "paging in"). The medium-term scheduler may decide to swap out a process which has not been active for some time, or a process which has a low priority, or a process which is page faulting frequently, or a process which is taking up a large amount of memory in order to free up main memory for other processes, swapping the process back in later when more memory is available, or when the process has been unblocked and is no longer waiting for a resource. [Stallings, 396] [Stallings, 370] In many systems today (those that support mapping virtual address space to secondary storage other than the swap file), the medium-term scheduler may actually perform the role of the long-term scheduler, by treating binaries as "swapped out processes" upon their execution. In this way, when a segment of the binary is required it can be swapped in on demand, or "lazy loaded",[Stallings, 394] also called demand paging. Short-term scheduling The short-term scheduler (also known as the CPU scheduler) decides which of the ready, in-memory processes is to be executed (allocated a CPU) after a clock interrupt, an I/O interrupt, an operating system call or another form of signal. Thus the short-term scheduler makes scheduling decisions much more frequently than the long-term or mid-term schedulersa scheduling decision will at a minimum have to be made after every time slice, and these are very short. This scheduler can be preemptive, implying that it is capable of forcibly removing processes from a CPU when it decides to allocate that CPU to another process, or non-preemptive (also known as "voluntary" or "co-operative"), in which case the scheduler is unable to "force" processes off the CPU. A preemptive scheduler relies upon a programmable interval timer which invokes an interrupt handler that runs in kernel mode and implements the scheduling function. Dispatcher Another component that is involved in the CPU-scheduling function is the dispatcher, which is the module that gives control of the CPU to the process selected by the short-term scheduler. It receives control in kernel mode as the result of an interrupt or system call. The functions of a dispatcher involve the following: Context switches, in which the dispatcher saves the state (also known as context) of the process or thread that was previously running; the dispatcher then loads the initial or previously saved state of the new process. Switching to user mode. Jumping to the proper location in the user program to restart that program indicated by its new state. The dispatcher should be as fast as possible, since it is invoked during every process switch. During the context switches, the processor is virtually idle for a fraction of time, thus unnecessary context switches should be avoided. The time it takes for the dispatcher to stop one process and start another is known as the dispatch latency. Scheduling disciplines A scheduling discipline (also called scheduling policy or scheduling algorithm) is an algorithm used for distributing resources among parties which simultaneously and asynchronously request them. Scheduling disciplines are used in routers (to handle packet traffic) as well as in operating systems (to share CPU time among both threads and processes), disk drives (I/O scheduling), printers (print spooler), most embedded systems, etc. The main purposes of scheduling algorithms are to minimize resource starvation and to ensure fairness amongst the parties utilizing the resources. Scheduling deals with the problem of deciding which of the outstanding requests is to be allocated resources. There are many different scheduling algorithms. In this section, we introduce several of them. In packet-switched computer networks and other statistical multiplexing, the notion of a scheduling algorithm is used as an alternative to first-come first-served queuing of data packets. The simplest best-effort scheduling algorithms are round-robin, fair queuing (a max-min fair scheduling algorithm), proportional-fair scheduling and maximum throughput. If differentiated or guaranteed quality of service is offered, as opposed to best-effort communication, weighted fair queuing may be utilized. In advanced packet radio wireless networks such as HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) 3.5G cellular system, channel-dependent scheduling may be used to take advantage of channel state information. If the channel conditions are favourable, the throughput and system spectral efficiency may be increased. In even more advanced systems such as LTE, the scheduling is combined by channel-dependent packet-by-packet dynamic channel allocation, or by assigning OFDMA multi-carriers or other frequency-domain equalization components to the users that best can utilize them. First come, first served First in, first out (FIFO), also known as first come, first served (FCFS), is the simplest scheduling algorithm. FIFO simply queues processes in the order that they arrive in the ready queue. This is commonly used for a , for example as illustrated in this section. Since context switches only occur upon process termination, and no reorganization of the process queue is required, scheduling overhead is minimal. Throughput can be low, because long processes can be holding the CPU, causing the short processes to wait for a long time (known as the convoy effect). No starvation, because each process gets chance to be executed after a definite time. Turnaround time, waiting time and response time depend on the order of their arrival and can be high for the same reasons above. No prioritization occurs, thus this system has trouble meeting process deadlines. The lack of prioritization means that as long as every process eventually completes, there is no starvation. In an environment where some processes might not complete, there can be starvation. It is based on queuing. Priority scheduling Earliest deadline first (EDF) or least time to go is a dynamic scheduling algorithm used in real-time operating systems to place processes in a priority queue. Whenever a scheduling event occurs (a task finishes, new task is released, etc.), the queue will be searched for the process closest to its deadline, which will be the next to be scheduled for execution. Shortest remaining time first Similar to shortest job first (SJF). With this strategy the scheduler arranges processes with the least estimated processing time remaining to be next in the queue. This requires advanced knowledge or estimations about the time required for a process to complete. If a shorter process arrives during another process' execution, the currently running process is interrupted (known as preemption), dividing that process into two separate computing blocks. This creates excess overhead through additional context switching. The scheduler must also place each incoming process into a specific place in the queue, creating additional overhead. This algorithm is designed for maximum throughput in most scenarios. Waiting time and response time increase as the process's computational requirements increase. Since turnaround time is based on waiting time plus processing time, longer processes are significantly affected by this. Overall waiting time is smaller than FIFO, however since no process has to wait for the termination of the longest process. No particular attention is given to deadlines, the programmer can only attempt to make processes with deadlines as short as possible. Starvation is possible, especially in a busy system with many small processes being run. To use this policy we should have at least two processes of different priority Fixed priority pre-emptive scheduling The operating system assigns a fixed priority rank to every process, and the scheduler arranges the processes in the ready queue in order of their priority. Lower-priority processes get interrupted by incoming higher-priority processes. Overhead is not minimal, nor is it significant. FPPS has no particular advantage in terms of throughput over FIFO scheduling. If the number of rankings is limited, it can be characterized as a collection of FIFO queues, one for each priority ranking. Processes in lower-priority queues are selected only when all of the higher-priority queues are empty. Waiting time and response time depend on the priority of the process. Higher-priority processes have smaller waiting and response times. Deadlines can be met by giving processes with deadlines a higher priority. Starvation of lower-priority processes is possible with large numbers of high-priority processes queuing for CPU time. Round-robin scheduling The scheduler assigns a fixed time unit per process, and cycles through them. If process completes within that time-slice it gets terminated otherwise it is rescheduled after giving a chance to all other processes. RR scheduling involves extensive overhead, especially with a small time unit. Balanced throughput between FCFS/ FIFO and SJF/SRTF, shorter jobs are completed faster than in FIFO and longer processes are completed faster than in SJF. Good average response time, waiting time is dependent on number of processes, and not average process length. Because of high waiting times, deadlines are rarely met in a pure RR system. Starvation can never occur, since no priority is given. Order of time unit allocation is based upon process arrival time, similar to FIFO. If Time-Slice is large it becomes FCFS /FIFO or if it is short then it becomes SJF/SRTF. Multilevel queue scheduling This is used for situations in which processes are easily divided into different groups. For example, a common division is made between foreground (interactive) processes and background (batch) processes. These two types of processes have different response-time requirements and so may have different scheduling needs. It is very useful for shared memory problems. Work-conserving schedulers A work-conserving scheduler is a scheduler that always tries to keep the scheduled resources busy, if there are submitted jobs ready to be scheduled. In contrast, a non-work conserving scheduler is a scheduler that, in some cases, may leave the scheduled resources idle despite the presence of jobs ready to be scheduled. Scheduling optimization problems There are several scheduling problems in which the goal is to decide which job goes to which station at what time, such that the total makespan is minimized: Job shop scheduling there are jobs and identical stations. Each job should be executed on a single machine. This is usually regarded as an online problem. Open-shop scheduling there are jobs and different stations. Each job should spend some time at each station, in a free order. Flow shop scheduling there are jobs and different stations. Each job should spend some time at each station, in a pre-determined order. Manual scheduling A very common method in embedded systems is to schedule jobs manually. This can for example be done in a time-multiplexed fashion. Sometimes the kernel is divided in three or more parts: Manual scheduling, preemptive and interrupt level. Exact methods for scheduling jobs are often proprietary. No resource starvation problems Very high predictability; allows implementation of hard real-time systems Almost no overhead May not be optimal for all applications Effectiveness is completely dependent on the implementation Choosing a scheduling algorithm When designing an operating system, a programmer must consider which scheduling algorithm will perform best for the use the system is going to see. There is no universal "best" scheduling algorithm, and many operating systems use extended or combinations of the scheduling algorithms above. For example, Windows NT/XP/Vista uses a multilevel feedback queue, a combination of fixed-priority preemptive scheduling, round-robin, and first in, first out algorithms. In this system, threads can dynamically increase or decrease in priority depending on if it has been serviced already, or if it has been waiting extensively. Every priority level is represented by its own queue, with round-robin scheduling among the high-priority threads and FIFO among the lower-priority ones. In this sense, response time is short for most threads, and short but critical system threads get completed very quickly. Since threads can only use one time unit of the round-robin in the highest-priority queue, starvation can be a problem for longer high-priority threads. Operating system process scheduler implementations The algorithm used may be as simple as round-robin in which each process is given equal time (for instance 1 ms, usually between 1 ms and 100 ms) in a cycling list. So, process A executes for 1 ms, then process B, then process C, then back to process A. More advanced algorithms take into account process priority, or the importance of the process. This allows some processes to use more time than other processes. The kernel always uses whatever resources it needs to ensure proper functioning of the system, and so can be said to have infinite priority. In SMP systems, processor affinity is considered to increase overall system performance, even if it may cause a process itself to run more slowly. This generally improves performance by reducing cache thrashing. OS/360 and successors IBM OS/360 was available with three different schedulers. The differences were such that the variants were often considered three different operating systems: The Single Sequential Scheduler option, also known as the Primary Control Program (PCP) provided sequential execution of a single stream of jobs. The Multiple Sequential Scheduler option, known as Multiprogramming with a Fixed Number of Tasks (MFT) provided execution of multiple concurrent jobs. Execution was governed by a priority which had a default for each stream or could be requested separately for each job. MFT version II added subtasks (threads), which executed at a priority based on that of the parent job. Each job stream defined the maximum amount of memory which could be used by any job in that stream. The Multiple Priority Schedulers option, or Multiprogramming with a Variable Number of Tasks (MVT), featured subtasks from the start; each job requested the priority and memory it required before execution. Later virtual storage versions of MVS added a Workload Manager feature to the scheduler, which schedules processor resources according to an elaborate scheme defined by the installation. Windows Very early MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows systems were non-multitasking, and as such did not feature a scheduler. Windows 3.1x used a non-preemptive scheduler, meaning that it did not interrupt programs. It relied on the program to end or tell the OS that it didn't need the processor so that it could move on to another process. This is usually called cooperative multitasking. Windows 95 introduced a rudimentary preemptive scheduler; however, for legacy support opted to let 16 bit applications run without preemption. Windows NT-based operating systems use a multilevel feedback queue. 32 priority levels are defined, 0 through to 31, with priorities 0 through 15 being "normal" priorities and priorities 16 through 31 being soft real-time priorities, requiring privileges to assign. 0 is reserved for the Operating System. User interfaces and APIs work with priority classes for the process and the threads in the process, which are then combined by the system into the absolute priority level. The kernel may change the priority level of a thread depending on its I/O and CPU usage and whether it is interactive (i.e. accepts and responds to input from humans), raising the priority of interactive and I/O bounded processes and lowering that of CPU bound processes, to increase the responsiveness of interactive applications. The scheduler was modified in Windows Vista to use the cycle counter register of modern processors to keep track of exactly how many CPU cycles a thread has executed, rather than just using an interval-timer interrupt routine. Vista also uses a priority scheduler for the I/O queue so that disk defragmenters and other such programs do not interfere with foreground operations. Classic Mac OS and macOS Mac OS 9 uses cooperative scheduling for threads, where one process controls multiple cooperative threads, and also provides preemptive scheduling for multiprocessing tasks. The kernel schedules multiprocessing tasks using a preemptive scheduling algorithm. All Process Manager processes run within a special multiprocessing task, called the "blue task". Those processes are scheduled cooperatively, using a round-robin scheduling algorithm; a process yields control of the processor to another process by explicitly calling a such as WaitNextEvent. Each process has its own copy of the Thread Manager that schedules that process's threads cooperatively; a thread yields control of the processor to another thread by calling YieldToAnyThread or YieldToThread. macOS uses a multilevel feedback queue, with four priority bands for threadsnormal, system high priority, kernel mode only, and real-time. Threads are scheduled preemptively; macOS also supports cooperatively scheduled threads in its implementation of the Thread Manager in Carbon. AIX In AIX Version 4 there are three possible values for thread scheduling policy: First In, First Out: Once a thread with this policy is scheduled, it runs to completion unless it is blocked, it voluntarily yields control of the CPU, or a higher-priority thread becomes dispatchable. Only fixed-priority threads can have a FIFO scheduling policy. Round Robin: This is similar to the AIX Version 3 scheduler round-robin scheme based on 10 ms time slices. When a RR thread has control at the end of the time slice, it moves to the tail of the queue of dispatchable threads of its priority. Only fixed-priority threads can have a Round Robin scheduling policy. OTHER: This policy is defined by POSIX1003.4a as implementation-defined. In AIX Version 4, this policy is defined to be equivalent to RR, except that it applies to threads with non-fixed priority. The recalculation of the running thread's priority value at each clock interrupt means that a thread may lose control because its priority value has risen above that of another dispatchable thread. This is the AIX Version 3 behavior. Threads are primarily of interest for applications that currently consist of several asynchronous processes. These applications might impose a lighter load on the system if converted to a multithreaded structure. AIX 5 implements the following scheduling policies: FIFO, round robin, and a fair round robin. The FIFO policy has three different implementations: FIFO, FIFO2, and FIFO3. The round robin policy is named SCHED_RR in AIX, and the fair round robin is called SCHED_OTHER. Linux Linux 2.4 In Linux 2.4, an O(n) scheduler with a multilevel feedback queue with priority levels ranging from 0 to 140 was used; 0–99 are reserved for real-time tasks and 100–140 are considered nice task levels. For real-time tasks, the time quantum for switching processes was approximately 200 ms, and for nice tasks approximately 10 ms. The scheduler ran through the run queue of all ready processes, letting the highest priority processes go first and run through their time slices, after which they will be placed in an expired queue. When the active queue is empty the expired queue will become the active queue and vice versa. However, some enterprise Linux distributions such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server replaced this scheduler with a backport of the O(1) scheduler (which was maintained by Alan Cox in his Linux 2.4-ac Kernel series) to the Linux 2.4 kernel used by the distribution. Linux 2.6.0 to Linux 2.6.22 In versions 2.6.0 to 2.6.22, the kernel used an O(1) scheduler developed by Ingo Molnar and many other kernel developers during the Linux 2.5 development. For many kernel in time frame, Con Kolivas developed patch sets which improved interactivity with this scheduler or even replaced it with his own schedulers. Since Linux 2.6.23 Con Kolivas' work, most significantly his implementation of "fair scheduling" named "Rotating Staircase Deadline", inspired Ingo Molnár to develop the Completely Fair Scheduler as a replacement for the earlier O(1) scheduler, crediting Kolivas in his announcement. CFS is the first implementation of a fair queuing process scheduler widely used in a general-purpose operating system. The Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) uses a well-studied, classic scheduling algorithm called fair queuing originally invented for packet networks. Fair queuing had been previously applied to CPU scheduling under the name stride scheduling. The fair queuing CFS scheduler has a scheduling complexity of , where is the number of tasks in the runqueue. Choosing a task can be done in constant time, but reinserting a task after it has run requires operations, because the run queue is implemented as a red–black tree. The Brain Fuck Scheduler, also created by Con Kolivas, is an alternative to the CFS. FreeBSD FreeBSD uses a multilevel feedback queue with priorities ranging from 0–255. 0–63 are reserved for interrupts, 64–127 for the top half of the kernel, 128–159 for real-time user threads, 160–223 for time-shared user threads, and 224–255 for idle user threads. Also, like Linux, it uses the active queue setup, but it also has an idle queue. NetBSD NetBSD uses a multilevel feedback queue with priorities ranging from 0–223. 0–63 are reserved for time-shared threads (default, SCHED_OTHER policy), 64–95 for user threads which entered kernel space, 96-128 for kernel threads, 128–191 for user real-time threads (SCHED_FIFO and SCHED_RR policies), and 192–223 for software interrupts. Solaris Solaris uses a multilevel feedback queue with priorities ranging between 0 and 169. Priorities 0–59 are reserved for time-shared threads, 60–99 for system threads, 100–159 for real-time threads, and 160–169 for low priority interrupts. Unlike Linux, when a process is done using its time quantum, it is given a new priority and put back in the queue. Solaris 9 introduced two new scheduling classes, namely fixed priority class and fair share class. The threads with fixed priority have the same priority range as that of the time-sharing class, but their priorities are not dynamically adjusted. The fair scheduling class uses CPU shares to prioritize threads for scheduling decisions. CPU shares indicate the entitlement to CPU resources. They are allocated to a set of processes, which are collectively known as a project. Summary See also Activity selection problem Aging (scheduling) Atropos scheduler Automated planning and scheduling Cyclic executive Dynamic priority scheduling Foreground-background Interruptible operating system Least slack time scheduling Lottery scheduling Priority inversion Process states Queuing Theory Rate-monotonic scheduling Resource-Task Network Scheduling (production processes) Stochastic scheduling Time-utility function Notes References Information on the Linux 2.6 O(1)-scheduler Further reading Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces by Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau and Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau. Arpaci-Dusseau Books, 2014. Relevant chapters: Scheduling: Introduction Multi-level Feedback Queue Proportional-share Scheduling Multiprocessor Scheduling Brief discussion of Job Scheduling algorithms Understanding the Linux Kernel: Chapter 10 Process Scheduling Kerneltrap: Linux kernel scheduler articles AIX CPU monitoring and tuning Josh Aas' introduction to the Linux 2.6.8.1 CPU scheduler implementation Peter Brucker, Sigrid Knust. Complexity results for scheduling problems TORSCHE Scheduling Toolbox for Matlab is a toolbox of scheduling and graph algorithms. A survey on cellular networks packet scheduling Large-scale cluster management at Google with Borg Operations research Planning Software design patterns

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwisterOS

TwisterOS

Twister OS (Twister for short) is an 32-bit Operating System created by Pi Labs for the Raspberry Pi single board computer originally, with a x86_64 PC version released a few months later. Twister is based on Raspberry Pi OS Lite and uses the XFCE desktop environment. Twister OS also has a version called "Twister OS Armbian" designed for ARM SBCs with the RK3399 CPU. There are four versions of the operating system, TwisterOS Full (for the Raspberry Pi 4), Twister OS Lite (a stripped-down version with only themes), Twister UI (For x86_64 PCs running Linux Mint or Xubuntu) and Twisters OS Armbian (for RK3399 CPUs) . Features TwisterOS has 7 main desktop themes, 5 out of those have dark modes. Twister OS has its own theme called "Twister OS theme" which is similar to Ubuntu's desktop theme. The Twister 95, XP, 7, 10, and 11 themes are similar to the themes on the Windows 95, XP, 7, 10 and 11 operating systems. iTwister and iTwister Sur desktop themes are similar to the themes on macOS. Box86 is a emulator used to run x86 software and games on ARM systems. Wine is a compatibility layer that lets the user to run Windows applications on non-Windows systems. CommanderPi is a system monitoring and configuration tool designed to check system information and overclock the CPU. Other Twister versions Twister OS Lite Twister OS Lite is for the Raspberry Pi as well. The Lite version only comes with the themes in Twister OS, as well as Box86 and Wine. Twister UI Twister UI is very similar to Twister OS, the only difference is that Twister UI is used for non-single board computers. Twister UI is designed to be installed by running a setup script on a already running installation of Linux Mint (XFCE) or Xubuntu. Twister OS Armbian Twister OS Armbian is a version of Twister OS that can run on SBCs with RK3399 CPUs, like the Rock Pi 4B. Twister OS Armbian also comes preinstalled on emmc chips inside the Rock Pi 4 Plus models. Twister OS Armbian is based on the Armbian Linux operating system. References Computers Linux

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air%20National%20Guard

Air National Guard

The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It, along with each state's, district's, commonwealth's or territory's Army National Guard component, makes up the National Guard of each state and the districts, commonwealths and territories as applicable. When Air National Guard units are used under the jurisdiction of the state governor they are fulfilling their militia role. However, if federalized by order of the President of the United States, Air National Guard units become an active part of the United States Air Force. They are jointly administered by the states and the National Guard Bureau, a joint bureau of the Army and Air Force that oversees the United States National Guard. Air National Guard operating forces are structured where each of the 50 U.S. states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia of the United States, houses at least one wing. Each wing is either assigned aircraft, or aircraft are shared with a unit of the active duty Air Force or the Air Force Reserve under an "Associate" arrangement. The ANG of the territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands have no aircraft assigned and perform ground support functions. Air National Guard activities may be located on active duty air force bases, air reserve bases, naval air stations/joint reserve bases, or air national guard bases and stations which are either independent military facilities or collocated as tenants on civilian-controlled joint civil-military airports. ANG units typically operate under Title 32 USC. However, when operating under Title 10 USC all ANG units are operationally gained by an active duty Air Force major command (MAJCOM) or the United States Space Force. ANG units of the Combat Air Forces (CAF) based in the Continental United States (CONUS), plus a single air control squadron of the Puerto Rico ANG, are gained by the Air Combat Command (ACC). CONUS-based ANG units in the Mobility Air Forces (MAF), plus the Puerto Rico ANG's airlift wing and the Virgin Islands ANG's civil engineering squadron are gained by the Air Mobility Command (AMC). The vast majority of ANG units fall under either ACC or AMC. However, there remain a few exceptions, such as the Alaska ANG, Hawaii ANG and Guam ANG, whose CAF and MAF units are operationally gained by Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), while a smaller number of ANG units in CONUS are operationally gained by Air Education and Training Command (AETC), Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), and United States Air Forces in Europe - Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFAFRICA). Overview Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Air National Guard is part of the state National Guard and is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the two U.S. territories. Each state, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico have at least one Air National Guard wing level unit with a flying mission, while the Air National Guard in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are strictly non-flying support organizations at the group or squadron level. When not in a "federal" status, the Air National Guard operates under their respective state, commonwealth or territorial governor. The exception to this rule is the District of Columbia Air National Guard (DC ANG). As a federal district, the units of the DC ANG are under the direct jurisdiction of the President of the United States through the office of the Commanding General, District of Columbia National Guard. In their "state" role, the Air National Guard may be called up for active duty by the governors to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, fires, and earthquakes. In the case of the DC Air National Guard in this role, the Adjutant General of the District of Columbia reports to the Mayor of the District of Columbia, who may only activate DC ANG assets for local purposes after consulting with the President of the United States. With the consent of state governors or equivalents, members or units of the Air National Guard may be appointed, temporarily or indefinitely, to be federally recognized members of the armed forces, in the active or inactive (e.g., reserve) service of the United States. If federally recognized, the member or unit becomes part of the Air National Guard of the United States, which is one of two reserve components of the United States Air Force, and part of the National Guard of the United States. Because both state Air National Guard and the Air National Guard of the United States go relatively hand-in-hand, they are both usually referred to as just Air National Guard. Air National Guard of the United States units or members may be called up for federal active duty in times of Congressionally sanctioned war or national emergency. The President may also call up members and units of the Air National Guard using a process called "federalization", with the consent of state governors or equivalents, to repel invasion, suppress rebellion, or execute federal laws if the United States or any of its states or territories are invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation, or if there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the federal government, or if the president is unable to execute the laws of the United States with the regular armed forces. The United States Air National Guard has about 107,100 men and women in service. Like the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC), the ANG is often described as a "reserve" force of "part-time airmen," although the demands of maintaining modern aircraft mean that many AFRC and ANG members work full-time, either as full-time Air Reserve Technicians (ART) or Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) personnel. Even traditional part-time air guardsmen, especially pilots, navigators/combat systems officers, air battle managers and enlisted aircrew, often serve 100 or more man-days annually. As such, the concept of Air National Guard service as representing only "one weekend a month and two weeks a year" is not necessarily valid. The Air National Guard (ANG), in tandem with the U.S. Air Force's other reserve component, the strictly "federal" Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC), comprise the "Air Reserve Component" of the U.S. Air Force under the"Total Force" construct. Many ANG pilots work for commercial airlines, but in the ANG they may train to fly any of the aircraft in the USAF inventory, with the current exception of the B-1B Lancer and B-52 Stratofortress bombers, E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, KC-10 Extender and the AC-130 Gunship. The Georgia Air National Guard and the Kansas Air National Guard previously flew the B-1B Lancer prior to converting to the E-8 Joint STARS and KC-135R Stratotanker, respectively. In addition, the 131st Fighter Wing of the Missouri Air National Guard transitioned from flying the F-15C/D Eagle at St. Louis International Airport/Lambert Field Air National Guard Station to the B-2 Spirit at Whiteman Air Force Base as an "Associate" unit of the Regular Air Force's 509th Bomb Wing and was re-designated as the 131st Bomb Wing. In 2012, General Norton A. Schwartz, the then-Chief of Staff of the Air Force, defended cutting nearly twice as many service members from the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve as from the active duty Regular Air Force in order to maintain the service's surge and rotational capabilities in the Active Component. These proposals were eventually overruled and cancelled by the U.S. Congress. Chain of command As state militia units, the units in the Air National Guard are not in the normal United States Air Force chain of command. They are under the jurisdiction of the United States National Guard Bureau unless they are federalized by order of the President of the United States. The Air National Guard Readiness Center, a field operating center of the United States Air Force at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, performs operational and technical functions to ensure combat readiness of Air National Guard units and is a channel of communication between the Air Force and the National Guard Bureau regarding readiness and operations. Air National Guard units are trained and equipped by the United States Air Force. The state (or equivalent) ANG units, depending on their mission, are operationally gained by a major command of the USAF if federalized. In addition, personnel and equipment are routinely federalized and deployed by the USAF as part of Air Expeditionary Forces, and are currently engaged in combat operations under United States Air Forces Central (USAFCENT) as part of the Global War on Terrorism. Air National Guard personnel are expected to adhere to the same moral and physical standards as their "full-time" active duty Air Force and "part-time" Air Force Reserve federal counterparts. The same ranks and insignia of the U.S. Air Force are used by the Air National Guard, and Air National Guardsmen are eligible to receive all United States military awards. The Air National Guard also bestows a number of state awards for local services rendered in a service member's home state or equivalent. History Origins The modern day National Guard in the United States traces its origins to 13 December 1636, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony's General Court passed an act calling for the creation of three regiments, organizing existing separate militia companies in and around Boston. The creation of the militia regiments was caused by the perceived need to defend the Bay Colony against American Indians and from other European countries operating in North America. This organization formed the basis of subsequent colonial and, post-independence, state and territorial militias which later became the Army National Guard. Being "local" ground forces affiliated with the Army, militias were considered state-centric/territorial-centric in nature, this versus naval forces, which were considered wholly activities of the federal government. This distinction accounts for why there are no National Guard components in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps or U.S. Coast Guard. Because the present day U.S. Air Force evolved from the U.S. Army, it was only natural that a separate Air National Guard would be established with the divestiture of the former U.S. Army Air Forces and its establishment as a separate and independent U.S. Air Force in 1947. The Air National Guard was officially established in law as a separate reserve component on 18 September 1947, concurrent with the establishment of the U.S. Air Force. However, National Guard aviation emerged before World War I with aviation units in Army National Guard organizations. In April 1908, a group of enthusiasts organized an "aeronautical corps" at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City to learn ballooning. They were members of the 1st Company, Signal Corps, New York National Guard. Although they received instruction and assembled a balloon, it was not clear whether members of the unit had ever actually ascended in it. In 1910 the unit raised $500 to finance its first aircraft. During the Mexican Border Crisis of 1915 Captain Raynal Cawthorne Bolling organized and took command of a unit that became the 1st Aero Company, New York National Guard. It trained at Mineola Field, Mineola, Long Island. It is recognized as the ANG's oldest unit and its lineage is carried by the 102nd Rescue Squadron of the New York Air National Guard. On 13 July 1916, the 1st Aero Company mobilized during the border crisis with Mexico. the unit was called into federal service when the Mexican revolution spilled over the border into the United States. Bolling's unit was joined at Mineola by the 2nd Aero Company of Buffalo and 12 Guard officers from other states. Both air units remained at Mineola during the crisis. When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the War Department decided that it would not mobilize National Guard air units. Instead, individual Guard volunteers provided a major pool for the Army to draw aviators from. They were required to leave the Guard and enter the Signal Corps Reserve if they wished to fly in the war. About 100 National Guard pilots joined the newly formed United States Army Air Service. Guardsmen also played prominent roles in air operations in France. On 14 April 1918, Tennessee Guardsman Reed Chambers flew with Eddie Rickenbacker and David Peterson of the 94th Pursuit Squadron from Villeneuve, France on the first combat mission ever ordered by an American commander of a U.S. squadron of American pilots. At least four Guardsmen—Chambers, Field Kindley (Kansas), Reed Landis (Illinois), and Martinus Stenseth (Minnesota) – became aces. 2nd Lieutenant Erwin R. Bleckley of Kansas was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroism as an aerial observer. After the armistice and the return of the American Expeditionary Force in 1919, the wartime squadrons were demobilized and inactivated. Interwar period After the war, National Guard aviation was placed on a permanent basis over the initial opposition of the Army's General Staff. In 1920, the Militia Bureau and the Army Air Service agreed on a plan for re-organizing National Guard aviation units. On 17 January 1921, the 109th Observation Squadron of the Minnesota National Guard (1921–1941) became the first post World War I air unit to receive federal recognition. During the interwar period, 29 observation squadrons were established. They were either integral elements of National Guard infantry divisions or assigned to Army corps aviation. An aviator in the 110th Observation Squadron of the Missouri National Guard (1923–1943) became the most famous National Guard pilot during the interwar period: Captain Charles A. Lindbergh. His service illustrated the close ties between military and commercial aviation. Trained to fly by the Army, he joined the 110th Observation Squadron in November 1925. The following year, he became chief pilot for an airmail venture started by fellow 110th pilots Major William Robertson and his brother Frank. After Lindbergh made his historic solo trans-Atlantic flight in May 1927, he recalled his service in the Guard fondly. After the Fall of France, during 1940–1941, approximately 4,800 experienced National Guard aviation personnel were mobilized from their observation squadrons. They provided a significant augmentation of the Army's rapidly expanding air arm during a critical period. Most Guard air units were stripped of many key personnel, and the units were federalized into the regular Army Air Corps and were re-equipped with more modem aircraft. Some of the early-deploying squadrons maintained a degree of unit integrity and cohesion. But, most lost their character and identity as Guard organizations during World War II. The units were transformed from observation organizations into reconnaissance, liaison, fighter, and bombardment squadrons. They served in every major combat theater during the war. The most significant wartime contribution of National Guard aviators was to train and lead the large numbers of volunteer airmen who had entered the AAF. That role was epitomized by Lt Col Addison E. Baker, a Guardsman from Akron, Ohio. On 1 August 1943, Baker commanded the VIII Bomber Command's 93rd Bombardment Group on a daring but ill-fated low-level attack against enemy oil refineries at Ploiești, Romania. Baker was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic leadership. Post-World War II Air National Guard The Air National Guard as it exists today, a separate reserve component of the United States Air Force in addition to the purely "federal" Air Force Reserve, was a product of the politics of postwar planning and inter-service rivalry during World War II. The Army Air Forces leaders who planned and maneuvered for an independent postwar Air Force during World War II had little confidence in the reserves of the U.S. Army, especially the state-dominated National Guard. On the contrary, those leaders expected to build the largest and most modern standing air force possible. However, domestic politics and American history forced them to significantly alter their plans. Determined to include an Air Force National Guard in the postwar U.S. military establishment during World War II, the National Guard Association of the United States flexed its considerable political muscle. It compelled the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) to plan for a significant Air Force National Guard once the overseas fighting ended. General of the Army George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, also pressured the USAAF to revise its ambitious plans for a large postwar active duty force. When President Harry S. Truman instituted dramatic postwar military budget cuts, he split defense dollars evenly among the Army, Navy, and Air Force. That move also required the Air Force to plan for a far smaller active duty service than it had envisaged. As a result, the Air Force needed both reserve components, the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve, to help fill the gap. As the wartime Army Air Forces demobilized in 1945 and 1946, inactivated unit designations were allotted and transferred to various State and Territorial Air National Guard bureaus to provide them unit designations to re-establish them as Air National Guard units. Initially, the National Guard Bureau (NGB) developed a table of organization for the Air National Guard to include at least one unit allocation per state. In addition, the territories of Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico were allocated one unit designation each. A table of organization was developed in which a series of twelve ANG Wings were allocated to provide command and control over separate regions of the United States; each Wing controlled three or four Groups within the region, and the Groups controlled squadrons within the region, sometimes distributed over several states. On 21 August 1946, inactivated USAAF group and squadron designations were transferred from the Department of the Army to the National Guard Bureau. The units were re-designated with unit designations within the 101–299 range and allotments were made to Adjutant General of the states and territories whose mission it was to organize the units being allocated and prepare them for federal recognition by the NGB. The combat element was organized into twelve wings which were then divided into 20 fighter groups totaling 62 squadrons, two light bombardment groups comprising four squadrons, and five composite groups with twelve fighter squadrons and six bombardment squadrons. Command and control organizations were: 52nd Fighter Wing, New York Replaced by 106th Bombardment Wing, 1 November 1950 Replaced by 107th Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 106th Bombardment Group, New York 107th Fighter Group, New York 108th Fighter Group, New Jersey 53rd Fighter Wing, Pennsylvania Replaced by 111th Air Defense Wing, 1 November 1950 Replaced by 113th Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 111th Bombardment Group, Pennsylvania 112th Fighter Group, Pennsylvania 113th Fighter Group, District of Columbia 54th Fighter Wing, Georgia Replaced by 116th Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 116th Fighter Group, Georgia 117th Fighter Group, Alabama 118th Fighter Group, Tennessee 55th Fighter Wing, Ohio Replaced by 121st Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 121st Fighter Group, Ohio 122nd Fighter Group, Indiana 123rd Fighter Group, Kentucky 60th Fighter Wing, Washington Replaced by 142nd Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 142nd Fighter Group, Oregon 61st Fighter Wing, California Replaced by 144th Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 144th Fighter Group, California 62nd Fighter Wing, California Replaced by 146th Composite Wing, 1 November 1950 146th Fighter Group, California 63rd Fighter Wing, Texas Replaced by 136th Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 136th Fighter Group, Texas 137th Fighter Group, Oklahoma 66th Fighter Wing, Illinois Replaced by 126th Composite Wing, 1 November 1950 126th Bombardment Group, Illinois 127th Fighter Group, Michigan 128th Fighter Group, Wisconsin 67th Fighter Wing, Massachusetts Replaced by 102nd Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 101st Fighter Group, Maine 102nd Fighter Group, Massachusetts 103rd Fighter Group, Connecticut 71st Fighter Wing, Missouri Replaced by 131st Composite Wing, 1 November 1950 131st Fighter Group, Missouri 132nd Fighter Group, Iowa 133rd Fighter Group, Minnesota 86th Fighter Wing, Colorado Replaced by 140th Fighter Wing, 1 November 1950 140th Fighter Group, Colorado Individual state squadrons were assigned to either Groups or Wings, depending on circumstances, allocations, and gaining commands of the Army Air Forces. As individual units were organized, federally recognized, and activated, the Army Air Forces provided them airfields, equipment and surplus aircraft. Once formed, the units began obtaining federal recognition, and the state Air National Guard units were established. Its primary units were 84 flying squadrons, mostly equipped with P-51 Mustang and P-47 Thunderbolt fighters with air defense of the continental United States as their main mission, its units under the jurisdiction of the USAAF Air Defense Command. Tactical Air Command also had several ANG units being assigned B-26 Invader medium bombers. 18 September 1947, however, is considered the Air National Guard's official birth, concurrent with the establishment of the United States Air Force as a separate branch of the United States military under the National Security Act. The postwar Air National Guard force of the late 1940s included 58,000 members. Between 1946 and 1949, all of the initial allotment of units received federal recognition in the CONUS. The Hawaii Territory ANG received recognition and was activated on 4 November 1946; the Puerto Rico ANG on 23 November 1947, and the Alaska Territory ANG on 15 September 1952. At the end of October 1950, the Air National Guard converted to the wing-base (Hobson Plan) organization. As a result, the former Army Air Forces Wings which were allocated were inactivated by the National Guard Bureau returned to the control of the Department of the Air Force on 31 October 1950. The personnel and equipment of the inactivated wings were transferred to new Air National Guard wings which were established, recognized and activated on 1 November 1950. After World War II, the Air National Guard developed an unfortunate reputation as a glorified "flying club" for World War II combat veterans. Not only did the units and individuals lack specific wartime missions, their equipment, especially aircraft, was obsolete and their training was usually deplorable. Once mobilized, those Air National Guardsmen proved to be almost totally unprepared for combat. Regardless of their previous training and equipment, Air National Guard units were assigned almost at random to major air commands. It took months and months for ANG units to become combat ready; some units never succeeded. Korean War During the Korean War, some 45,000 Air Guardsmen, 80 percent of the force, were mobilized. That callup exposed the weaknesses of the United States' various military reserve programs, including the ANG. Sixty-six of the Air Guard's ninety-two flying squadrons, along with numerous support units, were mobilized. Once in federal service, they proved to be unprepared for combat. Many key Air Guardsmen were used as fillers elsewhere in the Air Force. It took three to six months for some ANG units to become combat ready. Some never did. Eventually, they made substantial contributions to the war effort and the Air Force's global buildup. In the Far East, the ANG's 136th and 116th Fighter-Bomber Wings compiled excellent combat records flying F-84 Thunderjets. Air Guardsmen flew 39,530 combat sorties and destroyed 39 enemy aircraft. But, 101 of them were either killed or declared missing in action during the conflict. Four Air Guardsmen—Captains Robert Love (California), Clifford Jolley (Utah), and Robinson Risner (Oklahoma), plus Major James Hagerstrom (Texas) – became aces, with some, such as Risner, later transferring to the Regular Air Force. Largely as a result of the Korean War experience, senior ANG and Air Force leaders became seriously committed to building the Air National Guard as an effective reserve component. With the reinforcement of the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), Air National Guard squadrons were deployed to Europe in late 1950, being assigned to newly constructed bases in France as part of United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). These deployments helped reinforce the NATO commitment of the United States in case the combat in Korea became part of a wider conflict with the Soviet Union. Beginning in February 1951, mobilized units were assigned to Air Defense Command (ADC), Strategic Air Command (SAC) and Tactical Air Command (TAC), replacing or augmenting active duty units. Air National Guardsmen assigned to ADC also were assigned to various aircraft control and warning as well as radar calibration units. Their organizations either strengthened American air defenses or were converted to tactical air control units that directed Air Force fighter aircraft in the continental United States, Alaska, Newfoundland, Europe, and French Morocco. As a result of the federalization of the Air National Guard, ADC, SAC and TAC established additional wings for command and control of the federalized units. These were as follows: 101st Fighter-Interceptor Wing (ADC) Federalized Maine ANG, 10 February 1951 103rd Fighter-Interceptor Wing (ADC) Federalized Connecticut ANG, 2 March 1951 108th Strategic Fighter Wing (SAC) Federalized New Jersey ANG, 1 March 1951 122nd Fighter-Interceptor Wing (ADC) Federalized Indiana ANG, 10 February 1951 128th Fighter-Interceptor Wing (ADC) Federalized Wisconsin ANG, 10 February 1951 133rd Fighter-Interceptor Wing (ADC) Federalized Minnesota ANG, 2 March 1951 137th Fighter-Bomber Wing (TAC) Federalized Oklahoma ANG, 26 October 1950 142nd Fighter-Interceptor Wing (ADC) Federalized Oregon ANG, 2 March 1951 Air National Guardsmen began to be demobilized in July 1952, with their units being inactivated by the active duty air force. Subsequently, the individual state Air National Guard bureaus reactivated and reformed the units beginning in January 1953. The USAF-established wings were also allocated to their states. Runway alert program Although Korean War hostilities ended in July 1953, the Cold War with the Soviet Union persisted. The initial mobilization fiasco forced the Air Force to achieve an accommodation with the Air National Guard and to thoroughly revamp its entire reserve system. Because of the problems associated with the Korean War mobilizations, the Air Force and its reserve components pioneered new approaches like the runway alert program to reserve training and management. The Air Division chief at the National Guard Bureau wanted to find an innovative way to provide additional training for fighter pilots after their units were demobilized. At the same time, Air Defense Command could not call upon sufficient active duty Air Force units to defend the continental United States against the Soviet air threat. It was proposed to employ ANG pilots full-time from "strategically placed" Air National Guard units to perform "air intercept missions" against unidentified aircraft entering United States airspace. In addition they would "provide simulated fighter attacks against the Strategic Air Command's nuclear-capable bombers." Using Air National Guardsmen from the 138th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Hancock Field, Syracuse, New York, and the 194th Fighter-Bomber Squadron at Hayward, California, the experiment began on 1 March 1953. It proved a great success and in August eight squadrons began "standing alert" using volunteer aircrews on a rotating basis for 14 hours a day. In October, nine more squadrons joined the program. The ANG runway alert program required some planes and pilots to be available around-the-clock to become airborne within minutes of being notified to scramble. At its peak in the mid-1950s, all 70 Air National Guard fighter squadrons participated in that program, although that number was reduced to 25 by 1961 due to budget constraints. Most of the runway alert exercises involved interceptions of SAC bombers; although a few actual scrambles turned out to be interceptions of late or off-course commercial airliners. The runway alert experiment in 1953 marked the beginning of the Air National Guard's modern homeland defense role. Moreover, it was the first broad effort to integrate reserve units into a major Air Force combat mission in peacetime on a continuing basis using volunteers. Aircraft modernization Originally the Air National Guard was designed as a combat reserve force. After World War II, its flying units consisted of 72 fighter and 12 light bomber squadrons equipped with obsolescent World War II propeller-driven aircraft while the active duty Air Force transitioned to jet fighters. Although it had no airlift or tanker units, the Air National Guard's flying units were equipped with a small number of liaison, trainer, and transport planes, and the Air National Guard actively sought out new missions and aircraft. With the end of World War II, the Air Force dropped "Air Commando" or special operations units from its rolls, although they were revived for the Korean War. After that conflict, in April 1955, the Air National Guard acquired its first special operations unit when the 129th Air Resupply Squadron was federally recognized and two C-46 Commandos were delivered to it at Hayward, California. It was allocated to the Air Resupply And Communications Service (ARCS), a predecessor organization of today's Air Force Special Operations Command As its P-51 Mustangs and P-47 Thunderbolts became more and more obsolescent in the jet age of the 1950s, the force structure gradually changed to include a significant number of airlift, tanker, and specialized combat-support units. As the Air National Guard expanded, additional squadrons, including airlift units as well as Air Resupply and Communications units, were established. Additional command and control groups and wings were also established by the National Guard Bureau and allocated to the states. The ANG however, unlike the active duty USAF, did not inactivate its combat groups during the 1950s as part of the tri-deputate organization. Many of the combat groups remained assigned to the wings from which they were derived. It was not until 1974 that the ANG fully adapted the USAF tri-deputate organization and inactivated its combat groups, assigning its operational squadrons directly to the wings. The Air National Guard aggressively worked to preserve its existing flying units by obtaining the most modern aircraft available. Some existing Air National Guard fighter units equipped with piston-driven fighters, however, could not convert to jets because the runways at the local airports where they were based were too short. In addition, some local leaders simply did not want jet fighters operating in their communities. The ANG considered replacing the fighter squadrons in these instances with transport aircraft a viable option for overcoming runway issues or community objections and also was a way to keep experienced senior aviators in the cockpit. During the late 1950s, the Air Force allowed several Air National Guard units to trade in their aging piston-driven fighters for second-line transports. New Jersey's newly organized 150th Air Transport Squadron (Light) became the first pure airlift unit in the Air National Guard on 1 February 1956. It received Curtiss C-46D Commandos. Two other aeromedical transport squadrons followed that year, primarily because of the impracticality of converting their locations to modern jet fighter operations. In 1959, the Air Force, in order to save operating funds, planned to phase out 48 C-97 Stratofreighters before their replacements were available to the active force. The Air National Guard requested these aircraft be sent to ANG units, and in January 1960, units in California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, and Oklahoma began trading in their obsolete fighters for C-97s. Additionally, the Air National Guard also took on an air refueling mission. The Air National Guard received its first KC-97 Stratofreighter aerial tankers in July and August 1961. During that period, the 108th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron in Illinois, the 126th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron in Wisconsin, and the 145th Air Transport Squadron in Ohio, converted to KC-97Fs and were redesignated air refueling squadrons. Cold War World War II had left the city of Berlin 100 miles deep within East German territory, controlled by the Soviet Union, and divided into Soviet, British, French, and United States zones of occupation, administered under local agreements which did not guarantee Western access to the city. Responding to a series of Soviet actions in 1948, the three western allies consolidated their zones and formed the city of West Berlin. For fifteen years the western powers maintained a tenacious hold on West Berlin under periodic harassment of the Soviets. On 13 August 1961, Berliners woke up to find they lived in a divided city. A wall now separated East Berlin from West Berlin. With that provocative act, the Soviet Union ratcheted up the Cold War. President John F. Kennedy mobilized a limited number of Reserve and Guard units, dispatching 11 ANG fighter squadrons to Europe. All the Guard units were in place within a month of their respective mobilization days, although they required additional training, equipment, and personnel after being called up. In all, some 21,000 Air Guardsmen were mobilized during the 1961 Berlin Crisis. By August 1962, the units mobilized for the Berlin Crisis returned to state control. They had hardly resumed normal operations when President Kennedy announced on 22 October 1962 that the Soviet Union had placed nuclear warheads in Cuba, only 90 miles from Florida. With the Cuban Missile Crisis, Air National Guard fighter units trained for "no notice" deployments, and volunteer ANG airlift crews and their aircraft augmented Air Force global airlift operations. Air National Guard bases hosted Air Force fighters and bombers dispersed there to avoid a possible Soviet nuclear response to the crisis. But in the end, no ANG unit was federalized. As a result of these two Cold War incidents, from January through December 1963, for the first time Air National Guard airlift units began routinely deploying overseas during their annual training periods, primarily to Europe, to exercise their wartime missions. Air National Guard transport units hauled cargo for the Military Air Transport Service (MATS) while training for their wartime global airlift role. With the Regular Air Force tanker fleet being used more and more in Southeast Asia after 1965 to support combat operations in South Vietnam, combined with the concurrent demands of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) for performing its nuclear deterrence mission, both volunteer Air Force Reservists and Air National Guardsmen in air refueling units participated in worldwide air refueling missions during their Annual Training or other additional active duty periods in order to supplement the active duty tanker force. The Texas Air National Guard's 136th Air Refueling Wing inaugurated Operation Creek Party on 1 May 1967, because the Regular Air Force did not have enough KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft available in Europe to train its fighter pilots in USAFE. The operation eventually involved nine ANG air refueling groups that rotated approximately every two weeks to Rhein-Main Air Base in West Germany. The Vietnam War provided the next significant test for the Air National Guard. However, for largely domestic political reasons, President Lyndon B. Johnson chose not to mobilize most of the nation's reserve forces before 1968. His reasons for not mobilizing reserve forces were many. Primarily, he did not believe that the war in Vietnam justified the dramatic act of mobilizing Reserve and National Guard forces. He accepted the need to fight the war, but he wanted to prosecute it as quietly as possible, not attracting too much attention at home and risk jeopardizing his domestic programs. He also wanted to avoid drawing the Communist Chinese into the war or the attention of the Soviet Union, the latter which might view the mobilization of Reserve and National Guard units as "escalatory" within a larger Cold War context. Moreover, recalling Reservists' complaints of inactivity following the Berlin mobilization of 1961, he was also reluctant to recall Reservists and National Guardsmen without the assurance that their employment would significantly affect the course of the war, an assurance no official in his administration could provide. As a result, even though still populated by many World War II and Korean War combat veterans, the Reserves and the National Guard acquired ill-deserved reputations during this period as havens for relatively affluent, young white men with no prior active duty military service to serve as officers or enlisted personnel as a means to avoid the draft into the active duty U.S. Army in an enlisted status. Air National Guard airlift units, however, began flying regularly to Japan and South Vietnam beginning in 1966 to support Military Airlift Command (MAC) operations. These flights continued on a regular basis until 1972. In addition, between August 1965 and September 1969, Air National Guard domestic and offshore aeromedical evacuation flights freed active duty Air Force resources for such missions in Southeast Asia (SEA). However, after the 1968 Tet Offensive in which the Communist North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops attacked positions throughout the Republic of Vietnam, the Pentagon dispatched four Air National Guard fighter squadrons to that nation. In addition, the Pueblo Crisis in Korea also saw mobilized Air Force Reservists, Air National Guardsmen and Naval Reservists in flying units. That crisis prompted the third partial Air National Guard mobilization since the end of World War II, and eventually two ANG fighter squadrons were dispatched to South Korea. However, the Pueblo crisis ended without a resort to combat. In July 1970, two EC-121 "Super Constellations" from the Pennsylvania ANG's 193rd Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron departed their home station for Korat RTAFB, Thailand. During the next six months, approximately 60 Air National Guardsmen were rotated through the latter installation on 30- to 60-day tours in Operation "Commando Buzz," their aircraft serving as flying radar stations and airborne control platforms for U.S. air operations in Southeast Asia (SEA) until January 1971. The 355th Tactical Fighter Squadron (355th TFS) in 1967 was a Regular Air Force squadron assigned to the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing at Myrtle Beach AFB, South Carolina. From January 1968 until June 1969, the 355th TFS changed from a Regular Air Force unit composed almost entirely of recent SEA returnees to a composite squadron consisting of approximately 50% of whose personnel assets were composed of activated ANG members from the 119th TFS of the New Jersey ANG) and the 121st TFS of the District of Columbia ANG). The 355th deployed on temporary duty (TDY) to Phù Cát Air Base on 14 May 1968 with 13 of its 30 pilots being ANG members. The transfer became permanent on 26 June 1968, at which time all TDY members were offered the opportunity to volunteer for a full year's tour. All 13 ANG pilots volunteered, one of whom was killed in action a month later. By Christmas 1968, 87% of the squadron's support personnel were ANG members. Five of the ANG pilots also volunteered as Misty Forward Air Controllers (FACs) flying the F-100 Super Sabre. In all, ANG pilots were awarded 23 Silver Stars, 47 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 46 Bronze Stars with Combat V for valor while stationed at Phu Cat. Total Force Concept As part of the re-thinking of military concepts after the Vietnam War, beginning in the early 1970s with the establishment of the All-Volunteer Armed Forces, both the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve force planning and policymaking were influenced by the "Total Force" Concept and have remained so to this day. The concept sought to strengthen and rebuild public confidence in the reserve forces while saving money by reducing the size of the active duty force. In practical terms, the Total Force policy sought to ensure that all policymaking, planning, programming, and budgetary activities within the Defense Department considered active and reserve forces concurrently and determined the most efficient mix of those forces in terms of costs versus contributions to national security. The policy also insured that Reservists and Guardsmen, not draftees, would be the first and primary source of manpower to augment the active duty forces in any future crisis. With the active forces being reduced after the end of the Vietnam War, a significant number of older C-130A Hercules tactical airlifters became available for the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, which allowed the Korean War-era C-119 Flying Boxcars and C-124 Globemasters to be retired. However, the Total Force Concept led to pressure to upgrade the reserve forces to front-line aircraft and beginning in 1974, new Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) A-7D Corsair II ground attack aircraft began to be sent to Air National Guard units directly from the LTV manufacturing plant in Dallas. As A-10 Thunderbolt IIs began to replace the A-7Ds in the Regular Air Force in the mid and late 1970s, additional A-7D aircraft were transferred to the ANG. F-4 Phantom IIs began to be received by the ANG in the late 1970s with the F-15A Eagle and F-16A Fighting Falcons coming into the active inventory and ANG's F-100 Super Sabres being retired. Starting in 1975, the ANG began conducting operations in Latin America and by the late 1970s to defend the Panama Canal and to provide training support, embassy resupply, search and rescue, and counterdrug operations. In addition, the ANG airlifted supplies and hardware to remote radar sites and performed aerial mapping operations. In June 1979, the 137th Tactical Airlift Wing of the Oklahoma Air National Guard marked the first time an ANG airlift unit was equipped with brand new transport aircraft: it received four factory-fresh C-130H Hercules aircraft. Several years later, Congress institutionalized the practice of purchasing limited amounts of new weapons and equipment for the reserve components via National Guard and Reserve Equipment (NG&RE) funding allocations. Under the auspices of this separate appropriation for Guard and Reserve equipment established in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan, 69 brand new C-130s entered the ANG's inventory from 1984 to 1991. In July 1972, Air National Guard units began supporting Air Force tanker task forces overseas with second-line KC-97 Stratofreighter propeller-driven tankers and volunteer crews when needed. Triggered by a 1974 decision by Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger to save money, the Ohio Air National Guard's 145th Air Refueling Squadron acquired the ANG's first jet tanker in April 1975 when it began converting from KC-97Ls to KC-135A Stratotankers. Altogether, the Air Force transferred 128 older KC-135s to the air reserve components to retire the slow prop-driven tankers, which modern fighters had to reduce speed to nearly stall speed in order to refuel from. During the 1980s, changes in the Air National Guard's force structure and readiness were primarily driven by President Reagan's military buildup and the need to prepare for a possible war between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact in Central Europe. The ANG focused on modernization, more realistic combat training, increased readiness, and personnel growth, primarily in nonflying, mission support units. In 1979, Tactical Air Command assumed the atmospheric air defense mission of the United States with the inactivation of Aerospace Defense Command (ADCOM or ADC). ADC fighter interceptor units were initially realigned into a component called Air Defense, Tactical Air Command (ADTAC), at the level of an Air Division. In 1985, First Air Force (1 AF) was reactivated by TAC and given the mission to provide, train and equip ADTAC combat ready forces. Upon its reactivation, First Air Force was composed of units of both the active Air Force and the Air National Guard. In the years since its third activation, more of the responsibility for the defense of American air sovereignty was shifted to the Air National Guard. By the 1990s, 90 percent of the air defense mission was being handled by the Air National Guard. In October 1997, First Air Force became an Air National Guard numbered air force, charged with the air defense of the North American continent. Instead of increasing the number of units, the National Guard Bureau authorized units to increase the number of aircraft assigned to them when the Air Force made those planes available. In 1982, the South Carolina Air National Guard's 169th Tactical Fighter Group began receiving new General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcons. In Air Force-wide competitions, ANG units and individuals frequently placed high or won. This was due in no small part to the ANG units being manned by more senior pilots and weapon systems officers, most of whom had recent combat experience as prior active duty officers in the Regular Air Force and who continued to hone their skills in fighter aircraft while their active duty contemporaries had to leave the cockpit for career enhancing non-flying staff assignments. The 169th Tactical Fighter Group garnered top team honors in the Air Force's worldwide gunnery contest, Gunsmoke '89. During the late 1980s, the Air National Guard's F-106 Delta Darts, F-4 Phantom IIs and A-7D Corsair IIs were being replaced by F-15A and F-15B Eagles and F-16A and F-16B Fighting Falcons as more advanced models such as the F-15C/D and F-16C/D were brought into active service with the Regular Air Force. Post Cold War era The expiration of the Soviet Union, beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Glasnost in 1989 and culminating in the USSR's breakup into its republics in 1991, constituted a major upheaval that continued to influence global politics into the 21st century. Panama In December 1989 and January 1990, ANG volunteers participated in Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama, to secure the arrest of Panamanian dictator and accused drug lord, General Manuel Noriega. Air National Guard aircrews already deployed TDY to Howard AFB, Panama also participated in Just Cause. Volunteer C-130 crews completed 181 sorties moving 3,107 passengers and 551.3 tons of cargo. In addition, Air National Guard A-7 Corsair II attack jets from the South Dakota Air National Guard's 114th Tactical Fighter Group and the Ohio Air National Guard's 180th Tactical Fighter Group flew 34 combat missions in support of the invasion. However, the Air National Guard and the Total Force concept would be fully tested in the two major operations of the 1990s: Operation Desert Shield and the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm. In August 1990, ANG F-15 and F-16 fighter units initiated similar rotational service for Operation Coronet Nighthawk, the successor to Operation Volant Oak, out of Howard Air Force Base, Panama. Those units monitored suspected airborne drug traffickers transiting Central America as well as the adjacent oceans. As the 1999 transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama approached, the Air National Guard began turning the operation over to civilian contractors. The last Air National Guardsmen completed their deployments to these South American sites in 1999. Persian Gulf crisis Following the seizure of Kuwait by Iraqi forces in August 1990, the Air Force turned to both of its reserve components for help and was swamped with volunteers. Before President George H. W. Bush mobilized Reservists and National Guardsmen on 22 August 1990, nearly 1,300 Air National Guardsmen actually entered active duty as volunteers. Initially, most of them concentrated on aerial refueling and airlifting American forces to the Persian Gulf region. The first two ANG units to volunteer before the President's mobilization order were the 105th Military Airlift Group of the New York Air National Guard, and the 172nd Military Airlift Group of the Mississippi Air National Guard. Respectively, they flew the C-5A Galaxy and the C-141B Starlifter. Altogether, 12,456 Air National Guardsmen participated in Air Force operations during the Persian Gulf crisis/first Gulf War. When called upon, Air National Guardsmen were immediately prepared to perform their missions alongside their active Air Force counterparts. They did not need additional training or new equipment to do their jobs. They were integrated into most of the Air Force's operational missions, flying strategic airlift and aerial refueling sorties, and manning aerial ports. Air National Guardsmen also flew fighter, attack, aerial reconnaissance, special operations, and tactical theater airlift missions. Compared to previous mobilizations, ANG units and individuals during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm were much better prepared to perform their missions upon entry into federal service. Units were well equipped and well trained. As planned, they were able to respond much more rapidly and effectively than in previous call-ups. They were integrated into operations with their active duty and Air Force Reserve counterparts with a minimum of disruption and delay. In a new concept at the time, relatively few ANG outfits were mobilized as units. Instead, the Air Force called up packages of equipment and personnel that were developed after the crisis began. Mobilizing entire flying units and maintaining their integrity while in federal service, although desirable, would no longer be the only acceptable approach to supporting the Air Force in a crisis. Instead the Air National Guard would be flexible in its response in order to fit the situation. That could involve individual volunteers, tailored packages of volunteers, or mobilized Air National Guardsmen developed in response to specific contingencies. After the first Gulf War ended in 1991, air power continued to play a significant role in containing Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, as did a naval blockade and United Nations economic sanctions. Together those forces also crippled the economic and military foundations of Hussein's power. The Air National Guard participated widely in that long campaign, which featured U.S. and Coalition aircraft maintaining two no-fly zones over portions of Iraq: Operation Southern Watch (OSW) and Operation Northern Watch (ONW). In addition, ANG units provided humanitarian aid to the Kurdish population in northern Iraq. Later deploying units to Turkey participated in Operation Northern Watch that was focused strictly on enforcing the no-fly zone above the 36th parallel in Iraq as mandated by the UN and did not include humanitarian relief for the Kurds. Front-line aircraft Following the first Gulf War, the Air National Guard's senior leadership in the National Guard Bureau began to adapt their organization for the post-Cold War era in a series of far-reaching discussions with top echelon Air Force personnel, state officials, unit leaders, and members of Congress. Essentially, the Air Force agreed it would attempt to retain all ANG and Air Force Reserve flying units, while reducing its own as a cost-effective way to maintain a post-Cold War force structure. However, as limited amounts of newer equipment became available from a smaller Air Force, and budgets tightened, the ANG would reduce the numbers of aircraft assigned to each unit. If necessary, it would combine units at the same locations. Some organizations would close down, but only as a last resort. Aided by the newer aircraft from the shrinking Air Force inventory, the Air National Guard modernized and reshaped its fleet after the Cold War. The size and composition of the ANG's aircraft inventory changed significantly after 1991. From 1991 to 2001 the ANG experienced an enormous growth in large aircraft including C-130H Hercules tactical airlifters, upgraded KC-135E and KC-135R Stratotankers, and B-1B Lancer strategic bombers at the expense of smaller fighter planes. One of the most critical modernization challenges facing the ANG involved its extensive fleet of older model F-16As and F-16Bs. As its goal, the ANG sought to acquire F-16C Block 25/30/32 aircraft, enabling ANG fighter units to have around-the-clock, all-weather, precision strike capabilities against surface targets. The first F-16As and F-16Bs to be retired from service entered storage with AMARC at Davis-Monthan AFB during 1993, with three aircraft from the 138th Fighter Squadron of the New York Air National Guard, followed by 17 examples from the 160th Fighter Squadron of the Alabama Air National Guard, which were updated with F-16Cs and F-16Ds from the shrinking active duty force. In the general military drawdown following the end of the Cold War, many European-based F-15C Eagles previously assigned to USAFE were also transferred stateside. The 101st Fighter Squadron of the Massachusetts Air National Guard received new F-15Cs that were previously with the 32nd Fighter Group, Soesterberg AB, Netherlands in 1994. Other F-15A / F-15B units were upgraded to the F-15C and F-15D as they became available during the mid-1990s. In the early 1990s, with the disestablishment of Strategic Air Command (SAC), Tactical Air Command (TAC) and Military Airlift Command (MAC) and their replacement with Air Combat Command (ACC) and Air Mobility Command (AMC), all Air National Guard units transitioned to the objective wing organization. Most flying unit designations were simplified to "Airlift" or "Fighter" or "Air Refueling" or "Rescue", with flying squadrons being assigned to Operations Groups. Also, on 1 October 1994, in accordance with the USAF "one base-one wing" policy, all Air National Guard flying units previously designated as a "group" had their status changed to a "wing" no later than 1 October 1995. Additionally, ANG stations hosting flying units were re-designated as an "Air National Guard Base" if they were not collocated on an active duty installation. Balkans operations Other overseas operations during the 1990s took Air National Guardsmen to Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Haiti, and Rwanda to augment the Air Force in a series of contingencies and humanitarian relief operations. Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units would generally assume responsibility for an operation for 30 to 90 days, and then rotate their personnel on 15- to 30-day tours to a given location until the commitment ended. In July 1992, crews and C-130s from West Virginia's 167th Airlift Group inaugurated ANG involvement in Operation Provide Promise by flying food and relief supplies from Rhein-Main AB, Germany to Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, which had a population of 380,000. That operation expanded significantly the following February to include airdrops of food and medicine to Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia blockaded by Bosnian Serbs. Altogether, personnel and C-130s from 12 ANG units participated in Provide Promise. During the operation, Air Force, ANG, and Air Force Reserve transports flew 4,533 sorties and delivered 62,802 metric tons of cargo. They performed airlift, airdrop, and medical evacuation missions. The Americans made a major contribution to the overall allied effort, which involved airmen from 21 nations. The humanitarian airlift operation accounted for about 95 percent of the aid delivered during the -year siege of Sarajevo. On 2 April 1993, NATO troops from Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Germany, and Italy as well as the United States launched Operation Deny Flight, a no-fly zone for Serbian aircraft over Bosnia-Herzegovina. It enforced a March 1993 UN Security Council Resolution passed to help prevent the war from spreading. The operation also provided close air support to UN Protection Force ground troops serving as peacekeepers, and airstrikes against Serb weapons threatening UN-designated safe areas in Bosnia. The first ANG fighter unit involved was the Connecticut Air National Guard's A-10-equipped 103rd Fighter Group. Aircraft and personnel from the Maryland Air National Guard's 175th Fighter Group and Michigan Air National Guard's 110th Fighter Group joined the contingent from Connecticut. Along with unit personnel, the six Air National Guard and six Air Force Reserve A-10s returned to their home stations in mid-January 1994 after flying 520 sorties and accumulating over 1,400 hours of Deny Flight flying time. Air National Guard tanker support of Deny Flight began in June 1994 with the dispatch of 10 KC-135s and 18 aircrews from six units to Istres Air Base, France, and Pisa Airport, Italy. By the time Deny Flight ended on 20 December 1995, elements of seven Air Guard fighter and 11 air refueling units had participated in it. Operation Deliberate Force, was initiated in August 1995 after the Bosnian Serb army shelled a Sarajevo marketplace killing 43 civilians and wounding 75 more. A contingent from the 104th Fighter Wing participated in the action. The intensity of the bombing stunned the Serbs. Coupled with victories of an American-trained Croatian-Muslim army in western Bosnia, that operation forced the Serbs to sue for peace. NATO halted the bombing on 14 September 1995, and ended Deliberate Force six days later. The Air National Guard returned to the Balkans in the mid-1990s as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia, Operation Joint Guard, and its successor, Operation Joint Forge. Volunteers from 13 Air National Guard airlift units provided 71 C-130s to Joint Forge. On average, ANG airlift deployment packages consisted of approximately 75 personnel and two C-130 aircraft. They were based at Ramstein AB, Germany, to provide the necessary airlift support for U.S. military forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina and other locations across Europe. Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) Concept In August 1998, the Air Force inaugurated a new concept. Based on experiences during the Persian Gulf War and numerous deployments to the Balkans and other contingency operations, it organized more than 2,000 aircraft, including those of Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard units, into 10 Air Expeditionary Forces (AEFs), later designated as the Aerospace Expeditionary Forces, and, in 2007, the Air Expeditionary Forces. AEFs would rotate in order to ease the strain of increased post-Cold War operations overseas. The AEF promised to spread the burden of deployments more widely among flying units, Active Duty, Air Force Reserve or Air National Guard. Moreover, the timing of rotations became more predictable. Greater predictability would enable Airmen, especially those in the Air Reserve Component, to better manage the competing demands of families, civilian careers, and military service. Air National Guard aviation units would be expected to deploy overseas once every 15 months while support units would do so at 30-month intervals. Driven by those requirements, Air National Guard planners in the National Guard Bureau began to "reengineer" ANG units to better participate in their expeditionary roles. The benefits of this concept became apparent in the events of the early 2000s. Global war on terrorism 11 September 2001 The defining events for the Air National Guard (ANG) as well as for the United States occurred with the al Qaeda attacks of 11 September 2001 on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The only air defense fighter units stationed within the entire northeastern United States belonged to the Air National Guard. At 8:38 am, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in Boston, Massachusetts, reported a possible hijacking and called the Otis Air National Guard Base control tower on Cape Cod, home to the Massachusetts ANG's 102nd Fighter Wing, to request military assistance. At that time, Major Dan Nash and Lieutenant Colonel Tim Duffy had air defense alert duty for the 102nd. At 8:40 am Colonel Bob Marr, a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman serving as NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector commander, learned from the FAA that American Airlines Flight 11 might have been hijacked. The two pilots immediately suited up and headed for their F-15s. Marr ordered Nash and Duffy into the air; their F-15s were airborne within six minutes and as directed, headed for New York City, 153 miles away. Unknown to the pilots, American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City just as Colonel Marr was delivering his order. Meanwhile, at 8:43 am, the FAA reported another possible hijacking to the Northeast Air Defense Sector. That was Boston to Los Angeles United Airlines Flight 175. At 9:02 am, with the F-15s still 71 miles away, that plane crashed into the World Trade Center's South Tower. At 9:09 am the pilots of the North Dakota Air National Guards F-16s of the 119th Fighter Wing were standing by, ready to launch, at their forward alert operating location at Langley AFB, Virginia, located about 130 miles southeast of Washington, DC. They were at their battle stations because of a growing general concern about the situation that morning. Seven minutes later, the FAA reported that United Airlines Flight 93, outbound from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California, might also have been hijacked. The FAA notified the Northeast Air Defense Sector eight minutes later that American Flight 77, a flight from Dulles International Airport, Virginia, near Washington, DC, to Los Angeles, California, also appeared to be the victim of hijackers. At 9:24 am Colonel Marr ordered three F-16s (two alert aircraft and a spare) scrambled from Langley AFB to check out an unidentified intermittent aircraft track heading toward Washington DC. In six minutes, the Langley F-16s were airborne. In accordance with established NORAD procedures, the F-16s were initially directed to head northeast to avoid some of the most heavily traveled commercial airline routes rather than to fly directly to the Washington, DC, area. Major Dean Eckmann and Major Brad Derrig, plus Captain Craig Borgstrom of the 119th Fighter Wing were directed to fly at maximum subsonic speed, 660 miles per hour. At about 40 miles away, they saw the billowing smoke of American Airlines Flight 77, which had crashed into the Pentagon at 9:43 am. As the North Dakota Air Guardsmen neared Washington, DC, Major Eckmann, the flight lead, set up a patrol over the nation's capital with the help of air traffic controllers at the Northeast Air Defense Sector. On 22 May 2002, a Joint Resolution was passed by the Congress of the United States recognizing the members of the 102nd Fighter Wingfor their actions on 11 September 2001. The resolution in part states: Whereas on the morning of 11 September 2001, the 102nd Fighter Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard became the Nation's first airborne responder to the terrorist attacks of that day when it scrambled two F-15 fighter aircraft just six minutes after being informed of the terrorist hijackings of commercial airliners. Operation Noble Eagle As a result of the September 11 attacks in 2001, homeland defense became the top national defense priority the enhanced defense of North America and military support to civilian government agencies, known as Operation Noble Eagle, began early the next day. During the first 24 hours of the crisis, 34 Air National Guard fighter units flew 179 missions. Eighteen tanker units generated 78 aircraft in the same time period. Through 28 September, for example, the Alabama Air National Guard's 117th Air Refueling Wing kept aircraft aloft on a continuous basis. Air National Guard units also contributed 111 C-130 aircraft for movement of personnel and equipment to needed locations, and more than 3,000 ANG security forces personnel supported the mission, augmenting civilian security police as necessary. A week after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced the call up of over more than 5,000 members of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve to support the nation's increased security requirements. On 22 September, President George W. Bush mobilized about 5,100 more members of the air reserve components, including approximately 3,000 air refueling and about 130 security specialists. Guardsmen gained national visibility starting 27 September when President George W. Bush asked the governors for their temporary help at commercial airports, which had reopened a few days after 9/11 with new security restrictions. In the airports they would "Temporarily augment the civilian airport security function of the nation's commercial airports with a trained, armed, and highly visible military presence." For more than seven months, several thousand Guardsmen performed those security duties, with additional Guardsmen called into service during the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year holiday period. Although the Army Guard provided the vast majority of the enhanced airport security force, several hundred Air National Guard personnel also participated. Combat Air Patrols (CAPs) began to be flown 24/7 over major cities in the United States. ANG squadrons at 26 bases were put at tremendous strain to support the operations. The Air National Guard ran continuous round-the-clock combat air patrols over New York City and Washington, D.C., until spring 2002. In addition, when key events occurred such as the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, space shuttle launches in Florida, baseball's World Series and football's Super Bowl, similar air patrols helped provide security. The Air National Guard also flew random patrols over various urban areas; nuclear power plants; major military installations such as MacDill AFB, Florida, Peterson AFB, Colorado, Offutt AFB, Nebraska and Scott AFB, Illinois that were home to various combatant command headquarters; weapons storage facilities and laboratories. Because estimates of the nation's security situation became more optimistic, in spring 2002, the Air Force eliminated the continuous patrols and substituted random ones by the summer. Operation Enduring Freedom On 20 September 2001, President Bush told a televised joint session of Congress and the American people that Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network were responsible for the recent terrorist attacks on the United States. The refusal of the Taliban to comply resulted in the United States taking military action to achieve the president's demands, the action given the name Operation Enduring Freedom. The ANG was involved even before the fighting in Afghanistan began. With the war imminent, the Air Force quickly established an airlift operations plan that included active duty, Guard, and Reserve components. It became one of the most extensive operations in Air Force history. Furthermore, the Air Force met the logistical needs of that operation despite the severe shortage of strategic airlift and troublesome maintenance needs of the older planes. Shortly after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and weeks before the first U.S. bomb was dropped over Afghanistan, the Air Force established air bridges to help funnel material and personnel overseas to support multiple operations in conjunction with Enduring Freedom. Air National Guard tanker units received orders by 20 September 2001, to be in their deployed locations before the start of their air bridge operations. Some ANG tanker units also flew humanitarian support missions. By using European bases, the Air Force could transfer cargo from the larger aircraft to smaller planes, refuel aircraft on the ground, exchange flight crews, give crews rest opportunities, and repair broken aircraft. The Air National Guard contributed two C-141 Starlifter units, the 155th Airlift Squadron / 164th Airlift Wing, Tennessee Air National Guard; and the 183rd Airlift Squadron / 172nd Airlift Wing, Mississippi Air National Guard, to the strategic airlift mission. The Air National Guard's sole C-5 Galaxy unit, the 137th Airlift Squadron / 105th Airlift Wing, New York Air National Guard at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, also contributed to the operation. Through the ANG's airlift participation in Europe, the Regular Air Force and Air Force Reserve (Associate) C-17 Globemaster IIIs could support Enduring Freedom directly. When the war began, only Air National Guard units assigned to Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) deployed directly to Afghanistan to support combat operations. Typically, ANG special operations units in 13-man teams first went to active duty bases in the United States, and later to overseas locations. The 169th Fighter Wing, South Carolina Air National Guard, was the first ANG fighter unit to deploy to Southwest Asia in direct support of the air war over Afghanistan. It sent over 200 personnel and six F-16CJs in January 2002 to Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, to assist air combat operations over Afghanistan. In particular, they provided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) against Taliban and al Qaeda positions, the only Air Force fighter unit in the theater to do so. F-16s sometimes were also configured for Cluster Bomb Units (CBUw). In addition, F-16 pilots sometimes fired their 20mm gun against ground targets. Missions could last up to 10 hours with multiple air refuelings. After so many hours strapped in their seats, pilots generally received one to three days of crew rest. The unit returned to South Carolina on 3 April 2002. The Pennsylvania Air National Guard's 103rd Fighter Squadron of the 111th Fighter Wing, became the first A-10 ANG unit to deploy directly to Afghanistan. From December 2002 to January 2003, the 111th Fighter Wing deployed personnel and sent its aircraft to Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan to carry out ground support missions for both United States as well as Afghan Northern Alliance ground forces. In March 2003, the 104th Fighter Squadron of Maryland's 175th Wing deployed to Afghanistan. While there, it flew all the A-10 combat missions for Operation Enduring Freedom. Takur Ghar For Operation Anaconda, its commander, Army Major General Franklin L. Hagenbeck, directed coalition forces, U.S. soldiers and Afghan forces, to destroy remaining al Qaeda and Taliban forces in an area located roughly 65 nautical miles south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. One reconnaissance team in two helicopters landed on Takur Ghar, Ghar, a snowcapped, 10,200-foot mountain where temperatures at the top reached during the day and dropped to a negative five at night. One helicopter carried a Navy SEAL team and an Air Force combat controller, Technical Sergeant John Chapman. As the SEAL team disem-barked, automatic weapons fire laced the helicopter's side while a rocket propelled grenade ripped into it. The crew chief yelled, "We're taking fire! Go! Go! Go!" and the SEAL team rushed back inside. As the pilots added power to evade the heavy ground fire, the damaged helicopter bucked violently, causing Navy SEAL Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts, who was standing on the ramp, to fall about 12 feet to the ground below. The helicopter escaped the ambush and crash-landed about seven kilometers north of where Petty Officer Roberts fell. The second helicopter rescued the other SEALs and Sergeant Chapman but after returning to their base, they decided to try and rescue Petty Officer Roberts. Regardless of the danger they knew the al Qaeda would treat Roberts badly and time was running out for him. Despite intense ground fire, the six men successfully returned to Takur Ghar. Nevertheless, the battle continued and Sergeant Chapman was killed along with several enemy fighters. Surrounded by gunfire, the men on the ground called upon a Quick Reaction Force (QRF), designed for such emergencies. Those forces consisted of 23 men and two helicopters. The team included Tech Sergeant Miller. "We were notified that we would be launching in 45 minutes," he recalled, "and were going into [an al Qaeda and Taliban] infested area." Also on the team were Army Rangers. During Operation Enduring Freedom, Rangers and special operations formed the focal point of the U.S. ground campaign. Because of communications failures, the Quick Reaction Force landed in the same spot as the previous helicopters and, like them, was greeted with gunfire. Miller's helicopter managed to land, and the QRF called in close air support. For the next five and a half hours, they battled with the enemy. Three Rangers died and others were wounded. According to Sergeant Miller, "We continued to treat the patients, continued moving ammunition and grenades to where they were needed. I grabbed a radio … and set up satellite communication and then returned to the rear." Tech Sergeant Miller and Senior Airman Jason Cunningham, like Miller, a pararescueman, worked hard to keep the patients from succumbing to hypothermia. They put them in the helicopter and removed its insulation and wrapped it around the wounded Rangers. In addition, they used the majority of the fluids available in the medical kits and anything else, including the heaters packed in their food rations. With the help of the additional Rangers and more air strikes, they took the hill, killing many al Qaeda combatants. They also recovered the bodies of Petty Officer Roberts and Sergeant Chapman. Approximately 10 minutes after the Rangers took control of the hill, they began to receive more frequent enemy mortar and automatic weapons fire. Although combat air support prevailed, the enemy wounded an Army medic and fatally wounded Airman Cunningham. At that point the Quick Reaction Force had 11 wounded and seven dead. After 17 hours on the mountaintop, a nighttime rescue took place and the ordeal was over. Operation Anaconda continued for another 19 days. By March 2002, ANG C-130 units had flown 55 percent of the missions for the Afghanistan war. The 193rd Special Operations Wing of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, using the EC-130E Commando Solo aircraft, performed an unusual mission in Afghanistan: psychological operations (PSYOPS). Since 1968, the 193rd had been handling airborne psychological operations missions. The EC-130E acquired the mission name Commando Solo during the 1990s, when the aircraft was modified to handle color television operations. One of the first ANG flying units deployed to the area, the 193rd began transmitting by the end of October 2001. For almost six months the unit relayed broadcasts of Voice of America in the Dari and Pashtu languages and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Uzbek, Tajik, and Persian. According to a White House spokesman, the Commando Solo missions gave the Afghan people "full knowledge about what is happening in Afghanistan from a source other than a repressive Taliban regime." The 193rd remained in the region until ground psychological warfare operations stations were safely established. Once the Iraq conflict began in March 2003, the military began to reduce its resources in Afghanistan. Yet the reliance on using the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units, aircraft and personnel there continues to the present supporting the combat operations under United States Air Forces Central (USAFCENT). Air National Guardsmen and aircraft deploy to Afghanistan routinely as part of the Air Expeditionary Units at bases there. Operation Iraqi Freedom On 18 March 2003, the United States and coalition forces launched the invasion of Iraq in order to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power, the invasion being designated Operation Iraqi Freedom. In addition to flying units, such as fighter, air refueling, airlift, special operations and rescue, the ANG also provided a robust force of over 3,530 additional personnel for the expeditionary combat support functions and many Air National Guard senior officers held command positions during the war. Siege of the Haditha Dam As operations began, Army Rangers embarked on a mission to protect the Haditha Dam from being destroyed by Iraqi forces. The Rangers expected the operation to last approximately 24 hours. Instead it took them more than 12 days. The dam is a critical source of water and electrical in western Iraq. If the Iraqis succeeded in blowing up the dam, the releasing waters would flood the down-river areas, causing a humanitarian and environmental disaster. The Rangers expected the dam to be well defended. In preparation for the assault on the dam, fighters assigned to the 410th Air Expeditionary Wing (410 AEW) conducted preparatory air strikes against Iraqi forces in the dam's vicinity. Air support for Special Forces in the battle came from various coalition aircraft including U.S. Army Special Operations Aviation units. However, that battle became one of the defining operations for the AEW, and in particular, Air National Guard pilots. The 410th was responsible for providing combat search and rescue capability for western and central Iraq. During the month-long air campaign over the western Iraqi desert, the A-10 and F-16 Air National Guard pilots assigned to the AEW were involved in countless missions supporting Special Forces teams in need of close air support. The highly experienced Air National Guard pilots assigned to the AEW, especially the A-10 pilots, helped insure the successful employment of close air support for friendly forces fighting to retain the Haditha Dam. AH-6 helicopters of the U.S. Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and F-16s from the 410 AEW provided air cover as the Rangers took their convoy to Haditha. During the night of 1 April 2003, with support from the 410th, the Rangers seized the dam, a power station, and a transformer yard while facing light to moderate enemy resistance. Several Iraqis were killed and wounded; others, including 25 civilian workers, were taken prisoner. As daylight broke over the dam, the Rangers began taking increasing enemy fire from the south as well as coordinated attacks at both ends of the dam. Although the Rangers repelled the initial assault, Iraqi counterattacks continued with heavy mortar and artillery shells that rained down on the Rangers. Fortunately, the Rangers had ample air support from the 410th which attacked several mortar positions. Even without the protection of darkness, the Air National Guard A-10s attacked numerous enemy positions. At nightfall the Iraqis resumed their attacks against the Rangers, but once again close air supported the U.S. forces. A single bomb obliterated the attackers and shattered every window in the dam complex. Nevertheless, the siege continued for ten more days. The Rangers on the dam were greatly outnumbered. Nevertheless, the combined efforts of a Forward Air Controller-qualified pilot (FAC), a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) pilot, and observation posts manned by additional Rangers and Air Force enlisted terminal attack controllers (who cleared airborne weapons for release) ensured the Rangers on the dam would not be overrun. That operation reflected the typical attitude held by Air National Guard aviators, especially A-10 pilots, who believed that when ground troops needed help, the pilots would remain as long as possible to, "...lay it on the line more and expose themselves more over the target area." Even when the Rangers were not taking enemy fire, the A-10s provided cover so the Rangers could catch a few hours of sleep. The 410th fighters also supplied air cover during medical evacuation missions for killed and wounded Rangers. During the twelfth day of the siege, the outnumbered Rangers continued to face repeated attacks by the enemy force. The Air National Guard A-10 and F-16 pilots realized early in the battle that the close air support they provided was the vital element that kept the Iraqi forces at bay, a matter of life and death for the Rangers. In the end the coalition forces prevailed. Military experts believed that without the air support, especially the A-10s, the Rangers would not have won the battle. Not only did the coalition forces secure the Haditha Dam complex, but they seriously reduced the fighting effectiveness of the Iraqi Armored Task Force in the Haditha area. Intelligence operations Air National Guard intelligence personnel deployed overseas and supported the war effort in signals intelligence by flying Senior Scout missions and augmented RC-135V/W Rivet Joint ELINT crews to "monitor the electronic activity of adversaries." Although their pilots sat at controls in the United States, Air National Guardsmen also "flew" RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle intelligence missions in Southwest Asia. Operation Iraqi Freedom's intelligence collection efforts were enhanced by the initial combat employment of the Air Force's first and only "blended" wing: the newly formed 116th Air Control Wing, composed of both ANG and active duty Air Force personnel based in Robins AFB, Georgia. The wing deployed nine of its 11 assigned E-8 Joint STARS aircraft to the Iraqi Freedom theater as well as over 600 unit personnel including one-tenth of the aircrews. Air National Guardsmen composed about one-fourth of the Wing's deployed personnel. Although the wing has since reverted to an all-ANG organization, it continues to be integral to operation of the E-8 Joint STARS weapon system. The 193rd Special Operations Wing of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard deployed its EC-130 Commando Solo aircraft for a variety of PSYOPS support to coalition agencies in Iraq. Flying from March to June 2003, its missions apparently fulfilled their goals. According to an Iraqi prisoner of war and former mid-level intelligence officer, the population in southern Iraq considered the coalition radio broadcasts more truthful than state-owned media. The leaflets also had a significant impact on the morale of Iraqi military and prompted considerations to surrender. The Iraqis concluded that U.S. planes could as easily target them with bombs as leaflets if their intent was lethal. Support operations As in Afghanistan, the Air National Guard contributed significant airlift capability to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Thirteen of ANG's 25 airlift units participated, including 72 of 124 Air Force C-130s. Among their missions, Air National Guard C-130 crews airlifted elements of the 82nd Airborne Division and the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force. Those crews also flew one of the first day/night airlift missions into an Iraqi air base and delivered the first humanitarian supplies into Baghdad International Airport. During Operation Iraqi Freedom's first six months, Air National Guard C-130 crews airlifted 22,000 tons of cargo, 47,000 passengers, and flew 8,600 sorties in 21,000 hours. As essential to the war effort as were C-130s, A-10s, and piloted reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft, they could not have completed their missions efficiently without aerial refueling. During the war in Iraq, the Air Force deployed 200 tanker aircraft based at 15 locations. Air National Guard KC-135 tankers provided one-third of the Air Force refueling aircraft deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and an additional 35 ANG tanker aircraft conducted air bridge operations. The Air National Guard also deployed air traffic control personnel, maintainers, and airspace managers. Over 27 percent of the total Air Force civil engineering force in Iraq came from the ANG; other Air Guard engineers supported Iraqi Freedom while operating in several other countries. The Iraqi conflict continued through 2011 and the Air National Guard continued its involvement. By 2004 nearly 40 percent of the total Air Force aircraft deployed for overseas operations were assigned to the Air National Guard. The ANG supported Air Expeditionary Force deployments to Iraq throughout the 2000s, until the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. State and local government support Natural disasters Traditionally, governors called out National Guard units when faced with natural but localized disasters such as blizzards, earthquakes, floods, and forest fires. The president could also federalize them in major disasters that threatened to overwhelm the resources of individual states or communities. According to the National Guard Bureau, "The indigenous skills and capabilities National Guardsmen to respond to natural disasters are the same skills and capabilities that enable us to successfully respond to potential terrorist threats." The Air National Guard's main tool for fighting forest fires is the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System (MAFFS), which has undergone several updates since its first use in September 1971 by the California Air National Guard's then-146th Tactical Airlift Wing and the North Carolina Air National Guard's then 145th Tactical Airlift Group. Housed in C-130s, MAFFS could disperse up to 27,000 pounds ... almost 3,000 gallons ... of commercial fire retardants or an equivalent amount of water. Newer aircraft like the C-130J carry the MAFFS II, which carry even more fire retardant, can disperse it more rapidly over a wider area, and is easier to recharge after a mission than its predecessor. Blizzards also created the need for National Guard support. Often both Army National Guard and Air National Guard units assisted with health and welfare matters, conducted debris removal and power generation, and provided supply and transportation support in connection with snowstorms. For example, a Christmas-time 2006 blizzard at the airport hub of Denver International Airport closed that facility down for two days. Army and Air National Guardsmen took food and water to thousands of travelers trapped there. In the same storm, western Kansas received between 15 and 36 inches of snow with drifts as high as 13 feet. The Air National Guard not only assisted people, but also dropped bales of hay to feed stranded cattle. Hurricane Katrina On 29 August 2005, the largest natural disaster the Air National Guard faced in its then 58-year history began when Hurricane Katrina hit the United States Gulf Coast. The most severe damage came from a 30-plus-foot storm surge along the Mississippi coast and the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana and breaks in the levies along a canal in New Orleans. Several weeks later Hurricane Rita devastated portions of western Louisiana and eastern Texas, and then the less severe Hurricane Wilma damaged Florida. By the time Katrina made landfall, the Air National Guard had mobilized 840 personnel in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Although the Air National Guard had a domestic mission to support local authorities in rescue and relief operations following a natural disaster, its utilization for such missions had been limited primarily to a select group of career fields such as civil engineers, medical personnel, and services. In response to Hurricane Katrina, ANG units in all 54 states and territories responded to the recovery efforts in the Gulf States, with the Mississippi Air National Guard's Jackson Air National Guard Base serving as a hub and operating location for numerous active duty, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, Naval Reserve and Army National Guard aircraft. The ANG flew 73 percent of the airlift for the relief operations including its brand new C-130J and C-17 Globemaster III aircraft. In addition, ANG Combat Search and Rescue pararescuemen and Combat Controllers saved over 1,300 victims. ANG personnel arrived on the Gulf Coast on 29 August, a few hours after the storm's arrival. Personnel from the Florida Air National Guard's 202nd RED HORSE Squadron of the 125th Fighter Wing were some of the first to enter the area. Seventy-three engineers from this unit worked in hard-hit Hancock County, Mississippi. Initially establishing a basecamp for other emergency personnel, the unit began repairs in Hancock County communities working nearly around-the-clock on multiple construction projects to restore power, clean and repair schools, and refurbish electrical supplies. As a Florida unit, the 202nd had worked many other hurricanes. However, Katrina's devastation surpassed anything in their previous experience. To support rescue and relief operations in New Orleans, the Air National Guard used Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans, in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, on the Mississippi River's West Bank. Within five hours of its orders, the 136th Airlift Wing of the Texas Air National Guard deployed 41 Air National Guardsmen to Belle Chasse. Less than 24 hours later, a C-130H landed at the air station with members of the Louisiana Air National Guard's 159th Fighter Wing. Soon more aircraft arrived, delivering troops and supplies for New Orleans; offloaded pallets were stacked 10 deep on the aircraft parking ramp. Instead of heading into the flooded city, the 136th team remained at Belle Chasse and, within 36 hours of arriving, it established a fully functioning Air Terminal Operations Center and was keeping pace with the demanding mission schedule. That Aerial Port team, augmented by U.S. Navy cargo handlers and members of the 133rd Aerial Port Squadron, 133rd Airlift Wing of the Minnesota Air National Guard, handled over 124 missions with 1.5 million pounds of cargo and 974 passengers in one day. As one of its most crucial tasks, the Texas squadron downloaded the German pump system used to drain the city of New Orleans because its own pumps were inundated. It also uploaded two KC-135s with 140 kennels filled with rescued dogs bound for adoption in Arizona. Operation Deep Freeze The Air National Guard also participates in noncombat support missions that sometimes take it beyond the U.S. boundaries. For example, in Operation Winter Freeze, from November 2004 through January 2005, nearly 250 Army and Air National Guardsmen provided assistance to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) along 295 miles of the United States-Canada border. That operation included military personnel from U.S. Northern Command's Joint Task Force North who helped the Border Patrol to, "...keep potential terrorists out of the country and to break up smuggling rings that try to get them in." [In order] to detect, deter, and monitor suspicious actions ... Air Guard crews flew twin-engine, C-26 airplanes out of Syracuse, New York" The New York Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing operates ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules transports that fly into arctic regions. In 2006, two LC-130s closed the 2006 Operation Deep Freeze located at McMurdo Station near the South Pole. The mission ended because the temperature dropped to almost minus in three days. Since 1988, the squadron had provided the air supply bridge to McMurdo, landing with wheels on an ice runway near the station. However, as it got colder, the ski-equipped LC-130s landed on a snow-covered skiway on the Ross Ice Shelf a few miles from the station. In the spring and summer, the 109th heads toward the North Pole where it supports the National Science Foundation and several other nations in Greenland and above the Arctic Circle. Air National Guard units (headquarters, wing and group level) National Air National Guard Readiness Center, Joint Base Andrews, Maryland Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center, Tucson ANGB, Arizona Air National Guard Weather Readiness Training Center, Camp Blanding, Florida I.G. Brown Air National Guard Training and Education Center, McGhee Tyson ANGB, Knoxville, Tennessee States Alabama Air National Guard 117th Air Refueling Wing, Birmingham ANGB 187th Fighter Wing, Montgomery ANGB/Dannelly Field 226th Combat Communications Group, Abston ANGS, Montgomery Alaska Air National Guard 168th Air Refueling Wing, Eielson AFB 176th Wing, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (aka Elmendorf AFB) 176th Wing Rescue Alert Detachment, Eielson AFB Arizona Air National Guard 161st Air Refueling Wing, Barry M. Goldwater ANGB 162nd Fighter Wing, Tucson ANGB 162nd Fighter Wing Aerospace Control Alert Detachment, Davis-Monthan AFB 214th Reconnaissance Group, Davis-Monthan AFB Arkansas Air National Guard 188th Wing, Ebbing ANGB 189th Airlift Wing, Little Rock AFB California Air National Guard 129th Rescue Wing, Moffett Federal Airfield (former NAS Moffett Field) 144th Fighter Wing, Fresno Air National Guard Base 144th Fighter Wing Alert Detachment, March ARB (former March AFB) 146th Airlift Wing, NAS Point Mugu/Channel Islands ANGS 162nd Combat Communications Group, North Highlands ANGS 163rd Reconnaissance Wing, March ARB Band of the Southwest, 562nd Air Force Band, NAS Point Mugu/Channel Islands ANGS Band of the West Coast, 561st Air Force Band, Moffett Federal Airfield Colorado Air National Guard 140th Wing, Buckley Space Force Base Connecticut Air National Guard 103rd Airlift Wing, Bradley ANGB Delaware Air National Guard 166th Airlift Wing, New Castle ANGB Florida Air National Guard Headquarters, St. Francis Barracks, St. Augustine 125th Fighter Wing, Jacksonville ANGB 125th Fighter Wing, Detachment 1, Homestead ARB (former Homestead AFB) Camp Blanding Joint Training Center, Starke Georgia Air National Guard 116th Air Control Wing, Robins AFB 165th Airlift Wing, Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport Georgia ANG Combat Readiness Training Center, Savannah/Hilton Head IAP Air Force Band of the South, 530th Air Force Band, Dobbins ARB (former Dobbins AFB) Hawaii Air National Guard 154th Wing, Hickam AFB Idaho Air National Guard 124th Fighter Wing, Gowen Field ANGB Illinois Air National Guard 126th Air Refueling Wing, Scott AFB 182nd Airlift Wing, Peoria ANGB 183rd Fighter Wing, Capital Airport ANGS Air Force Band of the Midwest, 566th Air Force Band, Peoria ANGB Indiana Air National Guard 122nd Fighter Wing, Fort Wayne ANGS 181st Intelligence Wing, Terre Haute ANGB Iowa Air National Guard 132nd Fighter Wing, Des Moines ANGB 185th Air Refueling Wing, Sioux City ANGB Kansas Air National Guard 184th Intelligence Wing, McConnell AFB 190th Air Refueling Wing, Forbes Field ANGB (former Forbes AFB) Kentucky Air National Guard 123rd Airlift Wing, Louisville ANGB/Standiford Field Louisiana Air National Guard 159th Fighter Wing, NAS JRB New Orleans Maine Air National Guard 101st Air Refueling Wing, Bangor ANGB (former Dow AFB) Maryland Air National Guard 175th Wing, Martin State Airport/Warfield ANGB Massachusetts Air National Guard 102nd Intelligence Wing, Otis ANGB (former Otis AFB) 104th Fighter Wing, Barnes ANGB 253rd Cyberspace Engineering Installation Group, Otis ANGB Air Force Band of Northeast, 567th Air Force Band, Milford Michigan Air National Guard 127th Wing, Selfridge ANGB (former Selfridge AFB) 110th Attack Wing, Battle Creek ANGB Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, Alpena Minnesota Air National Guard 133rd Airlift Wing, Minneapolis-St. Paul ARS 148th Fighter Wing, Duluth ANGB Mississippi Air National Guard 172nd Airlift Wing, Jackson ANGB 186th Air Refueling Wing, Key Field ANGB Gulfport Combat Readiness Training Center, Gulfport–Biloxi International Airport Missouri Air National Guard 131st Bomb Wing, Whiteman Air Force Base 139th Airlift Wing, Rosecrans ANGB Air Force Band of the Central States, 571st Air Force Band, Bridgeton Montana Air National Guard 120th Airlift Wing, Great Falls ANGB Nebraska Air National Guard 155th Air Refueling Wing, Lincoln ANGB (former Lincoln AFB) Nevada Air National Guard 152nd Airlift Wing, Reno ANGB New Hampshire Air National Guard 157th Air Refueling Wing, Pease ANGB (former Pease AFB) New Jersey Air National Guard 108th Air Refueling Wing, McGuire AFB 177th Fighter Wing, Atlantic City ANGB New Mexico Air National Guard 150th Special Operations Wing, Kirtland AFB New York Air National Guard 105th Airlift Wing, Stewart ANGB (former Stewart AFB) 106th Rescue Wing, Francis S. Gabreski ANGB (former Suffolk County AFB) 107th Attack Wing, Niagara Falls ARS 109th Airlift Wing, Stratton ANGB 174th Attack Wing, Syracuse/Hancock Field ANGB Eastern Air Defense Sector, Rome North Carolina Air National Guard 145th Airlift Wing, Charlotte ANGB North Dakota Air National Guard 119th Wing, Fargo ANGB Ohio Air National Guard 121st Air Refueling Wing, Rickenbacker ANGB (former Rickenbacker AFB) 178th Wing, Springfield ANGB 179th Airlift Wing, Mansfield Lahm ANGB 180th Fighter Wing, Toledo ANGB 251st Cyberspace Engineering Installation Group, Springfield ANGB Camp Perry Joint Military Training Center, Port Clinton Band of the Great Lakes, 555th Air Force Band, Swanton Headquarters, Ohio Air National Guard, Columbus Oklahoma Air National Guard 137th Air Refueling Wing, Tinker AFB 138th Fighter Wing, Tulsa ANGB 138th Fighter Wing, Detachment 1 (Alert Det), Ellington Field JRB, Texas Oregon Air National Guard 142nd Fighter Wing, Portland ANGB 173rd Fighter Wing, Kingsley Field ANGB Pennsylvania Air National Guard 111th Fighter Wing, Horsham ANGS 171st Air Refueling Wing, Pittsburgh IAP ARS 193rd Special Operations Wing, Harrisburg ANGB (former Olmstead AFB) Air Force Band of the Mid-Atlantic, 553rd Air Force Band, Annville Rhode Island Air National Guard 143rd Airlift Wing, Quonset Point ANGS (former NAS Quonset Point) South Carolina Air National Guard 169th Fighter Wing, McEntire ANGB South Dakota Air National Guard 114th Fighter Wing, Joe Foss Field ANGS Tennessee Air National Guard 118th Airlift Wing, Berry Field ANGB 134th Air Refueling Wing, McGhee Tyson ANGB (former McGhee Tyson AFB 164th Airlift Wing, Memphis ANGB Air Force Band of the Smoky Mountains, 572nd Air Force Band, McGhee Tyson ANGB Texas Air National Guard 136th Airlift Wing, NAS JRB Fort Worth (former Carswell AFB) 147th Reconnaissance Wing, Ellington Field JRB (former Ellington AFB) 149th Fighter Wing, Lackland AFB/Kelly Field Annex (former Kelly AFB) 254th Combat Communications Group, Grand Prairie AFRC Band of the Southwest, 531st Air Force Band, NAS JRB Fort Worth Headquarters, Texas Air National Guard, Camp Mabry, Austin Utah Air National Guard 151st Air Refueling Wing, Roland R. Wright ANGB Vermont Air National Guard 158th Fighter Wing, Burlington ANGB (former Ethan Allen AFB) Virginia Air National Guard 192nd Fighter Wing, Langley AFB Washington Air National Guard 141st Air Refueling Wing, Fairchild AFB 194th Regional Support Wing, Joint Base Lewis-McChord (aka McChord AFB) Air Force Band of the Northwest, 560th Air Force Band, Fairchild AFB West Virginia Air National Guard 130th Airlift Wing, Charleston ANGB 167th Airlift Wing, Shepherd Field ANGB Wisconsin Air National Guard 115th Fighter Wing, Truax Field ANGB 128th Air Refueling Wing, General Mitchell ANGB Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center, Volk Field ANGB Wyoming Air National Guard 153rd Airlift Wing, Cheyenne ANGB Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center, Guernsey Federal District and Territories District of Columbia Air National Guard 113th Wing, Joint Base Andrews (former Andrews AFB), Maryland Guam Air National Guard 254th Air Base Group, Andersen AFB, Joint Region Marianas Puerto Rico Air National Guard 156th Airlift Wing, Muniz ANGB 141st Air Control Squadron, Rafael Hernández Airport (former Ramey AFB) Virgin Islands Air National Guard 285th Civil Engineering Squadron, St. Croix ANGS List of Air National Guard Leaders This is a list of the senior leaders or Generals of the Air National Guard. The title has changed over time: The Assistant Chief, National Guard Bureau for Air,; Chief, Air Force Division, National Guard Bureau; Director Air National Guard. See also Space National Guard Air National Guard Readiness Center I.G. Brown Air National Guard Training and Education Center Flying Squadrons of the Air National Guard Comparable organizations Army National Guard (U.S. Army) United States Army Reserve United States Marine Corps Reserve United States Navy Reserve United States Coast Guard Reserve Air Force Reserve Command (U.S. Air Force) References Sources External links Official site Official factsheet Air National Guard Human Factors Safety Portal National Guard of the United States 1947 establishments in the United States

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global%20Graphics

Global Graphics

Global Graphics PLC is known for its digital printing and document technology including the Harlequin and Jaws RIPs and the gDoc digital document software. The Company supplies its software under license to Original Equipment Manufacturers and software vendors who build products around it. Today it is primarily used in the Digital Front Ends of new generation digital and inkjet production presses and in desktop and mobile productivity software products. The Company has a large share of the photobook and newspaper markets. It is listed on the Euronext stock exchange in Brussels under the symbol GLOG. History Global Graphics was incorporated in 1996 in Nancy, France in connection with the acquisition of the Photomeca group of companies and at the time was primarily a pre-press hardware business. However, in 1999 Global Graphics expanded into the printing software market with the acquisition of the Harlequin Group and in 2000 of 5D Solutions through which it acquired the Jaws RIP and Jaws PDF® range of technologies. In 2002 it divested itself of its hardware businesses altogether, emerging as a software only company.As a result of the Company’s expertise in Page Description Languages such as PostScript® and PDF, in 2003 Global Graphics was chosen by Microsoft to provide consultancy and proof of concept development services on XPS, Microsoft’s new print and document format, and worked with the Windows development teams on the specification for the new format. XPS remains the format for Windows operating systems going forward.In 2009, Global Graphics introduced the gDoc brand as the successor to the Jaws PDF range, initially as stand-alone productivity applications, such as gDoc Fusion and gDoc Creator. In 2015 these were spun off onto a separate web site, gDoc Inspired, to showcase examples of software applications that can be built on the gDoc Application Platform and the gDoc Printer Platform.In 2015 Global Graphics purchased its long-standing customer RTI, located in Sarasota, Florida, USA. RTI provides and supports custom-branded versions of the Harlequin RIP direct to print service providers and printing equipment manufacturers, mostly in the North American market. Quick to take advantage of the internet selling RTI has grown a successful on-line sales operation over the past 20 years. In September 2015 Global Graphics acquired font manufacturer URW++ Design & Development GmbH located in Hamburg, Germany. The company invented digital outline font technology and tools 35 years ago and is one of the few remaining font foundries that date from the pre-PostScript era. In addition to licensing their extensive type libraries to the graphic design market they develop exclusive corporate typefaces, counting brands such as General Motors, Mercedes Benz and Siemens among their customer base. In December 2017, Global Graphics expanded its relationship with HP Indigo to include HP Indigo's range of label and packaging presses. Global Graphics has main offices in Cambourne, UK; Acton MA, USA; and Tokyo, Japan. In May 2018, Global Graphics Software introduced Mako, software development kit (SDK) for preparing documents for print and designed to give complete control over pre-press files. In November 2019 Global Graphics PLC acquired Xitron, LLC (“Xitron”), a prepress solutions company headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Xitron develops workflow systems and interfaces to drive the prepress industry’s most popular output devices. One of Global Graphics Software’s longest-standing partners, it has been building solutions around the Harlequin RIP® since 1991 to drive hundreds of different models of imagesetters, proofers, platesetters, inkjet printers, and digital presses. References Software companies of the United Kingdom

45199965

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%20proportional%20computing

Energy proportional computing

In computing, energy proportionality is a measure of the relationship between power consumed in a computer system, and the rate at which useful work is done (its utilization, which is one measure of performance). If the overall power consumption is proportional to the computer's utilization, then the machine is said to be energy proportional. Equivalently stated, for an idealized energy proportional computer, the overall energy per operation (a measure of energy efficiency) is constant for all possible workloads and operating conditions. The concept was first proposed in 2007 by Google engineers Luiz André Barroso and Urs Hölzle, who urged computer architects to design servers that would be much more energy efficient for the datacenter setting. Energy proportional computing is currently an area of active research, and has been highlighted as an important design goal for cloud computing. There are many technical challenges remaining in the design of energy proportional computers. Furthermore, the concept of energy proportionality is not inherently restricted to computing. Although countless energy efficiency advances have been made in non-computing disciplines, they have not been evaluated rigorously in terms of their energy proportionality. Background in energy sustainability Sustainable energy is the ideal that society should serve its energy needs without negatively impacting future generations, and which various organizations, governments, and individuals have been advocating. To meet this ideal, efficiency improvements are required in three aspects of the energy ecosystem: Energy generation Energy storage Energy consumption Since our need for energy generation and storage are driven by our demand, more efficient ways of consuming energy can drive large improvements in energy sustainability. Efforts in sustainable energy consumption can be classified at a high level by the three following categories: Recycle: Capture and recover wasted energy to do more work, that would otherwise be lost as heat. Reuse: Amortize the cost of energy generation, storage, and delivery by sharing energy and its infrastructure among different loads. Reduce: Reduce demand for energy by doing more work with less energy (improve consumption efficiency), or not doing the work at all by changing behavior. Many efforts in making energy consumption more sustainable are focused on the "reduce" theme for unpredictable and dynamic workloads (which are commonly encountered in computing). This can be considered as power management. These efforts can be lumped into two general approaches, which are not specific to computing, but commonly applied in that domain: Idle power-down: This technique exploits gaps in workload demand to shut off components that are idle. When shut down, components cannot do any useful work. The problems unique to this approach are: (1) it costs time and energy to transition between active and idle power-down states, (2) no work can be done in the off state, so power-up must be done to handle a request, and (3) predicting idle periods and adapting appropriately by choosing the right power state at any moment is difficult. Active performance scaling: Unlike idle-power down, this approach allows work to be done in any state, all of which are considered active, but with different power/performance tradeoffs. Usually, slower modes consume less power. The problems unique to this approach are: (1) it is difficult to determine which combination of states is the most energy efficient for an application, and (2) the energy efficiency improvements are usually not as lucrative as those from idle power-down modes. In practice, both types of approaches are used commonly and mixed together. Motivation for energy proportionality Until about 2010, computers were far from energy proportional for two primary reasons. A critical issue is high static power, which means that the computer consumes significant energy even when it is idle. High static power is common in servers owing to their architectural, circuit, and manufacturing optimizations that favor very high performance instead of low power. High static power relative to the maximum loaded power results in low dynamic range, poor energy proportionality, and thus, very low efficiency at low to medium utilizations. This can be acceptable for traditional high-performance computing systems and workloads, which try to extract the maximum utilization possible out of the machines, where they are most efficient. However, in modern datacenters that run popular and large-scale cloud computing applications, servers spend most of their time around 30% utilization, and are rarely running under maximum load, which is a very energy-inefficient operating point for typical servers. The second major reason is that the various hardware operating states for power management can be difficult to use effectively. This is because deeper low power states tend to have larger transition latency and energy costs than lighter low power states. For workloads that have frequent and intermittent bursts of activity, such as web search queries, this prevents the use of deep lower power states without incurring significant latency penalties, which may be unacceptable for the application. Energy proportional computer hardware could solve this problem by being efficient at mid-utilization levels, in addition to efficient peak performance and idle states (which can afford to use deep low power sleep modes). However, achieving this goal will require many innovations in computer architecture, microarchitecture, and perhaps circuits and manufacturing technology. The ultimate benefit would be improved energy efficiency, which would allow for cheaper computer hardware, datacenter provisioning, power utility costs, and overall total cost of ownership (TCO). Research in energy proportional computing Since Barroso and Hölzle's 2007 paper in IEEE Computer, many researchers have begun to address the problem of energy proportional computing in a variety of ways and in different components. CPU The CPU was the first and most obvious place for researchers to focus on for energy efficiency and low power. This is because traditionally it has been the biggest consumer of power in computers. Owing to many innovations in low power technology, devices, circuits, microarchitecture, and electronic design automation, today's CPUs are now much improved in energy efficiency. This has led to the situation where CPUs no longer dominate energy consumption in a computer. Some more well-known examples of the many innovations in CPU energy efficiency include the following: Clock gating: The clock distribution to entire functional units in the processor is blocked, thus saving dynamic power from the capacitive charging and discharging of synchronous gates and wires. Power gating: Entire functional units of the processor are disconnected from the power supply, thus consuming effectively zero power. Multiple voltage domains: Different portions of the chip are supplied from different voltage regulators, such that each can be individually controlled for scaling or gating of the power supply. Multi-threshold voltage designs: Different transistors in the design use different threshold voltages in order to optimize delay and/or power. Dynamic frequency scaling (DFS): The clock frequency of the processor is adjusted statically or dynamically to achieve different power/performance tradeoffs. Dynamic voltage scaling (DVS): The supply voltage of the processor is adjusted statically or dynamically to achieve different power/reliability/performance tradeoffs. Dynamic voltage/frequency scaling (DVFS): Both voltage and frequency are varied dynamically to achieve better power/performance tradeoffs than either DFS or DVS alone can provide. Note that all of the above innovations for CPU power consumption preceded Barroso and Hölzle's paper on energy proportionality. However, most of them have contributed some combination of the two broad types of power management mentioned above, namely, idle power-down and active performance scaling. These innovations have made CPUs scale their power relatively well in relation to their utilization, making them the most energy-proportional of computer hardware components. Unlike CPUs, most other computer hardware components lack power management controls, especially those that enable active performance scaling. CPUs are touted as a good example of energy-proportional computer engineering that other components should strive to emulate. Memory Memory was cited as one of the major system components that has traditionally been very energy disproportional. Memory tends to have relatively high static power due to extremely high transistor counts and densities. Furthermore, because memory is often left idle either due to cache-friendly workloads or low CPU utilization, a large proportion of energy use is due to the static power component. Traditionally, dynamic voltage and frequency scaling on main memory DRAM has not been possible due to limitations in the DDR JEDEC standards. However, these limitations exist because the conventional wisdom in memory design is that large design margins are needed for good yield under worst-case manufacturing process variations, voltage fluctuations, and temperature changes. Thus, scaling voltage and frequency, which is commonly done in CPUs, is considered difficult, impractical, or too risky for data corruption to apply in memories. Nevertheless, DVFS has been recently proposed for the DDR3 memory bus interface independently by two research groups in 2011 to scale memory power with throughput. Because the memory bus voltage and frequency are independent of internal DRAM timings and voltages, scaling this interface should have no effect on memory cell integrity. Furthermore, David et al. claim their approach improves energy proportionality because the memory bus consumes a lot of static power that is independent of the bus utilization. Another research group proposed trading off memory bandwidth for lower energy per bit and lower power idle modes in servers by using mobile-class LPDDR2 DRAMs. This would increase memory energy proportionality without affecting performance for datacenter workloads that are not sensitive to memory bandwidth. The same group also proposed redesigning the DDR3 interface to better support energy proportional server memory without sacrificing peak bandwidth. Networks Networks are emphasized as a key component that are very energy disproportional and contribute to poor cluster and datacenter-level energy proportionality, especially as other components in a server and datacenter become more energy proportional. The main reason they are not energy proportional is because networking elements are conventionally always on due to the way routing protocols are designed, and the unpredictability of message traffic. Clearly, links cannot be shut down entirely when not in use due to the adverse impact this would make on routing algorithms (the links would be seen as faulty or missing, causing bandwidth and load balancing issues in the larger network). Furthermore, the latency and energy penalties that are typically incurred from switching hardware to low power modes would likely degrade both overall network performance and perhaps energy. Thus, like in other systems, energy proportionality of networks will require the development of active performance scaling features, that do not require idle power-down states to save energy when utilization is low. In recent years, efforts in green networking have targeted energy-efficient Ethernet (including the IEEE 802.3az standard), and many other wired and wireless technologies. A common theme is overall power reduction by low idle power and low peak power, but their evaluation in terms of energy proportionality at the link, switch, router, cluster, and system-levels are more limited. Adaptive link rate is a popular method for energy-aware network links. Some authors have proposed that to make datacenter networks more energy proportional, the routing elements need greater power dynamic range. They proposed the use of the flattened butterfly topology instead of the common folded Clos network in use in datacenters (also known as the fat tree) to improve overall power efficiency, and to use adaptive link rates to adjust link power in relation to utilization. They also propose predicting future link utilization to scale data rates in anticipation. Nevertheless, to make networks more energy proportional, improvements need to be made at several layers of abstraction. Storage and databases Data storage is another category of hardware that has traditionally been very energy disproportional. Although storage technologies are non-volatile, meaning that no power is required to retain data, the interface on the storage devices are typically powered up for access on demand. For example, in hard drives, although the data is stored in a non-volatile magnetic state, the disk is typically kept spinning at constant RPM, which requires considerable power. This is in addition to the solid-state electronics that maintain communications with the rest of the computer system, such as the Serial ATA interface commonly found in computers. A common emerging technique for energy-aware and energy proportional data storage is that of consolidation, namely, that data should be aggregated to fewer storage nodes when throughput demands are low. However, this is not a trivial task, and it does not solve the fundamental issue of energy disproportionality within a single server. For this, hardware design innovations are needed at the individual storage unit level. Even modern solid state drives (SSDs) made with flash memory have shown signs of energy disproportionality. Databases are a common type of workload for datacenters, and they have unique requirements that make use of idle low-power states difficult. However, for "share-nothing" databases, some have proposed dynamic scaling of the databases as "wimpy nodes" are powered up and down on demand. Fortunately, researchers have claimed that for these share-nothing databases, the most energy efficient architecture is also the highest-performing one. However, this approach does not address the fundamental need for energy proportionality at the individual component level, but approximates energy proportionality at the aggregate level. Datacenter infrastructure: Power supplies and cooling Power supplies are a critical component of a computer, and historically have been very power inefficient. However, modern server-level power supplies are achieving over 80% power efficiency across a wide range of loads, although they tend to be least efficient at low utilizations. Nevertheless, as workloads in datacenters tend to utilize servers in the low to medium range, this region of the operation is inefficient for the server power supplies and datacenter-scale uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes). Innovations are needed to make these supplies much more efficient at the typical region of operation. Like power supplies, datacenter and server-level cooling tends to be most efficient at high loads. Coordinating server power management of the traditional components along with active cooling is critical to improving overall efficiency. System and datacenter-level Perhaps the most efforts in energy proportionality have been targeted at the system, cluster, and datacenter scale. This is because improvements in aggregate energy proportionality can be accomplished largely with software reorganization, requiring minimal changes to the underlying hardware. However, this relies on the assumption that a workload can scale up and down across multiple nodes dynamically based on aggregate demand. Many workloads cannot achieve this easily due to the way data may be distributed across individual nodes, or the need for data sharing and communication among many nodes even to serve a single request. Note that aggregate energy proportionality can be achieved with this scheme even if individual nodes are not energy proportional Various application, middleware, OS, and other types of software load balancing approaches have been proposed to enable aggregate energy proportionality. For instance, if individual workloads are contained entirely within virtual machines (VMs), then the VMs can be migrated over the network to other nodes at runtime as consolidation and load balancing are performed. However, this can incur significant delay and energy costs, so the frequency of VM migration cannot be too high. Researchers have proposed improving the low power idle states of servers, and the wake-up/shutdown latencies between active and idle modes, because this is an easier optimization goal than active performance scaling. If servers could wake up and shutdown at a very fine time granularity, then the server would become energy proportional, even if active power is constant at all utilizations. Others have proposed hybrid datacenters, such as KnightShift, such that workloads are migrated dynamically between high-performance hardware and low-power hardware based on the utilization. However, there are many hardware and software technical challenges to this approach. These can include the hardware and software support for heterogeneous computing, shared data and power infrastructure, and more. A study from 2011 argues that energy proportional hardware is better at mitigating the energy inefficiences of software bloat, a prevalent phenomenon in computing. This is because the particular hardware components that bottlenecks overall application performance depends on the application characteristics, i.e., which parts are bloated. If non-bottlenecked components are very energy disproportional, then the overall impact of software bloat can make the system less efficient. For this reason, energy proportionality can important across a wide range of hardware and software applications, not just in datacenter settings. References Computer performance

12098689

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems%20analyst

Systems analyst

A systems analyst, also known as business technology analyst, is an information technology (IT) professional who specializes in analyzing, designing and implementing information systems. Systems analysts assess the suitability of information systems in terms of their intended outcomes and liaise with end users, software vendors and programmers in order to achieve these outcomes. A systems analyst is a person who uses analysis and design techniques to solve business problems using information technology. Systems analysts may serve as change agents who identify the organizational improvements needed, design systems to implement those changes, and train and motivate others to use the systems. Industry As of 2015, the sectors employing the greatest numbers of computer systems analysts were state government, insurance, computer system design, professional and commercial equipment, and company and enterprise management. The number of jobs in this field is projected to grow from 487,000 as of 2009 to 650,000 by 2016. This job ranked third best in a 2010 survey, fifth best in the 2011 survey, 9th best in the 2012 survey and the 10th best in the 2013 survey. See also Change management analyst Business analyst Software analyst Business analysis References External links Computer Systems Analysts in the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a unit of the United States Department of Labor Systems analysis Business occupations Computer occupations de:Systemanalyse#Informatik

35676767

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University%20of%20Maryland%20Honors%20College

University of Maryland Honors College

The Honors College at University of Maryland, College Park is home to six living-learning programs which together serve over 4,000 of the University's undergraduate students with an academic and residential experience. Anne Arundel Hall and LaPlata Hall house the administrative offices of the Honors College. Anne Arundel Hall and the Ellicott Community are the center of Honors College student life, although new Honors dorms are in the process of being built. History Originally named the General Honors Program, the Honors College was founded in 1966 by John Portz, a professor in the English Department. Two years later in 1968, the program launched its first Honors Seminars when ten seminars first appeared in the University of Maryland course listing. Today, these Honors Seminars are an integral part of the Honors College experience. In 1990, the program was redesigned and renamed the University Honors Program. Six years later in 1996, the Honors College expanded and introduced two new, smaller living-learning programs in addition to University Honors. These were Gemstone and Honors Humanities. The College quickly underwent another restructure in 2009 when it was officially renamed the 'Honors College' and implemented three new programs - Digital Cultures and Creativity in 2010, Entrepreneurship and Innovation in 2010, and Integrated Life Sciences in 2011. A seventh living-learning program, Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students, opened in 2013. In 2018, the process began to phase out the award-winning Entrepreneurship and Innovation program, which officially closed down at the end of the spring 2021 semester. Academics Since its founding in 1966, the Honors College has gained national recognition. The Honors College was first acknowledged nationally in 1994 when it was given a top ranking in the book Ivy League Programs at State School Prices for its academic rigor and breadth of opportunities. The program gained national acclaim again in 2011 when U.S. News named it among the best smaller Learning Communities. Honors College students have also received a number of prestigious awards. In 2011, a record number of 19 students were awarded Fulbright Program grants, and two were awarded Goldwater Scholarships. The College and its living-learning programs have continued to focus and develop their academic offerings and curriculum, including an entirely new set of honors seminars for the fall 2021 semester as created for the revamped University Honors program. The Six Living and Learning Programs Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES) The new cybersecurity living and learning program opened in the fall of 2013. It was officially launched on September 25, 2013, with a $1.1 million gift from Northrop Grumman. In 2015, Northrop Grumman renewed their support with a second, $2.7 million gift. ACES is led by Dr. Michel Cukier, from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. ACES provides opportunities for hands on experience in the technical and non-technical aspects of cybersecurity, a close-knit community to encourage learning, potential leadership roles, and opportunities to work with and learn from experts in the industry. The curriculum consists of a two year living and learning program for freshmen and sophomores, and also an ACES minor which provides experiential cybersecurity learning opportunities for upperclassmen. Design Cultures and Creativity Design Cultures and Creativity is an interdisciplinary program with a focus on the impact of design on our societies and creative practices. Students participate in the program during their first two years at the University of Maryland, College Park and complete sixteen credits for the program. During the first year, students take Introduction to Design Cultures and Creativity 1 in the Fall Semester, and a small seminar, Introduction to Design Cultures and Creativity 2, in the Spring Semester. A Design Cultures and Creativity Seminar is taken during the second and third semesters of the program; topics have included digital storytelling; digital feminisms; prototyping, users, and creativity; and 3D modeling in the humanities. A research practicum course is taken during the Spring Semester of the second year and culminates in the completion of the Capstone Project, a significant research project and/or major creative effort. Students must also take three additional credits that can be gained through internships, study abroad, or an independent study. In addition to the courses required for the curriculum, the program hosts a number of co-curricular activities each semester. These include movie screenings, workshops, and guest speaker events. Started in 2010, the program is currently directed by Dr. Jason Farman (Assoc. Prof. in the Department of American Studies) and associate director Jessica Lu. DCC is also run by faculty and graduate students. The faculty includes Evan Golub, Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Computer Science, Kari Kraus, Associate Professor in the College of Information Studies and the Department of English, and Alexis Lothian, Associate Professor of Women's Studies. The graduate students are DB Bauer, a PhD student in Women's Studies and Eva Peskin, also a Ph.D. student in Women's Studies. Gemstone Gemstone is a four-year multidisciplinary research program in which students design, direct, and conduct their own original research under the guidance of faculty mentors. The program is committed to holistic student development through four main pillars: developing students’ research skills, developing students’ ability to work in teams, providing students with leadership opportunities, and providing a close-knit, supportive community. As a part of the community development, students in Gemstone take one course with each other every semester. During the first semester, the course is Introduction to Gemstone, which give students an opportunity to get to know each other and get acclimated to the university. The following semester, students take Research Topic Exploration, which allows them to develop possible research topics. At the end of this semester, students are put into their research groups, and their three-year-long research project begins. Gemstone was started in fall of 1996, and is currently led by director Prof. Frank Coale. Honors Humanities Honors Humanities is a two-year program within the Honors College, which encourages and challenges students to consider some of the pressing issues affecting humanity today. Students of all majors, backgrounds, and a variety of interests are encouraged to join and contribute to the personal and intellectual diversity of the program. Through a range of thought provoking course work, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities, students are prompted to consider questions ranging from the definition of citizenship, the consequences of the digital and information revolutions, and the purpose of art. The curriculum includes four Honors Humanities courses and two Honors courses; it culminates in the creation of a Keystone Project, a four-semester long creative effort or research project. Honors Humanities was founded in 1996 by Dr. Phyllis Peres. Today, Prof. Randy Ontiveros is the Director of the program. Dr. Ontiveros is also an Associate Professor in the English Department, an affiliate in U.S. Latina/o Studies, Women’s Studies, and Latin American Studies at the University of Maryland, and a board member of the Maryland Humanities Council. Integrated Life Sciences The Honors College and the College of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park felt that various national initiative including BIO 2010, Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, and Vision and Change have brought to light a need for the restructure of education in the life sciences. In response to this need, the two colleges have joined together to create the Integrated Life Sciences Program, a two-year living and learning program that focuses on inspiring innovation among students interested in biological research and biomedicine. The program requires a total of fourteen credits from classes including integrated organismal biology, genetics and genomics, biomathematics and a capstone scholarship-in-practice experience. Students are also required to complete at least one research project and create an electronic portfolio. Founded in the fall of 2011, Integrated Life Sciences is currently led by Director Dr. Todd J. Cooke. Dr. Cooke received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and is currently a Professor in the Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics department at the University of Maryland. His research interests included the development and evolution of green plants and the process of biology and student learning. Dr. Booth Quimby is also integral to the success of the program. She is the Associate Director of the Integrated Life Sciences Program and has research interests in the interface between nucleocytoplasmic transport and cell cycle regulation and on the effects of reading primary research literature on student learning. The final member of the ILS team is Nicole Horvath. Ms. Horvath is the Program Coordinator and is currently pursuing a Masters of Science in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology at the University of Maryland. University Honors University Honors is the original living-learning program in the Honors College, still reflecting many of the same values John Portz instilled within the program in 1966. It is also still the most flexible of the six living and learning programs that compose the Honors College. During the years of 2018 and 2019, University Honors staff begun planning a complete program overhaul in response to declining enrollment and program satisfaction. In fall of 2020, these changes were put into effect and the new curriculum was tested out for the first time, albeit during the Covid-19 pandemic. Before fall of 2020, students were able to choose from over 130 interdisciplinary seminars loosely grouped into three broad categories: Contemporary Issues and Challenges, Arts and Sciences in Today’s World, and Using the World as a Classroom. The program allowed students to take any of these seminars to fulfill the requirements to receive their Honors Citation with the only stipulations being that they must complete sixteen credits from Honors courses, with nine credits of these credits coming from Honors Seminars, one credit must be from Honors 100, and another six coming from H-level courses or more seminars. The Honors Seminars did and still do satisfy many general education categories at University of Maryland. In fall of 2020, University Honors introduced its new curriculum and living-learning experience. It was announced that Honors seminars would be organized into thematic 'clusters', which are the core of the new UH honors citation requirements. In order to complete the new UH requirements, students must complete the one credit Gateway Seminar, 12 credits of seminars (usually one or two clusters), and the two credit Vantage Point Seminar. There are several student organizations within UH that members can participate in starting in their freshman year. The Student Life Council was created in fall 2020 by temporary student life coordinator Chelsea Bradford. Students can apply for this Council as early as their first semester, and is mostly populated by first and second years. The Peer Academic Leaders (PALs) serve as academic helpers and mentors for first-year students in the Gateway Seminar; mostly made up of second and third year students. The peer mentor program has been on pause since the beginning of Covid-19, but is set to restart at the beginning of the fall 2021 semester. Finally, the University Honors Student Board, started in spring 2020 by Director Stephan Blatti and student Luke Amato, is the main leadership organization within the program, working directly with program admin to influence and develop the program's policies and strategic vision. Prof. Susan Dwyer, associate professor of philosophy at the University, led University Honors from the mid-2010s to 2018. She also served as Executive Director of the Honors College from 2016-2020, causing several leadership gaps within University Honors administration. In 2018, University Honors finally hired a full-time Director, Dr. Stephan Blatti. Blatti was the catalyst for the recent program revamp. Dr. Blatti is assisted by Assistant Director for Student Achievement Dean Hebert, Assistant Director for Student Engagement Kaleigh Mrowka, and Assistant Director for Academic Affairs Dr. Christine Jones. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Before being phased out and officially closed at the end of the spring 2021, Entrepreneurship and Innovation was a top-25 entrepreneurship program in the country. A unique joint effort between the Honors College and the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute and is an interdisciplinary program, Entrepreneurship and Innovation was a two-year program for freshmen and sophomores requiring the completion of sixteen credits. During the first semester of their freshmen year, students were to take Foundations of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, which focuses on introducing basic entrepreneurship principles and terminology. The second course, which students took during the Spring semester of their freshmen year is Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship & Innovation which exposed students to contemporary issues including design, energy, life sciences, healthcare, technology. Exploring International Entrepreneurship & Innovation was taken during the Fall Semester of the sophomore year and introduces students to entrepreneurship on an international level. Capstone: Creating Enterprise with Social Impact is taken during the final semester and requires students to develop possible solutions to significant social and environmental issues. The program also requires two additional courses which students may select from among the Honors Seminars offered by the Honors College. Started in the fall of 2010, the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program was led until its end by Director Jay A. Smith. Mr. Smith holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and worked in management consultation, investment banking and venture entrepreneurship and served as an Associate Professor of the Inamori Academy of Kagoshima University before starting the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program at the University of Maryland. Dr. David F. Barbe was the Executive Director of the program as well as the Executive Director of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute. Jaclin R. Warner was the Coordinator of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation program and holds a bachelor of arts and a Master of Arts in sociology from Stanford University. Student life Student life for Honors College students involve honors-focused dorm buildings, numerous events at both the Honors College and living-learning program level, and several academic groups / initiatives. There are a number of student organizations open to Honors College students. These include the Banneker/Key Community Council, Black Honors Caucus, Honors College Advisory Board, Latino Honors Society, Student Programming Council, and W.E.B. DuBois Honors Society. Events Every semester, the Honors College hosts a number of events intended to develop a sense of community among students and faculty in the Honors College. Citation ceremony After students have completed all of the requirements of their Honors programs, they are invited to attend a ceremony at which they receive their Honors Citations. Family and friends are invited, and it takes place in Memorial Chapel. Festivities include conferring citations unto the students and speeches from several high-achieving student leaders. Convocation and welcome weekend Each year, University of Maryland students move into their residence halls at the end of August. During days the students have before classes begin, there are activities such as scavenger hunts, a pool party at the Eppley Recreation Center, and ice cream socials. These events give the students an opportunity to get to know the campus and their peers. On the second day of move-in, the annual Honors Convocation takes place. All 1,000 new Honors students gather in Memorial Chapel and are welcomed by University faculty and staff. Alumni events More recently, the Honors College has introduced more events and networking opportunities focused around alumni. In April 2021, the Honors College invited back Rahul Vinod, co-founder of Rasa Grill, a fast-casual Indian restaurant in Washington, DC, for an event where he was interviewed by a DCC for her capstone project. Similar events have happened in subsequent semesters. Student organizations Banneker Key Community Council The Banneker Key Community Council (BKCC) is a student-run organization that seeks to foster community among Banneker Key students and to serve as an outlet to help students reach out to Banneker Key alumni through social, professional, and service oriented programming. Black Honors Caucus The Black Honors Caucus promotes the development of the modern black intellectual. Black Honors Caucus was created to foster the matriculation and retention of black students within the University Honors Program; however, all students are welcome. General body meetings are held in an open discussion format. Honors Ambassadors Honors Ambassadors assists in the Honors College recruitment process. Students in this organization represent the Honors College at open houses, question and answer panels, as well as other recruitment-related events. Honors College Advisory Board The Honors College Advisory Board (HCAB) represents all seven living and learning programs and all departmental honors programs. Representatives serve the executive director of the Honors College and the mission to advance students' academic interests. Latino Honors Society Latino Honors Society was created to help unite and foster community for Latino students in the Honors College. The main objectives are to help Latino students network, celebrate their common culture, and promote philanthropy in the College Park area. Student Programming Council The Student Programming Council was created to promote community amongst the entire Honors College. Past events include the Honors Olympics, Pi Day, and Honors College Formal. W.E.B. DuBois Honors Society W.E.B. DuBois is a National Honors Society that recognizes the scholarship and leadership accomplishments of collegiate scholars. References External links Honors College website University of Maryland website Honors College Public honors colleges Honors College Honors College Honors College ca:Universitat de Maryland cs:University of Maryland de:University of Maryland, College Park es:Universidad de Maryland eo:Universitato de Maryland fr:Université du Maryland gl:Universidade de Maryland ko:메릴랜드 대학교 he:אוניברסיטת מרילנד la:Universitas Marylandensis nl:Universiteit van Maryland, College Park ja:メリーランド大学カレッジパーク校 no:University of Maryland pnb:یونیورسٹی آف میری لینڈ pt:Universidade de Maryland ru:Мэрилендский университет в Колледж-Парке simple:University of Maryland fi:Marylandin yliopisto (College Park) ta:மேரிலன்ட் பல்கலைக்கழகம் (காலேஜ் பார்க்) th:มหาวิทยาลัยแมริแลนด์ คอลเลจพาร์ก tr:Maryland Üniversitesi vi:Đại học Maryland, College Park zh:馬里蘭大學學院市分校

42017954

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20cosmological%20computation%20software

List of cosmological computation software

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the thermal radiation assumed to be left over from the "Big Bang" of cosmology. The CMB is a snapshot of the oldest light in our universe, imprinted on the sky when the universe was just 380,000 years old. It shows tiny temperature fluctuations that correspond to regions of slightly different densities, representing the seeds of all future structure: the stars and galaxies of today. Therefore, analysis of the small anisotropies in the CMB helps us to understand the origin and the fate of our universe. In past few decades, there has been a lot of improvement in the observations and several experiments, performed to understand the basic structure of the universe. For analyzing data of different cosmological experiments and for understanding the theoretical nature of the universe many advanced methods and computing software are developed in and used by cosmologists for years. These software are widely used by the cosmologists across the globe. The computational software, used in cosmology can be classified into the following major classes. Map generation and processing software: These software are used for preparing the CMB sky maps from the crude observational data. The software HEALPIX is used for map generation and processing. Cosmological Boltzmann codes: These codes are used for calculating the theoretical power spectrum given the cosmological parameters. These codes are capable of calculating the power spectrum from the standard LCDM model or its derivatives. Some of the most used CMB Boltzmann codes are CMBFAST, CAMB, CMBEASY, CLASS, CMBAns etc. Cosmological parameter estimator: The parameter estimation codes are used for calculating the best-fit parameters from the observation data. The ready to use codes available for this purpose are CosmoMC, AnalyzeThis, SCoPE etc. Map generation and processing software HEALPix HEALPix (sometimes written as Healpix), an acronym for Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelisation of a 2-sphere, can refer to either an algorithm for pixelization of the 2-sphere, an associated software package, or an associated class of map projections. Healpix is widely used for cosmological random map generation. The original motivation for devising HEALPix was one of necessity. NASA's WMAP and the European Space Agency’s mission Planck produce multi-frequency data sets sufficient for the construction of full-sky maps of the microwave sky at an angular resolution of a few arc minutes. The principal requirements in the development of HEALPix were to create a mathematical structure that supports a suitable discretization of functions on a sphere at sufficiently high resolution, and to facilitate fast and accurate statistical and astrophysical analysis of massive full-sky data sets. The HEALPix maps are used in almost all the data processing research in cosmology. Cosmological Boltzmann codes CMBFAST CMBFAST is a computer code, developed by Uroš Seljak and Matias Zaldarriaga (based on a Boltzmann code written by Edmund Bertschinger, Chung-Pei Ma and Paul Bode) for computing the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy. It is the first efficient program to do so, reducing the time taken to compute the anisotropy from several days to a few minutes by using a novel semi-analytic line-of-sight approach. CAMB Code for Anisotropies in the Microwave Background by Antony Lewis and Anthony Challinor. The code was originally based on CMBFAST. Later several developments are made to make it a faster and more accurate and compatible with the present research. The code is written in an object oriented manner to make it more user friendly. CMBEASY CMBEASY is a software package written by Michael Doran, Georg Robbers and Christian M. Müller. The code is based on the CMBFAST package. CMBEASY is fully object oriented C++. This considerably simplifies manipulations and extensions of the CMBFAST code. In addition, a powerful Spline class can be used to easily store and visualize data. Many features of the CMBEASY package are also accessible via a graphical user interface. This may be helpful for gaining intuition, as well as for instruction purposes. CLASS CLASS is a new Boltzmann code developed in this line. The purpose of CLASS is to simulate the evolution of linear perturbations in the universe and to compute CMB and large scale structure observables. Its name also comes from the fact that it is written in object-oriented style mimicking the notion of class. Classes are a programming feature available, e.g., in C++ and Python, but these languages are known to be less vectorizable/parallelizable than plain C (or Fortran), and hence potentially slower. CLASS is written in plain C for high performance, while organizing the code in a few modules that reproduce the architecture and philosophy of C++ classes, for optimal readability and modularity. Parameter estimation packages AnalizeThis AnalizeThis is a parameter estimation package used by cosmologists. It comes with the CMBEASY package. The code is written in C++ and uses the global metropolis algorithm for estimation of cosmological parameters. The code was developed by Michael Doran, for parameter estimation using WMAP-5 likelihood. However, the code was not updated after 2008 for the new CMB experiments. Hence this package is currently not in use by the CMB research community. The package comes up with a nice GUI. CosmoMC CosmoMC is a Fortran 2003 Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) engine for exploring cosmological parameter space. The code does brute force (but accurate) theoretical matter power spectrum and Cl calculations using CAMB. CosmoMC uses a simple local Metropolis algorithm along with an optimized fast-slow sampling method. This fast-slow sampling method provides faster convergence for the cases with many nuisance parameters like Planck. CosmoMC package also provides subroutines for post processing and plotting of the data. CosmoMC was written by Antony Lewis in 2002 and later several versions are developed to keep the code up-to date with different cosmological experiments. It is presently the most used cosmological parameter estimation code. SCoPE SCoPE/Slick Cosmological Parameter Estimator is a newly developed cosmological MCMC package written by Santanu Das in C language. Apart from standard global metropolis algorithm the code uses three unique technique named as 'delayed rejection' that increases the acceptance rate of a chain, 'pre-fetching' that helps an individual chain to run on parallel CPUs and 'inter-chain covariance update' that prevents clustering of the chains allowing faster and better mixing of the chains. The code is capable of faster computation of cosmological parameters from WMAP and Planck data. Other packages MADCAP — Microwave Anisotropy Data Computational Analysis Package developed by Borrill et al. SIToolBox — SI Toolbox is a package for estimating the isotropy violation in the CMB sky. It is developed by Das et al. and it consists of several Fortran subroutines and stand-alone facilities, that can be used to estimate the BipoSH coefficients from non statistically isotropic (nSI) skymaps. RECFAST — Software was developed by Seager, Sasselov, and Scott and used to calculate the recombination history of the universe. The package is used by cosmological boltzmann codes (CMBFast, CAMB etc.) TOAST — Time Ordered Astrophysics Scalable Tools, developed and designed by Theodore Kisner, Reijo Keskitalo, Jullian Borrill et. al. It "generalizing the problem of CMB map-making to the reduction of any pointed time-domain data, and ensuring that the analysis of exponentially growing datasets scales to the largest HPC systems available". Commander - Commander is an Optimal Monte-carlo Markov chAiN Driven EstimatoR which implements fast and efficient end-to-end CMB posterior exploration through Gibbs sampling. It was developed by Hans Kristian Eriksen et al. Likelihood software packages Different cosmology experiments, in particular the CMB experiments like WMAP and Planck measures the temperature fluctuations in the CMB sky and then measure the CMB power spectrum from the observed skymap. But for parameter estimation the χ² is required. Therefore, all these CMB experiments comes up with its own likelihood software. WMAP Likelihood Package Planck Likelihood Software See also Cosmological perturbation theory Illustris project Lambda-CDM model Physical cosmology Planck (spacecraft) Observational cosmology UniverseMachine Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Notes Physical cosmology Cosmic background radiation Cosmological computation software Scientific simulation software

55209041

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney%20Michaelson

Sidney Michaelson

Sidney Michaelson FRSE FIMA FSA FBCS (5 December 1925–21 February 1991) was Scotland's first professor of Computer Science. He was joint founder of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. As an author he is remembered for his analysis of the Bible. Life He was born on 5 December 1925 in the East End of London into a relatively poor family. Academically brilliant he won a scholarship to Imperial College, London. He studied mathematics and graduated in 1946. After several years of postgraduate study looking at electrical applications in mathematics he began lecturing at Imperial College in 1949. In 1963 he moved to the University of Edinburgh as Director of its newly founded Computer Unit, and in 1969 became the first Professor of Computer Science. Notable students included Rosemary Candlin. In 1969 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Nicholas Kemmer, David Finney, Sir Michael Swann and Arthur Erdelyi. He died in Edinburgh on 21 February 1991. Family His wife Kitty died in 1995. They had four children. One of his sons, Greg, is Professor Emeritus, School of Mathematical & Computer Sciences at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh Recognition In 1991 the University of Edinburgh created the Sidney Michaelson Prize in Computer Science his honour. Michaelson Square in Livingston is named in his memory. Publications A Critical Concordance of I and II Corinthians (1979) A Critical Concordance of the Letter of Paul to the Romans (1977) References 1925 births 1991 deaths Academics of Imperial College London Mathematicians from London Academics of the University of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Computer scientists

10388845

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream%20X-Machine

Stream X-Machine

The Stream X-machine (SXM) is a model of computation introduced by Gilbert Laycock in his 1993 PhD thesis, The Theory and Practice of Specification Based Software Testing. Based on Samuel Eilenberg's X-machine, an extended finite-state machine for processing data of the type X, the Stream X-Machine is a kind of X-machine for processing a memory data type Mem with associated input and output streams In* and Out*, that is, where X = Out* × Mem × In*. The transitions of a Stream X-Machine are labelled by functions of the form φ: Mem × In → Out × Mem, that is, which compute an output value and update the memory, from the current memory and an input value. Although the general X-machine had been identified in the 1980s as a potentially useful formal model for specifying software systems, it was not until the emergence of the Stream X-Machine that this idea could be fully exploited. Florentin Ipate and Mike Holcombe went on to develop a theory of complete functional testing,<ref name="HolIp98">Mike Holcombe and Florentin Ipate (1998) Correct systems - building a business process solution. Applied Computing Series. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.</ref> in which complex software systems with hundreds of thousands of states and millions of transitions could be decomposed into separate SXMs that could be tested exhaustively, with a guaranteed proof of correct integration. Because of the intuitive interpretation of Stream X-Machines as "processing agents with inputs and outputs", they have attracted increasing interest, because of their utility in modelling real-world phenomena. The SXM model has important applications in fields as diverse as computational biology, software testing and agent-based computational economics. The Stream X-Machine A Stream X-Machine (SXM) is an extended finite-state machine with auxiliary memory, inputs and outputs. It is a variant of the general X-machine, in which the fundamental data type X = Out* × Mem × In*, that is, a tuple consisting of an output stream, the memory and an input stream. A SXM separates the control flow of a system from the processing carried out by the system. The control is modelled by a finite-state machine (known as the associated automaton) whose transitions are labelled with processing functions chosen from a set Φ (known as the type of the machine), which act upon the fundamental data type. Each processing function in Φ is a partial function, and can be considered to have the type φ: Mem × In → Out × Mem, where Mem is the memory type, and In and Out are respectively the input and output types. In any given state, a transition is enabled if the domain of the associated function φi includes the next input value and the current memory state. If (at most) one transition is enabled in a given state, the machine is deterministic. Crossing a transition is equivalent to applying the associated function φi, which consumes one input, possibly modifies the memory and produces one output. Each recognised path through the machine therefore generates a list φ1 ... φn of functions, and the SXM composes these functions together to generate a relation on the fundamental data type |φ1 ... φn|: X → X. Relationship to X-machines The Stream X-Machine is a variant of X-machine in which the fundamental data type X = Out* × Mem × In*. In the original X-machine, the φi are general relations on X. In the Stream X-Machine, these are usually restricted to functions; however the SXM is still only deterministic if (at most) one transition is enabled in each state. A general X-machine handles input and output using a prior encoding function α: Y → X for input, and a posterior decoding function β: X → Z for output, where Y and Z are respectively the input and output types. In a Stream X-Machine, these types are streams: Y = In* Z = Out* and the encoding and decoding functions are defined as: α(ins) = (<>, mem0, ins) β(outs, memn, <>) = outs where ins: In*, outs: Out* and memi: Mem. In other words, the machine is initialized with the whole of the input stream; and the decoded result is the whole of the output stream, provided the input stream is eventually consumed (otherwise the result is undefined). Each processing function in a SXM is given the abbreviated type φSXM: Mem × In → Out × Mem. This can be mapped onto a general X-machine relation of the type φ: X → X if we treat this as computing: φ(outs, memi, in :: ins) = (outs :: out, memi+1, ins) where :: denotes concatenation of an element and a sequence. In other words, the relation extracts the head of the input stream, modifies memory and appends a value to the tail of the output stream. Processing and Testable Properties Because of the above equivalence, attention may focus on the way a Stream X-Machine processes inputs into outputs, using an auxiliary memory. Given an initial memory state mem0 and an input stream ins, the machine executes in a step-wise fashion, consuming one input at a time, and generating one output at a time. Provided that (at least) one recognised path path = φ1 ... φn exists leading to a state in which the input has been consumed, the machine yields a final memory state memn and an output stream outs. In general, we can think of this as the relation computed by all recognised paths: | path | : In* → Out*. This is often called the behaviour of the Stream X-Machine. The behaviour is deterministic, if (at most) one transition is enabled in each state. This property, and the ability to control how the machine behaves in a step-wise fashion in response to inputs and memory, makes it an ideal model for the specification of software systems. If the specification and implementation are both assumed to be Stream X-Machines, then the implementation may be tested for conformance to the specification machine, by observing the inputs and outputs at each step. Laycock first highlighted the utility of single-step processing with observations for testing purposes. Holcombe and Ipate developed this into a practical theory of software testing which was fully compositional, scaling up to very large systems. A proof of correct integration guarantees that testing each component and each integration layer separately corresponds to testing the whole system. This divide-and-conquer approach makes exhaustive testing feasible for large systems. The testing method is described in a separate article on the Stream X-Machine testing methodology. See also X-machines, a general description of the X-machine model, including a simple example. The Stream X-Machine Testing Methodology, a complete functional testing technique. Using this methodology, it is possible to identify a finite set of tests that exhaustively determine whether an implementation matches its specification. The technique overcomes formal undecidability limitations by insisting that users apply carefully specified design for test principles during implementation. Communicating Stream X-Machines (CSXMs), a concurrent version of the SXM model, with applications in fields ranging from social insects to economics. External links The MOTIVE project, using SXM techniques to generate test sets for object-oriented software. The EURACE project, an application of CSXM techniques to agent-based computational economics. x-machines.net, a site describing the background to X-machine research. Mike (Prof. W.M.L.) Holcombe's web page at Sheffield University. References Theory of computation Models of computation Software testing

758895

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20software%20engineering

History of software engineering

The history of software engineering begins in the 1960s. Writing software has evolved into a profession concerned with how best to maximize the quality of software and of how to create it. Quality can refer to how maintainable software is, to its stability, speed, usability, testability, readability, size, cost, security, and number of flaws or "bugs", as well as to less measurable qualities like elegance, conciseness, and customer satisfaction, among many other attributes. How best to create high quality software is a separate and controversial problem covering software design principles, so-called "best practices" for writing code, as well as broader management issues such as optimal team size, process, how best to deliver software on time and as quickly as possible, work-place "culture", hiring practices, and so forth. All this falls under the broad rubric of software engineering. Overview The evolution of software engineering is notable in a number of areas: Emergence as a profession: By the early 1980s software engineering had already emerged as a bona fide profession., to stand beside computer science and traditional engineering. Role of women: Before 1970 men filling the more prestigious and better paying hardware engineering roles often delegated the writing of software to women, and legends such as Grace Hopper or Margaret Hamilton filled many computer programming jobs. Today, fewer women work in software engineering than in other professions, a situation whose cause is not clearly identified. Many academic and professional organizations consider this situation unbalanced and are trying hard to solve it. Processes: Processes have become a big part of software engineering. They are hailed for their potential to improve software but sharply criticized for their potential to constrict programmers. Cost of hardware: The relative cost of software versus hardware has changed substantially over the last 50 years. When mainframes were expensive and required large support staffs, the few organizations buying them also had the resources to fund large, expensive custom software engineering projects. Computers are now much more numerous and much more powerful, which has several effects on software. The larger market can support large projects to create commercial off the shelf software, as done by companies such as Microsoft. The cheap machines allow each programmer to have a terminal capable of fairly rapid compilation. The programs in question can use techniques such as garbage collection, which make them easier and faster for the programmer to write. On the other hand, many fewer organizations are interested in employing programmers for large custom software projects, instead using commercial off the shelf software as much as possible. 1945 to 1965: The origins Putative origins for the term software engineering include a 1965 letter from ACM president Anthony Oettinger, lectures by Douglas T. Ross at MIT in the 1950s. Margaret H. Hamilton "is the person who came up with the idea of naming the discipline, software engineering, as a way of giving it legitimacy." The NATO Science Committee sponsored two conferences on software engineering in 1968 (Garmisch, Germany — see conference report) and 1969, which gave the field its initial boost. Many believe these conferences marked the official start of the profession of software engineering. 1965 to 1985: The software crisis Software engineering was spurred by the so-called software crisis of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, which identified many of the problems of software development. Many projects ran over budget and schedule. Some projects caused property damage. A few projects caused loss of life. The software crisis was originally defined in terms of productivity, but evolved to emphasize quality. Some used the term software crisis to refer to their inability to hire enough qualified programmers. Cost and Budget Overruns: The OS/360 operating system was a classic example. This decade-long project from the 1960s eventually produced one of the most complex software systems at the time. OS/360 was one of the first large (1000 programmers) software projects. Fred Brooks claims in The Mythical Man-Month that he made a multimillion-dollar mistake of not developing a coherent architecture before starting development. Property Damage: Software defects can cause property damage. Poor software security allows hackers to steal identities, costing time, money, and reputations. Life and Death: Software defects can kill. Some embedded systems used in radiotherapy machines failed so catastrophically that they administered lethal doses of radiation to patients. The most famous of these failures is the Therac-25 incident. Peter G. Neumann has kept a contemporary list of software problems and disasters. The software crisis has been fading from view, because it is psychologically extremely difficult to remain in crisis mode for a protracted period (more than 20 years). Nevertheless, software – especially real-time embedded software – remains risky and is pervasive, and it is crucial not to give in to complacency. Over the last 10–15 years Michael A. Jackson has written extensively about the nature of software engineering, has identified the main source of its difficulties as lack of specialization, and has suggested that his problem frames provide the basis for a "normal practice" of software engineering, a prerequisite if software engineering is to become an engineering science. 1985 to 1989: "No Silver Bullet" For decades, solving the software crisis was paramount to researchers and companies producing software tools. The cost of owning and maintaining software in the 1980s was twice as expensive as developing the software. During the 1990s, the cost of ownership and maintenance increased by 30% over the 1980s. In 1995, statistics showed that half of surveyed development projects were operational, but were not considered successful. The average software project overshoots its schedule by half. Three-quarters of all large software products delivered to the customer are failures that are either not used at all, or do not meet the customer's requirements. Software projects Seemingly, every new technology and practice from the 1970s through the 1990s was trumpeted as a silver bullet to solve the software crisis. Tools, discipline, formal methods, process, and professionalism were touted as silver bullets: Tools: Especially emphasized were tools: structured programming, object-oriented programming, CASE tools such as ICL's CADES CASE system, Ada, documentation, and standards were touted as silver bullets. Discipline: Some pundits argued that the software crisis was due to the lack of discipline of programmers. Formal methods: Some believed that if formal engineering methodologies would be applied to software development, then production of software would become as predictable an industry as other branches of engineering. They advocated proving all programs correct. Process: Many advocated the use of defined processes and methodologies like the Capability Maturity Model. Professionalism: This led to work on a code of ethics, licenses, and professionalism. In 1986, Fred Brooks published his No Silver Bullet article, arguing that no individual technology or practice would ever make a 10-fold improvement in productivity within 10 years. Debate about silver bullets raged over the following decade. Advocates for Ada, components, and processes continued arguing for years that their favorite technology would be a silver bullet. Skeptics disagreed. Eventually, almost everyone accepted that no silver bullet would ever be found. Yet, claims about silver bullets pop up now and again, even today. Some interpret no silver bullet to mean that software engineering failed. However, with further reading, Brooks goes on to say: "We will surely make substantial progress over the next 40 years; an order of magnitude over 40 years is hardly magical ..." The search for a single key to success never worked. All known technologies and practices have only made incremental improvements to productivity and quality. Yet, there are no silver bullets for any other profession, either. Others interpret no silver bullet as proof that software engineering has finally matured and recognized that projects succeed due to hard work. However, it could also be said that there are, in fact, a range of silver bullets today, including lightweight methodologies (see "Project management"), spreadsheet calculators, customized browsers, in-site search engines, database report generators, integrated design-test coding-editors with memory/differences/undo, and specialty shops that generate niche software, such as information web sites, at a fraction of the cost of totally customized web site development. Nevertheless, the field of software engineering appears too complex and diverse for a single "silver bullet" to improve most issues, and each issue accounts for only a small portion of all software problems. 1990 to 1999: Prominence of the Internet The rise of the Internet led to very rapid growth in the demand for international information display/e-mail systems on the World Wide Web. Programmers were required to handle illustrations, maps, photographs, and other images, plus simple animation, at a rate never before seen, with few well-known methods to optimize image display/storage (such as the use of thumbnail images). The growth of browser usage, running on the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), changed the way in which information-display and retrieval was organized. The widespread network connections led to the growth and prevention of international computer viruses on MS Windows computers, and the vast proliferation of spam e-mail became a major design issue in e-mail systems, flooding communication channels and requiring semi-automated pre-screening. Keyword-search systems evolved into web-based search engines, and many software systems had to be re-designed, for international searching, depending on search engine optimization (SEO) . Human natural-language translation systems were needed to attempt to translate the information flow in multiple foreign languages, with many software systems being designed for multi-language usage, based on design concepts from human translators. Typical computer-user bases went from hundreds, or thousands of users, to, often, many-millions of international users. 2000 to 2015: Lightweight methodologies With the expanding demand for software in many smaller organizations, the need for inexpensive software solutions led to the growth of simpler, faster methodologies that developed running software, from requirements to deployment, quicker & easier. The use of rapid-prototyping evolved to entire lightweight methodologies, such as Extreme Programming (XP), which attempted to simplify many areas of software engineering, including requirements gathering and reliability testing for the growing, vast number of small software systems. Very large software systems still used heavily documented methodologies, with many volumes in the documentation set; however, smaller systems had a simpler, faster alternative approach to managing the development and maintenance of software calculations and algorithms, information storage/retrieval and display. Current trends in software engineering Software engineering is a young discipline, and is still developing. The directions in which software engineering is developing include: Aspects Aspects help software engineers deal with quality attributes by providing tools to add or remove boilerplate code from many areas in the source code. Aspects describe how all objects or functions should behave in particular circumstances. For example, aspects can add debugging, logging, or locking control into all objects of particular types. Researchers are currently working to understand how to use aspects to design general-purpose code. Related concepts include generative programming and templates. Experimental Experimental software engineering is a branch of software engineering interested in devising experiments on software, in collecting data from the experiments, and in devising laws and theories from this data. Proponents of this method advocate that the nature of software is such that we can advance the knowledge on software through experiments only. Software product lines Software product lines, aka product family engineering, is a systematic way to produce families of software systems, instead of creating a succession of completely individual products. This method emphasizes extensive, systematic, formal code reuse, to try to industrialize the software development process. The Future of Software Engineering conference (FOSE), held at ICSE 2000, documented the state of the art of SE in 2000 and listed many problems to be solved over the next decade. The FOSE tracks at the ICSE 2000 and the ICSE 2007 conferences also help identify the state of the art in software engineering. Software engineering today The profession is trying to define its boundary and content. The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge SWEBOK has been tabled as an ISO standard during 2006 (ISO/IEC TR 19759). In 2006, Money Magazine and Salary.com rated software engineering as the best job in America in terms of growth, pay, stress levels, flexibility in hours and working environment, creativity, and how easy it is to enter and advance in the field. Sub-disciplines Artificial intelligence A wide variety of platforms has allowed different aspects of AI to develop, ranging from expert systems such as Cyc to deep-learning frameworks to robot platforms such as the Roomba with open interface. Recent advances in deep artificial neural networks and distributed computing have led to a proliferation of software libraries, including Deeplearning4j, TensorFlow, Theano and Torch. A 2011 McKinsey Global Institute study found a shortage of 1.5 million highly trained data and AI professionals and managers and a number of private bootcamps have developed programs to meet that demand, including free programs like The Data Incubator or paid programs like General Assembly. Languages Early symbolic AI inspired Lisp and Prolog, which dominated early AI programming. Modern AI development often uses mainstream languages such as Python or C++, or niche languages such as Wolfram Language. Prominent figures in the history of software engineering Charles Bachman (1924-2017) is particularly known for his work in the area of databases. Laszlo Belady (born 1928) the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering in the 1980s. Fred Brooks (born 1931) best known for managing the development of OS/360. Peter Chen (born 1947) known for the development of entity-relationship modeling. Edsger Dijkstra (1930–2002) developed the framework for a form of structured programming. David Parnas (born 1941) developed the concept of information hiding in modular programming. Michael A. Jackson (born 1936) software engineering methodologist responsible for JSP method of program design; JSD method of system development (with John Cameron); and Problem Frames approach for analysing and structuring software development problems. David Pearson (computer scientist) (born 1946) designed and developed the ICL CADES system 1968-1977 and went on to become a computer graphics pioneer. Richard Stallman Created the GNU system utilities and championed free software See also History of software History of computer science History of programming languages References External links Oral history interview with Bruce H. Barnes, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Barnes describes the National Science Foundation (NSF) and its support of research in theoretical computer science, computer architecture, numerical methods, and software engineering, and the development of networking. Oral history interview with Laszlo A. Belady, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Software engineering Software engineering History of computing

7792347

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian%20Sommerville%20%28software%20engineer%29

Ian Sommerville (software engineer)

Ian F. Sommerville, (born 23 February 1951) is a British academic. He is the author of a popular student textbook on software engineering, as well as a number of other books and papers. He worked as a professor of software engineering at the University of St Andrews in Scotland until 2014 and is a prominent researcher in the field of systems engineering, system dependability and social informatics, being an early advocate of an interdisciplinary approach to system dependability. Education and personal life Ian Sommerville was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1951. He studied Physics at Strathclyde University and Computer Science at the University of St Andrews. He is married and has two daughters. As an amateur gourmet, he has written a number of restaurant reviews. Academic career Ian Sommerville was a lecturer in Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland from 1975 to 1978 and at Strathclyde University, Glasgow from 1978–86. From 1986 to 2006, he was Professor of Software Engineering in the Computing Department at the University of Lancaster, and in April 2006 he joined the School of Computer Science at St Andrews University, where he taught courses in advanced software engineering and critical systems engineering. He retired in January 2014 and since continues to do software-related things that he finds interesting. Ian Sommerville's research work, partly funded by the EPSRC has included systems requirements engineering and system evolution. A major focus has been system dependability, including the use of social analysis techniques such as ethnography to better understand how people and computers deliver dependability. He was a partner in the DIRC (Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in Dependability) consortium, which focused on dependable systems design and is now (2006) working on the related INDEED (Interdisciplinary Design and Evaluation of Dependability) project. He has also been a member of the board of advisors to the IEEE SWEBOK project. He has worked on a number of European projects involving collaboration between academia and commercial enterprises, such as the ESPRIT project REAIMS (Requirements Engineering adaptation and improvement for safety and dependability). Public activities In 2006, Ian Sommerville was one of 23 academics in the computer field who wrote open letters calling for an independent audit of the British National Health Service's proposed Programme for IT (NPfIT) and expressing concern about the £12.4 billion programme. Publications Most widely read of Sommerville's publications is probably his student text book "Software Engineering", currently in its 10th edition along with other textbooks Sommerville has also authored or co-authored numerous peer reviewed articles, papers. References 1951 births Academics of Heriot-Watt University Academics of Lancaster University Academics of the University of St Andrews Academics of the University of Strathclyde Alumni of the University of St Andrews Alumni of the University of Strathclyde British computer scientists Scottish computer scientists Living people Engineers from Glasgow Software engineering researchers Computer science educators Engineering writers British science writers

15736910

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music%20Macro%20Language

Music Macro Language

Music Macro Language (MML) is a music description language used in sequencing music on computer and video game systems. Background Early automatic music generation functions were used in arcade games, which used many computer sounds. An example of an early popular Arcade game with music is The Circus from Exidy Corporation in 1977. The boom in Japanese video games was heralded in 1978 by the appearance in Japanese game centers (Amusement arcades) of Space Invaders by Taito. The music was all proprietary (closed source). The 1978 release of the Programmable interval timer by Intel was significant. The Intel 8253 Mode 3 Square Wave generator was used for music, in the Kit computer MZ-40K () by SHARP Corporation, made in Japan at May 1978. Another Micro computer BASIC MASTER MB-6880(ja) used a 5Bit D/A converter music automated reference signal. Also important was the development of a method to generate using BASIC software. The machine was assembled by Hitachi, Ltd. and made in Japan in September 1978. The MZ-40K featured an open architecture and program sources, was therefore a kind of open source software. Versions Classical MML The first commands for classical MML appeared in the internal architecture of the SP-1002 MONITOR IOCS and SP-5001 BASIC Operating Systems on the MZ-80K 8-bit computer. Made by SHARP Corporation at 1978 in Japan. It incorporated Intel 8253 hardware and memory mapped I/O. The sound-related BASIC Statements were MUSIC, TEMPO, and BEEP. Syntax Classical MML as used in BASIC is described here. "MML Commands" are supplied to the MUSIC statement. Notes are specified in a three-octave range. A song is a sequence of mono single tones. "+" (or in some old code, "￣") indicates upper octave, "- " (or in some old code, "＿") indicates the lower octave. The characters "CDEFGAB" correspond to a scale ("Doremi Faso Lassi"). A semitone is indicated by following the note with a '#' character. The note names are followed by a tone length, indicated by a number from 0–9. Similarly, R indicates a rest, and is also followed by a number from 0-9 indicating length. Sound length Internal value × TEMPO values.Tone length Demisemiquaver is 0 (SP-1002 Internal value is 1)- Whole note is 9 (SP-1002 Internal value is 32). Music played on Call to $0030 SP-1002 IOCS program routine. Statements TEMPO n is 1–9, the slowest 1.TEMPO 4 is similar T=120. Example Below is the popular Japanese song "tōryanse" written using MML in MZ-731 SHARP S-BASIC 1Z-007B (SP-5001 Upper compatible). 10 TEMPO 4 20 A$="E5R1E3R0D3R0E3R0E1R0D1R0-G4R1" 30 B$="F3R0F1R0F1R0A3R0F1R0E1R0D1R0D1R0E5R0" 40 C$="C3R0C1R0C1R0E3R0C1R0-B1R0C1R0-B1R0-A1R0-A1-B5R0" 50 D$="E1R0E1R0E1R0E1R0E1R0E1R0D1R0E1R0E1R0E1R0D1R0-A1R0-A1R0B3R1" 60 E$="-A1R0-B1R0C1R0D1R0E1R0F1R0E1R0F3R1A3R1B1R0A1R0F3R0E3R0E1R0E4R0" 100 MUSIC A$+B$+B$ 110 MUSIC C$+C$+B$ 120 MUSIC C$+D$+E$ Modern MML Modern MML originally appeared in Microsoft BASIC and was common in the early 1970s and 1980s on 8-bit and 16-bit era Japanese personal computers. The NEC PC-6001 included Microsoft BASIC and the Programmable Sound Generator in 1981. The MML was especially popular on NEC's personal computers, such as the NEC PC-8801. With the 2001 release of the mck (Music Creation Kit) software for compiling MML to play music on the Nintendo Entertainment System, awareness and use of MML increased. MML is presently popular among Japanese electronic musicians and musicians who create chiptunes as a way to write music for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Syntax Modern MML originated as a sub-language of BASIC, then generally included in ROM on micro-computers. A PLAY statement uses an argument to define a string of tones that the sound-chip played. MML code has a simple text format whereby letters and numbers are used to describe the musical notes to be played. In addition, various implementations of MML add system extensions allowing parameters of audio synthesis to be altered with specialized commands or to simplify the entry of common musical figures such as arpeggios. Though many platforms feature custom extensions and letter case requirements and other minor syntactical features vary slightly in some implementations, the fundamental syntax rules, commands and features that define MML and are present in whole or in part in all implementations are as follows: cdefgab — The letters a to g correspond to the musical pitches and cause the corresponding note to be played. Sharp notes are produced by appending a + or #, and flat notes by appending a -. The length of a note is specified by appending a number representing its length as a fraction of a whole note — for example, c8 represents a C eighth note, and f+2 an F♯ half note. p — A pause or rest. Sometimes also r, although the original IBM and Microsoft BASIC used p, as do all clones (e.g. the Linux and BSD speaker devices). The length of the rest is specified in the same manner as the length of a note — for example, r1 produces a whole rest. o — Followed by a number, o selects the octave the instrument will play in. >, < — Used to step up or down one octave. l — Followed by a number, specifies the default length used by notes or rests which do not explicitly define one. For example, l8 g a b g l16 g a b g produces a series of four eighth notes followed by a series of four sixteenth notes. v — Followed by a number, sets the volume of the instrument. The range of values allowed is dependent upon the specific sound hardware being used. Some implementations also allow an ADSR envelope to be applied to the amplitude of each note. t — Followed by a number, sets the tempo in beats per minute. On hardware with more than one sound channel, it is often possible to set each channel to a different tempo. In addition to these, most implementations add their own keywords and symbols for system-specific enhancements or extensions. Example Below is a Modern MML transcription of Dance of the Cuckoos (with white-space for clarity, though some MML interpreters will require this to be stripped before playing). t104 l4 > c16f16 a>c8<a c16f16 a>c8<a c8 b-8>c8<b-8 g c8 a8>c8<a8 f c16f16 a>c8<a c16f16 a>c8<a c8 b-8>c8<b-8 g >c8 <f2 SMX Standard Musical eXpression (SMX) is a variant of Modern MML provided by Microsoft in QBASIC, BASICA, and GW-BASIC's statement. The version used by GW-BASIC is part of the modern BSDs, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and MirOS; see speaker(4) for the language. Languages, platforms and software Epic Games's ZZT and Super ZZT, as well as the open-source clone named MegaZeux, use a very compact variant of MML for the PLAY command, with only one channel for the PC Speaker Microsoft's QBASIC, BASICA, and GW-BASIC all feature a PLAY statement which takes a string argument in the SMX format. The name "Music Macro Language" may originate with GW-BASIC, which provided a facility "to play music by embedding a music macro language into the string data type." The SBasic compiler from the German magazine DOS Extra, produced by DMV Widuch, offers the same PLAY command, and a few-line BASIC programme could be compiled into a small (few KiB) tool to play any MML files (often called *.PLY) given on the command line. Eric S. Raymond wrote a UNIX System V driver that offers /dev/speaker in a GW-BASIC-compatible format. It was subsequently ported to 386BSD and is present modern BSD operating systems. The NEC PC-8801's BASIC dialect, N88-BASIC, used MML in its PLAY statement, as did several other implementations of BASIC produced or sold by NEC. Chiptune composer Yuzo Koshiro created a heavily modified version. According to Koshiro, it "was more a BASIC-style language at first, but I modified it to be something more like Assembly. I called it ‘Music Love'. I used it for all the Bare Knuckle Games."<ref name="hg101_retro"> Reprinted from {{citation|title=Retro Gamer|issue=67|year=2009}}</ref> Various MML utilities were written for the NEC PC-9801 family of computers, including PMD (Professional Music Driver) by game composer Masahiro Kajihara (most commonly known as KAJA), which was used by composer Ryu Umemoto for games like EVE Burst Error and Grounseed, as well as by game developer ZUN for most of his first five Touhou Project'' games. The mck, pmck, and ppmck utilities for creating Nintendo Entertainment System music, and a number of other tools for creating music for other hardware, such as the Bandai WonderSwan, the NEC PC Engine, and the Sega Mega Drive. The xpmck utility for creating music for various systems, including the Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo Game Boy, and Commodore 64. Some cellular phones utilize MML as a ringtone format. The RTTTL ringtone language exhibits many of the characteristics of MML. An escape sequence was defined to allow terminal programs play music encoded in MML. Because of this music in MML is sometimes called ANSI Music. On the MSX computer system, the built-in MSX BASIC also uses MML with PLAY-command. Comma separated strings represent separate voice channels. Music hardware expansions such as MSX-Music, MSX-Audio and MSX-MIDI expand PLAY-command so that also FM-chips and external MIDI devices can be controlled through MML. Sharp Pocket computer music routine PLAYX - MyArchive.Nihongo -> :ja:ポケットコンピュータの製品一覧. Macrotune is a free MML editor available for Windows and OS X while also offering Shared libraries for software/game developers. FlopPI-Music (archived old documentation page) uses an extended format with a file header with metadata (such as Author, Title, etc.), a newline, and then one line for each staff, supporting multiple instruments, with bar lines. It's designed to output to up to eight 3½″ floppy disc drives on Raspberry Pi GPIO ports. It also contains a standalone MML parser and MusicXML exporter library and utility, tested with MuseScore, allowing easy debugging of especially mass-parallel MML files, score sheet printing (ideally after some minimal postprocessing, but the defaults are usually legible), etc. – Floppi-Music and MMLlib is Free Software written in pure Python. Petit Computer and SmileBASIC both offer BGMPLAY functions, which can either take a preset MML track or one provided as a string. An MMO called Mabinogi allows players to type MML code onto in-game music score scrolls which can then be played for everyone nearby to hear using an equipped instrument. Due to that social aspect, users often made their own MML versions of popular songs and uploaded them to fan sites. The game also teaches users the syntax via skill books, which doubled as a way to unlock a higher size limit when writing the code. ArcheAge MMO provides the same features. A Windows program called 3MLE was made by a Mabinogi user to assist in writing MML scrolls. The program functions similarly to an IDE, allowing the user to write, optimize, and test MML code for different instruments. See also Chiptune Electronic music HTML5 audio MIDI Synthetic music mobile application format References Music notation file formats Video game music file formats Audio programming languages Free audio software Electronic music software Video game music technology

52298561

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal%20of%20Cases%20on%20Information%20Technology

Journal of Cases on Information Technology

The Journal of Cases on Information Technology (JCIT) is a quarterly peer-reviewed applied research academic journal which focuses on information technology. It is published by IGI Global. The journal was established in 1999. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed by the following, among others: ACM Digital Library Compendex DBLP Inspec Scopus Web of Science: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) References External links Publications established in 1999 English-language journals Quarterly journals Cases on Information Technology, Journal of Computer science journals

4813015

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound%20Blaster%2016

Sound Blaster 16

The Sound Blaster 16 is a series of sound cards by Creative Technology. They are add-on boards for PCs with an ISA or PCI slot. Sound Blaster 16 Sound Blaster 16 (June 1992), the successor to the Sound Blaster Pro, introduced CD-quality digital audio to the Sound Blaster line. For optional wavetable synthesis, the Sound Blaster 16 also added an expansion-header for add-on MIDI-daughterboards, called a Wave Blaster connector, and a game port for optional connection with external MIDI sound modules. The Sound Blaster 16 retained the Pro's OPL-3 support for FM synthesis, and was mostly compatible with software written for the older Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro sound cards. The SB16's MPU-401 emulation was limited to UART (dumb) mode only, but this was sufficient for most MIDI software. When a daughterboard, such as the Wave Blaster, Roland SCB-7, Roland SCB-55, Yamaha DB50XG, Yamaha DB60XG was installed on the Sound Blaster, the Wave Blaster behaved like a standard MIDI device, accessible to any MPU-401 compatible MIDI software. The ASP or CSP chip added some new features to the Sound Blaster line, such as hardware-assisted speech synthesis (through the TextAssist software), QSound audio spatialization technology for digital (PCM) wave playback, and PCM audio compression and decompression. Software needed to be written to leverage its unique abilities, yet the offered capabilities lacked compelling applications. As a result, this chip was generally ignored by the market. The ASP was a SGS-Thomson ST18932 DSP core with 16K of program RAM and 8K of data RAM. The Sound Blaster 16 featured the then widely used TEA2025 amplifier IC which, in the configuration Creative had chosen, would allow approximately 700 milliwatts (0.7 watts) per channel when used with a standard pair of unpowered, 4-Ohm multi-media speakers. Later models (typically ones with ViBRA chips) used the also then-widely used TDA1517 amplifier IC. By setting an onboard jumper, the user could select between line-level output (bypassing the on-board amplifier) and amplified-output. The Sound Blaster 16 was hugely popular. Creative's audio revenue grew from US$40 million per year to nearly US$1 billion following the launch of the Sound Blaster 16 and related products. Rich Sorkin was General Manager of the global business during this time, responsible for product planning, product management, marketing and OEM sales. Due to its popularity and wide support, the Sound Blaster 16 is emulated in a variety of virtualization and/or emulation programs, such as DOSBox, QEMU, Bochs, VMware and VirtualBox, with varying degrees of faithfulness and compatibility. CD-ROM Support Early Intel PCs built after the IBM PC/AT typically only included support for one ATA interface (which controlled up to two ATA devices.) As computer needs grew it became common for a system to need more than 1 ATA interface. With the development of the CD-ROM, many computers could not support it since both devices of the one channel were already used. Some Sound Blaster 16 boards (CT2940 for example) provided an additional IDE interface to computers that had no spare ATA-ports for a CDROM, though the additional drive interface typically only supported one device rather than two, it typically only supported CD ROM drives, and it usually could not support additional hard drives. Proprietary CD-ROM standards were also supported by several Sound Blaster 16 cards. Mitsumi (CT2700) and Philips/LMSI (CT1780) for example. Most Sound Blaster 16 cards came with the Panasonic / Matsushita interface, which resembles IDE with the 40PIN connector. The Sound Blaster with the SCSI controller (SB 16 SCSI-2, CT1770, CT1779) was designed for use with "High End" SCSI based CD-ROM drives. The controller did not have the on-board firmware (Boot BIOS) to start an OS from a SCSI hard drive. Normally that meant that SCSI device ID-0 and ID-1 were not used. As well, if the computer did have a SCSI hard drive with the required SCSI controller then the settings for the SCSI controller on the SB card had to be selected so that the SB SCSI-2 interface did not conflict with the main SCSI controller. Most Sound Blaster 16 cards feature connectors for CD-audio input. This was a necessity since most operating systems and CD-ROM drives of the time did not support streaming CD-audio digitally over the main interface. The CD-audio input could also be daisy-chained from another sound generating device, such as an MPEG decoder or TV tuner card. OPL-3 FM and CQM Synthesis options Sound Blaster 16 cards sold separately feature a CT1747, a chip which has the discrete Yamaha YMF262 OPL-3 FM synthesizer integrated. Some post-1995 cards (notably the CT2910) feature the fully compatible YMF289 FM synthesis chip instead. Starting in late 1995, Creative utilized a cost-reduced, software-compatible replacement for the OPL-3 FM support termed CQM synthesis. However, its synthesis was far from being entirely faithful to the OPL-3 chips, producing considerable distortion along with high-pitched 'squeaking' or 'ringing' artifacts in FM-synthesized music and sound effects. Boards utilizing CQM synthesis feature a CT1978 chip, or they may have CQM integrated in the case of ViBRA16C/X-based boards. Models The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound Blaster 16: CT12**: CT1230, CT1231, CT1239, CT1290, CT1291, CT1299 CT17**: CT1730, CT1740, CT1749, CT1750, CT1759, CT1770, CT1779, CT1780, CT1789, CT1790, CT1799 CT22**: CT2230, CT2290 CT27**: CT2700, CT2740, CT2750, CT2770 CT28**: CT2830, CT2840 CT29**: CT2910, CT2940, CT2950 CT41**: CT4170 Note: various PCBs with the same model number were shipped with a different configuration regarding CD-ROM interfaces, sockets and presence/absence of the ASP/CSP chip. The following models were typically equipped with an ASP/CSP socket: CT1740, CT1750, CT1770, CT1790, CT2230, CT2740, CT2950, CT2290. The Sound Blaster Easy 16 (CT2750) was sold with the ASP/CSP chip and a parallel CD-ROM port and 1 audio out. Sound Blaster VIBRA 16 The Sound Blaster VIBRA 16 was released as a cost-reduced, more integrated Sound Blaster 16 chipset targeting OEMs and the entry-level to mid-range markets. Some variants support Plug and Play for Microsoft Windows operating systems. It lacked separate bass, treble and gain control (except CT2502 chip), and an ASP/CSP socket. Some models even lacked the Wave Blaster connector while other came equipped with the connector. Several different revisions of the VIBRA chipset exist: VIBRA16S, the first revision, with an external YMF262/YMF289 OPL-3 or CT1978 CQM synthesis chip. The CT2501, CT2502 and CT2504 chips are ViBRA16S parts. The smaller CT2504 does not incorporate a bus controller, and may depend on external jumpers or a Plug and Play-compatible CT1705 chip for its logical configuration. The larger CT2501 and CT2502 integrate the bus controller. VIBRA16C, the next revision, which integrates Creative's CQM synthesis and a Plug-and-Play compatible bus controller into the CT2505 chip. The CT2505 is also featured as an on-board sound chip on some motherboards and on Asus Media Bus cards. VIBRA16CL, revision used on VIBRA CT4100 and CT4130 with CT2508 chip. VIBRA16X/XV, a much smaller CT2511 chip extensively featured on later WavEffects cards, which also utilizes CQM synthesis. Models The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound Blaster VIBRA 16: CT12**: CT1260, CT1261, CT1262 CT22**: CT2260 CT28**: CT2800, CT2810, CT2860, CT2890 CT29**: CT2900, CT2940, CT2941, CT2942, CT2943, CT2945, CT2950, CT2960, CT2970, CT2980, CT2990 CT41**: CT4100, CT4101, CT4102, CT4130, CT4131, CT4132, CT4150, CT4173, CT4180, CT4181, CT4182 Note: various PCBs with the same model number were shipped with a different configuration regarding CD-ROM interfaces and sockets. Even among the same models variations exist; for example, some OEM-specific cards were made without the TEA2025/TDA1517 amplifier to reduce costs. Sound Blaster 16 WavEffects The Sound Blaster 16 WavEffects was released in 1997 as a cheaper and simpler redesign of the Sound Blaster 16. It came with Creative WaveSynth also bundled on Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, a physical modeling software synthesizer developed by Seer Systems (led by Dave Smith), based on Sondius WaveGuide technology (developed at Stanford's CCRMA). The WavEffects line also supports CQM synthesis for Adlib/OPL compatibility. Models The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound Blaster 16 WavEffects: CT417*: CT4170, CT4171, CT4173 Sound Blaster 16 PCI In 1998, Creative Technology acquired Ensoniq and subsequently released the Sound Blaster 16 PCI. The Sound Blaster 16 PCI was based on Ensoniq AudioPCI technology and is therefore unrelated to the ISA Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster 16 VIBRA and Sound Blaster 16 WavEffects. It has no dedicated hardware for Adlib/OPL support, instead using the Ensoniq sample-synthesis engine to simulate it, though this simulation is considered very inaccurate compared to the original OPL chips. Fortunately it is General MIDI compatible in most games. Models The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound Blaster 16 PCI: CT47**: CT4700, CT4730, CT4740, CT4750, CT4790 CT58**: CT5801, CT5803, CT5805, CT5806, CT5807 Capacitor and sound quality issues As many Sound Blaster 16s are now well over 20 years old, many cards suffer from symptoms related to aging capacitors, ranging from muffled or distorted output to the cards failing to function properly. In addition, with regard to the headphone amplifier design on most boards, Creative did not fully adhere the datasheets' recommendations on component values, potentially impacting the amplified output's sound quality. Some users have found that replacing the capacitors with fresh ones of the recommended values noticeably improved both amplified and line-level audio quality, in addition to restoring proper operation. Daughterboard bugs A large number of Sound Blaster 16 cards have a flawed digital sound processor on board that causes various issues with MIDI daughtercards attached to the Wave Blaster header. The problems include stuck notes, incorrect notes, and various other flaws in MIDI playback. The particular Sound Blaster 16 cards that are affected carry DSP versions 4.11, 4.12 and some 4.13. DSP versions 4.16 or later, and older DSP versions such as 4.05 do not suffer from this bug. There is no workaround for this flaw and it occurs with all operating systems since it is an issue at the hardware level. The DSP version can be checked by running the "DIAGNOSE" utility in DOS or looking at the DSP chip on the sound card. A version number is printed on the CT1740A chip usually near the CT1745A mixer chip. Reception Computer Gaming World in 1993 stated that "We were not impressed with the quality of the digital audio" of the Sound Blaster 16 or 16 ASP, reporting "pops and extra noise" and incomplete Sound Blaster compatibility. The magazine instead recommended the "almost foolproof" Sound Blaster Pro or the original Sound Blaster. References External links Sound Blaster 16 FM emulator and online player for FM music IBM PC compatibles Creative Technology products Sound cards

27311422

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble%20Bundle

Humble Bundle

Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and the rest split between the game developers. Humble Bundle continues to offer these limited-time bundles, but have expanded to include a greater and more persistent storefront. The Humble Bundle concept was initially run by Wolfire Games in 2010, but by its second bundle, the Humble Bundle company was spun out to manage the promotion, payments, and distribution of the bundles. In October 2017, the company was acquired by Ziff Davis through its IGN Entertainment subsidiary, though operates as a separate subsidiary. Initial bundles were typically collections of independently developed games featuring multi-platform support (including Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms) provided without digital rights management (DRM). Occurring every few months, the two-week Humble Bundles drew media attention, with several bundles surpassing $1 million in sales. Subsequently, the bundles became more frequent and expanded to include games from established developers, AAA publishers, games for Android-based devices, bundles promoting game jams, and bundles featuring digital copies of music, books and comic books. Bundles are presently offered on a more regular basis, with a persistent storefront for individual game sales. The Humble Bundle offerings support a number of charities, including Action Against Hunger, Child's Play, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, charity: water, the American Red Cross, WaterAid and the Wikimedia Foundation. By the end of October 2014, participating developers had grossed more than $100 million and by September 2021, the total charitable amount raised by the Bundles exceeded $200 million across 50 different charities. The success of the Humble Bundle approach has inspired a number of similar efforts to offer "pay what you want" bundles for smaller games, including IndieGala and Indie Royale. The Humble Bundle operation has since grown to include a dedicated storefront, the Humble Store, and a publishing arm, Humble Games, to support indie games. As a corporation, Humble Bundle is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with about 60 employees. History The idea for the Bundle was from Jeff Rosen of Wolfire Games. Rosen describes the inspiration coming to him through similar sales of bundle packages on the Steam platform. Rosen had noted that such sales would have viral word-of-mouth spread across the Internet. Influence also came from a previous "pay-what-you-want" sale for World of Goo upon the title's first anniversary; over 57,000 copies of the game were purchased during this sale, generating over US$117,000 after considering PayPal handling fees. Rosen by this point was well connected with other independent developers, for example his brother David is listed as being a game tester for the Penumbra series, and Penumbra composer Mikko Tarmia contributed to Wolfire Games' game project Overgrowth. Wolfire had also recently teamed with Unknown Worlds Entertainment to offer a bundle based on their Natural Selection 2 game. The porter of Lugaru to Linux was Ryan C. Gordon, who was also responsible for porting Aquaria to Linux. With his close ties to these independent developers, as well as Ron Carmel of 2D Boy, Rosen was able to assemble the package, taking advantage of merchant sales systems offered by PayPal, Amazon Payments, and Google Checkout to minimize the cost of transactions and distribution. The site later added the option to pay via Bitcoin only through Coinbase. Though achieving word of mouth was a key element of the potential success of the bundle, Rosen also recognized that the process to purchase the Bundles had to be simple; including elements like user account registration or the use of a secondary download client would have potentially driven away sales. Rosen also sought to include charities in the bundle, allowing the purchaser to choose how to distribute the funds between the developers and charities. Rosen believed Child's Play was a worthwhile cause that brought video games to hospitalized children and helped to fight the stigma of video games, while he selected the Electronic Frontier Foundation to support their anti-DRM stance. The means of "pay-what-you-want" would allow purchasers to simply give the money to the charities, but Rosen felt this was not an issue and would "consider that a success" of the sale. Rosen and Wolfire employee John Graham provided technical support during the sales, handling thousands of requests through a few all-night email and chat sessions. Rosen and Graham began planning for a second Humble Indie Bundle, which launched in December 2010 and raised $1.8 million. The two recognized the value proposition of continuing this model, and spun out Humble Bundle as its own company shortly after the release of the second bundle. Rosen and Graham served as its founders. Sequoia Capital had invested $4.7 million of venture capital into Humble Bundle by April 2011, allowing Rosen and Graham to hire staff to help curate further bundles and handle customer services. On October 13, 2017, Humble Bundle announced it had been acquired by IGN Entertainment, a subsidiary of Ziff Davis. Humble Bundle will continue to operate as a separate entity within IGN, and according to the company, there are no plans to change their current business approach in the short-term. Instead, they see "a lot of opportunities" for the customer bases of both companies, according to Humble Bundle founder John Graham. Graham said that the acquisition by IGN enables them to continue to do the same sales and charity promotions "faster and better" with IGN's resources backing them. IGN's executive vice president Mitch Galbraith said that they felt Humble Bundle was a "great fit" for IGN, and would also help IGN to "give something back" by supporting its charitable drives. As IGN publishes news and reviews of video games, Galbraith responded to several concerns about conflicts of interest, saying that they "will strike the right balance when it comes to our coverage of Humble Bundle and the games they sell" as a result of the acquisition. Among steps to avoid conflicts, Galbraith said that they will keep a firm separation between the IGN editorial staff and Humble Bundle, and will implement policies to report disclosure of ownership when IGN reports on games featured on Humble Bundle's store or promotions. Rosen and Graham, the founders of Humble Bundle, announced in March 2019 that they have stepped down as CEO and COO of the company, respectively, with Alan Patmore taking over the company operations. Rosen stated that they felt that Humble Bundle had gotten to a point where it was stable with many potential growth opportunities, but beyond his or Graham's mindset of establishing startups. The two plan to remain as advisors to the company for at least the rest of the year. Business activities Humble Bundles Since its inception, the Humble Indie Bundle offerings are typically a two-week period where between three and five games are offered at a pay-what-you-want model. Most bundles have featured added bonuses that are announced midway through the period as added incentive for purchasing the games; previous purchases automatically receive these bonuses (after Humble Indie Bundle 9, these midway bonuses were made exclusive to above-average buyers). More recent bundles have included a "beat-the-average" bonus should the purchaser contribute more than the current average price others have performed. Other bundles have featured game soundtracks as either part of the core bundle or as an extra reward. With the DRM-free nature of the offered games, the source code for several games has also been included as part of the bundle's offerings. Humble Bundle works with developers to determine scheduling and availability of games, and make decisions about which games to include within bundles, asking themselves "will this be exciting for gamers", according to employee Richard Esguerra. The full arrangements with developers to create the bundle typically conclude a month before the bundle goes live. The Humble Bundle group earns about 15% of the total funds raised. The purchaser is able to name any price for the bundle. The Humble Bundle website interface gives users the chance to determine how to distribute their contribution, defaulting to a specific split between the developers, the charities for that event and a "Humble tip" which is used to cover hosting and other costs of the bundle. The purchasers can choose to give all or none to any of these groups, or any combination of these. In later bundles, purchasers can also buy the bundle as a gift for others. Games are typically available as standalone clients for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux-based systems; in many cases, the bundles represent the debut of a game on the latter two platforms. The purchaser can often also obtain redeemable codes for the games on services like Steam or, less often, Desura or Origin. To avoid abuse with these services, later bundles require a minimum purchase price of $1. Starting on October 31, 2013, Steam keys are automatically applied to the user's Steam account when redeemed, in an attempt to prevent the resale of keys. Subsequently, due to feedback, individual product Steam keys from bundle sales were allowed to be giftable to other users, giving them a unique URL through which the receiver could then redeem the key through Steam. -based Bundles were first launched in January 2012. These Bundles do not feature redemption codes for the Google Play store, but instead require the user to install the Humble Bundle which downloads the Android application package files for the apps directly to the user's device. Some bundles have included games available both on Android and Windows, allowing users to redeem the game for both systems. In May 2015, the Humble Nindie Bundle was introduced, which is the first Humble Bundle offering that includes games from a digital store on dedicated gaming consoles, being the Nintendo eShop on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS in this case. Due to logistical complications however, the initial offering was limited only to North America, although future offers may expand into other territories. Similarly, in August 2016, Capcom offered several of its PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 games through a Humble Bundle (using PlayStation Network redemption codes), though also limited to North American users. In April 2021, Humble Bundle announced that among other interface changes, they were removing the charity slider, and instead limiting the charity portion that one could give to either 5% (the default) or 15%. However, after criticism from both developers and users of the store, Humble said in May 2021 they would reverse this decision and retain these sliders, including the ability to pay fully to charity, as part of their overall site redesign. Later in July 2021, Humble announced they will implement a cap on charity amounts, assuring that between a minimum of 15-30% is kept through the storefront, though users will otherwise still be able to customize the charity split to this level. Humble said this cap was necessary for them to continue to benefit users in "the PC storefront landscape". Humble Store The Humble Store is an extension of the sales system developed for managing the Humble Bundles. It offers the capabilities of the payment and customer services that they had created for the various Bundles to independent developers as an alternate marketplace for these games. According to Joshua Knoles of the Humble Bundle team, they "wanted to create something that would allow developers to easily sell their games through their own web site as well as provide a painless buying experience for purchasers". Once developers have signed on with the Humble Store, they are given a widget that they can include on their web site which allows users to purchase the game (the Humble Store was usually inaccessible unless one directly searched for the widget for a particular game). In some cases, such as with FTL: Faster Than Light and Sportsfriends, the developers used the Humble Store to provide tier rewards during their crowd funding phase using sites like Kickstarter. As with the Bundles, once purchased the buyer has access to all software games from the store at any time. Ben Kuchera of "Penny Arcade Reports" compares the Humble Store as a potential competitor to virtual storefronts like Steam, offering a more personable level of service to developers and customers than these larger systems. In July 2016, Humble Bundle created its Gamepages service that offered developers that are already using the widget dedicated website space to allow them to sell and advertise their game, avoiding the need to secure this website space on their own. A dedicated Humble Store was launched in November 2013, where single games instead of bundles were put on daily sales, with 10% of the revenues being given to charities including the EFF, American Red Cross, and Child's Play. A new section for eBooks, audiobooks and digital comics launched alongside the games store on May 15, 2014. , the Humble Store has raised over four million dollars for the various charities it supports. In January 2019, the Humble Store added support for various Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 3DS games. Humble has also partnered with Epic Games to sell redeemable keys for games on the Epic Games Store. Humble Weekly Bundles Following the conclusion of the Humble Android Bundle 5 in March 2013, the site announced new weekly sales that feature the same pay-what-you-want for a single title, starting with the game Bastion. As with the regular bundles, each weekly sale has several tiered payment options. Aside from only lasting one week instead of two, running consecutively with main bundles, and being based on a singular theme (often a particular developer's games), the sales work exactly like the bundles. Humble Flash Bundles Another extension of Humble Bundles, the first Flash Bundle debuted on July 14, 2014. Taking cues from the two week "Humble Daily Bundle" promotion, Humble Flash Bundles are similar to Weekly Sales, but only last for 24 hours and may include repeats of previous bundles and sales. Humble Monthly and Humble Choice In October 2015, Humble Bundle launched its Humble Monthly subscription service; those that subscribed would receive a curated set of games at the start of each month, delivered in a similar manner as other Humble products (such as with Steam key redemption or DRM-free copies). Five percent of the subscription fees go to charity. Bowling compared the idea to a book club, allowing them to curate the monthly bundles on themes or complementary ideas. Bowling also stated that this can be a larger incentive towards developers into participating in this program since revenue for games can be better estimated based on the number of subscribers compared to their normal "pay what you want" pricing scheme. Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham stated that while initial subscription numbers were low due to potential subscribers being unaware of what type of games were offered, that by February 2016, they have reached more than 70,000 subscribers to the service. At this level, Humble Bundle is able to use some of the money to fund the development of new games, "Humble Originals", for those subscribers in future Humble Monthlies; the first such "Humble Original" was Elephant in the Room developed by Mighty Rabbit Studios, released with the February 2016 Monthly bundle. Starting in June 2017, those that maintained their monthly subscription also gained access to the Humble Trove, a library of DRM-free games that will expand over time, alongside the games offered through the Monthly bundles. Humble transitioned the Monthly subscription service to the Humble Choice in December 2019. While features such as access to the Humble Trove and discounts on the store remain the same, the Choice service offers at least ten games a month, and which Choice subscribers can choose a number to keep, based on their subscription tiers. A premium tier allows subscribers to keep 9 of the games, while the basic tier allows for 3. Existing Monthly subscribers were automatically transitioned to the premium tier (with the ability to keep 10 games), but at the existing Monthly subscription rate which they keep as long as they maintain their subscription. Additionally, Humble added a lower-cost tier that gives access to the Trove but no other free games. Another change to the Choice plan was made in January 2022, keeping the subscription to a single price that would make available all games offered that month, though the number of games that are offered may change from month to month. Those on the premiere tier further have access to a rotating library of games accessible through a new app for Windows computers. However due to this shift, Humble would no longer be able to support Mac or Linux versions of the Trove games since the launcher would be required to access them. Publishing In February 2017, Humble Bundle announced that it would begin to offer publisher services to developers across multiple platforms, including computer, console, and mobile devices, building upon its existing suite of services. Such games, such as A Hat in Time, were given a "Presented by Humble Bundle" label. Humble Bundle's lead for the publishing effort, John Polson, said that developers are able to pick and choose a selection of options that Humble Bundle can offer, recognizing that few publishing models are able to meet the vastly different needs of developers. Humble rebranded its publishing division as Humble Games in May 2020. In June 2020 Humble Bundle announced a Black Game Developer Fund. It aims to provide funding, production and marketing support via Humble Games to Black game developers. Analysis Success The first promotion was considered to be very successful. Rosen noted that they considered the million-dollar goal as a best-case scenario, but once the sale actually started, "it was immediately clear that we were on to something". Rosen would later attribute part of the success to Ars Technica writer Mike Thomspon, stating that he "immediately saw the potential" of the Bundle in an article written for the website just prior to the Bundle's sale period. Brandon Boyer of Boing Boing believed that it provided a model that "seems it could and should be repeated". The move to offer games in a price and manner that consumers were willing to buy was contrasted to larger software publishers that place artificial limitations on their content; Mike Masnick of Techdirt believed the Humble Bundle promotion worked as it "focus[ed] on giving people real reasons to buy, rather than just feeling entitled to define the terms under which they buy and looking for ways to limit those who want to interact with you in a different manner". The source for the promotion's website has been requested of Wolfire by several other groups, according to Rosen; Rosen continues to believe that many similar charitable sales can be seen in the future from the Humble Bundle's success. For future Bundles, Rosen desires to include lesser-known games in contrast to World of Goo and Braid, but has had to already reject some developers' requests to be included in a Bundle, claiming the games' quality may tarnish the Humble Indie Bundle branding. Instead, he believes smaller games with no wide profile and are "legitimately good" would be ideal for inclusion in future Bundles. As a result of the success of the bundle, other groups have started similar pay-what-you-want plans for other indie games, including IndieGala, Indie Royale and LittleBigBunch. PC Gamer named the Wolfire team as founders of the Humble Indie Bundle as their 2011 community heroes for their support of the indie game development market. Forbes listed John Graham in its 2013 "30 Under 30" leaders in the field of games for the success of Humble Bundle, while Rosen was recognized for the same in 2015. After the end of the Humble eBook Bundle, John Scalzi noted that various factors, such as brand name recognition, a lack of DRM, a focus on charity, the uniqueness of the bundle and its format, and the variety of included authors, all made the Humble eBook Bundle a success. Scalzi notes that while people who participate in Humble Bundles will get less in net profit than they would have without the bundle (due to the variable percentages patrons can donate and publishers taking their cut of proceeds), but in return receive greater volume (the Humble Bundle sold 42,000 copies of eBooks in two weeks, almost as much as the average monthly bestseller). In conclusion, Scalzi lauds the idea of the Humble Bundle, and notes to future contributors that while the bundle is low-margin, it's also low-risk. Novelist Cory Doctorow, who organized both eBook bundles, noted that while no publisher aside from Tor Books would participate in the bundle because of no-DRM stipulations, they still raised around $2 million for books whose circulations were earning their authors little to no money. Terence Lee of Hitbox Team also mentions that the Humble Bundle was a success for their game Dustforce, even after the bundle ended. When Humble Bundle first called the team and asked if they could port the game to Linux and bundle it, the game sold about ten copies on Steam daily. The day the Humble Indie Bundle 6 came out with Dustforce in it, sales through the Humble Bundle skyrocketed to over 50,000 copies per day. While Hitbox Team only received $178,000 out of the $2 million Humble Bundle made, the increased number of players caused daily sales of the game to jump from less than a dozen to around 50–60 copies per day. On the other hand, Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy developer Edmund McMillen noted in a tumblr post that the bundles are "not as successful as many would think." While the Humble Bundles are an excellent way for popular games to get a final boost in sales as well as to help lesser-known games get more attention, statistics have shown that sales dipped more in the years when Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy were in bundles than they were in following years. Ultimately, according to McMillen, Humble Bundles neither hurt nor help in the long run and now seem more of a tradition than anything else. Piracy Despite the ability to get the games at nearly zero cost, Wolfire Games estimate that 25% of the traceable downloads for the first Bundle have come from software piracy by links provided in some forums that bypass the payment screen to access the games; Wolfire further surmises additional piracy occurred through BitTorrent-type peer-to-peer sharing services. Rosen noted they purposely removed much of the DRM associated with games to appeal to those who would otherwise engage in software piracy, through both having the games ship without DRM and by having only limited copy protection on their website. Rosen also stated that for about ten users that emailed Wolfire about being unable to pay for the software, he personally donated on their behalf. Rosen comments that there may be legitimate reasons for those who appear to be pirating the game, including the inability to use the payment methods provided or that they had made a single large donation for multiple copies. Rosen also considered that there are players that would simply forward the download links to "take pleasure in spreading the pirated links to their friends or anonymous buddies for fun". Wolfire Games did take action to stop predatory sites, such as the closely named "wollfire.com", from selling illegal copies of the bundle. While aware of the presumed software piracy, Rosen says that Wolfire will take no steps to limit it, believing that "making the download experience worse for generous contributors in the name of punishing pirates doesn't really fit with the spirit of the bundle". Rosen noted that by offering the source code of the games as an incentive, they would hope that "the community will help build them up with the same vigor that crackers tear DRM down". In preparing for the second Humble Indie Bundle sale, John Graham acknowledged that some may still download the game through illegal means, but also said that the organizers of the bundle gave their best effort to make the process of purchasing the games simple, and they also wished to create a social impact with the sales by including contributions to Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. An anonymous survey conducted by Wolfire for those who felt it necessary to acquire the second Bundle from other illegitimate sources showed that some preferred the option of using peer-to-peer sharing services like BitTorrent to improve the speed and reliability of the download; as a result, Wolfire added the option to download the games through BitTorrent, hoping to entice more people to acquire the game legitimately. Software "counterfeits" Several games in the Humble Indie Bundles have been released as open-source software as a result of the Bundles reaching certain sales levels. One such game was Wolfire's own Lugaru HD, where they released the engine under the GNU General Public License, and also included the various art assets, level designs, and other creative elements under a freely redistributable license for personal use. Their intent was to allow programmers to experiment and improve the game's engine using the associated assets. Wolfire later began selling the title Lugaru HD on the Mac App Store for $9.99. A company called iCoder used the open-source resources to recreate the same game for the App Store, charging only $0.99 for their version of Lugaru. iCoder claims they have the right to recreate and charge for the game under the GNU license, but Jeffery Rosen notes that this did not apply to the art assets. Also, Apple's AppStore terms are not compatible with the GPL license. The iCoder version was taken down from the App Store after about a week since Wolfire notified Apple of the issue, though so far no explanation has been given by Apple. As the iCoder version of the application was popular, being the 60th most downloaded game application prior to its removal, Wolfire offered those who purchased the iCoder version a free copy of their version and codes to unlock the game from within Steam. Rosen notes that the incident may discourage developers from releasing their source in the future. Abuse The Humble Indie Bundle 4 overlapped with a large holiday sale on the Steam software service, which offered numerous prizes by completing some achievements associated with the offered games in Steam, including entries into a raffle to win every game on the Steam service. During this overlap, Humble Bundle found that some users were abusing the system, paying the minimum amount ($0.01) for the Bundle, registering new Steam accounts, and using the newly purchased games to improve their chances for the Steam raffle. Humble Bundle considered this "unfair to legitimate entrants" in the Steam contest, and to stop it, the company altered the sale so that only those who paid more than $1.00 would receive Steam keys for the games. In November 2013, Humble Bundle, Inc. implemented a system on redemption of bundles that, for Steam games, would not give the user the alphanumeric key but instead automatically redeemed the key within Steam through Steam account linking as a means to avoid abuse of the key system. Despite this, Ed Key, one of the developers from Proteus which was featured in Humble Indie Bundle 8, has found by checking his game's key redemption logs that some third-party sites, like 7 Entertainment, have been offering keys to his and other games from other Humble Bundles for profit. The price these sites offer undercut the current price of such games on digital marketplaces and without reciprocating sales back to the developers or charity organizations. Such resales are against both Humble Bundle's and Steam's terms of service, and currently Humble Bundle, Inc. is working with affected developers to help stop this abuse. 7 Entertainment has responded to these issues by changing its own terms of service to the marketplaces that use it to prevent and deal with these key sales. Criticism Developer compensation Alexander Zubov of Kot-in-Action Creative Artel who developed the Steel Storm games complained in an interview about the trouble he had getting his games accepted into the Bundles, originally trying to push their game's first episode as a free bonus for the second Bundle, and then trying to get their full game into the third. Zubov recalls that he had heard "nothing back" until they made a "last minute decision" to include Steel Storm: Burning Retribution in the Humble Indie Bundle 3. Even then, Zubov further described his dissatisfaction with how payment was handled, saying that they were "offered a tiny-tiny fraction of what HIB3 made, a very small (compared to the profits of HIB3) fixed amount of money" even though, according to Zubov, "when Steel Storm was released as a bonus, their sales jumped up significantly." He also mentioned that despite claims by the organizers that their sales would "sky rocket just because [they] were in the HIB3", their actual amount of sales remained relatively constant. Zubov noted that their inclusion in the third bundle "did get a lot of users who redeemed their copy of Steel Storm on Steam and Desura" and that they hoped this would help keep their "current user base, which we gained with HIB3, interested in our upcoming games". He concluded his comments about his experiences by saying that "only time will tell if HIB3 was [an] awesome deal or not. Maybe, maybe not. If it works out as a long term investment, it will be awesome indeed. If not, I will never ever participate in such capacity (as a bonus item for a small fixed payout) in the future HIB bundles. We all do have bills to pay and families to feed, don't we?" Prior to the sale, THQ had issued public statements of internal financial difficulties; Ben Kuchera of Penny Arcade Reports noted that several of the games' developers at THQ have since been let go and would not see any money from the Humble Bundle sale. Following the bundle, THQ's stock price increased by 30%. Sale timing Prior to the Humble Botanicula Debut, Botanicula was offered for pre-order through other websites but at full price, leading designers Amanita Design to apologize for the pricing disparity, offering those who pre-ordered a soundtrack, art book, and a copy of Machinarium. Linux port In the Humble Indie Bundle V, the game LIMBO was provided for Linux as a CrossOver build. At the time, this was the first game in any Bundle to have a Wine based Linux version. As the quality and the nativeness of such Linux ports is debated, the inclusion was criticized by some members of the Linux community. Also a petition was started to protest the inclusion of such as "non-native" described games in the Bundles. A native version of LIMBO was finally released in 2014 and was made available to Humble Indie Bundle 5 purchasers. Games with DRM Although Humble Bundle makes a point of offering games without DRM, the game Uplink in Humble Bundle for Android 3 was delivered with DRM copy-protection measures, both in the Android and the PC versions. A representative for Introversion stated on the forums that it was due to some leftover DRM code on the Android version. Kyle Orland of Ars Technica and Ben Kuchera were critical of the THQ Bundle's inclusion of games limited to Windows and containing DRM. Humble Bundle co-founder John Graham replied to these complaints, stating that the THQ bundle is one of several other experiments for the Humble Bundle project in 2012, and that they are still committed to future bundles featuring smaller and indie games that run on multiple platforms without DRM. References Further reading External links 2010 establishments in California American companies established in 2010 Video game companies established in 2010 Internet properties established in 2010 Articles containing video clips Charity fundraisers Companies based in San Francisco Pay what you want game vendors Video game publishers Video game companies of the United States 2017 mergers and acquisitions

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993%20Freedom%20Bowl

1993 Freedom Bowl

The 1993 Freedom Bowl was a college football bowl game between the Western Athletic Conference's Utah Utes and the Pacific 10 Conference's USC Trojans. After the Trojans jumped to a 28–0 halftime lead, the Utes shut them out in the second half, but were only able to counter with 21 points. USC won 28–21. References Freedom Bow Freedom Bowl USC Trojans football bowl games Utah Utes football bowl games 1993 in sports in California December 1993 sports events in the United States

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delrina

Delrina

Delrina was an electronic form company in Canada that was acquired by the American software firm Symantec in 1995. The company was best known for WinFax, a software package which enabled computers equipped with fax modems to transmit copies of documents to standalone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers. It also sold PerForm and FormFlow. Delrina also produced a set of screensavers, including one that resulted in a well-publicized lawsuit for copyright and trademark infringement (Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina). The case set a precedent in American law whereby satiric commercial software products are not subject to the same First Amendment exemptions as parodic cartoons or literature. It also sold online communications software with its WinComm product and produced a Web browser called Cyberjack. The firm was sold to Symantec in 1995. After the company was acquired by Symantec, various divisions were sold off and several of Delrina's former executives went on to found venture capital firms. Corporate history Delrina was founded in Toronto in 1988 by Zimbabwean expatriate Bert Amato, South African expatriates Mark Skapinker and Dennis Bennie and American Lou Ryan. Delrina was Bennie's third major entrepreneurial start up after co-founding Mission Electronics, a high-end home entertainment equipment producer, and Aviva Software, which became Ingram Micro Canada. Delrina's business strategy was to "establish technical and market leadership in niche markets", which it accomplished with its electronic form and PC-based fax software. A year before the firm was incorporated, Amato and Skapinker had quit their jobs to start work on an electronic forms product which would eventually become PerForm. Both would later meet with Bennie, who was then the co-founder and CEO of Ingram Micro Canada before becoming CEO of Carolian Systems International, a firm that made business software for Hewlett-Packard. Bennie facilitated an initial seed investment of $1.5 million CAD to finance a new start-up company, "Delrina", to develop this idea. In return, Carolian received 51% of Delrina's shares, Dennis Bennie would become Chairman and CEO, Mark Skapinker President, and Bert Amato CTO of newly formed Delrina Technology Inc. Delrina's initial corporate headquarters was located in a small office on Mount Pleasant Rd. in Toronto. A sales office was set up in San Jose, California which became its worldwide sales center run by co-founder Lou Ryan. From its Toronto headquarters, the company expanded by establishing branch offices in Kirkland, Washington; Washington, DC; and Lexington, Massachusetts. Other offices were later established in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Origins of PerForm Delrina's initial product offering was an electronic forms application called PerForm. Amato and Skapinker came up with the idea for the product while working as consultants that what their clients wanted was a way to fill in forms electronically, rather than an easier way to create paper-based forms from a computer. There was significant and long-term uptake of electronic forms products within governmental agencies both in Canada and the United States, the latter spurred on in particular by the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act to reduce the total amount of paperwork handled by the United States government. One of the firm's early major software deals included a multi-year agreement to sell PerForm to the U.S. Navy in 1990. Soon after the software was installed on Compaq laptops that accompanied U.S. troops during the First Gulf War, where it was used to requisition "everything from Coca-Cola to privies". Other significant volume sales went to 3M and Rockwell International. What helped set apart Delrina's electronic forms from its competitors in product reviews included its easy-to-use interface, its extensive development tools, and its comparatively low price. It also scored highly when it came to workflow and routing functions as well as security features. In early 1991 InfoWorld selected PerForm Pro as its "Product of the Year" in the electronic forms category, and PC World Magazine gave the product its "Best Buy" designation. PerForm proved to be successful in its niche, effectively capturing the retail market by 1993. In the early 1990s Delrina made deals with value-added resellers like NCR and GE Information Services who had the staff to customize the product to the needs of corporate customers looking to move away from paper-based forms. The forms products sold well and the annual revenues for the firm grew steadily; 1989 annual revenues (in Canadian dollars) were $5,630,393, in 1990 they were $8,759,623, and by 1991 they were $11,894,474. Struggle for profitability Despite the growing revenues, the company struggled to make a profit. Heavy expenditures—primarily marketing along with research and development costs—drove the firm's losses from $500,000 from 1989 to $1.5 million by the end of the following fiscal year. For fiscal 1991 it posted a net loss of $1.7 million. Needing an infusion of funds, in April 1991 Bennie managed to raise $7.7 million in a private placement. The firm subsequently sought to find ways to more widely distribute its electronic form software, with Bennie saying in May 1992 that "we've barely scratched the surface of our market". In early 1992 word leaked to the press on a possible merger between WordStar International Inc., and soon after both firms made public the fact that they had signed a letter of intent on a merger deal. However, just over a month later word came out that the merger talks had fallen through, at the time cited to differences over "complex legal, accounting and management issues". WordStar, whose share of the word processing market had by that time fallen to 5% (from a high of 80%) was seeking Delrina's advanced technologies while Delrina was hoping to utilize the other firm's established global sales network. Despite the failure of the merger talks, Bennie said soon after that "we're still convinced that a larger sales force would give us the kind of marketing clout we need. I still believe that it's possible for us to become a global operation". Not long after WordStar merged with Spinnaker Software Corporation and SoftKey Software Products Inc. to form SoftKey International. Delrina subsequently signed deals with Wallace Computer Services, UARCO and NCR Corporation in an effort to gain greater sales distribution of its products. Development of WinFax In a deliberate attempt to diversify the business, The Company chose to move into the fax software market with its WinFax product. Software developer Tony Davis (another South African expatriate who had moved to Canada) was initially hired as a consultant to work on the forms line of products in the late 1980s, soon afterwards becoming part of that team. In his spare time he developed a prototype of what would become the first WinFax product, with the agreement that Delrina would be its publisher. In 1990 Delrina devoted a relatively small space to this new product at that year's COMDEX (a computer trade show), under a sign that said simply: "Send a Fax from Your PC". It garnered the most attention of any Delrina product being demonstrated at that show. This interest convinced the founding partners of the commercial viability of the product. Tony Davis went on to sell his product idea to Delrina, and stayed on as its lead software architect and designer. The initial version of WinFax only worked on fax modems containing a specific chipset, and was only capable of sending faxes; it could not receive them. This was remedied with the launch of the WinFax PRO 2.0 product during the summer of 1991. One of the key factors that differentiated this version of WinFax from other fax software packages of the time was the deliberate attempt to make the program compatible with all fax/modems. Prior to the introduction of WinFax PRO 2.0, competitors concentrated primarily on building software that would only work with a single brand of fax/modem hardware. At the same time that it launched its WinFax PRO 2.0 product, Delrina also announced an OEM version of the same product designed to be bundled with new fax/modems. Within a few months, eight modem manufacturers had agreed to bundle this OEM version (called "WinFax LITE") of the program along with their own product. By the summer of the following year this number had grown to 50 OEM partnerships with various fax-modem and computer system manufacturers to bundle the "LITE" version of Delrina's WinFax software with their own products. By February 1993 this number had grown to over 100 OEM partnerships. Bundling the LITE version of WinFax proved to be lucrative for Delrina. Whenever a person used the program for the first time and submitted their registration information by fax to the company, Delrina would subsequently mail the user an upgrade offer for the PRO version. This sales technique proved to be very effective, and the firm ended up making most of its sales from these upgrades. In order to reach Apple computer users in this marketplace Delrina acquired Solutions Inc. and their BackFax software for the Macintosh platform in December 1991, which would become "Delrina Fax Pro". A version of the program was also designed for use in DOS ("DosFax PRO") which was launched in June 1992. Initially looking for ways to further improve its electronic forms software, in November 1991 Delrina had attempted to buy two associated firms that produced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, with the intention of incorporating OCR functionality into its forms products. The acquisition deal fell through, though by Fall 1992 Delrina had made a deal with Caere Corporation to include its AnyFax OCR software within its products. This functionality was incorporated into WinFax PRO 3.0 in late 1992, and subsequently in FormFlow Despite the agreement with Caere, the subsequent version of WinFax used Xerox's TextBridge OCR engine instead. Based on strong sales of WinFax, by October 1992 Delrina posted its first profitable quarter in three years. At the same time, the firm also announced its intention to acquire other software firms that sold into the consumer software market. Acquisition of Amaze Inc. In October 1992 Delrina acquired Amaze Inc., based out of Kirkland, Washington. The firm created daily planner software, providing time management features while providing some humour by featuring licensed cartoon strips like Cathy, Bloom County, B.C. and The Far Side. The firm became a wholly owned subsidiary of Delrina in a deal which also paid down Amaze's $3 million (U.S.) debt and placed two of the firm's directors on Delrina's board. These two individuals were Rowland Hanson, former VP Corporate Communications for Microsoft and George Clut. Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina One of Delrina's screensaver products was based on the licensed Bloom County characters Opus the Penguin and Bill the Cat. The initial Opus 'n Bill screensaver, launched in 1993, landed the company in court as its Death Toasters module depicted Opus taking shots at a number of flying toasters, a well-known emblem in Berkeley System's Flying Toasters module from their After Dark screensaver. Berkeley Systems sued for copyright and trademark infringement. The following court case of Berkeley Systems Inc. v. Delrina was fought by Delrina on the basis that a software-based parody should fall under the same First Amendment protection offered to the press. A preliminary injunction was filed against Delrina in September 1993 which halted the sale of the product, and subsequently forced a recall of it through the court. The case drew political satirist Mark Russell to speak in defense of Delrina, who argued in favour of the screensaver as a valid parody, while the estate of composer Irving Berlin sided with Berkeley. Commenting on the case involving his characters, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed said: "If David Letterman can depict the NBC peacock wearing men's boxer shorts, then Delrina should be able to plug a flying toaster with hot lead". Judge Eugene Lynch found in favour of Berkeley, citing that a commercial software product was not subject to the same exemptions as parodist literature, and that the toasters were too similar in design. The total cost of the court case and the recalled product was roughly $150,000 U.S. In the court case, it was also cited that the design for winged toasters was not original and that the Berkeley Systems' design was itself derived from the Jefferson Airplane album Thirty Seconds Over Winterland, which also used flying toasters adorned with wings. Berkeley argued that the firm was unaware of the previous artwork until 1991, and that the album cover's toasters had clocks in addition to their wings. Jefferson Airplane later sued Berkeley Systems in turn for the use of the same flying toaster emblem. The rock group lost the case as they did not trademark the album cover at the time of publication. The court decision was interpreted by the writer L. Ray Patterson as an erosion of First Amendment rights over the increasing protection provided to copyright holders. While Delrina lost the court case, the publicity it generated was substantial, with coverage in over a thousand newspapers across North America, resulting in consumers turning out in droves to buy the offending program before it could be recalled. Delrina subsequently removed the wings from the toasters and replaced them with propellers in order to avoid trademark infringement. The module was also renamed from "Death Toasters" to "Censored Toaster Module". Thanks to the publicity from the court case, sales of this new version ended up being triple what had been expected. Updated modules for this particular screensaver were sold for the next couple of years. Josef Zankowicz, who managed the firm's publicity during this period, later commented: "We had the feeling that we might get sued—actually, we prayed to get sued. Because by suing us, the number one player in the marketplace opened up the door. Anyone can create an interesting product, spend $10 million and create awareness of it. But it's another thing to create a product and spend one-tenth that amount and create twice as much awareness." This division of the firm at its height only represented less than 15% of the company's total revenues. WinFax The increasing sales of the WinFax product lead to significant growth in revenues for the firm; by 1992 its sales had climbed to $19,208,420, and more than doubling the next year to $48,583,932. The product soon overtook that of the initial forms product in terms of revenues, and within a few years of its launch, WinFax would account for 80% of the company's revenues. By 1994 the firm had sold more than 3 million copies of WinFax, and it regularly featured in the "Top 10" lists of software applications sold during this period. The rapid growth in sales of this product was unexpected, with Bennie quoted in an interview from late 1993 as saying "the success of WinFax really caught us by surprise". With the success of the WinFax product, the company grew rapidly. By early 1993 the number of employees had grown to 250, and by the end of the year to 350. The increasing success of the WinFax product consequently led to significant strains on the firm to handle the increasing volume of calls to its Technical Support department, as each of the over 300 modems on the market at the time had their own nuances in how they implemented the fax data standard. Delrina spent roughly $800,000 in an improved telephone infrastructure in an attempt to get wait times to under five minutes. In December 1993 Delrina hired 40 additional people to help alleviate the growing number of calls to the firm for technical support. By the end of 1994 the situation had improved to the point where noted industry commentator Robert X. Cringely put Delrina in his shortlist of firms providing "exceptional" product support. In order to further enhance the appeal of its new flagship product, in 1993 the firm established a Communication Services division, designed to tap into the commercial market. The firm started making deals with major telecommunication companies, such as BellSouth and MCI Inc. in preparation for the services the firm was about to offer. In November of that year the division launched its Fax Broadcast service. The Fax Broadcast service allowed subscribers to upload a single fax and a recipient list to Delrina. Systems at Delrina would then send out the fax to the recipients on that list, to a maximum of 500 fax numbers. A subsequent Fax Mailbox feature—which enabled subscribers to remotely access both fax and voice messages from a single phone number—was initially held up following a dispute with AlphaNet Telecom for the rights to the technology. This dispute was resolved by June 1994, though with both sides publicly disputing the story of the other, and with AlphaNet receiving an undisclosed sum in compensation. By late 1994 the firm was considered one of the fastest-growing software companies in North America, and employed over 500 people, most located at its offices in Toronto. The firm's financial situation improved greatly, and by February 1995 Delrina was reported to have captured almost three-quarters of the fax software market, was debt-free and had $40 million in the bank. The firm was shipping 200,000 units of WinFax a month, and had an installed base of four million users. The cost of doing business had also improved, as the firm's cost of sales was now 25% of net sales, down from 30% the previous fiscal year, improving the firm's gross profits. The impact of Windows 95 In November 1992 Skapinker met Bill Gates at a Microsoft-sponsored dinner where he asked whether there were any plans to include any fax functionality in their forthcoming operating system (which could become Windows 95). Gates replied that there were plans to include "base-level fax capability" in the next version of Windows, and suggested that Skapinker get in touch with his development staff in order to produce a value-added product for it. The firm decided to work on a suite of applications designed to be an enhancement on what was to be available in Windows 95. In response to a question about Windows 95, Bennie responded by saying: "We are quite convinced that on top of Windows 95, we can build four different applications and will encompass fax, data, telephony or digital voice, and Internet access". This would later become the CommSuite 95 product. In 1994 the firm acquired AudioFile, a company that specialized in computer-based voice technology. The company created a product called TalkWorks, which enabled users to use certain fax/modems as a voice mail client. Seeing a growing business in online communications utilities, Delrina licensed Hilgraeve's HyperACCESS terminal emulator system in 1993, and used it as the basis for the initial version of its WinComm online communications software. The initial version of the product was originally bundled with WinFax as part of the Delrina Communications Suite, but in March 1994 was issued as a standalone product. It was a relative latecomer to the market, which was then dominated at the time by Datastorm's Procomm series of communications software. Delrina tried to expand aggressively into this market space, first by acquiring the Canadian online bulletin board service CRS Online, and then using it as a distribution channel for free versions of its WinComm LITE and DOS-based FreeComm products in March 1995. When the Internet was opened to commercial interests in the mid-1990s, Delrina started to expand in this nascent market space with their Cyberjack 7.0 product, launched in December 1995. Created by a development team based in South Africa, it included a Web browser, Usenet news reader, ftp client, IRC and integration with the Microsoft Exchange email program. The program used an interesting variant of the now-common bookmark, using a "Guidebook" to store information for various Internet addresses. CommSuite 95 shipped later that same month, bundling WinFax PRO 7.0 along with WinComm PRO 7.0, TalkWorks and the Cyberjack suite of Internet components. With the release of Windows 95 in August 1995, Delrina was now competing directly against Microsoft in the fax/electronic communications marketplace, as Windows 95 included a basic faxing application as an accessory, along with a licensed version of Hilgraeve's HyperTerminal communication package, (which was also used as the basis for Delrina's own WinComm program). While these applications offered only rudimentary fax and online communication services in comparison to the mature Delrina products, Microsoft was perceived as a potentially serious future competitor in the communications market space. The release of the initial version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in late 1995 as a free product effectively killed off the early emerging market for non-free browsers, creating a market where Delrina's Cyberjack browser could not hope to compete. Acquisition by Symantec and aftermath In late Spring of 1995, Delrina Chairman Dennis Bennie met with Symantec CEO Gordon Eubanks to discuss the possibility of merging the two firms. In September 1995 Delrina's founders—who owned a controlling interest in the firm—sold the firm to Symantec in a stock deal worth $415 million US. The deal was first announced on July 6 of that year, with shareholders from both firms approving the merger on November 20. The merger was completed on November 22, 1995 and Delrina officially became part of Symantec. The deal made the merged company the fifth largest American software firm at the time. The firm became the "Delrina Group" within Symantec, which brought under its control other communication software products that belonged to the parent firm, such as pcAnywhere. Bennie joined the Board of Symantec and was also appointed an Executive Vice President. At its height the company employed more than 700 people worldwide, the majority based in Canada. Symantec was following a general trend of large American firms buying smaller Canadian software companies. Other contemporaneous examples include Softimage and Zoom-it being bought by Microsoft, and Alias being bought by Silicon Graphics. Parts of the company were subsequently sold off, such as the sale of Delrina's Electronic Forms Division to JetForm in September 1996. JetForm, which later changed its name to Accelio, was in turn bought by Adobe Systems. Adobe officially discontinued the electronic forms products in 2004. Creative Wonders bought the rights to the Echo Lake multimedia product, which was re-shaped as an introductory program on multimedia and re-released as Family Album Creator. Though the market for fax software would shrink significantly as the use of email became more pervasive, WinFax brought in significant revenue for Symantec; a year after the merger sales of fax software accounted for 10% of Symantec's revenues. Post-Delrina Delrina was a catalyst for entrepreneurial talent and greatness, as many of the principals and employees of Delrina went on to find new successful ventures. With investments from Skapinker and Amato, and Bennie as lead Director, Davis went on to form Lanacom, which developed an early Internet "push content" product. This firm and its technology were sold just over a year after its inception to Backweb, a NASDAQ listed software company; Davis remained president and Bennie was brought on as Director. Skapinker and Davis then went on to found Brightspark, a software venture capital firm. Brightspark Ventures raised a number of VC Funds from Canadian Financial institutions raising $60m in 1999 and $55m in 2004. Brightspark employed a number of ex-Delrina employees including Allen Lau, Eva Lau, Sandy Pearlman, Marg Vaillancourt. Brightspark Ventures has twice won the Canadian Venture Capital Association "Deal of the Year Award", for the sale of ThinkDynamics to IBM and for the sale of Radian6 to Salesforce.com. Bennie would move on to found XDL Capital, a company which manages venture capital funds. XDL Capital—appropriately named after "Ex Delrina"—raised money for two funds: XDL Ventures (XDL), raising $25 million in 1997, and XDL Intervest (XDLI), raising $155 million in 1999. David Latner, former legal counsel for Delrina, was a partner in both funds, and Amato (former partner, Delrina) was an advisor and major investor to XDL Capital. He also participated in several investee companies as a Director and/or Advisor. XDL Intervest focuses primarily on internet-specific entrepreneurial companies and Bennie brought in two new principals: Tony Van Marken, former CEO of Architel Systems Corp. (ASYC), and Michael Bregman, former CEO of Second Cup Ltd. (T.SKL). XDL has assembled an established board and advisory team, which includes Canadian billionaire Robert Young, a native of Hamilton, Ontario, who co-founded Red Hat Inc (RHAT) and remains its chairman. Several of XDL's venture investments were in companies started or run by ex-Delrina employees who founded successful businesses, fostered by the innovative and entrepreneurial environment of Delrina. A few of the successes today are listed below: Delano Founded by Bahman Koohestani, another early developer at Delrina, was a company which developed e-business solutions for corporations. XDL Capital provided seed capital prior to Delano listing publicly. Bennie was the Chairman. Delano was listed on NASDAQ (DTEC) was subsequently sold to divine in 2003. Pinpoint Software Corporation a supplier of software solutions for managing networked PCs, was founded in 1992 by Lou Ryan. Ryan was CEO & President with Bennie acting as director. Pinpoint was partially funded by XDL Capital. Pinpoint changed its name to ClickNet Software in 1998. Uniting the company name with the successful ClickNet product family name strengthens the product and corporate identity. The company was eventually renamed Entercept Security Technologies Inc. In 2004, Entercept was sold to Network Associates for $120M where they incorporated Entercept's technology into its McAfee line of antivirus protection and other security products. Protégé Software was formed in 1996 and was founded by Larry Levy, Delrina's European Managing Director. Levy acted as President and CEO with Bennie as the principal investor. The company raised a $120M round of finance with XDL Intervest participating in 2003. Protégé has successfully launched 20 U.S. companies in Europe, nine of which are among Red Herring Top 50 Private Companies. In addition, five of these companies have gone public during Protégé's tenure with them. The company was ultimately sold to various buyers including Warburg Pincus after the internet bubble burst. Netect Ltd., an XDL financed venture developing network security software, was purchased by Bindview Development Corporation (NASDAQ:BVEW) in 2001. Marc Camm (Ex Delrina GM Desktop Communications Business Unit) was brought on by Bennie to manage Netect. After the Company was purchased, Camm joined Bindview as the E.V.P. of Marketing. Prior to joining Netect, Marc was the general manager of Symantec and systems group product manager for Microsoft Canada. Within a few years all of Delrina's major market focuses—fax and form software—would be overtaken or superseded by email, e-commerce and the Internet. Daily planning software remains a niche market, and the immersive 3D environment used for creating multimedia presentations has (so far) fallen by the wayside in favour of more traditional user interfaces. Symantec ended support for its final WinFax PRO product in June 2006. Delrina is best remembered by its former employees as an incubator for ideas and for providing industry experience to the many people who would go on to work at subsequent software and hardware companies, many in the Toronto region. A forum exists on Yahoo called "xdelrina", where many former employees of the firm continue to keep in contact with each other. Delrina software and services Forms products The company's first product was PerForm, an electronic forms software package. PerForm and its sibling product, FormFlow, (which was aimed at workgroup and enterprise-level electronic forms processing and delivery) became one of the best selling products in its market. Delrina competed against WordPerfect's Informs package, Microsoft's Electronic Forms Designer, Novell's Informs, Lotus Software's Forms and JetForm's JetForm Workflow software. PerForm and FormFlow were designed to allow users to create self-contained form applications which could be passed back and forth across a network. Both PerForm and FormFlow consisted of two distinct parts: "Designer", which created the form application, and "Filler", so users could submit the forms either by fax or, later, e-mail. The program could ease repetitive fill tasks, include mandatory fields, and use an input mask to accept only data entered in a valid format. The information could be saved and restored in a dBase file that used a Public-key cryptography system to encrypt the data running from client to server. The initial version of PerForm was designed for the Graphics Environment Manager (better known as "GEM"), a DOS-based windowing system. Later versions of this program, known as PerForm PRO, were designed to work under Windows 3.1 and subsequent Windows operating systems. PerForm PRO 3.0 included integration with Delrina's own WinFax software, and included a range of automation tools. As PerForm captured the retail market, it became apparent that there was a need for electronics forms delivery and processing at the workgroup and enterprise levels. In 1994 Delrina FormFlow was released, which was designed to meet this need. One of the key features of FormFlow 1.1 was forms integration with email, and its Filler module was available for DOS, Windows and Unix. WinFax WinFax enabled computers equipped with fax-modems to send faxes directly to stand-alone fax machines or other similarly equipped computers. Several versions of the WinFax product were released over the next few years, initially for Windows 3.x and then a Windows 95-based version. WinFax PRO 2.0 for Windows was released in July 1991. The Windows versions were also localized to major European and Asian languages. The company made further in-roads by establishing tie-ins with modem manufacturers such as U.S. Robotics and Supra that bundled simple versions of the product (called "WinFax LITE") that offered basic functionality. Those wanting more robust features were encouraged to upgrade to the "PRO" version, and were offered significant discounts over the standalone retail version. All of this rapidly established WinFax as the de facto fax software. By 1994 almost one hundred companies were bundling versions of WinFax in with their own product, including IBM, Compaq, AST Research, Gateway 2000, Intel and Hewlett-Packard. WinFax PRO 3.0 was launched in late 1992 for Windows 3.x machines. This was followed by a version for Macintosh systems. The "Lite" version of WinFax 3.0 was bundled as OEM software by a number of fax-modem manufacturers, which was later be superseded by WinFax Lite 4.0 a couple of years later. The release of WinFax PRO 4.0 in March 1994 brought together a number of key features and technologies. It introduced an improved OCR engine, introduced improvements aimed specifically at mobile fax users, better on-screen fax viewing capabilities and a focus on consistency and usability of the interface. It also included for the first time the ability to integrate directly with popular new email products such as cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail. It was preceded by a Workgroup version of the same product, which allowed a number of users to share a single fax modem on a networked system. The stand-alone version of the product was also later bundled with a grayscale scanner, and sold as WinFax Scanner. The final Delrina-branded version of WinFax was WinFax PRO 7.0, which shipped in late 1995, the subsequent version 8.0 being a Symantec product. There was no intervening version 5.0 or 6.0, and the jump to version 7.0 was purely a marketing decision, based on keeping up with the suite of products in Microsoft Office which were then at the same number. It also reflected the development effort required to develop the first full 32-bit application version, designed to work with the Windows 95 operating system, which set it apart from its competition at the time. By the time WinFax PRO 7.0 was being sold from retail shelves, Delrina had been acquired by Symantec. Multimedia products Screensavers were designed to ensure that there would be no phosphor burn-in of images left on a CRT-based screen. Delrina added sound and basic interactivity with its series of screensaver products, arguably qualifying it as an early form of multimedia. Under Delrina several of the already-licensed cartoons brought over from their acquisition of Amaze Inc. were further developed into screensaver applications. The "Opus 'n Bill Brain Saver", which would land the company in court for copyright violations, was launched in 1993. Subsequent screensavers include a licensed version based on the first Flintstone live-action movie, and "The Scott Adams Dilbert Screen Saver Collection" which came out in September 1994. Echo Lake A notable multimedia software program produced by Delrina was Echo Lake, an early form of scrapbook software that came out in June 1995. During development it was touted internally as a "cross [of] Quark Xpress and Myst". It featured an immersive 3D environment where a user could manipulate objects within a virtual desktop in a virtual office and assemble video and audio clips along with images, and then send them as either a virtual book other users of the program could then access, or its content could be printed. It was an innovative product for its time, and ultimately was hampered by the inability of many users to easily input or playback their own multimedia content into a computer from that period. List of Delrina products Electronic Forms Products Delrina PerForm – October 1988 Delrina PerForm PRO – August 1990 Delrina PerForm Tracer – June 1991 Delrina PerForm PRO Plus – August 1992 Delrina FormFlow – October 1993 Delrina FormFlow 1.1 – June 1994 PerForm for Windows 3.0 – November 1994 Multimedia Products The Far Side Daily Planner and Calendar Publisher 3.0 – September 1991 Delrina Intermission 4.0 Screen Saver – November 1990 Opus 'n Bill Brain Saver – November 1993 The Far Side Screen Saver Collection – June 1994 Opus 'n Bill On The Road Again Screensaver – September 1994 The Scott Adams Dilbert Screen Saver Collection – September 1994 Echo Lake – June 1995 Fax-related Products (released by Delrina) WinFax 1.0 – December 1990 WinFax PRO 2.0 – June 1991 WinFax Lite – April 1992 DosFax Lite – April 1992 DosFax PRO 2.0 – June 1992 WinFax PRO 3.0 – November 1992 Delrina Fax PRO 1.5 for Macintosh – September 1993 WinFax PRO for Networks – November 1993 WinFax PRO 4.0 – March 1994 WinFax Scanner – 1994 WinFax PRO 7.0 – November 1995 Fax-related Products (released by Symantec) WinFax PRO 7.5 (bundled with TalkWorks) – October 1996 WinFax PRO 8.0 (bundled with TalkWorks PRO) – March 1997 TalkWorks PRO 2.0 – August 1998 WinFax PRO 9.0 – August 1998 TalkWorks PRO 3.0 – August 1999 WinFax PRO 10.0 – February 2000 Online Communications Products Delrina Communications Suite (WinComm and WinFax) – March 1993 WinComm (Standalone) – March 1994 Cyberjack – December 1995 CommSuite95 – December 1995 References Communication software Terminal emulators Defunct software companies of Canada Defunct companies of Ontario Software companies established in 1988 Software companies disestablished in 1995 1988 establishments in Ontario 1995 disestablishments in Ontario NortonLifeLock acquisitions 1995 mergers and acquisitions

3242294

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wpa%20supplicant

Wpa supplicant

wpa_supplicant is a free software implementation of an IEEE 802.11i supplicant for Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, QNX, AROS, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, OS/2 (including ArcaOS and eComStation) and Haiku. In addition to being a WPA3 and WPA2 supplicant, it also implements WPA and older wireless LAN security protocols. Features Features include: WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK ("WPA-Personal", pre-shared key) WPA3 WPA with EAP ("WPA-Enterprise", for example with RADIUS authentication server) RSN: PMKSA caching, pre-authentication IEEE 802.11r IEEE 802.11w Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) Included with the supplicant are a GUI and a command-line utility for interacting with the running supplicant. From either of these interfaces it is possible to review a list of currently visible networks, select one of them, provide any additional security information needed to authenticate with the network (for example, a passphrase, or username and password) and add it to the preference list to enable automatic reconnection in the future. The graphical user interface is built on top of the Qt library. wpa_supplicant can authenticate with any of the following EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol) methods: EAP-TLS, EAP-PEAP (both PEAPv0 and PEAPv1), EAP-TTLS, EAP-SIM, EAP-AKA, EAP-AKA', EAP-pwd, EAP-EKE, EAP-PSK (experimental), EAP-FAST, EAP-PAX, EAP-SAKE, EAP-GPSK, EAP-IKEv2, EAP-MD5, EAP-MSCHAPv2, and LEAP (requires special functions in the driver). Vulnerability to KRACK wpa_supplicant was especially susceptible to KRACK, as it can be manipulated to install an all-zeros encryption key, effectively nullifying WPA2 protection in a man-in-the-middle attack. Version 2.7 fixed KRACK and several other vulnerabilities. See also NetworkManager Supplicant Wireless supplicant Xsupplicant References External links wpa_supplicant examples Wi-Fi Software that uses Qt Articles with underscores in the title Software using the BSD license

35951369

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PureSystems

PureSystems

PureSystems is an IBM product line of factory pre-configured components and servers also being referred to as an "Expert Integrated System". The centrepiece of PureSystems is the IBM Flex System Manager in tandem with the so-called "Patterns of Expertise" for the automated configuration and management of PureSystems. PureSystems can host four different operating systems (AIX, IBM i, Linux, Windows) and five hypervisors (Hyper-V, KVM, PowerVM, VMware, Xen) on two different instruction set architectures: Power ISA and x86. PureSystems is marketed as a converged system, which packages multiple information technology components into a single product. Architecture The architecture itself is called IBM Flex System. It aims at managing hybrid cloud infrastructure environments "out of the box". The basic intention is for the combination of integrated hardware and software that can be easily maintained. A similar concept had already been introduced with the IBM AS/400. Today, such systems are called converged systems. More specialized integrated hardware and software are referred to as appliances. The compute nodes of the server blades can be x86 or Power ISA and they can be used either individually or mixed in the same rack simultaneously, thus offering a hybrid ensemble which borrows from the zEnterprise/zBX ensemble (cf. a gameframe), including its ability to manage a combined physical/virtual hybrid environment from a single console. PureSystems is shipped with the IBM Flex System Manager. It is an appliance which manages the resources according to the so-called "Patterns of Expertise", which provide field engineers' expertise from decades of system configuration. These "Patterns of Expertise" offer industry-specific (e.g. banking, insurance, automotive) defaults for the fully automatic and optimal orchestration of resources (e.g. workload balancing). PureApplication uses in conjunction with the IBM System Manager first Flex repeatable software patterns (pattern) and industry-specific processes, which are derived from the year-long collaboration of IBM with their customers and business partners. Platform The basic building block of the system is the 10U high Flex Enterprise system chassis with 14 bays in the front for compute nodes ("servers") and storage nodes. Additionally, there are bays in the rear for I/O modules. A flex-chassis can accommodate up to 14 horizontal compute and storage nodes in the front, and 4 vertically oriented switch modules in the rear. Contrasting to this, the IBM BladeCenter (9U high) has vertically oriented compute nodes ("blades"). This means that the components between the BladeCenter chassis and Flex chassis are not interchangeable. Based upon the Flex Systems architecture (the components of which are individually available), there are three main products: PureFlex System (IaaS) PureApplication System (PaaS) PureData System (tightly coupled and specialized computer appliance / software appliance) PureFlex PureFlex is a factory pre-configured and combined hardware-/software system for IaaS in terms of cloud computing. It combines server, network and storage. IBM PureFlex is available in three configurations: Express, Standard, Enterprise. PureApplication PureApplication is a pre-configured platform for platform as a service applications. It is optimized for transaction-oriented web and database applications. PureApplication comes with IBM DB2 database and WebSphere Application Server pre-configured so users can run their applications into a preconfigured middleware engine. Unlike PureFlex, which is sold by IBM Systems and Technology Group (STG), PureApplication is marketed by the IBM Software Group (SWG). IBM claims that PureApplication allows for installation (or deployment) of new applications within four hours. The system's virtual pattern deployers encrypt on-disk data using Security First Corp's SPxBitFiler-IPS encryption technology, which is also licensed by IBM for its Cloud Data Encryption Service (ICDES). IBM PureApplication System is available in three classes: W1500-32 and W1500-64, using Intel Xeon E5-2670 processors, housed in a 25U rack W1500-96 through to W1500-608, using Intel Xeon E5-2670 processors, housed in a 42U rack W1700-96 through to W1700-608, using IBM POWER7+ processors, housed in a 42U rack PureData PureData Systems takes the approach of PureApplication a step further being essentially a tightly coupled and specialized computer appliance and software appliance, the latter supporting both Oracle and DB2. It is thence marketed by the IBM Information Management Software, a brand of IBM Software Group (SWG). PureData is focused at three main tasks within enterprise computing: business intelligence, near real-time data analysis and online transactional processing. It comes in four flavours: PureData Systems for Transactions PureData Systems for Analytics PureData Systems for Operational Analytics PureData Systems for Hadoop PureData System for Transactions is a highly reliable and scalable database platform. It is aimed at e-commerce [i.e. retail and credit card processing environments) which depends on rapid handling of transactions and interactions. These transactions are small in size, but their sheer volume and frequency require a specialized environment. The new system can provide 5x performance improvement, partly through advances in high performance storage. PureData System for Analytics builds on Netezza technology and it is aimed at business intelligence that entails huge queries with complex algorithms. It provides a large library of database analytical functions for data warehouse applications, and can scale across the terabyte or petabytes running on the system. It can support extremely high volume high speed analytics for clients (e.g. mobile phone carriers who want to identify potential churn and provide offers to retain customers). PureData Systems for Operational Analytics is an operational warehouse system which supports real-time decision making. In contrast to PureData System for Analytics, which is aimed at handling large sets of data at a time, PureData for Operational Analytics is more or less a stream computing system that can analyze many small sets of data in real-time while PureData for Analytics will provide analysis only in hindsight, although with large sets of data. Potential uses of PureData Systems for Operational Analytics are fraud detection or analysis of rapid fluctuations in supply-and-demand cycles. PureData Systems for Hadoop H 1001 is a standards-based - so-called expert integrated - system which architecturally integrates IBM InfoSphere BigInsights, Hadoop-based software, server (IBM System x), and storage into a single appliance. Moreover, it integrates with IBM DB2, IBM Netezza, IBM PureData System for Analytics, and IBM InfoSphere Guardium. Hardware Compute Nodes Intel based Compute nodes based on x86 processors from Intel. x220 Flex System x220 compute node Type 7906 Standard-width compute node Processors: Xeon E5-2400 x222 Flex System x220 compute node Type 7916 Half-width compute node Processors: E5-2400 x240 Flex System x240 compute node Type 7162, 8737 Standard-width compute node Processors: Type 7162: E5-2600 v2; Type 8737: E5-2600 v2 or E5-2600 x240 M5 Flex System x240 M5 compute node Type 9532 Standard-width compute node Processors: E5-2600 v4 x440 Flex System x440 compute node Type 7167, 7917 Double-width compute node Processors: Type 7917: Xeon E5-4600; Type 7167: E5-4600 v2 x280 X6, x480 X6, and x880 X6 IBM Flex System x280 X6, x480 X6, and x880 X6 compute nodes Type 7196, 7903 Double-width compute node Processors: x280 X6 Type 7903: Xeon E7-2800 v2 x480 X6 Type 7903: Xeon E7-4800 v2; Type 7196: Xeon E7-4800 v3 x880 X6 Type 7903: Xeon E7-8800 v2; Type 7196: Xeon E7-8800 v3 Scalability: x280 X6: Does not scale x480 X6: Scales up to 4-socket by adding one x480 Compute Node + 4S scalability kit x880 X6: Scales up to 4-socket by adding one x880 Compute Node + 4S scalability kit; up to 8-socket by adding three x880 Compute Nodes + 8S scalability kit Power based Compute nodes based on Power ISA-based processors from IBM. p24L IBM Flex System p24L Compute Node: 1457-7FL Standard-width compute node Processors: Two IBM POWER7 16 DIMM sockets 512 GB using 16x 32 GB DIMMs maximum memory size Two I/O connectors for adapters. PCIe 2.0 x16 interface p260 IBM Flex System p260 Compute Node: 7895-22X, 23A, and 23X Standard-width compute node Processors: Two IBM POWER7 (model 22X) or POWER7+ (models 23A and 23X) 16 DIMM sockets 512 GB using 16x 32 GB DIMMs maximum memory size Two I/O connectors for adapters. PCIe 2.0 x16 interface p270 IBM Flex System p270 Compute Node: 7954-24X Standard-width compute node Processors: Two IBM POWER7+ 16 DIMM sockets 512 GB using 16x 32 GB DIMMs maximum memory size Two I/O connectors for adapters. PCIe 2.0 x16 interface p460 IBM Flex System p460 Compute Node: 7895-42X and 43X Double-width compute node Processors: Four IBM POWER7 (model 42X) or POWER7+ (model 43X) 32 DIMM sockets 1 TB using 32x 32 GB DIMMs maximum memory size Four I/O connectors for adapters. PCIe 2.0 x16 interface Software Both IBM and its partners provide software which is specifically certified for PureSystems ("Ready for IBM PureSystems "). Currently, over 125 ISVs have already certified products for PureSystems, and business partners such as system integrators, resellers, distributors, ISVs or MSP can integrate PureSystems into their portfolio. Miscellaneous PureSystems was announced April 11, 2012. It was mainly assembled at IBM Rochester Campus in Rochester, MN. But on March 6, 2013, IBM decided to shift production of Power Systems, PureSystems and PureFlex Systems servers to Guadalajara, Mexico from Rochester, Minnesota. After 2014, most systems will be assembled in Mexico. Videos IBM PureSystems Family Tour with Jason McGee What are IBM PureApplication Systems? (Part One) IBM PureSystems Product Family - IBM PureData™ System Overview IBM PureSystems - PureData System Overview w/Inhi Cho Suh See also List of IBM products IBM AS/400 System p System x System z References External links Homepage for PureSystems Homepage for Smarter Computing IBM Redbooks: Overview of IBM PureSystems IBM Redbooks: IBM PureFlex System and IBM Flex System Products & Technology IBM Redbooks Product Guides Portal IBM PureSystems Centre IBM PureSystems - IBM Developerworks IBM DeveloperWorks: IBM PureSystems & Rational HRG Assessment: Comparing IBM PureSystems and Cisco UCS by Harvard Research Group Part I-V: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue Apr, 12 2012 Series of five articles at storageioblog.com IBM server computers

7089085

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical%20information%20security

Physical information security

Physical information security is the intersection, the common ground between physical security and information security. It primarily concerns the protection of tangible information-related assets such as computer systems and storage media against physical, real-world threats such as unauthorized physical access, theft, fire and flood. It typically involves physical controls such as protective barriers and locks, uninterruptible power supplies, and shredders. Information security controls in the physical domain complement those in the logical domain (such as encryption), and procedural or administrative controls (such as information security awareness and compliance with policies and laws). Background Asset are inherently valuable and yet vulnerable to a wide variety of threats, both malicious (e.g. theft, arson) and accidental/natural (e.g. lost property, bush fire). If threats materialize and exploit those vulnerabilities causing incidents, there are likely to be adverse impacts on the organizations or individuals who legitimately own and utilize the assets, varying from trivial to devastating in effect. Security controls are intended to reduce the probability or frequency of occurrence and/or the severity of the impacts arising from incidents, thus protecting the value of the assets. Physical security involves the use of controls such as smoke detectors, fire alarms and extinguishers, along with related laws, regulations, policies and procedures concerning their use. Barriers such as fences, walls and doors are obvious physical security controls, designed to deter or prevent unauthorized physical access to a controlled area, such as a home or office. The moats and battlements of Mediaeval castles are classic examples of physical access controls, as are bank vaults and safes. Information security controls protect the value of information assets, particularly the information itself (i.e. the intangible information content, data, intellectual property, knowledge etc.) but also computer and telecommunications equipment, storage media (including papers and digital media), cables and other tangible information-related assets (such as computer power supplies). The corporate mantra "Our people are our greatest assets" is literally true in the sense that so-called knowledge workers qualify as extremely valuable, perhaps irreplaceable information assets. Health and safety measures and even medical practice could therefore also be classed as physical information security controls since they protect humans against injuries, diseases and death. This perspective exemplifies the ubiquity and value of information. Modern human society is heavily reliant on information, and information has importance and value at a deeper, more fundamental level. In principle, the subcellular biochemical mechanisms that maintain the accuracy of DNA replication could even be classed as vital information security controls, given that genes are 'the information of life'. Malicious actors who may benefit from physical access to information assets include computer crackers, corporate spies, and fraudsters. The value of information assets is self-evident in the case of, say, stolen laptops or servers that can be sold-on for cash, but the information content is often far more valuable, for example encryption keys or passwords (used to gain access to further systems and information), trade secrets and other intellectual property (inherently valuable or valuable because of the commercial advantages they confer), and credit card numbers (used to commit identity fraud and further theft). Furthermore, the loss, theft or damage of computer systems, plus power interruptions, mechanical/electronic failures and other physical incidents prevent them being used, typically causing disruption and consequential costs or losses. Unauthorized disclosure of confidential information, and even the coercive threat of such disclosure, can be damaging as we saw in the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack at the end of 2014 and in numerous privacy breach incidents. Even in the absence of evidence that disclosed personal information has actually been exploited, the very fact that it is no longer secured and under the control of its rightful owners is itself a potentially harmful privacy impact. Substantial fines, adverse publicity/reputational damage and other noncompliance penalties and impacts that flow from serious privacy breaches are best avoided, regardless of cause! Examples of physical attacks to obtain information There are several ways to obtain information through physical attacks or exploitations. A few examples are described below. Dumpster diving Dumpster diving is the practice of searching through trash in the hope of obtaining something valuable such as information carelessly discarded on paper, computer disks or other hardware. Overt access Sometimes attackers will simply go into a building and take the information they need. Frequently when using this strategy, an attacker will masquerade as someone who belongs in the situation. They may pose as a copy room employee, remove a document from someone's desk, copy the document, replace the original, and leave with the copied document. Individuals pretending to building maintenance may gain access to otherwise restricted spaces. They might walk right out of the building with a trash bag containing sensitive documents, carrying portable devices or storage media that were left out on desks, or perhaps just having memorized a password on a sticky note stuck to someone's computer screen or called out to a colleague across an open office. Examples of Physical Information Security Controls Literally shredding paper documents prior to their disposal is a commonplace physical information security control, intended to prevent the information content - if not the media - from falling into the wrong hands. Digital data can also be shredded in a figurative sense, either by being strongly encrypted or by being repeatedly overwritten until there is no realistic probability of the information ever being retrieved, even using sophisticated forensic analysis: this too constitutes a physical information security control since the purged computer storage media can be freely discarded or sold without compromising the original information content. The two techniques may be combined in high-security situations, where digital shredding of the data content is followed by physical shredding and incineration to destroy the storage media. Many organizations restrict physical access to controlled areas such as their offices by requiring that people present valid identification cards, proximity passes or physical keys. Provided the access tokens or devices are themselves strictly controlled and secure (making it hard for unauthorized people to obtain or fabricate and use them), and the associated electronic or mechanical locks, doors, walls, barriers etc. are sufficiently strong and complete, unauthorized physical entry to the controlled areas is prevented, protecting the information and other assets within. Likewise, office workers are generally encouraged or required to obey "clear desk" policies, protecting documents and other storage media (including portable IT devices) by tidying them away out of sight, perhaps in locked drawers, filing cabinets, safes or vaults according to the risks. Requiring workers to memorize their passwords rather than writing them down in a place that might be observed by an onlooker (maybe a colleague, visitor or intruder) is an example of risk avoidance. Computers plainly need electrical power, hence they are vulnerable to issues such as power cuts, accidental disconnection, flat batteries, brown-outs, surges, spikes, electrical interference and electronic failures. Physical information security controls to address the associated risks include: fuses, no-break battery-backed power supplies, electrical generators, redundant power sources and cabling, "Do not remove" warning signs on plugs, surge protectors, power quality monitoring, spare batteries, professional design and installation of power circuits plus regular inspections/tests and preventive maintenance. It is ironic that so-called uninterruptible power supplies often lead to power interruptions if they are inadequately specified, designed, manufactured, used, managed or maintained - an illustration of the failure of a critical (physical) control. See also Paper shredder Physical security References External links Social Engineering Fundamentals Computer security Physical security

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray%20Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil

Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American inventor and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology. Kurzweil received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the United States' highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. He was the recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for 2001. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 for the application of technology to improve human-machine communication. In 2002 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He has received 21 honorary doctorates, and honors from three U.S. presidents. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries. Inc. magazine ranked him #8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the United States and called him "Edison's rightful heir". Life, inventions, and business career Early life Kurzweil grew up in the New York City borough of Queens. He attended NYC Public Education Kingsbury Elementary School PS188. He was born to secular Jewish parents who had emigrated from Austria just before the onset of World War II. He was exposed via Unitarian Universalism to a diversity of religious faiths during his upbringing. His Unitarian church had the philosophy of many paths to the truth – his religious education consisted of studying a single religion for six months before moving on to the next. His father, Fredric, was a concert pianist, a noted conductor, and a music educator. His mother, Hannah was a visual artist. He has one sibling, his sister Enid. Kurzweil decided he wanted to be an inventor at the age of five. As a young boy, Kurzweil had an inventory of parts from various construction toys he had been given and old electronic gadgets he'd collected from neighbors. In his youth, Kurzweil was an avid reader of science fiction literature. At the age of eight, nine, and ten, he read the entire Tom Swift Jr. series. At the age of seven or eight, he built a robotic puppet theater and robotic game. He was involved with computers by the age of 12 (in 1960), when only a dozen computers existed in all of New York City, and built computing devices and statistical programs for the predecessor of Head Start. At the age of fourteen, Kurzweil wrote a paper detailing his theory of the neocortex. His parents were involved with the arts, and he is quoted in the documentary Transcendent Man as saying that the household always produced discussions about the future and technology. Kurzweil attended Martin Van Buren High School. During class, he often held onto his class textbooks to seemingly participate, but instead, focused on his own projects which were hidden behind the book. His uncle, an engineer at Bell Labs, taught young Kurzweil the basics of computer science. In 1963, at age 15, he wrote his first computer program. He created pattern-recognition software that analyzed the works of classical composers, and then synthesized its own songs in similar styles. In 1965, he was invited to appear on the CBS television program I've Got a Secret, where he performed a piano piece that was composed by a computer he also had built. Later that year, he won first prize in the International Science Fair for the invention; Kurzweil's submission to Westinghouse Talent Search of his first computer program alongside several other projects resulted in him being one of its national winners, which allowed him to be personally congratulated by President Lyndon B. Johnson during a White House ceremony. These activities collectively impressed upon Kurzweil the belief that nearly any problem could be overcome. Mid-life While in high school, Kurzweil had corresponded with Marvin Minsky and was invited to visit him at MIT, which he did. Kurzweil also visited Frank Rosenblatt at Cornell. He obtained a B.S. in computer science and literature in 1970 at MIT. He went to MIT to study with Marvin Minsky. He took all of the computer programming courses (eight or nine) offered at MIT in the first year and a half. In 1968, during his sophomore year at MIT, Kurzweil started a company that used a computer program to match high school students with colleges. The program, called the Select College Consulting Program, was designed by him and compared thousands of different criteria about each college with questionnaire answers submitted by each student applicant. Around this time, he sold the company to Harcourt, Brace & World for $100,000 (roughly $748,000 in 2020 dollars) plus royalties. In 1974, Kurzweil founded Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. and led development of the first omni-font optical character recognition system, a computer program capable of recognizing text written in any normal font. Before that time, scanners had only been able to read text written in a few fonts. He decided that the best application of this technology would be to create a reading machine, which would allow blind people to understand written text by having a computer read it to them aloud. However, this device required the invention of two enabling technologies—the CCD flatbed scanner and the text-to-speech synthesizer. Development of these technologies was completed at other institutions such as Bell Labs, and on January 13, 1976, the finished product was unveiled during a news conference headed by him and the leaders of the National Federation of the Blind. Called the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the device covered an entire tabletop. Kurzweil's next major business venture began in 1978, when Kurzweil Computer Products began selling a commercial version of the optical character recognition computer program. LexisNexis was one of the first customers, and bought the program to upload paper legal and news documents onto its nascent online databases. Kurzweil sold his Kurzweil Computer Products to Xerox, where it was known as Xerox Imaging Systems, later known as Scansoft, and he functioned as a consultant for Xerox until 1995. In 1999, Visioneer, Inc. acquired ScanSoft from Xerox to form a new public company with ScanSoft as the new company-wide name. Scansoft merged with Nuance Communications in 2005. Kurzweil's next business venture was in the realm of electronic music technology. After a 1982 meeting with Stevie Wonder, in which the latter lamented the divide in capabilities and qualities between electronic synthesizers and traditional musical instruments, Kurzweil was inspired to create a new generation of music synthesizers capable of accurately duplicating the sounds of real instruments. Kurzweil Music Systems was founded in the same year, and in 1984, the Kurzweil K250 was unveiled. The machine was capable of imitating a number of instruments, and in tests musicians were unable to discern the difference between the Kurzweil K250 on piano mode from a normal grand piano. The recording and mixing abilities of the machine, coupled with its abilities to imitate different instruments, made it possible for a single user to compose and play an entire orchestral piece. Kurzweil Music Systems was sold to South Korean musical instrument manufacturer Young Chang in 1990. As with Xerox, Kurzweil remained as a consultant for several years. Hyundai acquired Young Chang in 2006 and in January 2007 appointed Raymond Kurzweil as Chief Strategy Officer of Kurzweil Music Systems. Later life Concurrent with Kurzweil Music Systems, Kurzweil created the company Kurzweil Applied Intelligence (KAI) to develop computer speech recognition systems for commercial use. The first product, which debuted in 1987, was an early speech recognition program. Kurzweil started Kurzweil Educational Systems (KESI) in 1996 to develop new pattern-recognition-based computer technologies to help people with disabilities such as blindness, dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in school. Products include the Kurzweil 1000 text-to-speech converter software program, which enables a computer to read electronic and scanned text aloud to blind or visually impaired users, and the Kurzweil 3000 program, which is a multifaceted electronic learning system that helps with reading, writing, and study skills. Kurzweil sold KESI to Lernout & Hauspie. Following the legal and bankruptcy problems of the latter, he and other KESI employees purchased the company back. KESI was eventually sold to Cambium Learning Group, Inc. During the 1990s, Kurzweil founded the Medical Learning Company. In 1997, Ray Kurzweil was the chair of the board of Anthrocon. In 1999, Kurzweil created a hedge fund called "FatKat" (Financial Accelerating Transactions from Kurzweil Adaptive Technologies), which began trading in 2006. He has stated that the ultimate aim is to improve the performance of FatKat's A.I. investment software program, enhancing its ability to recognize patterns in "currency fluctuations and stock-ownership trends." He predicted in his 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, that computers will one day prove superior to the best human financial minds at making profitable investment decisions. In June 2005, Kurzweil introduced the "Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader" (K-NFB Reader)—a pocket-sized device consisting of a digital camera and computer unit. Like the Kurzweil Reading Machine of almost 30 years before, the K-NFB Reader is designed to aid blind people by reading written text aloud. The newer machine is portable and scans text through digital camera images, while the older machine is large and scans text through flatbed scanning. In December 2012, Kurzweil was hired by Google in a full-time position to "work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing". He was personally hired by Google co-founder Larry Page. Larry Page and Kurzweil agreed on a one-sentence job description: "to bring natural language understanding to Google". He received a Technical Grammy on February 8, 2015, specifically for his invention of the Kurzweil K250. Kurzweil has joined the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics company. In the event of his declared death, Kurzweil plans to be perfused with cryoprotectants, vitrified in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to repair his tissues and revive him. Personal life Kurzweil is agnostic about the existence of a soul. On the possibility of divine intelligence, Kurzweil has said, "Does God exist? I would say, 'Not yet.'" Kurzweil married Sonya Rosenwald Kurzweil in 1975 and has two children. Sonya Kurzweil is a psychologist in private practice in Newton, Massachusetts, working with women, children, parents and families. She holds faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and William James College for Graduate Education in Psychology. Her research interests and publications are in the area of psychotherapy practice. Kurzweil also serves as an active Overseer at Boston Children's Museum. He has a son, Ethan Kurzweil, who is a venture capitalist, and a daughter, Amy Kurzweil, a cartoonist. Creative approach Kurzweil said "I realize that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can’t get them to work, but because the timing is wrongnot all of the enabling factors are at play where they are needed. Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment." For the past several decades, Kurzweil's most effective and common approach to doing creative work has been conducted during his lucid dreamlike state which immediately precedes his awakening state. He claims to have constructed inventions, solved difficult problems, such as algorithmic, business strategy, organizational, and interpersonal problems, and written speeches in this state. Books Kurzweil's first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, was published in 1990. The nonfiction work discusses the history of computer artificial intelligence (AI) and forecasts future developments. Other experts in the field of AI contribute heavily to the work in the form of essays. The Association of American Publishers awarded it the status of Most Outstanding Computer Science Book of 1990. In 1993, Kurzweil published a book on nutrition called The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life. The book's main idea is that high levels of fat intake are the cause of many health disorders common in the U.S., and thus that cutting fat consumption down to 10% of the total calories consumed would be optimal for most people. In 1999, Kurzweil published The Age of Spiritual Machines, which further elucidates his theories regarding the future of technology, which themselves stem from his analysis of long-term trends in biological and technological evolution. Much emphasis is on the likely course of AI development, along with the future of computer architecture. Kurzweil's next book, published in 2004, returned to human health and nutrition. Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever was co-authored by Terry Grossman, a medical doctor and specialist in alternative medicine. The Singularity Is Near, published in 2005, was made into a movie starring Pauley Perrette from NCIS. In February 2007, Ptolemaic Productions acquired the rights to The Singularity Is Near, The Age of Spiritual Machines, and Fantastic Voyage, including the rights to film Kurzweil's life and ideas for the documentary film Transcendent Man, which was directed by Barry Ptolemy. Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, a follow-up to Fantastic Voyage, was released on April 28, 2009. Kurzweil's book How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, was released on Nov. 13, 2012. In it Kurzweil describes his Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind, the theory that the neocortex is a hierarchical system of pattern recognizers, and argues that emulating this architecture in machines could lead to an artificial superintelligence. Kurzweil's latest book and first fiction novel, Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine, follows a girl who uses her intelligence and the help of her friends to tackle real-world problems. It follows a structure akin to the scientific method. Chapters are organized as year-by-year episodes from Danielle's childhood and adolescence. The book comes with companion materials, A Chronicle of Ideas, and How You Can Be a Danielle that provide real-world context. The book was released in April 2019. In an article on his website kurzweilai.net, Ray Kurzweil announced his new book The Singularity Is Nearer for release in 2022. Movies In 2010, Kurzweil wrote and co-produced a movie directed by Anthony Waller called The Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the Future, which was based in part on his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near. Part fiction, part non-fiction, the film blends interviews with 20 big thinkers (such as Marvin Minsky) with a narrative story that illustrates some of his key ideas, including a computer avatar (Ramona) who saves the world from self-replicating microscopic robots. In addition to his movie, an independent, feature-length documentary was made about Kurzweil, his life, and his ideas, called Transcendent Man. In 2010, an independent documentary film called Plug & Pray premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival, in which Kurzweil and one of his major critics, the late Joseph Weizenbaum, argue about the benefits of eternal life. The feature-length documentary film The Singularity by independent filmmaker Doug Wolens (released at the end of 2012), showcasing Kurzweil, has been acclaimed as "a large-scale achievement in its documentation of futurist and counter-futurist ideas” and “the best documentary on the Singularity to date." Views The Law of Accelerating Returns In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially. He gave further focus to this issue in a 2001 essay entitled "The Law of Accelerating Returns", which proposed an extension of Moore's law to a wide variety of technologies, and used this to argue in favor of John von Neumann's concept of a technological singularity. Stance on the future of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics Kurzweil was working with the Army Science Board in 2006 to develop a rapid response system to deal with the possible abuse of biotechnology. He suggested that the same technologies that are empowering us to reprogram biology away from cancer and heart disease could be used by a bioterrorist to reprogram a biological virus to be more deadly, communicable, and stealthy. However, he suggests that we have the scientific tools to successfully defend against these attacks, similar to the way we defend against computer software viruses. He has testified before Congress on the subject of nanotechnology, advocating that nanotechnology has the potential to solve serious global problems such as poverty, disease, and climate change. "Nanotech Could Give Global Warming a Big Chill". In media appearances, Kurzweil has stressed the extreme potential dangers of nanotechnology but argues that in practice, progress cannot be stopped because that would require a totalitarian system, and any attempt to do so would drive dangerous technologies underground and deprive responsible scientists of the tools needed for defense. He suggests that the proper place of regulation is to ensure that technological progress proceeds safely and quickly, but does not deprive the world of profound benefits. He stated, "To avoid dangers such as unrestrained nanobot replication, we need relinquishment at the right level and to place our highest priority on the continuing advance of defensive technologies, staying ahead of destructive technologies. An overall strategy should include a streamlined regulatory process, a global program of monitoring for unknown or evolving biological pathogens, temporary moratoriums, raising public awareness, international cooperation, software reconnaissance, and fostering values of liberty, tolerance, and respect for knowledge and diversity." Health and aging Kurzweil admits that he cared little for his health until age 35, when he was found to suffer from a glucose intolerance, an early form of type II diabetes (a major risk factor for heart disease). Kurzweil then found a doctor (Terry Grossman, M.D.) who shares his somewhat unconventional beliefs to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, red wine, and various other methods to attempt to live longer. Kurzweil was ingesting "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea" every day and drinking several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to "reprogram" his biochemistry. By 2008, he had reduced the number of supplement pills to 150. By 2015 Kurzweil further reduced his daily pill regimen down to 100 pills. Kurzweil asserts that in the future, everyone will live forever. In a 2013 interview, he said that in 15 years, medical technology could add more than a year to one's remaining life expectancy for each year that passes, and we could then "outrun our own deaths". Among other things, he has supported the SENS Research Foundation's approach to finding a way to repair aging damage, and has encouraged the general public to hasten their research by donating. Encouraging futurism and transhumanism Kurzweil's standing as a futurist and transhumanist has led to his involvement in several singularity-themed organizations. In December 2004, Kurzweil joined the advisory board of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. In October 2005, Kurzweil joined the scientific advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation. On May 13, 2006, Kurzweil was the first speaker at the Singularity Summit at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. In May 2013, Kurzweil was the keynote speaker at the 2013 proceeding of the Research, Innovation, Start-up and Employment (RISE) international conference in Seoul. In February 2009, Kurzweil, in collaboration with Google and the NASA Ames Research Center, announced the creation of the Singularity University training center for corporate executives and government officials. The University's self-described mission is to "assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity's grand challenges". Using Vernor Vinge's Singularity concept as a foundation, the university offered its first nine-week graduate program to 40 students in 2009. Predictions Past predictions Kurzweil's first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, presents his ideas about the future. Written from 1986 to 1989, it was published in 1990. Building on Ithiel de Sola Pool's "Technologies of Freedom" (1983), Kurzweil claims to have forecast the dissolution of the Soviet Union due to new technologies such as cellular phones and fax machines disempowering authoritarian governments by removing state control over the flow of information. In the book, Kurzweil also extrapolates trends in improving computer chess software performance, predicting that computers would beat the best human players "by the year 2000". In May 1997, IBM's Deep Blue computer defeated chess World Champion Garry Kasparov in a well-publicized chess match. Perhaps most significantly, Kurzweil foresaw the explosive growth in worldwide Internet use that began in the 1990s. At the time when The Age of Intelligent Machines was published, there were only 2.6 million Internet users in the world, and the medium was unreliable, difficult to use, and deficient in content. He also stated that the Internet would explode not only in the number of users but in content as well, eventually granting users access "to international networks of libraries, data bases, and information services". Additionally, Kurzweil claims to have correctly foreseen that the preferred mode of Internet access would inevitably be through wireless systems, and he was also correct to estimate that this development would become practical for widespread use in the early 21st century. In October 2010, Kurzweil released his report, "How My Predictions Are Faring" in PDF format, analyzing the predictions he made in his book The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990), The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) and The Singularity is Near (2005). Of the 147 predictions, Kurzweil claimed that 115 were "entirely correct", 12 were "essentially correct", 17 were "partially correct", and only 3 were "wrong". Combining the "entirely" and "essentially" correct, Kurzweil's claimed accuracy rate comes to 86%. Daniel Lyons, writing in Newsweek magazine, criticized Kurzweil for some of his predictions that turned out to be wrong, such as the economy continuing to boom from the 1998 dot-com through 2009, a US company having a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion by 2009, a supercomputer achieving 20 petaflops, speech recognition being in widespread use and cars that would drive themselves using sensors installed in highways; all by 2009. To the charge that a 20 petaflop supercomputer was not produced in the time he predicted, Kurzweil responded that he considers Google a giant supercomputer, and that it is indeed capable of 20 petaflops. Forbes magazine claimed that Kurzweil's predictions for 2009 were mostly inaccurate. For example, Kurzweil predicted, "The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition", which was not the case. Future predictions In 1999, Kurzweil published a second book titled The Age of Spiritual Machines, which goes into more depth explaining his futurist ideas. In it, he states that with radical life extension will come radical life enhancement. He says he is confident that within 10 years we will have the option to spend some of our time in 3D virtual environments that appear just as real as real reality, but these will not yet be made possible via direct interaction with our nervous system. He believes that 20 to 25 years from now, we will have millions of blood-cell sized devices, known as nanobots, inside our bodies fighting diseases, and improving our memory and cognitive abilities. Kurzweil claims that a machine will pass the Turing test by 2029. Kurzweil states that humans will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological intelligence that becomes increasingly dominated by its non-biological component. In Transcendent Man Kurzweil states "We humans are going to start linking with each other and become a metaconnection; we will all be connected and omnipresent, plugged into a global network that is connected to billions of people and filled with data." In 2008, Kurzweil said in an expert panel in the National Academy of Engineering that solar power will scale up to produce all the energy needs of Earth's people in 20 years. According to Kurzweil, we only need to capture 1 part in 10,000 of the energy from the Sun that hits Earth's surface to meet all of humanity's energy needs. Reception Praise Kurzweil was called "the ultimate thinking machine" by Forbes and a "restless genius" by The Wall Street Journal. PBS included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries. Inc. magazine ranked him Number 8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the US and called him "Edison's rightful heir". Criticism Although technological singularity is a popular concept in science fiction, some authors such as Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling have voiced skepticism about its real-world plausibility. Sterling expressed his views on the singularity scenario in a talk at the Long Now Foundation entitled The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole. Other prominent AI thinkers and computer scientists such as Daniel Dennett, Rodney Brooks, David Gelernter and Paul Allen have also criticized Kurzweil's projections. In the cover article of the December 2010 issue of IEEE Spectrum, John Rennie criticizes Kurzweil for several predictions that failed to become manifest by the originally predicted date. "Therein lie the frustrations of Kurzweil's brand of tech punditry. On close examination, his clearest and most successful predictions often lack originality or profundity. And most of his predictions come with so many loopholes that they border on the unfalsifiable." Bill Joy, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, agrees with Kurzweil's timeline of future progress, but thinks that technologies such as AI, nanotechnology and advanced biotechnology will create a dystopian world. Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, has called the notion of a technological singularity "intelligent design for the IQ 140 people...This proposition that we're heading to this point at which everything is going to be just unimaginably different—it's fundamentally, in my view, driven by a religious impulse. And all of the frantic arm-waving can't obscure that fact for me." Some critics have argued more strongly against Kurzweil and his ideas. Cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter has said of Kurzweil's and Hans Moravec's books: "It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people; they're not stupid." Biologist P.Z. Myers has criticized Kurzweil's predictions as being based on "New Age spiritualism" rather than science and says that Kurzweil does not understand basic biology. VR pioneer Jaron Lanier has even described Kurzweil's ideas as "cybernetic totalism" and has outlined his views on the culture surrounding Kurzweil's predictions in an essay for edge.org entitled One Half of a Manifesto. Physicist and futurist Theodore Modis claims that Kurzweil's thesis of a "technological singularity" lacks scientific rigor. British philosopher John Gray argues that contemporary science is what magic was for ancient civilizations. It gives a sense of hope for those who are willing to do almost anything in order to achieve eternal life. He quotes Kurzweil's Singularity as another example of a trend which has almost always been present in the history of mankind. The Brain Makers, a history of artificial intelligence written in 1994 by HP Newquist, noted that "Born with the same gift for self-promotion that was a character trait of people like P.T. Barnum and Ed Feigenbaum, Kurzweil had no problems talking up his technical prowess...Ray Kurzweil was not noted for his understatement." In a 2015 paper, William D. Nordhaus of Yale University takes an economic look at the impacts of an impending technological singularity. He comments, "There is remarkably little writing on Singularity in the modern macroeconomic literature." Nordhaus supposes that the Singularity could arise from either the demand or supply side of a market economy, but for information technology to proceed at the kind of pace Kurzweil suggests, there would have to be significant productivity trade-offs. Namely, in order to devote more resources to producing super computers we must decrease our production of non-information technology goods. Using a variety of econometric methods, Nordhaus runs six supply-side tests and one demand-side test to track the macroeconomic viability of such steep rises in information technology output. Of the seven tests only two indicated that a Singularity was economically possible and both predicted at least 100 years before it would occur. Awards and honors First place in the 1965 International Science Fair for inventing the classical music synthesizing computer. The 1978 Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery. The award is given annually to one "outstanding young computer professional" and is accompanied by a $35,000 prize. Kurzweil won it for his invention of the Kurzweil Reading Machine. In 1986, Kurzweil was named Honorary Chairman for Innovation of the White House Conference on Small Business by President Reagan. In 1987, Kurzweil received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music. In 1988, Kurzweil was named Inventor of the Year by MIT and the Boston Museum of Science. In 1990, Kurzweil was voted Engineer of the Year by the over one million readers of Design News Magazine and received their third annual Technology Achievement Award. The 1995 Dickson Prize in Science The 1998 "Inventor of the Year" award from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The 1999 National Medal of Technology. This is the highest award the President of the United States can bestow upon individuals and groups for pioneering new technologies, and the President dispenses the award at his discretion. Bill Clinton presented Kurzweil with the National Medal of Technology during a White House ceremony in recognition of Kurzweil's development of computer-based technologies to help the disabled. In 2000, Kurzweil received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. The 2000 Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology. Two other individuals also received the same honor that year. The award is presented yearly to people who "exemplify the life, times and standard of contribution of Tesla, Westinghouse and Nunn." The 2001 Lemelson-MIT Prize for a lifetime of developing technologies to help the disabled and to enrich the arts. Only one is awarded each year – it is given to highly successful, mid-career inventors. A $500,000 award accompanies the prize. Kurzweil was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002 for inventing the Kurzweil Reading Machine. The organization "honors the women and men responsible for the great technological advances that make human, social and economic progress possible." Fifteen other people were inducted into the Hall of Fame the same year. The Arthur C. Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award on April 20, 2009 for lifetime achievement as an inventor and futurist in computer-based technologies. In 2011, Kurzweil was named a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council. In 2013, Kurzweil was honored as a Silicon Valley Visionary Award winner on June 26 by SVForum. In 2014, Kurzweil was honored with the American Visionary Art Museum's Grand Visionary Award on January 30. In 2014, Kurzweil was inducted as an Eminent Member of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu. Kurzweil has received 20 honorary doctorates in science, engineering, music and humane letters from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Hofstra University and other leading colleges and universities, as well as honors from three U.S. presidents – Clinton, Reagan and Johnson. Kurzweil has received seven national and international film awards including the CINE Golden Eagle Award and the Gold Medal for Science Education from the International Film and TV Festival of New York. He gave a 2007 keynote speech to the protestant United Church of Christ in Hartford, Connecticut, alongside Barack Obama, who was then a Presidential candidate. Bibliography Non-fiction The Age of Intelligent Machines (1990) The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life (1993) The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (2004 - co-authored by Terry Grossman) The Singularity Is Near (2005) Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever (2009) How to Create a Mind (2012) Fiction Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine (2019) See also Technological singularity Paradigm shift Simulated reality References External links Official Danielle Superheroine website 1948 births 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers American agnostics American futurologists American inventors American people of Austrian-Jewish descent American science writers American technology writers American transhumanists Artificial intelligence researchers Cryonicists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Google employees Grace Murray Hopper Award laureates Jewish agnostics Lemelson–MIT Prize Life extensionists Living people Machine learning researchers Martin Van Buren High School alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni American nanotechnologists National Medal of Technology recipients Singularitarians Writers from Queens, New York MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni