AI Detector Accuracy

AI Detector Accuracy — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

Video Super Resolution

RTX Video Super Resolution (RTX VSR) is a video scaling feature by Nvidia. It was released on February 28, 2023. == History == The feature was first unveiled during CES 2023 as RTX Video Super Resolution. It uses the on-board Tensor Cores to upscale browser video content in real time. Video Super Resolution was initially only available on RTX 30 and 40 series GPUs, while support for 20 series GPUs was added afterwards; it is now available on all Nvidia RTX-branded GPUs. The feature supports input resolutions from 360p to 1440p and a max output of 4K and comes without support for HDR content although that could be likely added in the future. Nvidia released RTX Video Super Resolution 1.5 with improved video quality and RTX 20 series support on October 17, 2023. == Reception == According to ComputerBase, although "the algorithm is not yet working flawlessly", the feature is "overall recommendable".
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Radioplayer

Radioplayer is a radio technology platform, owned by UK radio broadcasters and operated under licence in some other countries. It operates an internet radio web tuner, a set of mobile phone apps, an in-car adaptor, and a growing range of integrations with other connected devices and platforms. Radioplayer is operated by UK Radioplayer Ltd which is a not-for-profit organisation owned by UK radio broadcasters. Initial shareholders were the BBC, Global Radio, GMG Radio, Absolute Radio and RadioCentre. After consolidation in the radio market, current shareholders are the BBC, Global Radio, Bauer Media Group and RadioCentre. == History == Launched in the UK on 31 March 2011, Radioplayer set out to offer a simple and accessible way to listen to radio via the internet. It contained 157 stations at launch. Initially working internally at the BBC for Tim Davie, then Director of BBC Audio & Music, Michael Hill led the project since March 2009; he was made Managing Director of UK Radioplayer Ltd on 28 July 2010. At launch, Radioplayer was a simple and straightforward Flash-based radio player, linked-to by radio stations on their own website. The player included searching and bookmarking across all of UK radio station content. On 5 October 2012, Radioplayer launched a mobile app on iOS phones with an Android version following shortly afterwards. The apps are unavailable for download outside the United Kingdom. This was followed by a tablet app on 25 September 2013. The apps also support Android Wear, Android Auto, Smart Device Link, Apple Watch and Apple CarPlay. They are also compatible with Chromecast and Airplay. In September 2016, Radioplayer announced it had been chosen by Amazon to integrate with their new voice-controlled 'Echo' device, ahead of its UK launch. In July 2017, Radioplayer integrated with the Sonos and Bose multi-room speaker platforms. UK Radioplayer currently contains around 500 UK stations, from Ofcom-licensed broadcasters. Online-only 'sister-stations' can also be added, but only by broadcasters with Ofcom licences which have been on the platform for over a year. == Radioplayer Car == Radioplayer Car was announced in September 2014 as a hybrid radio receiver that switches between FM, DAB and streaming to find the strongest signal. Speaking in Oslo in June 2015, Michael Hill said that he hoped to launch the product in the UK and Norway during the summer of 2015. In February 2017, Radioplayer Car was launched. It was marketed as the world’s first voice-controlled hybrid radio adaptor for car stereos. A small box, fitted behind the dashboard, links to the auxiliary input on an existing car radio. It connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to the driver’s smartphone by an app. The adaptor enabled drivers to listen to their own smartphone music collections using Bluetooth, take hands-free calls, listen to inbound text messages and receive instant audio travel news, customised by GPS to their location and direction of travel. The hardware was manufactured under licence by car audio interfaces supplier Connects2, and Hyde Park Corner was promoted as the preferred installer of the audio equipment. There were several spin-off benefits of the Radioplayer Car project, including the creation of the hybrid radio metadata API for cars, known as the 'WRAPI' (Worldwide Radioplayer API). == International == Through a separate company called Radioplayer Worldwide, Radioplayer technology is licensed to a number of different territories.
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Vulnerability Discovery Model

A Vulnerability Discovery Model (VDM) uses discovery event data with software reliability models for predicting the same. A thorough presentation of VDM techniques is available in. Numerous model implementations are available in the MCMCBayes open source repository. Several VDM examples include: Alhazmi-Malaiya: Time based model (Alhazmi-Malaiya Logistic (AML) model) Alhazmi-Malaiya: Effort based model Rescorla: Quadratic Model and Exponential Model Anderson: Thermodynamic Model Kim: Weibull Model Linear Model Hump-Shaped Model Independent and Dependent Model Vulnerability Discovery Modeling using Bayesian model averaging Multivariate Vulnerability Discovery Models
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Wide-column store

A wide-column store (or extensible record store) is a type of NoSQL database. It uses tables, rows, and columns, but unlike a relational database, the names and format of the columns can vary from row to row in the same table. A wide-column store can be interpreted as a two-dimensional key–value store. Google's Bigtable is one of the prototypical examples of a wide-column store. == Wide-column stores versus columnar databases == Wide-column stores such as Bigtable and Apache Cassandra are not column stores in the original sense of the term, since their two-level structures do not use a columnar data layout. In genuine column stores, a columnar data layout is adopted such that each column is stored separately on disk. Wide-column stores do often support the notion of column families that are stored separately. However, each such column family typically contains multiple columns that are used together, similar to traditional relational database tables. Within a given column family, all data is stored in a row-by-row fashion, such that the columns for a given row are stored together, rather than each column being stored separately. Wide-column stores that support column families are also known as column family databases. == Notable examples == Notable wide-column stores include: Apache Accumulo Apache Cassandra Apache HBase Bigtable DataStax Enterprise (uses Apache Cassandra) DataStax Astra DB (uses Apache Cassandra) Hypertable Azure Tables ScyllaDB
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Autonomous logistics

Autonomous logistics describes systems that provide unmanned, autonomous transfer of equipment, baggage, people, information or resources from point-to-point with minimal human intervention. Autonomous logistics is a new area being researched and currently there are few papers on the topic, with even fewer systems developed or deployed. With web enabled cloud software there are companies focused on developing and deploying such systems which will begin coming online in 2018. == Autonomous logistics vehicles == There are several subclasses of autonomous logistics vehicles: Ground autonomous logistics Based on Unmanned ground vehicle technology, a large autonomous logistics tracked carrier, which can be deployed in a tropical forest for day and night, has been developed. Another example is the TerraMax autonomous truck based on Oshkosh's Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR) military truck platform. Most recently, TerraMax competed in the 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge. The MTVR was designed for the U.S. Marine Corps with a 70% off-road mission profile. TerraMax's unmanned ground vehicle kit does not interfere with the conventional operation of the vehicle. A robust sensor suite allows for 360-degree situational awareness around TerraMax. Elements of the autonomous navigation kit could be used to enhance driver awareness. The complete kit could be used in applications such as snow removal on airport runways. Aerial autonomous logistics Based on unmanned aerial vehicle technology, aerial autonomous logistics (or logistics UAVs) provides transfer of resources and equipment in disaster relief situations, replenishment operations, reconnaissance operations where information is gathered, and general parcel or package delivery. Space autonomous logistics Describes the ability to provide logistics to and from space, be that orbital, lunar or beyond. Current space logistics vehicle examples are the Progress spacecraft, Russian expendable freighter uncrewed resupply spacecraft and the Automated Transfer Vehicle, expendable uncrewed resupply spacecraft developed by the European Space Agency. Above Water autonomous logistics Based on unmanned surface vehicle technology, this class of vehicles provides a range of surface fleet replenishment and equipment transfer capabilities. Subsea autonomous logistics Using autonomous underwater vehicle technology, these vehicles provide re-supply to underwater facilities, reconnaissance of underwater structures, emergency recovery capability, and so on. == Agent-based logistics == Shipping containers handle most of today's intercontinental transport of packaged goods. Managing them in terms of planning and scheduling is a challenging task due to the complexity and dynamics of the involved processes. Hence, recent developments show an increasing trend towards autonomous control with software agents acting on behalf of the logistic objects. Despite the high degree of autonomy it is still necessary to cooperate in order to achieve certain goals. The current trends and recent changes in logistics lead to new, complex and partially conflicting requirements for logistic planning and control systems. Due to the distributed nature of logistics, the usage of agent technology is promising. Due to the mobile nature of logistics, the usage of mobile agent technology is promising as well. Scenarios of usage of mobile agents in logistics has been envisioned.
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Confused deputy problem

In information security, a confused deputy is a computer program that is tricked by another program (with fewer privileges or less rights) into misusing its authority on the system. It is a specific type of privilege escalation. The confused deputy problem is often cited as an example of why capability-based security is important. Capability systems protect against the confused deputy problem, whereas access-control list–based systems do not. Such systems can mitigate the confused deputy problem by eliminating ambient authority, allowing programs to act only on resources for which they hold explicit capabilities, whereas access-control list–based systems are more susceptible to it. However, this protection depends on correct implementation; in formally verified capability systems such as seL4, it can be shown that the kernel enforces capability constraints correctly, preventing such behavior at the system level. == Example == In the original example of a confused deputy, there was a compiler program provided on a commercial timesharing service. Users could run the compiler and optionally specify a filename where it would write debugging output, and the compiler would be able to write to that file if the user had permission to write there. The compiler also collected statistics about language feature usage. Those statistics were stored in a file called "(SYSX)STAT", in the directory "SYSX". To make this possible, the compiler program was given permission to write to files in SYSX. But there were other files in SYSX: in particular, the system's billing information was stored in a file "(SYSX)BILL". A user ran the compiler and named "(SYSX)BILL" as the desired debugging output file. This produced a confused deputy problem. The compiler made a request to the operating system to open (SYSX)BILL. Even though the user did not have access to that file, the compiler did, so the open succeeded. The compiler wrote the compilation output to the file (here "(SYSX)BILL") as normal, overwriting it, and the billing information was destroyed. === The confused deputy === In this example, the compiler program is the deputy because it is acting at the request of the user. The program is seen as 'confused' because it was tricked into overwriting the system's billing file. Whenever a program tries to access a file, the operating system needs to know two things: which file the program is asking for, and whether the program has permission to access the file. In the example, the file is designated by its name, “(SYSX)BILL”. The program receives the file name from the user, but does not know whether the user had permission to write the file. When the program opens the file, the system uses the program's permission, not the user's. When the file name was passed from the user to the program, the permission did not go along with it; the permission was increased by the system silently and automatically. It is not essential to the attack that the billing file be designated by a name represented as a string. The essential points are that: the designator for the file does not carry the full authority needed to access the file; the program's own permission to access the file is used implicitly. == Other examples == A cross-site request forgery (CSRF) is an example of a confused deputy attack that uses the web browser to perform sensitive actions against a web application. A common form of this attack occurs when a web application uses a cookie to authenticate all requests transmitted by a browser. Using JavaScript, an attacker can force a browser into transmitting authenticated HTTP requests. The Samy computer worm used cross-site scripting (XSS) to turn the browser's authenticated MySpace session into a confused deputy. Using XSS the worm forced the browser into posting an executable copy of the worm as a MySpace message which was then viewed and executed by friends of the infected user. Clickjacking is an attack where the user acts as the confused deputy. In this attack a user thinks they are harmlessly browsing a website (an attacker-controlled website) but they are in fact tricked into performing sensitive actions on another website. An FTP bounce attack can allow an attacker to connect indirectly to TCP ports to which the attacker's machine has no access, using a remote FTP server as the confused deputy. Another example relates to personal firewall software. It can restrict Internet access for specific applications. Some applications circumvent this by starting a browser with instructions to access a specific URL. The browser has authority to open a network connection, even though the application does not. Firewall software can attempt to address this by prompting the user in cases where one program starts another which then accesses the network. However, the user frequently does not have sufficient information to determine whether such an access is legitimate—false positives are common, and there is a substantial risk that even sophisticated users will become habituated to clicking "OK" to these prompts. Not every program that misuses authority is a confused deputy. Sometimes misuse of authority is simply a result of a program error. The confused deputy problem occurs when the designation of an object is passed from one program to another, and the associated permission changes unintentionally, without any explicit action by either party. It is insidious because neither party did anything explicit to change the authority. Another example is when an administrator authorizes an AI agent to act on their behalf, and that AI subsequently delegates authority to another AI agent neither vetted nor authorized by the original administrator. The unvetted AI can then act without permissions or oversight from the original developer. == Solutions == In some systems it is possible to ask the operating system to open a file using the permissions of another client. This solution has some drawbacks: It requires explicit attention to security by the server. A naive or careless server might not take this extra step. It becomes more difficult to identify the correct permission if the server is in turn the client of another service and wants to pass along access to the file. It requires the client to trust the server to not abuse the borrowed permissions. Note that intersecting the server and client's permissions does not solve the problem either, because the server may then have to be given very wide permissions (all of the time, rather than those needed for a given request) in order to act for arbitrary clients. The simplest way to solve the confused deputy problem is to bundle together the designation of an object and the permission to access that object. This is exactly what a capability is. Using capability security in the compiler example, the client would pass to the server a capability to the output file, such as a file descriptor, rather than the name of the file. Since it lacks a capability to the billing file, it cannot designate that file for output. In the cross-site request forgery example, a URL supplied "cross"-site would include its own authority independent of that of the client of the web browser.
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Human image synthesis

Human image synthesis is technology that can be applied to make believable and even photorealistic renditions of human-likenesses, moving or still. It has effectively existed since the early 2000s. Many films using computer generated imagery have featured synthetic images of human-like characters digitally composited onto the real or other simulated film material. Towards the end of the 2010s deep learning artificial intelligence has been applied to synthesize images and video that look like humans, without need for human assistance, once the training phase has been completed, whereas the old school 7D-route required massive amounts of human work. == Timeline of human image synthesis == In 1971 Henri Gouraud made the first CG geometry capture and representation of a human face. Modeling was his wife Sylvie Gouraud. The 3D model was a simple wire-frame model and he applied the Gouraud shader he is most known for to produce the first known representation of human-likeness on computer. The 1972 short film A Computer Animated Hand by Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke was the first time that computer-generated imagery was used in film to simulate moving human appearance. The film featured a computer simulated hand and face (watch film here). The 1976 film Futureworld reused parts of A Computer Animated Hand on the big screen. The 1983 music video for song Musique Non-Stop by German band Kraftwerk aired in 1986. Created by the artist Rebecca Allen, it features non-realistic looking, but clearly recognizable computer simulations of the band members. The 1994 film The Crow was the first film production to make use of digital compositing of a computer simulated representation of a face onto scenes filmed using a body double. Necessity was the muse as the actor Brandon Lee portraying the protagonist was tragically killed accidentally on-stage. In 1999 Paul Debevec et al. of USC captured the reflectance field of a human face with their first version of a light stage. They presented their method at the SIGGRAPH 2000 In 2003 audience debut of photo realistic human-likenesses in the 2003 films The Matrix Reloaded in the burly brawl sequence where up-to-100 Agent Smiths fight Neo and in The Matrix Revolutions where at the start of the end showdown Agent Smith's cheekbone gets punched in by Neo leaving the digital look-alike unnaturally unhurt. The Matrix Revolutions bonus DVD documents and depicts the process in some detail and the techniques used, including facial motion capture and limbal motion capture, and projection onto models. In 2003 The Animatrix: Final Flight of the Osiris a state-of-the-art want-to-be human likenesses not quite fooling the watcher made by Square Pictures. In 2003 digital likeness of Tobey Maguire was made for movies Spider-man 2 and Spider-man 3 by Sony Pictures Imageworks. In 2005 the Face of the Future project was an established. by the University of St Andrews and Perception Lab, funded by the EPSRC. The website contains a "Face Transformer", which enables users to transform their face into any ethnicity and age as well as the ability to transform their face into a painting (in the style of either Sandro Botticelli or Amedeo Modigliani). This process is achieved by combining the user's photograph with an average face. In 2009 Debevec et al. presented new digital likenesses, made by Image Metrics, this time of actress Emily O'Brien whose reflectance was captured with the USC light stage 5 Motion looks fairly convincing contrasted to the clunky run in the Animatrix: Final Flight of the Osiris which was state-of-the-art in 2003 if photorealism was the intention of the animators. In 2009 a digital look-alike of a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger was made for the movie Terminator Salvation though the end result was critiqued as unconvincing. Facial geometry was acquired from a 1984 mold of Schwarzenegger. In 2010 Walt Disney Pictures released a sci-fi sequel entitled Tron: Legacy with a digitally rejuvenated digital look-alike of actor Jeff Bridges playing the antagonist CLU. In SIGGGRAPH 2013 Activision and USC presented a real-time "Digital Ira" a digital face look-alike of Ari Shapiro, an ICT USC research scientist, utilizing the USC light stage X by Ghosh et al. for both reflectance field and motion capture. The end result both precomputed and real-time rendering with the modernest game GPU shown here and looks fairly realistic. In 2014 The Presidential Portrait by USC Institute for Creative Technologies in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution was made using the latest USC mobile light stage wherein President Barack Obama had his geometry, textures and reflectance captured. In 2014 Ian Goodfellow et al. presented the principles of a generative adversarial network. GANs made the headlines in early 2018 with the deepfakes controversies. For the 2015 film Furious 7 a digital look-alike of actor Paul Walker who died in an accident during the filming was done by Weta Digital to enable the completion of the film. In 2016 techniques which allow near real-time counterfeiting of facial expressions in existing 2D video have been believably demonstrated. In 2016 a digital look-alike of Peter Cushing was made for the Rogue One film where its appearance would appear to be of same age as the actor was during the filming of the original 1977 Star Wars film. In SIGGRAPH 2017 an audio driven digital look-alike of upper torso of Barack Obama was presented by researchers from University of Washington. It was driven only by a voice track as source data for the animation after the training phase to acquire lip sync and wider facial information from training material consisting 2D videos with audio had been completed. Late 2017 and early 2018 saw the surfacing of the deepfakes controversy where porn videos were doctored using deep machine learning so that the face of the actress was replaced by the software's opinion of what another persons face would look like in the same pose and lighting. In 2018 Game Developers Conference Epic Games and Tencent Games demonstrated "Siren", a digital look-alike of the actress Bingjie Jiang. It was made possible with the following technologies: CubicMotion's computer vision system, 3Lateral's facial rigging system and Vicon's motion capture system. The demonstration ran in near real time at 60 frames per second in the Unreal Engine 4. In 2018 at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen the Xinhua News Agency presented two digital look-alikes made to the resemblance of its real news anchors Qiu Hao (Chinese language) and Zhang Zhao (English language). The digital look-alikes were made in conjunction with Sogou. Neither the speech synthesis used nor the gesturing of the digital look-alike anchors were good enough to deceive the watcher to mistake them for real humans imaged with a TV camera. In September 2018 Google added "involuntary synthetic pornographic imagery" to its ban list, allowing anyone to request the search engine block results that falsely depict them as "nude or in a sexually explicit situation." In February 2019 Nvidia open sources StyleGAN, a novel generative adversarial network. Right after this Phillip Wang made the website ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com with StyleGAN to demonstrate that unlimited amounts of often photo-realistic looking facial portraits of no-one can be made automatically using a GAN. Nvidia's StyleGAN was presented in a not yet peer reviewed paper in late 2018. At the June 2019 CVPR the MIT CSAIL presented a system titled "Speech2Face: Learning the Face Behind a Voice" that synthesizes likely faces based on just a recording of a voice. It was trained with massive amounts of video of people speaking. Since 1 July 2019 Virginia has criminalized the sale and dissemination of unauthorized synthetic pornography, but not the manufacture., as § 18.2–386.2 titled 'Unlawful dissemination or sale of images of another; penalty.' became part of the Code of Virginia. The law text states: "Any person who, with the intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate, maliciously disseminates or sells any videographic or still image created by any means whatsoever that depicts another person who is totally nude, or in a state of undress so as to expose the genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast, where such person knows or has reason to know that he is not licensed or authorized to disseminate or sell such videographic or still image is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.". The identical bills were House Bill 2678 presented by Delegate Marcus Simon to the Virginia House of Delegates on 14 January 2019 and three-day later an identical Senate bill 1736 was introduced to the Senate of Virginia by Senator Adam Ebbin. Since 1 September 2019 Texas senate bill SB 751 amendments to the election code came into effect, giving candidates in elections a 30-day protection period to the elections during which making and distributing digital look-alikes or synthetic fakes of the candidates is an offense. Th
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Zardoz (computer security)

In computer security, the Security-Digest list, better known as the Zardoz list, was a semi-private full disclosure mailing list run by Neil Gorsuch from 1989 through 1991. It identified weaknesses in systems and gave directions on where to find them. It was a perennial target for computer hackers, who sought archives of the list for information on undisclosed software vulnerabilities. == Membership restrictions == Access to Zardoz was approved on a case-by-case basis by Gorsuch, principally by reference to the user account used to send subscription requests; requests were approved for root users, valid UUCP owners, or system administrators listed at the NIC. The openness of the list to users other than Unix system administrators was a regular topic of conversation, with participants expressing concern that vulnerabilities and exploitation details disclosed on the list were liable to spread to hackers. The circulation of Zardoz postings was an open secret among computer hackers, and mocked in a Phrack parody of an IRC channel populated by security experts. == Notable participants == Keith Bostic discussed BSD Sendmail vulnerabilities Chip Salzenberg discussed Peter Honeyman's posting of a UUCP worm, and shell script security Gene Spafford discussed VMS and Ultrix bugs, and relayed law enforcement enquiries about the Morris Worm Tom Christiansen discussed SUID shell scripts Chris Torek discussed devising exploits from general descriptions of vulnerabilities Henry Spencer discussed Unix security Brendan Kehoe discussed systems security Alec Muffett announced Crack, the Unix password cracker The majority of Zardoz participants were Unix systems administrators and C software developers. Neil Gorsuch and Gene Spafford were the most prolific contributors to the list.
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JasPer

JasPer is a computer software project to create a reference implementation of the codec specified in the JPEG-2000 Part-1 standard (i.e. ISO/IEC 15444-1) - started in 1997 at Image Power Inc. and at the University of British Columbia. It consists of a C library and some sample applications useful for testing the codec. The copyright owner began licensing the code to the public under an MIT License-style license in 2004 in response to requests from the open-source community. As of 2011 JasPer operated as a component of many software projects, both free and proprietary, including (but not limited to) netpbm (as of release 10.12), ImageMagick and KDE (as of version 3.2). As of 22 June 2010 the GEGL graphics library supported JasPer in its latest Git versions. In a series of objective JPEG-2000-compression quality tests conducted in 2004, "JasPer was the best codec, closely followed by IrfanView and Kakadu". However, Jasper remains one of the slowest implementations of the JPEG-2000 codec, as it was designed for reference, not performance. == Etymology == The name "JasPer" has simultaneous connotations with Canada's Jasper National Park, with the semi-precious gemstone, jasper, and with "JP" as an abbreviation of the JPEG-2000 standard.
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SMBGhost

SMBGhost (or SMBleedingGhost or CoronaBlue) is a type of security vulnerability, with wormlike features, that affects Windows 10 computers and was first reported publicly on 10 March 2020. == Security vulnerability == A proof of concept (PoC) exploit code was published 1 June 2020 on GitHub by a security researcher. The code could possibly spread to millions of unpatched computers, resulting in as much as tens of billions of dollars in losses. Microsoft recommends all users of Windows 10 versions 1903 and 1909 and Windows Server versions 1903 and 1909 to install patches, and states, "We recommend customers install updates as soon as possible as publicly disclosed vulnerabilities have the potential to be leveraged by bad actors ... An update for this vulnerability was released in March [2020], and customers who have installed the updates, or have automatic updates enabled, are already protected." Workarounds, according to Microsoft, such as disabling SMB compression and blocking port 445, may help but may not be sufficient. According to the advisory division of Homeland Security, "Malicious cyber actors are targeting unpatched systems with the new [threat], ... [and] strongly recommends using a firewall to block server message block ports from the internet and to apply patches to critical- and high-severity vulnerabilities as soon as possible."
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Spyglass (app)

Spyglass is a navigation and orientation mobile application developed by Pavel Ahafonau. It combines data from a digital compass, GNSS positioning, motion sensors, maps, and the device camera to provide direction finding, waypoint navigation, and measurement tools. The application is designed for offline and off-road use and is used in outdoor navigation, orientation tasks, astronomy, and fieldwork. == History == Spyglass was created by independent software developer Pavel Ahafonau as a personal project in 2009, following the introduction of a digital compass sensor in the iPhone. It initially focused on combining compass, GPS, and camera data into an augmented-reality tool for navigation and orientation. In September 2009, a public prototype was demonstrated, showing a live camera view combined with a digital compass overlay aligned to device orientation, presenting an early augmented-reality, location-aware heads-up display. The application was released on the Apple App Store in October 2009. In February 2010, a major update introduced target-based navigation, allowing users to navigate to saved locations, bearings, and selected celestial objects. The update also added visual measurement tools, including an optical-style rangefinder, as well as a vertical speed indicator displaying ascent and descent rates derived from device sensor data. In December 2010, Spyglass was featured by Apple in iTunes Rewind 2010 under augmented-reality applications. The application expanded to Android on 28 October 2017. In May 2021, Spyglass expanded its offline mapping capabilities by adding support for additional map styles by Thunderforest, extending the range of available cartographic themes for offline use. Also in 2021, navigation satellite tracking was introduced, allowing visualization and tracking of major GPS/GNSS satellite constellations. In 2022, a searchable offline database of major locations was added, including airports, seaports, mountains, castles, and landmarks, along with nearest-airport tracking functionality. In July 2024, previously separate iOS editions (Spyglass, Commander Compass, and Commander Compass Go) were consolidated into a single Spyglass application. At the same time, the app transitioned to a freemium model. == Features == Spyglass provides navigation and orientation functions by combining sensor data from the device. Core functionality includes a digital compass, GNSS-based positioning, waypoint creation and tracking, and map-based navigation with offline support. The application includes an augmented-reality viewfinder mode that overlays navigation and sensor information onto the live camera view. Displayed data may include heading, bearing, distance to targets, pitch, roll, yaw, altitude, speed, and estimated time of arrival. Additional tools include an altimeter, speedometer, vertical speed indicator, inclinometer, artificial horizon, coordinate conversion utilities, optical rangefinding, and angular measurement tools. Spyglass also supports celestial navigation features, such as tracking of the Sun, Moon, stars, and global navigation satellite systems. Spyglass uses data from the device's GNSS receiver, digital compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer (when available), and camera. Sensor data are combined to calculate position, orientation, movement, and measurement overlays. The application is designed to function without an internet connection. Navigation tools, sensor readings, waypoint tracking, augmented-reality features, celestial tracking, and the built-in location database operate offline. Internet access is required only for loading online map tiles; previously downloaded offline maps remain available without connectivity.
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No Thanks (app)

No Thanks is a Palestinian boycott-awareness mobile application developed by Palestinian software engineer Ahmed Bashbash, created to assist consumers in identifying and boycotting products associated with companies linked to Israel. Launched in 13 November 2023, the app gained significant attention amid the Gaza–Israel conflict. == History == No Thanks is a mobile application developed by Ahmed Bashbash, a Palestinian software engineer from Gaza residing in Hungary. The app was conceived in October 2023 following the death of Bashbash's brother in an Israeli airstrike on October 31, 2023. His sister had previously died in 2020 due to delayed medical treatment. The app was officially launched on November 13, 2023, and quickly gained traction, got over 100,000 downloads within its first month of release. On November 30, 2023, Google removed the app from its Play Store due to a violation of its content policies. The app's home page included a description: "Welcome to No Thanks, here you can see if the product in your hand supports killing children in Palestine or not," which was deemed to contravene Google's guidelines on hate speech and sensitive content. On December 3, 2023, following changes to the app's description, Google reinstated the app.
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Amira (software)

Amira (ah-MEER-ah) is a software platform for visualization, processing, and analysis of 3D and 4D data. It is being actively developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific in collaboration with the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), and commercially distributed by Thermo Fisher Scientific — together with its sister software Avizo. == Overview == Amira is an extendable software system for scientific visualization, data analysis, and presentation of 3D and 4D data. It is used by researchers and engineers in academia and industry. It is a tool for processing, analysis and visualization of data from various modalities; e.g. micro-CT, PET, Ultrasound. It is used in many fields, such as microscopy in biology and materials science, molecular biology, quantum physics, astrophysics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), finite element modeling (FEM), non-destructive testing (NDT), and many more. One of the key features, besides data visualization, is Amira's set of tools for image segmentation and geometry reconstruction. This allows the user to mark (or segment) structures and regions of interest in 3D image volumes using automatic, semi-automatic, and manual tools. The segmentation can then be used for a variety of subsequent tasks, such as volumetric analysis, density analysis, shape analysis, or the generation of 3D computer models for visualization, numerical simulations, or rapid prototyping or 3D printing. Other key Amira features are multi-planar and volume visualization, image registration, filament tracing, cell separation and analysis, tetrahedral mesh generation, fiber-tracking from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data, skeletonization, spatial graph analysis, and stereoscopic rendering of 3D data over multiple displays and immersive virtual reality environments, including CAVEs. As a commercial product Amira requires the purchase of a license or an academic subscription. A time-limited, but full-featured evaluation version is available for download free of charge. == History == === 1993–1998: Research software === Amira's roots go back to 1993 and the Department for Scientific Visualization, headed by Hans-Christian Hege at the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB). The ZIB is a research institute for mathematics and informatics. The Scientific Visualization department's mission is to help solve computationally and scientifically challenging tasks in medicine, biology, engineering and materials science. For this purpose, it develops algorithms and software for 2D, 3D, and 4D data visualization and visually supported exploration and analysis. At that time, the young visualization group at the ZIB had experience with the extendable, data flow-oriented visualization environments apE, IRIS Explorer, and Advanced Visualization Studio (AVS), but was not satisfied with these products' interactivity, flexibility, and ease-of-use for non-computer scientists. Therefore, the development of a new software system was started in a research project within a medically oriented, multi-disciplinary collaborative research center. Based on experiences that Tobias Höllerer had gained in late 1993 with the new graphics library IRIS Inventor, it was decided to utilize that library. The development of the medical planning system was performed by Detlev Stalling, who later became the chief software architect of Amira. The new software was called "HyperPlan", highlighting its initial target application – a planning system for hyperthermia cancer treatment. The system was being developed on Silicon Graphics (SGI) computers, which at the time were the standard workstations used for high-end graphics computing. The software was based on libraries such as OpenGL (originally IRIS GL), Open Inventor (originally IRIS Inventor), and the graphical user interface libraries X11, Motif (software), and ViewKit. In 1998, X11/Motif/Viewkit were replaced by the Qt toolkit. The HyperPlan framework served as the base for more and more projects at the ZIB and was used by a growing number of researchers in collaborating institutions. The projects included applications in medical image computing, medical visualization, neurobiology, confocal microscopy, flow visualization, molecular analytics and computational astrophysics. === 1998–today: Commercially supported product === The growing number of users of the system started to exceed the capacities that ZIB could spare for software distribution and support, as ZIB's primary mission was algorithmic research. Therefore, the spin-off company Indeed – Visual Concepts GmbH was founded by Hans-Christian Hege, Detlev Stalling, and Malte Westerhoff. In Feb 1998 the HyperPlan software was given the new, application-neutral name "Amira". This name is not an acronym, but was chosen for being pronounceable in different languages and providing a suitable connotation, namely "to look at" or "to wonder at", from the Latin verb "admirare" (to admire), which reflects a basic situation in data visualization. A major re-design of the software was undertaken by Detlev Stalling and Malte Westerhoff in order to make it a commercially supportable product and to make it available on non-SGI computers as well. In March 1999, the first version of the commercial Amira was exhibited at the CeBIT tradeshow in Hannover, Germany on SGI IRIX and Hewlett-Packard UniX (HP-UX) booths. Versions for Linux and Microsoft Windows followed within the following twelve months. Later Mac OS X support was added. Indeed – Visual Concepts GmbH selected the Bordeaux, France and San Diego, United States based company TGS, Inc. as the worldwide distributor for Amira and completed five major releases (up to version 3.1) in the subsequent four years. In 2003 both Indeed – Visual Concepts GmbH, as well as TGS, Inc. were acquired by Massachusetts-based Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRCY) and became part of Mercury's newly formed life sciences business unit, later branded Visage Imaging. In 2009, Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. spun off Visage Imaging again and sold it to Melbourne, Australia based Promedicus Ltd (ASX:PME), a leading provider of radiology information systems and medical IT solutions. During this time, Amira continued to be developed in Berlin, Germany and in close collaboration with the ZIB, still headed by the original creators of Amira. TGS, located in Bordeaux, France was sold by Mercury Computer systems to a French investor and renamed to Visualization Sciences Group (VSG). VSG continued the work on a complementary product named Avizo, based on the same source code but customized for material sciences. In August 2012, FEI, to that date the largest OEM reseller of Amira, purchased VSG and the Amira business from Promedicus. This brought the two software sisters Amira and Avizo back into one hand. In August 2013, Visualization Sciences Group (VSG) became a business unit of FEI. In 2016 FEI has been bought by Thermo Fisher Scientific and became part of its Materials & Structural Analysis division in early 2017. Amira and Avizo are still being marketed as two different products; Amira for life sciences and Avizo for materials science, but the development efforts are now joined once again. In the meantime, the number of scientific articles using the Amira / Avizo software, is in the order of 10 thousands. == Amira options == === Microscopy option === Specific readers for microscopy data Image deconvolution Exploration of 3D imagery obtained from virtually any microscope Extraction and editing of filament networks from microscopy images === DICOM reader === Import of clinical and preclinical data in DICOM format === Mesh option === Generation of 3D finite element (FE) meshes from segmented image data Support for many state-of-the-art FE solver formats High-quality visualization of simulation mesh-based results, using scalar, vector, and tensor field display modules === Skeletonization option === Reconstruction and analysis of neural and vascular networks Visualization of skeletonized networks Length and diameter quantification of network segments Ordering of segments in a tree graph Skeletonization of very large image stacks === Molecular option === Advanced tools for the visualization of molecule models Hardware-accelerated volume rendering Powerful molecule editor Specific tools for complex molecular visualization === Developer option === Creation of new custom components for visualizing or data processing Implementation of new file readers or writers C++ programming language Development wizard for getting started quickly === Neuro option === Medical image analysis for DTI and brain perfusion Fiber tracking supporting several stream-line based algorithms Fiber separation into fiber bundles based on user defined source and destination regions Computation of tensor fields, diffusion weighted maps Eigenvalue decomposition of tensor fields Computation of mean transit time, cerebral blood flow, and cerebral blood volume === VR option === Visualization of data on large tiled displays
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