AI Assistant Zara

AI Assistant Zara — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

Army Chief Information Officer/G-6

In September 2020, the Army realigned the previously consolidated CIO/G-6 function into two separate roles, Office of the Chief Information Officer and Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6, that report to the secretary of the Army and chief of staff of the Army, respectively. The realignment came after several months of planning and coordination. Lt. Gen. John Morrison was nominated to the Senate for promotion and assignment as the G-6 and confirmed, assuming that position in August 2020. Subsequently, the Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy appointed Dr. Raj G. Iyer as the first civilian Chief Information Officer, a career Senior Executive Service position in November 2020. == G-6 == Advise chief of staff of the Army and the Chief Information Officer on planning, fielding, and execution of C4IT worldwide Army operations Develop and execute the plan for the Unified Network Implement Army information assurance Supervise C4IT, Signal support, Information security, Force structure and equipping activities in support of warfighting operations Oversee management of the Signal forces == Planned realignment == On June 11, 2020, the Army announced that the two roles of CIO and Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6 (DCS, G-6) would be realigned no later than August 31, 2020, with separate individuals responsible for each position. With the realignment: CIO core functions will be policy, governance, and oversight. Focus areas include: Information Environment, Cybersecurity, Enterprise Architecture, and Data Policy/Oversight/Governance, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Cloud Management and IT Spend/Category Management. DCS, G-6 core functions will be planning, strategy, and implementation. Focus areas include: Information Environment/Network, Planning and Integration, Theater Synchronization, Architecture Integration, Enterprise Information Environment (EIE) Mission Area Portfolio Management and Mission Decision Packet Management. In order to support multi-domain operations, the Army will have to connect Enterprise networks and tactical networks. —LTG Morrison, DCS, G-6 DCS G-6 released the Army Unified Network Plan under the Army Digital Transformation Strategy, to help the Army to establish a Multi-Domain Operations capable force by 2028. The Unified Network will enable Army formations, as part of the Joint Force, to operate in highly contested and congested operational environments with the speed and global range to achieve decision dominance and maintain overmatch. The plan shapes, synchronizes, integrates and governs Unified Network efforts and aligns the personnel, organizational structure and capabilities required to enable MDO at all echelons. == Chief signal officers and their successors == Chief signal officers (1860–1964) Maj. Albert J. Myer 1860–1863 Lt. Col. William J. L. Nicodemus 1863–1864 Col. Benjamin F. Fisher 1864–1866 Col. Albert J. Myer 1866–1880 (promoted to brigadier general 16 June 1880) Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen 1880–1887 Brig. Gen. Adolphus W. Greely 1887–1906 Brig. Gen. James Allen 1906–1913 Brig. Gen. George P. Scriven 1913–1917 Brig. Gen. George O. Squier 1917–1923 (promoted to major general 6 October 1917) Maj. Gen. Charles McK. Saltzman 1924–1928 Maj. Gen. George Sabin Gibbs 1928–1931 Maj. Gen. Irving J. Carr 1931–1934 Maj. Gen. James B. Allison 1935–1937 Maj. Gen. Joseph O. Mauborgne 1937–1941 Maj. Gen. Dawson Olmstead 1941–1943 Maj. Gen. Harry C. Ingles 1943–1947 Maj. Gen. Spencer B. Akin 1947–1951 Maj. Gen. George I. Back 1951–1955 Lt. Gen. James D. O’Connell 1955–1959 Maj. Gen. Ralph T. Nelson 1959–1962 Maj. Gen. Earle F. Cook 1962–1963 Maj. Gen. David Parker Gibbs 1963–1964 Chiefs of communications-electronics (1964–1967) Maj. Gen. David Parker Gibbs 1964–1966 Maj. Gen. Walter E. Lotz, Jr. 1966–1967 Assistant chiefs of staff for communications-electronics (1967–1974) Maj. Gen. Walter E. Lotz, Jr. 1967–1968 Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett 1968–1972 Lt. Gen. Thomas Rienzi 1972–1974 Directors of telecommunications and command and control (1974–1978) (a directorate of ODCSOPS) Lt. Gen. Thomas Rienzi 1974–1977 Lt. Gen. Charles R. Myer 1977–1978 Assistant chiefs of staff for automation and communications (1978–1981) Lt. Gen. Charles R. Myer 1978–1979 Maj. Gen. Clay T. Buckingham 1979–1981 Assistant deputy chiefs of staff for operations and plans (command, control, communications, and computers) (1981–1984) Maj. Gen. Clay T. Buckingham 1981–1982 Maj. Gen. James M. Rockwell 1982–1984 Assistant chiefs of staff for information management (1984–1987) Lt. Gen. David K. Doyle 1984–1986 Lt. Gen. Thurman D. Rodgers 1986–1987 Directors of information systems for command, control, communications, and computers Lt. Gen. Thurman D. Rodgers 1987–1988 Lt. Gen. Bruce R. Harris 1988–1990 Lt. Gen. Jerome B. Hilmes 1990–1992 Lt. Gen. Peter A. Kind 1992–1994 Lt. Gen. Otto J. Guenther 1995–1997 Lt. Gen. William H. Campbell Chief Information Officer, Military Deputy to the Army Acquisition Executive, and Director of Information Systems for Command, Control, Communications and Computers Lt. Gen. William H. Campbell 1997–2000
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Digital video recorder

A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canadian and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes (STB) with direct to disk recording, portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders. Personal computers can be connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases the application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices. Similar small devices with built-in (~5 inch diagonal) displays and SSD support may be used for professional film or video production, as these recorders often do not have the limitations that built-in recorders in cameras have, offering wider codec support, the removal of recording time limitations and higher bitrates. == History == In the 1980s, prototype high-definition (HD) digital video recorders were developed by Fujitsu, Hitachi, Sanyo and Canon Inc. In 1985, Hitachi demonstrated a prototype digital video tape recorder (VTR) that used digital recording video tape as storage media to record digital HD video content. In 1987, the first commercial digital video recorder was the Sony DVR-1000, a digital video cassette recorder (VCR) that recorded digital video content on D-1 (Sony) digital video cassettes. === Hard-disk-based DVR === In early 1995, Tektronix introduced the "Profile" series PDR100 Video Disk Recorder, which recorded and played back video stored on hard disk as motion JPEG. In 1996, Sweden's TV4 used the PDR100 extensively in building a new facility in Stockholm, and NBC used PDR100s at the Olympic games in Atlanta Georgia. The Tektronix Profile disk recorder won an Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development" at the 1996 Primetime Emmy Awards. In 1997 the U.S. Patent Office granted Tektronix patent 5,642,497 for two claims key to Profile. In 1998, Tektronix introduced two Profile models which were combined VDRs and file servers: the PDR200 and PDR300. The PDR300 stored its compressed video as MPEG-2 (ISO/IEC 13818-2) A working disk-based DVR prototype was developed in 1998 at Stanford University Computer Science department. The DVR design was a chapter of Edward Y. Chang's PhD dissertation, supervised by Professors Hector Garcia-Molina and Jennifer Widom. Two design papers were published at the 1998 VLDB conference, and the 1999 ICDE conference. The prototype was developed in 1998 at Pat Hanrahan's CS488 class: Experiments in Digital Television, and the prototype was demoed to industrial partners including Sony, Intel, and Apple. Consumer digital video recorders ReplayTV and TiVo were launched at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Microsoft also demonstrated a unit with DVR capability, but this did not become available until the end of 1999 for full DVR features in Dish Network's DISHplayer receivers. TiVo shipped their first units on March 31, 1999. ReplayTV won the "Best of Show" award in the video category with Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen as an early investor and board member, but TiVo was more successful commercially. Ad Age cited Forrester Research as saying that market penetration by the end of 1999 was "less than 100,000". In 2001, Toshiba introduced a combination DVR that allows video recording on both DVD recordable and hard disk drive. Legal action by media companies forced ReplayTV to remove many features such as automatic commercial skip and the sharing of recordings over the Internet, but newer devices have steadily regained these functions while adding complementary abilities, such as recording onto DVDs and programming and remote control facilities using PDAs, networked PCs, and Web browsers. In contrast to VCRs, hard-disk based digital video recorders make "time shifting" more convenient and also allow for functions such as pausing live TV, instant replay, chasing playback (viewing a recording before it has been completed) and skipping over advertising during playback. Many DVRs use the MPEG format for compressing the digital video. Video recording capabilities have become an essential part of the modern set-top box, as TV viewers have wanted to take control of their viewing experiences. As consumers have been able to converge increasing amounts of video content on their set-tops, delivered by traditional 'broadcast' cable, satellite and terrestrial as well as IP networks, the ability to capture programming and view it whenever they want has become a must-have function for many consumers. === DVR tied to video service === At the 1999 CES, Dish Network demonstrated the hardware that would later have DVR capability with the assistance of Microsoft software, which also included access to the WebTV service. By the end of 1999 the Dishplayer had full DVR capabilities and within a year, over 200,000 units were sold. In the UK, digital video recorders are often referred to as "plus boxes" (such as BSKYB's Sky+ and Virgin Media's V+ which integrates an HD capability, and the subscription free Freesat+ and Freeview+). Freeview+ have been around in the UK since the late 2000s, although the platform's first DVR, the Pace Twin, dates to 2002. British Sky Broadcasting marketed a popular combined receiver and DVR as Sky+, now replaced by the Sky Q box. TiVo launched a UK model in 2000, and is no longer supported, except for third party services, and the continuation of TiVo through Virgin Media in 2010. South African based Africa Satellite TV beamer Multichoice recently launched their DVR which is available on their DStv platform. In addition to ReplayTV and TiVo, there are a number of other suppliers of digital terrestrial (DTT) DVRs, including Technicolor SA, Topfield, Fusion, Commscope, Humax, VBox Communications, AC Ryan Playon and Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB). Many satellite, cable and IPTV companies are incorporating digital video recording functions into their set-top box, such as with DirecTiVo, DISHPlayer/DishDVR, Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8xxx from Time Warner, Total Home DVR from AT&T U-verse, Motorola DCT6412 from Comcast and others, Moxi Media Center by Digeo (available through Charter, Adelphia, Sunflower, Bend Broadband, and soon Comcast and other cable companies), or Sky+. Astro introduced their DVR system, called Astro MAX, which was the first PVR in Malaysia but was phased out two years after its introduction. In the case of digital television, there is no encoding necessary in the DVR since the signal is already a digitally encoded MPEG stream. The digital video recorder simply stores the digital stream directly to disk. Having the broadcaster involved with, and sometimes subsidizing, the design of the DVR can lead to features such as the ability to use interactive TV on recorded shows, pre-loading of programs, or directly recording encrypted digital streams. It can, however, also force the manufacturer to implement non-skippable advertisements and automatically expiring recordings. In the United States, the FCC has ruled that starting on July 1, 2007, consumers will be able to purchase a set-top box from a third-party company, rather than being forced to purchase or rent the set-top box from their cable company. This ruling only applies to "navigation devices", otherwise known as a cable television set-top box, and not to the security functions that control the user's access to the content of the cable operator. The overall net effect on digital video recorders and related technology is unlikely to be substantial as standalone DVRs are currently readily available on the open market. In Europe Free-To-Air and Pay TV TV gateways with multiple tuners have whole house recording capabilities allowing recording of TV programs to Network Attached Storage or attached USB storage, recorded programs are then shared across the home network to tablet, smartphone, PC, Mac, Smart TV. === Introduction of dual tuners === In 2003 many Satellite and Cable providers introduced dual-tuner digital video recorders. In the UK, BSkyB introduced their first PVR Sky+ with dual tuner support in 2001. These machines have two independent tuners within the same receiver. The main use for this feature is the capability to record a live program while watching another live program simultaneously or to record two programs at the same time, possibly while watching a previously recorded one. Kogan.com introduced a dual-tuner PVR in the Australian market allowing free-to-air television to be recorded on a removable hard drive. Some dual-tuner DVRs also have the ability to output to two separate television sets at the same time. The PVR manufactured by UEC (Durban, South Africa) and used by Multichoice and Scientific Atlanta 8300DVB PVR have the ability to view two
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Technology company

A technology company, or tech company, is a company that focuses primarily on the manufacturing, support, research and development of—most commonly computing, telecommunication and consumer electronics–based—technology-intensive products and services, which include businesses relating to digital electronics, software, optics, new energy, and Internet-related services such as cloud storage and e-commerce services. Big Tech refers to the 6 largest companies, both in the United States and globally, symbolized by the metonym 'Silicon Valley', where 4 of them are based. == Details == According to Fortune, as of 2020, the ten largest technology companies by revenue are: Apple Inc., Samsung, Foxconn, Alphabet Inc., Microsoft, Huawei, Dell Technologies, Hitachi, IBM, and Sony. Amazon has higher revenue than Apple, but is classified by Fortune in the retail sector. The most profitable listed in 2020 are Apple Inc., Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., Intel, Meta Platforms, Samsung, and Tencent. Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. (owner of Google), Meta Platforms (owner of Facebook), Microsoft, and Amazon.com, Inc. are often referred to as the Big Five multinational technology companies based in the United States. These five technology companies dominate major functions, e-commerce channels, and information of the entire Internet ecosystem. As of 2017, the Big Five had a combined valuation of over $3.3 trillion and make up more than 40 percent of the value of the Nasdaq-100 index. Many large tech companies have a reputation for innovation, spending large sums of money annually on research and development. According to PwC's 2017 Global Innovation 1000 ranking, tech companies made up nine of the 20 most innovative companies in the world, with the top R&D spender (as measured by expenditure) being Amazon, followed by Alphabet Inc., and then Intel. As a result of numerous influential tech companies and tech startups opening offices in proximity to one another, a number of technology districts have developed in various areas across the globe. These include: Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Wadi in Israel, Silicon Docks in Dublin, Silicon Hills in Austin, Tech City in London; Digital Media City in Seoul, Zhongguancun in Beijing, Cyberjaya in Malaysia and Cyberabad in Hyderabad, India. As of 2026, Europe has six of the world's 100 most valuable tech companies, compared with 56 in the United States and 16 in China.
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Account verification

Account verification is the process of verifying that a new or existing account is owned and operated by a specified real individual or organization. A number of websites, for example social media websites, offer account verification services. Verified accounts are often visually distinguished by check mark icons or badges next to the names of individuals or organizations. Account verification can enhance the quality of online services, mitigating sockpuppetry, bots, trolling, spam, vandalism, fake news, disinformation and election interference. == History == Account verification was introduced by Twitter in June 2009, initially as a feature for public figures and accounts of interest, individuals in "music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business and other key interest areas". A similar verification system was adopted by Google+ in 2011, Facebook page in October 2015 (Available in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand) Facebook profile and Facebook page in 2018 (Available in Worldwide) Instagram in 2014, and Pinterest in 2015. On YouTube, users are able to submit a request for a verification badge once they obtain 100,000 or more subscribers. It also has an "official artist" badge for musicians and bands. In July 2016, Twitter announced that, beyond public figures, any individual would be able to apply for account verification. This was temporarily suspended in February 2018, following a backlash over the verification of one of the organisers of the far-right Unite the Right rally due to a perception that verification conveys "credibility" or "importance". In March 2018, during a live-stream on Periscope, Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, discussed the idea of allowing any individual to get a verified account. Twitter reopened account verification applications in May 2021 after revamping their account verification criteria. This time offering notability criteria for the account categories of government, companies, brands, and organizations, news organizations and journalists, entertainment, sports and activists, organizers, and other influential individuals. Instagram began allowing users to request verification in August 2018. In April 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, announced that purchasers of political or issue-based advertisements would be required to verify their identities and locations. He also indicated that Facebook would require individuals who manage large pages to be verified. In May 2018, Kent Walker, senior vice president of Google, announced that, in the United States, purchasers of political-leaning advertisements would need to verify their identities. In November 2022, Elon Musk included a blue verification check mark with a paid Twitter Blue monthly membership. Prior to Musk's acquisition of Twitter, Twitter offered this check mark at no charge to confirmed high profile users. On December 19, 2022, Twitter introduced two new check mark colors: gold for accounts from official businesses and organizations, and grey for accounts from governments or multilateral organizations. The type of check mark can be confirmed by visiting the profile page, then clicking or tapping on the check mark. == Techniques == === Identity verification services === Identity verification services are third-party solutions which can be used to ensure that a person provides information which is associated with the identity of a real person. Such services may verify the authenticity of identity documents such as drivers licenses or passports, called documentary verification, or may verify identity information against authoritative sources such as credit bureaus or government data, called nondocumentary verification. === Identity documents verification === The uploading of scanned or photographed identity documents is a practice in use, for example, at Facebook. According to Facebook, there are two reasons that a person would be asked to send a scan of or photograph of an ID to Facebook: to show account ownership and to confirm their name. In January 2018, Facebook purchased Confirm.io, a startup that was advancing technologies to verify the authenticity of identification documentation. === Biometric verification === === Behavioral verification === Behavioral verification is the computer-aided and automated detection and analysis of behaviors and patterns of behavior to verify accounts. Behaviors to detect include those of sockpuppets, bots, cyborgs, trolls, spammers, vandals, and sources and spreaders of fake news, disinformation and election interference. Behavioral verification processes can flag accounts as suspicious, exclude accounts from suspicion, or offer corroborating evidence for processes of account verification. === Bank account verification === Identity verification is required to establish bank accounts and other financial accounts in many jurisdictions. Verifying identity in the financial sector is often required by regulation such as Know Your Customer or Customer Identification Program. Accordingly, bank accounts can be of use as corroborating evidence when performing account verification. Bank account information can be provided when creating or verifying an account or when making a purchase. === Postal address verification === Postal address information can be provided when creating or verifying an account or when making and subsequently shipping a purchase. A hyperlink or code can be sent to a user by mail, recipients entering it on a website verifying their postal address. === Telephone number verification === A telephone number can be provided when creating or verifying an account or added to an account to obtain a set of features. During the process of verifying a telephone number, a confirmation code is sent to a phone number specified by a user, for example in an SMS message sent to a mobile phone. As the user receives the code sent, they can enter it on the website to confirm their receipt. === Email verification === An email account is often required to create an account. During this process, a confirmation hyperlink is sent in an email message to an email address specified by a person. The email recipient is instructed in the email message to navigate to the provided confirmation hyperlink if and only if they are the person creating an account. The act of navigating to the hyperlink confirms receipt of the email by the person. The added value of an email account for purposes of account verification depends upon the process of account verification performed by the specific email service provider. === Multi-factor verification === Multi-factor account verification is account verification which simultaneously utilizes a number of techniques. === Multi-party verification === The processes of account verification utilized by multiple service providers can corroborate one another. OpenID Connect includes a user information protocol which can be used to link multiple accounts, corroborating user information. == Account verification and good standing == On some services, account verification is synonymous with good standing. Twitter reserves the right to remove account verification from users' accounts at any time without notice. Reasons for removal may reflect behaviors on and off Twitter and include: promoting hate and/or violence against, or directly attacking or threatening other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease; supporting organizations or individuals that promote the above; inciting or engaging in the harassment of others; violence and dangerous behavior; directly or indirectly threatening or encouraging any form of physical violence against an individual or any group of people, including threatening or promoting terrorism; violent, gruesome, shocking, or disturbing imagery; self-harm, suicide; and engaging in other activity on Twitter that violates the Twitter Rules. In April 2023, Blue ticks were removed from all Twitter accounts that had not subscribed to Twitter Blue.
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Act! LLC

ACT! (previously known as Activity Control Technology, Automated Contact Tracking, ACT! by Sage, and Sage ACT!) is a customer relationship management and marketing automation software platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses. It has over 2.8 million registered users as of December 2014. == History == The company Conductor Software was founded in 1986, in Dallas, Texas, by Pat Sullivan and Mike Muhney. The original name for the software was Activity Control Technology; it was renamed to Automated Contact Tracking, later abbreviated to ACT. The name of the company was subsequently changed to Contact Software International and it was sold in 1993 to Symantec Corporation, who in 1999 then sold it to SalesLogix. The Sage Group purchased Interact Commerce (formerly SalesLogix) in 2001 through Best Software, then its North American software division. Swiftpage acquired it in 2013. Beginning with the 2006 version, the name was styled ACT! by Sage, and in 2010 revised to Sage ACT!. Following its 2013 acquisition by Swiftpage, it was renamed to ACT! Swiftpage. In May 2018, ACT! was sold to SFW Advisors. In December 2018, Kuvana, a marketing automation software solution, was acquired by SFW and merged with ACT! This add-on is now a complementary service to the core CRM solution. In December 2019, ACT! hired Steve Oriola as chairman and CEO. In 2020, Swiftpage changed its company name to ACT!. In March 2023, ACT! hired Bruce Reading as President and CEO. == Software == ACT! features include contact, company and opportunity management, a calendar, marketing automation and e-marketing tools, reports, interactive dashboards with graphical visualizations, and the ability to track prospective customers. ACT! integrates with Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Google Contacts, Gmail, and other applications via Zapier. For custom integrations, ACT! has an in-built API. ACT! can be accessed from Windows desktops (Win7 and later) with local or network shared database; synchronized to laptops or remote officers; Citrix or Remote Desktop; Web browsers (Premium only) with self or SaaS hosting; smartphones and tablets via HTML5 Web (Premium only); smartphones and tablets via sync with Handheld Contact.
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Digital media service

A digital media service (DMS) is an online service provider that sells access to digital library of content such as films, software, games, images, literature, etc. While no transfer of property is made, a nearly perfect duplicate of the data (song movie, etc.) is made on a customer's computer. Content is either primarily hosted on a dedicated server, which is owned by the service provider, or it is hosted primarily on the hard drives of its customers using a P2P protocol with, perhaps, a dedicated server to supplement. == History == One example of the older business model is the iTunes Store, which still markets and prices data as individual retail products. There are no examples of the latter business model in operation yet, but one is currently in development by Global Gaming Factory X and expected to begin operation some time after they acquire The Pirate Bay domain on August 27, 2009. A key difference between the two models is that the model which relies on its customer base for offering their bandwidth for other customers to access customer hosted data can operate at significantly lower costs than a company that seeks to limit data access to a per-download fee in order to supplement the cost of using its own hosting and bandwidth. The P2P model holds the potential for companies to offer unlimited access to the largest data library in the history of the internet to its customers for a reasonably low membership rate that is relevant to the cost of operation. While the market is virtually untouched, the P2P supplemented model will need entrepreneurs who are able to overcome a series of challenges in order to compete with the older business model as well as that which is offered for free (and often against the wishes of copyright holders) by hundreds of P2P communities on the internet. These challenges include, but are not limited to: Offering better data quality, speed, convenience and ease of use, protocol, sense of security, indexing and search organization, site up time, data library size, customer support, advertising, artist/copyright holder incentives and compensation, incentives and compensation for customers hosting data and providing bandwidth, guaranteed seeding (available access to indexed data at all times), than competitors.
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Librem

Librem is a line of computers manufactured by Purism, SPC featuring free (libre) software. The laptop line is designed to protect privacy and freedom by omitting non-free (proprietary) software in their operating system and kernel, avoiding the Intel Active Management Technology, and gradually freeing and securing firmware. Librem laptops feature hardware kill switches for the microphone, webcam, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. == Models == === Laptops === ==== Librem 13, Librem 15 and Librem 14 ==== In 2014, Purism launched a crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply to fund the creation and production of the Librem 15 laptop, conceived as a modern alternative to existing open-source hardware laptops, all of which used older hardware. The 15 in the name refers to its 15-inch screen size. The campaign succeeded after extending the original campaign, and the laptops were shipped to backers. In a second revision of the laptop, hardware kill switches for the camera, microphone, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth were added. After the successful launch of the Librem 15, Purism created another campaign on Crowd Supply for a 13-inch laptop named Librem 13, which also came with hardware kill switches similar to those on the Librem 15v2. The campaign was again successful and the laptops were shipped to customers. Purism announced in December 2016 that it would start shipping from inventory rather than building to order with the new batches of Librem 15 and 13. As of January 2023, Purism has one laptop model in production, the Librem 14. ==== Comparison of laptops ==== === Librem Mini === The Librem Mini is a small form factor desktop computer, which began shipping in June 2020. === Librem 5 === On August 24, 2017, Purism began a crowdfunding campaign for the Librem 5, a smartphone aimed to run 100% free software, which would "[focus] on security by design and privacy protection by default". Purism claimed that the phone would become "the world's first ever IP-native mobile handset, using end-to-end encrypted decentralized communication." Purism cooperated with KDE and GNOME in its development of Librem 5. Security features of the Librem 5 include separation of the CPU from the baseband processor, which, according to Linux Magazine, makes the Librem 5 unique in comparison to other mobile phones. The Librem 5 also features hardware kill switches for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication and the phone's camera, microphone, and baseband processor. The default operating system for the Librem 5 is Purism's PureOS, a Debian derivative. The operating system uses a new user interface named Phosh, based on Wayland, wlroots, GTK and GNOME middleware. It is planned that Phosh/Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch, and postmarketOS can also be installed on the phone. The release of the Librem 5 has been postponed several times. In September 2018, Purism announced that the launch date of Librem 5 would be moved from January to April 2019, because of two hardware bugs and the holiday season in Europe and North America. The Librem 5's DevKits for software developers were shipped in December 2018. The launch date was later postponed to the third quarter because of the necessity of further CPU tests. On September 24, 2019, Purism announced that the first batch of Librem 5 phones had begun shipping. The finished version of the Librem 5, known as "Evergreen", was finally shipped on November 18, 2020. === Librem Server === The Librem server is a rack mounted server, released to the public in December 2019. === Librem Key === Announced on 20 September 2018, the Librem Key is a hardware USB security token with multiple features, including integration with a tamper-evident Heads BIOS, which ensures that the Librem laptop Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) was not maliciously altered since the last laptop launch. The Librem Key also features one-time password storage with 3x HMAC-based One-time Password algorithm (HOTP) (RFC 4226) and 15 x Time-based One-time Password algorithm (TOTP) (RFC 6238) and an integrated password manager (16 entries), 40 kbit/s true random number generator, and a tamper-resistant smart card. The key supports type A USB 2.0, has dimensions of 48 x 19 x 7 mm, and weighs 6 g. == Operating system == Initially planning to preload its Librem laptops with the Trisquel operating system, Purism eventually moved off the Trisquel platform to Debian for the 2.0 release of its PureOS Linux operating system. As an alternative to PureOS, Librem laptops are purchasable with Qubes OS preinstalled. In December 2017, the Free Software Foundation added PureOS to its list of endorsed GNU/Linux distributions. == BIOS == In 2015, Purism began research to port the Librem 13 to coreboot but the effort was initially stalled. By the end of the year, a coreboot developer completed an initial port of the Librem 13 and submitted it for review. In December 2016, hardware enablement developer Youness Alaoui joined Purism and was tasked to complete the coreboot port for the original Librem 13 and prepare a port for the second revision of the device. Since summer 2017, new Librem laptops are shipped with coreboot as their standard BIOS, and updates are available for all older models. Purism calls a collection of these six components, involved in the boot process, as PureBoot: Neutralized and disabled Intel Management Engine coreboot A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip Heads, which has tamper-evident features to detect if the BIOS or important boot files have been modified Librem Key, Purism's USB security token Multi-factor authentication that unlocks disk encryption using the Librem Key PureBoot protects the users from various attacks like theft, BIOS malware and kernel rootkits, vulnerabilities and malicious code in the Intel Management Engine, and interdiction.
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DBOS

DBOS (Formerly Database-Oriented Operating System, now just DBOS) is an open source durable workflow execution software library written for the Python, TypeScript, Java, and Go programming languages. DBOS arose from a joint open source project from MIT and Stanford, after a discussion between Michael Stonebraker and Matei Zaharia on how to scale and improve scheduling and performance of millions of Apache Spark tasks. Today it is a commercial company that offers an open source system to add durable computing to any software, built on concepts derived from the joint research project. == History == === 2020: Academic R&D Project === DBOS originated in 2020 as a joint open source project between MIT, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon. The project explored the idea of operating system services built atop a distributed database - a database-oriented operating system meant to simplify and improve the scalability, security and resilience of large-scale distributed applications. The basic concept was to run a multi-node multi-core, transactional, highly-available distributed database, such as VoltDB, as the only application for a microkernel, and then to implement scheduling, messaging, file systems and other operating system services on top of the database. The architectural philosophy is described by this quote from the abstract of their initial preprint: All operating system state should be represented uniformly as database tables, and operations on this state should be made via queries from otherwise stateless tasks. This design makes it easy to scale and evolve the OS without whole-system refactoring, inspect and debug system state, upgrade components without downtime, manage decisions using machine learning, and implement sophisticated security features. A prototype was built with competitive performance to existing systems. ==
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Cygwin

Cygwin ( SIG-win) is a free and open-source Unix-like environment and command-line interface (CLI) for Microsoft Windows. The project also provides a software repository containing open-source packages. Cygwin allows source code for Unix-like operating systems to be compiled and run on Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications. The terminal emulator mintty is the default command-line interface provided to interact with the environment. The Cygwin installation directory layout mimics the root file system of Unix-like systems, with directories such as /bin, /home, /etc, /usr, and /var. Cygwin is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3. It was originally developed by Cygnus Solutions, which was later acquired by Red Hat (now part of IBM), to port the GNU toolchain to Win32, including the GNU Compiler Suite. Rather than rewrite the tools to use the Win32 runtime environment, Cygwin implemented a POSIX-compatible environment in the form of a DLL. The brand motto is "Get that Linux feeling – on Windows", although Cygwin doesn't have Linux in it. == History == Cygwin began in 1995 as a project of Steve Chamberlain, a Cygnus engineer who observed that Windows NT and 95 used COFF as their object file format, and that GNU already included support for x86 and COFF, and the C library newlib. He thought that it would be possible to retarget GCC and produce a cross compiler generating executables that could run on Windows. A prototype was later developed. Chamberlain bootstrapped the compiler on a Windows system, to emulate Unix to let the GNU configure shell script run. Initially, Cygwin was called Cygwin32. When Microsoft registered the trademark Win32, the "32" was dropped to simply become Cygwin. In 1999, Cygnus offered Cygwin 1.0 as a commercial product. Subsequent versions have not been released, instead relying on continued open source releases. Geoffrey Noer was the project lead from 1996 to 1999. Christopher Faylor was lead from 1999 to 2004; he left Red Hat and became co-lead with Corinna Vinschen. Corinna Vinschen has been the project lead from mid-2014 to date (as of September, 2024). From June 23, 2016, the Cygwin library version 2.5.2 was licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3. == Description == Cygwin is provided in two versions: the full 64-bit version and a stripped-down 32-bit version, whose final version was released in 2022. Cygwin consists of a library that implements the POSIX system call API in terms of Windows system calls to enable the running of a large number of application programs equivalent to those on Unix systems, and a GNU development toolchain (including GCC and GDB). Programmers have ported the X Window System, K Desktop Environment 3, GNOME, Apache, and TeX. Cygwin permits installing inetd, syslogd, sshd, Apache, and other daemons as standard Windows services. Cygwin programs have full access to the Windows API and other Windows libraries. Cygwin programs are installed by running Cygwin's "setup" program, which downloads them from repositories on the Internet. The Cygwin API library is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3 (or later), with an exception to allow linking to any free and open-source software whose license conforms to the Open Source Definition. Cygwin consists of two parts: A dynamic-link library in the form of a C standard library that acts as a compatibility layer for the POSIX API and A collection of software tools and applications that provide a Unix-like look and feel. Cygwin supports POSIX symbolic links, representing them as plain-text files with the system attribute set. Cygwin 1.5 represented them as Windows Explorer shortcuts, but this was changed for reasons of performance and POSIX correctness. Cygwin also recognises NTFS junction points and symbolic links and treats them as POSIX symbolic links, but it does not create them. The POSIX API for handling access control lists (ACLs) is supported. === Technical details === A Cygwin-specific version of the Unix mount command allows mounting Windows paths as "filesystems" in the Unix file space. Initial mount points can be configured in /etc/fstab, which has a format very similar to Unix systems, except that Windows paths appear in place of devices. Filesystems can be mounted in binary mode (by default), or in text mode, which enables automatic conversion between LF and CRLF endings (which only affects programs that open files without explicitly specifying text or binary mode). Cygwin 1.7 introduced comprehensive support for POSIX locales, and the UTF-8 Unicode encoding became the default. The fork system call for duplicating a process is fully implemented, but the copy-on-write optimization strategy could not be used. Cygwin's default user interface is the bash shell running in the mintty terminal emulator. The DLL also implements pseudo terminal (pty) devices, and Cygwin ships with a number of terminal emulators that are based on them, including rxvt/urxvt and xterm. The version of GCC that comes with Cygwin has various extensions for creating Windows DLLs, such as specifying whether a program is a windowing or console-mode program. Support for compiling programs that do not require the POSIX compatibility layer provided by the Cygwin DLL used to be included in the default GCC, but as of 2014, it is provided by cross-compilers contributed by the MinGW-w64 project. == Software packages == Cygwin's base package selection is approximately 100MB, containing the bash (interactive user) and dash (installation) shells and the core file and text manipulation utilities. Additional packages are available as optional installs from within the Cygwin "setup" program and package manager ("setup-x86_64.exe" – 64 bit). The Cygwin Ports project provided additional packages that were not available in the Cygwin distribution itself. Examples included GNOME, K Desktop Environment 3, MySQL database, and the PHP scripting language. Most ports have been adopted by volunteer maintainers as Cygwin packages, and Cygwin Ports are no longer maintained. Cygwin ships with GTK+ and Qt. The Cygwin/X project allows graphical Unix programs to display their user interfaces on the Windows desktop for both local and remote programs.
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Cyber-Duck

Cyber-Duck is a digital transformation agency founded in 2005 and based in Elstree, United Kingdom. The company specialises in user experience (UX), software development and digital optimisation. The company employs over 90 staff in the UK and Europe. It works with clients from the financial, pharmaceutical, sport, motoring and security sectors, among others. These include the Bank of England, Cancer Research UK, GOV.UK Verify partner CitizenSafe, The Commonwealth of Nations and Sport England. == History == Cyber-Duck was founded in 2005 by Danny Bluestone in his flat in Mill Hill, United Kingdom. After a few months, the firm moved into its first office in Borehamwood. Projects with Ogilvy, London Creative and Wisteria followed before Cyber-Duck moved to offices in Devonshire House, Borehamwood. In 2010, the firm was commissioned to develop a website for the European Commission in the UK. In 2011, the company moved to a self-contained premises in Elstree, Hertfordshire. Shortly afterward, Cyber-Duck was listed on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA in recognition of its substantial revenue growth over the previous five years. As the company grew, its expertise also broadened. This resulted in guest spots on several television shows. Cyber-Duck was featured in an episode of the Gadget Show in 2011, and Chief Production Officer Matt Gibson appeared on BBC Watchdog in 2013 to assist in researching websites and their checkout processes. The firm continued to attract business from companies in London, so the decision was made to open a new office in central London. The Farringdon office opened in 2015, and was followed by a rebrand. In 2016, Cyber-Duck went on to work with the Bank of England. Ahead of the launch of the new polymer £5 note, featuring Winston Churchill, the company was tasked with creating a user-friendly website to showcase the new banknote and promote public awareness. The success of the campaign led to further commissions, including 2017's website the New Ten and a redesign of the Bank of England's main website. The firm underwent significant growth in 2020, beginning working partnerships with Sport England and the College of Policing. During this time they also launched DevOps as a new service. In 2022, the Farringdon office closed and was relocated to a new office space in Holborn. The Laravel, Drupal and DevOps teams expanded, and Cyber-Duck became the lead Digital Agency for Worcester, Bosch Group. Several members of the team appeared on The Digital Society on Sky UK. == Awards and accreditations == Cyber-Duck is known for its focus on process accreditation as a driver of creativity. In 2011, the company obtained its first ISO 9241 accreditation in Human Centred Design for interactive systems. Two years later, Cyber-Duck obtained a further certification, the ISO 9001 for Quality Management Systems. It acquired another certification in 2016 with the ISO 27001 – the focus of this accreditation was Information Security Management. In 2022, Cyber-Duck gained the ISO 14001 certification in Environmental Management. Cyber-Duck's digital products have won numerous Wirehive 100, BIMA and Webby awards. Notably, the company's UX Companion, a free iOS and Android app that is a glossary of UX theories, featured in Usability Geek and Smashing Magazine. In 2021 they were awarded as one of the UK's 100 Best Small Companies to work for, and BIMA10 shortlisted for their work with Sport England and This Girl Can.
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History of RISC OS

RISC OS, the computer operating system developed by Acorn Computers for their ARM-based Acorn Archimedes range, was originally released in 1987 as Arthur 0.20, and soon followed by Arthur 0.30, and Arthur 1.20. The next version, Arthur 2, became RISC OS 2 and was completed in September 1988 and made available in April 1989. RISC OS 3 was released with the very earliest version of the A5000 in 1991 and contained a series of new features. By 1996 RISC OS had been shipped on over 500,000 systems. RISC OS 4 was released by RISCOS Ltd (ROL) in July 1999, based on the continued development of OS 3.8. ROL had in March 1999 licensed the rights to RISC OS from Element 14 (the renamed Acorn) and eventually from the new owner, Pace Micro Technology. According to the company, over 6,400 copies of OS 4.02 on ROM were sold up until production was ceased in mid-2005. RISC OS Select was launched in May 2001 by ROL. This is a subscription scheme allowing users access to the latest OS updates. These upgrades are released as soft-loadable ROM images, separate to the ROM where the boot OS is stored, and are loaded at boot time. Select 1 was shipped in May 2002, with Select 2 following in November 2002 and the final release of Select 3 in June 2004. ROL released the ROM based OS 4.39 the same month, dubbed RISC OS Adjust as a play on the RISC OS GUI convention of calling the three mouse buttons 'Select', 'Menu' and 'Adjust'. ROL sold its 500th Adjust ROM in early 2006. RISC OS 5 was released in October 2002 on Castle Technology's Acorn clone Iyonix PC. OS 5 is a separate evolution based upon the NCOS work done by Pace for set-top boxes. In October 2006, Castle announced a source sharing license plan for elements of OS 5. This Shared Source Initiative (SSI) is managed by RISC OS Open Ltd (ROOL). RISC OS 5 has since been released under a fully free and open source Apache 2.0 license, while the older no longer maintained RISC OS 6 has not. RISC OS Six was also announced in October 2006 by ROL. This is the next generation of their stream of the operating system. The first product to be launched under the name was the continuation of the Select scheme, Select 4. A beta-version of OS 6, Preview 1 (Select 4i1), was available in 2007 as a free download to all subscribers to the Select scheme, while in April 2009 the final release of Select 5 was shipped. The latest release of RISC OS from ROL is Select 6i1, shipped in December 2009. == Arthur == The OS was designed in the United Kingdom by Acorn for the 32-bit ARM based Acorn Archimedes, and released in its first version in 1987, as the Arthur operating system. The first public release of the OS was Arthur 1.20 in June 1987. It was bundled with a desktop graphical user interface (GUI), which mostly comprises assembly language software modules, and the Desktop module itself being written in BBC BASIC. It features a colour-scheme typically described as "technicolor". The graphical desktop runs on top of a command-line driven operating system which owes much to Acorn's earlier MOS operating system for its BBC Micro range of 8-bit microcomputers. Arthur, as originally conceived, was intended to deliver similar functionality to the operating system for the BBC Master series of computers, MOS, as a reaction to the fact that a more advanced operating system research project (ARX) would not be ready in time for the Archimedes. The Arthur project team, led by Paul Fellows, was given just five months to develop it entirely from the ground up—with the directive "just make it like the BBC micro". It was intended as a stop-gap until the operating system which Acorn had under development (ARX) could be completed. However, the latter was delayed time and again, and was eventually dropped when it became apparent that the Arthur development could be extended to have a window manager and full desktop environment. Also, it was small enough to run on the first 512K machines with only a floppy disc, whereas ARX required 4 megabytes and a hard drive. The OS development was carried out using a prototype ARM-based system connected to a BBC computer, before moving onto the prototype Acorn Archimedes the A500. Arthur was not a multitasking operating system, but offered support for adding application-level cooperative multitasking. No other version of the operating system was released externally, but internally the development of the desktop and window management continued, with the addition of a cooperative multitasking system, implemented by Neil Raine, which used the memory management hardware to swap-out one task, and bring in another between call-and-return from the Wimp_Poll call that applications were obliged to make to get messages under the desktop. Reminiscent of a similar technique employed by MultiFinder on the Apple Macintosh, this transformed a single-application-at-a-time system into one that could operate a full multi-tasking desktop. This transformation took place at version 1.6 though it was not made public until released, with the name change from Arthur to RISC OS, as version 2.0. Most software made for Arthur 1.2 can be run under RISC OS 2 and later because, underneath the desktop, the original Arthur OS core, API interfaces and modular structures remain as the heart of all versions. (A few titles will not work, however, because they used undocumented features, side effects or in a few cases APIs that became deprecated). In 2011, Business Insider listed Arthur as one of ten "operating systems that time forgot". == RISC OS 2 == RISC OS was a rapid development of Arthur 1.2 after the failure of the ARX project. Given growing dissatisfaction with various bugs and limitations with Arthur, testing of what was then known as Arthur 2 was apparently ongoing during 1988 with selected software houses. At this stage, Computer Concepts, who had been prolific developers for the BBC Micro and who had begun software development for the Archimedes, had already initiated a rival operating system project, Impulse, to support their own applications (including the desktop publishing application that would eventually become Impression), stating that Arthur did not meet the "hundreds of requirements" involved including "true multi-tasking". Such an operating system was to be offered free of charge with the planned application packages, but with the release of RISC OS and Computer Concepts acknowledging that RISC OS "overcomes the old problems with Arthur", the applications were to be able to run under either RISC OS or Impulse. Impression was eventually released as a RISC OS application. Ultimately, Arthur 2 was renamed to RISC OS, and was first sold as RISC OS 2.00 in April 1989. The operating system implements co-operative multitasking with some limitations but is not multi-threaded. It uses the ADFS file system for both floppy and hard disc access. It ran from a 512 KB set of ROMs. The WIMP interface offers all the standard features and fixes many of the bugs that had hindered Arthur. It lacks virtual memory and extensive memory protection (applications are protected from each other, but many functions have to be implemented as 'modules' which have full access to the memory). At the time of release, the main advantage of the OS was its ROM; it booted very quickly and while it was easy to crash, it was impossible to permanently break the OS from software. Its high performance was due to much of the system being written in ARM assembly language. The OS was designed with users in mind, rather than OS designers. It is organised as a relatively small kernel which defines a standard software interface to which extension modules are required to conform. Much of the system's functionality is implemented in modules coded in the ROM, though these can be supplanted by more evolved versions loaded into RAM. Among the kernel facilities are a general mechanism, named the callback handler, which allows a supervisor module to perform process multiplexing. This facility is used by a module forming part of the standard editor program to provide a terminal emulator window for console applications. The same approach made it possible for advanced users to implement modules giving RISC OS the ability to do pre-emptive multitasking. A slightly updated version, RISC OS 2.01, was released later to support the ARM3 processor, larger memory capacities, and the VGA and SVGA modes provided by the Acorn Archimedes 540 and Acorn R225/R260. == RISC OS 3 == RISC OS 3 introduced a number of new features, including multitasking Filer operations, applications and fonts in ROM, no limit on number of open windows, ability to move windows off screen, safe shutdown, the Pinboard, grouping of icon bar icons, up to 128 tasks, native ability to read MS-DOS format discs and use named hard discs. Improved configuration was also included, by way of multiple windows to change the settings. RISC OS 3.00 was released with the very earliest version of the A5000 in 1991; it is almo
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Infone

Infone was a service launched by Metro One Telecommunications in 2003. The service was discontinued effective December 14, 2005. == How it worked == Infone included directory assistance and other services via a toll-free phone number. A user could call 888-411-1111 to request directory assistance, directions, traffic information, movie times, call completion, dinner reservation assistance and other services. Infone provided a number of innovative 411 'concierge'-like services, including movie listings from a live operator, and offered a feature where they could provide information from a linked Microsoft Outlook calendar when set up in advance. For a period of time they advertised heavily on U.S. television, featuring ads with then Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura, emphasizing their use of all U.S. based operators. The price offered was $0.89 per call up to 15 minutes (for use when the operator connects you to the requested number, as well as for additional information requests afterwards), with $0.05 for each additional minute, making Infone also a competitively priced long-distance service. New users received 5–10 free calls. Infone identified a registered user (along with billing information; the service was only payable by credit card) by caller ID (numbers were registered on signing up) and by an advanced voiceprint recognition system (VPRS) from SpeechWorks that identified the user when the user called from an unregistered telephone number (or no caller ID) through the use of a personal phrase spoken by the user (e.g., "Hello Infone!") after the welcome tone.
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Convolutional neural network

A convolutional neural network (CNN) is a type of feedforward neural network that learns features via filter (or kernel) optimization. This type of deep learning network has been applied to process and make predictions from many different types of data including text, images and audio. CNNs are the de-facto standard in deep learning-based approaches to computer vision and image processing, and have only recently been replaced—in some cases—by newer architectures such as the transformer. Vanishing gradients and exploding gradients, seen during backpropagation in earlier neural networks, are prevented by the regularization that comes from using shared weights over fewer connections. For example, for each neuron in the fully-connected layer, 10,000 weights would be required for processing an image sized 100 × 100 pixels. However, applying cascaded convolution (or cross-correlation) kernels, only 25 weights for each convolutional layer are required to process 5x5-sized tiles. Higher-layer features are extracted from wider context windows, compared to lower-layer features. Some applications of CNNs include: image and video recognition, recommender systems, image classification, image segmentation, medical image analysis, natural language processing, brain–computer interfaces, and financial time series. CNNs are also known as shift invariant or space invariant artificial neural networks, based on the shared-weight architecture of the convolution kernels or filters that slide along input features and provide translation-equivariant responses known as feature maps. Counter-intuitively, most convolutional neural networks are not invariant to translation, due to the downsampling operation they apply to the input. Feedforward neural networks are usually fully connected networks, that is, each neuron in one layer is connected to all neurons in the next layer. The "full connectivity" of these networks makes them prone to overfitting data. Typical ways of regularization, or preventing overfitting, include: penalizing parameters during training (such as weight decay) or trimming connectivity (skipped connections, dropout, etc.) Robust datasets also increase the probability that CNNs will learn the generalized principles that characterize a given dataset rather than the biases of a poorly-populated set. Convolutional networks were inspired by biological processes in that the connectivity pattern between neurons resembles the organization of the animal visual cortex. Individual cortical neurons respond to stimuli only in a restricted region of the visual field known as the receptive field. The receptive fields of different neurons partially overlap such that they cover the entire visual field. CNNs use relatively little pre-processing compared to other image classification algorithms. This means that the network learns to optimize the filters (or kernels) through automated learning, whereas in traditional algorithms these filters are hand-engineered. This simplifies and automates the process, enhancing efficiency and scalability overcoming human-intervention bottlenecks. == Architecture == A convolutional neural network consists of an input layer, hidden layers and an output layer. In a convolutional neural network, the hidden layers include one or more layers that perform convolutions. Typically this includes a layer that performs a dot product of the convolution kernel with the layer's input matrix. This product is usually the Frobenius inner product, and its activation function is commonly ReLU. As the convolution kernel slides along the input matrix for the layer, the convolution operation generates a feature map, which in turn contributes to the input of the next layer. This is followed by other layers such as pooling layers, fully connected layers, and normalization layers. Here it should be noted how close a convolutional neural network is to a matched filter. === Convolutional layers === In a CNN, the input is a tensor with shape: (number of inputs) × (input height) × (input width) × (input channels) After passing through a convolutional layer, the image becomes abstracted to a feature map, also called an activation map, with shape: (number of inputs) × (feature map height) × (feature map width) × (feature map channels). Convolutional layers convolve the input and pass its result to the next layer. This is similar to the response of a neuron in the visual cortex to a specific stimulus. Each convolutional neuron processes data only for its receptive field. Although fully connected feedforward neural networks can be used to learn features and classify data, this architecture is generally impractical for larger inputs (e.g., high-resolution images), which would require massive numbers of neurons because each pixel is a relevant input feature. A fully connected layer for an image of size 100 × 100 has 10,000 weights for each neuron in the second layer. Convolution reduces the number of free parameters, allowing the network to be deeper. For example, using a 5 × 5 tiling region, each with the same shared weights, requires only 25 neurons. Using shared weights means there are many fewer parameters, which helps avoid the vanishing gradients and exploding gradients problems seen during backpropagation in earlier neural networks. To speed processing, standard convolutional layers can be replaced by depthwise separable convolutional layers, which are based on a depthwise convolution followed by a pointwise convolution. The depthwise convolution is a spatial convolution applied independently over each channel of the input tensor, while the pointwise convolution is a standard convolution restricted to the use of 1 × 1 {\displaystyle 1\times 1} kernels. === Pooling layers === Convolutional networks may include local and/or global pooling layers along with traditional convolutional layers. Pooling layers reduce the dimensions of data by combining the outputs of neuron clusters at one layer into a single neuron in the next layer. Local pooling combines small clusters, tiling sizes such as 2 × 2 are commonly used. Global pooling acts on all the neurons of the feature map. There are two common types of pooling in popular use: max and average. Max pooling uses the maximum value of each local cluster of neurons in the feature map, while average pooling takes the average value. === Fully connected layers === Fully connected layers connect every neuron in one layer to every neuron in another layer. It is the same as a traditional multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP). Each neuron in the fully connected layer receives input from all the neurons in the previous layer. These inputs are weighted and summed with the corresponding biases, and then passed through an activation function to perform a nonlinear transformation, generating the output. The flattened matrix goes through a fully connected layer to classify the images. === Receptive field === In neural networks, each neuron receives input from some number of locations in the previous layer. In a convolutional layer, each neuron receives input from only a restricted area of the previous layer called the neuron's receptive field. Typically the area is a square (e.g. 5 by 5 neurons). Whereas, in a fully connected layer, the receptive field is the entire previous layer. Thus, in each convolutional layer, each neuron takes input from a larger area in the input than previous layers. This is due to applying the convolution over and over, which takes the value of a pixel into account, as well as its surrounding pixels. When using dilated layers, the number of pixels in the receptive field remains constant, but the field is more sparsely populated as its dimensions grow when combining the effect of several layers. To manipulate the receptive field size as desired, there are some alternatives to the standard convolutional layer. For example, atrous or dilated convolution expands the receptive field size without increasing the number of parameters by interleaving visible and blind regions. Moreover, a single dilated convolutional layer can comprise filters with multiple dilation ratios, thus having a variable receptive field size. === Weights === Each neuron in a neural network computes an output value by applying a specific function to the input values received from the receptive field in the previous layer. The function that is applied to the input values is determined by a vector of weights and a bias (typically real numbers). Learning consists of iteratively adjusting these biases and weights. The vectors of weights and biases are called filters and represent particular features of the input (e.g., a particular shape). A distinguishing feature of CNNs is that many neurons can share the same filter. This reduces the memory footprint because a single bias and a single vector of weights are used across all receptive fields that share that filter, as opposed to each receptive field having its own bias and vector
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Digital cinema

Digital cinema is the digital technology used within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be shipped to movie theaters, a digital movie can be distributed to cinemas in a number of ways: over the Internet or dedicated satellite links, or by sending hard drives or optical discs such as Blu-ray discs, then projected using a digital video projector instead of a film projector. Typically, digital movies are shot using digital movie cameras or in animation transferred from a file and are edited using a non-linear editing system (NLE). The NLE is often a video editing application installed in one or more computers that may be networked to access the original footage from a remote server, share or gain access to computing resources for rendering the final video, and allow several editors to work on the same timeline or project. Alternatively a digital movie could be a film reel that has been digitized using a motion picture film scanner and then restored, or, a digital movie could be recorded using a film recorder onto film stock for projection using a traditional film projector. Digital cinema is distinct from high-definition television and does not necessarily use traditional television or other traditional high-definition video standards, aspect ratios, or frame rates. In digital cinema, resolutions are represented by the horizontal pixel count, usually 2K (2048×1080 or 2.2 megapixels) or 4K (4096×2160 or 8.8 megapixels). The 2K and 4K resolutions used in digital cinema projection are often referred to as DCI 2K and DCI 4K. DCI stands for Digital Cinema Initiatives. As digital cinema technology improved in the early 2010s, most theaters across the world converted to digital video projection. Digital cinema technology has continued to develop over the years with RealD 3D, IMAX, RPX, 4DX, Dolby Cinema, and ScreenX, allowing moviegoers more immersive experiences. == History == The transition from film to digital video was preceded by cinema's transition from analog to digital audio, with the release of the Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio coding standard in 1991. Its main basis is the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT), a lossy audio compression algorithm. It is a modification of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) algorithm, which was first proposed by Nasir Ahmed in 1972 and was originally intended for image compression. The DCT was adapted into the MDCT by J.P. Princen, A.W. Johnson and Alan B. Bradley at the University of Surrey in 1987, and then Dolby Laboratories adapted the MDCT algorithm along with perceptual coding principles to develop the AC-3 audio format for cinema needs. Cinema in the 1990s typically combined analog photochemical images with digital audio. Digital media playback of high-resolution 2K files has at least a 20-year history. Early video data storage units (RAIDs) fed custom frame buffer systems with large memories. In early digital video units, the content was usually restricted to several minutes of material. Transfer of content between remote locations was slow and had limited capacity. It was not until the late 1990s that feature-length films could be sent over the "wire" (Internet or dedicated fiber links). On October 23, 1998, Digital light processing (DLP) projector technology was publicly demonstrated with the release of The Last Broadcast, the first feature-length movie, shot, edited and distributed digitally. In conjunction with Texas Instruments, the movie was publicly demonstrated in five theaters across the United States (Philadelphia, Portland (Oregon), Minneapolis, Providence, and Orlando). === Foundations === In the United States, on June 18, 1999, Texas Instruments' DLP Cinema projector technology was publicly demonstrated on two screens in Los Angeles and New York for the release of Lucasfilm's Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In Europe, on February 2, 2000, Texas Instruments' DLP Cinema projector technology was publicly demonstrated, by Philippe Binant, on one screen in Paris for the release of Toy Story 2. From 1997 to 2000, the JPEG 2000 image compression standard was developed by a Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) committee chaired by Touradj Ebrahimi (later the JPEG president). In contrast to the original 1992 JPEG standard, which is a DCT-based lossy compression format for static digital images, JPEG 2000 is a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) based compression standard that could be adapted for motion imaging video compression with the Motion JPEG 2000 extension. JPEG 2000 technology was later selected as the video coding standard for digital cinema in 2004. In 1992, Hughes-JVC was founded by JVC and Hughes Electronics to develop ILA (Image Light Amplifer) digital video projectors for commercial movie theaters using liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) technology. In 1997, JVC introduced D-ILA (Direct-Drive ILA) technology with a 2K resolution digital video projector. In 2000, JVC introduced a 4K resolution video projector using D-ILA technology. === Initiatives === On January 19, 2000, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, in the United States, initiated the first standards group dedicated to developing digital cinema. By December 2000, there were 15 digital cinema screens in the United States and Canada, 11 in Western Europe, 4 in Asia, and 1 in South America. Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) was formed in March 2002 as a joint project of many motion picture studios (Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Bros.) to develop a system specification for digital cinema. The same month it was reported that the number of cinemas equipped with digital projectors had increased to about 50 in the US and 30 more in the rest of the world. In April 2004, in collaboration with the American Society of Cinematographers, DCI created standard evaluation material (the ASC/DCI StEM material) for testing of 2K and 4K playback and compression technologies. DCI selected JPEG 2000 as the basis for the compression in the system the same year. Initial tests with JPEG 2000 produced bit rates of around 75–125 Mbit/s for 2K resolution and 100–200 Mbit/s for 4K resolution. === Worldwide deployment === In China, in June 2005, an e-cinema system called "dMs" was established and was used in over 15,000 screens spread across China's 30 provinces. DMs estimated that the system would expand to 40,000 screens in 2009. In 2005, the UK Film Council Digital Screen Network launched in the UK by Arts Alliance Media creating a chain of 250 2K digital cinema systems. The roll-out was completed in 2006. This was the first mass roll-out in Europe. AccessIT/Christie Digital also started a roll-out in the United States and Canada. By mid-2006, about 400 theaters were equipped with 2K digital projectors with the number increasing every month. In August 2006, the Malayalam digital movie Moonnamathoral, produced by Benzy Martin, was distributed via satellite to cinemas, thus becoming the first Indian digital cinema. This was done by Emil and Eric Digital Films, a company based at Thrissur using the end-to-end digital cinema system developed by Singapore-based DG2L Technologies. In January 2007, Guru became the first Indian film mastered in the DCI-compliant JPEG 2000 Interop format and also the first Indian film to be previewed digitally, internationally, at the Elgin Winter Garden in Toronto. This film was digitally mastered at Real Image Media Technologies in India. In 2007, the UK became home to Europe's first DCI-compliant fully digital multiplex cinemas; Odeon Hatfield and Odeon Surrey Quays (in London), with a total of 18 digital screens, were launched on 9 February 2007. By March 2007, with the release of Disney's Meet the Robinsons, about 600 screens had been equipped with digital projectors. In June 2007, Arts Alliance Media announced the first European commercial digital cinema Virtual Print Fee (VPF) agreements (with 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures). In March 2009, AMC Theatres announced that it closed a $315 million deal with Sony to replace all of its movie projectors with 4K HDR digital projectors starting in the second quarter of 2009; it was anticipated that this replacement would be finished by 2012. As digital cinema technology improved in the early 2010s, most theaters across the world converted to digital video projection. In January 2011, the total number of digital screens worldwide was 36,242, up from 16,339 at end 2009 or a growth rate of 121.8 percent during the year. There were 10,083 d-screens in Europe as a whole (28.2 percent of global figure), 16,522 in the United States and Canada (46.2 percent of global figure) and 7,703 in Asia (21.6 percent of global figure). Worldwide progress was slower as in some territories, particularly Latin America and Africa. As of 31 March 2015, 38,719 screens (out of a total of 3
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Algorithmic curation

Algorithm curation is the selection of online media by technologies such as recommender systems and personalized search. Curation entails the selective sharing of online content and recommendations based on inferred interests. Curation algorithms implement different filter approaches, such as collaborative filtering and content-based filtering. Examples include search engine and social media products such as the Twitter feed, Facebook's News Feed, and Google Personalized Search. == History == === Early algorithmic curation === Online platforms use newsfeed algorithms to determine what content to present to each user. The volume of content published on social media platforms created a need for automated filtering, as manual review of all available content by users is not feasible. These systems function as a form of gatekeeper, shaping which new material users are exposed to and influencing knowledge, attention, and political exposure. ==== Information overload ==== Early ranking algorithms addressed information overload by surfacing the most recent or most popular posts. Later systems shifted toward ranking content based on predicted engagement, aiming to increase the time users spend on a platform. Research has found that these engagement-oriented systems can increase the spread of misinformation and contribute to political polarization as a side effect of optimising for user interaction. ==== How algorithm changes users' feeds over time ==== Algorithmic curation has been found to increase source diversity in some respects while simultaneously reducing the number of external links presented to users, which limits exposure to off-platform content. Research using agent-based modelling has examined how user behaviour, information quality, and algorithmic design interact with one another over time. === Emergence of AI === Platforms increasingly shifted from rule-based ranking systems toward machine-learning and AI-driven approaches, which allow feeds to be personalised at a larger scale and with greater responsiveness to user behaviour. For example, X (formerly Twitter) moved away from a chronological feed toward an AI-powered ranking system that personalises content for each user. These systems are capable of making ranking decisions across volumes of content and user interactions that would not be practical to handle manually. == Approach == === Filter types === ==== Collaborative filtering ==== Collaborative filtering (CF) methods create recommendations based on a person's usage patterns. CF predicts a person's preference for an item by matching their interests with those of users who have similar interests. This process allows for the sharing of ratings between users with similar profiles. CF is based on patterns of human behaviour rather than machine analysis of content itself. Users of CF systems rate items they have interacted with, and these ratings form a profile of interests. The CF system then matches that user with others who have similar profiles, and uses their ratings to generate recommendations. Collaborative filtering can be applied across various content types including text, images, music, and financial products, and can account for complex attributes such as taste and quality that are difficult to represent explicitly. ==== Content-based filtering ==== Content-based filtering (CBF) builds a user profile to represent the types of items a user has engaged with, based on keywords and attributes used to describe those items. Recommendations are generated by presenting items similar to those the user has previously engaged with or is currently viewing. The CBF method creates a profile for each item based on discrete attributes and features, and then constructs a content-based user profile using a weighted vector of those features derived from items the user has rated, purchased, or interacted with. The weights represent the relative importance of each feature, and can be computed using techniques such as Bayesian classifiers, cluster analysis, decision trees, and artificial neural networks, with the goal of estimating the probability that a user will engage with a suggested item. One application of content-based filtering is Pandora Radio, where users provide an artist, genre, or composer to generate a station, and the system surfaces music with similar attributes. == Technology == === Recommender system === Recommender systems rank and suggest content to users based on a combination of implicit and explicit user input. Implicit signals include time spent viewing or engaging with a specific item. Explicit signals include actions such as liking posts, saving store pages, reading news articles, or sharing content. === Personalized search === Personalized search aims to retrieve results most relevant to the user by incorporating contextual factors beyond the explicit query, such as past queries, browsing history, and inferred interests. Social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky generate recommendations based on similar users and the content those users interact with. Personalized search may also allow users to explicitly filter results by blocking content containing certain phrases or hashtags. For first-time users without prior history, personalized search may draw on content-based filtering to establish an initial context. Similar processes are used by search engines and retail platforms to tailor results and product recommendations to individual users. == AI contribution == Artificial intelligence contributes to algorithmic curation through machine-learning models capable of processing large volumes of data. Techniques such as deep learning and reinforcement learning allow curation algorithms to model user preferences with greater granularity alongside established filtering approaches. This enables platforms to adjust content rankings rapidly in response to user behaviour. In social media and streaming contexts, AI-driven systems arrange feeds according to predicted relevance, with the outputs shaped by patterns present in the training data. == Social media and potential impact == === Echo chambers === Social media algorithms, such as those used by X (formerly Twitter), recommend content that the system predicts a user will engage with positively. Content from accounts with differing perspectives is less likely to be surfaced, which may reduce source and topic diversity and contribute to the formation of echo chambers. For example, Facebook's news feed is designed to surface content aligned with users' prior engagement, which may reinforce existing views. This dynamic may contribute to filter bubbles, in which users are seldom exposed to content outside their existing interests. Users may further narrow their feeds by actively blocking certain content or accounts. === Over-representation === A pattern observed across social media platforms is the concentration of algorithmic visibility among a small subset of users. Content from the most active users, those with the largest followings, or those generating the most engagement tends to be surfaced more frequently, meaning a small number of accounts can account for a disproportionate share of what appears in other users' feeds.
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