Virtual Print Fee (VPF) is a subsidy paid by a film distributor towards the purchase of digital cinema projection equipment for use by a film exhibitor in the presentation of first release motion pictures. The subsidy is paid in the form of a fee per booking of a movie, intended to match the savings that occurs by not shipping a film print. The model is designed to help redistribute the savings realized by studios when using digital distribution instead of film print distribution and is intended to vanish when the transition phase is over when the vast majority of cinemas screens are equipped. == History == The first public demonstration of digital projection for cinema took place at ShoWest in 1999, and it was readily apparent that the technology was further ahead than the business model. Early technology presentations attempted to claim that the technology would pay for itself through new revenues generated by new forms of content. But exhibitors knew their audience, and could see that digital projection was only a replacement technology, creating new financial liabilities, and not new revenue. It wasn’t until the rollout of digital 3-D years later in 2005 that digital projection demonstrated that it could be used to generate additional revenue. The economics were challenging. Film projectors and platters cost in the neighborhood of US$30,000, while early digital projectors cost up to US$150,000. Further, film projectors had a lifetime of 30 years with relatively small annual expenditures in maintenance and replacement parts. On the other hand, exhibitors felt they would be lucky to get 10 years of service from a digital projector, after which there would have to be a refresh in capital expenditure. Meanwhile, distributors would realize significant savings by eliminating the high cost of film prints with corresponding shipping costs, and instead distributing digital files either by satellite or hard drive. The Virtual Print Fee was designed to better balance savings and expenditures for both exhibitors and distributors. It is intended to primarily assist in the replacement of film projectors, and not assist in the purchase of new projection equipment for new construction. To give confidence to financial institutions that digital cinema technology was stable and worthy of investment, Digital Cinema Initiatives was created in 2002, resulting in the release of the first version of the DCI Digital Cinema System Specification in 2005. The DCI Specification continues to be the core specification for digital cinema, establishing the baseline technology and system requirements for which studios will release digital movies. The first set of VPF agreements executed with four major studios were announced by Christie/AIX in November 2005. Christie/AIX at that time was a subsidiary of Access Integrated Technology, now renamed Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp. The agreements were for the rollout of digital cinema technology to 4000 screens. Since that time, numerous other Digital Cinema Deployment Agreements have been executed around the world, allowing exhibitors in nearly every territory to benefit from VPF subsidies in the conversion from film projection to digital projection.
Misskey
Misskey (Japanese: ミスキー, romanized: Misukī) is an open source, federated, social networking service created in 2014 by Japanese software engineer Eiji "syuilo" Shinoda. Misskey uses the ActivityPub protocol for federation, allowing users to interact between independent Misskey instances, and other ActivityPub compatible platforms. Misskey is generally considered to be part of the Fediverse. Despite being a decentralized service, Misskey is not philosophically opposed to centralization. The name Misskey comes from the lyrics of Brain Diver, a song by the Japanese singer May'n. == History == Misskey was initially developed as a BBS-style internet forum by high school student Eiji Shinoda in 2014. After introducing a timeline feature, Misskey gained popularity as the microblogging platform it is today. In 2018, Misskey added support for ActivityPub, becoming a federated social media platform. The flagship Misskey server, Misskey.io, was started on April 15, 2019. Misskey, alongside Mastodon and Bluesky, has received attention as a potential replacement for Twitter following Twitter's acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022. On April 8, 2023, Misskey.io incorporated as MisskeyHQ K.K. As of February 2024, over 450,000 users were registered, making it the largest instance of Misskey. Misskey.io is crowdfunded. The administrator of Misskey.io is Japanese system administrator Yoshiki Eto, who operates under the alias Murakami-san. Eiji Shinoda serves as director. In July 2023, Twitter introduced extreme restrictions on their API in order to combat scraping from bots. Some users were critical of the changes, and as a result migrated to other social networks. The number of users registering on Misskey.io, Misskey's official instance and the largest one, increased rapidly, with other Misskey instances also receiving a spike in signups. In response to this trend, Skeb, a platform for sharing art, announced on July 14, 2023 that it would sponsor the Misskey development team. In early 2024, Misskey was targeted by a spam attack from Japan. The cause of the attack is believed to be a dispute between rival groups on a Japanese hacker forum and a DDoS attack on a Discord bot. Mastodon instances with open registration were used in the attack. In November 2025, Eto announced intentions to replace ActivityPub with Misskey's own low-overhead federation system in "a few years". Shinoda later said that this was "fake news". == Development == Misskey is open source software and is licensed under the AGPLv3. The Misskey API is publicly available and is documented using the OpenAPI Specification, which allows users to build automated accounts and use it on any Misskey instance. The service is translated using Crowdin. Misskey is developed using Node.js. TypeScript is used on both the frontend and backend. PostgreSQL is used as its database. Vue.js is used for the frontend. == Functionality == Posts on Misskey are called "notes". Notes are limited to a maximum of 3,000 characters (a limit which can be customized by instances), and can be accompanied by any file, including polls, images, videos, and audio. Notes can be reposted, either by themselves or with another "quote" note. Misskey comes with multiple timelines to sort through the notes that an instance has available, and are displayed in reverse chronological order. The Home timeline shows notes from users that you follow, the Local timeline shows all notes from the instance in use, the Social timeline shows both the Home and Local timeline, and the Global timeline shows every public note that the instance knows about. Notes have customizable privacy settings to control what users can see a note, similar to Mastodon's post visibility ranges. Public notes show up on all timelines, while Home notes only show on a user's Home timeline. Notes can also be set to be available only for followers. Direct messages using notes can be sent to users.
IOS SDK
The iOS SDK (iOS Software Development Kit), formerly the iPhone SDK, is a software development kit (SDK) developed by Apple Inc. The kit allows for the development of mobile apps on Apple's iOS 17 and iPadOS operating systems. The iOS SDK is a free download for users of Macintosh (or Mac) personal computers. It is not available for Microsoft Windows PCs. The SDK contains sets giving developers access to various functions and services of iOS devices, such as hardware and software attributes. It also contains an iPhone simulator to mimic the look and feel of the device on the computer while developing. New versions of the SDK accompany new versions of iOS. In order to test applications, get technical support, and distribute apps through App Store, developers are required to subscribe to the Apple Developer Program. Combined with Xcode, the iOS SDK helps developers write iOS apps using officially supported programming languages, including Swift and Objective-C. Other companies have also created tools that allow for the development of native iOS apps using their respective programming languages. == History == While originally developing iPhone prior to its unveiling in 2007, Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs did not intend to let third-party developers build native apps for the iOS operating system, instead directing them to make web applications for the Safari web browser. However, backlash from developers prompted the company to reconsider, with Jobs announcing on October 17, 2007, that Apple would have a software development kit (SDK) available for developers by February 2008. The SDK was released on March 6, 2008. == Features == The iOS SDK is a free download for Mac users. It is not available for Microsoft Windows. To test the application, get technical support, and distribute applications through App Store, developers are required to subscribe to the Apple Developer Program. The SDK contents are separated into the following sets: UIKit Multi-touch events and controls Accelerometer support View hierarchy Localization (i18n) Camera support Media OpenAL audio mixing and recording Video playback Image file formats Quartz Core Animation OpenGL ES Core Services Networking Embedded SQLite database Core Location Threads CoreMotion Mac OS X Kernel TCP/IP Sockets Power management File system Security The SDK also contains an iPhone simulator, a program used to simulate the look and feel of iPhone on the developer's computer. New SDK versions accompany new iOS versions. == Programming languages == The iOS SDK, combined with Xcode, helps developers write iOS applications using officially supported programming languages, including Swift and Objective-C. An .ipa (iOS App Store Package) file is an iOS application archive file which stores an iOS app. === Java === In 2008, Sun Microsystems announced plans to release a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for iOS, based on the Java Platform, Micro Edition version of Java. This would enable Java applications to run on iPhone and iPod Touch. Soon after the announcement, developers familiar with the SDK's terms of agreement believed that by not allowing third-party applications to run in the background (answer a phone call and still run the application, for example), and not allowing an application to download code from another source, nor allowing an application to interact with a third-party application, Sun's development efforts could be hindered without Apple's cooperation. Sun also worked with a third-party company called Innaworks in attempts to get Java on iPhone. Despite the apparent lack of interest from Apple, a firmware leak of the 2007 iPhone release revealed an ARM chip with a processor with Jazelle support for embedded Java execution. === .NET === Novell announced in September 2009 that they had successfully developed MonoTouch, a software framework that let developers write native iPhone applications in the C# and .NET programming languages, while still maintaining compatibility with Apple's requirements. === Flash === iOS does not support Adobe Flash, and although Adobe has two versions of its software: Flash and Flash Lite, Apple views neither as suitable for the iPhone, claiming that full Flash is "too slow to be useful", and Flash Lite to be "not capable of being used with the Web". In October 2009, Adobe announced that an upcoming update to its Creative Suite would feature a component to let developers build native iPhone apps using the company's Flash development tools. The software was officially released as part of the company's Creative Suite 5 collection of professional applications. === 2010 policy on development tools === In April 2010, Apple made controversial changes to its iPhone Developer Agreement, requiring developers to use only "approved" programming languages in order to publish apps on App Store, and banning applications that used third-party development tools; the ban affected Adobe's Packager tool, which converted Flash apps into iOS apps. After developer backlash and news of a potential anti-trust investigation, Apple again revised its agreement in September, allowing the use of third-party development tools. === Mac Catalyst === Originally called "Project Marzipan", Mac Catalyst helps developers bring iPadOS app experiences to macOS, and make it easier to take apps developed for iPadOS devices to Macs by avoiding the need to write the underlying software code twice.
Data cube
In computer programming, a data cube (or datacube) is a multi-dimensional array of values. Typically, the term "data cube" is applied in contexts where these arrays are massively larger than the hosting computer's main memory; examples include multi-terabyte/petabyte data warehouses and time series of image data. Even though it is called a cube, a data cube generally is a multi-dimensional concept which can be 1-dimensional, 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional, or higher-dimensional. The data cube is used to represent data (sometimes called facts) along some dimensions of interest. In satellite image timeseries, dimensions would be latitude and longitude coordinates and time; a fact (sometimes called measure) would be a pixel at a given space and time as taken by the satellite. For example, in online analytical processing, an OLAP cube about a company would have dimensions that could be the company subsidiaries, the company products, and time; in this setup, a fact would be a sales event where a particular product has been sold in a particular subsidiary at a particular time. In any case, every dimension divides data into groups of cells whereas each cell in the cube represents a single measure of interest. Sometimes cubes hold only a few values with the rest being empty, i.e. undefined, while sometimes most or all cube coordinates hold a cell value. In the first case such data are called sparse, and in the second case they are called dense, although there is no hard delineation between the two. Data cubes may be stored in database management systems (DBMS) as part of array DBMS. Spatio-temporal databases and geospatial databases may also be represented as coverage data. == History == Multi-dimensional arrays have long been familiar in programming languages. Fortran offers arbitrarily-indexed 1-D arrays and arrays of arrays, which allows the construction of higher-dimensional arrays, up to 15 dimensions. APL supports n-D arrays with a rich set of operations. All these have in common that arrays must fit into the main memory and are available only while the particular program maintaining them (such as image processing software) is running. A series of data exchange formats support storage and transmission of data cube-like data, often tailored towards particular application domains. Examples include MDX for statistical (in particular, business) data, Zarr and Hierarchical Data Format for general scientific data, and TIFF for imagery. In 1992, Peter Baumann introduced management of massive data cubes with high-level user functionality combined with an efficient software architecture. Datacube operations include subset extraction, processing, fusion, and in general queries in the spirit of data manipulation languages like SQL. Some years after, the data cube concept was applied to describe time-varying business data as data cubes by Jim Gray, et al., and by Venky Harinarayan, Anand Rajaraman and Jeff Ullman. Around that time, a working group on Multi-Dimensional Databases ("Arbeitskreis Multi-Dimensionale Datenbanken") was established at German Gesellschaft für Informatik. Datacube Inc. was an image processing company selling hardware and software applications for the PC market in 1996, however without addressing data cubes as such. The EarthServer initiative has established geo data cube service requirements. == Standardization == In 2018, the ISO SQL database language was extended with data cube functionality as "SQL – Part 15: Multi-dimensional arrays (SQL/MDA)". Web Coverage Processing Service is a geo data cube analytics language issued by the Open Geospatial Consortium in 2008. In addition to the common data cube operations, the language knows about the semantics of space and time and supports both regular and irregular grid data cubes, based on the concept of coverage data. An industry standard for querying business data cubes, originally developed by Microsoft, is MultiDimensional eXpressions. == Implementation == Many high-level computer languages treat data cubes and other large arrays as single entities distinct from their contents. These languages, of which Fortran, APL, IDL, NumPy, PDL, and S-Lang are examples, allow the programmer to manipulate complete film clips and other data en masse with simple expressions derived from linear algebra and vector mathematics. Some languages (such as PDL) distinguish between a list of images and a data cube, while many (such as IDL) do not. Array DBMSs (Database Management Systems) offer a data model which generically supports definition, management, retrieval, and manipulation of n-dimensional data cubes. This database category has been pioneered by the rasdaman system since 1994. == Applications == Multi-dimensional arrays can meaningfully represent spatio-temporal sensor, image, and simulation data, but also statistics data where the semantics of dimensions is not necessarily of spatial or temporal nature. Generally, any kind of axis can be combined with any other into a data cube. === Mathematics === In mathematics, a one-dimensional array corresponds to a vector, a two-dimensional array resembles a matrix; more generally, a tensor may be represented as an n-dimensional data cube. === Science and engineering === For a time sequence of color images, the array is generally four-dimensional, with the dimensions representing image X and Y coordinates, time, and RGB (or other color space) color plane. For example, the EarthServer initiative unites data centers from different continents offering 3-D x/y/t satellite image timeseries and 4-D x/y/z/t weather data for retrieval and server-side processing through the Open Geospatial Consortium WCPS geo data cube query language standard. A data cube is also used in the field of imaging spectroscopy, since a spectrally-resolved image is represented as a three-dimensional volume. Earth observation data cubes combine satellite imagery such as Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 with Geographic information system analytics. === Business intelligence === In online analytical processing (OLAP), data cubes are a common arrangement of business data suitable for analysis from different perspectives through operations like slicing, dicing, pivoting, and aggregation.
Naked Objects for .NET
Naked Objects for .NET or Naked Objects MVC is a software framework that builds upon the ASP.NET MVC framework. As the name suggests, the framework synthesizes two architectural patterns: naked objects and model–view–controller (MVC). These two patterns have been considered as antithetical. However, Trygve Reenskaug (the inventor of the MVC pattern) has made it clear that he does not see it that way, in his foreword to Richard Pawson's PhD thesis on the Naked Objects pattern. The Naked Objects MVC framework will take a domain model (written as Plain Old CLR Objects) and render it as a complete HTML application without the need for writing any user interface code - by means of a small set of generic View and Controller classes. The framework uses reflection rather than code generation. The developer may then choose to create customised Views and/or Controllers, using standard ASP.NET MVC patterns, for use where the generic user interface is not suitable.
Yahoo Groups
Yahoo! Groups was a free-to-use system of electronic mailing lists offered by Yahoo!. Prior to February 2020, Yahoo! Groups was one of the world's largest collections of online discussion boards. It allowed members to subscribe to various groups, read subscribed discussions online, view and share photos, files and bookmarks within a group, access a group calendar, create polls for group members, and receive email notifications of new discussion topics. Some groups were simply announcement boards, to which only the group moderators could post, while others were discussion forums. Depending on each group's settings, membership could be open to everyone or only to invited or approved people. On February 1, 2020, Yahoo! removed online access to discussions and all other features except simple membership management, essentially turning all groups into mailing lists, and on October 13, 2020, it announced that Yahoo Groups would shut down completely on December 15, 2020. == History == In 1998 Yahoo! Clubs was launched as an extension of services developed by Yahoo! Messenger. In August 2000 Yahoo acquired eGroups.com. Yahoo! Groups was launched in early 2001 as an integration of technology from eGroups.com and community groups from both eGroups.com and Yahoo! Clubs. In 2001 Yahoo! deleted adult groups from its search directory, making it very difficult to locate Yahoo! groups with adult content. The Groups Updates Email feature was introduced in 2010. It summarized, in a single email, all the updates that occurred every twenty-four hours in all groups. In September 2010, a major facelift was rolled out, making Yahoo! Groups look very similar to Facebook. In December, Yahoo! Groups Japan emailed its users and posted a notice on its homepage, to announce that its service, which commenced in February 2004, would be closing on May 28, 2014. In October 2019, Yahoo! announced that all content that had been posted to Yahoo! Groups will be deleted on December 14, 2019; that date was later amended to January 31, 2020. Yahoo! announced that adding new content would be blocked on October 28, 2019. Once the content was deleted, users of Yahoo! Groups were only able to browse the group directory, request invitations and, if members of a group, send messages to that group. On October 13, 2020, Yahoo! announced they would be shutting down Yahoo! Groups on December 15, 2020. The site was closed down a few days after the advertised date, displaying a message that the service was officially shut down. This message stopped appearing at the end of January 2021 and the Yahoo! Groups web address began redirecting to the main Yahoo! page. === Criticism and controversy === On August 31, 2010, Yahoo! Groups started rolling out a major software change, which was denounced by a large number of users. The re-model was completely abandoned on January 12, 2011. == Site statistics == In August 2008, Yahoo! Group staff reported that there were 113 million users, and nine million Groups using 22 languages. In July 2010, the web analytics website Quantcast reported around 915 thousand unique visitors daily to the Yahoo! Groups website (US). In January 2011, that number had increased to 933 thousand unique visitors daily. The number did not include Yahoo! Group members who accessed the Groups site via email. In September 2010, at its "Product Runway" event, Yahoo! told reporters that Yahoo! Groups had 115 million group members and that there were 10 million Yahoo! groups. == Archives ==
CEITON
CEITON is a web-based software system for facilitating and automating business processes such as planning, scheduling, and payroll using workflow technologies. The system is used by several media companies such as MDR, Yle, RAI and Red Bull Media House. In December 2018, the first CEITON User Group Meeting took place in Leipzig, Germany. == Architecture == The software runs on a server (on premises) or in the cloud and is scalable on parallel servers. Data security is warranted by role-based access control (RBAC). The software is used via web-browsers and not dependent on particular system software. == Structure and Features == CEITON combines the two classical approaches of production planning and control and workflow management. === Project Management === The scheduling system plans, manages, bills, and analyzes projects or tasks. It manages human and technical resources, material, and locations on a single GUI. The system uses a gantt chart to assign tasks to be done to available and eligible resources (i.e. staff), automatically or by drag-and-drop. The scheduling module includes material management, resource management/ human resource management, integration of freelancers, clients and suppliers, long-term budget planning, time-tracking, shift scheduling, quality management, delivery and logistics, document management, archive, analysis and controlling, business reporting, as well as all accounting and documentation processes. === Workflow === The workflow management system module coordinates business processes. Processes are defined once as a workflow and then repeatedly executed. Human resources are automatically assigned to steps (tasks) and integrated in workflow forms. Systems are integrated with an EAI/SOAP module, allowing data exchange with arbitrary external systems which are also involved in the business process. It also features a 3-D workflow overview in which the status of each project step can be determined by its color in the overview. === Process Management === For project and order processing management, business processes are designed as workflows, and coordinate communication automatically. Different user interfaces for staff, customers or suppliers can be created so each gets only relevant information. Different workflow forms are associated with different log-ins. The main application for the system is knowledge-based business processes, in which many people are involved and virtual results are produced, e.g. in research, or development of media products, such as TV and movies. Broadcasters and media companies such as MDR and Yle use CEITON to control their production processes for products and services and coordinate complex workflows with all kinds of resources. === Integrations === An integrated EAI module allows CEITON to integrate every external system in any business process without programming, using SOAP and similar technologies. Aspera and FileCatalyst were integrated for faster data transfer, yet complex ERP systems and numerous SAP modules have also been integrated, for example, to extract working times to payroll. === Mobile Working === Since Version 7, released in 2015, CEITON includes a time-tracking module allowing employees to enter their times from mobile devices such as tablets running Android, iPhones etc. == History == Ceiton Technologies (SME tech firm), the company developing CEITON, was founded in Leipzig, Germany in 2000, staffing solutions for the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Manila, Philippines, were implemented in 2000 together with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit of the German government. The first version (1.0) of the software was released in July 2001. The product was originally developed for German broadcasting companies. CEITON is named after the Japanese concept Seiton, one of the principles of Japanese workplace design methodology known as 5S. Since version 7, released in 2015, CEITON includes a time-tracking module allowing employees to enter their times from mobile devices such as tablets running Android, iPhones etc. In May 2005 CEITON won the IQ innovation award, sponsored by Siemens, in the category Excellent innovation in the IT-sector. Since 2007, CEITON has been present at the broadcast trade fairs NAB in Las Vegas and IBC in Amsterdam. In 2020, the company celebrated its 20th anniversary.