KeyBase is a database and web application for managing and deploying interactive taxonomic keys for plants and animals developed by the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. KeyBase provides a medium where pathway keys which were traditionally developed for print and other classical types of media, can be used more effectively in the internet environment. The platform uses a concept called "keys" which can be easily linked together, joined with other keys, or merged into larger other seamless keys groups, with each still available to be browsed independently. Keys in the KeyBase database can be filtered and displayed in a variety of ways, filters, and formats.
Photo-consistency
In computer vision, photo-consistency determines whether a given voxel is occupied. A voxel is considered to be photo consistent when its color appears to be similar to all the cameras that can see it. Most voxel coloring or space carving techniques require using photo consistency as a check condition in Image-based modeling and rendering applications. == Usage == 3D Volumetric Reconstruction. Image registration. Multi-view reconstruction.
Engineering Historical Memory
Engineering Historical Memory (EHM) is an online database in the digital humanities, serving as an open-access research tool for primary historical materials focused on 11th to 15th century Afro-Eurasia. It adopts computational methods to make historical documents machine-understandable. EHM parses traditional artifacts such as historical maps, travel accounts, chronicles and codices into computer-readable formats, and links them to secondary multi-media references, a process referred to as the "automatic narrative generation". This approach generates cultural narratives and facilitates interaction with the historical artifacts, making them accessible to audiences from various backgrounds. == History == EHM was first theorised in 2007 by researcher Andrea Nanetti when he was a visiting scholar at Princeton University, and the preliminary test results were published between 2008 and 2011. In 2013, the EHM research team was set up in Singapore following Nanetti's professorship at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Two years later, after receiving several Microsoft research grants, EHM went live on Microsoft Azure. In 2018, the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CoHASS) at NTU Singapore formed the Digital Humanities Research Cluster, as part of which, EHM has been an ongoing interdisciplinary research project led by Nanetti. Partnering with international educational and cultural institutions such as Ca' Foscari University of Venice, University of Florence, Taylor & Francis Group, Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), and SenticNet, EHM has been supported by over 130 scholars and engineers. == Applications == Primary historical materials on EHM are curated into several categories, including maps, travel accounts, chronicles, codices, sites, archival documents, and paintings, such as the Morosini Codex (listed under Chronicles) and Pope Gregory X's Privilege for the Holy Monastery of St Catherine of Sinai (listed under Archival Documents). EHM has been adopted by cultural organisations as an exhibition and research tool in the digital humanities field. An example is the publication of a digital interactive edition of Fra Mauro's Map of the World on EHM, a collaboration project between NTU Singapore and the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana of Venice. The digitisation process of the map on EHM involved transcribing and geo-referencing the textual content in the 15th-century map, followed by creating semantic annotations to connect the map's content with related secondary data sources. The e-map was subsequently adopted and launched online by Museo Galileo in March 2022 and incorporated into the virtual exhibition "Venezia and Suzhou: Water Cities along the Silk Roads" (online, September-December 2022). In 2024, the Fra Mauro's Map of the World application on EHM was awarded the Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize (DHMS) by the Medieval Academy of America. Image-Based Video Search Engine is another experimental project under the EHM scope led by the research teams at Delft University of Technology (TUDelft) and NTU Singapore. This ongoing project aims to improve the efficiency of retrieving targeted objects from audio-visuals. == Awards == In 2021, EHM won the GLAMi Awards (MuseWeb Conference - Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums Innovation awards) in the "Resources for Scholars and Researchers" category. In the same year, EHM was a Falling Walls finalist for Science Breakthrough of the Year in the category Social Sciences and Humanities after nominated by the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. In April 2022, the Italian National Commission for UNESCO has selected and sent the EHM project to the organisers of the "Jikji Memory of the World" Award for final evaluation. In January 2024, the Medieval Academy of America announced its 2024 Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize (DHMS) goes to the Fra Mauro's Map of the World application on EHM.
VK Video
VK Video is an internet video hosting service launched by VK (formerly known as Mail.ru Group) in 2021. It is positioned as a Russian alternative to the international platform YouTube. == History == The "VK Video" service began operations on October 15, 2021, following the merger of video platforms belonging to the social networks "VKontakte" and "Odnoklassniki". The launch of "VK Video" was managed by a team of executives led by VKontakte CEO Marina Krasnova, who worked at the company until 2023. Its launch was intended as an alternative to the international platform YouTube, which Russian authorities sought to replace with "domestic analogs. Key differences of the Russian service became the presence of pirated materials. Videos from the American video hosting site were uploaded en masse to "VK Video," which even caused the service to be temporarily blocked by YouTube. From 2022, to attract users, VKontakte's management bet on working with famous bloggers, specifically purchasing the shows "What Happened Next?" (ChBD) and "Vnutri Lapenko". Among the bloggers recruited to promote the service was the popular video blogger Vlad A4. An additional advantage for creators was the availability of monetization, which had been unavailable on YouTube for users from the Russian Federation since 2022. In September 2023, a separate "VK Video" mobile app appeared. In total, by the end of 2023, the monthly audience of "VK Video" reached 67.9 million users (which is almost 30 million less than YouTube). In the summer of 2024, following the blocking of YouTube in Russia, the service's traffic grew sharply: in August, its audience increased by more than two times compared to July. In the same month, "VK Video" took second place in downloads among free apps in the App Store and third in Google Play. In December 2024, the service received its own domain: vkvideo.ru. For the first time, "VK Video" managed to surpass YouTube in monthly audience in Russia in July 2025: the Russian service attracted 76.4 million viewers, whereas YouTube's reach amounted to 74.9 million people. == Platform features == On "VK Video," a view is recorded from the first second, whereas on YouTube it is only from the thirtieth. At the same time, a significant portion of comments are left by bots. For videos from the platform's most popular bloggers, the engagement level (likes to views) does not reach 4%. The "Trends" section most often features videos from large channels where the ratio of likes to views does not exceed 2%. == Management == In April 2025, the post of General Director of "VK Video" was taken by Marianna Maksimovskaya. From June 2022 to July 2024, the development of the platform was led by Fyodor Yezhov, who was primarily responsible for its technical direction. == Awards == In 2023, VK Video was awarded the Runet Prize in the "Science, Technology and Innovation" category.
Open-source software security
Open-source software security is the measure of assurance or guarantee in the freedom from danger and risk inherent to an open-source software system. == Implementation debate == === Benefits === Proprietary software forces the user to accept the level of security that the software vendor is willing to deliver and to accept the rate that patches and updates are released. It is assumed that any compiler that is used creates code that can be trusted, but it has been demonstrated by Ken Thompson that a compiler can be subverted using a compiler backdoor to create faulty executables that are unwittingly produced by a well-intentioned developer. With access to the source code for the compiler, the developer has at least the ability to discover if there is any mal-intention. Kerckhoffs' principle is based on the idea that an enemy can steal a secure military system and not be able to compromise the information. His ideas were the basis for many modern security practices, and followed that security through obscurity is a bad practice. === Drawbacks === Simply making source code available does not guarantee review. An example of this occurring is when Marcus Ranum, an expert on security system design and implementation, released his first public firewall toolkit. At one time, there were over 2,000 sites using his toolkit, but only 10 people gave him any feedback or patches. Having a large amount of eyes reviewing code can "lull a user into a false sense of security". Having many users look at source code does not guarantee that security flaws will be found and fixed. == Metrics and models == There are a variety of models and metrics to measure the security of a system. These are a few methods that can be used to measure the security of software systems. === Number of days between vulnerabilities === It is argued that a system is most vulnerable after a potential vulnerability is discovered, but before a patch is created. By measuring the number of days between the vulnerability and when the vulnerability is fixed, a basis can be determined on the security of the system. There are a few caveats to such an approach: not every vulnerability is equally bad, and fixing a lot of bugs quickly might not be better than only finding a few and taking a little bit longer to fix them, taking into account the operating system, or the effectiveness of the fix. === Poisson process === The Poisson process can be used to measure the rates at which different people find security flaws between open and closed source software. The process can be broken down by the number of volunteers Nv and paid reviewers Np. The rates at which volunteers find a flaw is measured by λv and the rate that paid reviewers find a flaw is measured by λp. The expected time that a volunteer group is expected to find a flaw is 1/(Nv λv) and the expected time that a paid group is expected to find a flaw is 1/(Np λp). === Morningstar model === By comparing a large variety of open source and closed source projects a star system could be used to analyze the security of the project similar to how Morningstar, Inc. rates mutual funds. With a large enough data set, statistics could be used to measure the overall effectiveness of one group over the other. An example of such as system is as follows: 1 Star: Many security vulnerabilities. 2 Stars: Reliability issues. 3 Stars: Follows best security practices. 4 Stars: Documented secure development process. 5 Stars: Passed independent security review. === Coverity scan === Coverity in collaboration with Stanford University has established a new baseline for open-source quality and security. The development is being completed through a contract with the Department of Homeland Security. They are utilizing innovations in automated defect detection to identify critical types of bugs found in software. The level of quality and security is measured in rungs. Rungs do not have a definitive meaning, and can change as Coverity releases new tools. Rungs are based on the progress of fixing issues found by the Coverity Analysis results and the degree of collaboration with Coverity. They start with Rung 0 and currently go up to Rung 2. Rung 0 The project has been analyzed by Coverity's Scan infrastructure, but no representatives from the open-source software have come forward for the results. Rung 1 At rung 1, there is collaboration between Coverity and the development team. The software is analyzed with a subset of the scanning features to prevent the development team from being overwhelmed. Rung 2 There are 11 projects that have been analyzed and upgraded to the status of Rung 2 by reaching zero defects in the first year of the scan. These projects include: AMANDA, ntp, OpenPAM, OpenVPN, Overdose, Perl, PHP, Postfix, Python, Samba, and Tcl.
17LIVE
17LIVE is an international entertainment platform. As of 2024, 17LIVE is the #3 live broadcasting platform globally, formed by its flagship live stream app 17LIVE (LIVIT in English markets), MEME Live and live stream e-commerce platforms HandsUP and OrderPally. == History == 17LIVE was first founded in Taiwan in 2015 by Jeffery Huang. The company has maintained its leading position since its entry into the Japan market in 2017, becoming the biggest platform for live entertainment in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other countries. In 2017, 17 closed out US$33M in series B round to merge with dating software Paktor, with Joseph Phua (Co-founder of Paktor) taking over the leadership of 17LIVE as CEO and Co-founder, as well as to enter the Japan and Hong Kong market. Within one year, 17 Media became the #1 market leader in Japan. In 2018, the company raised $25M in series C round as it got ready for US IPO, which failed to materialize. 17LIVE had an unsuccessful US IPO attempt in 2018. Since then, the company reformed and transformed the business. Some key initiatives include the hiring of current CEO Hirofumi Ono, spin-off of Paktor (dating software business unit), full buy-out of founder Jeffery Huang, acquisition of MEME and HandsUp, and more. Despite the failed IPO attempt, the company continued to push for international expansion, including creating ‘LIVIT’ for the English-speaking markets to enter US, India, and North Africa. In 2019, 17's flagship live streaming app reached 10M downloads in Japan, and the business continues to push for both organic and inorganic expansion. Some key M&A highlights in the year include the acquisition of MEME Live in Southeast Asia, as well as HandsUp, a live e-commerce platform. In 2020, M17 closed out $26.5M in Series D round to continue organic growth in Japan, US and Middle East. In the same year, the company also sold its dating app business, Parktor, to rationalise M17 into a live-stream pure play business, followed by the appointment of its current Chairman, Joseph Phua, and previous Global CEO, Hirofumi Ono. With the buy-out and departure of founder Jeff Huang, the parent holding company M17 Entertainment Limited was officially renamed as 17 LIVE Group. An estimated 60 million users registered in 154 countries and territories in April 2022. In 2022, September, 17LIVE announced Group CEO Hirofumi Ono steps down. Alex Lien takes over the leadership as new Group COO; Jing Shen Ng appointed Group CTO. In 2023, March, 17LIVE announced Alex Lien promoted to Global CEO. Kenta Masuda appointed as Global CFO. === Collaboration with Ayumi Hamasaki === To celebrate its 4th anniversary, 17LIVE collaborated with Japanese singer-songwriter Ayumi Hamasaki, who led the 17LIVE 4th Anniversary meets Ayumi Hamasaki series starting October 18, 2021. Along with composer and arranger Yuta Nakano, Hamasaki judged auditioning artists competing for the chance to work with her and her production team for a debut single. The series was streamed live on the 17LIVE website, the final airing on November 11. The eventual winner was named as Yoshitaka_song. When asked why she collaborated with 17LIVE as a producer, Hamasaki commented: "Although the world has become like this (during COVID-19), I believe that the art of entertainment can give people dreams, hope, courage, and strength. I hope that kind of light will continue to shine through the entertainment industry." == Features == On 17LIVE, artists (LIVERs) are able to broadcast live, and post photos and videos from their album. The app has been designed for LIVERs to simply open the App, and start sharing contents without the need to edit or professionally curate their videos. The platform cultivates LIVERs, supports them with a local content management team, and provides artists with various functions, such as real time chatting, gifting, fan clubs, interactive competition and events. Today, 17LIVE has 46 thousands contracted artists and more than 2.3 million MAU, who spend 44 minutes on the platform every day. 17LIVE continues to advocate content-driven philosophy and delivers diverse topics, from politics and music to entertainment, to broaden its audience groups. 17LIVE also hosts offline flash events and concerts to attract new users and support LIVERs better connect with their fans. == Operation == 17LIVE has over 700 employees globally. The app provides few monetization models for LIVERs on the platform, including: Gifting: user / fans buy virtual gifts on the app to send to their favored LIVERs. Subscription: monthly subscription fan club service for access to exclusive content Pay-per-view: ticket service for online streaming concerts E-commerce: live e-commerce platform In the past, 17LIVE has encountered some regulatory headwinds with reported incidents of inappropriate livestream content on the platform. The incidents were direct results of the lack of oversight and supervision capability in place in the business at the time. Over the years, 17LIVE claims to have put in tremendous manpower and effort into improving, monitoring and maintaining control over both the live stream content and the KYC procedures and systems.
Graphics
Graphics (from Ancient Greek γραφικός (graphikós) 'pertaining to drawing, painting, writing, etc.') are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, in typesetting and the graphic arts, and in educational and recreational software. Images that are generated by a computer are called computer graphics. Examples are photographs, drawings, line art, mathematical graphs, line graphs, charts, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings, or other images. Graphics often combine text, illustration, and color. Graphic design may consist of the deliberate selection, creation, or arrangement of typography alone, as in a brochure, flyer, poster, web site, or book without any other element. The objective can be clarity or effective communication, association with other cultural elements, or merely the creation of a distinctive style. Graphics can be functional or artistic. The latter can be a recorded version, such as a photograph, or an interpretation by a scientist to highlight essential features, or an artist, in which case the distinction with imaginary graphics may become blurred. It can also be used for architecture. == History == The earliest graphics known to anthropologists studying prehistoric periods are cave paintings and markings on boulders, bone, ivory, and antlers, which were created during the Upper Palaeolithic period from 40,000 to 10,000 B.C. or earlier. Many of these were found to record astronomical, seasonal, and chronological details. Some of the earliest graphics and drawings are known to the modern world, from almost 6,000 years ago, are that of engraved stone tablets and ceramic cylinder seals, marking the beginning of the historical periods and the keeping of records for accounting and inventory purposes. Records from Egypt predate these and papyrus was used by the Egyptians as a material on which to plan the building of pyramids; they also used slabs of limestone and wood. From 600 to 250 BC, the Greeks played a major role in geometry. They used graphics to represent their mathematical theories such as the Circle Theorem and the Pythagorean theorem. In art, "graphics" is often used to distinguish work in a monotone and made up of lines, as opposed to painting. === Drawing === Drawing generally involves making marks on a surface by applying pressure from a tool or moving a tool across a surface. In which a tool is always used as if there were no tools it would be art. Graphical drawing is an instrumental guided drawing. === Printmaking === Woodblock printing, including images is first seen in China after paper was invented (about A.D. 105). In the West, the main techniques have been woodcut, engraving and etching, but there are many others. ==== Etching ==== Etching is an intaglio method of printmaking in which the image is incised into the surface of a metal plate using an acid. The acid eats the metal, leaving behind roughened areas, or, if the surface exposed to the acid is very thin, burning a line into the plate. The use of the process in printmaking is believed to have been invented by Daniel Hopfer (c. 1470–1536) of Augsburg, Germany, who decorated armour in this way. Etching is also used in the manufacturing of printed circuit boards and semiconductor devices. === Line art === Line art is a rather non-specific term sometimes used for any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a (usually plain) background, without gradations in shade (darkness) or hue (color) to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects. Line art is usually monochromatic, although lines may be of different colors. === Illustration === An illustration is a visual representation such as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that stresses the subject more than form. The aim of an illustration is to elucidate or decorate a story, poem or piece of textual information (such as a newspaper article), traditionally by providing a visual representation of something described in the text. The editorial cartoon, also known as a political cartoon, is an illustration containing a political or social message. Illustrations can be used to display a wide range of subject matter and serve a variety of functions, such as: giving faces to characters in a story displaying a number of examples of an item described in an academic textbook (e.g. A Typology) visualizing step-wise sets of instructions in a technical manual communicating subtle thematic tone in a narrative linking brands to the ideas of human expression, individuality, and creativity making a reader laugh or smile for fun (to make laugh) funny === Graphs === A graph or chart is a graphic that represents tabular or numeric data. Charts are often used to make it easier to understand large quantities of data and the relationships between different parts of the data. === Diagrams === A diagram is a simplified and structured visual representation of concepts, ideas, constructions, relations, statistical data, etc., used to visualize and clarify the topic. === Symbols === A symbol, in its basic sense, is a representation of a concept or quantity; i.e., an idea, object, concept, quality, etc. In more psychological and philosophical terms, all concepts are symbolic in nature, and representations for these concepts are simply token artifacts that are allegorical to (but do not directly codify) a symbolic meaning, or symbolism. === Maps === A map is a simplified depiction of a space, a navigational aid which highlights relations between objects within that space. Usually, a map is a two-dimensional, geometrically accurate representation of a three-dimensional space. One of the first 'modern' maps was made by Waldseemüller. === Photography === One difference between photography and other forms of graphics is that a photographer, in principle, just records a single moment in reality, with seemingly no interpretation. However, a photographer can choose the field of view and angle, and may also use other techniques, such as various lenses to choose the view or filters to change the colors. In recent times, digital photography has opened the way to an infinite number of fast, but strong, manipulations. Even in the early days of photography, there was controversy over photographs of enacted scenes that were presented as 'real life' (especially in war photography, where it can be very difficult to record the original events). Shifting the viewer's eyes ever so slightly with simple pinpricks in the negative could have a dramatic effect. The choice of the field of view can have a strong effect, effectively 'censoring out' other parts of the scene, accomplished by cropping them out or simply not including them in the photograph. This even touches on the philosophical question of what reality is. The human brain processes information based on previous experience, making us see what we want to see or what we were taught to see. Photography does the same, although the photographer interprets the scene for their viewer. === Engineering drawings === An engineering drawing is a type of drawing and is technical in nature, used to fully and clearly define requirements for engineered items. It is usually created in accordance with standardized conventions for layout, nomenclature, interpretation, appearance (such as typefaces and line styles), size, etc. === Computer graphics === There are two types of computer graphics: raster graphics, where each pixel is separately defined (as in a digital photograph), and vector graphics, where mathematical formulas are used to draw lines and shapes, which are then interpreted at the viewer's end to produce the graphic. Using vectors results in infinitely sharp graphics and often smaller files, but, when complex, like vectors take time to render and may have larger file sizes than a raster equivalent. In 1950, the first computer-driven display was attached to MIT's Whirlwind I computer to generate simple pictures. This was followed by MIT's TX-0 and TX-2, interactive computing which increased interest in computer graphics during the late 1950s. In 1962, Ivan Sutherland invented Sketchpad, an innovative program that influenced alternative forms of interaction with computers. In the mid-1960s, large computer graphics research projects were begun at MIT, General Motors, Bell Labs, and Lockheed Corporation. Douglas T. Ross of MIT developed an advanced compiler language for graphics programming. S.A.Coons, also at MIT, and J. C. Ferguson at Boeing, began work in sculptured surfaces. GM developed their DAC-1 system, and other companies, such as Douglas, Lockheed, and McDonnell, also made significant developments. In 1968, ray tracing was first described by Arthur Appel of the IBM Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N