AI Generator Remover — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.
Stop Motion Studio is a stop motion animation software developed by Cateater LLC. It is available as both an app for iOS and Android and as a software for Windows and Mac. Two versions of the software exist, the standard Stop Motion Studio for free, and the paid Stop Motion Studio Pro, which contains extra, more advanced features. The software is commonly used in brickfilming.
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SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is SAP’s web-based software modelling tool. It enables business process specialists and developers to create business application components, without coding. Visual Composer produces applications in a declarative form, enabling code-free execution mode for multiple runtime environments. It provides application lifecycle support by maintaining the connection between an application and its model throughout its lifecycle. Visual Composer is designed with an open architecture, which enables developers to extend its design-time environment and modelling language, as well as to integrate external data services. The tool aims to increase productivity by reducing development effort time, and narrowing the gap between application definition and implementation. Starting with a blank canvas, the Visual Composer user, typically a business process specialist, draws the application in Visual Composer Storyboard (workspace), without writing code, to prototype, design and produce applications. A typical workflow for creating, deploying and running an application using Visual Composer is: Create a model Discover data services and add them to the model Select necessary UI elements and add them to the model Connect model elements to define the model logic and data flow Edit the layout Arranging the UI elements and the controls of the application on forms and tables. Deploy the model This step includes compilation, validation and deployment to a selected environment. Run the application The application can run using different runtime environment (such as Adobe Flex and HTML). In 2014 a runtime environment was introduced that is utilizing HTML5 capabilities of SAPUI5.
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Symbaloo is a cloud-based site that allows users to organize and categorize web links in the form of buttons. Symbaloo works from a web browser and can be configured as a homepage, allowing users to create a personalized virtual desktop accessible from any device with an Internet connection. Symbaloo users, which must be previously registered, have a page with a grid of buttons that can be configured to link to a specific page. The site allows users to assign different colors to the buttons for easy visual classification. Symbaloo allows a single user to create different pages or screens with buttons. These screens called webmix are useful to separate topics and links can be shared with other users, making them public and sending the link via email. As of 2015 Symbaloo has 6 million users worldwide and mainly used as an online education resource. Symbaloo's slogan is "Start Simple".
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A community cloud in computing is a collaborative effort in which infrastructure is shared between several organizations from a specific community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether managed internally or by a third party and hosted internally or externally. This is controlled and used by a group of organizations that have shared interests. The costs are spread over fewer users than a public cloud (but more than a private cloud), so only some of the cost savings potential of cloud computing are realized. The community cloud is provisioned for use by a group of consumers from different organizations who share the same concerns (e.g., application, security, policy, and efficiency demands).
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Actionstep is a cloud-based legal practice management software for law firms and compliance-focused businesses. Actionstep is built to be a comprehensive practice management software with features for workflow automation as well as automatic document generation == History == Actionstep was created by Ted Jordan, CEO of Actionstep, in 2004. It was first used commercially in 2005 by a New Zealand construction franchise as well as a law firm. Actionstep soon expanded into central government and a wider range of small business users (mainly in New Zealand and Australia). After a few years the expanse of their legal client base prompted the company to add key legal specific features to the product with the aim of further expanding their legal market. Through Actionstep's tenure as a practice management software they have gradually expanded from their headquarters in New Zealand and offices located in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. In October 2020, private equity firm Serent Capital Partners purchased 84.25% stake in Actionstep. In April 2022, the company announced unlimited annual leave to its staff == Product == The premise of Actionstep is that it saves companies from having to purchase software tailored to their work flow and instead allows companies to modify the program without additional coding.{{Citation needed}} The founder and CEO Ted Jordan used cloud technology to allow the software to be continuously updated without the need to purchase or redesign new software. This theoretically allows businesses to remain current all the time and cut external I.T. costs.{{Citation needed}} Actionstep also integrates with software from other companies, such as Xero accounting, Microsoft Office & Office 365, Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox, NetDocuments, QuickBooks, LawPay, BundleDocs, Box, HotDocs, Infotrack, GlobalX, PEXA, JOSEF and Zapier. Actionstep contains workflow automation features aimed at increasing office efficiency. These automated processes include automatic task assignment, information collection, document generation & automation, cataloguing, and matter generation. == Awards == Actionstep was named First International Best of SaaS Showplace Award Winner in 2009. Actionstep has also been a finalist in the ComputerWorld Excellence Awards (2007), and the Vero Excellence in Business Support (2010).
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Enonic XP is a free and open-source content platform. Developed by the Norwegian software company Enonic, the platform can be used to build websites, progressive web applications, or web-based APIs. Enonic XP uses an application framework for coding server logic with JavaScript, and has no need for SQL as it ships with an integrated content repository. The CMS is fully decoupled, meaning developers can create traditional websites and landing pages, or use XP in headless mode, that is without the presentation layer, for loading editorial content onto any device or client. Enonic is used by major organizations in Norway, including the national postal service Norway Post, the insurance company Gjensidige, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, and all the top football clubs in the national football league for men, Eliteserien. == Overview == Enonic XP ships with the content management system (CMS) Content Studio. This includes a visual drag and drop editor, a landing page editor, support for multi-site and multi-language, media and structured content, advanced image editing, responsive user interface, permissions and roles management, revision and version control, and bulk publishing. Integrations and applications can be directly installed via the "Applications" section in XP, where the platform finds apps approved in the official Enonic Market. There are no third-party databases in Enonic XP. Instead, the developers have built a distributed storage repository, avoiding the need to index content. The system brings together capabilities from Filesystem, NoSQL, document stores, and search in the storage technology, which automatically indexes everything put into the storage. Enonic XP supports deployment of server side JavaScript. The open-source framework runs on top of a JVM (Java virtual machine), and allows developers to run the same code in the browser and on the server, thus enabling them to employ JavaScript. While running on the Java virtual machine, Enonic XP can be deployed on most infrastructures. The dependency on a third-party application server to deploy code has been removed, as the platform is an application server by default. A developer can for instance insert his own modules and code straight into the system while it is running. JavaScript unifies all the technical elements, and Enonic XP features a MVC framework where everything on the back-end can be coded with server-side JavaScript. The Enonic platform can use any template engine. === Progressive web apps === Another feature of Enonic XP is the possibility for developers to create progressive web apps (PWA). A PWA is a web application that is a regular web page or website, but can appear to the user like a mobile application. === Headless CMS and integrations === Enonic XP is headless, which means it separates content and presentation. The platform supports GraphQL, provides several default APIs, and allows for building custom APIs through the Guillotine starter kit. Consequently, Enonic supports modern front-end frameworks, and offers integrations with e.g. Next.js and React. == History == Enonic AS was founded in 2000 by Morten Øien Eriksen and Thomas Sigdestad. The software company specialized in building services and solutions, including a content management system known as "Vertical Site", then "Enonic CMS". Being aware that they had application, database, and website teams working on separate silos toward the same goal, Enonic sought to combine the different elements into a single software. The resulting application platform Enonic XP, first released in 2015, includes a CMS as an optional surface layer. In March 2020, Enonic XP was ranked by SoftwareReviews, a division of Info-Tech Research Group, a Canadian IT research and analyst firm, as the "Leader" in Web Experience Management. The ranking is based on user reviews, and is featured in SoftwareReviews‘ Digital Experience Data Quadrant Report, a comprehensive evaluation and ranking of leading Web Experience Management vendors. Enonic was also ranked first in 2021 and 2022. === Release history === Enonic XP assumed the mantle from the previous content management system Enonic CMS, and thus began with "version 5.0.0." The following list only contains major releases. == Development and support == Enonic offers a user and developer community consisting of a forum, support system with tickets, documentation, codex, learning and training center with certifications, and various community groups. Writing about the support system, Mike Johnston of CMS Critic notes that "enterprise customers obviously get access to a higher level of personalized support, where the Enonic support team can respond as fast as two hours." The support system is divided in three levels: silver, gold and platinum—from next day business support to 24/7 support. As Enonic XP is open-source, known vulnerabilities, bugs and issues are listed on GitHub.
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In statistics, cluster analysis is the algorithmic grouping of objects into homogeneous groups based on numerical measurements. Model-based clustering based on a statistical model for the data, usually a mixture model. This has several advantages, including a principled statistical basis for clustering, and ways to choose the number of clusters, to choose the best clustering model, to assess the uncertainty of the clustering, and to identify outliers that do not belong to any group. == Model-based clustering == Suppose that for each of n {\displaystyle n} observations we have data on d {\displaystyle d} variables, denoted by y i = ( y i , 1 , … , y i , d ) {\displaystyle y_{i}=(y_{i,1},\ldots ,y_{i,d})} for observation i {\displaystyle i} . Then model-based clustering expresses the probability density function of y i {\displaystyle y_{i}} as a finite mixture, or weighted average of G {\displaystyle G} component probability density functions: p ( y i ) = ∑ g = 1 G τ g f g ( y i ∣ θ g ) , {\displaystyle p(y_{i})=\sum _{g=1}^{G}\tau _{g}f_{g}(y_{i}\mid \theta _{g}),} where f g {\displaystyle f_{g}} is a probability density function with parameter θ g {\displaystyle \theta _{g}} , τ g {\displaystyle \tau _{g}} is the corresponding mixture probability where ∑ g = 1 G τ g = 1 {\displaystyle \sum _{g=1}^{G}\tau _{g}=1} . Then in its simplest form, model-based clustering views each component of the mixture model as a cluster, estimates the model parameters, and assigns each observation to cluster corresponding to its most likely mixture component. === Gaussian mixture model === The most common model for continuous data is that f g {\displaystyle f_{g}} is a multivariate normal distribution with mean vector μ g {\displaystyle \mu _{g}} and covariance matrix Σ g {\displaystyle \Sigma _{g}} , so that θ g = ( μ g , Σ g ) {\displaystyle \theta _{g}=(\mu _{g},\Sigma _{g})} . This defines a Gaussian mixture model. The parameters of the model, τ g {\displaystyle \tau _{g}} and θ g {\displaystyle \theta _{g}} for g = 1 , … , G {\displaystyle g=1,\ldots ,G} , are typically estimated by maximum likelihood estimation using the expectation-maximization algorithm (EM); see also EM algorithm and GMM model. Bayesian inference is also often used for inference about finite mixture models. The Bayesian approach also allows for the case where the number of components, G {\displaystyle G} , is infinite, using a Dirichlet process prior, yielding a Dirichlet process mixture model for clustering. === Choosing the number of clusters === An advantage of model-based clustering is that it provides statistically principled ways to choose the number of clusters. Each different choice of the number of groups G {\displaystyle G} corresponds to a different mixture model. Then standard statistical model selection criteria such as the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) can be used to choose G {\displaystyle G} . The integrated completed likelihood (ICL) is a different criterion designed to choose the number of clusters rather than the number of mixture components in the model; these will often be different if highly non-Gaussian clusters are present. === Parsimonious Gaussian mixture model === For data with high dimension, d {\displaystyle d} , using a full covariance matrix for each mixture component requires estimation of many parameters, which can result in a loss of precision, generalizabity and interpretability. Thus it is common to use more parsimonious component covariance matrices exploiting their geometric interpretation. Gaussian clusters are ellipsoidal, with their volume, shape and orientation determined by the covariance matrix. Consider the eigendecomposition of a matrix Σ g = λ g D g A g D g T , {\displaystyle \Sigma _{g}=\lambda _{g}D_{g}A_{g}D_{g}^{T},} where D g {\displaystyle D_{g}} is the matrix of eigenvectors of Σ g {\displaystyle \Sigma _{g}} , A g = diag { A 1 , g , … , A d , g } {\displaystyle A_{g}={\mbox{diag}}\{A_{1,g},\ldots ,A_{d,g}\}} is a diagonal matrix whose elements are proportional to the eigenvalues of Σ g {\displaystyle \Sigma _{g}} in descending order, and λ g {\displaystyle \lambda _{g}} is the associated constant of proportionality. Then λ g {\displaystyle \lambda _{g}} controls the volume of the ellipsoid, A g {\displaystyle A_{g}} its shape, and D g {\displaystyle D_{g}} its orientation. Each of the volume, shape and orientation of the clusters can be constrained to be equal (E) or allowed to vary (V); the orientation can also be spherical, with identical eigenvalues (I). This yields 14 possible clustering models, shown in this table: It can be seen that many of these models are more parsimonious, with far fewer parameters than the unconstrained model that has 90 parameters when G = 4 {\displaystyle G=4} and d = 9 {\displaystyle d=9} . Several of these models correspond to well-known heuristic clustering methods. For example, k-means clustering is equivalent to estimation of the EII clustering model using the classification EM algorithm. The Bayesian information criterion (BIC) can be used to choose the best clustering model as well as the number of clusters. It can also be used as the basis for a method to choose the variables in the clustering model, eliminating variables that are not useful for clustering. Different Gaussian model-based clustering methods have been developed with an eye to handling high-dimensional data. These include the pgmm method, which is based on the mixture of factor analyzers model, and the HDclassif method, based on the idea of subspace clustering. The mixture-of-experts framework extends model-based clustering to include covariates. == Example == We illustrate the method with a dateset consisting of three measurements (glucose, insulin, sspg) on 145 subjects for the purpose of diagnosing diabetes and the type of diabetes present. The subjects were clinically classified into three groups: normal, chemical diabetes and overt diabetes, but we use this information only for evaluating clustering methods, not for classifying subjects. The BIC plot shows the BIC values for each combination of the number of clusters, G {\displaystyle G} , and the clustering model from the Table. Each curve corresponds to a different clustering model. The BIC favors 3 groups, which corresponds to the clinical assessment. It also favors the unconstrained covariance model, VVV. This fits the data well, because the normal patients have low values of both sspg and insulin, while the distributions of the chemical and overt diabetes groups are elongated, but in different directions. Thus the volumes, shapes and orientations of the three groups are clearly different, and so the unconstrained model is appropriate, as selected by the model-based clustering method. The classification plot shows the classification of the subjects by model-based clustering. The classification was quite accurate, with a 12% error rate as defined by the clinical classification. Other well-known clustering methods performed worse with higher error rates, such as single-linkage clustering with 46%, average link clustering with 30%, complete-linkage clustering also with 30%, and k-means clustering with 28%. == Outliers in clustering == An outlier in clustering is a data point that does not belong to any of the clusters. One way of modeling outliers in model-based clustering is to include an additional mixture component that is very dispersed, with for example a uniform distribution. Another approach is to replace the multivariate normal densities by t {\displaystyle t} -distributions, with the idea that the long tails of the t {\displaystyle t} -distribution would ensure robustness to outliers. However, this is not breakdown-robust. A third approach is the "tclust" or data trimming approach which excludes observations identified as outliers when estimating the model parameters. == Non-Gaussian clusters and merging == Sometimes one or more clusters deviate strongly from the Gaussian assumption. If a Gaussian mixture is fitted to such data, a strongly non-Gaussian cluster will often be represented by several mixture components rather than a single one. In that case, cluster merging can be used to find a better clustering. A different approach is to use mixtures of complex component densities to represent non-Gaussian clusters. == Non-continuous data == === Categorical data === Clustering multivariate categorical data is most often done using the latent class model. This assumes that the data arise from a finite mixture model, where within each cluster the variables are independent. === Mixed data === These arise when variables are of different types, such as continuous, categorical or ordinal data. A latent class model for mixed data assumes local independence between the variable. The location model relaxes the local independence assumption. The clustMD approach assumes that the observed variables are manifestations of underlying continuous Gaussian latent
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CoboCards is a web application for creation, study and sharing of flashcards. They also provide mobile application for Android and iOS mobile devices, to help study of flashcards on the move. Based on the freemium model, CoboCards provides users a free account with two card sets compared to paid subscription with premium features such as unlimited card sets, Leitner system based trainer and collaborative learning. == History == CoboCards is a project of Jamil Soufan and Tamim Swaid. Tamim Swaid has developed the concept and interface of a collaboratively usable e-learning platform in his diploma thesis at the University of Applied Sciences in February 2007. In January 2010 they founded the CoboCards GmbH (limited company) together with Ali Yildirim. CoboCards is supported by its strategic partners Prof. Schroeder (RWTH Aachen University), Prof. Oliver Wrede (University for Applied Sciences Aachen) and Prof. Klaus Gasteier (University of Arts Berlin). With the idea of creating and studying flashcards online and offering an active control of learning progress they won the start2grow business idea competition in September 2009 (€25.000 ). Additionally CoboCards was funded by German Authorities with approximately €100.000 .
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Natural language processing (NLP) is the processing of natural language information by a computer. NLP is a subfield of computer science and is closely associated with artificial intelligence. NLP is also related to information retrieval, knowledge representation, computational linguistics, and linguistics more broadly. Major processing tasks in an NLP system include: speech recognition, text classification, natural language understanding, and natural language generation. == History == Natural language processing has its roots in the 1950s. Already in 1950, Alan Turing published an article titled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," which proposed what is now called the Turing test as a criterion of intelligence, though at the time that was not articulated as a problem separate from artificial intelligence. The proposed test includes a task that involves the automated interpretation and generation of natural language. === Symbolic NLP (1950s – early 1990s) === The premise of symbolic NLP is often illustrated using John Searle's Chinese room thought experiment: Given a collection of rules (e.g., a Chinese phrasebook, with questions and matching answers), the computer emulates natural language understanding (or other NLP tasks) by applying those rules to the data it confronts. 1950s: The Georgetown experiment in 1954 involved fully automatic translation of more than sixty Russian sentences into English. The authors claimed that within three or five years, machine translation would be a solved problem. However, real progress was much slower, and after the ALPAC report in 1966, which found that ten years of research had failed to fulfill the expectations, funding for machine translation was dramatically reduced. Little further research in machine translation was conducted in America (though some research continued elsewhere, such as Japan and Europe) until the late 1980s when the first statistical machine translation systems were developed. 1960s: Some notably successful natural language processing systems developed in the 1960s were SHRDLU, a natural language system working in restricted "blocks worlds" with restricted vocabularies, and ELIZA, a simulation of Rogerian psychotherapy, written by Joseph Weizenbaum between 1964 and 1966. Despite using minimal information about human thought or emotion, ELIZA was able to produce interactions that appeared human-like. When the "patient" exceeded the very small knowledge base, ELIZA might provide a generic response, for example, responding to "My head hurts" with "Why do you say your head hurts?". Ross Quillian's successful work on natural language was demonstrated with a vocabulary of only twenty words, because that was all that would fit in a computer memory at the time. 1970s: During the 1970s, many programmers began to write "conceptual ontologies", which structured real-world information into computer-understandable data. Examples are MARGIE (Schank, 1975), SAM (Cullingford, 1978), PAM (Wilensky, 1978), TaleSpin (Meehan, 1976), QUALM (Lehnert, 1977), Politics (Carbonell, 1979), and Plot Units (Lehnert 1981). During this time, the first chatterbots were written (e.g., PARRY). 1980s: The 1980s and early 1990s mark the heyday of symbolic methods in NLP. Focus areas of the time included research on rule-based parsing (e.g., the development of HPSG as a computational operationalization of generative grammar), morphology (e.g., two-level morphology), semantics (e.g., Lesk algorithm), reference (e.g., within Centering Theory) and other areas of natural language understanding (e.g., in the Rhetorical Structure Theory). Other lines of research were continued, e.g., the development of chatterbots with Racter and Jabberwacky. An important development (that eventually led to the statistical turn in the 1990s) was the rising importance of quantitative evaluation in this period. === Statistical NLP (1990s–present) === Up until the 1980s, most natural language processing systems were based on complex sets of hand-written rules. Starting in the late 1980s, however, there was a revolution in natural language processing with the introduction of machine learning algorithms for language processing. This shift was influenced by increasing computational power (see Moore's law) and a decline in the dominance of Chomskyan linguistic theories (e.g. transformational grammar), whose theoretical underpinnings discouraged the sort of corpus linguistics that underlies the machine-learning approach to language processing. 1990s: Many of the notable early successes in statistical methods in NLP occurred in the field of machine translation, due especially to work at IBM Research, such as IBM alignment models. These systems were able to take advantage of existing multilingual textual corpora that had been produced by the Parliament of Canada and the European Union as a result of laws calling for the translation of all governmental proceedings into all official languages of the corresponding systems of government. However, many systems relied on corpora that were specifically developed for the tasks they were designed to perform. This reliance has been a major limitation to their broader effectiveness and continues to affect similar systems. Consequently, significant research has focused on methods for learning effectively from limited amounts of data. 2000s: With the growth of the web, increasing amounts of raw (unannotated) language data have become available since the mid-1990s. Research has thus increasingly focused on unsupervised and semi-supervised learning algorithms. Such algorithms can learn from data that has not been hand-annotated with the desired answers or using a combination of annotated and non-annotated data. Generally, this task is much more difficult than supervised learning, and typically produces less accurate results for a given amount of input data. However, large quantities of non-annotated data are available (including, among other things, the entire content of the World Wide Web), which can often make up for the worse efficiency if the algorithm used has a low enough time complexity to be practical. 2003: word n-gram model, at the time the best statistical algorithm, is outperformed by a multi-layer perceptron (with a single hidden layer and context length of several words, trained on up to 14 million words, by Bengio et al.) 2010: Tomáš Mikolov (then a PhD student at Brno University of Technology) with co-authors applied a simple recurrent neural network with a single hidden layer to language modeling, and in the following years he went on to develop Word2vec. In the 2010s, representation learning and deep neural network-style (featuring many hidden layers) machine learning methods became widespread in natural language processing. This shift gained momentum due to results showing that such techniques can achieve state-of-the-art results in many natural language tasks, e.g., in language modeling and parsing. This is increasingly important in medicine and healthcare, where NLP helps analyze notes and text in electronic health records that would otherwise be inaccessible for study when seeking to improve care or protect patient privacy. == Approaches: Symbolic, statistical, neural networks == Symbolic approach, i.e., the hand-coding of a set of rules for manipulating symbols, coupled with a dictionary lookup, was historically the first approach used both by AI in general and by NLP in particular: such as by writing grammars or devising heuristic rules for stemming. Machine learning approaches, which include both statistical and neural networks, on the other hand, have many advantages over the symbolic approach: both statistical and neural network methods tend to focus more on the most common cases extracted from a corpus of texts, whereas the rule-based approach needs to provide rules for both rare and common cases equally. language models, produced by either statistical or neural networks methods, are more robust to both unfamiliar (e.g. containing words or structures that have not been seen before) and erroneous input (e.g. with misspelled words or words accidentally omitted) in comparison to the rule-based systems, which are also more costly to produce. the larger such a (probabilistic) language model is, the more accurate it becomes, in contrast to rule-based systems that can gain accuracy only by increasing the amount and complexity of the rules leading to intractability problems. Rule-based systems are commonly used: when the amount of training data is insufficient to successfully apply machine learning methods, e.g., for the machine translation of low-resource languages such as provided by the Apertium system, for preprocessing in NLP pipelines, e.g., tokenization, or for post-processing and transforming the output of NLP pipelines, e.g., for knowledge extraction from syntactic parses. === Statistical approach === In the late 1980s and mid-1990s, the statistical approach ended a peri
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Mentimeter (or Menti for short) is a Swedish company based in Stockholm that develops and maintains an eponymous app used to create presentations with real-time feedback. == Foundation and background == Based in Stockholm, Sweden, the Mentimeter app was started by Swedish entrepreneur Johnny Warström and Niklas Ingvar as a response to unproductive meetings. The initial start-up budget was $500,000 raised by a group of prominent investors, including Per Appelgren in 2014, following the market's tendency to invest in Scandinavia. The app also focuses on online collaboration for the education sector, allowing students or public members to answer questions anonymously. The app enables users to share knowledge and real-time feedback on mobile devices with presentations, polls or brainstorming sessions in classes, meetings, gatherings, conferences and other group activities. == Achievements == By 2021, Mentimeter had over 270 million users and was one of Sweden's fastest-growing startups. The company also ranked #10 on 20 Fastest Growing 500 Startups Batch 16 Companies. It was ranked Stockholm's fastest growing company of the 2018 edition of the DI Gasell Award. Mentimeter has a freemium business model.
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Mastodon is a free and open-source software platform for decentralized social networking with microblogging features similar to Twitter. It operates as a federated network of independently managed servers that communicate using the ActivityPub protocol, allowing users to connect across different instances within the Fediverse. Each Mastodon instance establishes its own moderation policies and content guidelines, distinguishing it from centrally controlled social media platforms. First released in 2016 by Eugen Rochko, Mastodon has positioned itself as an alternative to mainstream social media, particularly for users seeking decentralized, community-driven spaces. The platform has experienced multiple surges in adoption, most notably following the Twitter acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022, as users sought alternatives to Twitter. It is part of a broader shift toward decentralized social networks, including Bluesky and Lemmy. Mastodon emphasizes user privacy and moderation flexibility, offering features such as granular post visibility controls, content warning options, and local community-driven moderation. The software is written in Ruby on Rails and Node.js, with a web interface built using React and Redux. It is interoperable with other ActivityPub-based platforms, such as Threads, and supports various third-party applications on desktop and mobile devices. == Functionality == Users post short-form status messages, historically known as "toots", for others to see and interact with. On a standard Mastodon instance, these messages can include up to 500 text-based characters, greater than Twitter's 280-character limit. Some instances support even longer messages. Images, audio files, videos or polls can also be added to a message. Users join a specific Mastodon server, rather than a single centralized website or application. The servers are connected as nodes in a network, and each server can administer its own rules, account privileges, and whether to share messages to and from other servers. Users can communicate and follow each other across connected Mastodon servers with usernames similar in format to full email addresses. Since version 2.9.0, Mastodon's web user interface has offered a single-column mode for new users by default. In advanced mode, the interface approximates the microblogging interface of TweetDeck. === Privacy === Mastodon includes a number of specific privacy features. Each message has a variety of privacy options available, and users can choose whether the message is public or private. Messages can display public on a global feed, known as a timeline, or can be shared only to the user's followers. Messages can also be marked as unlisted from timelines or direct between users. Users can also mark their accounts as completely private. In the timeline, messages can display with an optional content warning feature, which requires readers to click on the hidden main body of the message to reveal it. Mastodon servers have used this feature to hide spoilers, trigger warnings, and not safe for work (NSFW) content, though some accounts use the feature to hide links and thoughts others might not want to read. Mastodon aggregates messages in local and federated timelines in real time. The local timeline shows messages from users on a singular server, while the federated timeline shows messages across all participating Mastodon servers. === Content moderation === In early 2017, journalists like Sarah Jeong distinguished Mastodon from Twitter for its approach to combating harassment. Mastodon uses community-based moderation, in which each server can limit or filter out undesirable types of content, while Twitter uses a single, global policy on content moderation. Servers can choose to limit or filter out messages with disparaging content. The founder of Mastodon, Eugen Rochko, believes that small, closely related communities deal with unwanted behavior more effectively than a large company's small safety team. In Move Slowly and Build Bridges, Robert W. Gehl argues that predominantly white participation has shaped Mastodon in ways that affect how reports of racism are received and limit its ability to replicate Black Twitter on Twitter. Users can also block and report others to administrators, much like on Twitter. Instance administrators can block other instances from interacting with their own, an action called defederation. By posting toots hashtagged with #fediblock, some instance administrators and users alert others of issues requiring moderation. === Searching === Mastodon by default allows searching for hashtags and mentioned accounts in the Fediverse. Server administrators can optionally enable Elasticsearch to search the full-text of public posts that have opted in to being indexed. == Versions == In September 2018, with the release of version 2.5 with redesigned public profile pages, Mastodon marked its 100th release. Mastodon 2.6 was released in October 2018, introducing the possibilities of verified profiles and live, in-stream link previews for images and videos. Version 2.7, in January 2019, made it possible to search for multiple hashtags at once, instead of searching for just a single hashtag, with more robust moderation capabilities for server administrators and moderators, while accessibility, such as contrast for users with sight issues, was improved. The ability for users to create and vote in polls, as well as a new invitation system to manage registrations was integrated in April 2019. Mastodon 2.8.1, released in May 2019, made images with content warnings blurred instead of completely hidden. In version 2.9 in June 2019, an optional single-column view was added. This view became the default displayed to new users, with a user "preferences" option to switch to a multiple-column-based view. In August 2020, Mastodon 3.2 was released. It included a redesigned audio player with custom thumbnails and the ability to add personal notes to one's profile. In July 2021, an official client for iOS devices was released. According to the project's then CEO, Eugen Rochko, the release was part of an effort to attract new users. Mastodon 4.0 was released in November 2022, including language support for translating posts, editing posts and following hashtags. Mastodon 4.5 was released in November 2025. Among other features it introduced quote posts, which were previously rejected from being implemented due to concerns about toxicity and harassment. To mitigate these issues Mastodon's quote post feature has been designed in a way that lets users decide if and by whom their posts can be quoted. == Software == Mastodon is published as free and open-source software under the Affero GPL license, allowing anyone to use the software or modify it as they wish. Servers can be run by any individual or organization, and users can join these servers as they wish. The server software itself is powered by Ruby on Rails and Node.js, with its web client being written in React.js and Redux. The only database software supported is PostgreSQL, with Redis being used for job processing and various actions that Mastodon needs to process. The service is interoperable with the fediverse, a collection of social networking services which use the ActivityPub protocol for communication between each other, with previous versions containing support for OStatus. Client apps for interacting with the Mastodon API are available for desktop computer operating systems, including Windows, macOS and the Linux family of operating systems, as well as mobile phones running iOS and Android. The API is open for anyone to utilize, allowing clients to be built for any operating system that can connect to the internet. === Integration with Fediverse === Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol for federation; this allows users to communicate between independent Mastodon instances and other ActivityPub compatible services. Thus, Mastodon is generally considered to be a part of the Fediverse. Services utilizing the ActivityPub protocol exist which allow for searching all posts on all instances as long as users opt-in. For similar reasons, only hashtags can appear in a Mastodon instance's trending topics, not arbitrary popular words. Trending topics vary between instances, since individual instances are aware of different subsets of posts from the whole fediverse. === Security concerns === While Mastodon's decentralized structure is one of its most distinctive features, it also poses additional security challenges. Since many Mastodon instances are run by volunteers, some security experts are concerned about data security and responsiveness to new threats and vulnerabilities across the network, considering the difficulty of configuring and maintaining an instance as well as uneven skill levels among administrators. Administrators of an instance also have access to the private information of any users that are either registered with that instance or have federated
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Bring your own encryption (BYOE), also known as bring your own key (BYOK), is a cloud computing security model that allows cloud service customers to use their own encryption software and manage their own encryption keys. == Overview == BYOE enables cloud service customers to utilize a virtual instance of their encryption software alongside their cloud-hosted business applications to encrypt their data. In this model, hosted business applications are configured to process all data through the encryption software. This software then writes the ciphertext version of the data to the cloud service provider's physical data store and decrypts ciphertext data upon retrieval requests. This approach provides enterprises with control over their keys and the ability to generate their own master key using internal hardware security modules (HSM), which are then transmitted to the cloud provider's HSM. When the data is no longer needed, such as when users discontinue the cloud service, the keys can be deleted, rendering the encrypted data permanently inaccessible. This practice is known as crypto-shredding. == Potential Advantages == Organizations can store data with unique encryption that only they can access. Multiple organizations can share the same hardware infrastructure via cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud while maintaining encryption to comply with regulations such as HIPAA. == Potential Challenges == Resource utilization may be higher compared to traditional encryption practices when multiple users share the same hardware and use their own encryption. Efforts to minimize resource utilization issues may potentially impact security benefits.
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Django ( JANG-goh; sometimes stylized as django) is a free and open-source, Python-based web framework that runs on a web server. It follows the model–template–views (MTV) architectural pattern. It is maintained by the Django Software Foundation (DSF), an independent organization established in the US as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Django's primary goal is to ease the creation of complex, database-driven websites. The framework emphasizes reusability and "pluggability" of components, less code, low coupling, rapid development, and the principle of don't repeat yourself. Python is used throughout, even for settings, files, and data models. Django also provides an optional administrative create, read, update and delete interface that is generated dynamically through introspection and configured via admin models. Some well-known sites that use Django include Instagram, Mozilla, Disqus, Bitbucket, Nextdoor, and Clubhouse. == History == Django was created in the autumn of 2003, when the web programmers at the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper, Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison, began using Python to build applications. Jacob Kaplan-Moss was hired early in Django's development shortly before Willison's internship ended. It was released publicly under a BSD license in July 2005. The framework was named after guitarist Django Reinhardt. Holovaty is a romani jazz guitar player inspired in part by Reinhardt's music. In June 2008, it was announced that a newly formed Django Software Foundation (DSF) would maintain Django in the future. == Features == === Components === Despite having its own nomenclature, such as naming the callable objects generating the HTTP responses "views", the core Django framework can be seen as an MVC architecture. It consists of an object-relational mapper (ORM) that mediates between data models (defined as Python classes) and a relational database ("Model"), a system for processing HTTP requests with a web templating system ("View"), and a regular-expression-based URL dispatcher ("Controller"). Also included in the core framework are: a lightweight and standalone web server for development and testing a form serialization and validation system that can translate between HTML forms and values suitable for storage in the database a template system that utilizes the concept of inheritance borrowed from object-oriented programming a caching framework that can use any of several cache methods support for middleware classes that can intervene at various stages of request processing and carry out custom functions an internal dispatcher system that allows components of an application to communicate events to each other via pre-defined signals an internationalization system, including translations of Django's own components into a variety of languages a serialization system that can produce and read XML and/or JSON representations of Django model instances a system for extending the capabilities of the template engine an interface to Python's built-in unit test framework === Bundled applications === The main Django distribution also bundles a number of applications in its "contrib" package, including: an extensible authentication system the dynamic administrative interface tools for generating RSS and Atom syndication feeds a "Sites" framework that allows one Django installation to run multiple websites, each with their own content and applications tools for generating Sitemaps built-in mitigation for cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting, SQL injection, password cracking and other typical web attacks, most of them turned on by default a framework for creating geographic information system (GIS) applications === Extensibility === Django's configuration system allows third-party code to be plugged into a regular project, provided that it follows the reusable app conventions. More than 5000 packages are available to extend the framework's original behavior, providing solutions to issues the original tool didn't tackle: registration, search, API provision and consumption, CMS, etc. This extensibility is, however, mitigated by internal components' dependencies. While the Django philosophy implies loose coupling, the template filters and tags assume one engine implementation, and both the auth and admin bundled applications require the use of the internal ORM. None of these filters or bundled apps are mandatory to run a Django project, but reusable apps tend to depend on them, encouraging developers to keep using the official stack in order to benefit fully from the apps ecosystem. === Server arrangements === Django can be run on ASGI or WSGI-compliant web servers. Django officially supports five database backends: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, and Oracle. Microsoft SQL Server can be used with mssql-django. == Version history == The Django team will occasionally designate certain releases to be "long-term support" (LTS) releases. LTS releases will get security and data loss fixes applied for a guaranteed period of time, typically 3+ years, regardless of the pace of releases afterwards. == Community == === DjangoCon === There is a semiannual conference for Django developers and users, named "DjangoCon", that has been held since September 2008. DjangoCon is held annually in Europe, in May or June; while another is held in the United States in August or September, in various cities. ==== United States ==== The 2012 DjangoCon took place in Washington, D.C., from September 3 to 8. 2013 DjangoCon was held in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and the post-conference Sprints were hosted at Digital Bootcamp, computer training center. The 2014 DjangoCon US returned to Portland, OR from August 30 to 6 September. The 2015 DjangoCon US was held in Austin, TX from September 6 to 11 at the AT&T Executive Center. The 2016 DjangoCon US was held in Philadelphia, PA at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from July 17 to 22. The 2017 DjangoCon US was held in Spokane, WA; in 2018 DjangoCon US was held in San Diego, CA. DjangoCon US 2019 was held again in San Diego, CA from September 22 to 27. DjangoCon 2021 took place virtually and in 2022, DjangoCon US returned to San Diego from October 16 to 21. DjangoCon US 2023 was held from October 16 to 20 at the Durham, NC convention center and DjangoCon US 2024 took place also in Durham in September 22 to 27. DjangoCon US 2025 was held from September 8 to 12 in Chicago, Illinois. ==== Europe ==== The 2025 edition of DjangoCon Europe took place in Dublin, Ireland from 23 to 27 April. In 2024, the conference was hosted in Vigo, Spain. Edinburgh, Scotland served as the venue for DjangoCon Europe in 2023. The 2022 conference was organized in Porto, Portugal. In 2021, DjangoCon Europe was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 edition was also conducted as a fully virtual event. DjangoCon Europe 2019 was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2018, the event took place in Heidelberg, Germany. The 2017 conference was convened in Florence, Italy. DjangoCon Europe 2012 was organized in Zurich, Switzerland. ==== Australia ==== Django mini-conferences are usually held every year as part of the Australian Python Conference 'PyCon AU'. Previously, these mini-conferences have been held in: Hobart, Australia, in July 2013, Brisbane, Australia, in August 2014 and 2015, Melbourne, Australia in August 2016 and 2017, and Sydney, Australia, in August 2018 and 2019. ==== Africa ==== The first DjangoCon Africa was held in Zanzibar, Tanzania, from 6 to 11 November 2023. The event hosted approximately 200 attendees from 22 countries, including 103 women. The conference featured 26 talks on topics such as software development, education, careers, accessibility, and agriculture, often highlighting perspectives from across the African continent. Future editions of the conference are planned, with details available on the official website === Community groups & programs === Django has spawned user groups and meetups around the world, a notable group is the Django Girls organization, which began in Poland but now has had events in 91 countries. Another initiative is Djangonaut Space, a mentorship program aimed at supporting new contributors to the Django ecosystem. The program pairs experienced mentors with developers to guide them through making meaningful contributions to Django and its community. It emphasizes long-term engagement, inclusion, and collaborative open-source development. == Ports to other languages == Programmers have ported Django's template engine design from Python to other languages, providing decent cross-platform support. Some of these options are more direct ports; others, though inspired by Django and retaining its concepts, take the liberty to deviate from Django's design: Liquid for Ruby Template::Swig for Perl Twig for PHP and JavaScript Jinja for Python ErlyDTL for Erlang == CMSs based on Django Framework == Django as a framework is capable of building a complete CMS
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A community cloud in computing is a collaborative effort in which infrastructure is shared between several organizations from a specific community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.), whether managed internally or by a third party and hosted internally or externally. This is controlled and used by a group of organizations that have shared interests. The costs are spread over fewer users than a public cloud (but more than a private cloud), so only some of the cost savings potential of cloud computing are realized. The community cloud is provisioned for use by a group of consumers from different organizations who share the same concerns (e.g., application, security, policy, and efficiency demands).
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Likewise, Inc., is an American technology startup company which provides a social networking service for finding and saving content recommendations for movies, TV shows, books, and podcasts. A team of ex-Microsoft employees founded Likewise in October 2017 with financial investment from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. The company is led by CEO Ian Morris and as of 2020 had a team of about 35 employees. Its headquarters operates in Bellevue, Washington. As of July 2020, 1 million users had joined the platform. == History == === Ideation (October 2017) === In 2017, former Microsoft Communications Chief Larry Cohen came up with the idea for Likewise in Bill Gates’ private office, Gates Ventures. Cohen currently serves as Gates Ventures’ CEO and managing partner. Cohen collaborated with colleagues Michael Dix and Ian Morris to co-found what would become Likewise, with Morris as its CEO. Gates funded the company's early development. The company developed its platform in stealth mode before launching publicly in October 2018. === Release (October 2018) === Likewise officially released its platform in the US and Canada on October 3, 2018. === Growth (2020 COVID-19 pandemic) === Likewise experienced accelerated growth alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. From March 2020 to July 2020, the platform's monthly active users tripled in numbers. The company reached one million users in July 2020. == Applications == === Mobile === Likewise is available as a mobile app for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems. Users receive recommendations from the Likewise algorithm, people they follow, and the Likewise editorial team. === Likewise TV === In October 2019, the company launched its Apple TV app called Likewise TV. The television app organizes shows across streaming services under one watchlist. On July 20, 2020, Likewise TV expanded to Android TV and Amazon Fire TV users.
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