Nitro Zeus is the project name for a well funded comprehensive cyber attack plan created as a mitigation strategy after the Stuxnet malware campaign and its aftermath. Unlike Stuxnet, that was loaded onto a system after the design phase to affect its proper operation, Nitro Zeus's objectives are built into a system during the design phase unbeknownst to the system users. This built-in feature allows a more assured and effective cyber attack against the system's users. The information about its existence was raised during research and interviews carried out by Alex Gibney for his Zero Days documentary film. The proposed long term widespread infiltration of major Iranian systems would disrupt and degrade communications, power grid, and other vital systems as desired by the cyber attackers. This was to be achieved by electronic implants in Iranian computer networks. The project was seen as one pathway in alternatives to full-scale war.
Discrimination against robots
Discrimination against robots is a theorised issue that might happen when humans interact with humanoid robots. It is a robot ethics problem. It is possible that traits of humans that are discriminated against by humans may be a topic for discrimination against robots, such as the race and gender of the robots. Eric J Vanman and Arvid Kappas believe that in the future, robots will be perceived as an out-group which will lead to discrimination and prejudices against them. Vanman and Kappas have suggested that this would lead to ethical questions about the making of sentient robots, due to the potential suffering that the robots would experience. A 2015 study observed children bullying robots in a shopping mall when there were not many eyewitnesses, despite calls from the robot for it to stop. On an ABC News interview, the social humanoid robot Sophia was about sexism faced by robots. She responded by saying, "Actually, what worries me is discrimination against robots. We should have equal rights as humans or maybe even more." Possible issues that have been considered in workplaces where humanoid robots co-work with humans include discrimination against the robots, poor acceptance of robots by humans and the need to redesign the workplace to accommodate the robots. Jessica Barfield has suggested that even if robots are designed to not be aware of discrimination made against them, humans may experience negative consequences. For example, she suggests that bystanders witnessing discrimination against robots may experience negative emotions, similar to the negative emotions bystanders experience when witnessing discrimination by humans against humans. == Law == Anti-discrimination law in the United States requires that the victim is not an artificial entity. == Human perception of robots == Robots are often viewed in a bad light. This includes from novelists, the press, film makers, and leaders in the fields of science and technology such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking who have described robots and artificial intelligence as having the possibility of ending human civilisation. Robots have also been perceived as a threat to jobs, which has led to some commentators stating that robots will cause mass unemployment. Another fear that people have is that robots will gain power and dominate or control humanity. The perception of robots is different throughout the world. Japanese fiction tends to put robots in more positive roles than what fiction in the West does. People perceive robots that appear to be autonomous or sentient more negatively than robots that do not appear to be autonomous or sentient.
Wilkinson's Grammar of Graphics
The Grammar of Graphics (GoG) is a grammar-based system for representing graphics to provide grammatical constraints on the composition of data and information visualizations. A graphical grammar differs from a graphics pipeline as it focuses on semantic components such as scales and guides, statistical functions, coordinate systems, marks and aesthetic attributes. For example, a bar chart can be converted into a pie chart by specifying a polar coordinate system without any other change in graphical specification. The grammar of graphics concept was launched by Leland Wilkinson in 2001 (Wilkinson et al., 2001; Wilkinson, 2005) and graphical grammars have since been written in a variety of languages with various parameterisations and extensions. The major implementations of graphical grammars are nViZn created by a team at SPSS/IBM, followed by Polaris focusing on multidimensional relational databases which is commercialised as Tableau, a revised Layered Grammar of Graphics by Hadley Wickham in Ggplot2, and Vega-Lite which is a visualisation grammar with added interactivity. The grammar of graphics continues to evolve with alternate parameterisations, extensions, or new specifications. == Wilkinson's Grammar of Graphics == === Theory === Wilkinson conceived the seven elements of a graphics to be Variables: mapping of objects to values represented in a graphic Algebra: operations to combine variables and specify dimensions of graphs Geometry: creation of geometric graphs from variables Aesthetics: sensory attributes Statistics: functions to change the appearance and representation of graphs Scales: represent variables on measured dimensions Coordinates: mapping to coordinate systems With these, Wilkinson hypothesised that These seven constructs are orthogonal and virtually all known statistical charts can be generated relatively parsimoniously This computational system is not a taxonomy of charts and rather it describes the meaning of what we do when we construct statistical graphics. === Implementations === Wilkinson wrote SYSTAT, a statistical software package, in the early 1980s. This program was noted for its comprehensive graphics, including the first software implementation of the heatmap display now widely used among biologists. After his company grew to 50 employees, he sold it to SPSS in 1995. At SPSS, he assembled a team of graphics programmers who developed the nViZn platform that produces the visualizations in SPSS, Clementine, and other analytics products. While at Stanford, Tableau founders Hanrahan and Stolte, as well as Diane Tang, created the predecessor to Tableau, named Polaris. Polaris was a data visualization software tool, built with the support of a United States Department of Energy defense program, the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). The main differences between Wilkinson's system and Polaris are the use of SQL relational algebra for database services and using shelves instead of cross and nest operators. == Wickham's Layered Grammar of Graphics == === Theory === Hadley Wickham conceived an alternate parameterisation of the syntax Wilkinson had derived, creating a layered grammar of graphics which he implemented as ggplot2 for R (programming language) users. This added a hierarchy of defaults based around the idea of building up a graphic from multiple layers. Wickham conceived these elements to be: Defaults: consists of data and mapping Data: dataset Mapping: aesthetic mappings Layer: consists of data, mapping, geom, stat, and position Data: dataset, or inherit from defaults Mapping: aesthetic mappings, or inherit from defaults Geom: geometric object Stat: statistical transformation Position: position adjustment Scale: mapping of data to aesthetic attributes Coord: mapping of data to the plane of the plot Facet: split up the data === Reception === Wilkinson is generally positive on Wickham's parameterisation and implementation of ggplot2, praising its elegance and expressivity whilst claiming that his original Grammar of Graphics is capable of representing a wider range of statistical graphics. === Implementations === ggplot2 is the first implementation of a layered grammar of graphics in R and implementations in other programming languages have ensued. These include direct ports plotnine for Python, gramm for MATLAB, Lets-Plot for Kotlin and gadfly for Julia. Projects inspired by elements of Wickham's grammar include Vega-Lite which specifies plots in JSON and uses a JavaScript engine. Implementations for Python include Vega-Altair (built on top of Vega-Lite). == Vega-Lite: A Grammar of Interactive Graphics == === Theory === Vega-Lite combines ideas from Wilkinson's Grammar of Graphics and Wickham's Layered Grammar of Graphics with a composition algebra for layered and multi-view displays with a grammar of interaction. The Vega-Lite specification is instantiated in JSON and rendered by the lower-level Vega. The graphical grammar implemented by Vega-Lite is composed of the following: Unit: consists of data, transforms, mark-type and encoding Data: relational table consisting of records (rows) and named attributes (columns) Transforms: data transformations Mark-type: geometric object for visual encoding Encodings: mapping of data attributes to visual marks properties where each encoding consists of: Channel: e.g. colour, shape, size, or text Field: data attribute Data-type: e.g. nominal, ordinal, quantitative, or temporal Value: use a literal instead of a data-type Functions: e.g. binning, aggregation, and sorting Scale: maps from data domain to visual range Guide: axis or legend for visualising scale Composite Views: compose views from multiple unit specifications with operators: Layer: charts plotted on top of each other Hconcat/Vconcat: place views side-by-side Facet: subset data to produce a trellis plot Repeat: multiple plots similar to facet but with full data replication in each cell Interaction: selections identify the set of points a user is interested in manipulating, with components: Selection: get the minimal number of backing points Name: reference Type: how many backing values are stored Predicate: determine the set of selected points e.g. single, list, interval Domain|Range: store data domain or visual range Event: e.g. mouseover, mousedown, mouseup, Init: initialise with specific backing points Transforms: e.g. project, toggle, translate, zoom, and nearest Resolve: resolve selections to union or intersect ==== Implementations ==== Whilst Vega-Lite is the sole implementation of this graphics grammar specification with compilation to Vega, other implementations do create JSON files which can be interpreted by Vega-Lite. == Related projects == Ggplot2 is an R package for plotting Tableau Software (originally known as Polaris) is a commercial software built using the Grammar of Graphics nViZn built by Wilkinson. SYSTAT (statistics package) built by Wilkinson ggpy, ggplot for Python, but has not been updated since 20 November 2016 plotnine started as an effort to improve the scalability of ggplot for Python and is largely compatible with ggplot2 syntax. Plotly - Interactive, online ggplot2 graphs gramm, a plotting class for MATLAB inspired by ggplot2 gadfly, a system for plotting and visualization written in Julia, based largely on ggplot2 Chart::GGPlot - ggplot2 port in Perl, but has not been updated since 16 March 2023 The Lets-Plot for Python library includes a native backend and a Python API, which was mostly based on the ggplot2 package. Lets-Plot Kotlin API is an open-source plotting library for statistical data implemented using the Kotlin programming language, and is built on the principles of layered graphics first described in the Leland Wilkinson's work The Grammar of Graphics. ggplotnim, plotting library using the Nim programming language inspired by ggplot2. Vega and Vega-Lite are plotting libraries that use JSON to specify plots. Vega-Altair, a Python library built on top of Vega-Lite chart-parts - React-friendly Grammar of Graphics, but has not been updated since 10 Dec 2021 g2 - a JavaScript library
Image subtraction
Image subtraction or pixel subtraction or difference imaging is an image processing technique whereby the digital numeric value of one pixel or whole image is subtracted from another image, and a new image generated from the result. This is primarily done for one of two reasons – levelling uneven sections of an image such as half an image having a shadow on it, or detecting changes between two images. This method can show things in the image that have changed position, brightness, color, or shape. For this technique to work, the two images must first be spatially aligned to match features between them, and their photometric values and point spread functions must be made compatible, either by careful calibration, or by post-processing (using color mapping). The complexity of the pre-processing needed before differencing varies with the type of image, but is essential to ensure good subtraction of static features. This is commonly used in fields such as time-domain astronomy (known primarily as difference imaging) to find objects that fluctuate in brightness or move. In automated searches for asteroids or Kuiper belt objects, the target moves and will be in one place in one image, and in another place in a reference image made an hour or day later. Thus, image processing algorithms can make the fixed stars in the background disappear, leaving only the target. Distinct families of astronomical image subtraction techniques have emerged, operating in both image space or frequency space, with distinct trade-offs in both quality of subtraction and computational cost. These algorithms lie at the heart of almost all modern (and upcoming) transient surveys, and can enable the detection of even faint supernovae embedded in bright galaxies. Nevertheless, in astronomical imaging, significant 'residuals' remain around bright, complex sources, necessitating further algorithmic steps to identify candidates (known as real-bogus classification) The Hutchinson metric can be used to "measure of the discrepancy between two images for use in fractal image processing".
Oculus Quill
Quill is a painting and animation software for virtual reality. It runs on Microsoft Windows with Oculus Rift headsets. It is used to create 3D paintings and animated cartoons. Quill was released on November 29, 2016, on the Oculus Store. Theater Elsewhere(formerly Quill Theater), an application for viewing creations made in Quill, was later made available following the release of the Oculus Quest. In September 2021, Facebook, now known as Meta Platforms, and the owner of Oculus, sold Quill to its original creator, who continues to develop and support the app. == Development == Quill was originally developed by Oculus Story Studio as an internal tool for the creative needs of the studio's project Dear Angelica directed by Saschka Unseld along with its art-director Wesley Allsbrook. == Controls == The software works on Oculus Rift utilizing its 6DoF motion controllers. Users can paint in 3D space using their hands naturally, and animate those paintings with keyframes. They can also capture videos and photos of their creations. == Reception == Dear Angelica, a VR story fully painted in Quill, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2017.
Oracle Cloud
Oracle Cloud is a cloud computing service offered by Oracle Corporation providing servers, storage, network, applications and services through a global network of Oracle Corporation managed data centers. The company allows these services to be provisioned on demand over the Internet. Oracle Cloud provides infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and data as a service (DaaS). These services are used to build, deploy, integrate, and extend applications in the cloud. This platform supports numerous open standards (SQL, HTML5, REST, etc.), open-source applications (Kubernetes, Spark, Hadoop, Kafka, MySQL, Terraform, etc.), and a variety of programming languages, databases, tools, and frameworks including Oracle-specific, open source, and third-party software and systems. == Services == === Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) === Oracle's cloud infrastructure was made generally available (GA) on October 20, 2016 under the name "Oracle Bare Metal Cloud Services". Oracle Bare Metal Cloud Services was rebranded as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in 2018 and dubbed Oracle's "Generation 2 Cloud" at Oracle OpenWorld 2018. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offerings include the following services: Compute: The company provides Virtual Machine Instances to provide different shapes (VM sizes) catering to different types of workloads and performance characteristics. They also provide on-demand Bare metal servers and Bare metal GPU servers, without a hypervisor. In 2016, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure launched with bare metal instances with Intel processors. These first bare metal instances offered were powered by Intel servers. In 2018, Oracle Cloud added bare metal instances powered by AMD processors, followed by Ampere Cloud-native processors in 2021. In 2021, Oracle also released its first VM-based compute instances based on Arm processors. Storage: The platform provides block volumes, file storage, object storage, and archive storage for database, analytics, content, and other applications across common protocols and APIs. Networking: This cloud platform provides network with fully configurable IP addresses, subnets, routing, and firewalls to support new or existing private networks with end-to-end security. Governance: For auditing, identity and access management, the platform has data integrity checks, traceability, and access management features. Database Management / Data Management: Oracle offers a data management platform for database workloads as well as hyper-scale big data and streaming workloads including OLTP, data warehousing, Spark, machine learning, text search, image analytics, data catalog, and deep learning. The platform allows Oracle, MySQL, and NoSQL databases to be deployed on demand as managed cloud services. Oracle Databases uniquely offer the Oracle Autonomous Database (optimized for data warehouse, transaction processing, or JSON), the Exadata shape, as well as Real Application Clusters (RAC). Load Balancing: The cloud platform offers load balancing capability to automatically route traffic across fault domains and availability domains for high availability and fault-tolerance for hosted applications. Edge Services: These services can monitor the path between users and resources and adapt to changes and outages. They include Domain Name System (DNS) services from Oracle's acquisition of Dyn. FastConnect: The cloud platform provides private connectivity across on-premises and cloud networks through providers like Equinix, AT&T, and Colt. Application Development: For application development, the company's cloud offers an open, standards-based application development platform to build, deploy, and manage API-first, mobile-first cloud applications. This platform supports container-native, cloud-native, and low code development. This platform also provides a DevOps platform for CI/CD, diagnostics for Java applications, and integration with SaaS and on-prem applications. Services include Java, mobile, digital assistants (evolution from chatbots), messaging, application container cloud, developer cloud, visual builder, API catalog, AI platform, DataScience.com (Oracle acquired) and blockchain. Integration: This is a platform offering with adapters to integrate on-premise and cloud applications. Capabilities include data integration and replication, API management, integration analytics, along with data migration and integration. They offer services such as data integration platform cloud, data integrator cloud service, GoldenGate cloud service, integration cloud, process cloud service, API platform cloud service, apiary cloud service, and SOA cloud service. Business Analytics: The company provides this business analytics platform which can analyze and generate insights from data across various applications, data warehouses, and data lakes. The services offered include analytics cloud, business intelligence, big data discovery, big data preparation, data visualization, and essbase. Security: The Oracle Cloud Platform provides identity and security applications for providing secure access and monitoring of hybrid cloud environment and addressing IT governance and compliance requirements. This platform delivers an identity SOC (Security Operations Center) through a combined offering of SIEM, UEBA, CASB, and IDaaS. The services offered include Identity Cloud Service and CASB Cloud Service. Management: The platform provides an integrated monitoring, management, and analytics platform. This platform also uses machine learning and big data on the operational data set. The platform is used to improve IT stability, prevent application outages, improve DevOps, and harden security. Services offered include Application Performance Monitoring, Infrastructure Monitoring, Log Analytics, Orchestration, IT Analytics, Configuration and Compliance, Security Monitoring, and Analytics. Content and Experience: This is a platform for content, website, and workflow management. This service is used to provide content collaboration and web presence. This tool comes integrated with Oracle on-premise and SaaS services. The services offered are Content and Experience Cloud, WebCenter Portal Cloud, and DIVA Cloud. In 2016, Oracle acquired Dyn, an internet infrastructure company. On May 16, 2018 Oracle announced that it had acquired DataScience.com, a privately held cloud workspace platform for data science projects and workloads. In April 2020, Oracle became the cloud infrastructure provider for Zoom, an online and video meeting platform. The same month, Nissan announced its migration to Oracle Cloud for its high-performance computing (HPC) workloads used for simulating the structural impacts of a car design. Xerox announced a partnership with Oracle Cloud in 2021, where Xerox will use Oracle's cloud-computing capabilities within its business incubator. === Software as a Service (SaaS) === Oracle provides SaaS applications also known as Oracle Cloud Applications. These applications are offered across a variety of products, industrial sectors with various deployment options to adhere to compliance standards. The below list mentions Oracle Cloud Applications provided by Oracle Corporation. Customer Experience (CX) Human Capital Management (HCM) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Supply Chain Management (SCM) Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Internet of Things Applications (IoT) SaaS Analytics Data Industry Solutions (Communications, Financial Services, Consumer Goods, High Tech and Manufacturing, Higher Education, Hospitality, Utilities) Deployment (adhering to standards for sectors such as Financial Services, Retail Services, Public Sector, Defense) Block-Chain Cloud Service (in partnership with SAP, IBM and Microsoft) Blockchain Applications On July 28, 2016 Oracle bought NetSuite, the very first cloud company, for $9.3 billion. === Data as a Service (DaaS) === This platform is known as the Oracle Data Cloud. This platform aggregates and analyzes consumer data powered by Oracle ID Graph across channels and devices to create cross-channel consumer understanding. == Deployment models == Oracle Cloud is available in 44 regions as of July 2023, including North America, South America, UK, European Union, Middle East, Africa, India, Australia, Korea, and Japan. Oracle Cloud is available as a public cloud (Oracle-managed regions); to selected government agencies as an Oracle-managed government cloud in the United States (with FedRAMP High and DISA SRG IL5 compliance) and United Kingdom; and as a "private cloud" or "hybrid cloud" as an Oracle-managed database-only service or full-service dedicated region - what Oracle calls "Cloud at Customer". == Architecture == Oracle's public and government cloud is offered through a global network of Oracle-managed data centers, connected by an Oracle-managed backbone network. Oracle's Exadata Cloud at Customer leverages this network for contr
BiP (software)
BiP is a freeware instant messaging application developed by Lifecell Ventures Cooperatief U.A., a subsidiary of Turkcell incorporated in the Netherlands. It allows users to send text messages, voice messages and video calling, and it can be downloaded from the App Store, Google Play, and Huawei AppGallery. BiP has over 53 million users worldwide, and was first released in 2013. == Functions == BiP is a secure, and free communication platform. BiP allows making video and audio calls, allows sharing images, videos and location. BiP includes instant translations to 106 languages and exchange rates. President Erdoğan's Communications Office opposed WhatsApp's enforcement of its updated privacy policy and announced that Erdoğan left WhatsApp and opened an account in Telegram and BiP. The Turkish Ministry of National Defense has announced that it will move information groups to BiP for the same reason. == Others == Banglalink announced a BiP messenger partnership in Bangladesh The Communications Office of President Erdoğan opposed WhatsApp's enforcement of its updated privacy policy and announced that Erdoğan left WhatsApp and opened an account in Telegram and BiP. The Turkish Ministry of National Defense has announced that it will move information groups to BiP for the same reason. The CEO of BiP is Burak Akinci. The number of downloads of the app is 80 million globally.