AI Chatbot Generator

AI Chatbot Generator — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

Game Jolt

Game Jolt is a social community platform for video games, gamers and content creators. Founded by Yaprak and David DeCarmine, it is available on iOS, Android, and on the web and as a desktop app for Windows and Linux. Users share interactive content through a variety of formats including images, videos, live streams, chat rooms, and virtual events. == Features == === Crowd streaming === In 2021 Game Jolt revealed their own live streaming feature called Firesides. Firesides allowed multiple users to simultaneously livestream together with nearly no delay. The feature launched with a virtual concert showcasing its ability to accommodate multiple streamers. On October 16, 2023, Firesides were removed from Game Jolt. === Mobile app === Game Jolt Social by Game Jolt Inc. launched on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in March 2022. "It's clear to us that Gen Z is tired of generic social media and they want a place specifically for gaming that supports all types of content they're creating–art, videos, thoughts, and livestreams all in one place." said Game Jolt founder and CEO Yaprak DeCarmine, in a statement to VentureBeat. === Game API === The Game Jolt Application Programming Interface (usually known as the Game Jolt Game API) allows any developer using a game development platform that supports HTTP operations and MD5 or SHA-1. Game Jolt advertises that the API can: Create multiple "scoreboards" which collect high scores from players made publicly available on the game's profile and give user accounts EXP Award player's trophies which give user accounts EXP Store game data on Game Jolt's data servers Log whether a user is currently playing a game they're logged into via the GJAPI == Game jams and competitions == Game Jolt regularly hosts game jams where participants are encouraged to develop games for a chance to win prizes. They hosted their first game jam in 2009, Shocking Contest. In November 2014, Game Jolt announced the "Indies vs PewDiePie" game jam, partnering with the popular YouTuber Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg. Developers were given a weekend (21–24 November) to create a game with the theme of "fun to play, fun to watch" to suit the Let's Plays entertainment style. Users could rate entries afterwards until December 1 when the scores were counted up. The prize to the top 10 rated games was Felix playing the games on his channel as a means of promotion for the developers, although later he played other entries. One of the participants of the jam, now known as Outerminds Inc. was discovered and hired by PewDiePie to develop his mobile game, Legend of the Brofist. Game Jolt partnered with Felix, Sean "Jacksepticeye" McLoughlin and Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach to host "Indies vs Gamers" in July 2015. The requirements for entries were arcade games using the Game Jolt Game API highscore tables, to be made between the July 17–20 and the top 5 games were played on the partner's YouTube channels. Following the "Indies vs PewDiePie" game jam in 2014, Game Jolt released their internal jam hosting tools public for all users to use as a service, to create their own game jams that integrated with the main site. Today, Game Jolt focuses on hosting and co-hosting game competitions with established brands in order to bring monetary and educational opportunities to their users. On April 15, 2024, an announcement was made about a collaboration with Pocket Worlds for the "HighRise Game Jam". Pocket Worlds had sold NFTs up until roughly 2022, causing a community outburst. The situation was addressed, and the situation started to disperse. == Contests == == Events == Game Jolt hosts both physical and virtual events to entertain and prank its users, which consists of the following: == History == Game Jolt has supported independent creators with a central platform to manage their content and communities since its start in 2003. David DeCarmine began development of Game Jolt at the age of 14 for a group of hobbyists, making games and sharing on forums in an early iteration known as Holo World. The original intention was to create a platform for gamers where new games could be discoverable and quickly playable, and where feedback could be provided directly to the creators, allowing them to continue improving their games. In 2008, Game Jolt was registered as an LLC, then incorporated as Game Jolt Inc. in September 2020. A new site launched in 2015 featuring a responsive design, automated curation for both games and game news articles which weighs how recent a game was uploaded and how popular it is ("hot") and filtering options on game listings for platform, maturity rating and development status. In March 2022, Game Jolt launched a mobile application simultaneously on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store targeted at Gen Z gamers and creators. While in beta, the mobile app had 100,000 installs pre-launch. === Game store === Game Jolt continues to host a large library of independent games. Game developers can upload their games directly to the site to share or sell. They would allow distribution for downloadable games, later adding support for Adobe Flash, Unity and Java games which allowed support for browser based games. In February 2013, Game Jolt built support for browser-based HTML5 games as well. A user levelling system was released into public beta in April 2013, incorporating the GJAPI trophies and highscores, as well as site activity, to generate 'EXP' (experience points). Game Jolt Jams released in early 2014 as a service to allow users to create their own game jams that integrated with the main site. In April 2016, an online marketplace was announced and released the following month with an exclusive set of game titles, including Bendy and the Ink Machine, allowing developers to sell their games on the site. In January 2016, Game Jolt released source code of the client and site's front end on GitHub under MIT license. In January 2022, Game Jolt banned adult games from appearing on the site, stating in an email to developers that the site had become a "social media platform" and they "had to make decisions around the direction and future of the brand which has now included the removal of hosted games with explicitly adult content." In response to a tweet by Itch.io saying the site is not for prudes, they wrote in their own tweet: "Game Jolt is a platform with a large audience of 13-16 year olds. Our users asked us to clean up, so here we are." == Investments == After bootstrapping Game Jolt with revenue earned from ads on the website for years, the DeCarmines secured venture capital in 2020 from SoftBank, doing so again in 2021 from founders of Twitch, Rec Room, Modio and more.
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CSS box model

In web development, the CSS box model refers to how HTML elements are modeled in browser engines and how the dimensions of those HTML elements are derived from CSS properties. It is a fundamental concept for the composition of HTML webpages. The guidelines of the box model are described by web standards World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifically the CSS Working Group. For much of the late-1990s and early 2000s there had been non-standard compliant implementations of the box model in mainstream browsers. With the advent of CSS2 in 1998, which introduced the box-sizing property, the problem had mostly been resolved. == Specifics == The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) specification describes how elements of web pages are displayed by graphical browsers. Section 4 of the CSS1 specification defines a "formatting model" that gives block-level elements—such as p and blockquote—a width and height, and three levels of boxes surrounding it: padding, borders, and margins. While the specification never uses the term "box model" explicitly, the term has become widely used by web developers and web browser vendors. All HTML elements can be considered "boxes", this includes div tag, p tag, or a tag. Each of those boxes has five modifiable dimensions: the height and width describe dimensions of the actual content of the box (text, images, ...) the padding describes the space between this content and the border of the box the border is any kind of line (solid, dotted, dashed...) surrounding the box, if present the margin is the space around the border According to the CSS1 specification, released by W3C in 1996 and revised in 1999, when a width or height is explicitly specified for any block-level element, it should determine only the width or height of the visible element, with the padding, borders, and margins applied afterward. Before CSS3, this box model was known as W3C box model, in CSS3, it is known as the content-box. The total width of a box is therefore margin-left + border-left + padding-left + width + padding-right + border-right + margin-right. Similarly, the total height of a box equals margin-top + border-top + padding-top + height + padding-bottom + border-bottom + margin-bottom. For example, the following CSS code would specify the box dimensions of each block belonging to 'my-class'. Moreover, each such box will have total height 140px and width 240px. CSS3 introduced the Internet Explorer box model to the standard, known referred to as border-box. == History == Before HTML 4 and CSS, very few HTML elements supported both border and padding, so the definition of the width and height of an element was not very contentious. However, it varied depending on the element. The HTML width attribute of a table defined the width of the table including its border. On the other hand, the HTML width attribute of an image defined the width of the image itself (inside any border). The only element to support padding in those early days was the table cell. Width for the cell was defined as "the suggested width for a cell content in pixels excluding the cell padding." In 1996, CSS introduced margin, border and padding for many more elements. It adopted a definition width in relation to content, border, margin and padding similar to that for a table cell. This has since become known as the W3C box model. At the time, very few browser vendors implemented the W3C box model to the letter. The two major browsers at the time, Netscape 4.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0 both defined width and height as the distance from border to border. This has been referred to as the traditional or the Internet Explorer box model. Internet Explorer in "quirks mode" includes the content, padding and borders within a specified width or height; this results in a narrower or shorter rendering of a box than would result following the standard behavior. The Internet Explorer box model behavior was often considered a bug, because of the way in which earlier versions of Internet Explorer handle the box model or sizing of elements in a web page, which differs from the standard way recommended by the W3C for the Cascading Style Sheets language. As of Internet Explorer 6, the browser supports an alternative rendering mode (called the "standards-compliant mode") which solves this discrepancy. However, for backward compatibility reasons, all versions still behave in the usual, non-standard way by default (see quirks mode). Internet Explorer for Mac is not affected by this non-standard behavior. === Workarounds === Internet Explorer versions 6 and onward are not affected by the bug if the page contains certain HTML document type declarations. These versions maintain the buggy behavior when in quirks mode for reasons of backward compatibility. For example, quirks mode is triggered: When the document type declaration is absent or incomplete; When an HTML 3 or earlier document is encountered; When an HTML 4.0 Transitional or Frameset document type declaration is used and a system identifier (URI) is not present; When an SGML comment or other unrecognized content appears before the document type declaration Internet Explorer 6 also uses quirks mode if there is an XML declaration prior to the document type declaration. Various workarounds have been devised to force Internet Explorer versions 5 and earlier to display Web pages using the W3C box model. These workarounds generally exploit unrelated bugs in Internet Explorer's CSS selector processing in order to hide certain rules from the browser. The best known of these workarounds is the "box model hack" developed by Tantek Çelik, a former Microsoft employee who developed this idea while working on Internet Explorer for the Macintosh. It involves specifying a width declaration for Internet Explorer for Windows, and then overriding it with another width declaration for CSS-compliant browsers. This second declaration is hidden from Internet Explorer for Windows by exploiting other bugs in the way that it parses CSS rules. The implementation of these CSS “hacks” has been further complicated by the public release of Internet Explorer 7, which has had some issues fixed, but not others, causing undesired results in pages using these hacks. Box model hacks have proven unreliable because they rely on bugs in browsers' CSS support that may be fixed in later versions. For this reason, some Web developers have instead recommended either avoiding specifying both width and padding for the same element or using conditional comment and/or CSS filters to work around the box model bug in older versions of Internet Explorer. == Support for Internet Explorer's box model == Web designer Doug Bowman has said that the original Internet Explorer box model represents a better, more logical approach. Peter-Paul Koch gives the example of a physical box, whose dimensions always refer to the box itself, including potential padding, but never its content. He says that this box model is more useful for graphic designers, who create designs based on the visible width of boxes rather than the width of their content. Bernie Zimmermann says that the Internet Explorer box model is closer to the definition of cell dimensions and padding used in the HTML table model. The W3C has included a "box-sizing" property in CSS3. When box-sizing: border-box; is specified for an element, any padding or border of the element is drawn inside the specified width and height, "as commonly implemented by legacy HTML user agents". Internet Explorer 8, WebKit browsers such as Apple Safari 5.1+ and Google Chrome, Gecko-based browsers such as Mozilla Firefox 29.0 and later, Opera 7.0 and later, and Konqueror 3.3.2 and later support the CSS3 box-sizing property. Gecko browsers previous than 29.0 support the same functionality using the browser-specific -moz-box-sizing property. border-box is the default box model used in Bootstrap framework.
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Democratization of technology

Democratization of technology is the process by which access to technology rapidly extends to an ever-broader audience, especially from a select group of people to the average public. New technologies and improved user experiences have empowered those outside of the technical industry to access and use technological products and services. At an increasing scale, consumers have greater access to use and purchase technologically sophisticated products, as well as to participate meaningfully in the development of these products. Industry innovation and user demand have been associated with more affordable, user-friendly products. This is an ongoing process, beginning with the development of mass production and increasing dramatically as digitization became commonplace. Thomas Friedman argued that the era of globalization has been characterized by the democratization of technology, democratization of finance, and democratization of information. Technology has been critical in the latter two processes, facilitating the rapid expansion of access to specialized knowledge and tools, as well as changing the way that people view and demand such access. A counter argument is that this is just a process of 'massification' - more people can use banks, technology, have access to information, but it does not mean there is any more democratic influence over its production, or that this massification promotes Democracy. == History == Scholars and social critics often cite the invention of the printing press as a major invention that changed the course of history. The force of the printing press rested not in its impact on the printing industry or inventors, but on its ability to transmit information to a broader public by way of mass production. This event is so widely recognized because of its social impact – as a democratizing force. The printing press is often seen as the historical counterpart to the Internet. After the development of the Internet in 1969, its use remained limited to communications between scientists and within government, although use of email and boards gained popularity among those with access. It did not become a popular means of communication until the 1990s. In 1993 the US federal government opened the Internet to commerce and the creation of HTML formed the basis for universal accessibility. === Major innovations === The Internet has played a critical role in modern life as a typical feature of most Western households, and has been key in the democratization of knowledge. It not only constitutes arguably the most critical innovation in this trend thus far; it has also allowed users to gain knowledge of and access to other technologies. Users can learn of new developments more quickly, and purchase high-tech products otherwise only actively marketed to recognized experts. Social media has also empowered and emboldened users to become contributors and critics of technological developments. Some have argued that cloud computing is having a major effect by allowing users greater access through mobility and pay-as-you-use capacity. The open-source model allows users to participate directly in development of software, rather than indirect participation, through contributing opinions. By being shaped by the user, development is directly responsive to user demand and can be obtained for free or at a low cost. In a comparable trend, arduino and littleBits have made electronics more accessible to users of all backgrounds and ages. The development of 3D printers has the potential to increasingly democratize production. Generative artificial intelligence tools have the potential to democratize the process of innovation by improving the ability of individuals to specify and visualize ideas. The democratization of artificial intelligence refers to the transition from AI as a high-cost, specialized field to one accessible to non-experts and smaller organizations. This process is driven by the release of open-weights models, the availability of cloud computing for model training, and the emergence of no-code development platforms. While early AI development was concentrated within Big Tech firms and elite research universities, the 2020s saw a proliferation of public tools like ChatGPT and repositories such as Hugging Face, which lowered the technical barriers to entry. However, the trend has faced criticism as the "illusion of democratization," as the underlying GPU hardware remains concentrated among a few global providers. == Cultural impact == This trend is linked to the spread of knowledge of and ability to perform high-tech tasks, challenging previous conceptions of expertise. Widespread access to technology, including lower costs, was critical to the transition to the new economy. Similarly, democratization of technology was also fuelled by this economic transition, which produced demands for technological innovation and optimism in technology-driven progress. Since the 1980s, a spreading constructivist conception of technology has emphasized that the social and technical domains are critically intertwined. Scholars have argued that technology is non-neutral, defined contextually and locally by a certain relationship with society. Andrew Feenberg, a central thinker in the philosophy of technology, argued that democratizing technology means expanding technological design to include alternative interests and values. When successful in doing so, this can be a tool for increasing inclusiveness. This also suggests an important participatory role for consumers if technology is to be truly democratic. Feenberg asserts that this must be achieved by consumer intervention in a liberated design process. Improved access to specialized knowledge and tools has been associated with an increase in the "do it yourself" (DIY) trend. This has also been associated with consumerization, whereby personal or privately owned devices and software are also used for business purposes. Some have argued that this is linked to reduced dependence on traditional information technology departments. Astra Taylor, the author of the book The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, argues, "The promotion of Internet-enabled amateurism is a lazy substitute for real equality of opportunity." === Industry impact === In some ways, democratization of technology has strengthened this industry. Markets have broadened and diversified. Consumer feedback and input is available at a very low or no cost. However, related industries are experiencing decreased demand for qualified professionals as consumers are able to fill more of their demands themselves. Users of a range of types and status have access to increasingly similar technology. Because of the decreased costs and expertise necessary to use products and software, professionals (e.g. in the audio industry) may experience loss of work. In some cases, technology is accessible but sufficiently complex that most users without specialized training are able to operate it without necessarily understanding how it works. Additionally, the process of consumerization has led to an influx in the number of devices in businesses and accessing private networks that IT departments cannot control or access. While this can lead to lowered operating costs and increased innovation, it is also associated with security concerns that most businesses are unable to address at the pace of the spread of technology. === Political impact === Some scholars have argued that technological change will bring about a third wave of democracy. The Internet has been recognized for its role in promoting increased citizen advocacy and government transparency. Jesse Chen, a leading thinker in democratic engagement technologies, distinguishes the democratizing effects of technology from democracy itself. Chen has argued that, while the Internet may have democratizing effects, the Internet alone cannot deliver democracy at all levels of society unless technologies are purposely designed for the nuances of democracy, specifically the engagement of large groups of people in between elections in and beyond government. The spread of the Internet and other forms of technology has led to increased global connectivity. Many scholars believe that it has been associated in the developing world not only with increased Western influence, but also with the spread of democracy through increased communication, efficiency, and access to information. Scholars have drawn associations between the level of technological connectedness and democracy in many nations. Technology can enhance democracy in the developed world as well. In addition to increased communication and transparency, some electorates have implemented online voting to accommodate an increased number of citizens.
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Video game

A video game, computer game, or simply game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, most commonly shown in a video format on a television set, computer monitor, flat-panel display or touchscreen on handheld devices, or a virtual reality headset. Most modern video games are audiovisual, with audio complement delivered through speakers or headphones, and sometimes also with other types of sensory feedback (e.g., haptic technology that provides tactile sensations). Some video games also allow microphone and webcam inputs for in-game chatting and livestreaming. Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform, which traditionally includes arcade video games, console games, and computer games (which includes LAN games, online games, and browser games). More recently, the video game industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablet computers), virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud gaming. Video games are also classified into a wide range of genres based on their style of gameplay and target audience. The first video game prototypes in the 1950s and 1960s were simple extensions of electronic games using video-like output from large, room-sized mainframe computers. The first consumer video game was the arcade video game Computer Space in 1971, which took inspiration from the earlier 1962 computer game Spacewar!. In 1972 came the now-iconic video game Pong and the first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey. The industry grew quickly during the "golden age" of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s but suffered from the crash of the North American video game market in 1983 due to loss of publishing control and saturation of the market. Following the crash, the industry matured, was dominated by Japanese companies such as Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, and established practices and methods around the development and distribution of video games to prevent a similar crash in the future, many of which continue to be followed. In the 2000s, the core industry centered on "AAA" games, leaving little room for riskier experimental games. Coupled with the availability of the Internet and digital distribution, this gave room for independent video game development (or "indie games") to gain prominence into the 2010s. Since then, the commercial importance of the video game industry has been increasing. The emerging Asian markets and proliferation of smartphone games in particular are altering player demographics towards casual and cozy gaming, and increasing monetization by incorporating games as a service. Today, video game development requires numerous skills, vision, teamwork, and liaisons between different parties, including developers, publishers, distributors, retailers, hardware manufacturers, and other marketers, to successfully bring a game to its consumers. As of 2020, the global video game market had estimated annual revenues of US$159 billion across hardware, software, and services, which is three times the size of the global music industry and four times that of the film industry in 2019, making it a formidable heavyweight across the modern entertainment industry. The video game market is also a major influence behind the electronics industry, where personal computer component, console, and peripheral sales, as well as consumer demands for better game performance, have been powerful driving factors for hardware design and innovation. == Origins == Early video games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example dates to 1947—a "cathode-ray tube amusement device" was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U.S. Patent 2455992. Inspired by radar display technology, it consisted of an analog device allowing a user to control the parabolic arc of a dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which were paper drawings fixed to the screen. Other early examples include the Nimrod computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain; Christopher Strachey's Checkers, possibly the first game to display visuals on an electronic screen in 1952; OXO, a tic-tac-toe computer game by Alexander S. Douglas for the EDSAC in 1952; Tennis for Two, an electronic interactive game engineered by William Higinbotham in 1958; and Spacewar!, written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen's on a DEC PDP-1 computer in 1962. Each game had different means of display: NIMROD had a panel of lights to play the game of Nim, OXO had a graphical display to play tic-tac-toe, Tennis for Two had an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court, and Spacewar! had the DEC PDP-1's vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. These inventions laid the foundation for modern video games. In 1966, while working at Sanders Associates, Ralph H. Baer devised a system to play a basic table tennis game on a television screen. With the company's approval, Baer created the prototype known as the "Brown Box". Sanders patented Baer's innovations and licensed them to Magnavox, which commercialized the technology as the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972. Separately, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, inspired by seeing Spacewar! running at Stanford University, devised a similar version running in a smaller coin-operated arcade cabinet using a less expensive computer. This was released as Computer Space, the first arcade video game, in 1971. Bushnell and Dabney went on to form Atari, Inc., and with Allan Alcorn, created their second arcade game in 1972, the hit ping pong-style Pong, which was directly inspired by the table tennis game on the Odyssey. Atari made a home version of Pong, which was released by Christmas 1975. The success of the Odyssey and Pong, both as an arcade game and home machine, launched the video game industry. Both Baer and Bushnell have been titled "Father of Video Games" for their contributions. == Terminology == The term "video game" was developed to describe electronic games played on a video display rather than on a teletype printer, audio speaker, or similar device. This also distinguished from handheld electronic games such as Merlin, which commonly used LED lights for indicators not in combination for imaging purposes. "Computer game" may also be used as a descriptor, as all these types of games essentially require the use of a computer processor; in some cases, it is used interchangeably with "video game". Particularly in the United Kingdom and Western Europe, this is common due to the historic relevance of domestically produced microcomputers. Other terms used include digital game, for example, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The term "computer game" can also refer to PC games, which are played primarily on personal computers or other flexible hardware systems, to distinguish them from console games, arcade games, or mobile games. Other terms, such as "television game", "telegame", or "TV game", had been used in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly for home gaming consoles that rely on connection to a television set. However, these terms were also used interchangeably with "video game" in the 1970s, primarily due to "video" and "television" being synonymous. In Japan, where consoles like the Odyssey were first imported and then made within the country by the large television manufacturers such as Toshiba and Sharp Corporation, such games are known as "TV games", "TV geemu", or "terebi geemu". The term "TV game" is still commonly used into the 21st century. "Electronic game" may also be used to refer to video games, but this also incorporates devices like early handheld electronic games that lack any video output. The first appearance of the term "video game" emerged around 1973. The Oxford English Dictionary cited a 10 November 1973 BusinessWeek article as the first printed use of the term. Though Bushnell believed the term came from a vending magazine review of Computer Space in 1971, a review of the major vending magazines Vending Times and Cashbox showed that the term may have come even earlier, appearing first in a letter dated July 10, 1972. In the letter, Bushnell uses the term "video game" twice. Per video game historian Keith Smith, the sudden appearance suggested that the term had been proposed and readily adopted by those in the field. Around March 1973, Ed Adlum, who ran Cashbox's coin-operated section until 1972 and then later founded RePlay Magazine, covering the coin-op amusement field, in 1975, used the term in an article in March 1973. In a September 1982 issue of RePlay, Adlum is credited with first naming these games as "video games": "RePlay
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Mozilla VPN

Mozilla VPN is an open-source virtual private network developed by Mozilla. It launched in beta as Firefox Private Network on September 10, 2019, and officially launched on July 15, 2020, as Mozilla VPN. Mozilla VPN should not be confused with the built-in VPN in Firefox since version 149 released in March 2026, which is free with a monthly data limit of 50 GB but only masks traffic that originates in Firefox unlike Mozilla VPN that protects the entire device. == History == The Firefox Private Network web browser extension beta version was released on September 10, 2019, as part of the relaunch of Mozilla's Test Pilot Program, a program that allowed Firefox users to test experimental new features which had been shuttered in January 2019. The beta of the subscription-based standalone virtual private network for Android, Microsoft Windows, and Chromebook launched on February 19, 2020, with the iOS version following soon after. Firefox Private Network was rebranded as "Mozilla VPN" on June 18, 2020, and officially launched as Mozilla VPN on July 15, 2020. At launch, Mozilla VPN was available in six countries (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand) for Windows 10, Android, and iOS (beta). Over time, the service also launched in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Portugal, Denmark, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Estonia, Cyprus, and Malta. == Audits history == Cybersecurity firm Cure53 conducted a security audit for Mozilla VPN in August 2020 and identified multiple vulnerabilities, including one critical-severity vulnerability. In March 2021, Cure53 conducted a second security audit, which noted significant improvements since the 2020 audit. The second audit identified multiple issues, including two medium-severity and one high-severity vulnerability, but concluded that by the time of publication, only one vulnerability remained unresolved, and that it would require "a strong state-funded attacker-model" to be exploitable. Mozilla disclosed most of the vulnerabilities in July 2021 and released the full report by Cure53 in August 2021. In April 2023, Cure53 conducted a third security audit, the results of which Mozilla disclosed in December that year, along with the full report by Cure53. == Features == Mozilla VPN masks the user's IP address, hiding the user's location data from the websites accessed by the user, and encrypts all network activity. The service allows for up to 5 simultaneous connections, to any of more than 500 servers in 30+ countries, and is available on the mobile operating systems iOS and Android and the desktop operating systems Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux. Mozilla VPN's infrastructure is provided by the Swedish Mullvad VPN service, which uses the WireGuard VPN protocol. The VPN software comes with additional features, like recommended server locations, the ability to block ads, block ad trackers and malware, the ability to exclude certain applications from protection, the ability to set multi-hop connections, and to set custom DNS servers. When used with Firefox and the official extension, Mozilla VPN allows the use of different settings per container as well as bypassing the VPN for specific websites.
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Comparison of user features of operating systems

Comparison of user features of operating systems refers to a comparison of the general user features of major operating systems in a narrative format. It does not encompass a full exhaustive comparison or description of all technical details of all operating systems. It is a comparison of basic roles and the most prominent features. It also includes the most important features of the operating system's origins, historical development, and role. == Overview == An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources. For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer – from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers. As of June 2024, the dominant general-purpose desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 72.91%. macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place (14.93%), and the varieties of Linux are collectively in third place (4.04%). In the mobile sector, including both smartphones and tablets, Android is dominant with a market share of 71%, followed by Apple's iOS with 28%; for smartphones alone, Android has 72% and iOS has 28%. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors. Other specialized classes of operating systems (special-purpose operating systems)), such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. Security-focused operating systems also exist. Some operating systems have low system requirements (i.e. light-weight Linux distribution). Others may have higher system requirements. Some operating systems require installation or may come pre-installed with purchased computers (OEM-installation), whereas others may run directly from media (i.e. live cd) or flash memory (i.e. USB stick). == MS-DOS == === Overview === MS-DOS (acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and some operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system. IBM licensed and re-released it in 1981 as PC DOS 1.0 for use in its PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognizable differences in compatibility, syntax, and capabilities. During its lifetime, several competing products were released for the x86 platform, and MS-DOS went through eight versions, until development ceased in 2000. Initially, MS-DOS was targeted at Intel 8086 processors running on computer hardware using floppy disks to store and access not only the operating system, but application software and user data as well. Progressive version releases delivered support for other mass storage media in ever greater sizes and formats, along with added feature support for newer processors and rapidly evolving computer architectures. Ultimately, it was the key product in Microsoft's development from a programming language company to a diverse software development firm, providing the company with essential revenue and marketing resources. It was also the underlying basic operating system on which early versions of Windows ran as a GUI. == Microsoft Windows == === Overview === Microsoft Windows, commonly referred to as Windows, is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families, all of which are developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. Active Microsoft Windows families include Windows NT and Windows IoT; these may encompass subfamilies, (e.g. Windows Server or Windows Embedded Compact) (Windows CE). Defunct Microsoft Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone. Microsoft announced an operating environment named Windows on 10 November 1983, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs); Windows 1.0 first shipped on 20 November 1985. Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer (PC) market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984, while Microsoft has in 2020 lost its dominance of the consumer operating system market, with Windows down to 30%, lower than Apple's 31% mobile-only share (65% for desktop operating systems only, i.e. "PCs" vs. Apple's 28% desktop share) in its home market, the US, and 32% globally (77% for desktops), where Google's Android leads. Apple came to see Windows as an unfair encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa and Macintosh (eventually settled in court in Microsoft's favor in 1993). As of January 2023, on PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system in all countries. However, in 2014, Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android, because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2014, the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold. This comparison, however, may not be fully relevant, as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms. Still, numbers for server use of Windows (that are comparable to competitors) show one third market share, similar to that for end user use. As of October 2020, the most recent version of Windows for PCs, tablets and embedded devices is Windows 10, version 20H2. The most recent version for server computers is Windows Server, version 20H2. A specialized version of Windows also runs on the Xbox One video game console. === Windows 95 === Windows 95 introduced a redesigned shell based around a desktop metaphor; File shortcuts (also known as shell links) were introduced and the desktop was re-purposed to hold shortcuts to applications, files and folders, reminiscent of Mac OS. In Windows 3.1 the desktop was used to display icons of running applications. In Windows 95, the currently running applications were displayed as buttons on a taskbar across the bottom of the screen. The taskbar also contained a notification area used to display icons for background applications, a volume control and the current time. The Start menu, invoked by clicking the "Start" button on the taskbar or by pressing the Windows key, was introduced as an additional means of launching applications or opening documents. While maintaining the program groups used by its predecessor Program Manager, it also displayed applications within cascading sub-menus. The previous File Manager program was replaced by Windows Explorer and the Explorer-based Control Panel and several other special folders were added such as My Computer, Dial Up Networking, Recycle Bin, Network Neighborhood, My Documents, Recent documents, Fonts, Printers, and My Briefcase among others. AutoRun was introduced for CD drives. The user interface looked dramatically different from prior versions of Windows, but its design language did not have a special name like Metro, Aqua or Material Design. Internally it was called "the new shell" and later simply "the shell". The subproject within Microsoft to develop the new shell was internally known as "Stimpy". In 1994, Microsoft designers Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk approached Brian Eno to compose music for the Windows 95 project. The result was the six-second start-up music-sound of the Windows 95 operating system, The Microsoft Sound and it was first released as a startup sound in May 1995 on Windows 95 May Test Release build 468. When released for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, Internet Explorer 4 came with an optional Windows Desktop Update, which modified the shell to provide several additional updates to Windows Explorer, including a Quick Launch toolbar, and new features integrated with Internet Explorer, such as Active Desktop (which allowed Internet content to be displayed directly on the desktop). Some of the user interface elements introduced in Windows 95, such as the desktop, taskbar, Start menu and Windows
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Open Sound Control

Open Sound Control (OSC) is a protocol for networking sound synthesizers, computers, and other multimedia devices for purposes such as musical performance or show control. OSC's advantages include interoperability, accuracy, flexibility and enhanced organization and documentation. Its disadvantages include higher bandwidth requirements, increased load on embedded processors, and lack of standardized messages/interoperability. The first specification was released in March 2002. == Motivation == OSC is a content format developed at CNMAT by Adrian Freed and Matt Wright comparable to XML, WDDX, or JSON. It was originally intended for sharing music performance data (gestures, parameters and note sequences) between musical instruments (especially electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers), computers, and other multimedia devices. OSC is sometimes used as an alternative to the 1983 MIDI standard, when higher resolution and a richer parameter space is desired. OSC messages are transported across the internet and within local subnets using UDP/IP and Ethernet. OSC messages between gestural controllers are usually transmitted over serial endpoints of USB wrapped in the SLIP protocol. == Features == OSC's main features, compared to MIDI, include: Open-ended, dynamic, URI-style symbolic naming scheme Symbolic and high-resolution numeric data Pattern matching language to specify multiple recipients of a single message High resolution time tags "Bundles" of messages whose effects must occur simultaneously == Applications == There are dozens of OSC applications, including real-time sound and media processing environments, web interactivity tools, software synthesizers, programming languages and hardware devices. OSC has achieved wide use in fields including musical expression, robotics, video performance interfaces, distributed music systems and inter-process communication. The TUIO community standard for tangible interfaces such as multitouch is built on top of OSC. Similarly the GDIF system for representing gestures integrates OSC. OSC is used extensively in experimental musical controllers, and has been built into several open source and commercial products. The Open Sound World (OSW) music programming language is designed around OSC messaging. OSC is the heart of the DSSI plugin API, an evolution of the LADSPA API, in order to make the eventual GUI interact with the core of the plugin via messaging the plugin host. LADSPA and DSSI are APIs dedicated to audio effects and synthesizers. In 2007, a standardized namespace within OSC called SYN, for communication between controllers, synthesizers and hosts, was proposed. == Design == OSC messages consist of an address pattern (such as /oscillator/4/frequency), a type tag string (such as ,fi for a float32 argument followed by an int32 argument), and the arguments themselves (which may include a time tag). Address patterns form a hierarchical name space, reminiscent of a Unix filesystem path, or a URL, and refer to "Methods" inside the server, which are invoked with the attached arguments. Type tag strings are a compact string representation of the argument types. Arguments are represented in binary form with four-byte alignment. The core types supported are 32-bit two's complement signed integers 32-bit IEEE floating point numbers Null-terminated arrays of eight-bit encoded data (C-style strings) arbitrary sized blob (e.g. audio data, or a video frame) An example message is included in the spec (with null padding bytes represented by ␀): /oscillator/4/frequency␀,f␀␀, Followed by the 4-byte float32 representation of 440.0: 0x43dc0000. Messages may be combined into bundles, which themselves may be combined into bundles, etc. Each bundle contains a timestamp, which determines whether the server should respond immediately or at some point in the future. Applications commonly employ extensions to this core set. More recently some of these extensions such as a compact Boolean type were integrated into the required core types of OSC 1.1. The advantages of OSC over MIDI are primarily internet connectivity; data type resolution; and the comparative ease of specifying a symbolic path, as opposed to specifying all connections as seven-bit numbers with seven-bit or fourteen-bit data types. This human-readability has the disadvantage of being inefficient to transmit and more difficult to parse by embedded firmware, however. The spec does not define any particular OSC Methods or OSC Containers. All messages are implementation-defined and vary from server to server.
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Outline of telecommunication

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to telecommunication: Telecommunication – the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. In modern times, this process almost always involves the use of electromagnetic waves by transmitters and receivers, but in earlier years it also involved the use of drums and visual signals such as smoke, fire, beacons, semaphore lines and other optical communications. == Modes of telecommunication == E-mail Fax Instant messaging Radio Satellite SMS Telegraphy Telephony Television Television broadcasting mobile telephony Videoconferencing VoIP Voicemail == Types of telecommunication networks == Telecommunications network Computer networks ARPANET Ethernet Internet Wireless networks Public switched telephone networks (PSTN) Packet switched networks Radio network Broadband Wireless Broadband == Aspects of telecommunication transmission == Telecommunication Analog Digital Functional profile Optics === Telecommunication technology === Modulation Amplitude modulation Frequency modulation Quadrature amplitude modulation Nyquist rate Nyquist ISI criterion Pulse shaping Intersymbol interference === Communications media types === Physical media for Telecommunication Twisted pair Coaxial cable Optical fiber Telecommunication through Free Space Broadcast radio frequency including television and radio Line-of-sight Communications satellite Terrestrial Microwave Wireless LAN === Relationship between media and transmitters === Physical access to media Simplex Duplex (telecommunications) Logical relationships Return channel Two-way alternating Two-way simultaneous === Multiple access to media === Multiplexing Analog Frequency division multiplexing Space division multiplexing Digital Time-division multiplexing Statistical multiplexing and Packet switching Media Access Control Contention Token-based Centralized token control Distributed token control == History of telecommunication == History of telecommunication History of telegraphy History of the telephone Invention of the telephone Timeline of the telephone History of radio History of television History of videophones History of mobile phones History of computing hardware History of the Internet == Major telecommunications equipment manufacturers == Alcatel-Lucent – French global telecommunications equipment company Aricent – Former company AT&T – American telecommunications company Avaya – American technology company Ciena – American telecommunications company Cisco Systems – American multinational technology companyPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Ericsson – Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company Fujitsu – Japanese multinational technology company HCL Technologies – Indian multinational technology companyPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Huawei – Chinese multinational technology company NEC – Japanese technology corporation Nokia – Multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company ShoreTel – US telecommunications company Verizon – American telecommunications company ZTE – Chinese telecommunications company == Major telecommunications service providers == List of mobile network operators List of telephone operating companies == Telecommunication organizations == Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions Telecommunications Industry Association == Telecommunication publications == Magazines Billing and OSS World Cabling Installation & Maintenance Call Center Communications News Communications System Design Lightwave Mobile Radio Technology (MRT) New Telephony Phone+ RCR Wireless News Telecom Asia Telecommunications Magazine Telephony WhatSatphone Magazine Wireless Systems Design Wireless Week Xchange == Persons influential in telecommunication == Edwin Howard Armstrong – American radio-frequency engineer and inventor (1890–1954) John Logie Baird – Scottish inventor (1888–1946) Paul Baran – American-Jewish engineer (1926–2011) Alexander Graham Bell – Inventor of the telephone (1847–1922) Tim Berners-Lee – English computer scientist (born 1955) Jagadish Chandra Bose – Physicist, biologist and botanist (1857–1937) Vint Cerf – American computer scientist and Internet pioneer (born 1943) Claude Chappe – Late 18th-century French inventor Donald Davies – British computer scientist (1924–2000) Louis Pouzin – French computer scientist and Internet pioneer (born 1931) Lee de Forest – American inventor (1873–1961) Philo Farnsworth – American inventor (1906–1971) Reginald Fessenden – Canadian-American electrical engineer and inventor (1866–1932) Elisha Gray – American electrical engineer (1835–1901) Innocenzo Manzetti – Italian inventor (1826–1877) Guglielmo Marconi – Italian radio-frequency engineer and inventor (1874–1937) Antonio Meucci – Italian inventor (1808–1889) Alexander Stepanovich Popov – Russian physicist (1859–1906)Pages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Johann Philipp Reis – German scientist and inventor Almon Brown Strowger – American inventor of the telephone exchange (1839–1902) Nikola Tesla – Serbian-American engineer and inventor (1856–1943) Camille Tissot – French physicist (1868–1917) Alfred Vail – 19th-century American machinist and inventor Charles Wheatstone – English physicist and inventor (1802–1875) Vladimir K. Zworykin – Russian-American engineer (1888–1982)
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Eaze

Eaze is an American company based in San Francisco, California that launched a medical cannabis delivery app of the same name in 2014. == History == Eaze was launched in 2014 by Keith McCarty to deliver medical marijuana to patients in California. McCarty started the company in his San Francisco apartment with four employees. The company provides a mobile app to connect users with cannabis dispensaries, but does not grow or sell marijuana itself, and has been nicknamed “the Uber of Weed”. As of 2017, the company operates in more than 100 cities within California. In 2017, Eaze reported 300 percent growth over the previous year. It has 81 employees, and performs 120,000 deliveries per month to 250,000 users. A survey of Eaze users revealed that 66% are male, 57% are between 22 and 34, just over half have a bachelor's degree, and 49% have an annual income over $75,000. The company's vaporizer cartridge sales reached $1 million in sales in 4 months, and 31% of customers had ordered a vaporizer by the end of 2016. In 2016, Eaze founder Keith McCarty stepped down from his position as CEO and was replaced by Jim Patterson, who served as the company's chief product and technology officer. == EazeMD == EazeMD is a service that helps people acquire a medical marijuana card. It is a California-based telemedicine service in which physicians assess patients through an online video chat. It is California's largest telemedicine service for marijuana referrals. In June 2017, a former employee of one of these physicians accessed patient data in the physician's records system, causing a security breach. However, there was no evidence that Eaze data was accessed. == Eaze Insights == Eaze Insights conducts surveys of their users and compiles data into reports on cannabis use. Statistics from their reports have been cited in Seattle Weekly, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Fortune, and other general interest publications. == Financing == The company announced its $10 million Series A funding in April 2015 by multiple venture capital firms, including the Snoop Dogg-backed Casa Verde Capital. In October 2016, Eaze announced its series B funding in the amount of $13 million from five investors, making the company "the highest-funded startup in the history of the cannabis industry, as well as its fastest-growing one". In September 2017, the company raised another $27 million in venture funding. The Series B funding was led by Bailey Capital, joined by DCM Ventures, Kaya Ventures, and FJ Labs. According to the company' officials in 2017, Eaze managed to raise more than $52 million since its inception in 2014.
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Go-box

Go-box is a name used for a number of electronic devices. The "Go-Box" is often a box, crate, carry-case, modified briefcase or similar construction containing electronic equipment pre-setup and ready to function. The box can then be taken into the field or placed at a remote site with minimal effort. These are often used by radio amateurs (or "Hams") for emergency communications, experimental work, or field communications. This has also led to similar equipment being used in the Emergency Services, utility companies, military, and government agencies. A search of the YouTube website can reveal a number of ideas for these devices mostly built by people at home. Terms created after the use of "go-box" include the "go-bag" which is an 'essentials' bag of items needed for evacuations or quick departures, i.e. medicines, clothes, torch, Broadcast radio receiver, batteries, etc. In Austria it is a radio transmitter used in trucks as part of the Videomaut toll collection system. One use of the term in the United States it is a device which is supposed to change traffic signals from red to green. U.S. Fire trucks have a similar device, called an Opticon, that uses an infrared beam. Two residents of Miami, Florida, were arrested for selling fake go-boxes online. Several hundred were sold, prices ranging from $69 to $150. In reality, the boxes contained nothing more than strobe lights.
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Enterprise social software

Enterprise social software (also known as or regarded as a major component of Enterprise 2.0), comprises social software as used in "enterprise" (business/commercial) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, enterprise social software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure. Carl Frappaolo and Dan Keldsen defined Enterprise 2.0 in a report written for Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) as "a system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise". == Applications == === Functionality === Social software for an enterprise must (according to Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School) have the following functionality to work well: Search: allowing users to search for other users or content Links: grouping similar users or content together Authoring: including blogs and wikis Tags: allowing users to tag content Extensions: recommendations of users; or content based on profile Signals: allowing people to subscribe to users or content with RSS feeds McAfee recommends installing easy-to-use software which does not impose any rigid structure on users. He envisages an informal roll-out, but on a common platform to enable future collaboration between areas. He also recommends strong and visible managerial support to achieve this. In 2007 Dion Hinchcliffe expanded the list above by adding the following four functions: Freeform function: no barriers to authorship (meaning free from a learning curve or from restrictions) Network-oriented function, requiring web-addressable content in all cases Social function: stressing transparency (to access), diversity (in content and community members) and openness (to structure) Emergence function: requiring the provision of approaches that detect and leverage the collective wisdom of the community Enterprise search differs from a typical web search in its focus on "use within an organization by employees seeking information held internally, in a variety of formats and locations, including databases, document management systems, and other repositories". === Criticism === There has been recent criticism that the adaptation of the social paradigm (e.g. openness and altruistic behavior) does not always work well for the enterprise setting, which led some authors to question the proper functioning of enterprise social software. The findings from a novel study suggests that free and non-anonymous sharing of trusted information (beyond marketing or product information) is significantly influenced by concerns from business users.
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DBOS

DBOS (Formerly Database-Oriented Operating System, now just DBOS) is an open source durable workflow execution software library written for the Python, TypeScript, Java, and Go programming languages. DBOS arose from a joint open source project from MIT and Stanford, after a discussion between Michael Stonebraker and Matei Zaharia on how to scale and improve scheduling and performance of millions of Apache Spark tasks. Today it is a commercial company that offers an open source system to add durable computing to any software, built on concepts derived from the joint research project. == History == === 2020: Academic R&D Project === DBOS originated in 2020 as a joint open source project between MIT, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon. The project explored the idea of operating system services built atop a distributed database - a database-oriented operating system meant to simplify and improve the scalability, security and resilience of large-scale distributed applications. The basic concept was to run a multi-node multi-core, transactional, highly-available distributed database, such as VoltDB, as the only application for a microkernel, and then to implement scheduling, messaging, file systems and other operating system services on top of the database. The architectural philosophy is described by this quote from the abstract of their initial preprint: All operating system state should be represented uniformly as database tables, and operations on this state should be made via queries from otherwise stateless tasks. This design makes it easy to scale and evolve the OS without whole-system refactoring, inspect and debug system state, upgrade components without downtime, manage decisions using machine learning, and implement sophisticated security features. A prototype was built with competitive performance to existing systems. ==
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IMPACT (computer graphics)

IMPACT (sometimes spelled Impact) is a computer graphics architecture for Silicon Graphics computer workstations. IMPACT Graphics was developed in 1995 and was available as a high-end graphics option on workstations released during the mid-1990s. IMPACT graphics gives the workstation real-time 2D and 3D graphics rendering capability similar to that of even high-end PCs made well after IMPACT's introduction. IMPACT graphics systems consist of either one or two Geometry Engines and one or two Raster Engines in various configurations. IMPACT graphics consists of five graphics subsystems: the Command Engine, Geometry Subsystem, Raster Engine, framebuffer and Display Subsystem. IMPACT Graphics can produce resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 pixels with 32-bit color and can also process unencoded NTSC and PAL analog television signals. IMPACT graphics subsystems come in three configurations for SGI Indigo2 IMPACT workstations: Solid IMPACT, High IMPACT, and Maximum IMPACT. The equivalent configurations also exist for the SGI Octane workstation but are referred to as SI, SSI, and MXI (I-series). Later Octane workstations used a similar configuration but with updated ASIC chips and are referred to as SE, SSE, and MXE (E-series). IMPACT uses Rambus RDRAM for texture memory. The IMPACT graphics architecture was superseded by SGI's VPro graphics architecture in 1997.
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Computer aided transceiver

Computer aided transceiver (CAT) is a non-generic serial protocol used by radio amateurs for (remotely) controlling a transceiver radio receiver equipment using a computer. Conventional transmitters are manually controlled and used to transmit voice using buttons, dials, etc. However, advances in electronics have come to market devices that can be controlled by a computer and allow digital modes such as packet radio and also the use of satellite tracking, because it can continuously change the device's frequency according to the Doppler effect. This is done by connecting a Radio receiver and a PC using a CAT interface and a CAT Program Additionally, CAT interfaces can also be used to position tracking antennas, in controllers. As a satellite moves overhead. A CAT interface is a piece of hardware that connects the PC and radio that provides a connection to allows the radio and the PC to communicate with each other. The CAT interface provides the signals to and fro via correct voltage levels and in the case of a Universal Serial Bus (USB) CAT interface it requires a "protocol" for communication but communication itself is down to the radio and the software on the PC. Software that may be called a CAT program allows a radio to be controlled through the PC. Changes made on the radio through user interactions on the CAT Program are (generally) shown on the PC's screen. The functionality of CAT equipment (software & interface) depends on the radio and what features the software writers included in the CAT software. Modern radio systems do have more CAT functionality If you run a logging program that supports CAT, then that software may take advantage of the CAT system by retrieving information from the radio to help fill in log details, such as the frequency that the contact was made. CAT is also useful on many radios where there are many sub-menus in the radios menu system, and many of the sub-menu items can be easily changed via the PC. On many HF radios, the CAT system is also used to program the memories on the radio, but you would need to use appropriate programming software. A CAT interface does not receive or transmit any DATA mode, that is the purpose of a DATA interface. Although, both may be used at the same time with the correct CAT Equipment. DATA modes, and getting audio to and from the PC is the function of a DATA interface. A completely different thing but it is easier and more useful when CAT and DATA are used at the same time. Wouldn't it be nice to have an interface that could operate Frequency-shift keying (FSK), Audio FSK (AFSK), (real) Morse Code (CW), with a CAT interface and its own sound card..... (eg. The DigiMaster Pro3).
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Electronic kit

An electronic kit is a package of electrical components used to build an electronic device. Generally, kits are composed of electronic components, a circuit diagram (schematic), assembly instructions, and often a printed circuit board (PCB) or another type of prototyping board. There are two types of kits. Some build a single device or system. Other types used for education demonstrate a range of circuits. These will include a solderless construction board of some type, such as: Components mounted in plastic blocks with side contacts, that are held together in a base, e.g. Denshi blocks Springs on a card board, the springs trap wire leads, or component leads, such as Philips EE electronic experiment kits. These are a cheap and flexible option Professional type prototyping boards, (breadboards) into which component leads are inserted, following documentation of the "kit". The first type of kit for constructing a single device normally uses a PCB on which components are soldered. They normally come with extended documentation describing which component goes where into the PCB. For advanced hobby projects, sometimes the kit may only consist of a printed circuit board and assembly instructions, and the purchaser may have to source all the parts independently; or, the vendor may provide hard-to-get or pre-programmed parts while expecting the purchaser to obtain the rest of the components. People primarily purchase electronic kits to have fun and learn how things work. They were once popular as a means to reduce the cost of buying goods, but there is usually no cost saving in buying a kit today. Some electronic kits were assembled to make complete complex devices such as color television sets, oscilloscopes, high-end audio amplifiers, amateur radio equipment, electric organs, and even computers such as the Heathkit H-8, and the LNW-80. Many of the early microprocessor computers were sold as either electronic kits or assembled and tested. Heathkit sold millions of electronic kits during its 45-year history. Home assembly of common consumer electronics items no longer provides a cost advantage over commercially manufactured and distributed devices. People still build kits for custom devices and special-purpose electronics for professional and educational use and as a hobby. Also emerging is a trend to simplify the complexity by providing preprogrammed or modular kits often provided by many suppliers online. The fun and thrill of making your own electronics have shifted, in many cases, from easy-to-comprehend applications and analog devices to more sophisticated digital devices. == Examples == The Altair 8800 (the first home computer) was also sold as a kit, as were the MK14, Sinclair ZX80, Sinclair ZX81 and Acorn Atom computers. Many S-100 bus system cards were sold only as kits. Building a Robot kit, most often with a micro controller inside, is now in fashion.
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