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Data exploration

Data exploration is an approach similar to initial data analysis, whereby a data analyst uses visual exploration to understand what is in a dataset and the characteristics of the data, rather than through traditional data management systems. These characteristics can include size or amount of data, completeness of the data, correctness of the data, possible relationships amongst data elements or files/tables in the data. Data exploration is typically conducted using a combination of automated and manual activities. Automated activities can include data profiling or data visualization or tabular reports to give the analyst an initial view into the data and an understanding of key characteristics. This is often followed by manual drill-down or filtering of the data to identify anomalies or patterns identified through the automated actions. Data exploration can also require manual scripting and queries into the data (e.g. using languages such as SQL or R) or using spreadsheets or similar tools to view the raw data. All of these activities are aimed at creating a mental model and understanding of the data in the mind of the analyst, and defining basic metadata (statistics, structure, relationships) for the data set that can be used in further analysis. Once this initial understanding of the data is had, the data can be pruned or refined by removing unusable parts of the data (data cleansing), correcting poorly formatted elements and defining relevant relationships across datasets. This process is also known as determining data quality. Data exploration can also refer to the ad hoc querying or visualization of data to identify potential relationships or insights that may be hidden in the data and does not require to formulate assumptions beforehand. Traditionally, this had been a key area of focus for statisticians, with John Tukey being a key evangelist in the field. Today, data exploration is more widespread and is the focus of data analysts and data scientists; the latter being a relatively new role within enterprises and larger organizations. == Interactive Data Exploration == This area of data exploration has become an area of interest in the field of machine learning. This is a relatively new field and is still evolving. As its most basic level, a machine-learning algorithm can be fed a data set and can be used to identify whether a hypothesis is true based on the dataset. Common machine learning algorithms can focus on identifying specific patterns in the data. Many common patterns include regression and classification or clustering, but there are many possible patterns and algorithms that can be applied to data via machine learning. By employing machine learning, it is possible to find patterns or relationships in the data that would be difficult or impossible to find via manual inspection, trial and error or traditional exploration techniques. == Software == Trifacta – a data preparation and analysis platform Paxata – self-service data preparation software Alteryx – data blending and advanced data analytics software Microsoft Power BI - interactive visualization and data analysis tool OpenRefine - a standalone open source desktop application for data clean-up and data transformation Tableau software – interactive data visualization software
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Creepy treehouse

Creepy treehouse is a social media term, or internet slang, referring to websites or technologies that are used for educational purposes but regarded by students as an invasion of privacy. == History == The term was first described in 2008 by Utah Valley University instructional-design services director Jared Stein as "institutionally controlled technology/tool that emulates or mimics pre-existing [sic] technologies or tools that may already be in use by the learners, or by learners' peer groups." This was when social media such as Facebook was starting to become mainstream and professors would try and get students to interact with them on the site for educational purposes. Some professors would require their students to use Facebook or Twitter as part of class assignments. == Usage == The term was first described as "technological innovations by faculty members that make students’ skin crawl." The term also refers to online accounts and websites that users tend to avoid, especially young people who avoid visiting the pages of educators and other adults. Author Martin Weller defines creepy treehouse as a digital space where authority figures are viewed as invading younger people's privacy. One such example is a professor giving his students an option to use a popular video game to learn about history instead of writing an essay. Students in that class chose to write the essay instead as the method was previously unmentioned and it was not an unnatural method of interaction. Another example given was Blackboard Sync, a feature that was used to connect the school website Blackboard with students' Facebook accounts. == Solutions == University of Regina professor Alec Couros suggests that instead of "forcing" student participation with their own digital platforms, professors should use methods like online forums. Jason Jones of chronicle.com suggested letting students create social media groups for the class themselves and explaining why using technologies is required and important.
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Web3D

Web3D, also called 3D Web, is a group of technologies to display and navigate websites using 3D computer graphics. These technologies enable applications such as online games, virtual reality experiences, interactive product demonstrations, and 3D data visualization directly within web browsers. The emergence of Web3D dates back to 1994, with the advent of VRML, a file format designed to store and display 3D graphical data on the World Wide Web. Modern Web3D is primarily powered by WebGL, a JavaScript API that enables hardware-accelerated 3D graphics rendering in web browsers without requiring plug-ins. == Pre-WebGL era == The emergence of Web3D dates back to 1994, with the advent of VRML, a file format designed to store and display 3D graphical data on the World Wide Web. In October 1995, at Internet World, Template Graphics Software demonstrated a 3D/VRML plug-in for the beta release of Netscape 2.0 by Netscape Communications. The Web3D Consortium was formed to further the collective development of the format. VRML and its successor, X3D, have been accepted as international standards by the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission. The main drawback of the technology was the requirement to use third-party browser plug-ins to perform 3D rendering, which slowed the adoption of the standard. Between 2000 and 2010, one of these plug-ins, Adobe Flash Player, was widely installed on desktop computers and was used to display interactive web pages and online games and to play video and audio content. Several Flash-based frameworks appeared that used software rendering and ActionScript 3 to perform 3D computations such as transformations, lighting, and texturing. Most notable among them were Papervision3D and Away3D. Eventually, Adobe developed Stage3D, an API for rendering interactive 3D graphics with GPU-acceleration for its Flash player and AIR products, which was adopted by software vendors. In 2009, an open-source 3D web technology called O3D was introduced by Google. It also required a browser plug-in, but contrary to Flash/Stage3D, was based on JavaScript API. O3D was geared not only for games but also for advertisements, 3D model viewers, product demos, simulations, engineering applications, control and monitoring systems. == WebGL and glTF == WebGL (short for "Web Graphics Library") evolved out of the Canvas 3D experiments started by Vladimir Vukićević at Mozilla Foundation. Vukićević first demonstrated a Canvas 3D prototype in 2006. By the end of 2007, both Mozilla and Opera had made their own separate implementations. In early 2009, the nonprofit technology consortium Khronos Group started the WebGL Working Group, with initial participation from Apple, Google, Mozilla, Opera, and others. Version 1.0 of the WebGL specification was released in March 2011. Major advantages of the new technology include conformity with web standards and near-native 3D performance without the use of any browser plug-ins. Since WebGL is based on OpenGL ES, it works on mobile devices without any additional abstraction layers. For other platforms, WebGL implementations leverage ANGLE to translate OpenGL ES calls to DirectX, OpenGL, or Vulkan API calls. Among notable WebGL frameworks are A-Frame, which uses HTML-based markup for building virtual reality experiences; PlayCanvas, an open-source engine alongside a proprietary cloud-hosted creation platform for building browser games; Three.js, an MIT-licensed framework used to create demoscene from the early 2000s; Unity, which obtained a WebGL back-end in version 5; and Verge3D, which integrates with Blender, 3ds Max, and Maya to create 3D web content. With the rapid adoption of WebGL, a new problem arose—the lack of a 3D file format optimized for the Web. This issue was addressed by glTF, a format that was conceived in 2012 by members of the COLLADA working group. At SIGGRAPH 2012, Khronos presented a demo of glTF, which was then called WebGL Transmissions Format (WebGL TF). On 19 October 2015, the glTF 1.0 specification was released. Version 2.0 glTF uses a physically based rendering material model, proposed by Fraunhofer. Other upgrades include sparse accessors and morph targets for techniques such as facial animation, and schema tweaks and breaking changes for corner cases or performance, such as replacing top-level glTF object properties with arrays for faster index-based access. == Future == "WebGPU" is the working name for a potential web standard and JavaScript API for accelerated graphics and computing, aiming to provide "modern 3D graphics and computation capabilities". It is developed by the W3C "GPU for the Web" Community Group, with engineers from Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Google, among others. WebGPU will not be based on any existing 3D API and will use Rust-like syntax for shaders.
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Online exhibition

An online exhibition, also referred to as a virtual exhibition, online gallery, cyber-exhibition, is an exhibition whose venue is cyberspace. Museums and other organizations create online exhibitions for many reasons. For example, an online exhibition may: expand on material presented at, or generate interest in, or create a durable online record of, a physical exhibition; save production costs (insurance, shipping, installation); solve conservation/preservation problems (e.g., handling of fragile or rare objects); reach lots more people: "Access to information is no longer restricted to those who can afford travel and museum visits, but is available to anyone who has access to a computer with an Internet connection. Unlike physical exhibitions, online exhibitions are not restricted by time; they are not forced to open and close but may be available 24 hours a day. In the nonprofit world, many museums, libraries, archives, universities, and other cultural organizations create online exhibitions. A database of such exhibitions is Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web. Online exhibition organizers may use techniques such as marquee text, display advertisements, and in-event emails to engage patrons. Various guides have been published to help organizations create effective online exhibitions. The earliest museum with a physical existence to create a programme of substantial online exhibitions with high resolution images of artefacts was the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, the first of which, The Measurers: a Flemish Image of Mathematics in the Sixteenth Century and an exhibition of early photographs, were published on 21 August 1995. == Examples of online exhibitions == International Museum of Women is an online-only museum that does not have a physical building and instead offers online exhibitions about women's issues globally as well as an online community. Online exhibitions include "Imagining Ourselves" (launched 2006) about women's identity, "Women, Power and Politics" (2008), and "Economica: Women and the Global Economy" (2009). Tucson LGBTQ Museum is an online-only museum that does not have a physical building and instead offers online exhibitions about LGBTQ history. The online photographic, audio, video, text, and other historical exhibitions include exhibits from the 1700s to the present day. The effort began in the summer of 1967 and spanned almost 50 years. International New Media Gallery (INMG) is an online museum specialising in moving image and screen-based art. The INMG is dedicated to exploring current debates and topics in art history: touching on areas such as migration, war, environmental activism and the internet itself. The gallery publishes extensive academic catalogues alongside its exhibitions. It also hosts spaces for discussion and debate, both online and offline. Virtual Museum of Modern Nigerian Art – the VMMNA is the first of its kind in Africa. Hosted by the Pan-African University, Lagos, Nigeria this virtual museum offers a good view of the development on Nigerian Art in the past fifty years.
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Micro stuttering

Micro stuttering is a visual artifact in real-time computer graphics in which the time intervals between consecutively displayed frames are uneven, even though the average frame rate reported by benchmarking software appears adequate. Tools such as 3DMark typically compute frame rates over intervals of one second or more, which can conceal momentary drops in the instantaneous frame rate that the viewer perceives as hitching or jerking of on-screen motion. At low frame rates the effect is visible as a stutter in moving images, degrading the experience in interactive applications such as video games. In severe cases a lower but more consistent frame rate can appear smoother than a higher but more erratic one. The term gained prominence in the late 2000s in discussions of multi-GPU rendering (see History), but micro stuttering also affects single-GPU systems. Common causes on modern hardware include real-time shader compilation, asset streaming from storage, VRAM exhaustion, and driver bugs. == Causes == === Shader compilation === A common cause of micro stuttering on modern PCs is real-time shader compilation. Shaders are small programs that instruct the GPU on how to render visual effects such as lighting, shadows, and reflections. On consoles, developers can pre-compile all shaders for the known, fixed hardware. On PCs, the variety of GPU architectures means shaders must often be compiled at run time, either when the game launches or during gameplay itself. When the rendering engine encounters a shader that has not yet been compiled, the CPU must finish the compilation before the GPU can draw the affected object. This causes a spike in frame time that the player perceives as a hitch. The problem has been particularly associated with games built on Unreal Engine 4 running under DirectX 12, because DX12 shifts more shader management responsibility to the application. Several techniques exist to reduce shader compilation stutter. Pipeline State Object (PSO) pre-caching records the shader permutations used at runtime so that they can be compiled in advance on subsequent launches. Asynchronous shader compilation moves the work to background CPU threads to avoid blocking the main rendering thread. Platform-level services such as Steam's shader pre-caching distribute previously compiled shaders to users with matching GPU hardware. The Steam Deck, which contains a single fixed GPU, benefits from pre-compiled shader caches because all units share the same hardware configuration. === Other causes === Micro stuttering on single-GPU systems can have several additional causes. CPU bottlenecks or scheduling interruptions from background tasks can prevent the processor from preparing frames at regular intervals. Asset streaming during gameplay (loading textures, geometry, or audio from storage) can produce hitches sometimes called traversal stutter; the use of solid-state drives and technologies such as DirectStorage has reduced but not eliminated this. VRAM exhaustion forces data to be swapped between video memory and system memory over the PCI Express bus, which is slower. Graphics driver bugs can also introduce stutter; Nvidia released hotfix driver 551.46 in February 2024 to correct intermittent micro stuttering when V-Sync was enabled. == Measurement == Micro stuttering drew attention to the limitations of average frame rate as a performance metric. In 2013, Scott Wasson at The Tech Report published a series of articles advocating frame time analysis, in which the delivery time of every individual frame is recorded and plotted rather than collapsed into a single frames-per-second figure. This approach was adopted by other hardware review publications in the following years. GPU reviews now routinely report 1% low and 0.1% low frame rates alongside the average. The 1% low is the average frame rate of the slowest 1% of frames in a sample; it serves as an indicator of worst-case smoothness. A large gap between the average and the 1% low suggests poor frame pacing. Tools for capturing per-frame timing data include FRAPS, PresentMon, OCAT, CapFrameX, and MSI Afterburner with RivaTuner Statistics Server. == Mitigation == === Frame pacing === Frame pacing is a software technique that regulates the timing of frame delivery to produce even intervals between displayed frames. Game engines, GPU drivers, and platform libraries all implement frame pacing strategies to varying degrees. On mobile platforms, Google provides the Android Frame Pacing library (Swappy) as part of the Android Game Development Kit. In December 2025, the Khronos Group published the VK_EXT_present_timing Vulkan extension, giving developers explicit control over presentation timing in a cross-platform graphics API for the first time. === Variable refresh rate === Variable refresh rate (VRR) display technologies allow a monitor's refresh rate to change to match the GPU's frame output. Implementations include Nvidia G-Sync (2013), AMD FreeSync (2015), and the VESA Adaptive-Sync standard built into DisplayPort 1.2a and later. VRR eliminates the screen tearing that results from a mismatch between frame rate and refresh rate, and avoids the frame-holding behaviour of V-Sync that can itself cause stutter. It is effective at smoothing moderate frame rate fluctuations but cannot compensate for large sudden spikes in frame time such as those caused by shader compilation or heavy asset streaming. VRR support has become standard in gaming monitors, televisions (via HDMI 2.1), and the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles. === Frame generation === Beginning with DLSS 3 on the GeForce RTX 40 series in 2022, Nvidia introduced AI-based frame generation, which uses dedicated optical flow hardware and a neural network to create new frames between traditionally rendered ones. AMD followed with FSR 3 in 2023, using an algorithmic approach, and the AI-based FSR 4 for the Radeon RX 9000 series in 2025. DLSS 4, released in January 2025 for the GeForce RTX 50 series, can generate up to three frames per rendered frame using a technique called Multi Frame Generation. Frame generation increases the displayed frame rate but introduces its own frame pacing concerns. If the underlying rendered frames are unevenly timed, the interpolated frames can make the unevenness more apparent rather than less. DLSS 4 addresses this with hardware-level flip metering on the GPU's display engine, which controls the timing of frame presentation more precisely than the CPU-based pacing used in DLSS 3. Both vendors pair frame generation with latency-reduction features (Nvidia Reflex and AMD Anti-Lag+) to offset the additional input latency that results from inserting synthetic frames into the pipeline. === Frame rate limiters === Capping the frame rate below the display's maximum refresh rate, using tools such as RivaTuner Statistics Server, in-game limiters, or driver-level settings, is a common way to improve frame pacing. Preventing the GPU from running ahead of the display reduces variability in frame delivery times and can produce a smoother result than an uncapped but more irregular frame rate. == History == === Multi-GPU configurations === Micro stuttering was first widely documented in the late 2000s as a side effect of multi-GPU configurations using Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR), in which consecutive frames are assigned to alternating GPUs. Because each GPU may take a different amount of time to complete its assigned frame — due to varying scene complexity, driver scheduling, or inter-GPU communication overhead — the resulting frame delivery is irregular even when the average frame rate is high. Both Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFireX were affected, with dual-GPU setups exhibiting the worst frame pacing irregularities. In 2012 benchmarks using Battlefield 3, dual Radeon HD 7970 cards in CrossFire showed 85% variation in frame delivery times compared with 7% for a single card, while dual GeForce GTX 680 cards in SLI showed only 7% variation compared with 5% for a single card. Multi-GPU micro stuttering became a significant factor in the eventual decline and discontinuation of consumer multi-GPU gaming. Nvidia restricted SLI to a handful of enthusiast-class cards from the GeForce 10 series onward, then replaced it with NVLink on the GeForce RTX 20 series, which saw limited gaming adoption. AMD ceased active CrossFire development around 2017. By the mid-2020s, neither vendor's current consumer GPUs support multi-GPU rendering for games. Other factors that contributed to the decline include DirectX 12 placing multi-GPU support in the hands of game developers rather than driver authors, the incompatibility of temporal anti-aliasing and other temporal rendering techniques with AFR, and the increasing size, power draw, and cost of individual GPUs. The third-party utility RadeonPro could reduce CrossFire micro stuttering through dynamic V-Sync and frame pacing adjustments, and AMD later introduced a driver-level frame paci
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Errored second

In telecommunications and data communication systems, an errored second is an interval of a second during which any error whatsoever has occurred, regardless of whether that error was a single bit error or a complete loss of communication for that entire second. The type of error is not important for the purpose of counting errored seconds. In communication systems with very low uncorrected bit error rates, such as modern fiber-optic transmission systems, or systems with higher low-level error rates that are corrected using large amounts of forward error correction, errored seconds are often a better measure of the effective user-visible error rate than the raw bit error rate. For many modern packet-switched communication systems, even a single uncorrected bit error is enough to cause the loss of a data packet by causing its CRC check to fail; whether that packet loss was caused by a single bit error or a hundred-bit-long error burst is irrelevant. For systems using large amounts of forward error correction, the reverse applies; a single low-level bit error will almost never occur, since any small errors will almost always be corrected, but any error sufficiently large to cause the forward error correction to fail will almost always result in a large burst error. More specialist and precise definitions of errored seconds exist in standards such as the T1 and DS1 transport systems.
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Flat-panel display

A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipment. Flat-panel displays are thin, lightweight, provide better linearity and are capable of higher resolution and contrast than typical consumer-grade TVs from earlier eras. They are usually less than 10 centimetres (3.9 in) thick. While the highest resolution for consumer-grade CRT televisions is 1080i, many interactive flat panels in the 2020s are capable of 1080p and 4K resolution. In the 2010s, portable consumer electronics such as laptops, mobile phones, and portable cameras have used flat-panel displays since they consume less power and are lightweight. As of 2016, flat-panel displays have almost completely replaced CRT displays. Most 2010s-era flat-panel displays use LCD or light-emitting diode (LED) technologies, sometimes combined. Most LCD screens are back-lit with color filters used to display colors. In many cases, flat-panel displays are combined with touch screen technology, which allows the user to interact with the display in a natural manner. For example, modern smartphone displays often use OLED panels, with capacitive touch screens. Flat-panel displays can be divided into two display device categories: volatile and static. The former requires that pixels be periodically electronically refreshed to retain their state (e.g. liquid-crystal displays (LCD)), and can only show an image when it has power. On the other hand, static flat-panel displays rely on materials whose color states are bistable, such as displays that make use of e-ink technology, and as such retain content even when power is removed. == History == The first engineering proposal for a flat-panel TV was by General Electric in 1954 as a result of its work on radar monitors. The publication of their findings gave all the basics of future flat-panel TVs and monitors. But GE did not continue with the R&D required and never built a working flat panel at that time. The first production flat-panel display was the Aiken tube, developed in the early 1950s and produced in limited numbers in 1958. This saw some use in military systems as a heads up display and as an oscilloscope monitor, but conventional technologies overtook its development. Attempts to commercialize the system for home television use ran into continued problems and the system was never released commercially. Dennis Gabor, better known as the inventor of holography, patented a flat-screen CRT in 1958. This was substantially similar to Aiken's concept, and led to a years-long patent battle. By the time the lawsuits were complete, with Aiken's patent applying in the US and Gabor's in the UK, the commercial aspects had long lapsed, and the two became friends. Around this time, Clive Sinclair came across Gabor's work and began an ultimately unsuccessful decade-long effort to commercialize it. The Philco Predicta featured a relatively flat (for its day) cathode-ray tube setup and would be the first commercially released "flat panel" upon its launch in 1958; the Predicta was a commercial failure. The plasma display panel was invented in 1964 at the University of Illinois, according to The History of Plasma Display Panels. === Liquid-crystal displays (LC displays, or LCDs) === The MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959, and presented in 1960. Building on their work, Paul K. Weimer at RCA developed the thin-film transistor (TFT) in 1962. It was a type of MOSFET distinct from the standard bulk MOSFET. The idea of a TFT-based LCD was conceived by Bernard J. Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968. B.J. Lechner, F.J. Marlowe, E.O. Nester and J. Tults demonstrated the concept in 1968 with a dynamic scattering LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs. The first active-matrix addressed electroluminescent display was made using TFTs by T. Peter Brody's Thin-Film Devices department at Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1968. In 1973, Brody, J. A. Asars and G. D. Dixon at Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display. Brody and Fang-Chen Luo demonstrated the first flat active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) using TFTs in 1974. By 1982, pocket LCD TVs based on LCD technology were developed in Japan. The 2.1-inch Epson ET-10 Epson Elf was the first color LCD pocket TV, released in 1984. In 1988, a Sharp research team led by engineer T. Nagayasu demonstrated a 14-inch full-color LCD, which convinced the electronics industry that LCD would eventually replace CRTs as the standard television display technology. As of 2013, all modern high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active-matrix displays. === LED displays === The first usable LED display was developed by Hewlett-Packard (HP) and introduced in 1968. It was the result of research and development (R&D) on practical LED technology between 1962 and 1968, by a research team under Howard C. Borden, Gerald P. Pighini, and Mohamed M. Atalla, at HP Associates and HP Labs. In February 1969, they introduced the HP Model 5082-7000 Numeric Indicator. It was the first alphanumeric LED display, and was a revolution in digital display technology, replacing the Nixie tube for numeric displays and becoming the basis for later LED displays. In 1977, James P Mitchell prototyped and later demonstrated what was perhaps the earliest monochromatic flat-panel LED television display. Ching W. Tang and Steven Van Slyke at Eastman Kodak built the first practical organic LED (OLED) device in 1987. In 2003, Hynix produced an organic EL driver capable of lighting in 4,096 colors. In 2004, the Sony Qualia 005 was the first LED-backlit LCD. The Sony XEL-1, released in 2007, was the first OLED television. == Common types == === Liquid-crystal display (LCD) === Field-effect LCDs are lightweight, compact, portable, cheap, more reliable, and easier on the eyes than CRT screens. LCD screens use a thin layer of liquid crystal, a liquid that exhibits crystalline properties. It is sandwiched between two glass plates carrying transparent electrodes. Two polarizing films are placed at each side of the LCD. By generating a controlled electric field between electrodes, various segments or pixels of the liquid crystal can be activated, causing changes in their polarizing properties. These polarizing properties depend on the alignment of the liquid-crystal layer and the specific field-effect used, being either twisted nematic (TN), in-plane switching (IPS) or vertical alignment (VA). Color is produced by applying appropriate color filters (red, green and blue) to the individual subpixels. LC displays are used in various electronics like watches, calculators, mobile phones, TVs, computer monitors and laptops screens etc. === LED-LCD === Most earlier large LCD screens were back-lit using a number of CCFL (cold-cathode fluorescent lamps). However, small pocket size devices almost always used LEDs as their illumination source. With the improvement of LEDs, almost all new displays are now equipped with LED backlight technology. The image is still generated by the LCD layer. === Plasma panel === A plasma display consists of two glass plates separated by a thin gap filled with a gas such as neon. Each of these plates has several parallel electrodes running across it. The electrodes on the two plates are at right angles to each other. A voltage applied between the two electrodes one on each plate causes a small segment of gas at the two electrodes to glow. The glow of gas segments is maintained by a lower voltage that is continuously applied to all electrodes. By 2010, consumer plasma displays had been discontinued by numerous manufacturers. === Electroluminescent panel === In an electroluminescent display, the image is created by applying electrical signals to the plates which make the phosphor glow. === Organic light-emitting diode === An OLED (organic light-emitting diode) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound which emits light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor is situated between two electrodes; typically, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices such as television screens, computer monitors, portable systems such as mobile phones, handheld game consoles and PDAs. === Quantum-dot light-emitting diode === QLED or quantum dot LED is a flat panel display technology introduced by Samsung under this trademark. Other television set manufacturers such as Sony have used the same technology to enhance the backlighting of LCD TVs already in 2013. Quantum dots create their own unique light when illuminated by a light source of shorter wavelength such as blue LEDs. Th
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Digital content

Digital content is any content that exists in the form of digital data. Digital content is stored on digital media or analog storage in specific formats. Forms of digital content include information that is digitally broadcast, streamed, or contained in computer files. Viewed narrowly, digital content includes popular media types, while a broader approach considers any type of digital information (e. g. digitally updated weather forecasts, GPS maps, and so on) as digital content. Digital content has increased as more households have accessed the Internet. Expanded access has made it easier for people to receive their news and watch TV online, challenging the popularity of traditional platforms. Increased access to the Internet has also led to the mass publication of digital content through individuals in the form of eBooks, blog posts, and even Facebook posts. == History == At the beginning of the Digital Revolution, computers facilitated the discovery, retrieval, and creation of new information in every field of human knowledge. As information became increasingly more accessible, the Digital Revolution also facilitated the creation of digital content. Despite an evolution to digital technology, which occurred somewhere between the late 1970s, distribution of digital content did not begin until the late 1990s with the rise in popularity of the Internet. In the past, digital content was primarily distributed through computers and the Internet. Methods of distribution are rapidly changing as the Digital Revolution brings new channels, such as mobile apps and eBooks. These new technologies will create challenges for content creators, as they determine the best channel to bring content to their consumers. Despite the benefits, new technologies have created new intellectual property issues. Users can easily share, modify, and redistribute content outside of the creator's control. While new technologies have made digital content available to large audiences, managing copyright and limiting content movement will continue to be an issue that digital content creators face in the future. == Types of digital content == Examples include: Video – Types of video content include home videos, music videos, TV shows, and movies. Many of these can be viewed on websites such as YouTube, Hulu, Paramount+, Disney+, HBO Max, and so on, in which people and companies alike can post content. However, many movies and television shows are not available for free legally, but rather can be purchased from sites such as iTunes and Amazon. Audio – Music is the most common form of audio. Spotify has emerged as a popular way for people to listen to music either over the Internet or from their computer desktop. Digital content in the form of music is also available through Pandora and last.fm, both of which allow listeners to listen to music online for no charge. Images – Photo and image sharing is another example of digital content. Popular sites used for this type of digital content includes Imgur, where people share self-created pictures, Flickr, where people share their photo albums, and DeviantArt, where people share their artwork. Popular apps that are used for images include Instagram and Snapchat. Visual Stories - Stories are a new type of digital content that got introduced by Snapchat. Since then, stories as a format has been introduced in a couple of other platforms such as Facebook and Linkedin. In 2018, Google introduced their AMP Stories, which provides content publishers with a mobile-focused format for delivering news and information as visually rich, tap-through stories. Text - Type of digital content which is available in text or written format. Blog websites which store data in form of textual format. === Paid digital content === In order to have access to more premium digital goods, consumers usually have to pay an upfront charge for digital content, or a subscription based fee. Video – Many licensed videos, such as movies and television shows, require money in order to be viewed or downloaded. Popular services used by many include streaming giant Netflix and Amazon's streaming service, as well as recent notice put forth by the online video platform YouTube. Audio – While songs can be streamed for free, generally in order to download most licensed music, consumers need to purchase songs from web stores, such as the popular iTunes. However, Spotify Premium is emerging as a new model for purchasing digital content on the web: consumers pay a monthly fee to unlimited streaming and downloading from Spotify's music library. According to a report done by IHS Inc. in 2013, the global consumer spending on digital content grew to over $57 billion in 2013, which was up almost 30% from $44 billion in 2012. In past years, the US has always been a leader in consumer expenditure on digital content, but as of 2013, many countries have emerged with great consumer expenditure. South Korea's overall digital spend per capita is now greater than the US. ==== Consolidation ==== According to research firm Ampere Analysis, in 2024, a small group of six media conglomerates; Disney, Comcast, Google, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, and Paramount Global—are poised to dominate the global content market. These companies are projected to account for 51% of all global spending on content, a significant increase from 47% in 2020. Disney, in particular, is a major player, with an estimated $35.8 billion investment in television and film content, representing 14% of global spending. This significant increase, fueled by Disney's full ownership of Hulu, highlights the company's strategic focus on streaming services. A substantial portion of the projected $126 billion global content spending is allocated to streaming platforms. === Non-purchasable digital content === Not all digital content is purchasable, and is simply anything published digitally. This would include: News – in recent years newspapers have attempted to expand their readership by creating access to their newspapers digitally. As of 2012, 39% of readers learned about news from online formats, making news a prevalent form of digital content. Advertisements – as media consumers increasingly use digital formats to watch TV, check the weather, and search for content, advertisements have shifted to digital forms to keep up with their viewership. Advertisements are now being made digitally and placed on sites ranging from Facebook to YouTube. Question and Answer sites – these sites are a type of Internet forum where people can post questions they want answered, or provide responses to previous inquiries. With millions of questions posted each day, anyone has the ability to create content on these sites, so the information provided may not be 100% reliable or accurate. Popular sites include Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers and Quora. Web mapping – sites such as MapQuest and Google Maps provide users with map content. These sites give people the ability to quickly look up the location of a landmark and create routes to a destination. Online maps are a form of free content provided by companies such as Google and AOL, serving as much more efficient alternatives to the traditional Thomas Guide. == Business implications == === Digital companies === Digital content businesses can include news, information, and entertainment distributed over the Internet and consumed digitally by both consumers and businesses. Based on revenue, the leading digital businesses are ranked Google, China Mobile, Bloomberg, Reed Elsevier, and Apple. The 50 companies with the highest revenue are split between those offering free and paid digital content, but these top 50 companies combined generate revenue of $150 billion. === Educational opportunities === Programs such as CUNY's Macaulay Honors College in their New Media Lab, run by industry professional Robert Small, is set up to train and introduce students to the various disciplines within the digital content industry. The goal is to offer information and access to professional work opportunities. They also explore within an incubator how to create businesses and start ups within the world of digital content. There are many educational events in support of choosing digital content as a career. === Government support === The Irish government adopted a "Strategy for the Digital Content Industry in Ireland" in 2002.
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EasyChair

EasyChair is a web-based conference management software system. It has been used since 2002 in the scientific community for tasks such as organising research paper submission and review. In 2012, EasyChair added an open access online publication service for conference proceedings. == Description == EasyChair is a paid web-based conference management software system used, among other tasks, to organize paper submission and review, similar to other event management system software such as OpenConf. EasyChair used to be run by the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester but now it is a commercial service, owned by EasyChair Ltd. in Stockport (established 2016). EasyChair used to be free, for standard service, but as of 2022, only minimal services are free. The EasyChair website also provides an open access online publication service for conference proceedings. When launched in 2012, the service was for computer science only, but in 2016 it was expanded to all sciences. == History == The EasyChair software has been in continuous development since 2002. As of 2015, the code base consists of nearly 300,000 lines of code, and it has been used by more than 41,000 conferences. More than two and a half million users in the scientific community reported using it in 2019.
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International Webmasters Association

The International Webmasters Association (IWA) is a non-profit association for education and certification of web professionals founded in 1996. It provides a Certified Web Professional certification. One of its objectives is to build a World Wide Web that is a true global community. According to the IWA, as of 2025 it has more than 100 official chapters with over 300,000 individual members in 106 countries. In 2001, the IWA merged with the HTML Writers Guild (HWG) and joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). IWA's accomplishments include the publishing of the industry's first guidelines for ethical and professional standards, web certification and education programs, specialized employment resources, and technical assistance to individuals and businesses. IWA members participate to the activities of W3C WCAG Working Group, ATAG Working Group, and the XHTML Working Group. They have also participated in other initiatives such as the Multimodal Interaction Working Group which developed EMMA, the Extensible MultiModal Annotation markup language.
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Cringe culture

Cringe culture () is an Internet phenomenon and neologism characterized by the mockery and ridicule of content, behaviors, or expressions deemed embarrassing or awkward. The term cringe evolved semantically from describing personal secondhand embarrassment to becoming a dismissive label applied to various forms of online expression and fan behavior. The phenomenon emerged in the early 2000s as a response to awkward online content but gradually transformed into a cultural force that impacted fan communities, creative expression, and social media behavior. Cringe culture gained particular prominence through online platforms like Reddit and 4chan, and has been observed to cause the decline of various fandoms when they become labeled as cringe. Cringe culture has extended beyond Internet communities into academic and professional settings. Educators have noticed increased self-consciousness among students about displaying effort in their work (known as tryharding). By the early 2020s, a cultural pushback against cringe culture began to emerge, with public figures and celebrities advocating for authentic self-expression and rejecting the fear of being perceived as "trying too hard". == Origin == The term cringe underwent semantic change from its original usage describing an involuntary physical response, then to embarrassment. The term gained popularity in online forums during the early 2000s, when public self-humiliation online was a relatively novel phenomenon. Early cringe culture drew much of its content from YouTube. According to Kaitlyn Tiffany of The Atlantic, the majority of cringe stemmed from people who did not seem to understand that anyone in the world could see their videos. The phenomenon initially focused on empathy and secondhand embarrassment, with viewers relating to the awkward situations they witnessed. Popular early examples of cringe include the 2002 viral video Star Wars Kid and "My Video for Briona for Our 7 Month", in which a man winks, licks his lips, and makes romantic declarations to his partner. Early cringe culture encompassed multiple styles, including self-deprecating, playful, and hostile forms. On /b/ (4chan's "random" board), early cringe discussions targeted groups like Tumblr users, social justice warriors, fangirls, and furries, while also being used to describe "normies" who lacked sufficient knowledge of Internet culture to understand its ironic humor. In July 2012, Reddit user Michael Dombkowski took over the dormant r/cringe subreddit after watching a KENS5 segment about teen werewolves. Dombkowski created RSS feeds to alert him whenever someone mentioned cringe anywhere on Reddit, then encouraged users to visit his subreddit. The subreddit collected 10,000 monthly pageviews in its first month, which grew to 941,000 by September 2012 and 5 million the following month. According to The Daily Dot, Dombkowski had intended the subreddit to elicit empathy from viewers rather than to mock its subjects. On November 9, 2012, Dombkowski banned all images from r/cringe and created r/cringepics as a spinoff subreddit for image-based content. The community initially opposed this decision, as users worried that it would fragment the community. In a few months, r/cringepics overtook r/cringe in traffic and subscribers. By 2014, the combined subreddits amassed over 500,000 subscribers and more than 30 million monthly pageviews. In a March 2013 company AMA ("Ask Me Anything"), Reddit's general manager Erik Martin stated that he hates "r/cringepics and anything cringe related and the whole idea." == Impact == Cringe culture has impacted various fandoms. Screen Rant dubbed the phenomenon in which a fandom abruptly dissipates when suddenly deemed cringe (due to the actions of individuals within the fandom or the fandom being re-evaluated as a whole) as the "My Hero Academia Effect". My Hero Academia initially enjoyed popularity in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the resurfacing of embarrassing TikTok videos of convention-goers in 2020 caused the My Hero Academia fandom to be deemed cringy, and thus was abandoned by many anime fans. Similarly, the fandom of the Homestuck webcomic, which ran from 2009 to 2016, faced scrutiny when cosplayers filled bathtubs with Sharpies to achieve gray skin coloring (emulating the design of the Homestuck characters), which led to property damage at hotels and convention bans. Many fans subsequently abandoned the fandom, and as a result, according to Screen Rant, the Homestuck fandom was almost non-existent by 2024. It is worth noting that as of September 27, 2025 animation studio SpindleHorse, also responsible for the popular animated show Hazbin Hotel (another common recipient of Cringe Culture discussion) has released a Homestuck animated pilot episode on YouTube. Other fandoms that were deemed cringy include the Stranger Things and Hazbin Hotel fandoms. Isobel Heal of Varsity described being "far too insecure as a teen to even consider listening to songs inspired by My Little Pony or Five Nights at Freddy's regardless of how catchy they were," but found that attending a Living Tombstone concert allowed her to overcome these inhibitions. She wrote that everyone in the crowd was "completely unafraid to engage in the silliness of the entire night," which allowed her to "let my guard down and enjoy the evening without fear of feeling 'cringe.'" Heal described her experience of singing along to tracks like "Discord", a My Little Pony–themed song, provided what she described as healing "the wounds of the younger me" and represented a form of reclaiming interests that had been suppressed due to social pressure and bullying. == Reactions == New York University professor Ocean Vuong observed that students increasingly hesitate to reveal effort behind their creative work. Vuong stated that students often say "I want to be a good writer, but it's a bit cringe" and perform cynicism because it can be misread as intelligence. In May 2022, Taylor Swift addressed cringe culture in her commencement speech at New York University: she advised graduates to "learn to live alongside cringe" and that "cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime." Other celebrities have made public speeches fighting against the perceived notion that "tryharding" is cringe. In his 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards acceptance speech, Timothée Chalamet emphasized his pursuit of greatness and the effort he invested in his roles, which diverged from typical humble acceptance speeches. In her 67th Annual Grammy Awards acceptance speech, rapper Doechii also stressed her dedication and hard work. According to The Daily Dot, X users called Chalamet and Doechii's speeches "refreshing" and decried those who embrace cringe culture as "miserable losers". In 2023, Critical Role dungeon master Matthew Mercer spoke against cringe culture at New York Comic Con: "We live in an odd time of 'cringe culture' where anything that's honest can be called cringe. And I don't agree with that." Mercer argued that much of what is dismissed as cringe consists of "people being their authentic self." In October 2025, actress and singer Ariana Grande discussed her experience with cringe culture in an interview on the podcast Shut Up Evan. She described the phenomenon as "unfair", stating that people should be allowed to express passion and happiness without judgement. She further explained that in the wake of her leading role in the 2024 film Wicked there were those who perceived the behavior of her and costar Cynthia Erivo during the film's press tour as "inauthentic" and therefore cringe. == Analysis == In 2021, Steven Dashiell wrote in the journal Studies in Popular Culture that cringe culture functions as a mechanism for social boundaries within the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom, and that cringe culture operates not only between different communities but also within fandoms themselves. In his analysis, Dashiell examined a Reddit thread where a brony (an adult fan of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) expressed embarrassment about other bronies. The thread received over 400 comments in which participants engaged in what Dashiell termed other-izing: distancing themselves from behaviors they deemed cringeworthy. Rather than defending the criticized bronies, commenters consistently used the term cringe to describe their reactions to certain fan behaviors while distinguishing themselves from the so-called "deviant brony" to normalize their own participation in the fandom. A February 2024 Hinge report revealed that more than half of Generation Z worries about cringe while dating and are 50 percent more likely than millennials to delay responding to avoid seeming overeager.
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Elonis v. United States

Elonis v. United States, 575 U.S. 723 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning whether conviction of threatening another person over interstate lines (under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c)) requires proof of subjective intent to threaten or whether it is enough to show that a "reasonable person" would regard the statement as threatening. In controversy were the purported threats of violent rap lyrics written by Anthony Douglas Elonis and posted to Facebook under a pseudonym. The ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioner. It was the first time the Court has heard a case considering true threats and the limits of speech on social media. == Background == In May 2010, Elonis was in the process of divorce and made a number of public Facebook posts. Prior to his postings, he had lost his job at an amusement park. He "posted the script of a sketch" by The Whitest Kids U' Know, which originally referenced saying "I want to kill the President of the United States" and replaced the president with his wife: Elonis ended the post with this statement: "Art is about pushing limits. I'm willing to go to jail for my constitutional rights. Are you?" A week later, Elonis posted about local law enforcement and a kindergarten class, which caught the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Then, he wrote a post on Facebook about one of the agents who visited him: He concluded: == Arrest and Conviction == These actions led to Elonis's arrest on December 8, 2010. He was indicted by a grand jury on five counts of threats to his estranged ex-wife, park employees and visitors, local law enforcement, an FBI agent, and a kindergarten class that had been relayed through interstate communication. At the district court, Elonis moved to dismiss the indictment for failing to allege that he had intended to threaten anyone, claiming his Facebook post was not were not intended as a threat. He argued that, as an aspiring rap artist, his posts were intended to be a form of artistic expression to help him cope with his recent loses. According to him, he did not mean anything said in his posts in a literal sense. His motion was denied. He requested a jury instruction that "the government must prove that he intended to communicate a true threat", which was also denied. He was convicted on the last four of the five counts, and was sentenced to 44 months in prison and three years on supervised release. He appealed unsuccessfully to the Third Circuit, renewing his challenge to the jury instructions. He then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court based on lack of any attempt to show intent to threaten and on First Amendment rights. == Decision == On June 1, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Elonis's conviction in an 8–1 decision. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a seven-justice majority, Samuel Alito authored an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, and Clarence Thomas authored a dissenting opinion. The finding of the circuit court was reversed and the matter remanded. === Majority opinion === The majority opinion, written by Roberts, did not rule on First Amendment matters or on the question of whether recklessness was sufficient mens rea to show intent. It ruled that mens rea was required to prove the commission of a crime under §875(c). Importantly, the mens rea issue had been preserved for review, since Elonis had raised that objection at every stage of the previous proceedings. The government contended that the presence of the words "intent to extort" in §875(b) and §875(d) implied that the absence in §875(c) was constructive. The court disagreed, holding that the absence of the language in §875(c) was because the section was intended to have a broader scope than threats relating to extortion. The opinion drew on many Supreme Court cases holding that in criminal law, mens rea was required though it had not been mentioned explicitly in statute. Consequently, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Elonis. === Alito's concurrence === Justice Samuel Alito, concurring in part and dissenting in part, opined that while agreeing that mens rea was required and specifically that showing negligence was not sufficient, the court should have ruled on the question of recklessness. He further opined that recklessness was sufficient to show a crime under that provision on the basis that going further would amount to amending the statute, rather than interpreting it. Since Elonis explicitly argued that recklessness was not sufficient, Alito said: I would therefore remand for the Third Circuit to determine if Elonis’s failure (indeed, refusal) to argue for recklessness prevents reversal of his conviction. The Third Circuit should also have the opportunity to consider whether the conviction could be upheld on harmless error grounds. Alito also addressed the First Amendment question, elided by the majority opinion. He held that "lyrics in songs that are performed for an audience or sold in recorded form are unlikely to be interpreted as a real threat to a real person. ... Statements on social media that are pointedly directed at their victims, by contrast, are much more likely to be taken seriously." === Thomas's dissent === Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting, wrote against discarding the "general intent" standard without replacing it with a clearer standard. Thomas argued that "there is no historical practice requiring more than general intent when a statute regulates speech." Thomas cited Rosen v. United States, arguing that general intent was sufficient in this case. However, the majority opinion offers refutation in that Rosen turned on ignorance of the law: knowledge as to whether material was legally obscene, not on whether it was intended to be obscene. Thomas also supported the government's claim that the presence of "intent to extort" language in the adjacent §875(b) and did not address the majority's reasoning on that language. Thomas used precedent, notably from the states and 18th-century England based on other but similar and, arguably, influencing legislation to support his "general intent" claim. Thomas also drew a parallel with general intent in tort. While he sought to address the First Amendment issues, he never strayed far from "general intent". == Aftermath == On remand, the Third Circuit reaffirmed the conviction "concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that Elonis would have been convicted if the jury had been properly instructed" and therefore was harmless error. In 2022, Elonis was once again arrested and indicted on three counts of cyberstalking involving three people. It was discovered that between 2018 and 2021, Elonis had sent numerous threatening messages over email, text, voice mail, and social media platforms like Twitter to a former prosecutor of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, his ex-girlfriend, and ex-wife. On August 5, after a five-day trial, Elonis was found guilty on all three counts, and on March 23, 2023, he was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Edward G. Smith of Easton, Pennsylvania to twelve years and seven months in prison.
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Super app

A super app or super-app (also known as an everything app) is a mobile or web application that can provide multiple services including payment and instant messaging services, effectively becoming an all-encompassing, self-contained, commerce and communication online platform that embraces many aspects of personal and commercial life. Notable examples of super apps include Tencent's WeChat in China, Tata Neu in India, Grab in Southeast Asia and Max in Russia. For end users, a super app is an application that provides a set of core features while also giving access to independently developed miniapps. For app developers, a super app is an application integrated with the capabilities of platforms and ecosystems that allows third-parties to develop and publish miniapps. == History == The super app term was first used to describe WeChat when it combined the instant messaging service with the digital wallet function. Recognition of WeChat as a super app stems from its combination of messaging, payments, e-commerce, and much more within a single application, making it indispensable for many users. WeChat's establishment of the super app model has led companies like Meta to try to build similar applications outside of China. In India, Tata Group has announced that it is currently developing a super app named Tata Neu. Major Indian companies like Paytm, PhonePe, and ITC Maars also have apps in development that might constitute super apps. In Southeast Asia, Grab and Gojek lay claim to the super app classification despite lacking many of the features offered by WeChat. Accordingly, growth-stage companies like Shopee, Traveloka, and AirAsia have also expanded the range of services offered by their respective applications. == Notable examples == === Alipay === Alipay is a third-party mobile and online payment platform established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. It operates in association with Ant Group, an affiliate company of the Chinese Alibaba Group. === Gojek === Gojek is an Indonesian on-demand multiservice digital platform and fintech payment super app. Established in Jakarta in 2010, as a call center to connect consumers to courier delivery and two-wheeled ride-hailing services, it launched its mobile app in 2015 with four services: GoRide, GoSend, GoShop, and GoFood, which has since expanded to offer over 20 services. In 2021, it merged with another Indonesian unicorn, Tokopedia, forming the decacorn GoTo Gojek Tokopedia. === Grab === Grab is a Southeast Asian technology company headquartered in Singapore and Indonesia. Founded in 2012 as the MyTeksi app in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it expanded the following year as GrabTaxi, before moving its headquarters to Singapore in 2014 and rebranding officially as Grab. In addition to ride-hailing and transportation services, the company's mobile app also offers food delivery and digital payment services. === Max === Max is a messenger from the Russian company VK, positioned as a super app. The application combines messaging, calls, and channels features with the integration of additional services: payments, miniapps, taxi ordering, deliveries, and other everyday services are available within a single interface. The goal is to unite communication and routine tasks in a unified ecosystem. === Tata Neu === Tata Neu is a multipurpose super app, developed in India by the Tata Group. It is the country's first super app. The app was launched to coincide with the start of a 2022 Indian Premier League cricket match. === WeChat === WeChat is a Chinese multipurpose instant messaging, social media and mobile payment app. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, the sharing of photographs and videos and location sharing. === X === X is an American social network, originally known as Twitter from its launch through 2023. Prior to his acquisition of the service, new owner Elon Musk stated that he planned for Twitter to become an "everything app" known as "X"; in 2023, the service added an AI chatbot known as "Grok" as well as integrated job search tools known as "X Hiring". In January 2025, X announced its intent to offer a digital wallet service in the future. Later in the year, X revamped its direct messaging system as "Chat". == Criticism == Although apps that fit the super app classification can offer users a wider variety of services in comparison to single-purpose alternatives, internet regulators in regions such as the US and Europe have become more concerned about the overall power of the technology industry and have become more critical of companies developing such apps. In China, WeChat and other local firms have been ordered to open up their platforms to rivals by local regulators. There are also reports that suggest it might be difficult to replicate WeChat's super app model. This stems partly from the peaking of smartphone penetration rates in many regions worldwide, which has led to overcrowded app stores and tighter restrictions on targeted advertising as regulators assert more control over the companies. From a technical viewpoint, single-purpose apps are comparatively faster, more responsive and easier to navigate than super apps, which helps improve the overall user experience. Super-apps are also likelier to store larger amounts of personal data to facilitate the delivery of their services, so users run a greater risk of becoming victims of severe data breaches. In 2020, this unfolded with Tokopedia, which had the data of 91 million of its users stolen and shared by crackers. It has also been noted that a user who loses access to their account or is banned from a super app generally loses access to multiple real-life services and digital applications; the Chinese government has used this approach to penalize people who shared the photos of the Sitong Bridge protest.
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Deconfliction line

A deconfliction line is an official line of communications established between militaries who are or could be hostile, to avoid dangerous misunderstandings and miscalculations based on ignorance. The ultimate aim is to avoid accidents and conflict escalation. In the 2010s and 2020s, the US and Russia set up deconfliction lines during the Syrian civil war and Russo-Ukrainian War. They were regularly tested by military staff, and used by air traffic controllers and senior military officers. They were used to avoid midair collisions between aircraft in the same or adjacent airspace, and sometimes to give warning of airstrikes. In April 2017, Russia severed the Syrian line in retaliation for a called strike.
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Digital Cinema Initiatives

Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC (DCI) is a consortium of major motion picture studios, formed to establish specifications for a common systems architecture for digital cinema systems. The organization was formed in March 2002 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Studios, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Entertainment The primary purpose of DCI is to establish and document specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality. By establishing a common set of content requirements, distributors, studios, exhibitors, d-cinema manufacturers and vendors can be assured of interoperability and compatibility. Because of the relationship of DCI to many of Hollywood's key studios, conformance to DCI's specifications is considered a requirement by software developers or equipment manufacturers targeting the digital cinema market. == Specification == On July 20, 2005, DCI released Version 1.0 of its "Digital Cinema System Specification", commonly referred to as the "DCI Specification". The document describes overall system requirements and specifications for digital cinema. Between March 28, 2006, and March 21, 2007, DCI issued 148 errata to Version 1.0. DCI released Version 1.1 of the DCI Specification on April 12, 2007, incorporating the previous 148 errata into the DCI Specification. On April 15, 2007, at the annual NAB Digital Cinema Summit, DCI announced the new version, as well as some future plans. They released the "Stereoscopic Digital Cinema Addendum" to begin to establish 3-D technical specifications in response to the popularity of 3-D stereoscopic films. It was also announced "which studios would take over the leadership roles in DCI after the current leadership term expires at the end of September." Subsequently, between August 27, 2007, and February 1, 2008, DCI issued 100 errata to Version 1.1. So, DCI released Version 1.2 of the DCI Specification on March 7, 2008, again incorporating the previous 100 errata into the specification document. An additional 96 errata were issued by August 30, 2012, so a revised Version 1.2 incorporating those additional errata was approved on October 10, 2012. DCI approved DCI Specification Version 1.3 on June 27, 2018, integrating the 45 errata issued to the previous version into a new document. On July 20, 2020, fifteen years to the day after Version 1.0, DCI issued a new DCI Specification Version 1.4 that assimilated 29 errata issued since Version 1.3. On October 13, 2021, DCI approved a new DCI Specification Version 1.4.1 that integrated the 23 errata that had been issued to DCI Specification Version 1.4. For the convenience of users, DCI also created an online HTML version of DCI Specification, Version 1.4.1. Due to the HTML conversion process, the footnotes in the DCSS now appear as endnotes. The PDF version contains pagination and page numbers whereas the HTML version does not. DCI Specification Version 1.4.2, dated June 15, 2022, includes revisions and refinements respecting Object-Based Audio Essence (OBAE), also known as Immersive Audio Bitstream (IAB). Version 1.4.2 also implements post-show log record collection utilizing SMPTE 430-17 SMS-OMB Communications Protocol Specification. Additionally, Version 1.4.2 incorporated two prior addenda: the Digital Cinema Object-Based Audio Addendum, dated October 1, 2018 and the Stereoscopic Digital Cinema Addendum, Version 1.0, dated July 11, 2007. Users using Version 1.4.2 no longer need to refer to the separate addenda. Previous DCSS versions are archived on the DCI web site. Based on many SMPTE and ISO standards, such as JPEG 2000-compressed image and "broadcast wave" PCM/WAV sound, the DCI Specification explains the route to create an entire Digital Cinema Package (DCP) from a raw collection of files known as the Digital Cinema Distribution Master (DCDM), as well as the specifics of its content protection, encryption, and forensic marking. The DCI Specification also establishes standards for the decoder requirements and the presentation environment itself, such as ambient light levels, pixel aspect and shape, image luminance, white point chromaticity, and those tolerances to be kept. Even though it specifies what kind of information is required, the DCI Specification does not include specific information about how data within a distribution package is to be formatted. Formatting of this information is defined by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) digital cinema standards and related documents. == Image and audio capability overview == === 2D image === 2048×1080 (2K) at 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s, or 4096×2160 (4K) at 24 frame/s In 2K, for Scope (2.39:1) presentation 2048×858 pixels of the imager is used In 2K, for Flat (1.85:1) presentation 1998×1080 pixels of the imager is used In 4K, for Scope (2.39:1) presentation 4096×1716 pixels of the imager is used In 4K, for Flat (1.85:1) presentation 3996×2160 pixels of the imager is used 12 bits per color component (36 bits per pixel) via dual HD-SDI (encrypted) 10 bits only permitted for 2K at 48 frame/s CIE XYZ color space, gamma-corrected TIFF 6.0 container format (one file per frame) JPEG 2000 compression From 0 to 5 or from 1 to 6 wavelet decomposition levels for 2K or 4K resolutions, respectively Compression rate of 4.71 bits/pixel (2K @ 24 frame/s), 2.35 bits/pixel (2K @ 48 frame/s), 1.17 bits/pixel (4K @ 24 frame/s) 250 Mbit/s maximum image bit rate === Stereoscopic 3D image === 2048×1080 (2K) at 48 frame/s - 24 frame/s per eye (4096×2160 4K not supported) In 2K, for Scope (2.39:1) presentation 2048×858 pixels of the imager is used In 2K, for Flat (1.85:1) presentation 1998×1080 pixels of the imager is used Optionally, in the HD-SDI link only: 12 bit color, YCxCz 4:2:2 (i.e. chroma subsampling in XYZ space), each eye in separate stream === Audio === 24 bits per sample, 48 kHz or 96 kHz Up to 16 channels WAV container, uncompressed PCM DCI has additionally published a document outlining recommended practice for High Frame Rate digital cinema. This document discloses the following proposed frame rates: 60, 96, and 120 frames per second for 2D at 2K resolution; 48 and 60 for stereoscopic 3D at 2K resolution; 48 and 60 for 2D at 4K resolution. The maximum compressed bit rate for support of all proposed frame rates should be 500 Mbit/s. == Related information == The idea for DCI was originally mooted in late 1999 by Tom McGrath, then COO of Paramount Pictures, who applied to the U.S. Department of Justice for anti-trust waivers to allow the joint cooperation of all seven major motion picture studios. Universal Pictures made one of the first feature-length DCPs created to DCI specifications, using their film Serenity. Although it was not distributed theatrically, it had one public screening on November 7, 2005, at the USC Entertainment Technology Center's Digital Cinema Laboratory in the Pacific Theatre, Hollywood. Inside Man (2006) was Universal's first DCP commercial release, and, in addition to 35mm film distribution, was delivered via hard drive to 20 theatres in the United States along with two trailers. The Academy Film Archive houses the Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC Collection, which includes film and digital elements from DCI's Standard Evaluation Material (StEM), a 12-minute production shot on 35mm and 65mm film, created for vendors and standards organizations to test and evaluate image compression and digital projection technologies.
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