User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is content generated by users of the Internet such as images, videos, audio, text, testimonials, software, and user interactions. Online content aggregation platforms such as social media, discussion forums and wikis by their interactive and social nature, no longer produce multimedia content but provide tools to produce, collaborate, and share a variety of content, which can affect the attitudes and behaviors of the audience in various aspects. This transforms the role of consumers from passive spectators to active participants. User-generated content is used for a wide range of applications, including problem processing, news, entertainment, customer engagement, advertising, gossip, research and more. It is an example of the democratization of content production and the flattening of traditional media hierarchies. The BBC adopted a user-generated content platform for its websites in 2005, and Time magazine named "You" as the Person of the Year in 2006, referring to the rise in the production of UGC on Web 2.0 platforms. CNN also developed a similar user-generated content platform, known as iReport. There are other examples of news channels implementing similar protocols, especially in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe or terrorist attack. Social media users can provide key eyewitness content and information that may otherwise have been inaccessible. Since 2020, there has been an increasing number of businesses who are utilizing User Generated Content (UGC) to promote their products and services. Several factors significantly influence how UGC is received, including the quality of the content, the credibility of the creator, and viewer engagement. These elements can impact users' perceptions and trust towards the brand, as well as influence the buying intentions of potential customers. UGC has proven to be an effective method for brands to connect with consumers, drawing their attention through the sharing of experiences and information on social media platforms. Due to new media and technology affordances, such as low cost and low barriers to entry, the Internet is an easy platform to create and dispense user-generated content, allowing the dissemination of information at a rapid pace in the wake of an event. == Definition == The advent of user-generated content marked a shift among media organizations from creating online content to providing facilities for amateurs to publish their own content. User-generated content has also been characterized as citizen media as opposed to the "packaged goods media" of the past century. Citizen Media is audience-generated feedback and news coverage. People give their reviews and share stories in the form of user-generated and user-uploaded audio and user-generated video. The former is a two-way process in contrast to the one-way distribution of the latter. Conversational or two-way media is a key characteristic of so-called Web 2.0, which encourages the publishing of one's own content and commenting on other people's content. The role of the passive audience, therefore, has shifted since the birth of new media, and an ever-growing number of participatory users are taking advantage of these interactive opportunities, especially on the Internet, to create independent content. Grassroots experimentation then generated an innovation in sounds, artists, techniques, and associations with audiences, which then are being used in mainstream media. The active, participatory, and creative audience is prevailing today with relatively accessible media, tools, and applications, and its culture is in turn affecting mass media corporations and global audiences. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has defined three core variables for UGC: Accessible Content: User-generated content (UGC) is publicly produced through platforms located on the Internet and is available to any individual browsing such a publicly accessible website or a public social media account. There are other contexts where users must remain in a community or closed group to access and publish on such platforms (for example, wikis). This is a way of differentiating that although the content is accessible to the audience, there are certain restrictions for the users who generates the content. Creative effort: Creative effort was put into creating the work or adapting existing works to construct a new one; i.e. users must add their own value to the work. UGC often also has a collaborative element to it, as is the case with websites that users can edit collaboratively. For example, merely copying a portion of a television show and posting it to an online video website (an activity frequently seen on the UGC sites) would not be considered UGC. However, uploading photographs, expressing one's thoughts in a blog post or creating a new music video could be considered UGC. Yet the minimum amount of creative effort is hard to define and depends on the context. Creation outside of professional routines and practices: User-generated content is generally created outside of professional routines and practices. It often does not have an institutional or a commercial market context. In extreme cases, UGC may be produced by non-professionals without the expectation of profit or remuneration. Motivating factors include connecting with peers, achieving a certain level of fame, notoriety, or prestige, and the desire to express oneself. == Media pluralism == According to Cisco, in 2016 an average of 96,000 petabytes was transferred monthly over the Internet, more than twice as many as in 2012. In 2016, the number of active websites surpassed 1 billion, up from approximately 700 million in 2012. Reaching 1.66 billion daily active users in Q4 2019, Facebook has emerged as the most popular social media platform globally. Other social media platforms are also dominant at the regional level such as: Twitter in Japan, Naver in the Republic of Korea, Instagram (owned by Facebook) and LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) in Africa, VKontakte (VK) and Odnoklassniki (eng. Classmates) in Russia and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, WeChat and QQ in China. However, a concentration phenomenon is occurring globally giving dominance to a few online platforms that become popular for some unique features they provide, most commonly for the added privacy they offer users through disappearing messages or end-to-end encryption (e.g. Jami, Signal, Snapchat, Telegram, Viber, and WhatsApp), but they have tended to occupy niches and to facilitate the exchanges of information that remain rather invisible to larger audiences. Production of freely accessible information has been increasing since 2012. In January 2017, Wikipedia had more than 43 million articles, almost twice as many as in January 2012. This corresponded to a progressive diversification of content and an increase in contributions in languages other than English. In 2017, less than 12 percent of Wikipedia content was in English, down from 18 percent in 2012. Graham, Straumann, and Hogan say that the increase in the availability and diversity of content has not radically changed the structures and processes for the production of knowledge. For example, while content on Africa has dramatically increased, a significant portion of this content has continued to be produced by contributors operating from North America and Europe, rather than from Africa itself. == History == The massive, multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary was exclusively composed of user-generated content. In 1857, Richard Chenevix Trench of the London Philological Society sought public contributions throughout the English-speaking world for the creation of the first edition of the OED. As Simon Winchester recounts: So what we're going to do, if I have your agreement that we're going to produce such a dictionary, is that we're going to send out invitations, were going to send these invitations to every library, every school, every university, every book shop that we can identify throughout the English-speaking world... everywhere where English is spoken or read with any degree of enthusiasm, people will be invited to contribute words. And the point is, the way they do it, the way they will be asked and instructed to do it, is to read voraciously and whenever they see a word, whether it's a preposition or a sesquipedalian monster, they are to... if it interests them and if where they read it, they see it in a sentence that illustrates the way that that word is used, offers the meaning of the day to that word, then they are to write it on a slip of paper... the top left-hand side you write the word, the chosen word, the catchword, which in this case is 'twilight'. Then the quotation, the quotation illustrates the meaning of the word. And underneath it, the citation, where it came from, whether it was printed or whether it was in manuscri
Abiquo Enterprise Edition
Abiquo Hybrid Cloud Management Platform is a web-based cloud computing software platform developed by Abiquo. Written entirely in Java, it is used to build, integrate and manage public and private clouds in homogeneous environments. Users can deploy and manage servers, storage system and network and virtual devices. It also supports LDAP integration. == Hypervisors == Abiquo supports five hypervisor systems. VMware ESXi Microsoft Hyper-V Citrix XenServer Oracle VM Server for x86 KVM From version 3.1, it also supports multiple public cloud providers: Amazon AWS Rackspace Google Compute Engine HP Cloud ElasticHosts DigitalOcean Abiquo version 3.2 added: Microsoft Azure Abiquo version 3.4 added: Support for Docker hosts, adding multi-tenant networking, storage management and private registry management for Docker SoftLayer CloudSigma Later versions continued to add features including autoscaling on any cloud, integration to VMware NSX and OpenStack Neutron for software defined networking, guest config with cloud-init and integrated monitoring driving guest automation. == Storage services == Abiquo supports any vendor for hypervisor storage, and also supports tiered storage pools, enabling storage-as-a-service from specific vendors and technologies including: NFS Generic iSCSI NetApp Nexenta == SAAS version == In April 2014 Abiquo launched Abiquo anyCloud, a SAAS version of the Abiquo Hybrid Cloud Platform software. This version lets users manage public cloud resources from: Amazon AWS Microsoft Azure IBM SoftLayer DigitalOcean Rackspace Open Cloud (an OpenStack cloud) HP Public Cloud (an OpenStack cloud) Google Compute Engine ElasticHosts Additional security and process features include workflow, to have an enterprise administrator electronically sign off on changes, an audit trail of activity and the ability to share cloud accounts among and enterprise team in a secure way. == Reviews and awards == Finalist for the 2015 Cloud Awards Finalist for the 2015 UK Cloud Awards in the category Cloud Management Product of the Year EMA Radar for Private Cloud platforms 2013 Global Telecoms Business Innovation Summit and Awards 2013 (with Interoute) EuroCloud UK Awards
Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon
Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (フラジール ～さよなら月の廃墟～, Furajīru: Sayonara Tsuki no Haikyo; known in Japan as Fragile) is an action role-playing game for the Wii developed by Namco Bandai Games in co-operation with Tri-Crescendo. The game was released by Namco Bandai Games in Japan on January 22, 2009. It was later published by Xseed Games in North America on March 16, 2010, and in Europe by Rising Star Games on March 19, 2010, followed by its release in Australia on April 1, 2010. == Gameplay == In Fragile Dreams, the player character, Seto, must traverse the ruins of Tokyo and the surrounding areas, fighting off ghosts that lurk within these ruins. The game's heads-up display includes a mini-map and HP gauge for Seto's location and health, respectively. Seto will fall unconscious if his HP reaches zero, resulting in a game over. The player controls Seto from a third-person perspective with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Seto can use his flashlight (controlled by the Wii Remote pointer) to illuminate his surroundings or solve puzzles and interact with the environment. When searching for certain objectives or hidden enemies, pointing Seto's light in their direction picks up and plays their sounds through the Wii Remote's mini speaker. The Wii Nunchuk, meanwhile, directly controls Seto's movement: aside of basic movement, he can crouch to hide and crawl through small spaces. Seto will often come across damaged floors, which require slow movement (and for heavily damaged floors, crouching) to cross without falling through. As Seto, the player can use weapons found throughout the world to fight off ghosts, ranging from slingshots and golf clubs to crossbows and katanas. Each weapon can only take a certain amount of use: once a weapon reaches its limit, it will break after battle. The player can also find other usable and collectable items in the field, marked with fireflies. The player can only save their game by resting at small fire pits scattered throughout the world: used fire pits are marked with a bonfire. The player can also examine and identify Mystery Items, organize their inventory, as well as after encountering the Merchant, buy and sell items. As stated by the producer of the game, Kentarō Kawashima, Fragile Dreams is not strictly a survival horror: rather, its story focuses on human drama. In Fragile Dreams, aside of the main story, the player can find and examine objects and graffiti throughout the world. Objects called memory items (ranging from origami and stones to cell phones and books) hold the memories of their former owners (only accessible at bonfires), while the graffiti contains messages only seen by pointing at them in first-person. By examining these messages, the player can piece together hints to the game's backstory. == Story == === Setting and characters === Fragile Dreams is set in a post-apocalyptic version of Earth in the near-future. Almost all the world's population has vanished, leaving the surviving buildings and structures abandoned. The game is set in and near the ruins of Tokyo, Japan, where the event that nearly wiped out humanity may have originated. The protagonist, Seto, is a 15-year-old boy who searches the world for other living humans. He encounters Ren, a silver-haired girl who often leaves behind large, cryptic drawings. Other characters include: Sai, the ghost of a young woman; Crow, a mischievous and straightforward amnesiac boy; Personal Frame (P.F.), a portable computer who loves having conversations more than anything else; Chiyo, the ghost of a little girl; and the Merchant, a mysterious yet merry man who trades various goods. The game's host of enemies mainly consist of ghosts, but also include humanoid robots and security proxies. The main antagonist, Shin, is the AI of a scientist who considers speech to be an inferior means of communication. Various memory items include a greater set of characters, each giving hints to the game's backstory. === Plot === At the end of Seto's fifteenth summer, his grandfather dies. Seto buries him in front of their home, an old observatory, and that from then on he became "truly alone". At night, he searches for anything the old man had left for him and discovers a letter, along with a strange blue stone in a locket. Suddenly, a mask-like ghost appears and attacks Seto. After driving the creature off, Seto reads the old man's letter, who tells him to "reach a tall red tower" east of the observatory, where he might find other survivors. After departing for the tower, Seto reaches an old subway entrance in the Azabudai district and finds Ren sitting on a collapsed pillar, singing to the stars. He accidentally startles her and the frightened Ren flees into the subway station: getting over the shock of meeting another person, Seto follows her. While searching the station, he discovers a Personal Frame, who guides him towards Ren. Unfortunately, just as they reach the exit, P.F.'s battery dies out: Seto buries the device, keeping a screw from it in his locket. From the underground, Seto finds himself at an abandoned amusement park and encounters Crow, who steals Seto's locket. After a long chase across the park and another encounter with the masked ghost, Crow returns Seto's locket and directs him to a hotel nearby, where he saw a girl who might know something about Ren. Crow also gives Seto his skull ring to keep in his locket and kisses him. At the hotel, Seto encounters Sai and fights the masked ghost again. After laying to rest the spirit of an old woman named Chiyo, the two discover Ren's drawings by a sewer. Returning to the underground, Seto and Sai find themselves at a hydropower dam. While searching for Ren, Seto discovers that Crow is actually a robot, but his battery begins to fail and Seto mourns for him as he "die[s]". Finally, they encounter Ren in a cell: although glad to see him again, Ren runs off after Shin calls. Sai explains to Seto that most of humanity died because of a "human empathy expansion project" called Glass Cage. The project was meant to make human thoughts transparent, meaning that no one would need words to communicate. However, after Glass Cage activated, people who went to sleep never woke up again. Sai reveals that she was Glass Cage's first catalyst: this time, Shin intends to use Ren as the catalyst. After exiting the dam, a demolition crane attempts to destroy it. Hearing both Shin's and the masked ghost's voices from the crane — saying, "Any threat to the project must be eliminated." — the player realizes both are manifestations of Glass Cage. After Seto destroys the crane, Sai leads him to the facility where Ren was taken to. Entering the laboratory, Seto and Sai are confronted by Shin, who coldly dismisses Sai's attempts at reasoning with him and is adamant about proceeding with his plans. As they traverse the laboratory, they overhear a voice announcing "Glass Cage Launch Preparations Complete", strengthening their resolve to save Ren. Making it into the room where Ren is being held, Shin tells them of his intention to use Glass Cage to "obliterate corporeal beings". After Seto defeats him, Shin disappears and Seto releases Ren from the device holding her. Their reunion is cut short as Sai tells them that the backup system has "finished copying her psyche to the AI", allowing Glass Cage to proceed. Ren reveals Shin has escaped to the top of the Tokyo Tower and Seto asks Ren to wait at the base of the tower and for Sai to accompany her. On his way up the tower, Seto hears the voices of P.F., Chiyo and Crow wishing him luck. He confronts and defeats Shin a second time, who reveals his motivations: he had secretly used himself as the first test subject of the human empathy expansion project and gained the ability to hear the thoughts of those around him. Despite his initial belief in the project as a way for humans to empathize with one another, all he heard around him was "jealousy and contempt" and he soon grew disillusioned with the world as even his parents turned against him. Believing no person loved him, Shin wants to put an end to humanity. His words meet with a vehement response from Sai, as she tells him that she loves him, having developed those feelings while she was the catalyst and all she ever wanted was to be part of his life. Hearing this, Shin finds peace, tossing the AI mainframe away so Glass Cage can never be reactivated and vanishes together with Sai, hand-in-hand, after thanking Seto. Descending from the tower, Seto finally learns Ren's name and they resolve to look for other survivors together. == Development == Fragile Dreams was developed by the team at Namco Bandai Games. Director and producer Kentarō Kawashima came up with the concept for the game in 2003, before the Wii console was revealed. When the Wii was unveiled, it became the obvious choice as the game's platform as the Wii remote could be used to control the flashlight. Kawashima wrote the main scenario for the title, w
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is a 2025 tower defense video game developed by PopCap Seattle, The Lost Pixels, and published by Electronic Arts. It is a remaster of the 2009 game Plants vs. Zombies, introducing upscaled graphics and new additional content. Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted was released for video game consoles and personal computers on October 23, 2025. It received generally positive reviews from critics, but was criticized by the original game's development team for including fabricated concept art and for mishandling the soundtrack. == Gameplay == Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted follows the same gameplay of the original Plants vs. Zombies game with very minor changes. It is a lane-based tower defense game where the player has to defend their home from incoming zombies. The player can place various plants by spending "sun", the game's currency during levels. Sun icons can be collected from the sky during daytime and from sun-producing plants such as sunflowers. Some plants can attack zombies while some can act as defense. If all zombies are defeated in a level, the player wins. If a zombie reaches the left side of the line, a lawn mower—or other similar, relevant object—will activate and clear the row of any zombies, but if the lawn mower has already been used, and another zombie crosses, the game is over. === Replanted features === Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted contains up to 4K upscaled graphics and widescreen support, in comparison to the original game's static 800x600 resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio. Replanted now has full controller support and features local multiplayer modes ported from the original game's seventh generation console ports: co-op, where two players play together with assigned roles; and Versus, where one plays as the plants and the other as the zombies. No online multiplayer is planned, however support for Steam Remote Play was later added in a patch as an alternative for Windows users. Replanted also contains quality-of-life features. Gameplay can now be sped up by the player's will, with a max speed increase of 2.5x. Sun icons can now be mass collected using the "Sun Magnet." On Windows, players can quick-select plants from their seed bank using the number keys as hotkeys. Replanted also introduces two new additional game modes. "Cloudy Day" is a set of non-linear levels in the Adventure campaign. These levels only allow Sunflowers as sun-producing plants. During these levels, the amount of sun dropped from the sky and produced by plants are lowered. At certain times, rain clouds will move over the lawn. While these clouds are present, sun will stop appearing from the sky and from Sunflowers. However, all plants will cost around half their original price and have significantly faster recharge times. "R.I.P. Mode" is a harder difficulty of the Adventure campaign, but the player is forced back to the beginning if they lose a single level. Replanted additionally features "bonus levels" included as non-linear levels in the Adventure campaign. These include 10 new minigames that were previously unused in the original game. In a later update, Replanted added "Survival: Endless" levels to all five areas of the game instead of just the daytime pool. == Development == The existence of a Plants vs. Zombies remaster was revealed in an interview with Janet Robin from The String Revolution, who they did a vinyl collaboration with the franchise in 2025 with Iam8bit. Janet stated that EA commissioned them to record an acoustic composition of the track "Crazy Dave" to be used for an "anniversary edition" of the game. The song would be additionally be a tribute to the song "Bad Guy", which artist Billie Eilish has stated to be somewhat similar to the track. Plants vs. Zombies Replanted was officially announced in a Nintendo Direct presentation in late July 2025. As an incentive, people who pre-ordered the game are given an in-game retro-styled skin of the Peashooter. Replanted was showcased at PAX West on August 25, 2025. A dev diary for Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted was uploaded to YouTube on October 17, 2025. The video features Nick Reinhart, Jake Neri, and Matt Townsend. A developer panel for the game was available during TwitchCon 2025. == Release == Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted was released for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and personal computers on October 23, 2025. It was leaked onto the internet on October 17, 2025. Players discovered multiple software bugs, and multiple assets alleged to be upscaled by generative artificial intelligence were found, leading to backlash. Numerous bugs were fixed in a day-one patch on October 23, 2025. == Reception == === Critical response === The versions of Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted for Windows, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic, while the Xbox Series X version received "mixed or average" reviews. According to OpenCritic, 57% of critics recommended it. IGN's Alessandro Fillari called it "a good way to get re-acquainted with one of the quirkiest puzzle-strategy games of the 2000s", while acknowledging its questionable decisions. Shacknews' David Craddock said it was his favorite version of Plants vs. Zombies, stating, "it packs everything fans loved about the original game, plus lots more" while justifying its US$20 price. The Verge described Replanted as "a time capsule from a simpler, happier time". Kyle Hilliard from Game Informer praised its faithfulness, complimenting the new animations and character designs that did not alter its memorability. Noah Hunter for Final Weapon described the remake as solid, though criticized the lack of certain features and containing bugs that gate it from being excellent. Ben Lyons from Gamereactor stated Replanted is the same as the original overall, despite believing the £18 price is not justified. === Original developers === Rich Werner, the original game's character designer, claims that some concept art contained in the game, speculated to be for Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare (2014), did not originate from the original's development. Werner also stated that concept art for the Disco Zombie is fabricated; the design for the Disco Zombie was created after the estate of Michael Jackson requested the original Dancing Zombie, who resembles Michael Jackson from his Thriller music video, be removed from the game. On October 19, 2026, composer Laura Shigihara expressed her dissatisfaction with the lack of dynamic music in the game. Dynamic music would later be implemented in a later patch. In an interview featuring Rich Werner and user interface designer Matt Holmberg on April 29, 2026, Werner revealed that he and Shigihara were contacted by EA to make a music video to market Replanted. However, after the game was leaked, Werner's response on social media led EA to cancel the collaboration.
Tamarin Prover
Tamarin Prover is a computer software program for formal verification of cryptographic protocols. It has been used to verify Transport Layer Security 1.3, ISO/IEC 9798, DNP3 Secure Authentication v5, WireGuard, and the PQ3 Messaging Protocol of Apple iMessage. Tamarin is an open source tool, written in Haskell, built as a successor to an older verification tool called Scyther. Tamarin has automatic proof features, but can also be self-guided. In Tamarin lemmas that representing security properties are defined. After changes are made to a protocol, Tamarin can verify if the security properties are maintained. The results of a Tamarin execution will either be a proof that the security property holds within the protocol, an example protocol run where the security property does not hold, or Tamarin could potentially fail to halt.
Self-management (computer science)
Self-management is the process by which computer systems manage their own operation without human intervention. Self-management technologies are expected to pervade the next generation of network management systems. The growing complexity of modern networked computer systems is a limiting factor in their expansion. The increasing heterogeneity of corporate computer systems, the inclusion of mobile computing devices, and the combination of different networking technologies like WLAN, cellular phone networks, and mobile ad hoc networks make the conventional, manual management difficult, time-consuming, and error-prone. More recently, self-management has been suggested as a solution to increasing complexity in cloud computing. An industrial initiative towards realizing self-management is the Autonomic Computing Initiative (ACI) started by IBM in 2001. The ACI defines the following four functional areas: Self-configuration Auto-configuration of components Self-healing Automatic discovery, and correction of faults; automatically applying all necessary actions to bring system back to normal operation Self-optimization Automatic monitoring and control of resources to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined requirements Self-protection Proactive identification and protection from arbitrary attacks
GITEX Vietnam
GITEX AI Vietnam is an upcoming technology exhibition and conference scheduled to take place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on 1–2 October 2026. The event is organised by KAOUN International in partnership with the Dubai World Trade Centre and the Vietnam National Innovation Center (NIC). It is part of the global GITEX network of technology exhibitions. The event supported by Vietnam's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Science and Technology. == Activity == GITEX AI Vietnam was announced in 2025 as part of GITEX's expansion into Southeast Asia. Its launch coincides with Vietnam's National Innovation Week. Media reports linked to the announcement projected Vietnam's digital economy could reach around US$200 billion by 2030. The event includes exhibitions, conferences, and networking sessions. Co-located platforms include AI Everything Vietnam, Startups North Star Vietnam, GITEX Cyber Valley Vietnam, and FDX Vietnam. Expected participants include policymakers, technology companies, startups, investors, and researchers.