AI Chatbot Interface

AI Chatbot Interface — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

Immuni

Immuni was an open-source COVID-19 contact tracing app used for digital contact tracing in Italy, dismissed on 31 December 2022, after a long and debated criticism for having been a failure due to the lack of trust placed by citizens. Immuni COVID-19 contact-tracing app had in fact been downloaded only by 12% of Italians between 14 and 75 years old (the government had previously stated that, in order for the app to work properly, it should have been downloaded by at least 60% of Italians). It makes use of the Apple/Google Exposure Notification system. == Development == It was developed by Bending Spoons and released by the Italian Ministry of Health on 1 June 2020. After a testing phase in 4 Italian regions (Abruzzo, Apulia, Liguria, Marche), the app started being active in the whole country on 15 June 2020. The app was initially released on App Store and Google Play, and since 1 February 2021 it is available on the Huawei AppGallery as well. === Source code === The source code was published on GitHub on the 25 May. The app only works in Italy, but compatibility with other European contact tracing apps was a goal. Since 19 October 2020 the app supports key-exchanges with the EU Interoperability Gateway and is therefore able to communicate with contact tracing apps of other EU countries. == Shutdown == As of 16 December 2020, the app was downloaded more than 10 million times, a number which increased to 21.882.502 downloads the day before the app's shutdown. On 27 December 2022 the Italian Ministry of Health announced that the app and its infrastructures will be dismissed on the 31 December of the same year.
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Matt Mullenweg

Matthew Charles Mullenweg (born January 11, 1984) is an American web developer and entrepreneur. He is known as a co-founder of the free and open-source web publishing software WordPress, and the founder of Automattic. == Early life and education == Mullenweg was born January 11, 1984, in Houston, Texas, to Chuck and Kathleen Mullenweg and grew up in the Willowbend neighborhood. His older sister was born in 1974. His father, who died in 2016, was a computer programmer who worked for Brown & Root, and encouraged his children to start using home computers at an early age. His mother was a stay-at-home mother. The Mullenwegs were raised Catholic. He attended Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, studying jazz and playing the saxophone. Mullenweg suffered from migraines as a child that forced him to miss extended periods of school. He attended the University of Houston for two years, studying philosophy and political science. He dropped out after his sophomore year in 2004 to work for CNET, which promised him that he could allocate time to the development of WordPress. == Career == Mullenweg began blogging in 2002 on the open source platform b2. B2 developer Michael Valdrighi abandoned the project and Mullenweg took it over in 2003. He and Mike Little created a b2 fork that year they called WordPress and published it under the GNU General Public License. In March 2003, he co-founded the Global Multimedia Protocols Group (GMPG) with Eric A. Meyer and Tantek Çelik. In April 2004, he helped launch Ping-O-Matic, a mechanism for notifying search engines about blog updates. In October 2004, he was hired by CNET who would allow him to develop WordPress part-time as part of his job. He dropped out of college and moved to San Francisco for the position. === Automattic === After leaving CNET in 2005, Mullenweg founded Automattic as a fully distributed company. Toni Schneider was hired as CEO so Mullenweg could learn how to manage a large organization. During this period, Mullenweg focused on product development while Schneider managed the company. In January 2014, Mullenweg resumed the role of CEO, replacing Schneider. He led Automattic's expansion and a series of acquisitions, including WooCommerce in 2015, The Atavist Magazine in 2018, Tumblr in 2019, Pocket Casts in 2021, and Beeper in 2024. Mullenweg received the Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment in 2016, for "helping to democratize online publishing". Automattic's valuation reached $7.5 billion in 2021. At the time, WordPress hosted 28 million websites, or 40 percent of all websites on the Internet. == Public disputes == On several occasions, Mullenweg has publicly challenged competitors to WordPress and WordPress.com. He has stated that he prefers to settle disputes in the court of public opinion and described his approach as "brinksmanship", noting that the potential cost of legal action could put Automattic in a "tough spot". In 2008, shortly before WordPress 2.5's release, Six Apart's Movable Type published "A WordPress 2.5 Upgrade Guide"—a comparison of their CMS with their rival, WordPress—as a company blog article that Mullenweg characterized as "desperate and dirty". In 2013, developers on the digital marketplace Envato were banned from speaking at WordPress events after he criticized the platform for selling WordPress themes with the graphics and CSS components under a proprietary license instead of the GPL. In 2016, Mullenweg accused Wix.com, a competitor to WordPress.com, of reusing WordPress's mobile text editor code in Wix's own mobile app without adhering to the terms of the GPL. Despite the license's requirement to publish anything built with GPL code under the GPL, Wix's CEO claimed that the company open-sourced their forked version of the component and satisfied the license's terms before the app switched to its own fork of the MIT-licensed text editor that the WordPress editor was based upon. The new fork added a clause to the MIT license that forbids redistribution under any other license. In 2022, Mullenweg criticized GoDaddy for not reinvesting in the WordPress project sufficiently. On January 9, 2025, the representative of the WordPress Sustainability team, Thijs Buijs, resigned via WordPress.org’s Slack channel, citing dissatisfaction with Matt Mullenweg’s December 24, 2024, Reddit post titled “What drama should I create in 2025?” highlighting concerns about what he described as “unsustainable leadership”. In response, Matt Mullenweg thanked Thijs Buijs for reminding him of the existence of a sustainability team, announced its disbanding, and subsequently closed Wordpress.org's #sustainability Slack channel. === Tumblr === Mullenweg began a three-month sabbatical from his role as CEO at the beginning of February 2024. During that time, Mullenweg engaged in a public feud with a transgender Tumblr user who, frustrated with the failure of Tumblr (owned by Automattic) to address transphobic harassment, posted that she wished Mullenweg would die in a comedic way. The user was subsequently banned. Responding to user uproar, Mullenweg addressed the ban in posts on his personal Tumblr blog, in which he characterized the post as a death threat, and shared private account information about the user. Mullenweg also responded to individual commenters on Tumblr in posts and direct messages, and went to Twitter to respond to the banned user's tweets about the situation. A few days later, transgender employees of Tumblr and Automattic made a post on the official Tumblr staff blog characterizing his response as "unwarranted and harmful" and stating that he did not speak on their behalf. They also said that the user's post was not a realistic threat of violence and not the reason for her ban. === WP Engine dispute === == Audrey Capital == Mullenweg is a principal at angel investment firm Audrey Capital, which he co-founded in 2008 alongside Naveen Selvadurai and Audrey Kim. As of 2024, the company lists investments in companies such as CoinDesk, MakerBot, Sonos, SpaceX, Ring, as well as software companies including Calm, Chartbeat, DailyBurn, Memrise, Genius, Nord Security and Telegram. It has also funded startups that provide services to web developers including Creative Market, GitLab, NPM, SendGrid, Stripe and Typekit. From 2017 to 2019, Mullenweg also served as a board member for GitLab. Mullenweg has employed a team of contributors to WordPress through Audrey Capital since 2010, who work separately from Automattic. On the 20th anniversary of WordPress' initial release, Mullenweg announced a scholarship program aimed at the children of significant contributors to open-source projects.
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DVD

DVD (digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind of digital data and has been widely used to store video programs (watched using DVD players), software and other computer files. DVDs offer significantly higher storage capacity than compact discs (CD) while having the same dimensions. A standard single-layer DVD can store up to 4.7 GB of data, a dual-layer DVD up to 8.5 GB. Dual-layer, double-sided DVDs can store up to a maximum of 17.08 GB. Prerecorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD. Such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs (DVD-R and DVD+R) can be recorded once using a DVD recorder and then function as a DVD-ROM. Rewritable DVDs (DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM) can be recorded and erased many times. DVDs are used in DVD-Video consumer digital video format and less commonly in DVD-Audio consumer digital audio format, as well as for authoring DVD discs written in a special AVCHD format to hold high definition material (often in conjunction with AVCHD format camcorders). DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. == Etymology == The Oxford English Dictionary comments that, "In 1995, rival manufacturers of the product initially named digital video disc agreed that, in order to emphasize the flexibility of the format for multimedia applications, the preferred abbreviation DVD would be understood to denote digital versatile disc." The OED also states that in 1995, "The companies said the official name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name 'digital video disc', but that was switched to 'digital versatile disc' after computer companies complained that it left out their applications." "Digital versatile disc" is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forum's mission statement, which the purpose is to promote broad acceptance of DVD products on technology, across entertainment, and other industries. Because DVDs became highly popular for the distribution of movies in the 2000s, the term DVD became popularly used in English as a noun to describe specifically a full-length movie released on the format; for example the phrase "to watch a DVD" describes watching a movie on DVD. == History == === Development and launch === Released in 1987, CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm (4.7 in) size of audio CDs. Video CD (VCD) became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc storage formats were being developed. One was the Multimedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony (developers of the CD and CD-i), and the other was the Super Density (SD) disc, supported by Toshiba, Time Warner, Matsushita Electric, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Thomson, and JVC. By the time of the press launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc (DVD). On May 3, 1995, an ad hoc industry technical group formed from five computer companies (IBM, Apple, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft) issued a press release stating that they would only accept a single format. The group voted to boycott both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions. In one significant compromise, the MMCD and SD groups agreed to adopt proposal SD 9, which specified that both layers of the dual-layered disc be read from the same side—instead of proposal SD 10, which would have created a two-sided disc that users would have to turn over. Philips/Sony strongly insisted on the source code, EFMPlus, that Kees Schouhamer Immink had designed for the MMCD, because it makes it possible to apply the existing CD servo technology. Its drawback was a loss from 5 to 4.7 Gigabytes of capacity. As a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB (4.38 GiB) for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB (7.92 GiB) for a dual-layered, single-sided disc. The DVD specification ended up similar to Toshiba and Matsushita's Super Density Disc, except for the dual-layer option. MMCD was single-sided and optionally dual-layer, whereas SD was two half-thickness, single-layer discs which were pressed separately and then glued together to form a double-sided disc. Philips and Sony decided that it was in their best interests to end the format war, and on September 15, 1995 agreed to unify with companies backing the Super Density Disc to release a single format, with technologies from both. After other compromises between MMCD and SD, the group of computer companies won the day, and a single format was agreed upon. The computer companies also collaborated with the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) on the use of their implementation of the ISO-13346 file system (known as Universal Disk Format) for use on the new DVDs. The format's details were finalized on December 8, 1995. In November 1995, Samsung announced it would start mass-producing DVDs by September 1996. The format launched on November 1, 1996, in Japan, mostly with music video releases. The first major releases from Warner Home Video arrived on December 20, 1996, with four titles being available. The format's release in the U.S. was delayed multiple times, from August 1996, to October 1996, November 1996, before finally settling on early 1997. Players began to be produced domestically that winter, with March 24, 1997, as the U.S. launch date of the format proper in seven test markets. Approximately 32 titles were available on launch day, mainly from the Warner Bros., MGM, and New Line libraries, with the notable inclusion of the 1996 film Twister. However, the launch was planned for the following day (March 25), leading to a distribution change with retailers and studios to prevent similar violations of breaking the street date. The nationwide rollout for the format happened on August 22, 1997. DTS announced in late 1997 that they would be coming onto the format. The sound system company revealed details in a November 1997 online interview, and clarified it would release discs in early 1998. However, this date would be pushed back several times before finally releasing their first titles at the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show. In 2001, blank DVD recordable discs cost the equivalent of $27.34 US dollars in 2022. === Adoption === Movie and home entertainment distributors adopted the DVD format to replace the ubiquitous VHS tape as the primary consumer video distribution format. Immediately following the formal adoption of a unified standard for DVD, two of the four leading video game console companies (Sega and The 3DO Company) said they already had plans to design a gaming console with DVDs as the source medium. Sony stated at the time that they had no plans to use DVD in their gaming systems, despite being one of the developers of the DVD format and eventually the first company to actually release a DVD-based console. Game consoles such as the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Xbox 360 use DVDs as their source medium for games and other software. Contemporary games for Windows were also distributed on DVD. Early DVDs were mastered using DLT tape, but using DVD-R DL or +R DL eventually became common. TV DVD combos, combining a standard definition CRT TV or an HD flat panel TV with a DVD mechanism under the CRT or on the back of the flat panel, and VCR/DVD combos were also available for purchase. For consumers, DVD soon overtook VHS as the favored choice for home movie releases. In 2001, DVD players outsold VCRs for the first time in the United States. At that time, one in four American households owned a DVD player. By 2007, about 80% of Americans owned a DVD player, a figure that had surpassed VCRs; it was also higher than personal computers or cable television. == Specifications == The DVD specifications created and updated by the DVD Forum are published as so-called DVD Books (e.g. DVD-ROM Book, DVD-Audio Book, DVD-Video Book, DVD-R Book, DVD-RW Book, DVD-RAM Book, DVD-AR (Audio Recording) Book, DVD-VR (Video Recording) Book, etc.). DVD discs are made up of two discs; normally one is blank, and the other contains data. Each disc is 0.6 mm thick, and they are glued together to form a DVD disc. The gluing process must be done carefully to make the disc as flat as possible to avoid both birefringence and "disc tilt", which is when the disc is not perfectly flat, preventing it from being read. Some specifications for mechanical, physical and optical characteristics of DV
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Information Age

The Information Age is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology. The onset of the Information Age has been linked to the development of the transistor in 1947. Advances in computer miniaturization, internet communication, and semiconductor technology enabled the rapid expansion of digital systems and global information networks. The Information Age transformed industries such as education, healthcare, finance, entertainment, and communication through digital infrastructure and connected technologies. The rise of smartphones and cloud-based services further accelerated global internet accessibility and digital interaction. == Digital applications and mobile technology == The expansion of Android and iOS ecosystems during the 21st century contributed to the widespread use of utility applications and mobile productivity tools. Applications related to calculations, scheduling, digital organization, and educational support became increasingly common on smartphones and tablets. Mobile utility software demonstrates how modern digital platforms support accessibility and everyday online services. Independent developers have contributed to this technological ecosystem through lightweight applications focused on mobile usability and internet-based functionality. == Influence on modern society == The Information Age has reshaped the way individuals communicate, consume information, and interact with digital services. Social media platforms, artificial intelligence systems, cloud storage, and mobile computing continue to influence modern economies and online communities worldwide. Emerging technologies such as the Internet of things, machine learning, and advanced automation are often associated with the transition toward the Fourth Industrial Revolution. == History == The digital revolution converted technology from analog format to digital format. By doing this, it became possible to make copies that were identical to the original. In digital communications, for example, repeating hardware was able to amplify the digital signal and pass it on with no loss of information in the signal. Of equal importance to the revolution was the ability to easily move the digital information between media and to access or distribute it remotely. One turning point of the revolution was the change from analog to digitally recorded music. During the 1980s, the digital format of optical compact discs gradually replaced analog formats, such as vinyl records and cassette tapes, as the popular medium of choice. === Previous inventions === Humans have manufactured tools for counting and calculating since ancient times, such as the abacus, astrolabe, equatorium, and mechanical timekeeping devices. More complicated devices started appearing in the 1600s, including the slide rule and mechanical calculators. By the early 1800s, the Industrial Revolution had produced mass-market calculators like the arithmometer and the enabling technology of the punch card. Charles Babbage proposed a mechanical general-purpose computer called the Analytical Engine, but it was never successfully built, and was largely forgotten by the 20th century, and unknown to most of the inventors of modern computers. The Second Industrial Revolution, in the last quarter of the 19th century, developed useful electrical circuits and the telegraph. In the 1880s, Herman Hollerith developed electromechanical tabulating and calculating devices using punch cards and unit record equipment, which became widespread in business and government. Meanwhile, various analog computer systems used electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic systems to model problems and calculate answers. These included an 1872 tide-predicting machine, differential analysers, perpetual calendar machines, the Deltar for water management in the Netherlands, network analyzers for electrical systems, and various machines for aiming military guns and bombs. The construction of problem-specific analog computers continued in the late 1940s and beyond, with FERMIAC for neutron transport, Project Cyclone for various military applications, and the Phillips Machine for economic modeling. Building on the complexity of the Z1 and Z2, German inventor Konrad Zuse used electromechanical systems to complete in 1941 the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. Also, during World War II, Allied engineers constructed electromechanical bombes to break the German Enigma machine encoding. The base-10 electromechanical Harvard Mark I was completed in 1944, and was to some degree improved with inspiration from Charles Babbage's designs. === 1947–1969: Origins === In 1947, the first working transistor, the germanium-based point-contact transistor, was invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs. This led the way to more advanced digital computers. From the late 1940s, universities, the military, and businesses developed computer systems to digitally replicate and automate previously manually performed mathematical calculations, with the LEO being the first commercially available general-purpose computer. Digital communication became economical for widespread adoption after the invention of the personal computer in the 1970s. Claude Shannon, a Bell Labs mathematician, is generally credited with laying the foundations of digitalization in his pioneering 1948 article, A Mathematical Theory of Communication. In 1948, Bardeen and Brattain patented an insulated-gate transistor (IGFET) with an inversion layer. Their concept forms the basis of CMOS and DRAM technology today. In 1957, at Bell Labs, Frosch and Derick were able to manufacture planar silicon dioxide transistors, later a team at Bell Labs demonstrated a working MOSFET. The first integrated circuit milestone was achieved by Jack Kilby in 1958. Other important technological developments included the invention of the monolithic integrated circuit chip by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959, made possible by the planar process developed by Jean Hoerni. In 1963, complementary MOS (CMOS) was developed by Chih-Tang Sah and Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor. The self-aligned gate transistor, which further facilitated mass production, was invented in 1966 by Robert Bower at Hughes Aircraft and independently by Robert Kerwin, Donald Klein, and John Sarace at Bell Labs. In 1962, AT&T deployed the T-carrier for long-haul pulse-code modulation (PCM) digital voice transmission. The T1 format carried 24 pulse-code modulated, time-division multiplexed speech signals, each encoded in 64 kbit/s streams, leaving 8 kbit/s of framing information, which facilitated the synchronization and demultiplexing at the receiver. Over the subsequent decades, the digitisation of voice became the norm for all but the last mile (where analogue continued to be the norm right into the late 1990s). Following the development of MOS integrated circuit chips in the early 1960s, MOS chips reached higher transistor density and lower manufacturing costs than bipolar integrated circuits by 1964. MOS chips further increased in complexity at a rate predicted by Moore's law, leading to large-scale integration (LSI) with hundreds of transistors on a single MOS chip by the late 1960s. The application of MOS LSI chips to computing was the basis for the first microprocessors, as engineers began recognizing that a complete computer processor could be contained on a single MOS LSI chip. In 1968, Fairchild engineer Federico Faggin improved MOS technology with his development of the silicon-gate MOS chip, which he later used to develop the Intel 4004, the first single-chip microprocessor. It was released by Intel in 1971 and laid the foundations for the microcomputer revolution that began in the 1970s. MOS technology also led to the development of semiconductor image sensors suitable for digital cameras. The first such image sensor was the charge-coupled device, developed by Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith at Bell Labs in 1969, based on MOS capacitor technology. === 1969–1989: Invention of the internet, rise of home computers === The public was first introduced to the concepts that led to the Internet when a message was sent over the ARPANET in 1969. Packet switched networks such as ARPANET, Mark I, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of protocols. The ARPANET in particular led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks. The Whole Earth movement of the 1960s advocated the use of new technology. In the 1970s, the home computer was introduced, time-sharing computers, the video game console, the first coin-op vide
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Data Science and Predictive Analytics

The first edition of the textbook Data Science and Predictive Analytics: Biomedical and Health Applications using R, authored by Ivo D. Dinov, was published in August 2018 by Springer. The second edition of the book was printed in 2023. This textbook covers some of the core mathematical foundations, computational techniques, and artificial intelligence approaches used in data science research and applications. By using the statistical computing platform R and a broad range of biomedical case-studies, the 23 chapters of the book first edition provide explicit examples of importing, exporting, processing, modeling, visualizing, and interpreting large, multivariate, incomplete, heterogeneous, longitudinal, and incomplete datasets (big data). == Structure == === First edition table of contents === The first edition of the Data Science and Predictive Analytics (DSPA) textbook is divided into the following 23 chapters, each progressively building on the previous content. === Second edition table of contents === The significantly reorganized revised edition of the book (2023) expands and modernizes the presented mathematical principles, computational methods, data science techniques, model-based machine learning and model-free artificial intelligence algorithms. The 14 chapters of the new edition start with an introduction and progressively build foundational skills to naturally reach biomedical applications of deep learning. Introduction Basic Visualization and Exploratory Data Analytics Linear Algebra, Matrix Computing, and Regression Modeling Linear and Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction Supervised Classification Black Box Machine Learning Methods Qualitative Learning Methods—Text Mining, Natural Language Processing, and Apriori Association Rules Learning Unsupervised Clustering Model Performance Assessment, Validation, and Improvement Specialized Machine Learning Topics Variable Importance and Feature Selection Big Longitudinal Data Analysis Function Optimization Deep Learning, Neural Networks == Reception == The materials in the Data Science and Predictive Analytics (DSPA) textbook have been peer-reviewed in the Journal of the American Statistical Association, International Statistical Institute’s ISI Review Journal, and the Journal of the American Library Association. Many scholarly publications reference the DSPA textbook. As of January 17, 2021, the electronic version of the book first edition (ISBN 978-3-319-72347-1) is freely available on SpringerLink and has been downloaded over 6 million times. The textbook is globally available in print (hardcover and softcover) and electronic formats (PDF and EPub) in many college and university libraries and has been used for data science, computational statistics, and analytics classes at various institutions.
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W3C Device Description Working Group

The W3C Device Description Working Group (DDWG), operating as part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Mobile Web Initiative (MWI), was chartered to "foster the provision and access to device descriptions that can be used in support of Web-enabled applications that provide an appropriate user experience on mobile devices." Mobile devices exhibit the greatest diversity of capabilities, and therefore present the greatest challenge to content adaptation technologies. The group published several documents, including a list of requirements for an interface to a Device Description Repository (DDR) and a standard interface meeting those requirements. The group was rechartered in 2006 to work in public towards the development of the Application Programming Interface (API) for a DDR. Early in 2007, the group launched a wiki and a blog to add to the public mailing list. The group subsequently published a formal vocabulary of core device properties, and an API called the DDR Simple API, which became a W3C Recommendation in December 2008. The group closed at the end of 2008, but with the intention of maintaining the Web pages, blog and wiki through W3C volunteer effort. == Publications == The DDWG published several W3C Working Group Notes and one W3C Recommendation. A W3C WG Note that articulates what the W3C and other organizations are doing or have already done with regard to device information. This document suggests an environment in which these technologies work together to meet the goals of content adaptation. The completed document was published on 31 October 2007. A W3C WG Note describing the ecosystem surrounding creation, maintenance and use of device descriptions. The completed document was published on 31 October 2007. A W3C WG Note describing a set of requirements for a reference repository of device descriptions. The completed document was published on 17 December 2007. A W3C WG Note describing a process to manage contributions to an initial core vocabulary, identification of key device properties, a formal initial core vocabulary and the identification of a maintainer for the core vocabulary. The details were contained in the Working Group Note describing the DDWG Core Vocabulary published on 14 April 2008. A W3C WG Note defining useful grouping and structure patterns in device descriptions. The Device Description Structures document was published as a Working Draft on 5 December 2008. The intention is that this document will be future input to other W3C groups. A W3C Recommendation defining a language-neutral programming interface to a Device Description Repository. The DDR Simple API was published on 5 December 2008. There is the possibility of future publications on the DDWG wiki describing implementations of the API in various languages, including Java, IDL, WSDL, C# etc. Much of the DDWG's material was developed in public via the DDWG Wiki and through their public mailing lists.
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Mashup (web application hybrid)

A mashup (computer industry jargon), in web development, is a web page or web application that uses content from more than one source to create a single new service displayed in a single graphical interface. For example, a user could combine the addresses and photographs of their library branches with a Google map to create a map mashup. The term implies easy, fast integration, frequently using open application programming interfaces (open API) and data sources to produce enriched results that were not necessarily the original reason for producing the raw source data. The term mashup originally comes from creating something by combining elements from two or more sources. The main characteristics of a mashup are combination, visualization, and aggregation. It is important to make existing data more useful, for personal and professional use. To be able to permanently access the data of other services, mashups are generally client applications or hosted online. In the past years, more and more Web applications have published APIs that enable software developers to easily integrate data and functions the SOA way, instead of building them by themselves. Mashups can be considered to have an active role in the evolution of social software and Web 2.0. Mashup composition tools are usually simple enough to be used by end-users. They generally do not require programming skills and rather support visual wiring of GUI widgets, services and components together. Therefore, these tools contribute to a new vision of the Web, where users are able to contribute. The term "mashup" is not formally defined by any standard-setting body. == History == The broader context of the history of the Web provides a background for the development of mashups. Under the Web 1.0 model, organizations stored consumer data on portals and updated them regularly. They controlled all the consumer data, and the consumer had to use their products and services to get the information. The advent of Web 2.0 introduced Web standards that were commonly and widely adopted across traditional competitors and which unlocked the consumer data. At the same time, mashups emerged, allowing mixing and matching competitors' APIs to develop new services. The first mashups used mapping services or photo services to combine these services with data of any kind and therefore to produce visualizations of data. In the beginning, most mashups were consumer-based, but recently the mashup is to be seen as an interesting concept useful also to enterprises. Business mashups can combine existing internal data with external services to generate new views on the data. There was also the free Yahoo! Pipes to build mashups for free using the Yahoo! Query Language. == Types of mashup == There are many types of mashup, such as business mashups, consumer mashups, and data mashups. The most common type of mashup is the consumer mashup, aimed at the general public. Business (or enterprise) mashups define applications that combine their own resources, application and data, with other external Web services. They focus data into a single presentation and allow for collaborative action among businesses and developers. This works well for an agile development project, which requires collaboration between the developers and customer (or customer proxy, typically a product manager) for defining and implementing the business requirements. Enterprise mashups are secure, visually rich Web applications that expose actionable information from diverse internal and external information sources. Consumer mashups combine data from multiple public sources in the browser and organize it through a simple browser user interface. (e.g.: Wikipediavision combines Google Map and a Wikipedia API) Data mashups, opposite to the consumer mashups, combine similar types of media and information from multiple sources into a single representation. The combination of all these resources create a new and distinct Web service that was not originally provided by either source. === By API type === Mashups can also be categorized by the basic API type they use but any of these can be combined with each other or embedded into other applications. ==== Data types ==== Indexed data (documents, weblogs, images, videos, shopping articles, jobs ...) used by metasearch engines Cartographic and geographic data: geolocation software, geovisualization Feeds, podcasts: news aggregators ==== Functions ==== Data converters: language translators, speech processing, URL shorteners... Communication: email, instant messaging, notification... Visual data rendering: information visualization, diagrams Security related: electronic payment systems, ID identification... Editors == Mashup enabler == In technology, a mashup enabler is a tool for transforming incompatible IT resources into a form that allows them to be easily combined, in order to create a mashup. Mashup enablers allow powerful techniques and tools (such as mashup platforms) for combining data and services to be applied to new kinds of resources. An example of a mashup enabler is a tool for creating an RSS feed from a spreadsheet (which cannot easily be used to create a mashup). Many mashup editors include mashup enablers, for example, Presto Mashup Connectors, Convertigo Web Integrator or Caspio Bridge. Mashup enablers have also been described as "the service and tool providers, [sic] that make mashups possible". === History === Early mashups were developed manually by enthusiastic programmers. However, as mashups became more popular, companies began creating platforms for building mashups, which allow designers to visually construct mashups by connecting together mashup components. Mashup editors have greatly simplified the creation of mashups, significantly increasing the productivity of mashup developers and even opening mashup development to end-users and non-IT experts. Standard components and connectors enable designers to combine mashup resources in all sorts of complex ways with ease. Mashup platforms, however, have done little to broaden the scope of resources accessible by mashups and have not freed mashups from their reliance on well-structured data and open libraries (RSS feeds and public APIs). Mashup enablers evolved to address this problem, providing the ability to convert other kinds of data and services into mashable resources. === Web resources === Of course, not all valuable data is located within organizations. In fact, the most valuable information for business intelligence and decision support is often external to the organization. With the emergence of rich web applications and online Web portals, a wide range of business-critical processes (such as ordering) are becoming available online. Unfortunately, very few of these data sources syndicate content in RSS format and very few of these services provide publicly accessible APIs. Mashup editors therefore solve this problem by providing enablers or connectors. == Mashups versus portals == Mashups and portals are both content aggregation technologies. Portals are an older technology designed as an extension to traditional dynamic Web applications, in which the process of converting data content into marked-up Web pages is split into two phases: generation of markup "fragments" and aggregation of the fragments into pages. Each markup fragment is generated by a "portlet", and the portal combines them into a single Web page. Portlets may be hosted locally on the portal server or remotely on a separate server. Portal technology defines a complete event model covering reads and updates. A request for an aggregate page on a portal is translated into individual read operations on all the portlets that form the page ("render" operations on local, JSR 168 portlets or "getMarkup" operations on remote, WSRP portlets). If a submit button is pressed on any portlet on a portal page, it is translated into an update operation on that portlet alone (processAction on a local portlet or performBlockingInteraction on a remote, WSRP portlet). The update is then immediately followed by a read on all portlets on the page. Portal technology is about server-side, presentation-tier aggregation. It cannot be used to drive more robust forms of application integration such as two-phase commit. Mashups differ from portals in the following respects: The portal model has been around longer and has had greater investment and product research. Portal technology is therefore more standardized and mature. Over time, increasing maturity and standardization of mashup technology will likely make it more popular than portal technology because it is more closely associated with Web 2.0 and lately Service-oriented Architectures (SOA). New versions of portal products are expected to eventually add mashup support while still supporting legacy portlet applications. Mashup technologies, in contrast, are not expected to provide support for portal standards. == Business mashups
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Haul video

A haul video is a video recording posted to the Internet in which a person discusses items that they recently purchased, sometimes going into detail about their experiences during the purchase and the cost of the items they bought. The posting of haul videos (or hauls) was a growing trend between 2008 and 2016. Often the items bought are books, clothing, groceries, household goods, makeup, or jewellery. == Details == The posting of haul videos grew as a trend between 2008 and 2016. By late 2010, nearly a quarter of a million haul videos had been shared on the website YouTube alone. Certain videos have each received tens of millions of views. Many young adults (mostly women) have displayed their shopping hauls, while including their beauty and design commentary in the narration. The videos are often grouped by store name or by the type of product (cosmetics, accessories, shoes, postage stamps, etc.). Before haul videos became an online trend, millions of people spent time watching other people, in technical product videos unbox their latest new gadgets and technology. The trend of "unboxing videos" had emerged during 2006. Haul videos have led to celebrity status for some people. Other haul video bloggers have entered sponsorship deals and advertising programs from major brands. The videos are rarely negative about the products being reviewed. This aspect of the genre of haul videos makes sponsorship by brand advertisers particularly appealing. Brands including J.C. Penney contacted haulers as part of their marketing efforts for Back to School 2010. Haul videos also convinced three San Francisco Bay Area area natives to launch HaulBlog–a parody site that creates fake haul videos which poke fun at the phenomenon. The site is also home to the original monthly web series "The Haul Monitor" a humorous commentary show that features haul videos from around the community. == Fashion media == Sarah Sykes and John Zimmerman of Carnegie Mellon University, HCII and School of Design wrote an article "Making Sense of Haul Videos: Self-created Celebrities Fill a Fashion Media Gap". They discuss their analysis and research project examining what makes video bloggers so popular on YouTube, as well as how it affects fashion media through the production of haul videos. == Federal Trade Commission == The United States Federal Trade Commission recently enacted laws to regulate many types of online publishers and content creators. The posted information includes blogging and podcasting in text, images, audio, and video. While any publishers (including the haul-video creators) are allowed to accept free merchandise and advertising, the gifts or payments must be fully (and clearly) disclosed to reveal being paid by a brand name, as a sponsor, to review a product. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is also closely monitoring such Internet activities.
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MyRadar

MyRadar is a free weather forecasting application developed by Andy Green and his Orlando, Florida-based company ACME AtronOmatic (ACME). The app began operations in 2008 and ran on government-provided weather and radar data for its first decade. In 2019, ACME launched personal satellites to improve predictions of ongoing weather. The app received funding to improve its radar and imaging from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Office of Naval Research (ONR). ACME created a weather data satellite constellation named "Hyperspectral Orbital Remote Imaging Spectrometer" (HORIS), which utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to create a current weather map. With the introduction of additional features, including the detection of wildfires and illegal fishing, the app has more broadly become an environmental intelligence app since 2022. In 2024, the app partnered with the Total Traffic and Weather Network (TTWN) to provide traffic flow and incident data for users with paying subscriptions via CarPlay and Android Auto. == History == The app's creator, Andy Green, had created internet tech since the 1980s. His first major project was the development of a public access internet service company based in Rhode Island, which he later sold to finance the creation of ACME AtronOmatic ("ACME" for short), based in Orlando, Florida. The first major app created by ACME was called "Flightwise", which provided users with flight tracking information. In summer 2008, Green had the idea to use the animated location tracker already built-in to Flightwise to make a stand-alone weather forecasting app after wondering if a meal he was eating outdoors would get rained out. MyRadar was launched in 2012 out of an office in Orlando. Despite running solely off of free government-provided weather and radar data for the first decade after launch, Green said the app "took off like wildfire" in downloads. In December 2017, the app partnered with "TripIt" to provide users with information about flight delays and gate changes, eliminating the need for a separate app like Flightwise. In 2019, ACME launched their first personal satellite for the app, a small prototype from New Zealand, as part of an effort to provide detailed imagery and improved predictions of ongoing weather unique to the app. More satellites were eventually launched by ACME to create a weather data satellite constellation named "Hyperspectral Orbital Remote Imaging Spectrometer" (HORIS), monitored by ground stations maintained by Kongsberg Satellite Services. HORIS operates MyRadar by taking the environmental data and imagery it collects and pairing it with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to create a real-time weather map. In 2022, HORIS was expanded upon after ACME won approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to improve their satellite constellation to include 250 satellites or more. The main batch of satellites were PocketQubes, which entered the atmosphere on May 2, 2022, by Rocket Lab Electron launched from New Zealand, with the additional purpose to test and validate the existing satellites in orbit. In October 2022, ACME received a US$150,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to improve the app's wildfire detection and air quality measurement technology to better detect smoke, aerosols, fire hotspots using satellites and aerial drones. On August 18, 2023, phase two of the NOAA grant was approved, providing an additional US$650,000 to aid in the app's aforementioned goals by launching a pair of CubeSat satellites to provide high-definition infrared imagery. On September 8, 2023, ACME secured another US$1,200,000 in crowd funding to aid accomplishing the goals of the NOAA grant by expanding the app's workforce from 35 to 100 employees by the end of 2024. In January 2024, MyRadar partnered with Total Traffic and Weather Network (TTWN) to provide traffic data overlaid with its pre-existing weather graphics for users in the United States. The partnership allowed for the app to additionally become a tool for navigation. This officially became a feature days later on January 8, 2024, when the app was made compatible with Apple's CarPlay. On February 7, 2024, the Android equivalent Android Auto also gained the ability to display the app on car interfaces. In March 2024, the app launched a "meteorological wedding planning service" in the United States and Canada for prices between US$1,000 and US$5,000, in which users can request a personal meteorologist to provide an in-person meeting about the best dates for a wedding, and on-call local weather updates the day of. Scheduled for February 2025, four more satellites to help with the NOAA-sponsored wildfire detection are to be launched, and the first by ACME to have AI processing in the satellites themself and not computers on the ground, allowing for quicker transfer of information. == Features and general information == The app's primary function is to provide weather forecasting and prediction to users. The app includes toggleable options to track and send alerts to users for rain, wind patterns, earthquakes, tornadoes, tropical cyclones, wildfires, and more. In early 2020, a feature was added to track orbital objects such as the International Space Station. In May 2022, with the imagery improvement of HORIS, the app gained the secondary abilities to better monitor algae blooms, coral reefs, illegal fishing, and wildfires. In January and February 2024, the ability to display traffic flow and incident data in a feature called "RouteCast" was added, and can be displayed in video and 3D options via CarPlay and Android Auto for users with paying subscriptions. The app also provides annual tropical storm and tornado outlooks for their respective seasons, gathered through satellite and aerial drone data, as well as through on the ground storm chasers.
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Mixvoip

Mixvoip S.A. is a Luxembourg-based telecommunications service provider founded in 2008. The company offers IP telephony, high-speed Internet connectivity, and IT solutions to businesses and individuals. == Company history == In November 2017, Mixvoip expanded its operations to Belgium and Germany. At the beginning of 2019, the company acquired the telecommunications provider Voipgate. In December 2019, Mixvoip was named Telecom Company of the Year at the Luxembourg ICT Awards 2019 organized by Farvest and IT One. A 2024 article in Duke described the company's transition during the 2010s from traditional telephony services to cloud-based communication platforms. In the end of 2024, the ILR published the statistics about electronic communications in Luxembourg, including Mixvoip in the fix telephony section. In July 2025, Mixvoip acquired Crossing Telecom. In 2026, Mixvoip acquired Nomado's portfolio.
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Daylight Computer Co.

Daylight Computer Co. is a Public Benefit Company that designs and manufactures devices that do not emit blue light or flicker. Anjan Katta, the company's founder and CEO, stated that he started the company to reduce his personal eyestrain and the distraction that came with conventional devices. The first device that the company released is the Daylight DC-1, a tablet using a monochrome transflective liquid-crystal display designed for outdoor use, while also being usable indoors with an amber backlight. The company's goal is to create a "healthy computer." == History == In June 2018, Anjan Katta began the process of designing a device that did not emit blue light or flicker. He was inspired by the Kindle stating that he wanted to create a device that was, "an analog object that happens to have digital magical capabilities.” By 2020, he created his first scientific prototype and created the first proof-of-concept prototype in 2021. In the early research and development stages of the device, Katta had spent $300,000 of his own money. Eventually, Katta obtained a $12 million investment from current and former executives of companies such as Oculus, Pinterest, and Dropbox. In 2024, the company held a launch party at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park for the Daylight DC1, the company's first device. The event had roughly 200 attendees. Later that year, Daylight sold out its first run of 5,000 devices. The Daylight DC1 is a 1.2 pound tablet that runs its own operating system, SolOS, based on Android 13. It has a refresh rate of 60 Hz, fast enough to process video. In 2025, the product was demonstrated by Danny Jones on the Joe Rogan Experience. The company has been described by outlets such as Wired and VentureBeat as a "returning computing to hippie ideals" and being a product for "techno-hippies." The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
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Friending and following

Friending is the act of adding someone to a list of "friends" on a social networking service. The notion does not necessarily involve the concept of friendship. It is also distinct from the idea of a "fan"—as employed on the WWW sites of businesses, bands, artists, and others—since it is more than a one-way relationship. A "fan" only receives things. A "friend" can communicate back to the person friending. The act of "friending" someone usually grants that person special privileges (on the service) with respect to oneself. On Facebook, for example, one's "friends" have the privilege of viewing and posting to one's "timeline". Following is a similar concept on other social network services, such as Twitter and Instagram, where a person (follower) chooses to add content from a person or page to their newsfeed. Unlike friending, following is not necessarily mutual, and a person can unfollow (stop following) or block another user at any time without affecting that user's following status. The first scholarly definition and examination of friending and defriending (the act of removing someone from one's friend list, also called unfriending) was David Fono and Kate Raynes-Goldie's "Hyperfriendship and beyond: Friends and Social Norms on LiveJournal" from 2005, which identified the use of the term as both a noun and a verb by users of early social network site and blogging platform LiveJournal, which was originally launched in 1999. == Friend/follower count, friend collecting, and multiple accounts == The addition of people to a friend list without regard to whether one actually is their friend is sometimes known as friend whoring. Matt Jones of Dopplr went so far as to coin the expression "friending considered harmful" to describe the problem of focusing upon the friending of more and more people at the expense of actually making any use of a social network. Friend collecting is the adding of hundreds or thousands of friends/followers, a not uncommon order of magnitude on some social sites. As a result, many teen users feel pressured to heavily curate their posts, posting only carefully posed and edited photographs with well-thought-out captions. Some Instagram users will create a second account, known as a Finsta (short for "Fake Instagram"). A Finsta is typically private, and the owner only allows close friends to follow it. Since the follower count is kept down, the posts can be more candid and silly in nature. Users may also create multiple accounts based on their interests. Someone with a personal social media account might be a photographer and maintain a separate account for that. There is risk associated with following large numbers of people: scholars say that social anxiety could be an effect of managing a large social media network, as users can feel jealous and have a "fear of missing out". == Unfriending and unfollowing == Unfriending is the act of removing someone from a friends list. On Facebook, this means the action is unilateral, meaning, the friendship is terminated on both sides. The act of unfriending is often used when one user was flirting and made the other uncomfortable. Unfollowing is a little different. When a user unfollows someone on Instagram or Twitter, it continues a one-sided relationship. Often, the unfollowed user doesn't realize they were unfollowed, so they continue the following. == Social network friending and friendship == There are distinct groups of "friends" that one can friend on a social networking service. The notion of a social network friend does not necessarily embody the concept of friendship. Although terminology has not yet evolved to distinguish the different types of social networking friends, they can be broken into the following three categories. friends who are actually known These are people that may be one's friends or family in real life, with whom one has regular interaction either on-line or off-line. organizational friends These are companies and other organizations who maintain a "friending" relationship as a contacts list. complete strangers These are social networking "friends" with whom one has no relationship at all. Within these categories "friends" can be made up of strong ties, weak existing ties, weak latent ties, and parasocial ties. Strong ties can be made up of close family members and friends where self-disclosure, intimacy and frequent content occur. Weak existing ties can be made up of acquaintances, co-workers and distance relatives with whom the user has inconsistent contact. Weak latent ties can be made up of people within a similar geographical location or profession that can be used as a potential future bridge to other connections. Parasocial ties can be made up of celebrities, public figures and media personas. Human nature is to reciprocate a friending, marking someone as a friend who has marked oneself as a friend. This is a social norm for social networking services. However, this leads to mixing up who is an actual friend, and who is a contact. Tagging someone as a "contact" who has marked one as a "friend" can be perceived as impolite. Other concerns about this issue are treated in Sherry Turkle's Alone Together which analyses many behavioral dynamics in social media friendships. Turkle defines herself as "cautiously optimistic", but expresses concern that distance communications may undermine genuine face-to-face spoken discourses, lessening people's expectations of one another. One social networking service, FriendFeed, allows one to friend someone as a "fake" friend. The person "fake" friended receives the usual notifications for friending, but that person's updates are not received. Gavin Bell, author of Building Social Web Applications, describes this mechanism as "ludicrous". Results from a 2007 survey the Center for the Digital Future stated that only 23% of internet users have at least one virtual friend whom they have only met online. Ideally the number of virtual friends is directly proportional to the use of the Internet, but the same survey showed 20% of heavy-users (more than 3 hours/day) who claimed an average of 8.7% online friends, reported at least one relationship that started virtually and migrated to in-person contact. This results and other concerning issues are included in the book Networked: The New Social Operating System co-written by Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman in 2012. == Ethical considerations == The act of "friending" someone on a social networking service has particular ethical implications for judges in the United States. Judicial codes of conducts in the various states generally incorporate some form of provision that judges should avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Whether this regulates and even prohibits judges "friending" attorneys that appear before them, and law enforcement personnel, has been the subject of some analysis by the judicial ethics panels of the various states. They haven't all agreed on the guidance that they have given to judges: The New York state Judicial Ethics committee in 2009 simply advised judges to employ caution, noting that the issue of "friending" someone on a social networking service is a publicly observable act that has little difference from other public behavior concerns judges already face. The Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory committee in 2009 noted that, judges being normal human beings, it was unavoidable for judges to form friendships without the responsibilities of their job. It prohibited judges from friending any attorneys that appeared before them, whilst allowing friending of those who do not, on the grounds that it may give the appearance to the general public (even if the substance is otherwise) that those attorneys who are friended hold special sway with the judge. A minority opinion of the committee asserted that there is a substantive difference between "friending" on a social networking service and actual friendship, and that the general public, being aware of the norms of social networking services, was capable of drawing this distinction and would not reasonably conclude either a special degree of influence or a violation of the code of judicial conduct. This minority opinion was outnumbered twice in 2009, both in the Judicial Ethics Advisory and in the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Ethics Advisory committee. The South Carolina judicial conduct committee in 2009 permitted judges to friend attorneys and law enforcement personnel, with the proviso that no judicial business should be conducted upon nor discussed via the social networking service. "... a judge should not become isolated from the community in which the judge lives.", the committee stated. The Kentucky Judicial Ethics committee in 2010 took the same position as the minority opinion in Florida. It urged judges to exercise caution, but recognized that the act of friending "does not, in and of itself, indicate the degree or intensity of a judge's relationship with the person who is the 'friend'
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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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Acousto-electronics

Acousto-electronics (also spelled 'Acoustoelectronics') is a branch of physics, acoustics and electronics that studies interactions of ultrasonic and hypersonic waves in solids with electrons and with electro-magnetic fields. Typical phenomena studied in acousto-electronics are acousto-electric effect and also amplification of acoustic waves by flows of electrons in piezoelectric semiconductors, when the drift velocity of the electrons exceeds the velocity of sound. The term 'acousto-electronics' is often understood in a wider sense to include numerous practical applications of the interactions of electro-magnetic fields with acoustic waves in solids. In particular, these are signal processing devices using surface acoustic waves (SAW), different sensors of temperature, pressure, humidity, acceleration, etc.
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Extremely online

An extremely online (often capitalized), terminally online, or chronically online person is someone who is closely engaged with Internet culture. People said to be extremely online often believe that online posts are very important. Events and phenomena can themselves be extremely online; while often used as a descriptive term, the phenomenon of extreme online usage has been described as "both a reformation of the delivery of ideas – shared through words and videos and memes and GIFs and copypasta – and the ideas themselves". Here, "online" is used to describe "a way of doing things, not [simply] the place they are done". == Criteria == While the term was in use as early as 2014, it gained popularity over the latter half of the 2010s in conjunction with the increasing prevalence and notability of Internet phenomena in all areas of life. Extremely online people, according to The Daily Dot, are interested in topics "no normal, healthy person could possibly care about", and have been analogized to "pop culture fandoms, just without the pop". Extremely online phenomena such as fan culture and reaction GIFs have been described as "swallowing democracy" by journalists such as Amanda Hess in The New York Times, who claimed that a "great convergence between politics and culture, values and aesthetics, citizenship and commercialism" had become "a dominant mode of experiencing politics". Vulture – formerly the pop culture section of New York magazine, now a stand-alone website – has a section for articles tagged "extremely online". == Historical background == In the 2010s, many categories and labels came into wide use from media outlets to describe Internet-mediated cultural trends, such as the alt-right, the dirtbag left, and doomerism. These ideological categories are often defined by their close association with online discourse. For example, the term "alt-right" was added to the Associated Press' stylebook in 2016 to describe the "digital presence" of far-right ideologies, the dirtbag left refers to a group of "underemployed and overly online millennials" who "have no time for the pieties of traditional political discourse", and the doomer's "blackpilled despair" is combined with spending "too much time on message boards in high school" to produce an eclectic "anti-socialism". Extreme onlineness transcends ideological boundaries. For example, right-wing figures like Alex Jones and Laura Loomer have been described as "extremely online", but so have those on the left like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and fans of the Chapo Trap House podcast. Extremely online phenomena can range from acts of offline violence (such as the 2019 Christchurch shootings) to "[going] on NPR to explain the anti-capitalist irony inherent in kids eating Tide Pods". United States President Donald Trump's posts on social media have been frequently cited as extremely online, during both his presidency and his 2020 presidential campaign; Vox claimed his approach to re-election veered into being "Too Online", and Reason questioned whether the final presidential debate was "incomprehensible to normies". While individual people are often given the description, being extremely online has also been posited as an overall cultural phenomenon, applying to trends like lifestyle movements suffixed with "-wave" and "-core" based heavily on Internet media, as well as an increasing expectation for digital social researchers to have an "online presence" to advance in their careers. == Participants and media coverage == One example of a phenomenon considered to be extremely online is the "wife guy" (a guy who posts about his wife); despite being a "stupid online thing" which spent several years as a piece of Internet slang, in 2019 it became the subject of five articles in leading U.S. media outlets. Like many extremely online phrases and phenomena, the "wife guy" has been attributed in part to the in-character Twitter account dril. The account frequently parodies how people behave on the Internet, and has been widely cited as influential on online culture. In one tweet, his character refuses to stop using the Internet, even when someone shouts outside his house that he should log off. Many of dril's other coinages have become ubiquitous parts of Internet slang. Throughout the 2010s, posters such as dril inspired commonly used terms like "corncobbing" (referring to someone losing an argument and failing to admit it); while originally a piece of obscure Internet slang used on sites like Twitter, use of the term (and controversy over its misinterpretation) became a subject of reporting from traditional publications, with some noting that keeping up with the rapid turnover of inside jokes, memes, and quotes online required daily attention to avoid embarrassment. Twitch has been described as "talk radio for the extremely online". Another example of an event cited as extremely online is No Nut November. Increasingly, researchers are expected to have more of an online presence, to advance in their careers, as networking and portfolios continue to transition to the digital world. In November 2020, an article in The Washington Post criticized the filter bubble theory of online discourse on the basis that it "overgeneralized" based on a "small subset of extremely online people". The 2021 storming of the United States Capitol was described as extremely online, with "pro-Trump internet personalities", such as Baked Alaska, and fans livestreaming and taking selfies. People who have been described as extremely online include Chrissy Teigen, Jon Ossoff, and Andrew Yang. In contrast, Joe Biden has been cited as the antithesis of extremely online—The New York Times wrote in 2019 that he had "zero meme energy".
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