POODLE (which stands for "Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption") is a security vulnerability which takes advantage of the fallback to SSL 3.0. If attackers successfully exploit this vulnerability, on average, they only need to make 256 SSL 3.0 requests to reveal one byte of encrypted messages. Bodo Möller, Thai Duong and Krzysztof Kotowicz from the Google Security Team discovered this vulnerability; they disclosed the vulnerability publicly on October 14, 2014 (despite the paper being dated "September 2014"). On December 8, 2014, a variation of the POODLE vulnerability that affected TLS was announced. The CVE-ID associated with the original POODLE attack is CVE-2014-3566. F5 Networks filed for CVE-2014-8730 as well, see POODLE attack against TLS section below. == Prevention == To mitigate the POODLE attack, one approach is to completely disable SSL 3.0 on the client side and the server side. However, some old clients and servers do not support TLS 1.0 and above. Thus, the authors of the paper on POODLE attacks also encourage browser and server implementation of TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV, which will make downgrade attacks impossible. Another mitigation is to implement "anti-POODLE record splitting". It splits the records into several parts and ensures none of them can be attacked. However the problem of the splitting is that, though valid according to the specification, it may also cause compatibility issues due to problems in server-side implementations. A full list of browser versions and levels of vulnerability to different attacks (including POODLE) can be found in the article Transport Layer Security. Opera 25 implemented this mitigation in addition to TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV. Google's Chrome browser and their servers had already supported TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV. Google stated in October 2014 it was planning to remove SSL 3.0 support from their products completely within a few months. Fallback to SSL 3.0 has been disabled in Chrome 39, released in November 2014. SSL 3.0 has been disabled by default in Chrome 40, released in January 2015. Mozilla disabled SSL 3.0 in Firefox 34 and ESR 31.3, which were released in December 2014, and added support of TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV in Firefox 35. Microsoft published a security advisory to explain how to disable SSL 3.0 in Internet Explorer and Windows OS, and on October 29, 2014, Microsoft released a fix which disables SSL 3.0 in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista / Server 2003 and above and announced a plan to disable SSL 3.0 by default in their products and services within a few months. Microsoft disabled fallback to SSL 3.0 in Internet Explorer 11 for Protect Mode sites on February 10, 2015, and for other sites on April 14, 2015. Apple's Safari (on OS X 10.8, iOS 8.1 and later) mitigated against POODLE by removing support for all CBC protocols in SSL 3.0, however, this left RC4 which is also completely broken by the RC4 attacks in SSL 3.0. POODLE was completely mitigated in OS X 10.11 (El Capitan 2015) and iOS 9 (2015). To prevent the POODLE attack, some web services dropped support of SSL 3.0. Examples include CloudFlare and Wikimedia. Network Security Services version 3.17.1 (released on October 3, 2014) and 3.16.2.3 (released on October 27, 2014) introduced support for TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV, and NSS will disable SSL 3.0 by default in April 2015. OpenSSL versions 1.0.1j, 1.0.0o and 0.9.8zc, released on October 15, 2014, introduced support for TLS_FALLBACK_SCSV. LibreSSL version 2.1.1, released on October 16, 2014, disabled SSL 3.0 by default. == POODLE attack against TLS == A new variant of the original POODLE attack was announced on December 8, 2014. This attack exploits implementation flaws of CBC encryption mode in the TLS 1.0 - 1.2 protocols. Even though TLS specifications require servers to check the padding, some implementations fail to validate it properly, which makes some servers vulnerable to POODLE even if they disable SSL 3.0. SSL Pulse showed "about 10% of the servers are vulnerable to the POODLE attack against TLS" before this vulnerability was announced. The CVE-ID for F5 Networks' implementation bug is CVE-2014-8730. The entry in NIST's NVD states that this CVE-ID is to be used only for F5 Networks' implementation of TLS, and that other vendors whose products have the same failure to validate the padding mistake in their implementations like A10 Networks and Cisco Systems need to issue their own CVE-IDs for their implementation errors because this is not a flaw in the protocol but in the implementation. The POODLE attack against TLS was found to be easier to initiate than the initial POODLE attack against SSL. There is no need to downgrade clients to SSL 3.0, meaning fewer steps are needed to execute a successful attack.
Macromedia FreeHand
Macromedia FreeHand (formerly Aldus FreeHand) is a discontinued computer application for creating two-dimensional vector graphics oriented primarily to professional illustration, desktop publishing and content creation for the Web. FreeHand was similar in scope, intended market, and functionality to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Xara Designer Pro. Because of FreeHand's dedicated page layout and text control features, it also compares to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress. Professions using FreeHand include graphic design, illustration, cartography, fashion and textile design, product design, architects, scientific research, and multimedia production. FreeHand was created by Altsys Corporation in 1988 and licensed to Aldus Corporation, which released versions 1 through 4. In 1994, Aldus merged with Adobe Systems and because of the overlapping market with Adobe Illustrator, FreeHand was returned to Altsys by order of the Federal Trade Commission. Altsys was later bought by Macromedia, which released FreeHand versions 5 through 11 (FreeHand MX). In 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia and its product line which included FreeHand MX, under whose ownership it presently resides. Since 2003, FreeHand development has been discontinued; in the Adobe Systems catalog, FreeHand has been replaced by Adobe Illustrator. FreeHand MX continues to run under Windows 11 and under Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) within Rosetta, a PowerPC code emulator, and requires a registration patch supplied by Adobe. FreeHand 10 runs without problems on Mac OS X Snow Leopard with Rosetta enabled, and does not require a registration patch. Later versions of macOS can use a Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server virtual machine to emulate the required PowerPC support. == History == === Altsys and Aldus FreeHand === In 1984, James R. Von Ehr founded Altsys Corporation to develop graphics applications for personal computers. Based in Plano, Texas, the company initially produced font editing and conversion software; Fontastic Plus, Metamorphosis, and the Art Importer. Their premier PostScript font-design package, Fontographer, was released in 1986 and was the first such program on the market. With the PostScript background having been established by Fontographer, Altsys also developed FreeHand (originally called Masterpiece) as a Macintosh Postscript-based illustration program that used Bézier curves for drawing and was similar to Adobe Illustrator. FreeHand was announced as "... a Macintosh graphics program described as having all the features of Adobe's Illustrator plus drawing tools such as those in Mac Paint and Mac Draft and special effects similar to those in Cricket Draw." Seattle's Aldus Corporation acquired a licensing agreement with Altsys Corporation to release FreeHand along with their flagship product, Pagemaker, and Aldus FreeHand 1.0 was released in 1988. FreeHand's product name used intercaps; the F and H were capitalized. The partnership between the two companies continued with Altsys developing FreeHand and with Aldus controlling marketing and sales. After 1988, a competitive exchange between Aldus FreeHand and Adobe Illustrator ensued on the Macintosh platform with each software advancing new tools, achieving better speed, and matching significant features. Windows PC development also allowed Illustrator 2 (aka, Illustrator 88 on the Mac) and FreeHand 3 to release Windows versions to the graphics market. FreeHand 1.0 sold for $495 in 1988. It included the standard drawing tools and features as other draw programs including special effects in fills and screens, text manipulation tools, and full support for CMYK color printing. It was also possible to create and insert PostScript routines anywhere within the program. FreeHand performed in preview mode instead of keyline mode but performance was slower. FreeHand 2.0 sold for $495 in 1989. Besides improving on the features of FreeHand 1.0, FreeHand 2 added faster operation, Pantone colors, stroked text, flexible fill patterns and automatically import graphic assets from other programs. It added accurate control over a color monitor screen display, limited only by its resolution. FreeHand 3.0 sold for $595 in 1991. New features included resizable color, style, and layer panels including an Attributes menu. Also tighter precision of both the existing tools and aligning of objects. FH3 created compound Paths. Text could be converted to paths, applied to an ellipse, or made vertical. Carried over from version 1.0, FreeHand 3 suffered by having text entered into a dialog box instead of directly to the page. In October 1991, a 3.1 upgrade made FreeHand work with System 7 but additionally, it supported pressure-sensitive drawing which offered varying line widths with a users stroke. It improved element manipulation and added more import/export options. FreeHand 4.0 sold for $595 in 1994. Altsys ported FreeHand 3.0 to the NeXT system creating a new program named Virtuoso. Virtuoso continued its development at Altsys and version 2.0 of Virtuoso was feature-equivalent to FreeHand 4 (with the addition of NeXT-specific features such as Services and Display PostScript) and file compatible, with Virtuoso 2 able to open FreeHand 4 files and vice versa. A prominent feature of this version was the ability to type directly into the page and wrap inside or outside any shape. It also included drag-and-drop color imaging, a larger pasteboard, and a user interface that featured floating, rollup panels. The colors palette included a color mixer for adding new colors to the swatch list. Speed increases were made. In the same year of FreeHand 4 release, Adobe Systems announced merger plans with Aldus Corporation for $525 million. Fear about the end of competition between these two leading applications was reported in the media and expressed by customers (Illustrator versus FreeHand and Adobe Photoshop versus Aldus PhotoStyler.) Because of this overlapping of the market, Altsys stepped in by suing Aldus, saying that the merger deal was "a prima facie violation of a non-compete clause within the FreeHand licensing agreement." Altsys CEO Jim Von Ehr explained, "No one loves FreeHand more than we do. We will do whatever it takes to see it survive." The Federal Trade Commission issued a complaint against Adobe Systems on October 18, 1994, ordering a divestiture of FreeHand to "remedy the lessening of competition resulting from the acquisition as alleged in the Commission's complaint," and further, the FTC ordering, "That for a period of ten (10) years from the date on which this order becomes final, respondents shall not, without the prior approval of the Commission, directly or indirectly, through subsidiaries, partnerships, or otherwise .. Acquire any Professional Illustration Software or acquire or enter into any exclusive license to Professional Illustration Software;" (referring to FreeHand.) FreeHand was returned to Altsys with all licensing and marketing rights as well as Aldus FreeHand's customer list. === Macromedia Freehand === By late 1994, Altsys still retained all rights to FreeHand. Despite brief plans to keep it in-house to sell it along with Fontographer and Virtuoso, Altsys reached an agreement with the multimedia software company, Macromedia, to be acquired. This mutual agreement provided FreeHand and Fontographer a new home with ample resources for marketing, sales, and competition against the newly merged Adobe-Aldus company. Altsys would remain in Richardson, Texas, but would be renamed as the Digital Arts Group of Macromedia and was responsible for the continued development of FreeHand. Macromedia received FreeHand's 200,000 customers and expanded its traditional product line of multimedia graphics software to illustration and design graphics software. CEO James Von Ehr became a Macromedia vice-president until 1997 when he left to start another venture. FreeHand 5.0 sold for $595 in 1995. This version featured a more customizable and expanded workspace, multiple views, stronger design and editing tools, a report generator, spell check, paragraph styles, multicolor gradient fills up to 64 colors, speed improvements, and it accepted Illustrator plugins. In September 1995, a 5.5 upgrade added Photoshop plug-in support, PDF import capabilities, the Extract feature, inline graphics to text, improved auto-expanding text containers, the Crop feature, and the Create PICT Image feature. A FreeHand 5.5 upgrade was part of the FreeHand Graphics Studio (a suite that included Fontographer, Macromedia xRes image editing application, and Extreme 3D animation and modeling application). FreeHand 6.0 in 1996. This version only existed in beta. Some Freehand 7 prerelease versions were released under the Freehand 6 tag. FreeHand 7.0 sold for $399 in 1996, or $449 as part of the FreeHand Graphics Studio (see above.) Features included a redesigned user interface that allowed recombining Inspectors, Panel Tabs, Dockable Panels, Smart Cursors,
Markov chain central limit theorem
In the mathematical theory of random processes, the Markov chain central limit theorem has a conclusion somewhat similar in form to that of the classic central limit theorem (CLT) of probability theory, but the quantity in the role taken by the variance in the classic CLT has a more complicated definition. See also the general form of Bienaymé's identity. == Statement == Suppose that: the sequence X 1 , X 2 , X 3 , … {\textstyle X_{1},X_{2},X_{3},\ldots } of random elements of some set is a Markov chain that has a stationary probability distribution; and the initial distribution of the process, i.e. the distribution of X 1 {\textstyle X_{1}} , is the stationary distribution, so that X 1 , X 2 , X 3 , … {\textstyle X_{1},X_{2},X_{3},\ldots } are identically distributed. In the classic central limit theorem these random variables would be assumed to be independent, but here we have only the weaker assumption that the process has the Markov property; and g {\textstyle g} is some (measurable) real-valued function for which var ( g ( X 1 ) ) < + ∞ . {\textstyle \operatorname {var} (g(X_{1}))<+\infty .} Now let μ = E ( g ( X 1 ) ) , μ ^ n = 1 n ∑ k = 1 n g ( X k ) σ 2 := lim n → ∞ var ( n μ ^ n ) = lim n → ∞ n var ( μ ^ n ) = var ( g ( X 1 ) ) + 2 ∑ k = 1 ∞ cov ( g ( X 1 ) , g ( X 1 + k ) ) . {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\mu &=\operatorname {E} (g(X_{1})),\\{\widehat {\mu }}_{n}&={\frac {1}{n}}\sum _{k=1}^{n}g(X_{k})\\\sigma ^{2}&:=\lim _{n\to \infty }\operatorname {var} ({\sqrt {n}}{\widehat {\mu }}_{n})=\lim _{n\to \infty }n\operatorname {var} ({\widehat {\mu }}_{n})=\operatorname {var} (g(X_{1}))+2\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }\operatorname {cov} (g(X_{1}),g(X_{1+k})).\end{aligned}}} Then as n → ∞ , {\textstyle n\to \infty ,} we have n ( μ ^ n − μ ) → D Normal ( 0 , σ 2 ) , {\displaystyle {\sqrt {n}}({\hat {\mu }}_{n}-\mu )\ {\xrightarrow {\mathcal {D}}}\ {\text{Normal}}(0,\sigma ^{2}),} where the decorated arrow indicates convergence in distribution. == Monte Carlo Setting == The Markov chain central limit theorem can be guaranteed for functionals of general state space Markov chains under certain conditions. In particular, this can be done with a focus on Monte Carlo settings. An example of the application in a MCMC (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) setting is the following: Consider a simple hard spheres model on a grid. Suppose X = { 1 , … , n 1 } × { 1 , … , n 2 } ⊆ Z 2 {\displaystyle X=\{1,\ldots ,n_{1}\}\times \{1,\ldots ,n_{2}\}\subseteq Z^{2}} . A proper configuration on X {\displaystyle X} consists of coloring each point either black or white in such a way that no two adjacent points are white. Let χ {\displaystyle \chi } denote the set of all proper configurations on X {\displaystyle X} , N χ ( n 1 , n 2 ) {\displaystyle N_{\chi }(n_{1},n_{2})} be the total number of proper configurations and π be the uniform distribution on χ {\displaystyle \chi } so that each proper configuration is equally likely. Suppose our goal is to calculate the typical number of white points in a proper configuration; that is, if W ( x ) {\displaystyle W(x)} is the number of white points in x ∈ χ {\displaystyle x\in \chi } then we want the value of E π W = ∑ x ∈ χ W ( x ) N χ ( n 1 , n 2 ) {\displaystyle E_{\pi }W=\sum _{x\in \chi }{\frac {W(x)}{N_{\chi }{\bigl (}n_{1},n_{2}{\bigr )}}}} If n 1 {\displaystyle n_{1}} and n 2 {\displaystyle n_{2}} are even moderately large then we will have to resort to an approximation to E π W {\displaystyle E_{\pi }W} . Consider the following Markov chain on χ {\displaystyle \chi } . Fix p ∈ ( 0 , 1 ) {\displaystyle p\in (0,1)} and set X 1 = x 1 {\displaystyle X_{1}=x_{1}} where x 1 ∈ χ {\displaystyle x_{1}\in \chi } is an arbitrary proper configuration. Randomly choose a point ( x , y ) ∈ X {\displaystyle (x,y)\in X} and independently draw U ∼ U n i f o r m ( 0 , 1 ) {\displaystyle U\sim \mathrm {Uniform} (0,1)} . If u ≤ p {\displaystyle u\leq p} and all of the adjacent points are black then color ( x , y ) {\displaystyle (x,y)} white leaving all other points alone. Otherwise, color ( x , y ) {\displaystyle (x,y)} black and leave all other points alone. Call the resulting configuration X 1 {\displaystyle X_{1}} . Continuing in this fashion yields a Harris ergodic Markov chain { X 1 , X 2 , X 3 , … } {\displaystyle \{X_{1},X_{2},X_{3},\ldots \}} having π {\displaystyle \pi } as its invariant distribution. It is now a simple matter to estimate E π W {\displaystyle E_{\pi }W} with w n ¯ = ∑ i = 1 n W ( X i ) / n {\displaystyle {\overline {w_{n}}}=\sum _{i=1}^{n}W(X_{i})/n} . Also, since χ {\displaystyle \chi } is finite (albeit potentially large) it is well known that X {\displaystyle X} will converge exponentially fast to π {\displaystyle \pi } which implies that a CLT holds for w n ¯ {\displaystyle {\overline {w_{n}}}} . == Implications == Not taking into account the additional terms in the variance which stem from correlations (e.g. serial correlations in markov chain monte carlo simulations) can result in the problem of pseudoreplication when computing e.g. the confidence intervals for the sample mean.
Phraselator
The Phraselator is a weatherproof handheld language translation device developed by Applied Data Systems and VoxTec, a former division of the military contractor Marine Acoustics, located in Annapolis, Maryland, USA. It was designed to serve as a handheld computer device that translates English into one of 40 different languages. == The device == The Phraselator is a small speech translation PDA-sized device designed to aid in interpretation. The device does not produce synthesized speech like that utilized by Stephen Hawking; instead, it plays pre-recorded foreign language MP3 files. Users can select the phrase they wish to convey from an English list on the screen or speak into the device. It then uses speech recognition technology called DynaSpeak, developed by SRI International, to play the proper sound file. The accuracy of the speech recognition software is over 70 percent according to software developer Jack Buchanan. The device can also record replies for translation later. Pre-recorded phrases are stored on Secure Digital flash memory cards. A 128 MB card can hold up to 12,000 phrases in four or five languages. Users can download phrase modules from the official website, which contained over 300,000 phrases as of March 2005. Users can also construct their own custom phrase modules. Earlier devices were known to have run on an SA-1110 Strong Arm 206 MHz CPU with 32MB SDRAM and 32MB onboard Flash RAM. A newer model, the P2, was released in 2004 and developed according to feedback from U.S. soldiers. It translates one way from English to approximately 60 other languages. It has a directional microphone, a larger library of phrases and a longer battery life. The 2004 release was created by and utilizes a computer board manufactured by InHand Electronics, Inc. In the future, the device will be able to display pictures so users can ask questions such as "Have you seen this person?" Developer Ace Sarich notes that the device is inferior to human interpreter. Conclusions derived from a Nepal field test conducted by U.S. and Nepal based NGO Himalayan Aid in 2004 seemed to confirm Sarich's comparisons: The very concept of using a machine as a communication point between individuals seemed to actually encourage a more limited form of interaction between tester and respondent. Usually, when limited language skills are present between parties, the genuine struggle and desire to communicate acts as a display of good will – we openly display our weakness in this regard – and the result is a more relaxed and human encounter. This was not necessarily present with the Phraselator as all parties abandoned learning about each other and instead focused on learning how to work with the device. As a tool for bridging any cultural differences or communicating effectively at any length, the Phraselator would not be recommended. This device, at least in the form tested, would best be used in large-scale operations where there is no time for language training and there is a need to communicate fixed ideas, quickly, over the greatest distance by employing large amounts of unskilled users. Large humanitarian or natural disasters in remote areas of third-world countries might be an effective example. == Origin == The original idea for the device came from Lee Morin, a Navy doctor in Operation Desert Storm. To communicate with patients, he played Arabic audio files from his laptop. He informed Ace Sarich, the vice president of VoxTec, about the idea. VoxTec won a DARPA Small Business Innovation Research grant in early 2001 to develop a military-grade handheld phrase translator. During its development, the Phraselator was tested and evaluated by scientists from the Army Research Laboratory. The device was first field tested in Afghanistan in 2001. By 2002, about 500 Phraselators were built for soldiers around the world with another 250 ordered by the U.S. Special Forces. The device cost $2000 to develop and could convert spoken English into one of 200,000 recorded commands and questions in 30 languages. However, the device could only translate one-way. At the time, the only existing two-way voice translator that could convert speech back and forth between languages was the Audio Voice Translation Guide System, or TONGUES, which was developed by Carnegie Mellon University for Lockheed Martin. As part of a DARPA program known as the Spoken Language Communication and Translation System for Tactical Use, SRI International has further developed two-way translation software for use in Iraq called IraqComm in 2006 which contains a vocabulary of 40,000 English words and 50,000 words in Iraqi Arabic. == Notable users == The handheld translator was recently used by U.S. troops while providing relief to tsunami victims in early 2005. About 500 prototypes of the device were provided to U.S. military forces in Operation Enduring Freedom. Units loaded with Haitian dialects have been provided to U.S. troops in Haiti. Army military police have used it in Kandahar to communicate with POWs. In late 2004, the U.S. Navy began to augment some ships with a version of the device attached to large speakers in order to broadcast clear voice instructions up to 400 yards (370 m) away. Corrections officers and law enforcement in Oneida County, New York, have tested the device. Hospital emergency rooms and health departments have also evaluated it. Several Native American tribes such as the Choctaw Nation, the Ponca, and the Comanche Nation have also used the device to preserve their dying languages. Various law enforcement agencies, such as the Los Angeles Police Department, also use the phraselator in their patrol cars. == Awards == In March 2004, DARPA director Dr. Tony Tether presented the Small Business Innovative Research Award to the VoxTec division of Marine Acoustics at DARPATech 2004 in Anaheim, CA. The device was recently listed as one of "Ten Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World" in MIT's Technology Review. == Pop culture == Software developer Jack Buchanan believes that building a device similar to the fictional universal translator seen in Star Trek would be harder than building the Enterprise. The device was mentioned in a list of "Top 10 Star Trek Tech" on Space.com.
Stephen Wolfram
Stephen Wolfram ( WUUL-frəm; born 29 August 1959) is a British-American computer scientist, physicist, and businessman. He is known for his work in computer algebra and theoretical physics. In 2012, he was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. As a businessman, Wolfram is the founder and CEO of the software company Wolfram Research, where he works as chief designer of Mathematica and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine. == Early life == === Family === Stephen Wolfram was born in London in 1959 to Hugo and Sybil Wolfram, both German Jewish refugees to the United Kingdom. His maternal grandmother was British psychoanalyst Kate Friedlander. Wolfram's father, Hugo Wolfram, was a textile manufacturer and served as managing director of the Lurex Company—makers of the fabric Lurex. Wolfram's mother, Sybil Wolfram, was a Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Lady Margaret Hall at University of Oxford from 1964 to 1993. Wolfram is married to a mathematician. They have four children together. === Education === Wolfram was educated at Eton College, but left prematurely in 1976. As a young child, Wolfram had difficulties learning arithmetic. He entered St. John's College, Oxford, at age 17 and left in 1978 without graduating to attend the California Institute of Technology the following year, where he received a PhD in particle physics in 1980. Wolfram's thesis committee was composed of Richard Feynman, Peter Goldreich, Frank J. Sciulli, and Steven Frautschi, and chaired by Richard D. Field. == Early career == Wolfram, at the age of 15, began research in applied quantum field theory and particle physics and published scientific papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals; by the time he left Oxford, he had published ten such papers. Following his PhD, Wolfram joined the faculty at Caltech and became the youngest recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, at age 21. == Later career == === Complex systems and cellular automata === In 1983, Wolfram left for the School of Natural Sciences of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. By that time, he was no longer interested in particle physics. Instead, he began pursuing investigations into cellular automata, mainly with computer simulations. He produced a series of papers investigating the class of elementary cellular automata, conceiving the Wolfram code, a naming system for one-dimensional cellular automata, and a classification scheme for the complexity of their behaviour. He conjectured that the Rule 110 cellular automaton might be Turing complete, which a research assistant to Wolfram, Matthew Cook, later proved correct. Wolfram sued Cook and temporarily blocked publication of the work on Rule 110 for allegedly violating a non-disclosure agreement until Wolfram could publish the work in his controversial book A New Kind of Science. Wolfram's cellular-automata work came to be cited in more than 10,000 papers. In the mid-1980s, Wolfram worked on simulations of physical processes (such as turbulent fluid flow) with cellular automata on the Connection Machine alongside Richard Feynman and helped initiate the field of complex systems. In 1984, he was a participant in the Founding Workshops of the Santa Fe Institute, along with Nobel laureates Murray Gell-Mann, Manfred Eigen, and Philip Warren Anderson, and future laureate Frank Wilczek. In 1986, he founded the Center for Complex Systems Research (CCSR) at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. In 1987, he founded the journal Complex Systems. === Symbolic Manipulation Program === Wolfram led the development of the computer algebra system SMP (Symbolic Manipulation Program) in the Caltech physics department during 1979–1981. A dispute with the administration over the intellectual property rights regarding SMP—patents, copyright, and faculty involvement in commercial ventures—eventually led him to resign from Caltech. SMP was further developed and marketed commercially by Inference Corp. of Los Angeles during 1983–1988. === Mathematica === In 1986, Wolfram left the Institute for Advanced Study for the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, where he had founded their Center for Complex Systems Research, and started to develop the computer algebra system Mathematica, which was released on 23 June 1988, when he left academia. In 1987, he founded Wolfram Research, which continues to develop and market the program. === A New Kind of Science === From 1992 to 2002, Wolfram worked on his controversial book A New Kind of Science, which presents an empirical study of simple computational systems. Additionally, it argues that for fundamental reasons these types of systems, rather than traditional mathematics, are needed to model and understand complexity in nature. Wolfram's conclusion is that the universe is discrete in its nature, and runs on fundamental laws that can be described as simple programs. He predicts that a realization of this within scientific communities will have a revolutionary influence on physics, chemistry, biology, and most other scientific areas, hence the book's title. The book was met with skepticism and criticism that Wolfram took credit for the work of others and made conclusions without evidence to support them. === Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine === In March 2009, Wolfram announced Wolfram Alpha, an answer engine. Wolfram Alpha launched in May 2009, and a paid-for version with extra features launched in February 2012 that was met with criticism for its high price, which later dropped from $50 to $2. The engine is based on natural language processing and a large library of rules-based algorithms. The application programming interface allows other applications to extend and enhance Wolfram Alpha. === Touchpress === In 2010, Wolfram co-founded Touchpress with Theodore Gray, Max Whitby, and John Cromie. The company specialised in creating in-depth premium apps and games covering a wide range of educational subjects designed for children, parents, students, and educators. Touchpress published more than 100 apps. The company is no longer active. === Wolfram Language === In March 2014, at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) event, Wolfram officially announced the Wolfram Language as a new general multi-paradigm programming language, though it was previously available through Mathematica and not an entirely new programming language. The documentation for the language was pre-released in October 2013 to coincide with the bundling of Mathematica and the Wolfram Language on every Raspberry Pi computer with some controversy because of the proprietary nature of the Wolfram Language. While the Wolfram Language has existed for over 30 years as the primary programming language used in Mathematica, it was not officially named until 2014, and is not widely used. === Wolfram Physics Project === In April 2020, Wolfram announced the "Wolfram Physics Project" as an effort to reduce and explain all the laws of physics within a paradigm of a hypergraph that is transformed by minimal rewriting rules that obey the Church–Rosser property. The effort is a continuation of the ideas he originally described in A New Kind of Science. Wolfram claims that "From an extremely simple model, we're able to reproduce special relativity, general relativity and the core results of quantum mechanics." Physicists are generally unimpressed with Wolfram's claim, and say his results are non-quantitative and arbitrary. == Personal interests and activities == Wolfram has a log of personal analytics, including emails received and sent, keystrokes made, meetings and events attended, recordings of phone calls, and even physical movement dating back to the 1980s. In the preface of A New Kind of Science, he noted that he recorded over 100 million keystrokes and 100 mouse miles. He has said that personal analytics "can give us a whole new dimension to experiencing our lives." Wolfram was a scientific consultant for the 2016 film Arrival. He and his son Christopher Wolfram wrote some of the code featured on screen, such as the code in graphics depicting an analysis of the alien logograms, for which they used the Wolfram Language.
Tabletopia
Tabletopia is an online portal for users to play and create virtual tabletop games. The platform is developed by Tabletopia Inc and initially was released as a web browser based service after a successful crowdfunding campaign in August 2015. In December 2016 Tabletopia was released on Steam, and later in 2018 became available in AppStore and Google Play. == Gameplay == Tabletopia is a sandbox system for running any game. That means no AI or rules enforcement. Participating players will have to know how to play the game. Nevertheless, the platform has some automated actions available, like card-shuffling and dealing, dice-rolling, magnetic placement of components in special zones, hand management, and some others. Tabletopia also features ready game setups for various player numbers to facilitate gameplay. It also has customisable camera controls which let players save camera positions and switch between them using hot keys. People can use the Game Designer mode to design and create their own board games using the component library. They can then monetise the games with a 70/30 split to the game designer. == Development == Tabletopia was created in early 2014, by Tim Bokarev and his partners Artem Zinoviev and Dmitry Sergeev. These co-founders already had experience in the video and board games industry. Their other projects include Promo Interactive, an internet advertising agency, Playtox, a mobile MMORPG, Igrology, a game studio, and Tesera.ru, the main Russian-speaking board gaming portal. By Spring 2014, Artem, Dmitry and Tim created Tabletopia Inc. USA and started development. Tabletopia is a multinational crew that includes professionals from USA, Ukraine, Australia, Ireland, and Germany. The Kickstarter campaign in August 2015 earned $133,721 by 2,545 backers. Tabletopia received Green Light on Steam in September 2015 and was released on Steam in March 2016. The platform remained in Early Access until December 2016, when it was officially released on Steam and on the web. In February 2018 it was released as a stand-alone app for iOS tablets, and in September 2018 for Android tablets.
Maike Osborne
Maike Osborne (born Michael Osborne, 1982) is an Australian academic and scientist who serves as a professor of machine learning at University of Oxford in the Machine Learning Research Group in the Department of Engineering Science. In 2016 she co-founded Mind Foundry, an artificial intelligence company, along with fellow professor Stephen Roberts. == Education == She has a BEng in Mechanical Engineering and a BSc in both Pure Mathematics and Physics from the University of Western Australia. She has a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Oxford. == Career == Osborne has contributed to over 100 publications, and her work has received over 24,000 citations with an h-index of 46 according to Google Scholar. and has acted as principal or co-investigator for £10.6M of research funding. Her career has focused in particular on Bayesian approaches to AI and machine learning, named after the famous British statistician Thomas Bayes. Osborne's work has contributed to Probabilistic numerics, with Osborne co-authoring the first textbook on the subject. In 2013, Osborne co-authored a paper alongside Swedish-German economist Carl Benedikt Frey called "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation?". The paper has received over 13,000 citations and extensive media coverage. In 2023 Osborne gave oral evidence to the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on the subject of the "Governance of Artificial Intelligence". Her testimony received significant coverage around her warnings of the threat of "rogue AI". == Honors == She is also an Official Fellow of Exeter College, and St Peter's College, Oxford, a Fellow of the ELLIS society, and a Faculty Member of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance. She joined the Oxford Martin School as Lead Researcher on the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment in 2015. She is a Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems.