Roposo is an Indian video-sharing social media service, owned by Glance, a subsidiary of InMobi. Roposo provides a space where users can share posts related to different topics like food, comedy, music, poetry, fashion and travel. It is a platform where people express visually with homemade videos and photos. The app offers a TV-like browsing experience with user-generated content on its channels. Users can also use editing tools on the platform and upload their content. == History == Established in July 2014 under Relevant E-solutions Pvt. Ltd., Roposo is the brainchild of three IIT Delhi alumni – Mayank Bhangadia, Avinash Saxena, and Kaushal Shubhank. Under Bhangadia's leadership, the company pivoted from a fashion-based network into a short-form video platform with AI-powered moderation, and its journey was featured as a Harvard Business Publishing case study. In November 2019, Roposo was acquired by InMobi's Glance Digital Experience Pvt. Ltd.(the mobile content platform and part of the InMobi Group). When the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok was banned on 30 June 2020, the app saw a huge spike in users with several TikTok users registering on Roposo. == Technology == The open platform has some features such as a TV-like browsing, different channels, a chat feature that lets buyers and sellers converse directly through the platform, and creation tools such as an option to add voice-over, music and GIF stickers for videos and photos.
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on demand". It is commonly referred to as "the cloud". == Characteristics == In 2011, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) identified five "essential characteristics" for cloud systems. Below are the exact definitions according to NIST: On-demand self-service: "A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider." Broad network access: "Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations)." Resource pooling: " The provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand." Rapid elasticity: "Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time." Measured service: "Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service. By 2023, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) had expanded and refined the list. == History == The history of cloud computing extends to the 1960s, with the initial concepts of time-sharing becoming popularized via remote job entry (RJE). The "data center" model, where users submitted jobs to operators to run on mainframes, was predominantly used during this era. This period saw broad experimentation with making large-scale computing power more accessible through time-sharing, while optimizing infrastructure, platforms, and applications to improve efficiency for end users. The "cloud" metaphor for virtualized services dates to 1994, when it was used by General Magic for the universe of "places" that mobile agents in the Telescript environment could "go". The metaphor is credited to David Hoffman, a General Magic communications specialist, based on its long-standing use in networking and telecom. The expression cloud computing became more widely known in 1996 when Compaq Computer Corporation drew up a business plan for future computing and the Internet. The company's ambition was to supercharge sales with "cloud computing-enabled applications". The business plan foresaw that online consumer file storage would likely be commercially successful. As a result, Compaq decided to sell server hardware to internet service providers. In the 2000s, the application of cloud computing began to take shape with the establishment of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, which allowed developers to build applications independently. In 2006 Amazon Simple Storage Service, known as Amazon S3, and the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) were released. In 2008 NASA's development of the first open-source software for deploying private and hybrid clouds. The following decade saw the launch of various cloud services. In 2010, Microsoft launched Microsoft Azure, and Rackspace Hosting and NASA initiated an open-source cloud-software project, OpenStack. IBM introduced the IBM SmartCloud framework in 2011, and Oracle announced the Oracle Cloud in 2012. In December 2019, Amazon launched AWS Outposts, a service that extends AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to customer data centers, co-location spaces, or on-premises facilities. == Value proposition == Cloud computing can shorten time to market by offering pre-configured tools, scalable resources, and managed services, allowing users to focus on core business value rather than maintaining infrastructure. Cloud platforms can enable organizations and individuals to reduce upfront capital expenditures on physical infrastructure by shifting to an operational expenditure model, where costs scale with usage. Cloud platforms also offer managed services and tools, such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, and machine learning, which might otherwise require significant in-house expertise and infrastructure investment. While cloud computing can offer cost advantages through effective resource optimization, organizations often face challenges such as unused resources, inefficient configurations, and hidden costs without proper oversight and governance. Many cloud platforms provide cost management tools, such as AWS Cost Explorer and Azure Cost Management, and frameworks like FinOps have emerged to standardize financial operations in the cloud. Cloud computing also facilitates collaboration, remote work, and global service delivery by enabling secure access to data and applications from any location with an internet connection. Cloud providers offer various redundancy options for core services, such as managed storage and managed databases, though redundancy configurations often vary by service tier. Advanced redundancy strategies, such as cross-region replication or failover systems, typically require explicit configuration and may incur additional costs or licensing fees. Cloud environments operate under a shared responsibility model, where providers are typically responsible for infrastructure security, physical hardware, and software updates, while customers are accountable for data encryption, identity and access management (IAM), and application-level security. These responsibilities vary depending on the cloud service model—Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS)—with customers typically having more control and responsibility in IaaS environments and progressively less in PaaS and SaaS models, often trading control for convenience and managed services. == Adoption and suitability == The decision to adopt cloud computing or maintain on-premises infrastructure depends on factors such as scalability, cost structure, latency requirements, regulatory constraints, and infrastructure customization. Organizations with variable or unpredictable workloads, limited capital for upfront investments, or a focus on rapid scalability benefit from cloud adoption. Startups, SaaS companies, and e-commerce platforms often prefer the pay-as-you-go operational expenditure (OpEx) model of cloud infrastructure. Additionally, companies prioritizing global accessibility, remote workforce enablement, disaster recovery, and leveraging advanced services such as AI/ML and analytics are well-suited for the cloud. In recent years, some cloud providers have started offering specialized services for high-performance computing and low-latency applications, addressing some use cases previously exclusive to on-premises setups. On the other hand, organizations with strict regulatory requirements, highly predictable workloads, or reliance on deeply integrated legacy systems may find cloud infrastructure less suitable. Businesses in industries like defense, government, or those handling highly sensitive data often favor on-premises setups for greater control and data sovereignty. Additionally, companies with ultra-low latency requirements, such as high-frequency trading (HFT) firms, rely on custom hardware (e.g., FPGAs) and physical proximity to exchanges, which most cloud providers cannot fully replicate despite recent advancements. Similarly, tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon build their own data centers due to economies of scale, predictable workloads, and the ability to customize hardware and network infrastructure for optimal efficiency. However, these companies also use cloud services selectively for certain workloads and applications where it aligns with their operational needs. In practice, many organizations are increasingly adopting hybrid cloud architectures, combining on-premises infrastructure with cloud services. This approach allows businesses to balance scalability, cost-effectiveness, and control, offering the benefits of both deployment models while mitigating their respective limitations. == Challenges and limitations == One of the primary challenges of cloud computing, compared with traditional on-premises systems, is maintaining data security and privacy. Cloud users entrust their sensitive data to third-party providers, who may not have adequate measures to protect it from unau
Altibase
Altibase is a hybrid database, relational database management system manufactured by the Altibase Corporation. The software's hybrid architecture allows it to access both memory-resident and disk-resident tables using single interface. It supports both synchronous and asynchronous replication and offers real-time ACID compliance. Support is also offered for a variety of SQL standards and programming languages. Other important capabilities include data import and export, data encryption for security, multiple data access command sets, materialized view and temporary tables, and others. == History == From 1991 through 1997 the Mr. RT project was an in-memory database research project, conducted by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute a government-funded research organization in South Korea. Altibase was incorporated in 1999. Altibase acquired an in-memory database engine from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in February 2000, and commercialized the database in October of the same year. In 2001, Altibase changed the name of the in-memory database product from "Spiner" to "Altibase" in 2001. In 2004, Altibase integrated the in-memory database with a disk-resident database to create a hybrid DBMS, released version 4.0 and renamed it as ALTIBASE HDB. Altibase released version 5.5.1 and 6.1.1 in 2012, version 6.3.1 in November 2013, and 6.5.1 in May 2015. Altibase claims that this is the world's first hybrid DBMS. Altibase released its open source edition version 7.1, however, closed the source in 2023. In August 2023, Altibase released its cloud-optimized version 7.3. === Awards === In 2006, Received the Presidential Award at the Korea Software Awards In 2007, Selected as World-Class Product by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy In 2009, Awarded the Outstanding Product Award in China's Telecommunications Industry In 2009, Received Outstanding Product Award at the China Billing China 2009 Telecommunication Industry Awards In 2010, Commendation from the Minister of Knowledge Economy for Technological Practicalization In 2011, Received the Grand Prize at the 10th Software Enterprise Competitiveness Award In 2011, Selected as Top 10 Emerging Technologies and received Special Award at the Korea Technology Grand Prize In 2012, Awarded for Contributions to Military Manpower Administration In 2014~2016, Included in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Operational DBMS In 2015, Selected as Outstanding BSS by China Fujian Mobile. In 2023, Awarded as the Excellent Research and Development Institution by the Korean Ministry Science and ICT In 2023, Won the Global Premium Commercial Software Presidential Award at the 9th Global Commercial Software Grand Exhibition in Korea === Release === The first version, called Spiner, was released in 2000 for commercial use. It took half of the in-memory DBMS market share in South Korea. In 2002 the second version was released renamed to Altibase v2.0. By 2003, Altibase v3.0 was released and it entered the Chinese market. Released version 4.0 with hybrid architecture, combining RAM and disk databases, was released in 2004. In 2005 Altibase began working with Chinese telecommunications providers for billing systems, and some financial companies in Taiwan, China, for home trading systems. The software was certified by the Telecommunications Technology Association. The Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs gave it an award in 2006. Offices in China and United States opened in 2009. In 2011, version 5.5.1 was renamed it to HDB (for "hybrid database"). The Altibase Data Stream product for complex event processing was renamed DSM. The product received a Korean technology award. Altibase introduced certification services. In 2012, HDB Zeta and Extreme were announced, and DSM renamed to CEP. In 2013, yet another variant called XDB was announced, and the company received ISO/IEC 20000 certification. In 2018, Altibase went open source. Altibase went open source in February, 2018. Altibase Corp has made the decision to discontinue the Altibase 7.1 open source edition, effective March 17, 2023. As a result, the open-source edition of Altibase 7.1 will no longer be available for download or use. Altibase released version 7.3 in September, 2023, its notable feature is the world’s first hybrid partition, allowing data to be stored in both memory and on disk at the partition level. Version 7.3 also added parallel processing capabilities for high-speed performance in both partitioned and non-partitioned scenarios. Improving potential bottlenecks associated with Commit and logging that impact transaction performance, version 7.3 has achieved an approximately 490% enhancement in performance compared to previous versions. === Release history === == Clients == According to marketing research, Altibase have over 700 customers and more than 8,000 of installations and deployments, including 22 Fortune Global 500 Companies. Altibase's clients in the telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing, and utilities sectors include Bloomberg, AT&T, LG, Intel, LGU+, ETRADE, HP, UAT Inc., POSCO, SK Telecom, KT Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, Canon(Toshiba), Hanhwa, The South Korean Ministry of Defense, G-Market, CJ, and Chung-Ang University. === Global clients === Japan FX Prime, a foreign exchange services company Retela Crea Securities United States AT&T Implemented Altibase for its PS-LTE Safety network, where the Presence service plays a vital role. This service handles the reception and storage of user information, conducting real-time checks for online presence and location as needed. Canada Telus One of the major telecommunication companies. Utilizes Altibase for its operations involving real-time user management, processing high volumes of dedicated terminal data, and managing real-time location information (GIS) for terminals. Altibase contributes to the company's in-house solution for maintaining uninterrupted services during national disasters or similar situations, ensuring efficiency and reliability. China China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom The three major telecommunications companies. Utilize ALTIBASE HDB in 29 of 31 Chinese provinces. Turkish Ziraat Bank, Halk Bank, Deniz Bank, Garanti BBVA, TEB, Oyak Bank, QNB, Burgan Bank, and others. In 2018, Altibase entered the market through a partnership with ATP-Tradesoft, a subsidiary of Ata Holdings. Collaborating with ATP-Tradesoft. Altibase integrated into the Online Trading System XFront. This integration was well-received by major financial institutions and securities firms in Turkey. Altibase is currently implemented in the XFront Online Trading System, used by 13 significant financial institutions and banks in the Turkey. Thailand Bualuang Securities Altibase has been supplied its DBMS to support the construction of the online stock trading platform. Mongolia MobiCom The Mongolian telecommunication giant, has adopted Altibase’s 7.0 version for its mobile platform for storing the infrequently used data. Azerbaijan M1 highway Altibase has been supplied as the Database Management System (DBMS) for the electronic toll collection system. One of the most crucial transportation networks in the country. India State-owned Karur Vysya Bank In 2013, Altibase provided its hybrid database solution and was deployed for the online banking system === Industries === Telecommunications LGU+ SK Telecom KT Corporation AT&T Telus Financial services Shinhan Bank Woori Bank KakaoPay Securities Implemented Altibase in its stock trading system Leveraging Altibase's replication feature, along with offline replication through shared disk and adapter functionality, the system ensures a high level of availability and consistency, with a reliability rate of 99.999% even in the event of system failures. COREDAX Cryptocurrency market Altibase has entered into a strategic partnership by signing a database management system (DBMS) supply contract with the cryptocurrency exchange Bloomberg ETRADE Manufacturing Samsung Electronics LG POSCO Hanhwa Canon(Toshiba) Intel HP Utilities South Korean Ministry of Defense G-Market CJ UAT Inc. Chung-Ang University == Features == Altibase is a so-called "hybrid DBMS", meaning that it simultaneously supports access to both memory-resident and disk-resident tables via a single interface. It is compatible with Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux, and Windows. It supports the complete SQL standard, features Multiversion concurrency control (MVCC), implements Fuzzy and Ping-Pong Checkpointing for periodically backing up memory-resident data, and ships with Replication and Database Link functionality. High performance, large -capacity service Fast real-time data processing and large amounts of data stable Provide parallel processing architecture for large data management Developed and provided Hybrid Partitioned Table function for efficiency according to data personality High stability
Vanish (computer science)
Vanish was a project to "give users control over the lifetime of personal data stored on the web." It was led by Roxana Geambasu at the University of Washington. The project proposed to allow a user to enter information to send across the internet, thereby relinquishing control of it. However, the user can include an "expiration date," after which the information is no longer usable by anyone who may have a copy of it, even the creator. The Vanish approach was found to be vulnerable to a Sybil attack and thus insecure by a team called Unvanish from the University of Texas, University of Michigan, and Princeton. == Theory == Vanish acts by automating the encryption of information entered by the user with an encryption key that is unknown to the user. Along with the information the user enters, the user also enters metadata concerning how long the information should remain available. The system then encrypts the information but does not store either the encryption key or the original information. Instead, it breaks up the decryption key into smaller components that are disseminated across distributed hash tables, or DHTs, via the Internet. The DHTs refresh information within their nodes on a set schedule unless configured to make the information persistent. The time delay entered by the user in the metadata controls how long the DHTs should allow the information to persist, but once that time period is over, the DHTs will reuse those nodes, making the information about the decryption stored irretrievable. As long as the decryption key may be reassembled from the DHTs, the information is retrievable. However, once the period entered by the user has lapsed, the information is no longer recoverable, as the user never possessed the decryption key. == Implementation == Vanish currently exists as a Firefox plug-in which allows a user to enter text into either a standard Gmail email or Facebook message and choose to send the message via Vanish. The message is then encrypted and sent via the normal networking pathways through the cloud to the recipient. The recipient must have the same Firefox plug-in to decrypt the message. The plugin accesses BitTorrent DHTs, which have 8-hour lifespans. This means the user may select an expiration date for the message in increments of 8 hours. After the expiration of the user-defined time span, the information in the DHT is overwritten, thereby eliminating the key. While both the user and recipient may have copies of the original encrypted message, the key used to turn it back into plain text is now gone. Although this particular instance of the data has become inaccessible, it's important to note that the information can always be saved by other means before expiration (copied or even via screen shots) and published again.
Fragment (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a fragment is the data necessary to generate a single pixel's worth of a drawing primitive in the frame buffer. These data may include, but are not limited to: raster position depth interpolated attributes (color, texture coordinates, etc.) stencil alpha window ID As a scene is drawn, drawing primitives (the basic elements of graphics output, such as points, lines, circles, text etc.) are rasterized into fragments which are textured and combined with the existing frame buffer. How a fragment is combined with the data already in the frame buffer depends on various settings. In a typical case, a fragment may be discarded if it is further away than the pixel which is already at that location (according to the depth buffer). If it is nearer than the existing pixel, it may replace what is already there, or, if alpha blending is in use, the pixel's color may be replaced with a mixture of the fragment's color and the pixel's existing color, as in the case of drawing a translucent object. In general, a fragment can be thought of as the data needed to shade the pixel, plus the data needed to test whether the fragment survives to become a pixel (depth, alpha, stencil, scissor, window ID, etc.). Shading a fragment is done through a fragment shader (or pixel shaders in Direct3D). In computer graphics, a fragment is not necessarily opaque, and could contain an alpha value specifying its degree of transparency. The alpha is typically normalized to the range of [0, 1], with 0 denotes totally transparent and 1 denotes totally opaque. If the fragment is not totally opaque, then part of its background object could show through, which is known as alpha blending.
Orleans (software framework)
Orleans is a cross-platform software framework for building scalable and robust distributed interactive applications based on the .NET Framework or on the more recent .NET. == Overview == Orleans was originally created by the eXtreme Computing Group at Microsoft Research and introduced the virtual actor model as a new approach to building distributed systems for the cloud. Orleans scales from a single on-premises server to highly-available and globally distributed applications in the cloud. The virtual actor model is based on the actor model but has several differences: A virtual actor always exists, it cannot be explicitly created or destroyed. Virtual actors are automatically instantiated. If a server hosting an actor crashes, the next message sent to the actor causes it to be reinstantiated automatically. The server that an actor is on is transparent to the application code. Orleans can automatically create multiple instances of the same stateless actor. Starting with cloud services for the Halo franchise, the framework has been used by a number of cloud services at Microsoft and other companies since 2011. The core Orleans technology was transferred to 343 Industries and is available as open source since January 2015. The source code is licensed under MIT License and hosted on GitHub. Orleans runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS and is compatible with .NET Standard 2.0 and above. == Features == Some Orleans features include: Persistence Distributed ACID transactions Streams Timers & Reminders Fault tolerance == Related implementations == The Electronic Arts BioWare division created Project Orbit. It is a Java implementation of virtual actors that was heavily inspired by the Orleans project.
Camfecting
In computer security, camfecting is the process of attempting to hack into a person's webcam and activate it without the webcam owner's permission. The remotely activated webcam can be used to watch anything within the webcam's field of vision, sometimes including the webcam owner themselves. Camfecting is most often carried out by infecting the victim's computer with a virus that can provide the hacker access to their webcam. This attack is specifically targeted at the victim's webcam, and hence the name camfecting, a portmanteau of the words camera and infecting. Typically, a webcam hacker or a camfecter sends his victim an innocent-looking application which has a hidden Trojan software through which the camfecter can control the victim's webcam. The camfecter virus installs itself silently when the victim runs the original application. Once installed, the camfecter can turn on the webcam and capture pictures/videos. The camfecter software works just like the original webcam software present in the victim computer, the only difference being that the camfecter controls the software instead of the webcam's owner. == Notable cases == Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI's Operational Technology Division in Quantico, said in a 2013 story in The Washington Post that the FBI had been able to covertly activate a computer's camera—without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording—for several years. In November 2013, American teenager Jared James Abrahams pleaded guilty to hacking over 100-150 women and installing the highly invasive malware Blackshades on their computers in order to obtain nude images and videos of them. One of his victims was Miss Teen USA 2013 Cassidy Wolf. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have shown how to covertly capture images from the iSight camera on MacBook and iMac models released before 2008, by reprogramming the microcontroller's firmware. == Prevention == A computer that does not have an up-to-date webcam software or any anti-virus (or firewall) software installed and operational may be at increased risk for camfecting from different types of malware. Softcams may nominally increase this risk, if not maintained or configured properly. Although a person cannot protect themselves from zero-day exploits that could potentially activate a camera unknowingly, such as Pegasus is able to do on smartphones. The only way to truly avoid being watched through your own camera is by blocking it physically, since software blocks can be overriden by advanced persistent threats. A simple piece of tape is more commonly used to offuscate the feed of the camera. With even Mark Zuckerberg doing so on his personal laptop that appeared during a presentation. And it being the way Snowden, an ex-contractor for the NSA, is portrayed to do so to prevent camfecting in the biopic Snowden. There is now a market for the manufacture and sale of sliding lens covers that allow users to physically block their computer's camera and, in some cases, microphone. A number of phone and laptop manufacturers tried to implement pop-up cameras that can only be opened manually by the user. But the trend did not become mainstream because of the engineering it took to keep the mechanisms up to date, aswell as the fragility and durability of the cameras.