Cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) is a subfield of information retrieval dealing with retrieving information written in a language different from the language of the user's query. The term "cross-language information retrieval" has many synonyms, of which the following are perhaps the most frequent: cross-lingual information retrieval, translingual information retrieval, multilingual information retrieval. The term "multilingual information retrieval" refers more generally both to technology for retrieval of multilingual collections and to technology which has been moved to handle material in one language to another. The term Multilingual Information Retrieval (MLIR) involves the study of systems that accept queries for information in various languages and return objects (text, and other media) of various languages, translated into the user's language. Cross-language information retrieval refers more specifically to the use case where users formulate their information need in one language and the system retrieves relevant documents in another. To do so, most CLIR systems use various translation techniques. CLIR techniques can be classified into different categories based on different translation resources: Dictionary-based CLIR techniques Parallel corpora based CLIR techniques Comparable corpora based CLIR techniques Machine translator based CLIR techniques CLIR systems have improved so much that the most accurate multi-lingual and cross-lingual adhoc information retrieval systems today are nearly as effective as monolingual systems. Other related information access tasks, such as media monitoring, information filtering and routing, sentiment analysis, and information extraction require more sophisticated models and typically more processing and analysis of the information items of interest. Much of that processing needs to be aware of the specifics of the target languages it is deployed in. Mostly, the various mechanisms of variation in human language pose coverage challenges for information retrieval systems: texts in a collection may treat a topic of interest but use terms or expressions which do not match the expression of information need given by the user. This can be true even in a mono-lingual case, but this is especially true in cross-lingual information retrieval, where users may know the target language only to some extent. The benefits of CLIR technology for users with poor to moderate competence in the target language has been found to be greater than for those who are fluent. Specific technologies in place for CLIR services include morphological analysis to handle inflection, decompounding or compound splitting to handle compound terms, and translations mechanisms to translate a query from one language to another. The first workshop on CLIR was held in Zürich during the SIGIR-96 conference. Workshops have been held yearly since 2000 at the meetings of the Cross Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF). Researchers also convene at the annual Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) to discuss their findings regarding different systems and methods of information retrieval, and the conference has served as a point of reference for the CLIR subfield. Early CLIR experiments were conducted at TREC-6, held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on November 19–21, 1997. Google Search had a cross-language search feature that was removed in 2013.
ChromaDB
Chroma or ChromaDB is open-source data infrastructure tailored to applications with large language models. Its headquarters are in San Francisco. In April 2023, it raised 18 million US dollars as seed funding. ChromaDB has been used in academic studies on artificial intelligence, particularly as part of the tech stack for retrieval-augmented generation.
Plotting algorithms for the Mandelbrot set
There are many programs and algorithms used to plot the Mandelbrot set and other fractals, some of which are described in fractal-generating software. These programs use a variety of algorithms to determine the color of individual pixels efficiently. == Escape time algorithm == The simplest algorithm for generating a representation of the Mandelbrot set is known as the "escape time" algorithm. A repeating calculation is performed for each x, y point in the plot area and based on the behavior of that calculation, a color is chosen for that pixel. === Unoptimized naïve escape time algorithm === In both the unoptimized and optimized escape time algorithms, the x and y locations of each point are used as starting values in a repeating, or iterating calculation (described in detail below). The result of each iteration is used as the starting values for the next. The values are checked during each iteration to see whether they have reached a critical "escape" condition, or "bailout". If that condition is reached, the calculation is stopped, the pixel is drawn, and the next x, y point is examined. For some starting values, escape occurs quickly, after only a small number of iterations. For starting values very close to but not in the set, it may take hundreds or thousands of iterations to escape. For values within the Mandelbrot set, escape will never occur. The programmer or user must choose how many iterations–or how much "depth"–they wish to examine. The higher the maximal number of iterations, the more detail and subtlety emerge in the final image, but the longer time it will take to calculate the fractal image. Escape conditions can be simple or complex. Because no complex number with a real or imaginary part greater than 2 can be part of the set, a common bailout is to escape when either coefficient exceeds 2. A more computationally complex method that detects escapes sooner, is to compute distance from the origin using the Pythagorean theorem, i.e., to determine the absolute value, or modulus, of the complex number. If this value exceeds 2, or equivalently, when the sum of the squares of the real and imaginary parts exceed 4, the point has reached escape. More computationally intensive rendering variations include the Buddhabrot method, which finds escaping points and plots their iterated coordinates. The color of each point represents how quickly the values reached the escape point. Often black is used to show values that fail to escape before the iteration limit, and gradually brighter colors are used for points that escape. This gives a visual representation of how many cycles were required before reaching the escape condition. To render such an image, the region of the complex plane we are considering is subdivided into a certain number of pixels. To color any such pixel, let c {\displaystyle c} be the midpoint of that pixel. We now iterate the critical point 0 under P c {\displaystyle P_{c}} , checking at each step whether the orbit point has modulus larger than 2. When this is the case, we know that c {\displaystyle c} does not belong to the Mandelbrot set, and we color our pixel according to the number of iterations used to find out. Otherwise, we keep iterating up to a fixed number of steps, after which we decide that our parameter is "probably" in the Mandelbrot set, or at least very close to it, and color the pixel black. In pseudocode, this algorithm would look as follows. The algorithm does not use complex numbers and manually simulates complex-number operations using two real numbers, for those who do not have a complex data type. The program may be simplified if the programming language includes complex-data-type operations. for each pixel (Px, Py) on the screen do x0 := scaled x coordinate of pixel (scaled to lie in the Mandelbrot X scale (-2.00, 0.47)) y0 := scaled y coordinate of pixel (scaled to lie in the Mandelbrot Y scale (-1.12, 1.12)) x := 0.0 y := 0.0 iteration := 0 max_iteration := 1000 while (xx + yy ≤ 22 AND iteration < max_iteration) do xtemp := xx - yy + x0 y := 2xy + y0 x := xtemp iteration := iteration + 1 color := palette[iteration] plot(Px, Py, color) Here, relating the pseudocode to c {\displaystyle c} , z {\displaystyle z} and P c {\displaystyle P_{c}} : z = x + i y {\displaystyle z=x+iy\ } z 2 = x 2 + 2 i x y {\displaystyle z^{2}=x^{2}+2ixy} - y 2 {\displaystyle y^{2}\ } c = x 0 + i y 0 {\displaystyle c=x_{0}+iy_{0}\ } and so, as can be seen in the pseudocode in the computation of x and y: x = R e ( z 2 + c ) = x 2 − y 2 + x 0 {\displaystyle x=\mathop {\mathrm {Re} } (z^{2}+c)=x^{2}-y^{2}+x_{0}} and y = I m ( z 2 + c ) = 2 x y + y 0 . {\displaystyle y=\mathop {\mathrm {Im} } (z^{2}+c)=2xy+y_{0}.\ } To get colorful images of the set, the assignment of a color to each value of the number of executed iterations can be made using one of a variety of functions (linear, exponential, etc.). One practical way, without slowing down calculations, is to use the number of executed iterations as an entry to a palette initialized at startup. If the color table has, for instance, 500 entries, then the color selection is n mod 500, where n is the number of iterations. === Optimized escape time algorithms === The code in the previous section uses an unoptimized inner while loop for clarity. In the unoptimized version, one must perform five multiplications per iteration. To reduce the number of multiplications the following code for the inner while loop may be used instead: x2:= 0 y2:= 0 w:= 0 while (x2 + y2 ≤ 4 and iteration < max_iteration) do x:= x2 - y2 + x0 y:= w - x2 - y2 + y0 x2:= x x y2:= y y w:= (x + y) (x + y) iteration:= iteration + 1 The above code works via some algebraic simplification of the complex multiplication: ( i y + x ) 2 = − y 2 + 2 i y x + x 2 = x 2 − y 2 + 2 i y x {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}(iy+x)^{2}&=-y^{2}+2iyx+x^{2}\\&=x^{2}-y^{2}+2iyx\end{aligned}}} Using the above identity, the number of multiplications can be reduced to three instead of five. The above inner while loop can be further optimized by expanding w to w = x 2 + 2 x y + y 2 {\displaystyle w=x^{2}+2xy+y^{2}} Substituting w into y = w − x 2 − y 2 + y 0 {\displaystyle y=w-x^{2}-y^{2}+y_{0}} yields y = 2 x y + y 0 {\displaystyle y=2xy+y_{0}} and hence calculating w is no longer needed. The further optimized pseudocode for the above is: x:= 0 y:= 0 x2:= 0 y2:= 0 while (x2 + y2 ≤ 4 and iteration < max_iteration) do x2:= x x y2:= y y y:= 2 x y + y0 x:= x2 - y2 + x0 iteration:= iteration + 1 Note that in the above pseudocode, 2 x y {\displaystyle 2xy} seems to increase the number of multiplications by 1, but since 2 is the multiplier the code can be optimized via ( x + x ) y {\displaystyle (x+x)y} . == Coloring algorithms == In addition to plotting the set, a variety of algorithms have been developed to efficiently color the set in an aesthetically pleasing way show structures of the data (scientific visualisation) === Histogram coloring === A more complex coloring method involves using a histogram which pairs each pixel with said pixel's maximum iteration count before escape/bailout. This method will equally distribute colors to the same overall area, and, importantly, is independent of the maximum number of iterations chosen. This algorithm has four passes. The first pass involves calculating the iteration counts associated with each pixel (but without any pixels being plotted). These are stored in an array IterationCounts[x][y], where x and y are the x and y coordinates of said pixel on the screen respectively. The first step of the second pass is to create an array NumIterationsPerPixel[n], where the array size n is the maximum iteration count. Next, one must iterate over the array of pixel-iteration count pairs IterationCounts[x][y], and retrieve each pixel's saved iteration count, i, via e.g. i = IterationCounts[x][y]. After each pixel's iteration count i is retrieved, it is necessary to index the NumIterationsPerPixel array at i and increment the indexed value (which is initially zero) -- e.g. NumIterationsPerPixel[i] = NumIterationsPerPixel[i] + 1. for (x = 0; x < width; x++) do for (y = 0; y < height; y++) do i:= IterationCounts[x][y] NumIterationsPerPixel[i]++ The third pass iterates through the NumIterationsPerPixel array and adds up all the stored values, saving them in total. The array index represents the number of pixels that reached that iteration count before bailout. total: = 0 for (i = 0; i < max_iterations; i++) do total += NumIterationsPerPixel[i] After this, the fourth pass begins and all the values in the IterationCounts array are indexed, and, for each iteration count i, associated with each pixel, the count is added to a global sum of all the iteration counts from 1 to i in the NumIterationsPerPixel array . This value is then normalized by dividing the sum by the total value computed earlier. hue[][]:= 0.0 for (x = 0; x < width; x++) do for (y = 0; y < height; y++) do iteration:= Iteration
Google Vids
Google Vids (not to be confused with Google Video) is an online timeline-based video editing application included as part of the Google Workspace suite. It is designed to help users create informational videos for work-related purposes. The app uses Google's Gemini technology to enable users to create video storyboards manually or with AI assistance using simple prompts. Features include uploading media, choosing stock videos, images, background music, and a voiceover feature with script generation using AI. The app is currently in testing with select Google Workspace Labs users. Like Kapwing and Capcut, Google Vids is primarily for creating work-related content like sales training, onboarding videos, vendor outreach, and project updates. It offers various styles and templates, collaborative features, and is not limited to videos without the short integration at the moment. Google Vids was announced on April 9, 2024. In September 2025, Google began to roll out a basic version of the application to Google Workspace users.
Facebook Messenger
Messenger (formerly known as Facebook Messenger) is an American proprietary instant messaging service developed by Meta Platforms, the company that operates Facebook. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the client application of Messenger is currently available on iOS and Android mobile platforms, Windows and macOS desktop platforms, through the Messenger.com web application, and on the standalone Meta Portal hardware. Messenger is used to send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, audio, and files, and also react to other users' messages and interact with bots. The service also supports voice and video calling. The standalone apps support using multiple accounts, conversations with end-to-end encryption, and playing games. There are also group chats where you can connect with multiple people at once in a private space such as Panama Chat. With a monthly userbase of over 1 billion people, it is among the largest social media platforms. == History == Following tests of a new instant messaging platform on Facebook in March 2008, the feature, then-titled "Facebook Chat", was gradually released to users in April 2008. Facebook revamped its messaging platform in November 2010, and subsequently acquired group messaging service Beluga in March 2011, which the company used to launch its standalone iOS and Android mobile apps on August 9, 2011. Facebook later launched a BlackBerry version in October 2011. An app for Windows Phone, though lacking features including voice messaging and chat heads, was released in March 2014. In April 2014, Facebook announced that the messaging feature would be removed from the main Facebook app and users will be required to download the separate Messenger app. An iPad-optimized version of the iOS app was released in July 2014. On April 8, 2015, Facebook launched a website interface for Messenger. A Tizen app was released on July 13, 2015. Facebook launched Messenger for Windows 10 in April 2016. In October 2016, Facebook released Messenger Lite, a stripped-down version of Messenger with a reduced feature set. The app is aimed primarily at old Android phones and regions where high-speed Internet is not widely available. In April 2017, Messenger Lite was expanded to 132 more countries. In May 2017, Facebook revamped the design for Messenger on Android and iOS, bringing a new home screen with tabs and categorization of content and interactive media, red dots indicating new activity, and relocated sections. Facebook announced a Messenger program for Windows 7 in a limited beta test in November 2011. The following month, Israeli blog TechIT leaked a download link for the program, with Facebook subsequently confirming and officially releasing the program. The program was eventually discontinued in March 2014. A Firefox web browser add-on was released in December 2012, but was also discontinued in March 2014. In December 2017, Facebook announced Messenger Kids, a new app aimed for persons under 13 years of age. The app comes with some differences compared to the standard version. In 2019, Messenger announced to be the 2nd most downloaded mobile app of the decade, from 2011 to 2019. In December 2019, Messenger dropped support for users to sign in using only a mobile number, meaning that users must sign in to a Facebook account in order to use the service. In March 2020, Facebook started to ship its dedicated Messenger for macOS app through the Mac App Store. The app is currently live in regions including France, Australia, Mexico, Poland, and many others. In April 2020, Facebook began rolling out a new feature called Messenger Rooms, a video chat feature that allows users to chat with up to 50 people at a time. The feature rivals Zoom, an application that gained a lot of popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Privacy concerns arose since the feature uses the same data collection policies as mainstream Facebook. In July 2020, Facebook added a new feature in Messenger that lets iOS users to use Apple's Face ID or Touch ID to lock their chats. The feature is called App Lock and is a part of several changes in Messenger regarding privacy and security. The option to view only "Unread Threads" was removed from the inbox, requiring the account holder to scroll through the entire inbox to be certain every unread message has been seen. On October 13, 2020, the Messenger application introduced cross-app messaging with Instagram, which was launched in September 2021. In addition to the integrated messaging, the application announced the introduction of a new logo, which should be an amalgamation of the Messenger and Instagram logo. The desktop app of Messenger was shut down on December 15, 2025. Messaging services were moved to the Facebook website or Messenger's site for those without an account on the former. The Messenger site was discontinued on April 16, 2026. Messaging services were moved to the Facebook website on the morning of April 17, 2026 without an Messenger account on the former to use Facebook account. == Features == The following is a table of features available in Messenger, as well as their geographical coverage and what devices they are available on. In addition there is a vanishing message feature. In addition there is an audio recording feature which allows audio recordings of up to one minute which may or may not be vanishing: === Messenger Rooms === It is a video conferencing feature of Messenger. It allows users to add up to 50 people at a time. Messenger Rooms does not require a Facebook account. Messenger Rooms competes with other services such as Zoom. Back in 2014, Facebook introduced an unrelated, stand-alone application named Rooms, letting users create places for users with similar interests, with users being anonymous to others. This was shut down in December 2015. In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook revealed video conferencing features for Messenger called Messenger Rooms. This was seen as a response to the popularity of other video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Skype in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Messenger Rooms allows users to add up to 50 people per room, without restrictions on time. It does not require a Facebook account or a separate app from Messenger. When used, it only prompts the user for basic information. Users can add 360° virtual backgrounds, mood lighting, and other AR effects as well as share screens. To prevent unwanted participants from joining, users can lock rooms and remove participants. Some have voiced concerns in regards to Messenger Room's privacy and how its parent, Facebook, handles data. Messenger Rooms, unlike some of its competitors, does not use end-to-end encryption. In addition, there have been concerns over how Messenger Rooms collects user data. == Monetization == In January 2017, Facebook announced that it was testing showing advertisements in Messenger's home feed. At the time, the testing was limited to a "small number of users in Australia and Thailand", with the ad format being swipe-based carousel ads. In July, the company announced that they were expanding the testing to a global audience. Stan Chudnovsky, head of Messenger, told VentureBeat that "We'll start slow ... When the average user can be sure to see them we truly don't know because we're just going to be very data-driven and user feedback-driven on making that decision". Facebook told TechCrunch that the advertisements' placement in the inbox depends on factors such as thread count, phone screen size, and pixel density. In a TechCrunch editorial by Devin Coldewey, he described the ads as "huge" in the space they occupy, "intolerable" in the way they appear in the user interface, and "irrelevant" due to the lack of context. Coldewey finished by writing "Advertising is how things get paid for on the internet, including TechCrunch, so I'm not an advocate of eliminating it or blocking it altogether. But bad advertising experiences can spoil a perfectly good app like (for the purposes of argument) Messenger. Messaging is a personal, purposeful use case and these ads are a bad way to monetize it." == Reception == In November 2014, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) listed Messenger (Facebook chat) on its Secure Messaging Scorecard. It received a score of 2 out of 7 points on the scorecard. It received points for having communications encrypted in transit and for having recently completed an independent security audit. It missed points because the communications were not encrypted with keys the provider didn't have access to, users could not verify contacts' identities, past messages were not secure if the encryption keys were stolen, the source code was not open to independent review, and the security design was not properly documented. As stated by Facebook in its Help Center, there is no way to log out of the Messenger application. Instead, users can choose between different availability statuses, including "Appear as inactive", "S
Thinkfree Office
Thinkfree Office is a web-based commercial office productivity suite developed by South Korea-based Thinkfree Inc. It includes Word (a word processor), Spreadsheet (a spreadsheet) and Presentation (a presentation program). They are compatible with Microsoft Office's Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. It also features collaborative editing. The product is hosted on the client's server. == Supported file formats == Thinkfree Office supports ISO/IEC international standard ISO/IEC 26300 Open Document Format for Office Applications (odf, odt, odp, ods, odg). It also supports Microsoft's XML formats (docx, pptx, xlsx) and Microsoft's legacy binary formats (doc, ppt, xls). == Naming == The software was previously marketed under different names, such as Thinkfree Server, Thinkfree Online, Hancom Office Online, and Hancom Office Web. Eventually, the brand was consolidated under the name Thinkfree Office. == History == In June 2000, Thinkfree Inc. released Thinkfree Office, based in Silicon Valley, California. It is recognized as the world's first online office editor (predating Google Docs and Microsoft 365) and attracted significant media coverage, including reports on CNN. In 2001, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer highlighted Thinkfree as a significant competitor in a magazine interview, considering it a potential threat to his company, second only to Linux. In November 2003, Hancom, a South Korean office software company, signed a memorandum of understanding and subsequently acquired Thinkfree. In January 2004, Thinkfree expanded into other foreign markets. Subsidiary Haansoft USA, Inc. was created in San Jose, California to begin formal commercial operations in the US market. At the same time, a partnership was established with Riverdeep with the purpose of improving marketshare. In February 2004, expansion into the Japanese market began. A commercial agency agreement was signed with PSI in Shinjuku, Japan, which allowed for localized distribution. In addition, a global agreement was entered into with Yamada Denki, one of the three main computer distributors in Japan, for a total of 180,000 units. In May 2006, Thinkfree Office received the "Product of the Year" award at the Well-Connected Awards, USA. In January 2009, Thinkfree Mobile was launched at CES 2009 in Las Vegas. In April 2009, Thinkfree Live, Korea's first web office service, was launched. In June 2018, a partnership was formed with Amazon Web Services to integrate Thinkfree Office into WorkDocs, an in-house office suite. In October 2023, Hancom split its online office business unit as "Thinkfree Inc.".
VideoThang
VideoThang was free video editing software for Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. The software has three parts to it which are My Stuff, Edit My Stuff, and My Mix. The software accepts MOV, AVI, MPG, MP4, PNG, WMV, FLV, and MP3 standards. Its official website is now no longer available. == Reception == Jan Ozer, of Pcmag, said that the software "suffers from several unfortunate design and implementation flaws that dramatically limit output quality and overall utility." Jon L. Jacobi, of PC World, said that the software "may not be the most flexible multimedia editor in the world, but the trim/zoom basics are there, it's free, and it's so simple to use that just about anyone in the world should be able figure it out." Amit Agarwal, of Digital Inspiration, said that the software "doesn’t offer loads of features like other video editors but is perfect for making quick video slideshows of your pictures that you can upload on the web or share via email."