Adobe Enhanced Speech is an online artificial intelligence software tool by Adobe that aims to significantly improve the quality of recorded speech that may be badly muffled, reverberated, full of artifacts, tinny, etc. and convert it to a studio-grade, professional level, regardless of the initial input's clarity. Users may upload mp3 or wav files up to an hour long and a gigabyte in size to the site to convert them relatively quickly, then being free to listen to the converted version, toggle back-and-forth and alternate between it and the original as it plays, and download it. Currently in beta and free to the public, it has been used in the restoration of old movies and the creation of professional-quality podcasts, narrations, etc. by those without sufficient microphones. Although the model still has some current limitations, such as not being compatible with singing and occasional issues with excessively muffled source audio resulting in a light lisp in the improved version, it is otherwise noted as incredibly effective and efficient in its purpose. Utilizing advanced machine learning algorithms to distinguish between speech and background sounds, it enhances the quality of the speech by filtering out the noise and artifacts, adjusting the pitch and volume levels, and normalizing the audio. This is accomplished by the network having been trained on a large dataset of speech samples from a diverse range of sources and then being fine-tuned to optimize the output.
Explanation-based learning
Explanation-based learning (EBL) is a form of machine learning that exploits a very strong, or even perfect, domain theory (i.e. a formal theory of an application domain akin to a domain model in ontology engineering, not to be confused with Scott's domain theory) in order to make generalizations or form concepts from training examples. It is also linked with Encoding (memory) to help with Learning. == Details == An example of EBL using a perfect domain theory is a program that learns to play chess through example. A specific chess position that contains an important feature such as "Forced loss of black queen in two moves" includes many irrelevant features, such as the specific scattering of pawns on the board. EBL can take a single training example and determine what are the relevant features in order to form a generalization. A domain theory is perfect or complete if it contains, in principle, all information needed to decide any question about the domain. For example, the domain theory for chess is simply the rules of chess. Knowing the rules, in principle, it is possible to deduce the best move in any situation. However, actually making such a deduction is impossible in practice due to combinatoric explosion. EBL uses training examples to make searching for deductive consequences of a domain theory efficient in practice. In essence, an EBL system works by finding a way to deduce each training example from the system's existing database of domain theory. Having a short proof of the training example extends the domain-theory database, enabling the EBL system to find and classify future examples that are similar to the training example very quickly. The main drawback of the method—the cost of applying the learned proof macros, as these become numerous—was analyzed by Minton. === Basic formulation === EBL software takes four inputs: a hypothesis space (the set of all possible conclusions) a domain theory (axioms about a domain of interest) training examples (specific facts that rule out some possible hypothesis) operationality criteria (criteria for determining which features in the domain are efficiently recognizable, e.g. which features are directly detectable using sensors) == Application == An especially good application domain for an EBL is natural language processing (NLP). Here a rich domain theory, i.e., a natural language grammar—although neither perfect nor complete, is tuned to a particular application or particular language usage, using a treebank (training examples). Rayner pioneered this work. The first successful industrial application was to a commercial NL interface to relational databases. The method has been successfully applied to several large-scale natural language parsing systems, where the utility problem was solved by omitting the original grammar (domain theory) and using specialized LR-parsing techniques, resulting in huge speed-ups, at a cost in coverage, but with a gain in disambiguation. EBL-like techniques have also been applied to surface generation, the converse of parsing. When applying EBL to NLP, the operationality criteria can be hand-crafted, or can be inferred from the treebank using either the entropy of its or-nodes or a target coverage/disambiguation trade-off (= recall/precision trade-off = f-score). EBL can also be used to compile grammar-based language models for speech recognition, from general unification grammars. Note how the utility problem, first exposed by Minton, was solved by discarding the original grammar/domain theory, and that the quoted articles tend to contain the phrase grammar specialization—quite the opposite of the original term explanation-based generalization. Perhaps the best name for this technique would be data-driven search space reduction. Other people who worked on EBL for NLP include Guenther Neumann, Aravind Joshi, Srinivas Bangalore, and Khalil Sima'an.
Outline of web design and web development
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to web design and web development, two very related fields: Web design – field that encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; interface design; authoring, including standardized code and proprietary software; user experience design; and search engine optimization. Often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers will cover them all. The term web design is normally used to describe the design process relating to the front-end (client side) design of a website including writing markup. Web design partially overlaps web engineering in the broader scope of web development. Web designers are expected to have an awareness of usability and if their role involves creating markup then they are also expected to be up to date with web accessibility guidelines. Web development – work involved in developing a web site for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web-based internet applications (web apps), electronic businesses, and social network services. A more comprehensive list of tasks to which web development commonly refers, may include web engineering, web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development. Among web professionals, "web development" usually refers to the main non-design aspects of building web sites: writing markup and coding. Web development may use content management systems (CMS) to make content changes easier and available with basic technical skills. For larger organizations and businesses, web development teams can consist of hundreds of people (web developers) and follow standard methods like Agile methodologies while developing websites. Smaller organizations may only require a single permanent or contracting developer, or secondary assignment to related job positions such as a graphic designer or information systems technician. Web development may be a collaborative effort between departments rather than the domain of a designated department. There are three kinds of web developer specialization: front-end developer, back-end developer, and full-stack developer. Front-end developers are responsible for behaviour and visuals that run in the user browser, back-end developers deal with the servers and full-stack developers are responsible for both. Currently, the demand for React and Node.JS developers are very high all over the world. == Web design == Graphic design Typography Page layout User experience design (UX design) User interface design (UI design) Web Design techniques Responsive web design (RWD) Adaptive web design (AWD) Progressive enhancement Tableless web design Software Adobe Photoshop Adobe Illustrator Adobe XD Figma Sketch (software) Affinity Designer Inkscape == Web development == Front-end web development – the practice of converting data to a graphical interface, through the use of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, so that users can view and interact with that data. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) (.html) Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) (.css) CSS framework JavaScript (.js) Package managers for JavaScript npm (originally short for Node Package Manager) Server-side scripting (also known as "Server-side (web) development" or "Back-end (web) development") ASP (.asp) ASP.NET Web Forms (.aspx) ASP.NET Web Pages (.cshtml, .vbhtml) ColdFusion Markup Language (.cfm) Go (.go) Google Apps Script (.gs) Hack (.php) Haskell (.hs) (example: Yesod) Java (.jsp) via JavaServer Pages JavaScript or TypeScript using Server-side JavaScript (.ssjs, .js, .ts) (example: Node.js) Lasso (.lasso) Lua (.lp .op .lua) Node.js (.node) Parser (.p) Perl via the CGI.pm module (.cgi, .ipl, .pl) PHP (.php, .php3, .php4, .phtml) Progress WebSpeed (.r,.w) Python (.py) (examples: Pyramid, Flask, Django) R (.rhtml) – (example: rApache) React (.jsx, .tsx) Ruby (.rb, .rbw) (example: Ruby on Rails) SMX (.smx) Tcl (.tcl) Full stack web development – involves both front-end and back-end (server-side) development Web framework Types of framework architectures Model–view–controller Three-tier architecture Software Atom IntelliJ IDEA Sublime Text Visual Studio Code
Hyperscale computing
In computing, hyperscale is the ability of an architecture to scale appropriately as increased demand is added to the system. This typically involves the ability to seamlessly provide and add computing, memory, networking, and storage resources to a given node or set of nodes that make up a larger computing, distributed computing, or grid computing environment. Hyperscale computing is necessary in order to build a robust and scalable cloud, big data, map reduce, or distributed storage system and is often associated with the infrastructure required to run large distributed sites such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, or Cloudflare. Companies like Ericsson, AMD, and Intel provide hyperscale infrastructure kits for IT service providers. Companies like Scaleway, Switch, Alibaba, IBM, QTS, Neysa, Digital Realty Trust, Equinix, Oracle, Meta, Amazon Web Services, SAP, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare build data centers for hyperscale computing. Such companies are sometimes called "hyperscalers". They are recognized for their massive scale in cloud computing and data management, operating in environments that require extensive infrastructure to accommodate large-scale data processing and storage.
Cloud9 (service provider)
Cloud9 is a mobile network operator focussed on providing mobile subscriptions over the air to programmable SIM cards, SoftSIMs and eSIMs. Their service is used in both smartphones and IoT devices. The company is privately held with headquarters in the United Kingdom. == History == Cloud9, originally owned by Wire9 Telecom Plc, funded and established by investor and telecom specialist, Lee Jones, before being sold for an undisclosed sum by Jones to billionaire Romain Zaleski. It established in the UK, Gibraltar, and Isle of Man as a domestic Mobile Network Operator. Cloud9 obtained spectrum licenses in the Isle of Man in 2007 and Gibraltar in 2010. Around 2011, Cloud9 decided to focus on supplying global SIM cards to save roaming charges. The Gibraltar spectrum licence was sold to another company. The business relocated its core network to Telehouse in London and became a subsidiary of BlueMango Technologies Ltd. Later the company was acquired by Wireless Logic Ltd. In 2013, Cloud9 acquired the IPR of Zynetix Ltd. Through this acquisition, the company achieved sales as an MVNE. In 2014, the company was voted as a Red Herring Top 100 Europe finalist. == Features == Cloud9 has shipped several million 'Travel SIMs'; all SIM cards have been branded with the logo of these resellers. Additionally, the company provides the digital signatures ('profiles' or 'IMSIs') that provide a SIM card with the ability to register with a network and function. These can be provisioned over the air to dynamic SIM cards such as programmable removable UICCs, SoftSIMs and eSIMs. They are members of the GSM Association and are involved in the GSMA remote SIM provisioning standard for eSIMs that will be released soon. The Cloud9 core network also supports 4G (HSS/PDG). Its Mobile Country Code is 234 and its Mobile Network Code is 18. TADIG code is GBRC9. The company has been allocated the following UK number ranges by Ofcom: 4478722, 4477000, 4474409, 4479782, 4479783 and 4475588 The core network is hosted on Cloud9 servers at Telehouse near Canary Wharf in London. Additional components are hosted in Amazon Web Services facilities around the world in order to minimise latency and provide scalability.
Brave Leo
Brave Leo is a large language model-based chatbot developed by Brave Software and included with the Brave browser. == History == In November 2023, the company said versions for iOS and Android would be available "in the coming months". == Features == Since January 2024, Leo has used the open-source Mixtral 8x7B from Mistral AI as its default large language model, in addition to LLaMA 2 from Meta Platforms and Claude from Anthropic, both of which have been used previously. Leo can suggest follow-up questions, and summarize webpages, PDFs, and videos. Leo has a $15 (US) per month premium version that enables more requests and uses larger LLMs. == Privacy == The answers given by Leo are not saved. Brave uses the slogan Love Privacy to emphasize its focus on user privacy and data protection. The phrase has been featured in Brave's official marketing campaigns and has been cited in media coverage of the browser's privacy-first approach. == Controversies == In 2023, PC World reported that Leo evades questions about US elections.
Redshift (theory)
Redshift is a techno-economic theory suggesting hypersegmentation of information technology markets based on whether individual computing needs are over or under-served by Moore's law, which predicts the doubling of computing transistors (and therefore roughly computing power) every two years. The theory, proposed and named by New Enterprise Associates partner and former Sun Microsystems CTO Greg Papadopoulos, categorized a series of high growth markets (redshifting) while predicting slower GDP-driven growth in traditional computing markets (blueshifting). Papadopoulos predicted the result will be a fundamental redesign of components comprising computing systems. == Hypergrowth market segments (redshifting) == According to the Redshift theory, applications "redshift" when they grow dramatically faster than Moore's Law allows, growing quickly in their absolute number of systems. In these markets, customers are running out of datacenter real-estate, power and cooling infrastructure. According to Dell Senior Vice President Brad Anderson, “Businesses requiring hyperscale computing environments – where infrastructure deployments are measured by up to millions of servers, storage and networking equipment – are changing the way they approach IT.” While various Redshift proponents offer minor alterations on the original presentation, “Redshifting” generally includes: === ΣBW (Sum-of-Bandwidth) === These are companies that drive heavy Internet traffic. This includes popular web-portals like Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN. It also includes telecoms, multimedia, television over IP, online games like World of Warcraft and others. This segment has been enabled by widespread availability of high-bandwidth Internet connections to consumers through a DSL or cable modem. A simple way to understand this market is that for every byte of content served to a PC, mobile phone or other device over a network, there must exist computing systems to send it over the network. === High performance computing (HPC) === These are companies that do complex simulations that involve (for example) weather, stock markets or drug-design simulations. This is a generally elastic market because businesses frequently spend every "available" dollar budgeted for IT. A common anecdote claims that cutting the cost of computing by half causes customers in this segment to buy at least twice as much, because each marginal IT dollar spent contributes to business advantage. === prise (or "Star-prise") === These are companies that aggregate traditional computing applications and offer them as services, typically in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS). For example, companies that deploy CRM are over-served by Moore's Law, but companies that aggregate CRM functions and offer them as a service, such as Salesforce.com, grow faster than Moore's Law. === The eBay crisis === A prime example of redshift was a crisis at eBay. In 1999 eBay suffered a database crisis when a single Oracle Database running on the fastest Sun machine available (these tracking Moore's law in this period) was not enough to cope with eBay's growth. The solution was to massively parallelise their system architecture. == Traditional computing markets (blueshifting) == Redshift theory suggests that traditional computing markets, such as those serving enterprise resource planning or customer relationship management applications, have reached relative saturation in industrialized nations. Thereafter, proponents argued further market growth will closely follow gross domestic product growth, which typically remains under 10% for most countries annually. Given that Moore's Law continues to predict accurately the rate of computing transistor growth, which roughly translates into computing power doubling every two years, the Redshift theory suggests that traditional computing markets will ultimately contract as a percentage of computing expenditures over time. Functionally, this means “Blueshifting” customers can satisfy computing requirement growth by swapping in faster processors without increasing the absolute number of computing systems. == Consequences and industry commentary == Papadopoulos argued that while traditional computing markets remain the dominant source of revenue through the late 2000s, a shift to hypergrowth markets will inevitably occur. When that shift occurs, he argued computing (but not computers) will become a utility, and differentiation in the IT market will be based upon a company's ability to deliver computing at massive scale, efficiently and with predictable service levels, much like electricity at that time. If computing is to be delivered as a utility, Nicholas Carr suggested Papadopoulos' vision compares with Microsoft researcher Jim Hamilton, who both agree that computing is most efficiently generated in shipping containers. Industry analysts are also beginning to quantify Redshifting and Blueshifting markets. According to International Data Corporation vice president Matthew Eastwood, "IDC believes that the IT market is in a period of hyper segmentation... This a class of customers that is Moore's law driven and as price performance gains continue, IDC believes that these organizations will accelerate their consumption of IT infrastructure.” == History and nomenclature == Key portions of Papadopoulos' theory were first presented by Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz in late 2006. Papadopoulos later gave a full presentation on Redshift to Sun's annual Analyst Summit in February 2007. The term Redshift refers to what happens when electromagnetic radiation, usually visible light, moves away from an observer. Papadopoulos chose this term to reflect growth markets because redshift helped cosmologists explain the expansion of the universe. Papadopoulos originally depicted traditional IT markets as green to represent their revenue base, but later changed them to “blueshift,” which occurs when a light source moves toward an observer, similar to what would happen during a contraction of the universe.