AI Assistant Quotes

AI Assistant Quotes — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

• 

  Pixelmator

  Pixelmator is a series of graphics editors developed by Apple for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Pixelmator apps leverage Apple-specific technologies such as CoreML and Metal. Pixelmator uses a proprietary format across their apps (.PXD), but supports editing a variety of file types including Photoshop, RAW, and WebP. == History == Pixelmator Team was founded in 2007 by Lithuanian brothers Saulius and Aidas Dailidė, and released Pixelmator (now Pixelmator Classic) 1.0 in September of the same year. The company resided in Vilnius, Lithuania. In November 2024, Pixelmator Team agreed to be acquired by Apple for an unknown monetary amount, which was completed on 11 February 2025, the company was later folded into Apple with its products coming under them fully. == Pixelmator Classic == Pixelmator Classic was the original version of Pixelmator released for Mac on 25 September 2007. It uses a palette-style interface with floating toolbars compared to Pixelmator Pro's single-window interface. It is no longer being updated and has been delisted from the Mac App Store. == Pixelmator iOS == Pixelmator for iOS launched on 23 October 2014 as an iPad-exclusive app with touch-optimized versions of Pixelmator's desktop features. In May 2015, Pixelmator for iOS 2.0 was released with support for the iPhone. Apple no longer updates Pixelmator for iOS as of 13 January 2026, shortly before the release of Pixelmator Pro for iPad. == Pixelmator Pro == Pixelmator Pro is an image, video, and vector editing software for macOS that launched on 29 November 2017. It was a paid upgrade for Pixelmator Classic users, featuring a redesigned interface, a graphics pipeline rewritten using Metal, Apple silicon support and a greater focus on ML/AI editing features. On 28 January 2026, Apple announced Apple Creator Studio, a subscription bundle for their professional software that contains Pixelmator Pro. They also brought Pixelmator Pro to iPad, shortly after discontinuing Pixelmator iOS. == Photomator == Photomator (formerly Pixelmator Photo) is a photo-oriented editing app which launched on iPad in 2019, on iOS in 2021, and macOS in 2022. After launching the macOS version, the app moved from a one-time purchase to a subscription; however, a lifetime license can still be purchased for $99. Photomator differentiates itself from other Pixelmator apps with features such as batch editing of full photoshoots and AI-powered color correction. Edits in Photomator are made on a single layer and are non-destructive.

  Read more →
• 

  Authoritative Legal Entity Identifier

  An Authoritative Legal Entity Identifier (ALEI) is the identifier assigned by a government jurisdiction authorized by statute or decree to create a legal entity and to maintain the authoritative registries of legal entities. ALEIs are used within supply chain data, ERP applications and master data management systems to support accurate and consistent identification of entities in digital records, supply chains, and government databases. ALEIs are described in the international standard ISO 8000-116, which outlines a structured format that makes the locally unique identifier into a globally unique one and ensures global interoperability and data quality. == Structure == An ALEI is composed of three main components: a prefix that identifies the jurisdiction and register, a subdomain element (optional), and the local registration number of the entity. For example, the identifier "US-DE.BER:3031657" refers to an entity registered in the Delaware Business Entity Register in the United States. The standardization of this structure is governed by ISO 8000-116, which is designed to ensure each ALEI is globally unique and resolvable. == Comparison with other identifiers == ALEIs differ from proxy identifiers such as the DUNS number, NCAGE code, or the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) managed by GLEIF. While proxy identifiers can be issued by institutions that do not create legal entities, ALEIs are created and maintained by public bodies with the authority to form and register legal entities. This authoritative origin makes ALEIs particularly suitable for applications involving legal traceability, government regulation, and international transparency efforts. == Usage == ALEIs are increasingly utilized to identify legal entities in public and private datasets. The identifiers support supply chain accuracy, regulatory compliance, and the unification of master data. The first practical implementation of an ALEI was the International Business Registration Number (IBRN), developed to provide globally unique identifiers for registered business entities. IBRNs are issued by authorized government jurisdictions and are used to verify entities across borders, particularly in the context of trade facilitation and data exchange systems. For instance, business directories and registration systems in U.S. states like Connecticut provide structured registration documents that can be used to verify the ALEIs they issue. The use of ALEIs has been recommended by international organizations such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and Open ownership to improve beneficial ownership registries. == Policy and regulation == ALEIs have been referenced in policy consultations such as those related to the U.S. Financial Data Transparency Act. Federal institutions including the Federal Reserve and FDIC have examined the potential for ALEIs to unify entity identification across regulatory databases.

  Read more →
• 

  Collective operation

  Collective operations are building blocks for interaction patterns, that are often used in SPMD algorithms in the parallel programming context. Hence, there is an interest in efficient realizations of these operations. A realization of the collective operations is provided by the Message Passing Interface (MPI). == Definitions == In all asymptotic runtime functions, we denote the latency α {\displaystyle \alpha } (or startup time per message, independent of message size), the communication cost per word β {\displaystyle \beta } , the number of processing units p {\displaystyle p} and the input size per node n {\displaystyle n} . In cases where we have initial messages on more than one node we assume that all local messages are of the same size. To address individual processing units we use p i ∈ { p 0 , p 1 , … , p p − 1 } {\displaystyle p_{i}\in \{p_{0},p_{1},\dots ,p_{p-1}\}} . If we do not have an equal distribution, i.e. node p i {\displaystyle p_{i}} has a message of size n i {\displaystyle n_{i}} , we get an upper bound for the runtime by setting n = max ( n 0 , n 1 , … , n p − 1 ) {\displaystyle n=\max(n_{0},n_{1},\dots ,n_{p-1})} . A distributed memory model is assumed. The concepts are similar for the shared memory model. However, shared memory systems can provide hardware support for some operations like broadcast (§ Broadcast) for example, which allows convenient concurrent read. Thus, new algorithmic possibilities can become available. == Broadcast == The broadcast pattern is used to distribute data from one processing unit to all processing units, which is often needed in SPMD parallel programs to dispense input or global values. Broadcast can be interpreted as an inverse version of the reduce pattern (§ Reduce). Initially only root r {\displaystyle r} with i d {\displaystyle id} 0 {\displaystyle 0} stores message m {\displaystyle m} . During broadcast m {\displaystyle m} is sent to the remaining processing units, so that eventually m {\displaystyle m} is available to all processing units. Since an implementation by means of a sequential for-loop with p − 1 {\displaystyle p-1} iterations becomes a bottleneck, divide-and-conquer approaches are common. One possibility is to utilize a binomial tree structure with the requirement that p {\displaystyle p} has to be a power of two. When a processing unit is responsible for sending m {\displaystyle m} to processing units i . . j {\displaystyle i..j} , it sends m {\displaystyle m} to processing unit ⌈ ( i + j ) / 2 ⌉ {\displaystyle \left\lceil (i+j)/2\right\rceil } and delegates responsibility for the processing units ⌈ ( i + j ) / 2 ⌉ . . j {\displaystyle \left\lceil (i+j)/2\right\rceil ..j} to it, while its own responsibility is cut down to i . . ⌈ ( i + j ) / 2 ⌉ − 1 {\displaystyle i..\left\lceil (i+j)/2\right\rceil -1} . Binomial trees have a problem with long messages m {\displaystyle m} . The receiving unit of m {\displaystyle m} can only propagate the message to other units, after it received the whole message. In the meantime, the communication network is not utilized. Therefore pipelining on binary trees is used, where m {\displaystyle m} is split into an array of k {\displaystyle k} packets of size ⌈ n / k ⌉ {\displaystyle \left\lceil n/k\right\rceil } . The packets are then broadcast one after another, so that data is distributed fast in the communication network. Pipelined broadcast on balanced binary tree is possible in O ( α log ⁡ p + β n ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}(\alpha \log p+\beta n)} , whereas for the non-pipelined case it takes O ( ( α + β n ) log ⁡ p ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}((\alpha +\beta n)\log p)} cost. == Reduce == The reduce pattern is used to collect data or partial results from different processing units and to combine them into a global result by a chosen operator. Given p {\displaystyle p} processing units, message m i {\displaystyle m_{i}} is on processing unit p i {\displaystyle p_{i}} initially. All m i {\displaystyle m_{i}} are aggregated by ⊗ {\displaystyle \otimes } and the result is eventually stored on p 0 {\displaystyle p_{0}} . The reduction operator ⊗ {\displaystyle \otimes } must be associative at least. Some algorithms require a commutative operator with a neutral element. Operators like s u m {\displaystyle sum} , m i n {\displaystyle min} , m a x {\displaystyle max} are common. Implementation considerations are similar to broadcast (§ Broadcast). For pipelining on binary trees the message must be representable as a vector of smaller object for component-wise reduction. Pipelined reduce on a balanced binary tree is possible in O ( α log ⁡ p + β n ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}(\alpha \log p+\beta n)} . == All-Reduce == The all-reduce pattern (also called allreduce) is used if the result of a reduce operation (§ Reduce) must be distributed to all processing units. Given p {\displaystyle p} processing units, message m i {\displaystyle m_{i}} is on processing unit p i {\displaystyle p_{i}} initially. All m i {\displaystyle m_{i}} are aggregated by an operator ⊗ {\displaystyle \otimes } and the result is eventually stored on all p i {\displaystyle p_{i}} . Analog to the reduce operation, the operator ⊗ {\displaystyle \otimes } must be at least associative. All-reduce can be interpreted as a reduce operation with a subsequent broadcast (§ Broadcast). For long messages a corresponding implementation is suitable, whereas for short messages, the latency can be reduced by using a hypercube (Hypercube (communication pattern) § All-Gather/ All-Reduce) topology, if p {\displaystyle p} is a power of two. All-reduce can also be implemented with a butterfly algorithm and achieve optimal latency and bandwidth. All-reduce is possible in O ( α log ⁡ p + β n ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}(\alpha \log p+\beta n)} , since reduce and broadcast are possible in O ( α log ⁡ p + β n ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}(\alpha \log p+\beta n)} with pipelining on balanced binary trees. All-reduce implemented with a butterfly algorithm achieves the same asymptotic runtime. == Prefix-Sum/Scan == The prefix-sum or scan operation is used to collect data or partial results from different processing units and to compute intermediate results by an operator, which are stored on those processing units. It can be seen as a generalization of the reduce operation (§ Reduce). Given p {\displaystyle p} processing units, message m i {\displaystyle m_{i}} is on processing unit p i {\displaystyle p_{i}} . The operator ⊗ {\displaystyle \otimes } must be at least associative, whereas some algorithms require also a commutative operator and a neutral element. Common operators are s u m {\displaystyle sum} , m i n {\displaystyle min} and m a x {\displaystyle max} . Eventually processing unit p i {\displaystyle p_{i}} stores the prefix sum ⊗ i ′ <= i {\displaystyle \otimes _{i'<=i}} m i ′ {\displaystyle m_{i'}} . In the case of the so-called exclusive prefix sum, processing unit p i {\displaystyle p_{i}} stores the prefix sum ⊗ i ′ < i {\displaystyle \otimes _{i' Read more →

• 

  Chinese speech synthesis

  Chinese speech synthesis is the application of speech synthesis to the Chinese language (usually Standard Chinese). It poses additional difficulties due to Chinese characters frequently having different pronunciations in different contexts and the complex prosody, which is essential to convey the meaning of words, and sometimes the difficulty in obtaining agreement among native speakers concerning what the correct pronunciation is of certain phonemes. == Concatenation (Ekho and KeyTip) == Recordings can be concatenated in any desired combination, but the joins sound forced (as is usual for simple concatenation-based speech synthesis) and this can severely affect prosody; these synthesizers are also inflexible in terms of speed and expression. However, because these synthesizers do not rely on a corpus, there is no noticeable degradation in performance when they are given more unusual or awkward phrases. Ekho is an open source TTS which simply concatenates sampled syllables. It currently supports Cantonese, Mandarin, and experimentally Korean. Some of the Mandarin syllables have been pitched-normalised in Praat. A modified version of these is used in Gradint's "synthesis from partials". cjkware.com used to ship a product called KeyTip Putonghua Reader which worked similarly; it contained 120 Megabytes of sound recordings (GSM-compressed to 40 Megabytes in the evaluation version), comprising 10,000 multi-syllable dictionary words plus single-syllable recordings in 6 different prosodies (4 tones, neutral tone, and an extra third-tone recording for use at the end of a phrase). == Lightweight synthesizers (eSpeak and Yuet) == The lightweight open-source speech project eSpeak, which has its own approach to synthesis, has experimented with Mandarin and Cantonese. eSpeak was used by Google Translate from May 2010 until December 2010. The commercial product "Yuet" is also lightweight (it is intended to be suitable for resource-constrained environments like embedded systems); it was written from scratch in ANSI C starting from 2013. Yuet claims a built-in NLP model that does not require a separate dictionary; the speech synthesised by the engine claims clear word boundaries and emphasis on appropriate words. Communication with its author is required to obtain a copy. Both eSpeak and Yuet can synthesis speech for Cantonese and Mandarin from the same input text, and can output the corresponding romanisation (for Cantonese, Yuet uses Yale and eSpeak uses Jyutping; both use Pinyin for Mandarin). eSpeak does not concern itself with word boundaries when these don't change the question of which syllable should be spoken. == Corpus-based == A "corpus-based" approach can sound very natural in most cases but can err in dealing with unusual phrases if they can't be matched with the corpus. The synthesiser engine is typically very large (hundreds or even thousands of megabytes) due to the size of the corpus. === iFlyTek === Anhui USTC iFlyTek Co., Ltd (iFlyTek) published a W3C paper in which they adapted Speech Synthesis Markup Language to produce a mark-up language called Chinese Speech Synthesis Markup Language (CSSML) which can include additional markup to clarify the pronunciation of characters and to add some prosody information. The amount of data involved is not disclosed by iFlyTek but can be seen from the commercial products that iFlyTek have licensed their technology to; for example, Bider's SpeechPlus is a 1.3 Gigabyte download, 1.2 Gigabytes of which is used for the highly compressed data for a single Chinese voice. iFlyTek's synthesiser can also synthesise mixed Chinese and English text with the same voice (e.g. Chinese sentences containing some English words); they claim their English synthesis to be "average". The iFlyTek corpus appears to be heavily dependent on Chinese characters, and it is not possible to synthesize from pinyin alone. It is sometimes possible by means of CSSML to add pinyin to the characters to disambiguate between multiple possible pronunciations, but this does not always work. === NeoSpeech === There is an online interactive demonstration for NeoSpeech speech synthesis, which accepts Chinese characters and also pinyin if it's enclosed in their proprietary "VTML" markup. === Mac OS === Mac OS had Chinese speech synthesizers available up to version 9. This was removed in 10.0 and reinstated in 10.7 (Lion). === Historical corpus-based synthesizers (no longer available) === A corpus-based approach was taken by Tsinghua University in SinoSonic, with the Harbin dialect voice data taking 800 Megabytes. This was planned to be offered as a download but the link was never activated. Nowadays, only references to it can be found on Internet Archive. Bell Labs' approach, which was demonstrated online in 1997 but subsequently removed, was described in a monograph "Multilingual Text-to-Speech Synthesis: The Bell Labs Approach" (Springer, October 31, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7923-8027-6), and the former employee who was responsible for the project, Chilin Shih (who subsequently worked at the University of Illinois) put some notes about her methods on her website.

  Read more →
• 

  Dating app

  An online dating application, commonly known as a dating app, is an online dating service presented through a mobile phone application. These apps often take advantage of a smartphone's GPS location capabilities, always on-hand presence, and access to mobile wallets. These apps aim to speed up the online dating process of sifting through potential dating partners, chatting, flirting, and potentially meeting or becoming romantically involved. Online dating apps are now mainstream in the United States. As of 2017, online dating (which included both apps and other online dating services) was the principal method by which new couples in the U.S. met. The percentage of couples meeting online is predicted to increase to 70% by 2040. == Origins == The first computerized dating service was launched in 1964, the St. James Computer Dating Service, which became known as Com-Pat. The first U.S. dating service that used computerized match making was Operation Match. It required men and women to complete a questionnaire and was launched in 1965. Operation Match inspired the methodology of Dateline, which became popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Match.com was launched in 1995 and turned computerized match making into a profitable business. Grindr targeted gay and bisexual men at launch. Tinder, launched in 2012, led to a growth of online dating applications by both new providers and existing online dating services that expanded into the mobile app market. == Usage by demographic group == Online dating applications typically target a younger demographic group, though some apps, like Senior Match and Silver Singles are geared toward the 50 and up demographic. In 2016, almost 50% of people knew of someone who use the services or had met their loved one through the service. After the iPhone launch in 2007, online dating data has mushroomed as application usage increased. In 2005, only 10% of 18-24 year olds reported to have used online dating services; this number quickly grew to over 27%, making this target demographic the largest number of users for most applications. When Pew Research Center conducted a study in 2016, they found that 59% of U.S. adults agreed that online dating is a good way to meet people compared to 44% in 2005. This explosion in usage can be explained by the increased use of smartphones. By the end of 2022, it is expected there will be 413 million active users of online dating services worldwide. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey of 6,034 American adults found that 30% had ever used an online dating site or app, including 53% of those aged 18 to 29, 37% of those aged 30 to 49, and 17% of those aged 50 and over. Lesbian, gay and bisexual respondents reported using dating apps at nearly twice the rate of straight respondents (51% versus 28%), and 36% of divorced, separated or widowed adults had used one, compared with 16% of married adults. The increased use of smartphones by those 65 and older has also driven that population to the use dating apps. The Pew Research Center found that usage increase by 8 points since last surveyed in 2012. A study in 2021 found that more than one-third of seniors have dated in the past 5 years, and roughly one-third of those dating seniors have turned to dating apps. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Morning Consult found that more Americans were using online dating apps than ever before. In one survey in April 2020, the company discovered that 53% of U.S. adults who use online dating apps have been using them more during the pandemic. As of February 2021, that share increased to 71 percent. Research using Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory has indicated that norms about online dating applications tend to differ across cultures. A study published in the Journal of Creative Communications looked into the relationships between dating-app advertisements from over 51 countries and the cultural dimensions of these countries. The results revealed that dating-app advertisements appealed to multiple cultural needs, including the needs for relationships, friendship, entertainment, sex, status, design and identity. The use of these appeals was found to be 'congruent with ... the individualism/collectivism and uncertainty avoidance cultural dimensions.' == Popular applications == Following Tinder's success, other companies released dating applications. Raya was released in 2015 as a membership-based dating app, allowing entrance only through referrals, which was marketed as a dating app for celebrities. In early 2026, Hily surpassed Bumble to become the third most-used dating application in the United States and the fifth highest-grossing overall, driven largely by growing popularity among Generation Z users, while remaining behind Tinder and Hinge, both owned by Match Group. A number of dating apps have been created targeting adherents of particular religions seeking partners of the same religion, such as Muzmatch for Muslims, Christian Mingle, SALT, and Christian Connection for Christians, and JSwipe and JDate for Jews. === VR Dating === VR Dating is an application of Social VR where people can exist, collaborate, and perform various activities together. Virtual reality apps use virtual and augmented realities to make the dating experience more lifelike and more effective, as well as allow people to expand what is already possible in the world of online dating. There are several online platforms of VR Dating. The VR dating app Nevermet is the VR equivalent of Tinder, where people can search and find on dates. However, instead of actual real-life pictures, users will update pictures of virtual selves and will be interacting with avatars rather than real faces. Flirtual is a self-contained social VR app that serves to match users who then decide where and how to meet in VR. Flirtual hosts speed dating and social events in VR. == Effects on dating == The usage of online dating applications can have both advantages and disadvantages: === Advantages === Many of the applications provide personality tests for matching or use algorithms to match users. These factors enhance the possibility of users getting matched with a compatible candidate. Users are in control; they are provided with many options so there are enough matches that fit their particular type. Users can simply choose to not match the candidates that they know they are not interested in. Narrowing down options is easy. Once users think they are interested, they are able to chat and get to know the potential candidate. This form of communication can reduce the time, cost, and uncertainty often associated with traditional dating methods. Online dating offers convenience; people want dating to work around their schedules. Online dating can also increase self-confidence; even if users get rejected, they know there are hundreds of other candidates that will want to match with them so they can simply move on to the next option. In fact, 60% of U.S. adults agree that online dating is a good way to meet people and 66% say they have gone on a real date with someone they met through an application. Today, 5% of married Americans or Americans in serious relationships said they met their significant other online. The 39% of online dating users (representing 12% of all U.S. adults) say they have been in a committed relationship or married someone they met on a dating site or app. ==== Rejection sensitive individuals ==== Individuals high in rejection sensitivity are more likely to use online dating applications. As they tend to expect, perceive and overreact to rejection, rejection sensitive individuals struggle with traditional dating. Online dating applications allow for them to better reveal their true selves, potentially increasing their dating success. Online dating applications also obscure rejection cues, alleviating the rejection-related distress experienced by rejection sensitive individuals. ==== Anxiously attached individuals ==== Individuals high in attachment anxiety are also more likely to use online dating applications. While they harbour negative self-views, anxiously attached individuals are also more eager to enter and commit to relationships. Online dating applications allow for them to present "an authentic yet ideal version of themselves", mitigating their tendencies to view themselves as undesirable. This increases their romantic confidence, and potentially alleviates their anxiety when searching for a romantic partner. === Disadvantages === Sometimes having too many options can be overwhelming. With so many options available, users can get lost in their choices and end up spending too much time looking for the "perfect" candidate instead of using that time to start a real relationship. In addition, the algorithms and matching systems put in place may not always be as accurate as users think. There is no perfect system that can match two people's personalities perfectly every time. Communication online also lacks the physical chemistry aspec

  Read more →
• 

  Outline of artificial intelligence

  The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines or software. It is also the name of the scientific field which studies how to create computers and computer software that are capable of intelligent behavior. == AI terminology == Glossary of artificial intelligence == Goals and applications == === General intelligence === Artificial general intelligence AI-complete === Reasoning and problem solving === Automated reasoning Mathematics Automated theorem prover Computer-assisted proof – Computer algebra General Problem Solver Expert system – Decision support system – Clinical decision support system – === Knowledge representation === Knowledge representation Knowledge management Cyc === Planning === Automated planning and scheduling Strategic planning Sussman anomaly – === Learning === Machine learning – Constrained Conditional Models – Deep learning – Neural modeling fields – Supervised learning – Weak supervision (semi-supervised learning) – Unsupervised learning – === Natural language processing === Natural language processing (outline) – Chatterbots – Language identification – Large language model – Retrieval-augmented generation – Natural language user interface – Natural language understanding – Machine translation – Statistical semantics – Question answering – Semantic translation – Concept mining – Data mining – Text mining – Process mining – E-mail spam filtering – Information extraction – Named-entity extraction – Coreference resolution – Named-entity recognition – Relationship extraction – Terminology extraction – === Perception === Machine perception Pattern recognition – Computer Audition – Speech recognition – Speaker recognition – Computer vision (outline) – Image processing Intelligent word recognition – Object recognition – Optical mark recognition – Handwriting recognition – Optical character recognition – Automatic number plate recognition – Information extraction – Image retrieval – Automatic image annotation – Facial recognition systems – Silent speech interface – Activity recognition – Percept (artificial intelligence) === Robotics === Robotics – Behavior-based robotics – Cognitive – Cybernetics – Developmental robotics – Evolutionary robotics – === Control === Intelligent control Self-management (computer science) – Autonomic Computing – Autonomic Networking – === Social intelligence === Affective computing Kismet === Game playing === Game artificial intelligence – Computer game bot – computer replacement for human players. Video game AI – Computer chess – Computer Go – General game playing – General video game playing – === Creativity, art and entertainment === Artificial creativity Artificial life Artificial intelligence art AI anthropomorphism AI agent AI web browser AI boom AI slop Creative computing Generative artificial intelligence Generative pre trained transformer Uncanny valley Music and artificial intelligence Computational humor Chatbot === Integrated AI systems === AIBO – Sony's robot dog. It integrates vision, hearing and motorskills. Asimo (2000 to present) – humanoid robot developed by Honda, capable of walking, running, negotiating through pedestrian traffic, climbing and descending stairs, recognizing speech commands and the faces of specific individuals, among a growing set of capabilities. MIRAGE – A.I. embodied humanoid in an augmented reality environment. Cog – M.I.T. humanoid robot project under the direction of Rodney Brooks. QRIO – Sony's version of a humanoid robot. TOPIO, TOSY's humanoid robot that can play ping-pong with humans. Watson (2011) – computer developed by IBM that played and won the game show Jeopardy! It is now being used to guide nurses in medical procedures. Purpose: Open domain question answering Technologies employed: Natural language processing Information retrieval Knowledge representation Automated reasoning Machine learning Project Debater (2018) – artificially intelligent computer system, designed to make coherent arguments, developed at IBM's lab in Haifa, Israel. === Intelligent personal assistants === Intelligent personal assistant – Amazon Alexa – Assistant – Braina – Cortana – Google Assistant – Google Now – Mycroft – Siri – Viv – === Other applications === Artificial life – simulation of natural life through the means of computers, robotics, or biochemistry. Automatic target recognition – Diagnosis (artificial intelligence) – Speech generating device – Vehicle infrastructure integration – Virtual Intelligence – == History == History of artificial intelligence Progress in artificial intelligence Timeline of artificial intelligence AI effect – as soon as AI successfully solves a problem, the problem is no longer considered by the public to be a part of AI. This phenomenon has occurred in relation to every AI application produced, so far, throughout the history of development of AI. AI winter – a period of disappointment and funding reductions occurring after a wave of high expectations and funding in AI. Such funding cuts occurred in the 1970s, for instance. Moore's law === History by period === 2017 in artificial intelligence 2018 in artificial intelligence 2019 in artificial intelligence 2020 in artificial intelligence 2021 in artificial intelligence 2022 in artificial intelligence 2023 in artificial intelligence 2024 in artificial intelligence 2025 in artificial intelligence 2026 in artificial intelligence 2027 in artificial intelligence 2028 in artificial intelligence 2029 in artificial intelligence === History by subject === History of logic (formal reasoning is an important precursor of AI) History of machine learning (timeline) History of machine translation (timeline) History of natural language processing History of optical character recognition (timeline) == AI algorithms and techniques == === Search === Discrete search algorithms Uninformed search Brute force search – Problem-solving technique and algorithmic paradigmPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Search tree – Data structure in tree form sorted for fast lookup Breadth-first search – Algorithm to search the nodes of a graph Depth-first search – Algorithm to search the nodes of a graph State space search – Class of search algorithmsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Informed search Best-first search – Graph exploring search algorithm A search algorithm – Algorithm used for pathfinding and graph traversal Heuristics – Problem-solving methodPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Pruning (algorithm) – Data compression techniquePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Adversarial search Minmax algorithm – Decision rule used for minimizing the possible loss for a worst-case scenarioPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Logic as search Production system (computer science) – Computer program used to provide artificial intelligence Rule based system – Type of computer systemPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Production rule – Computer program used to provide artificial intelligence Inference rule – Method of deriving conclusionsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Horn clause – Type of logical formula Forward chaining – Inference engine in an expert system Backward chaining – Method of forming inferences Planning as search State space search – Class of search algorithmsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Means–ends analysis – Problem solving technique === Optimization search === Optimization (mathematics) algorithms Hill climbing – Optimization algorithm Simulated annealing – Probabilistic optimization technique and metaheuristic Beam search – Heuristic search algorithm Random optimization – Optimization technique in mathematics Evolutionary computation Genetic algorithms – Competitive algorithm for searching a problem spacePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Gene expression programming – Evolutionary algorithm Genetic programming – Evolving computer programs with techniques analogous to natural genetic processes Differential evolution – Method of mathematical optimization Society based learning algorithms. Swarm intelligence – Collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems Particle swarm optimization – Iterative simulation method Ant colony optimization – Optimization algorithmPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Metaheuristic – Optimization technique === Logic === Logic and automated reasoning Programming using logic Logic programming – Programming paradigm based on formal logic See "Logic as search" above. Forms of Logic Propositional logic First-order logic First-order logic with equality Constraint satisfaction – Process in artificial intelligence and operations research Fuzzy logic Fuzzy set theory – Sets whose elements have degrees of membershipPages displaying short descriptions

  Read more →
• 

  Artisto

  Artisto is a video processing application with art and movie effects filters based on neural network algorithms created in 2016 by Mail.ru Group machine learning specialists. At the moment the application can process videos up to 10 seconds long and offers users 21 filters, including those based on the works of famous artists (e.g. Blue Dream — Pablo Picasso), theme-based (Rio-2016 — related to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro) and others. The app works with both pre-recorded videos and videos recorded with the application. == History == Information on the application first appeared on Mail.ru Group Vice President Anna Artamonova's FB page on July 29, 2016. At the moment of posting there was only an Android version available. According to Anna, the application's first version only took eight days to develop. On July 31, the application was added to the AppStore for free download. From this moment and continuing into the present, Artisto has been the world's first app that uses neural networks for editing short videos, processing them in the style of famous artworks or any other source image. Prisma (app) application developers promise to deliver similar functionality at any moment. The application soon won recognition and started to attract the attention of both international brands (e.g. Korean auto manufacturer Kia Motors) and popular singers and musicians. According to the independent App Annie analysis system, within the first two weeks on the market the application made it onto the TOP download lists in nine countries. == Technology == The idea of transferring styles from works of famous artists to images was first mentioned in September 2015 after the publication of Leon Gatys's article "A Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style", where he described the algorithm in detail. The major shortcoming of this algorithm is its slow performance, which is up to dozens of seconds depending on the algorithm's settings. In March 2016, Russian researcher Dmitry Ulyanov's article was published, where he invented a way to improve the generation of stylized pictures using additional neuron generator network training. With this approach, stylized images can be generated within just dozens of milliseconds. Seventeen days after Ulyanov's article, Justin Johnson published an article containing an identical idea, the only difference being the structure of the generator network. The Artisto application was developed using these open-source technologies, which Mail.ru Group's machine learning specialists improved for faster video processing and better quality.

  Read more →
• 

  Controlled vocabulary

  A controlled vocabulary provides a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. Controlled vocabularies are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems. Controlled vocabulary schemes mandate the use of predefined, preferred terms that have been preselected by the designers of the schemes, in contrast to natural language vocabularies, which have no such restriction. == In library and information science == In library and information science, controlled vocabulary is a carefully selected list of words and phrases, which are used to tag units of information (document or work) so that they may be more easily retrieved by a search. Controlled vocabularies solve the problems of homographs, synonyms and polysemes by a bijection between concepts and preferred terms. In short, controlled vocabularies reduce unwanted ambiguity inherent in normal human languages where the same concept can be given different names and ensure consistency. For example, in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (a subject heading system that uses a controlled vocabulary), preferred terms—subject headings in this case—have to be chosen to handle choices between variant spellings of the same word (American versus British), choice among scientific and popular terms (cockroach versus Periplaneta americana), and choices between synonyms (automobile versus car), among other difficult issues. Choices of preferred terms are based on the principles of user warrant (what terms users are likely to use), literary warrant (what terms are generally used in the literature and documents), and structural warrant (terms chosen by considering the structure, scope of the controlled vocabulary). Controlled vocabularies also typically handle the problem of homographs with qualifiers. For example, the term pool has to be qualified to refer to either swimming pool or the game pool to ensure that each preferred term or heading refers to only one concept. === Types used in libraries === There are two main kinds of controlled vocabulary tools used in libraries: subject headings and thesauri. While the differences between the two are diminishing, there are still some minor differences: Historically, subject headings were designed to describe books in library catalogs by catalogers while thesauri were used by indexers to apply index terms to documents and articles. Subject headings tend to be broader in scope describing whole books, while thesauri tend to be more specialized covering very specific disciplines. Because of the card catalog system, subject headings tend to have terms that are in indirect order (though with the rise of automated systems this is being removed), while thesaurus terms are always in direct order. Subject headings tend to use more pre-coordination of terms such that the designer of the controlled vocabulary will combine various concepts together to form one preferred subject heading. (e.g., children and terrorism) while thesauri tend to use singular direct terms. Thesauri list not only equivalent terms but also narrower, broader terms and related terms among various preferred and non-preferred (but potentially synonymous) terms, while historically most subject headings did not. For example, the Library of Congress Subject Heading itself did not have much syndetic structure until 1943, and it was not until 1985 when it began to adopt the thesauri type term "Broader term" and "Narrow term". The terms are chosen and organized by trained professionals (including librarians and information scientists) who possess expertise in the subject area. Controlled vocabulary terms can accurately describe what a given document is actually about, even if the terms themselves do not occur within the document's text. Well known subject heading systems include the Library of Congress system, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) created by the United States National Library of Medicine, and Sears. Well known thesauri include the Art and Architecture Thesaurus and the ERIC Thesaurus. When selecting terms for a controlled vocabulary, the designer has to consider the specificity of the term chosen, whether to use direct entry, inter consistency and stability of the language. Lastly the amount of pre-coordination (in which case the degree of enumeration versus synthesis becomes an issue) and post-coordination in the system is another important issue. Controlled vocabulary elements (terms/phrases) employed as tags, to aid in the content identification process of documents, or other information system entities (e.g. DBMS, Web Services) qualifies as metadata. == Indexing languages == There are three main types of indexing languages. Controlled indexing language – only approved terms can be used by the indexer to describe the document Natural language indexing language – any term from the document in question can be used to describe the document Free indexing language – any term (not only from the document) can be used to describe the document When indexing a document, the indexer also has to choose the level of indexing exhaustivity, the level of detail in which the document is described. For example, using low indexing exhaustivity, minor aspects of the work will not be described with index terms. In general the higher the indexing exhaustivity, the more terms indexed for each document. In recent years free text search as a means of access to documents has become popular. This involves using natural language indexing with an indexing exhaustively set to maximum (every word in the text is indexed). These methods have been compared in some studies, such as the 2007 article, "A Comparative Evaluation of Full-text, Concept-based, and Context-sensitive Search". === Advantages === Controlled vocabularies are often claimed to improve the accuracy of free text searching, such as to reduce irrelevant items in the retrieval list. These irrelevant items (false positives) are often caused by the inherent ambiguity of natural language. Take the English word football for example. Football is the name given to a number of different team sports. Worldwide the most popular of these team sports is association football, which also happens to be called soccer in several countries. The word football is also applied to rugby football (rugby union and rugby league), American football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, and Canadian football. A search for football therefore will retrieve documents that are about several completely different sports. Controlled vocabulary solves this problem by tagging the documents in such a way that the ambiguities are eliminated. Compared to free text searching, the use of a controlled vocabulary can dramatically increase the performance of an information retrieval system, if performance is measured by precision (the percentage of documents in the retrieval list that are actually relevant to the search topic). In some cases controlled vocabulary can enhance recall as well, because unlike natural language schemes, once the correct preferred term is searched, there is no need to search for other terms that might be synonyms of that term. === Disadvantages === A controlled vocabulary search may lead to unsatisfactory recall, in that it will fail to retrieve some documents that are actually relevant to the search question. This is particularly problematic when the search question involves terms that are sufficiently tangential to the subject area such that the indexer might have decided to tag it using a different term (but the searcher might consider the same). Essentially, this can be avoided only by an experienced user of controlled vocabulary whose understanding of the vocabulary coincides with that of the indexer. Another possibility is that the article is just not tagged by the indexer because indexing exhaustivity is low. For example, an article might mention football as a secondary focus, and the indexer might decide not to tag it with "football" because it is not important enough compared to the main focus. But it turns out that for the searcher that article is relevant and hence recall fails. A free text search would automatically pick up that article regardless. On the other hand, free text searches have high exhaustivity (every word is searched) so although it has much lower precision, it has potential for high recall as long as the searcher overcome the problem of synonyms by entering every combination. Controlled vocabularies may become outdated rapidly in fast developing fields of knowledge, unless the preferred terms are updated regularly. Even in an ideal scenario, a controlled vocabulary is often less specific than the words of the text itself. Indexers trying to choose the appropriate index terms might misinterpret the author, while this precise problem is not a factor in a free text, as it uses the author's own words. The use of controlled vocabularies can be costly compared to free

  Read more →
• 

  Randomized Hough transform

  Hough transforms are techniques for object detection, a critical step in many implementations of computer vision, or data mining from images. Specifically, the Randomized Hough transform is a probabilistic variant to the classical Hough transform, and is commonly used to detect curves (straight line, circle, ellipse, etc.) The basic idea of Hough transform (HT) is to implement a voting procedure for all potential curves in the image, and at the termination of the algorithm, curves that do exist in the image will have relatively high voting scores. Randomized Hough transform (RHT) is different from HT in that it tries to avoid conducting the computationally expensive voting process for every nonzero pixel in the image by taking advantage of the geometric properties of analytical curves, and thus improve the time efficiency and reduce the storage requirement of the original algorithm. == Motivation == Although Hough transform (HT) has been widely used in curve detection, it has two major drawbacks: First, for each nonzero pixel in the image, the parameters for the existing curve and redundant ones are both accumulated during the voting procedure. Second, the accumulator array (or Hough space) is predefined in a heuristic way. The more accuracy needed, the higher parameter resolution should be defined. These two needs usually result in a large storage requirement and low speed for real applications. Therefore, RHT was brought up to tackle this problem. == Implementation == In comparison with HT, RHT takes advantage of the fact that some analytical curves can be fully determined by a certain number of points on the curve. For example, a straight line can be determined by two points, and an ellipse (or a circle) can be determined by three points. The case of ellipse detection can be used to illustrate the basic idea of RHT. The whole process generally consists of three steps: Fit ellipses with randomly selected points. Update the accumulator array and corresponding scores. Output the ellipses with scores higher than some predefined threshold. === Ellipse fitting === One general equation for defining ellipses is: a ( x − p ) 2 + 2 b ( x − p ) ( y − q ) + c ( y − q ) 2 = 1 {\displaystyle a(x-p)^{2}+2b(x-p)(y-q)+c(y-q)^{2}=1} with restriction: a c − b 2 > 0 {\displaystyle ac-b^{2}>0} However, an ellipse can be fully determined if one knows three points on it and the tangents in these points. RHT starts by randomly selecting three points on the ellipse. Let them be X 1 {\displaystyle X_{1}} , X 2 {\displaystyle X_{2}} and X 3 {\displaystyle X_{3}} . The first step is to find the tangents of these three points. They can be found by fitting a straight line using least squares technique for a small window of neighboring pixels. The next step is to find the intersection points of the tangent lines. This can be easily done by solving the line equations found in the previous step. Then let the intersection points be T 12 {\displaystyle T_{12}} and T 23 {\displaystyle T_{23}} , the midpoints of line segments X 1 X 2 {\displaystyle X_{1}X_{2}} and X 2 X 3 {\displaystyle X_{2}X_{3}} be M 12 {\displaystyle M_{12}} and M 23 {\displaystyle M_{23}} . Then the center of the ellipse will lie in the intersection of T 12 M 12 {\displaystyle T_{12}M_{12}} and T 23 M 23 {\displaystyle T_{23}M_{23}} . Again, the coordinates of the intersected point can be determined by solving line equations and the detailed process is skipped here for conciseness. Let the coordinates of ellipse center found in previous step be ( x 0 , y 0 ) {\displaystyle (x_{0},y_{0})} . Then the center can be translated to the origin with x ′ = x − x 0 {\displaystyle x'=x-x_{0}} and y ′ = y − y 0 {\displaystyle y'=y-y_{0}} so that the ellipse equation can be simplified to: a x ′ 2 + 2 b x ′ y ′ + c y ′ 2 = 1 {\displaystyle ax'^{2}+2bx'y'+cy'^{2}=1} Now we can solve for the rest of ellipse parameters: a {\displaystyle a} , b {\displaystyle b} and c {\displaystyle c} by substituting the coordinates of X 1 {\displaystyle X_{1}} , X 2 {\displaystyle X_{2}} and X 3 {\displaystyle X_{3}} into the equation above. === Accumulating === With the ellipse parameters determined from previous stage, the accumulator array can be updated correspondingly. Different from classical Hough transform, RHT does not keep "grid of buckets" as the accumulator array. Rather, it first calculates the similarities between the newly detected ellipse and the ones already stored in accumulator array. Different metrics can be used to calculate the similarity. As long as the similarity exceeds some predefined threshold, replace the one in the accumulator with the average of both ellipses and add 1 to its score. Otherwise, initialize this ellipse to an empty position in the accumulator and assign a score of 1. === Termination === Once the score of one candidate ellipse exceeds the threshold, it is determined as existing in the image (in other words, this ellipse is detected), and should be removed from the image and accumulator array so that the algorithm can detect other potential ellipses faster. The algorithm terminates when the number of iterations reaches a maximum limit or all the ellipses have been detected. Pseudo code for RHT: while (we find ellipses AND not reached the maximum epoch) { for (a fixed number of iterations) { Find a potential ellipse. if (the ellipse is similar to an ellipse in the accumulator) then Replace the one in the accumulator with the average of two ellipses and add 1 to the score; else Insert the ellipse into an empty position in the accumulator with a score of 1; } Select the ellipse with the best score and save it in a best ellipse table; Eliminate the pixels of the best ellipse from the image; Empty the accumulator; }

  Read more →
• 

  BuildingSMART Data Dictionary

  buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) is a service provided by buildingSMART which offers free data dictionaries for the international standardization of construction planning. The structure of bSDD was defined by the Nonprofit organization Buildingsmart and is used to describe objects and their attributes in a BIM process. == Aim == The aim of bSDD is to enable architects and planners to exchange and share building data across different specialists and language boundaries and thus avoid misunderstandings caused by different interpretations of terms. The bSDD standard extends the more general IFC. Software developers can access and use the dictionaries. In May 2025 over 300 dictionaries are available, including IFC, extensions to it such as Airport Domain IFC extension module or classification systems like Uniclass. == Structure == The main structural parts of bSDD are: Dictionary: A dictionary is a collection of classes: Class: A class describes the various object types, such as Bag drop or Baggage conveyor in airport planning. A class contains properties: Property: A property describes a part of a class, e.g. color or weight. Related properties are organized in a group: GroupOfProperties: A group organizes related properties, e.g. environmental properties or electrical properties. == Creating and managing a directory == Every dictionary in bSDD must be published in the name of a registered organization. As soon as the content is activated, it receives an unchangeable URI. This means that the content remains permanently in bSDD and cannot be deleted - this ensures stable use of the dictionary. It is only possible to change the status to inactive if it is no longer to be used - however, the dictionary remains permanently.

  Read more →
• 

  Information behavior

  Information behavior is a field of information science research that seeks to understand the way people search for and use information in various contexts. It can include information seeking and information retrieval, but it also aims to understand why people seek information and how they use it. The term 'information behavior' was coined by Thomas D. Wilson in 1982 and sparked controversy upon its introduction. The term has now been adopted and Wilson's model of information behavior is widely cited in information behavior literature. In 2000, Wilson defined information behavior as "the totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information". A variety of theories of information behavior seek to understand the processes that surround information seeking. An analysis of the most cited publications on information behavior during the early 21st century shows its theoretical nature. Information behavior research can employ various research methodologies grounded in broader research paradigms from psychology, sociology and education. In 2003, a framework for information-seeking studies was introduced that aims to guide the production of clear, structured descriptions of research objects and positions information-seeking as a concept within information behavior. == Concepts of information behavior == === Information need === Information need is a concept introduced by Wilson. Understanding the information need of an individual involved three elements: Why the individual decides to look for information, What purpose the information they find will serve, and How the information is used once it is retrieved === Information-seeking behavior === Information-seeking behavior is a more specific concept of information behavior. It specifically focuses on searching, finding, and retrieving information. Information-seeking behavior research can focus on improving information systems or, if it includes information need, can also focus on why the user behaves the way they do. A review study on information search behavior of users highlighted that behavioral factors, personal factors, product/service factors and situational factors affect information search behavior. Information-seeking behavior can be more or less explicit on the part of users: users might seek to solve some task or to establish some piece of knowledge which can be found in the data in question, or alternatively the search process itself is part of the objective of the user, in use cases for exploring visual content or for familiarising oneself with the content of an information service. In the general case, information-seeking needs to be understood and analysed as a session rather than as a one-off transaction with a search engine, and in a broader context which includes user high-level intentions in addition to the immediate information need. === Information use === An information need is the recognition that a gap exists in one’s knowledge, prompting a desire to seek information to fill that gap. It often arises when a person encounters a problem or question they cannot resolve with their current understanding. === Information poverty and barriers === Introduced by Elfreda Chatman in 1987, information poverty is informed by the understanding that information is not equally accessible to all people. Information poverty does not describe a lack of information, but rather a worldview in which one's own experiences inside their own small world may create a distrust in the information provided by those outside their own lived experiences. == Metatheories == In Library and Information Science (LIS), a metatheory is described "a set of assumptions that orient and direct theorizing about a given phenomenon". Library and information science researchers have adopted a number of different metatheories in their research. A common concern among LIS researchers, and a prominent discussion in the field, is the broad spectrum of theories that inform the study of information behavior, information users, or information use. This variation has been noted as a cause of concern because it makes individual studies difficult to compare or synthesize if they are not guided by the same theory. This sentiment has been expressed in studies of information behavior literature from the early 1980s and more recent literature reviews have declared it necessary to refine their reviews to specific contexts or situations due to the sheer breadth of information behavior research available. Below are descriptions of some, but not all, metatheories that have guided LIS research. === Cognitivist approach === A cognitive approach to understanding information behavior is grounded in psychology. It holds the assumption that a person's thinking influences how they seek, retrieve, and use information. Researchers that approach information behavior with the assumption that it is influenced by cognition, seek to understand what someone is thinking while they engage in information behavior and how those thoughts influence their behavior. Wilson's attempt to understand information-seeking behavior by defining information need includes a cognitive approach. Wilson theorizes that information behavior is influenced by the cognitive need of an individual. By understanding the cognitive information need of an individual, we may gain insight into their information behavior. Nigel Ford takes a cognitive approach to information-seeking, focusing on the intellectual processes of information-seeking. In 2004, Ford proposed an information-seeking model using a cognitive approach that focuses on how to improve information retrieval systems and serves to establish information-seeking and information behavior as concepts in and of themselves, rather than synonymous terms. === Constructionist approach === The constructionist approach to information behavior has roots in the humanities and social sciences. It relies on social constructionism, which assumes that a person's information behavior is influenced by their experiences in society. In order to understand information behavior, constructionist researchers must first understand the social discourse that surrounds the behavior. The most popular thinker referenced in constructionist information behavior research is Michel Foucault, who famously rejected the concept of a universal human nature. The constructionist approach to information behavior research creates space for contextualizing the behavior based on the social experiences of the individual. One study that approaches information behavior research through the social constructionist approach is a study of the information behavior of a public library knitting group. The authors use a collectivist theory to frame their research, which denies the universality of information behavior and focuses on "understanding the ways that discourse communities collectively construct information needs, seeking, sources, and uses". === Constructivist approach === The constructivist approach is born out of education and sociology in which, "individuals are seen as actively constructing an understanding of their worlds, heavily influenced by the social world(s) in which they are operating". Constructivist approaches to information behavior research generally treat the individual's reality as constructed within their own mind rather than built by the society in which they live. The constructivist metatheory makes space for the influence of society and culture with social constructivism, "which argues that, while the mind constructs reality in its relationship to the world, this mental process is significantly informed by influences received from societal conventions, history and interaction with significant others". == Theories == A common concern among LIS researchers, and a prominent discussion in the field, is the broad spectrum of theories that inform LIS research. This variation has been noted as a cause of concern because it makes individual studies difficult to compare if they are not guided by the same theory. Recent studies have shown that the impact of these theories and theoretical models is very limited. LIS researchers have applied concepts and theories from many disciplines, including sociology, psychology, communication, organizational behavior, and computer science. === Wilson's theory of information behavior (1981) === The term was coined by Thomas D. Wilson in his 1981 paper, on the grounds that the current term, 'information needs' was unhelpful since 'need' could not be directly observed, while how people behaved in seeking information could be observed and investigated. However, there is increasing work in the information-searching field that is relating behaviors to underlying needs. In 2000, Wilson described information behavior as the totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active and passive information-seeking, and information use. He described info

  Read more →
• 

  Media aggregation platform

  A Media Aggregation Platform or Media Aggregation Portal (MAP) is an over the top service for distributing web-based streaming media content from multiple sources to a large audience. MAPs consist of networks of sources who host their own content which viewers can choose and access directly from a larger variety of content to choose from than a single source can offer. The service is used by content providers, looking to extend the reach of their content. Unlike multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) or multiple-system operators (MSO), MAPs rely on the Internet rather than cables or satellite. As more network television channels have moved online in the early 21st century, joining web-native channels like Netflix, MAPs aggregate content the way that MSOs and MVPDs have used cable, and to a lesser extent satellite and IPTV infrastructure. There are companies that offer a similar service for free, including Yidio and StreamingMoviesRight, while others charge a subscription fee like as FreeCast Inc's Rabbit TV Plus. When compared with MSOs and MVPDs, MAP networks have much lower costs due to lack of physical infrastructure. The majority of revenue from MAP services are retained by the content creators, and revenue is instead collected from advertisements, pay-per-view, and subscription-based content offerings instead of licensing and reselling content. MAP service consumers interact and purchase content directly from its source, without the markup added by a middleman.

  Read more →
• 

  JAX (software)

  JAX is a Python library for accelerator-oriented array computation and program transformation, designed for high-performance numerical computing and large-scale machine learning. It is developed by Google with contributions from Nvidia and other community contributors. It is described as bringing together a modified version of the automatic differentiation system autograd and OpenXLA's XLA (Accelerated Linear Algebra). It is designed to follow the structure and workflow of NumPy as closely as possible and works with various existing frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch. The primary features of JAX are: Providing a unified NumPy-like interface to computations that run on CPU, GPU, or TPU, in local or distributed settings. Built-in Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation via OpenXLA, an open-source machine learning compiler ecosystem. Efficient evaluation of gradients via its automatic differentiation transformations. Automatic vectorization to efficiently map functions over arrays representing batches of inputs. == Libraries using Jax == Flax Equinox Optax

  Read more →
• 

  Information professional

  The term information professional or information specialist refers to professionals responsible for the collection, documentation, organization, storage, preservation, retrieval, and dissemination of printed and digital information. The service delivered to the client is known as an information service. The term "information professional" is a versatile one, used to describe similar and sometimes overlapping professions, such as librarians, archivists, information managers, information systems specialists, information scientists, records managers, and information consultants. However, terminology differs among sources and organisations. Information professionals are employed in a variety of private, public, and academic institutions, as well as independently. == Skills == Since the term information professional is broad, the skills required for this profession are also varied. A Gartner report in 2011 pointed out that "Professional roles focused on information management will be different to that of established IT roles. An 'information professional' will not be one type of role or skill set, but will in fact have a number of specializations". Thus, an information professional can possess a variety of different skills, depending on the sector in which the person is employed. Some essential cross-sector skills are: IT skills, such as word-processing and spreadsheets, digitisation skills, and conducting Internet searches, together with skills loan systems, databases, content management systems, and specially designed programmes and packages. Customer service. An information professional should have the ability to address the information needs of customers. Language proficiency. This is essential in order to manage the information at hand and deal with customer needs. Soft skills. These include skills such as negotiating, conflict resolution, and time management. Management training. An information professional should be familiar with notions such as strategic planning and project management. Moreover, an information professional should be skilled in planning and using relevant systems, in capturing and securing information, and in accessing it to deliver service whenever the information is required. == Associations == Most countries have a professional association who oversee the professional and academic standards of librarians and other information professionals. There are also international associations related to LIS (library and information science), the most prominent of which is the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). In many countries, LIS courses are accredited by the relevant professional association, as the American Library Association (ALA) in the USA, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) in the UK, and the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) in Australia. == Qualifications == Educational institutions around the world offer academic degrees, or degrees on related subjects such as Archival Studies, Information Systems, Information Management, and Records Management. Some of the institutions offering information science education refer to themselves as an iSchool, such as the CiSAP (Consortium of iSchools Asia Pacific, founded 2006) in Asia and the iSchool Caucus in the USA. There are also online e-learning resources, some of which offer certification for information professionals. === Africa === Information development in Africa started later than in other continents, mainly due to a lack of internet access, expertise and resources to manage digital infrastructure, and "opportunities for capacity development and knowledge-sharing". Nowadays, academic degrees in information studies are available at many universities of African countries, such as the University of Pretoria (South Africa), University of Nairobi (Kenya), Makerere University (Uganda), University of Botswana (Botswana), and University of Nigeria (Nigeria). === Asia === LIS-related studies are available in more than 30 Asian countries. Some examples listed by iSchools Inc. are the University of Hong Kong, University of Tsukuba, Japan, Yonsei University, South Korea, National Taiwan University and Wuhan University, China. Centre of Library and Information Management Science (CLIMS) at Tata Institute of Social Science in Mumbai, India. In Southeast Asia, the Congress of Southeast Asian Librarians (CONSAL) connects librarians and libraries in more than 10 countries with resources, networking opportunities, and support for growing library systems. === Australasia === The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) as of 2021 lists six schools offering undergraduate and postgraduate accredited university courses for "Librarian and Information Specialists" on their website. In New Zealand, the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand and the Victoria University of Wellington offer undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses for information professionals. === Europe === The majority of European countries have universities, colleges, or schools which offer bachelor's degrees in LIS studies. Over 40 universities offer master's degrees in LIS-related fields, and many institutions, such as the Swedish School of Library and Information Science at the University of Borås (Sweden), the University of Barcelona (Spain), Loughborough University (UK), and Aberystwyth University (Wales, UK) also offer PhD degrees. === North America === Information studies and degrees are available at numerous academic institutions throughout the U.S. and Canada. U.S. professional associations, together with their European counterparts, have undertaken many educational initiatives and pioneered many advances in the field of Information studies, such as increased interdisciplinarity and more effective delivery of distance learning. The Association for Intelligent Information Management, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, offers a qualification called Certified Information Professional (CIP), earned upon passing an examination, with certification remaining valid for three years. === South America === There are many schools and colleges in Latin America, which offer courses in Library Science, Archival Studies, and Information Studies, however these subjects are taught completely separately.

  Read more →
• 

  Emotion Markup Language

  An Emotion Markup Language (EML or EmotionML) has first been defined by the W3C Emotion Incubator Group (EmoXG) as a general-purpose emotion annotation and representation language, which should be usable in a large variety of technological contexts where emotions need to be represented. Emotion-oriented computing (or "affective computing") is gaining importance as interactive technological systems become more sophisticated. Representing the emotional states of a user or the emotional states to be simulated by a user interface requires a suitable representation format; in this case a markup language is used. EmotionML version 1.0 was published by the group in May 2014. == Example == Here is an example of an EmotionML document describing emotions expressed in a video recording of the interaction between a teacher, Alice, and a student, Bob. == History == In 2006, a first W3C Incubator Group, the Emotion Incubator Group (EmoXG), was set up "to investigate a language to represent the emotional states of users and the emotional states simulated by user interfaces" with the final Report published on 10 July 2007. In 2007, the Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group (EmotionML XG) was set up as a follow-up to the Emotion Incubator Group, "to propose a specification draft for an Emotion Markup Language, to document it in a way accessible to non-experts, and to illustrate its use in conjunction with a number of existing markups." The final report of the Emotion Markup Language Incubator Group, Elements of an EmotionML 1.0, was published on 20 November 2008. The work then was continued in 2009 in the frame of the W3C's Multimodal Interaction Activity, with the First Public Working Draft of "Emotion Markup Language (EmotionML) 1.0" being published on 29 October 2009. The Last Call Working Draft of "Emotion Markup Language 1.0", was published on 7 April 2011. The Last Call Working Draft addressed all open issues that arose from feedback of the community on the First Call Working Draft as well as results of a workshop held in Paris in October 2010. Along with the Last Call Working Draft, a list of vocabularies for EmotionML has been published to aid developers using common vocabularies for annotating or representing emotions. Annual draft updates were published until the 1.0 version was finished in 2014. == Reasons for defining an emotion markup language == A standard for an emotion markup language would be useful for the following purposes: To enhance computer-mediated human-human or human-machine communication. Emotions are a basic part of human communication and should therefore be taken into account, e.g. in emotional Chat systems or emphatic voice boxes. This involves specification, analysis and display of emotion related states. To enhance systems' processing efficiency. Emotion and intelligence are strongly interconnected. The modeling of human emotions in computer processing can help to build more efficient systems, e.g. using emotional models for time-critical decision enforcement. To allow the analysis of non-verbal behavior, emotion, mental states that can be provided using web services to enable data collection, analysis, and reporting. Concrete examples of existing technology that could apply EmotionML include: Opinion mining / sentiment analysis in Web 2.0, to automatically track customer's attitude regarding a product across blogs; Affective monitoring, such as ambient assisted living applications, fear detection for surveillance purposes, or using wearable sensors to test customer satisfaction; Wellness technologies that provide assistance according to a person's emotional state with the goal to improve the person's well-being; Character design and control for games and virtual worlds; Building web services to capture, analysis, and report data of non-verbal behavior, emotion and mental states of an individual or group across the internet using standard web technologies such as HTML5 and JSON. Social robots, such as guide robots engaging with visitors; Expressive speech synthesis, generating synthetic speech with different emotions, such as happy or sad, friendly or apologetic; expressive synthetic speech would for example make more information available to blind and partially sighted people, and enrich their experience of the content; Emotion recognition (e.g., for spotting angry customers in speech dialog systems, to improve computer games or e-Learning applications); Support for people with disabilities, such as educational programs for people with autism. EmotionML can be used to make the emotional intent of content explicit. This would enable people with learning disabilities (such as Asperger syndrome) to realise the emotional context of the content; EmotionML can be used for media transcripts and captions. Where emotions are marked up to help deaf or hearing impaired people who cannot hear the soundtrack, more information is made available to enrich their experience of the content. The Emotion Incubator Group has listed 39 individual use cases for an Emotion markup language. A standardised way to mark up the data needed by such "emotion-oriented systems" has the potential to boost development primarily because data that was annotated in a standardised way can be interchanged between systems more easily, thereby simplifying a market for emotional databases, and the standard can be used to ease a market of providers for sub-modules of emotion processing systems, e.g. a web service for the recognition of emotion from text, speech or multi-modal input. == The challenge of defining a generally usable emotion markup language == Any attempt to standardize the description of emotions using a finite set of fixed descriptors is doomed to failure, as there is no consensus on the number of relevant emotions, on the names that should be given to them or how else best to describe them. For example, the difference between ":)" and "(:" is small, but using a standardized markup it would make one invalid. Even more basically, the list of emotion-related states that should be distinguished varies depending on the application domain and the aspect of emotions to be focused. Basically, the vocabulary needed depends on the context of use. On the other hand, the basic structure of concepts is less controversial: it is generally agreed that emotions involve triggers, appraisals, feelings, expressive behavior including physiological changes, and action tendencies; emotions in their entirety can be described in terms of categories or a small number of dimensions; emotions have an intensity, and so on. For details, see the Scientific Descriptions of Emotions in the Final Report of the Emotion Incubator Group. Given this lack of agreement on descriptors in the field, the only practical way of defining an emotion markup language is the definition of possible structural elements and to allow users to "plug in" vocabularies that they consider appropriate for their work. An additional challenge lies in the aim to provide a markup language that is generally usable. The requirements that arise from different use cases are rather different. Whereas manual annotation tends to require all the fine-grained distinctions considered in the scientific literature, automatic recognition systems can usually distinguish only a very small number of different states and affective avatars need yet another level of detail for expressing emotions in an appropriate way. For the reasons outlined here, it is clear that there is an inevitable tension between flexibility and interoperability, which need to be weighed in the formulation of an EmotionML. The guiding principle in the following specification has been to provide a choice only where it is needed, and to propose reasonable default options for every choice. == Applications and web services benefiting from an emotion markup language == There are a range of existing projects and applications to which an emotion markup language will enable the building of webservices to measure capture data of individuals non-verbal behavior, mental states, and emotions and allowing results to be reported and rendered in a standardized format using standard web technologies such as JSON and HTML5. One such project is measuring affect data across the Internet using EyesWeb.

  Read more →