In cryptography, a group key is a cryptographic key that is shared between a group of users. Typically, group keys are distributed by sending them to individual users, either physically, or encrypted individually for each user using either that user's pre-distributed private key. A common use of group keys is to allow a group of users to decrypt a broadcast message that is intended for that entire group of users, and no one else. For example, in the Second World War, group keys (known as "iodoforms", a term invented by a classically educated non-chemist, and nothing to do with the chemical of the same name) were sent to groups of agents by the Special Operations Executive. These group keys allowed all the agents in a particular group to receive a single coded message. In present-day applications, group keys are commonly used in conditional access systems, where the key is the common key used to decrypt the broadcast signal, and the group in question is the group of all paying subscribers. In this case, the group key is typically distributed to the subscribers' receivers using a combination of a physically distributed secure cryptoprocessor in the form of a smartcard and encrypted over-the-air messages.
Ampere Computing
Ampere Computing LLC is an American fabless semiconductor company that designs ARM-based central processing units (CPUs) with high core counts for use in cloud computing and data center environments. Founded in 2017 by former Intel president Renée James, the company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and operates as an independent subsidiary of SoftBank Group since November 2025. == History == Ampere Computing was founded in fall 2017 by Renée James, ex-President of Intel, with funding from The Carlyle Group. James acquired a team from MACOM Technology Solutions (formerly AppliedMicro) in addition to several industry hires to start the company. Ampere Computing is an ARM architecture licensee and develops its own server microprocessors. Ampere fabricates its products at TSMC. In April 2019, Ampere announced its second major investment round, including investment from Arm Holdings and Oracle Corporation. In June 2019, Nvidia announced a partnership with Ampere to bring support for Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA). In November 2019, Nvidia announced a reference design platform for graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated ARM-based servers including Ampere. In the first half of 2020, Ampere announced Ampere Altra, an 80-core processor, and Ampere Altra Max, a 128-core processor, without the use of simultaneous multithreading. In March 2020, the company announced a partnership with Oracle. In September 2020, Oracle said it would launch bare-metal and virtual machine instances in early 2021 based on Ampere Altra. In November 2020, Ampere was named one of the top 10 hottest semiconductor startups by CRN. In May 2021, the company announced a partnership with Microsoft. In April 2022, Ampere said that it had filed a confidential prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, signaling its intent to go public. In June 2022, HPE announced their Gen11 ProLiant system would use Ampere Altra and Ampere Altra Max Cloud Native Processors. In July 2022, Google announced T2A instances using Ampere Altra in the Google cloud and in August 2022 Microsoft announced their instances of Ampere running in Azure. On March 19, 2025, investment holding company SoftBank Group announced it will acquire Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion. The deal finalized in November 2025, with Ampere remaining as an independent subsidiary with its headquarters in Santa Clara, California. == Products == Ampere develops ARM-based computer processors and CPU cores under their Altra brands. These are used in databases, media encoding, web services, network acceleration, mobile gaming, AI inference processing, and other applications and programs that need to scale. On February 5, 2018, Ampere announced the eMAG 8180 featuring 32x Skylark cores fabricated on TSMC's 16FF+ process. It supports a turbo of up to 3.3 GHz with a TDP of 125 W, 8ch 64-bit DDR4, up to 1 TB DDR4 per socket, and 42x PCIe 3.0 Lanes. The Skylark cores were based on AppliedMicro's X-Gene 3. Packet offers servers with the eMAG 8180 and 128 GB DRAM, 480 GB SSD, and 2x 10 Gbit/s networking. On September 19, 2018, Ampere announced the availability of a version featuring 16x Skylark cores. === 2020 === On March 3, 2020, Ampere announced the Ampere Altra featuring 80 cores fabricated on TSMC's N7 process for hyperscale computing. It was the first server-grade processor to include 80 cores and the Q80-30 conserves power by running at 161 W in use. The cores are semi-custom Arm Neoverse N1 cores with Ampere modifications. It supports a frequency of up to 3.3 GHz with TDP of 250 W, 8ch 72-bit DDR4, up to 4 TB DDR4-3200 per socket, 128x PCIe 4.0 Lanes, 1 MB L2 per core and 32 MB SLC. Ampere also announced their roadmap with Ampere Altra Max (2021) in development and AmpereOne (2022) defined. === 2021 === The 128-core Altra Max was released in 2021 and targeted hyperscale cloud providers. It uses the same server socket and platforms as Ampere Altra, and both products have one thread per core. The Altra Max CPUs provide 128 Arm v8.2+ cores per chip and run up to 3.0 GHz. They also support eight channels of DDR4-3200 memory and 128 lanes of PCIe Gen4. Also in 2021, Oracle launched its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) using Ampere Altra processors. === 2022 === In February 2022, Ampere and Rigetti Computing announced a strategic partnership to create hybrid quantum-classical computers. The companies will combine Ampere's Altra Max CPUs with Rigetti's Quantum Processing Units (QPU) in cloud-based High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments. In April, Microsoft previewed its Azure Virtual Machines running on the Ampere Altra. The VMs run scale-out workloads, web servers, application servers, open source databases, cloud native .NET applications, Java applications, gaming servers, media servers, and other processes. In May, Ampere announced the sampling of AmpereOne CPUs, 5 nanometer chips based on its in-house Ampere-developed core. AmpereOne will add support for DDR5 main memory and PCIe Gen5 peripherals. On June 28, 2022, HPE became first tier-one server provider to offer compute with optimized cloud-native silicon for service providers and enterprises embracing cloud-native development with new line of HPE ProLiant RL Gen11 servers, using Ampere® Altra® and Ampere® Altra® Max processors, delivering high performance and power efficiency. === 2023 === During April 2023, Ampere released the Altra developer's kit, an IoT Prototype Kit based on Ampere Altra, aimed at cloud developers, available in 32-core, 64-core, and 80-core formats. === 2024 === In May 2024, Ampere updated its AmpereOne roadmap to 256 cores and announced a joint effort with Qualcomm on CPUs and accelerators. == Customers == Ampere's customers include Microsoft Azure, Tencent Cloud, Oracle, ByteDance, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Cloudflare, Equinix, Kingsoft Cloud, Meituan, Scaleway, UCloud, Foxconn Industrial Internet, Gigabyte, Inspur, Cruise, Hetzner, Project Ronin, Wiwynn and Google Cloud Platform Cruise uses an Ampere Altra variant for its autonomous driving unit. The CPU was selected because of its throughput and low power consumption. In 2021, Oracle, Microsoft, Tencent, and ByteDance committed to using Ampere's customized chips, first announced in May. In April 2022, Microsoft previewed Ampere Altra processors in its new Azure D-and E- series virtual machines. The Dpsv5 series is built for Linux enterprise application types, and the Epsv5 series is for memory-intensive Linux workloads. They provide up to 64 vCPUs, include VM sizes with 2GiB, 4GiB, and 8GiB per vCPU memory configurations, up to 40 Gbit/s networking, and high-performance local SSD storage. In 2022, Microsoft's Ampere Altra-based Azure servers became the first cloud solution provider server to be Arm SystemReady SR certified. The Azure VMs, powered by Altra processors, were also the first to be SystemReady Virtual Environment standard certified. SystemReady defines a set of firmware and hardware standards as a baseline for system development for software developers, original equipment vendors, and chipmakers.
Privacy Lost
Privacy Lost is a 2023 short science fiction film directed by Peter Stoel and Robert Berger. It follows a family using augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) devices capable of reading emotional states, raising questions about privacy and manipulation. == Premise == Privacy Lost follows a family using AR glasses that capture and interpret emotions in real time. As the parents argue in a restaurant, their emotional states and even hidden feelings become visible through these glasses. An AI-driven waiter adapts its appearance for each family member, employing emotional data to influence their decisions. == Cast == Brian Kant as Waiter Michael Krass as Husband Estelle Levinson as Waitress Thor van der Linden as Scotty Carlijn van Ramshorst as Wife == Production == Filming took place at HeadQ Productions, a virtual studio located in Amsterdam. The creators sought to depict a near-future scenario in which real-time emotion analysis becomes part of daily interactions. The film was screened at the Augmented World Expo (AWE), where it was noted for its thematic focus on AI-driven manipulation and emotional tracking. The depiction of AR glasses and AI characters integrates modern visual effects to show how devices might analyze emotional responses in real time. It also depicts how AI-driven interactions could influence consumer decisions, pointing to concerns over potential misuse. == Themes == Privacy Lost focuses on the intersection of advanced AI capabilities and AR environments, showing how real-time emotional analysis can be leveraged for targeted persuasion. The film aims to highlight the social and ethical implications of emerging AR and AI technologies, underlining how establishing clear regulatory frameworks for them is necessary to protect individual privacy, govern the storage of emotion-based data, and prevent manipulative practices. Critics describe the film’s theme as dystopian and note that such a reality is unlikely to occur in the near future. However, despite the exaggerated scenario, the film emphasizes the importance of a responsible approach by developers toward emerging technologies.
A Fire Upon the Deep
A Fire Upon the Deep is a 1992 science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge. It is a space opera involving superhuman intelligences, aliens, variable physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and a communication medium resembling Usenet. A Fire Upon the Deep won the Hugo Award in 1993, sharing it with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. Besides the normal print book editions, the novel was also included on a CD-ROM sold by ClariNet Communications along with the other nominees for the 1993 Hugo awards. The CD-ROM edition included numerous annotations by Vinge on his thoughts and intentions about different parts of the book, and was later released as a standalone e-book. It has a loose prequel, A Deepness in the Sky, from 1999, and a direct sequel, The Children of the Sky, from 2012. == Setting == The novel is set in various locations within the Milky Way. The galaxy is divided into four concentric volumes called the "Zones of Thought"; it is not clear to the novel's characters whether this is a natural phenomenon or an artificially created one. Each Zone has fundamental differences in basic physical laws. One of the main consequences of these differences is the effect on intelligence. Artificial intelligence and automation is most directly affected, in that advanced hardware and software from the Beyond or the Transcend will work less and less well as a ship descends towards the Unthinking Depths. Biological intelligence is affected to a lesser degree. The four zones are spoken of in terms of "low" to "high" as follows: The Unthinking Depths are the innermost zone, surrounding the Galactic Center. In it, only minimal forms of intelligence, biological or otherwise, are possible. This means that any ship straying into the Depths will be stranded, effectively permanently. Even if the crew did not die immediately—and some forms of life native to "higher" Zones would likely do so—they would be rendered incapable of even human intelligence, leaving them unable to operate their ship in any meaningful way. Surrounding the Depths is the Slow Zone or Slowness. "Old Earth" is in this Zone, although Earth plays no significant role in the story. Biological intelligence is possible in "the Slowness", but not true, sentient, artificial intelligence. Faster than light travel (FTL) is impossible in the Slow Zone. Faster-than-light communication is impossible into or out of the Slow Zone. As the boundaries of the Zones are subject to change, accidental entry into the Slow Zone is a major hazard at the "Bottom" of the Beyond. Starships which operate near the Beyond/Slow Zone border often have an auxiliary Bussard ramjet drive, so that if they accidentally stray into the Slow Zone, they will at least have a backup (sub-light) drive to try to reach the Beyond. Such ships also tend to include "coldsleep" equipment, as it is likely that any such return will still take many lifetimes for most species. The next layer outward is the Beyond, within which artificial intelligence, FTL travel, and FTL communication are possible. All human civilizations in the Beyond are descended from a single ethnic Norwegian group. The original settlement of this group is known as Nyjora; other human settlements in the Beyond include Straumli Realm and Sjandra Kei. In the Beyond, FTL travel is accomplished by making many small "jumps" across space, with the efficiency of the drive increasing the farther a ship travels from the galactic core. The Beyond is not a homogeneous zone; it includes the "High Beyond", "Middle Beyond", and the "Bottom of the Beyond", depending on distance from the galactic core. The Beyond is populated by a very large number of interstellar and intergalactic civilizations which are linked by an FTL communication network, "the Net", sometimes cynically called the "Net of a Million Lies". The Net is depicted as working much like the Usenet network in the early 1990s, with transcripts of messages containing header and footer information as one would find in such forums. The outermost layer, containing the galactic halo, is the Transcend, within which incomprehensible, superintelligent beings dwell. When a "Beyonder" civilization reaches the point of technological singularity, it can "Transcend", becoming a "Power". Such Powers always seem to relocate to the Transcend, seemingly necessarily, where they become engaged in activities which are entirely mysterious to those in the Beyond. == Plot == An expedition from Straumli Realm, a human civilization in the High Beyond, investigates a newly discovered data archive in the Low Transcend. The expedition's facility, High Lab, is gradually compromised by a superintelligence that is accidentally awoken by the researchers. This superintelligence is later known as the Blight. Shortly before the Blight's final "flowering", two self-aware entities, created similarly to the Blight, plot to aid the humans before the Blight can gain its full powers. Finally recognizing their danger, the High Lab researchers attempt to flee in two ships. The Blight destroys one ship; a second ship, carrying many High Lab children in coldsleep boxes, escapes. This ship lands on a distant planet at the Bottom of the Beyond. The planet is occupied by dog-like creatures, dubbed "Tines", who live in packs as group minds. The Tines have a level of technology comparable to the human Middle Ages. Upon landing, however, the two surviving adults, Arne and Sjana Olnsdot, are ambushed and killed by Tine fanatics known as Flenserists, in whose realm they have landed. The Flenserists capture their children, Jefri and Johanna. Johanna is rescued by a Tine named Peregrine and taken to a neighboring kingdom ruled by Woodcarver. A distress signal from the Straumli ship eventually reaches Relay, a major information provider for the Net. A Transcendent being named "Old One" contacts Relay, seeking information about the Blight and the humans who released it. Old One then reconstitutes a human man named Pham Nuwen from the wreckage of a spaceship to act as its agent. Pham remains unsure if he is a construct or if his memories are real. Ravna Bergsndot, the only human Relay employee, traces the Straumli ship's signal to the Tines' world and persuades her employer to investigate. Ravna contracts the merchant vessel Out of Band II to transport her and Pham. The ship is owned by two Skroderiders, Blueshell and Greenstalk. Before the mission is launched, the Blight launches a surprise attack on Relay and kills Old One. As Old One dies, it downloads its anti-Blight information into Pham. Pham, Ravna and the Skroderiders barely escape Relay's destruction in the Out of Band II. During their journey to Tine's World, Ravna communicates with Jefri. Jefri is manipulated to believe that Woodcarver is his enemy. The Flenserist leaders, Steel and Tyrathect, use Ravna's information to develop advanced technology such as cannon and radio communication. Meanwhile, Johanna and the knowledge stored in her dataset device help Woodcarver rapidly develop as well. The Blight expands, taking over several civilizations, brainwashing their populations, and seizing archives in the Beyond. On the Net, some claim that humans are the means by which the Blight is able to spread. Anti-human fanatics destroy the entire civilization of Sjandra Kei, which is Ravna's home world. The Out of Band II is pursued by three fleets: anti-human fanatics, survivors from Sjandra Kei, and a shadow fleet controlled by the Blight. During the pursuit, Ravna and Pham learn that every member of the Skroderider species can be subverted by the Blight; this drives a wedge between the crew members. Ships from Sjandra Kei sacrifice themselves to delay the Blight and the anti-human ships, allowing the Out of Band II to reach Tine's World before the Blight. When the Out of Band II arrives at Tine's World, the humans ally with Woodcarver to defeat the Flenserists and rescue Jefri. Blueshell sacrifices himself to rescue Jefri. Pham then initiates an anti-Blight Countermeasure, which was aboard the humans' ship. The Countermeasure extends the Slow Zone outward by thousands of light years. This envelops and destroys the Blight, but results in the destruction of thousands of civilizations and trillions of deaths. The humans are stranded on the Tines' World, now in the depths of the Slow Zone. Activating the Countermeasure proves fatal to Pham, but before he dies, the remnant of Old One reveals to him that, although his body is a reconstruction, his memories are indeed real. == Related works == Vinge first used the concepts of "Zones of Thought" in a 1988 novella The Blabber, which occurs after Fire. Vinge's novel A Deepness in the Sky (1999) is a prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep set 20,000 years earlier and featuring Pham Nuwen. Vinge's The Children of the Sky, "a near-term sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep", set ten years later, was released in October 2011. Vinge's former wife, Joan D. Vinge, has also written s
Fuzzy relation
A fuzzy relation is the cartesian product of mathematical fuzzy sets. Two fuzzy sets are taken as input, the fuzzy relation is then equal to the cross product of the sets which is created by vector multiplication. Usually, a rule base is stored in a matrix notation which allows the fuzzy controller to update its internal values. From a historical perspective, the first fuzzy relation was mentioned in the year 1971 by Lotfi A. Zadeh. A practical approach to describe a fuzzy relation is based on a 2d table. At first, a table is created which consists of fuzzy values from 0..1. The next step is to apply the if-then-rules to the values. The resulting numbers are stored in the table as an array. Fuzzy relations can be utilized in fuzzy databases.
TAChart
TAChart is a component for the Lazarus IDE that provides charting services. Similar to Tchart and Teechart for Delphi it supports a collection of different chart types including bar charts, pie charts, line charts and point series. Apart from a screen canvas, output is possible in form of SVG, OpenGL, printer, WMF, and other formats. TAChart is bundled with the Lazarus Component Library. Although not intended to be a TChart clone, why its usage differs in certain points, its basic functionality is very similar and some source code written for TeeChart may be reused. == History == The first version of TAChart was developed by Philippe Martinole for the TeleAuto project, a program for automation of astronomic observations. Later functionality was introduced by Luis Rodrigues while porting the Epanet application from Delphi to Lazarus. In the ensuing years the code has extensively rewritten, expanded and is now maintained by Alexander Klenin. == Data sources == TAChart is able to use input from various sources. Examples include lists of real values, user defined buffers in the computer's memory, vectors of random values, fields in databases, calculated values provided by pre-defined functions and results of embedded code written in Pascal Script
Mark I Perceptron
The Mark I Perceptron was a pioneering supervised image classification learning system developed by Frank Rosenblatt in 1958. It was the first implementation of an artificial intelligence (AI) machine. It differs from the Perceptron which is a software architecture proposed in 1943 by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts, which was also employed in Mark I, and enhancements of which have continued to be an integral part of cutting edge AI technologies like the Transformer. == Architecture == The Mark I Perceptron was organized into three layers: A set of sensory units which receive optical input A set of association units, each of which fire based on input from multiple sensory units A set of response units, which fire based on input from multiple association units The connection between sensory units and association units were random. The working of association units was very similar to the response units. Different versions of the Mark I used different numbers of units in each of the layers. == Capabilities == In his 1957 proposal for funding for development of the "Cornell Photoperceptron", Rosenblatt claimed:"Devices of this sort are expected ultimately to be capable of concept formation, language translation, collation of military intelligence, and the solution of problems through inductive logic."With the first version of the Mark I Perceptron as early as 1958, Rosenblatt demonstrated a simple binary classification experiment, namely distinguishing between sheets of paper marked on the right versus those marked on the left side. One of the later experiments distinguished a square from a circle printed on paper. The shapes were perfect and their sizes fixed; the only variation was in their position and orientation. The Mark I Perceptron achieved 99.8% accuracy on a test dataset with 500 neurons in a single layer. The size of the training dataset was 10,000 example images. It took 3 seconds for the training pipeline to go through a single image. Higher accuracy was observed with thick outline figures compared to solid figures, likely because outline figures reduced overfitting. Another experiment distinguished between a square and a diamond for which 100% accuracy was achieved with only 60 training images, with a Perceptron having 1,000 neurons in a single layer. The time taken to process each training input for this larger perceptron was 15 seconds. The only variation was in position of the image, since rotation would have been ambiguous. In that same experiment, it could distinguish between the letters X and E with 100% accuracy when trained with only 20 images (10 images of each letter). Variations in the images included both position and rotation by up to 30 degrees. When variation in rotation was increased to any angle (both in training and test datasets), the accuracy reduced to 90% with 60 training images (30 images of each letter). For distinguishing between the letters E and F, a more challenging problem due to their similarity, the same 1,000 neuron perceptron achieved an accuracy of more than 80% with 60 training images. Variation was only in the position of the image, with no rotation.