AI Content Vs Human Content

AI Content Vs Human Content — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • ACL Data Collection Initiative

    ACL Data Collection Initiative

    The ACL Data Collection Initiative (ACL/DCI) was a project established in 1989 by the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) to create and distribute large text and speech corpora for computational linguistics research. The initiative aimed to address the growing need for substantial text databases that could support research in areas such as natural language processing, speech recognition, and computational linguistics. By 1993, the initiative’s activities had effectively ceased, with its functions and datasets absorbed by the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC), which was founded in 1992. == Objectives == The ACL/DCI had several key objectives: To acquire a large and diverse text corpus from various sources To transform the collected texts into a common format based on the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) To make the corpus available for scientific research at low cost with minimal restrictions To provide a common database that would allow researchers to replicate or extend published results To reduce duplication of effort among researchers in obtaining and preparing text data These objectives were designed to address the growing demand for very large amounts of text arising from applications in recognition and analysis of text and speech. Its core objective was to "oversee the acquisition and preparation of a large text corpus to be made available for scientific research at cost and without royalties". == History == By the late 1980s, researchers in computational linguistics and speech recognition faced a significant problem: the lack of large-scale, accessible text corpora for developing statistical models and testing algorithms. Existing generally available text databases were too small to meet the needs of developing applications in text and speech recognition. The initiative was formed to meet this need by collecting, standardizing, and distributing large quantities of text data with minimal restrictions for scientific research. As stated by Liberman (1990), "research workers have been severely hampered by the lack of appropriate materials, and specially by the lack of a large enough body of text on which published results can be replicated or extended by others." The ACL/DCI committee was established in February 1989. The committee included members from academic and industrial research laboratories in the United States and Europe. The initiative was chaired by Mark Liberman from the University of Pennsylvania (formerly of AT&T Bell Laboratories). Other committee members included representatives from organizations such as Bellcore, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Cambridge University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Northeastern University, University of Pennsylvania, SRI International, MCC, Xerox PARC, ISSCO, and University of Pisa. The project operated initially without dedicated funding, relying on volunteer efforts from committee members and their affiliated institutions. Key supporters included AT&T Bell Labs, Bellcore, IBM, Xerox, and the University of Pennsylvania, which allowed the use of their computing facilities for ACL/DCI-related work. Previously running on volunteer effort pro bono, in 1991, it obtained funding from General Electric and the National Science Foundation (IRI-9113530). == Data == As of 1990, the ACL/DCI had collected hundreds of millions of words of diverse text. The collection included: Wall Street Journal articles (25 to 50 million words); Canadian Hansard (parliamentary records) in parallel English and French versions: cleaned-up English Hansard donated by the IBM alignment models group (100 million words), and original Bilingual Hansard (from a different time period) obtained directly (200 million words). Collins English Dictionary (1979 edition), both as fulltext (3 million words) and as various "database" versions, constructed using "typographers' tape" donated by Collins, which were computer tapes containing the structured digital data used to typeset and print the 1979 edition of the dictionary; Emails from ARPANET newsletters for the ACM Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval Forum (IRLIST) and AIList Digest issues distributed over the ARPANET (AILIST) (5 million words), both collected by Edward A. Fox at VIPSU; Articles on networking (2 million words); U.S. Department of Agriculture Extension Service Fact Sheets (>1 million words); 200,000 scientific abstracts of about 1,500 words each from the Department of Energy (25 million words); Archives of the Challenger Investigation Commission, including transcripts of depositions and hearings (2.5 million words); Books from the Library of America, including works by Mark Twain, Eugene O'Neill, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, W.E.B. DuBois, Willa Cather, and Benjamin Franklin (130 books, 20 million words); Public domain books like the King James Bible, Tristram Shandy, The Federalist Papers; Several million words of transcribed radiologists' reports, donated by Francis Ganong at Kurzweil Applied Intelligence Inc (about 5 million words); The Child Language Data Exchange corpus of child language acquisition transcripts; U.S. Department of Justice Justice Retrieval and Inquiry System (JURIS) materials; The Swiss Civil Code in parallel German, French and Italian; Economic reports from the Union Bank of Switzerland, in parallel English, German, French and Italian; About 12K words of administrative policy manuals and 14K words of administrative memos, contributed by Geoff Pullum of U.C.S.C.; Material from various ACM journals and the ACL journal Computational Linguistics; The CSLI publications series: 50-100 reports (8K words each) and 5-10 books (80K words each). The initiative started with North American English text but expanded to include Canadian French and planned to include Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian languages. At least 5 million words from the collection were tagged under the Penn Treebank project, and those tags were distributed by DCI as well. After DCI was absorbed by the LDC, the datasets were curated under LDC. == Format == The ACL/DCI corpus was coded in a standard form based on SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language, ISO 8879), consistent with the recommendations of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), of which the DCI was an affiliated project. The TEI was a joint project of the ACL, the Association for Computers and the Humanities, and the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, aiming to provide a common interchange format for literary and linguistic data. The initiative planned to add annotations reflecting consensually approved linguistic features like part of speech and various aspects of syntactic and semantic structure over time. == Examples == As an example of the use of ACL/DCI, consider the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) corpus for speech recognition research. The WSJ corpus was used as the basis for the DARPA Spoken Language System (SLS) community's Continuous Speech Recognition (CSR) Corpus. The WSJ corpus became a standard benchmark for evaluating speech recognition systems and has been used in numerous research papers. The WSJ CSR Corpus provided DARPA with its first general-purpose English, large vocabulary, natural language, high perplexity corpus containing speech (400 hours) and text (47 million words) during 1987–89. The text corpus was 313 MB in size. The text was preprocessed to remove ambiguity in the word sequence that a reader might choose, ensuring that the unread text used to train language models was representative of the spoken test material. The preprocessing included converting numbers into orthographics, expanding abbreviations, resolving apostrophes and quotation marks, and marking punctuation. As another example, the Yarowsky algorithm used bitext data from DCI to train a simple word-sense disambiguation model that was competitive with advanced models trained on smaller datasets. == Distribution == Materials from the ACL/DCI collection were distributed to research groups on a non-commercial basis. By 1990, about 25 research groups and individual researchers had received tapes containing various portions of the collected material. To obtain the data, researchers had to sign an agreement not to redistribute the data or make direct commercial use of it. However, commercial application of "analytical materials" derived from the text, such as statistical tables or grammar rules, was explicitly permitted. The initiative first distributed data via 12-inch reels of 9-track tape, then via CD-ROMs. Each such tape could contain 30 million words compressed via the Lempel-Ziv algorithms. The first CD-ROM distribution was in 1991, funded by Dragon Systems Inc. It contained Collins English Dictionary, WSJ, scientific abstracts provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Penn Treebank.

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  • The Big Book of Social Media

    The Big Book of Social Media

    The Big Book of Social Media: Case Studies, Stories, Perspectives, released in November 2010 by Yorkshire Publishing, is a compilation of non-fiction articles and chapters written by social media experts in their respective fields and edited by Robert Fine, organizer of the Cool Social Conferences World Tour and founder of Cool Blue Press, with a foreword by Sam Feist, political director for CNN. == Synopsis == The publisher, on its site, summed up the book as, "Not business. Not marketing. This is an idea book." And an article in Business Insider described the book as bringing "the social back into social media." == Contributors == Contributing authors include: Alan Rosenblatt, Alane Anderson, Alecia Dantico, Alex Priest, Alfred Naranjo, Becky Carroll, Carri Bugbee, Cathy Scott, Colleen Crinklaw, Constantine Markides, Cordelia Mendoza, Craig Kanalley, Dave Ingland, Eric Andersen, Eric Brown, Gary Zukowski, Haja Rasambainarivo, Jennifer Kaplan, Kari Quaas, Lauri Stevens, Lev Ekster, Mark Stelzner, Matthew Felling, Matt Stewart, Melani Gordon, Michael Bourne, Michele Mattia, Mirna Bard, Neal Schaffer, Nic Evans, Noaf Ereiqat, Pek Pongpaet, Perri Gorman, Phil Baumann, Regina Holliday, Rory Cooper, Sam Feist, Shashi Bellamkonda, Shrinath Navghane, Steve Pratt, Ted Nguyen, Todd Schnick, Tonia Ries, Wayne Burke, as well as Robert Fine. In December 2011, some of the contributing authors organized "Tweet It Forward," a holiday charity fundraiser, with net proceeds benefitting the Food Bank for New York City. == Reception == Reviewer Mike Brown wrote on the Brainzooming blog that the book goes "beyond the valueless chatter out there; it provides solid discussions of real-life social media strategy implementations that have truly integrated organizational objectives and delivered real metrics." And Tech Cocktail wrote it in its review, "Through a collection of entertaining anecdotes and insightful marketing agendas, one sees what social media is truly all about and how it is revolutionizing the communications industry." In 2011, at the SXSW social media festival in Austin, Texas, Fine launched Cool Blue Press and reintroduced The Big Book of Social Media, with plans, he told a reporter from the Washington Examiner, for other new media books and publishing projects, including The Social Media Monthly magazine. The book was reviewed in 2012 by SAGE Publications for its Journalism and Mass Communication Educator magazine. It is also cited in several books and journals. === Awards === The book was a winner in the 4th Annual Reader's Choice "Small Business Book Awards" for 2011. Windmill Networking named it the Top 15 recommended social media books of 2010.

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  • Microformat

    Microformat

    Microformats (μF) are predefined HTML markup (like HTML classes) created to serve as descriptive and consistent metadata about elements, designating them as representing a certain type of data (such as contact information, geographic coordinates, events, products, recipes, etc.). They allow software to process the information reliably by having set classes refer to a specific type of data rather than being arbitrary. Microformats emerged around 2005 and were predominantly designed for use by search engines, web syndication and aggregators such as RSS. Google confirmed in 2020 that it still parses microformats for use in content indexing. Microformats are referenced in several W3C social web specifications, including IndieAuth and Webmention. Although the content of web pages has been capable of some "automated processing" since the inception of the web, such processing is difficult because the markup elements used to display information on the web do not describe what the information means. Microformats can bridge this gap by attaching semantics, and thereby obviating other, more complicated, methods of automated processing, such as natural language processing or screen scraping. The use, adoption and processing of microformats enables data items to be indexed, searched for, saved or cross-referenced, so that information can be reused or combined. As of 2013, microformats allow the encoding and extraction of event details, contact information, social relationships and similar information. Microformats2, abbreviated as mf2, is the updated version of microformats. Mf2 provides an easier way of interpreting HTML structured syntax and vocabularies than the earlier ways that made use of RDFa and microdata. == Background == Microformats emerged around 2005 as part of a grassroots movement to make recognizable data items (such as events, contact details or geographical locations) capable of automated processing by software, as well as directly readable by end-users. Link-based microformats emerged first. These include vote links that express opinions of the linked page, which search engines can tally into instant polls. CommerceNet, a nonprofit organization that promotes e-commerce on the Internet, has helped sponsor and promote the technology and support the microformats community in various ways. CommerceNet also helped co-found the Microformats.org community site. Neither CommerceNet nor Microformats.org operates as a standards body. The microformats community functions through an open wiki, a mailing list, and an Internet relay chat (IRC) channel. Most of the existing microformats originated at the Microformats.org wiki and the associated mailing list by a process of gathering examples of web-publishing behaviour, then codifying it. Some other microformats (such as rel=nofollow and unAPI) have been proposed, or developed, elsewhere. == Technical overview == XHTML and HTML standards allow for the embedding and encoding of semantics within the attributes of markup elements. Microformats take advantage of these standards by indicating the presence of metadata using the following attributes: class Classname rel relationship, description of the target address in an anchor-element (...) rev reverse relationship, description of the referenced document (in one case, otherwise deprecated in microformats) For example, in the text "The birds roosted at 52.48, -1.89" is a pair of numbers which may be understood, from their context, to be a set of geographic coordinates. With wrapping in spans (or other HTML elements) with specific class names (in this case geo, latitude and longitude, all part of the geo microformat specification): Software agents can recognize exactly what each value represents and can then perform a variety of tasks such as indexing, locating it on a map and exporting it to a GPS device. === Examples === In this example, the contact information is presented as follows: With hCard microformat markup, that becomes: Here, the formatted name (fn), organisation (org), telephone number (tel) and web address (url) have been identified using specific class names and the whole thing is wrapped in class="vcard", which indicates that the other classes form an hCard (short for "HTML vCard") and are not merely coincidentally named. Other, optional, hCard classes also exist. Software, such as browser plug-ins, can now extract the information, and transfer it to other applications, such as an address book. == Specific microformats == Several microformats have been developed to enable semantic markup of particular types of information. However, only hCard and hCalendar have been ratified, the others remaining as drafts: hAtom (superseded by h-entry and h-feed) – for marking up Atom feeds from within standard HTML hCalendar – for events hCard – for contact information; includes: adr – for postal addresses geo – for geographical coordinates (latitude, longitude) hMedia – for audio/video content hAudio – for audio content hNews – for news content hProduct – for products hRecipe – for recipes and foodstuffs. hReview – for reviews rel-directory – for distributed directory creation and inclusion rel-enclosure – for multimedia attachments to web pages rel-license – specification of copyright license rel-nofollow, an attempt to discourage third-party content spam (e.g. spam in blogs) rel-tag – for decentralized tagging (Folksonomy) XHTML Friends Network (XFN) – for social relationships XOXO – for lists and outlines == Uses == Using microformats within HTML code provides additional formatting and semantic data that applications can use. For example, applications such as web crawlers can collect data about online resources, or desktop applications such as e-mail clients or scheduling software can compile details. The use of microformats can also facilitate "mash ups" such as exporting all of the geographical locations on a web page into (for example) Google Maps to visualize them spatially. Several browser extensions, such as Operator for Firefox and Oomph for Internet Explorer, provide the ability to detect microformats within an HTML document. When hCard or hCalendar are involved, such browser extensions allow microformats to be exported into formats compatible with contact management and calendar utilities, such as Microsoft Outlook. When dealing with geographical coordinates, they allow the location to be sent to applications such as Google Maps. Yahoo! Query Language can be used to extract microformats from web pages. On 12 May 2009 Google announced that they would be parsing the hCard, hReview and hProduct microformats, and using them to populate search result pages. They subsequently extended this in 2010 to use hCalendar for events and hRecipe for cookery recipes. Similarly, microformats are also processed by Bing and Yahoo!. As of late 2010, these are the world's top three search engines. Microsoft said in 2006 that they needed to incorporate microformats into upcoming projects, as did other software companies. Alex Faaborg summarizes the arguments for putting the responsibility for microformat user interfaces in the web browser rather than making more complicated HTML: Only the web browser knows what applications are accessible to the user and what the user's preferences are It lowers the barrier to entry for web site developers if they only need to do the markup and not handle "appearance" or "action" issues Retains backwards compatibility with web browsers that do not support microformats The web browser presents a single point of entry from the web to the user's computer, which simplifies security issues == Evaluation == Various commentators have offered review and discussion on the design principles and practical aspects of microformats. Microformats have been compared to other approaches that seek to serve the same or similar purpose. As of 2007, there had been some criticism of one, or all, microformats. The spread and use of microformats was being advocated as of 2007. Opera Software CTO and CSS creator Håkon Wium Lie said in 2005 "We will also see a bunch of microformats being developed, and that’s how the semantic web will be built, I believe." However, in August 2008 Toby Inkster, author of the "Swignition" (formerly "Cognition") microformat parsing service, pointed out that no new microformat specifications had been published since 2005. === Design principles === Computer scientist and entrepreneur, Rohit Khare stated that reduce, reuse, and recycle is "shorthand for several design principles" that motivated the development and practices behind microformats. These aspects can be summarized as follows: Reduce: favor the simplest solutions and focus attention on specific problems; Reuse: work from experience and favor examples of current practice; Recycle: encourage modularity and the ability to embed, valid XHTML can be reused in blog posts, RSS feeds, and anywhere else you can access the web. === Accessibi

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  • Europa-Lehrmittel

    Europa-Lehrmittel

    The Verlag Europa-Lehrmittel Nourney, Vollmer GmbH & Co. KG (English: European educational media), based in Haan (district Gruiten) near Düsseldorf, Germany, develops educational media for vocational training and further education as used in vocational schools, universities, companies and further education institutions for industrial-technical, business, social, health as well as gastronomic professions. The contents are delivered in print as well as in digital formats, including offered as apps, simulations, software and through an exam preparation portal. The publisher has its own digital learning platform, the Europathek. General partner is Nourney, Vollmer & Co. GmbH, a school and specialist book publisher. == History == The publishing house was founded in Wuppertal in 1948, when the first books were published. In Eislingen/Fils a construction office was set up to create the technical drawings for the textbooks - today the drawing office of the publisher in Ostfildern. A little over 40 years later, in 1989, a new company building was built in Haan-Gruiten. In 1997, Europa-Lehrmittel acquired the Fachbuchverlag Pfanneberg with its program aimed at gastronomic professions. Further program expansions in vocational training were realized by adding titles of the publishing houses Lau, Gerber, Pluspunkt, parts of the Verlag Handwerk und Technik program and that of the Gildebuchverlag. In 2013, the scientific and technical university titles of Verlag Harri Deutsch were taken over, including the bestselling "Handbook of Mathematics" by Ilya Nikolaevich Bronstein and Konstantin Adolfovic Semendyayev. In addition, Europa-Lehrmittel's first exam apps appeared. In 2017, the publisher introduced its own digital learning platform named Europathek. The Prüfungsdoc (English: Examination Doc) platform, which enables targeted online preparation for exams, went online the same year. In 2018, the titles of the Düsseldorf publishing house SOL for self-organized learning were incorporated into Europa-Lehrmittel's program. == Program == The program meanwhile includes well over 2000 print and digital publications, including specialist titles on metal technology, automotive and electrical engineering (like "Tabellenbuch Metall" (English: Metal Book of Tables)), on business administration, as well as works for the gastronomic profession (e.g. "Der junge Koch" (English: The Young Cook)). Many titles also appear as licensed editions in over 20 different languages on all continents. All contents are presented in an annual catalog, on the website, in schools, in companies, and at trade fairs and congresses. The publisher is a member of the Deutscher Hauswirtschaftsrat. == Digital educational media == Europathek: In addition to digital books, Europathek also provides media packages, additional materials and e-learning contents. The online contents of the 'media shelf' can be used per web browser. There are also software versions and apps for offline use, with the help of which the obtained titles can be viewed after downloading. Prüfungsdoc (English: Examination Doc): Prüfungsdoc offers web-based learning, practice and repetition to prepare for the intermediate and final examinations. This includes simulations of the exams with direct evaluation of the results.

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  • AI Mode

    AI Mode

    AI Mode is a search feature used within Google Search. In March 2025, Google introduced an experimental "AI Mode" within its search platform, enabling users to input complex, multi-part queries and receive comprehensive, AI-generated responses. This feature uses Google's Gemini model, which enhances the system's reasoning capabilities and supports multimodal inputs, including text, images, and voice. Users need to be signed in to be able to use the image generation features. Initially, AI Mode was available to Google One AI Premium subscribers in the United States, who could access it through the Search Labs platform. This phased rollout allowed Google to gather user feedback and refine the feature before a broader release.

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  • Push technology

    Push technology

    Push technology, also known as server push, is a communication method where the communication is initiated by a server rather than a client. This approach is different from the "pull" method where the communication is initiated by a client. In push technology, clients can express their preferences for certain types of information or data, typically through a process known as the publish–subscribe model. In this model, a client "subscribes" to specific information channels hosted by a server. When new content becomes available on these channels, the server automatically sends, or "pushes," this information to the subscribed client. Under certain conditions, such as restrictive security policies that block incoming HTTP requests, push technology is sometimes simulated using a technique called polling. In these cases, the client periodically checks with the server to see if new information is available, rather than receiving automatic updates. == General use == Synchronous conferencing and instant messaging are examples of push services. Chat messages and sometimes files are pushed to the user as soon as they are received by the messaging service. Both decentralized peer-to-peer programs (such as WASTE) and centralized programs (such as IRC or XMPP) allow pushing files, which means the sender initiates the data transfer rather than the recipient. Email may also be a push system: SMTP is a push protocol (see Push e-mail). However, the last step—from mail server to desktop computer—typically uses a pull protocol like POP3 or IMAP. Modern e-mail clients make this step seem instantaneous by repeatedly polling the mail server, frequently checking it for new mail. The IMAP protocol includes the IDLE command, which allows the server to tell the client when new messages arrive. The original BlackBerry was the first popular example of push-email in a wireless context. Another example is the PointCast Network, which was widely covered in the 1990s. It delivered news and stock market data as a screensaver. Both Netscape and Microsoft integrated push technology through the Channel Definition Format (CDF) into their software at the height of the browser wars, but it was never very popular. CDF faded away and was removed from the browsers of the time, replaced in the 2000s with RSS (a pull system.) Other uses of push-enabled web applications include software updates distribution ("push updates"), market data distribution (stock tickers), online chat/messaging systems (webchat), auctions, online betting and gaming, sport results, monitoring consoles, and sensor network monitoring. == Examples == === Web push === The Web push proposal of the Internet Engineering Task Force is a simple protocol using HTTP version 2 to deliver real-time events, such as incoming calls or messages, which can be delivered (or "pushed") in a timely fashion. The protocol consolidates all real-time events into a single session which ensures more efficient use of network and radio resources. A single service consolidates all events, distributing those events to applications as they arrive. This requires just one session, avoiding duplicated overhead costs. Web Notifications are part of the W3C standard and define an API for end-user notifications. A notification allows alerting the user of an event, such as the delivery of an email, outside the context of a web page. As part of this standard, Push API is fully implemented in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and partially implemented in Safari as of February 2023. === HTTP server push === HTTP server push (also known as HTTP streaming) is a mechanism for sending unsolicited (asynchronous) data from a web server to a web browser. HTTP server push can be achieved through any of several mechanisms. As a part of HTML5 the Web Socket API allows a web server and client to communicate over a full-duplex TCP connection. Generally, the web server does not terminate a connection after response data has been served to a client. The web server leaves the connection open so that if an event occurs (for example, a change in internal data which needs to be reported to one or multiple clients), it can be sent out immediately; otherwise, the event would have to be queued until the client's next request is received. Most web servers offer this functionality via CGI (e.g., Non-Parsed Headers scripts on Apache HTTP Server). The underlying mechanism for this approach is chunked transfer encoding. Another mechanism is related to a special MIME type called multipart/x-mixed-replace, which was introduced by Netscape in 1995. Web browsers interpret this as a document that changes whenever the server pushes a new version to the client. It is still supported by Firefox, Opera, and Safari today, but it is ignored by Internet Explorer and is only partially supported by Chrome. It can be applied to HTML documents, and also for streaming images in webcam applications. The WHATWG Web Applications 1.0 proposal includes a mechanism to push content to the client. On September 1, 2006, the Opera web browser implemented this new experimental system in a feature called "Server-Sent Events". It is now part of the HTML5 standard. === Pushlet === In this technique, the server takes advantage of persistent HTTP connections, leaving the response perpetually "open" (i.e., the server never terminates the response), effectively fooling the browser to remain in "loading" mode after the initial page load could be considered complete. The server then periodically sends snippets of JavaScript to update the content of the page, thereby achieving push capability. By using this technique, the client doesn't need Java applets or other plug-ins in order to keep an open connection to the server; the client is automatically notified about new events, pushed by the server. One serious drawback to this method, however, is the lack of control the server has over the browser timing out; a page refresh is always necessary if a timeout occurs on the browser end. === Long polling === Long polling is itself not a true push; long polling is a variation of the traditional polling technique, but it allows emulating a push mechanism under circumstances where a real push is not possible, such as sites with security policies that require rejection of incoming HTTP requests. With long polling, the client requests to get more information from the server exactly as in normal polling, but with the expectation that the server may not respond immediately. If the server has no new information for the client when the poll is received, then instead of sending an empty response, the server holds the request open and waits for response information to become available. Once it does have new information, the server immediately sends an HTTP response to the client, completing the open HTTP request. Upon receipt of the server response, the client often immediately issues another server request. In this way the usual response latency (the time between when the information first becomes available and the next client request) otherwise associated with polling clients is eliminated. For example, BOSH is a popular, long-lived HTTP technique used as a long-polling alternative to a continuous TCP connection when such a connection is difficult or impossible to employ directly (e.g., in a web browser); it is also an underlying technology in the XMPP, which Apple uses for its iCloud push support. === Flash XML Socket relays === This technique, used by chat applications, makes use of the XML Socket object in a single-pixel Adobe Flash movie. Under the control of JavaScript, the client establishes a TCP connection to a unidirectional relay on the server. The relay server does not read anything from this socket; instead, it immediately sends the client a unique identifier. Next, the client makes an HTTP request to the web server, including this identifier with it. The web application can then push messages addressed to the client to a local interface of the relay server, which relays them over the Flash socket. The advantage of this approach is that it appreciates the natural read-write asymmetry that is typical of many web applications, including chat, and as a consequence it offers high efficiency. Since it does not accept data on outgoing sockets, the relay server does not need to poll outgoing TCP connections at all, making it possible to hold open tens of thousands of concurrent connections. In this model, the limit to scale is the TCP stack of the underlying server operating system. === Reliable Group Data Delivery (RGDD) === In services such as cloud computing, to increase reliability and availability of data, it is usually pushed (replicated) to several machines. For example, the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) makes 2 extra copies of any object stored. RGDD focuses on efficiently casting an object from one location to many while saving bandwidth by sending minimal number of copies (only one in the best case) of

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  • Conversion path

    Conversion path

    A conversion path is a description of the steps taken by a user of a website towards a desired end from the standpoint of the website operator or marketer. The typical conversion path begins with a user arriving at a landing page or a product page and proceeding through a series of page transitions until reaching a final state, either positive (e.g. purchase) or negative (e.g. abandoned session). In practice, the study of the dynamics of this process by the interested party has evolved into a sophisticated field, where various statistical methods are being applied to the optimization of outcomes. This includes real-time adjustment of presented content, in which a website operator tries to provide deliberate incentives to increase the odds of conversion based on various sources of information, including demographic traits, search history, and browsing events. In practice, this reflects in different content presented to users arriving from online advertising versus search engines, and similarly, different content is presented depending on their demographic segments. The fundamental metric describing this process in the aggregate is known as conversion rate.

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  • International Webmasters Association

    International Webmasters Association

    The International Webmasters Association (IWA) is a non-profit association for education and certification of web professionals founded in 1996. It provides a Certified Web Professional certification. One of its objectives is to build a World Wide Web that is a true global community. According to the IWA, as of 2025 it has more than 100 official chapters with over 300,000 individual members in 106 countries. In 2001, the IWA merged with the HTML Writers Guild (HWG) and joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). IWA's accomplishments include the publishing of the industry's first guidelines for ethical and professional standards, web certification and education programs, specialized employment resources, and technical assistance to individuals and businesses. IWA members participate to the activities of W3C WCAG Working Group, ATAG Working Group, and the XHTML Working Group. They have also participated in other initiatives such as the Multimodal Interaction Working Group which developed EMMA, the Extensible MultiModal Annotation markup language.

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  • Rendering equation

    Rendering equation

    In computer graphics, the rendering equation is an integral equation that expresses the amount of light leaving a point on a surface as the sum of emitted light and reflected light. It was independently introduced into computer graphics by David Immel et al. and James Kajiya in 1986. The equation is important in the theory of physically based rendering, describing the relationships between the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) and the radiometric quantities used in rendering. The rendering equation is defined at every point on every surface in the scene being rendered, including points hidden from the camera. The incoming light quantities on the right side of the equation usually come from the left (outgoing) side at other points in the scene (ray casting can be used to find these other points). The radiosity rendering method solves a discrete approximation of this system of equations. In distributed ray tracing, the integral on the right side of the equation may be evaluated using Monte Carlo integration by randomly sampling possible incoming light directions. Path tracing improves and simplifies this method. The rendering equation can be extended to handle effects such as fluorescence (in which some absorbed energy is re-emitted at different wavelengths) and can support transparent and translucent materials by using a bidirectional scattering distribution function (BSDF) in place of a BRDF. The theory of path tracing sometimes uses a path integral (integral over possible paths from a light source to a point) instead of the integral over possible incoming directions. == Equation form == The rendering equation may be written in the form L o ( x , ω o , λ , t ) = L e ( x , ω o , λ , t ) + L r ( x , ω o , λ , t ) {\displaystyle L_{\text{o}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)=L_{\text{e}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)+L_{\text{r}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)} L r ( x , ω o , λ , t ) = ∫ Ω f r ( x , ω i , ω o , λ , t ) L i ( x , ω i , λ , t ) ( ω i ⋅ n ) d ⁡ ω i {\displaystyle L_{\text{r}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)=\int _{\Omega }f_{\text{r}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{i}},\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)L_{\text{i}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{i}},\lambda ,t)(\omega _{\text{i}}\cdot \mathbf {n} )\operatorname {d} \omega _{\text{i}}} where L o ( x , ω o , λ , t ) {\displaystyle L_{\text{o}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)} is the total spectral radiance of wavelength λ {\displaystyle \lambda } directed outward along direction ω o {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{o}}} at time t {\displaystyle t} , from a particular position x {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} } x {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} } is the location in space ω o {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{o}}} is the direction of the outgoing light λ {\displaystyle \lambda } is a particular wavelength of light t {\displaystyle t} is time L e ( x , ω o , λ , t ) {\displaystyle L_{\text{e}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)} is emitted spectral radiance L r ( x , ω o , λ , t ) {\displaystyle L_{\text{r}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)} is reflected spectral radiance ∫ Ω … d ⁡ ω i {\displaystyle \int _{\Omega }\dots \operatorname {d} \omega _{\text{i}}} is an integral over Ω {\displaystyle \Omega } Ω {\displaystyle \Omega } is the unit hemisphere centered around n {\displaystyle \mathbf {n} } containing all possible values for ω i {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{i}}} where ω i ⋅ n > 0 {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{i}}\cdot \mathbf {n} >0} f r ( x , ω i , ω o , λ , t ) {\displaystyle f_{\text{r}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{i}},\omega _{\text{o}},\lambda ,t)} is the bidirectional reflectance distribution function, the proportion of light reflected from ω i {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{i}}} to ω o {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{o}}} at position x {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} } , time t {\displaystyle t} , and at wavelength λ {\displaystyle \lambda } ω i {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{i}}} is the negative direction of the incoming light L i ( x , ω i , λ , t ) {\displaystyle L_{\text{i}}(\mathbf {x} ,\omega _{\text{i}},\lambda ,t)} is spectral radiance of wavelength λ {\displaystyle \lambda } coming inward toward x {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} } from direction ω i {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{i}}} at time t {\displaystyle t} n {\displaystyle \mathbf {n} } is the surface normal at x {\displaystyle \mathbf {x} } ω i ⋅ n {\displaystyle \omega _{\text{i}}\cdot \mathbf {n} } is the weakening factor of outward irradiance due to incident angle, as the light flux is smeared across a surface whose area is larger than the projected area perpendicular to the ray. This is often written as cos ⁡ θ i {\displaystyle \cos \theta _{i}} . Two noteworthy features are: its linearity—it is composed only of multiplications and additions, and its spatial homogeneity—it is the same in all positions and orientations. These mean a wide range of factorings and rearrangements of the equation are possible. It is a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind, similar to those that arise in quantum field theory. Note this equation's spectral and time dependence — L o {\displaystyle L_{\text{o}}} may be sampled at or integrated over sections of the visible spectrum to obtain, for example, a trichromatic color sample. A pixel value for a single frame in an animation may be obtained by fixing t ; {\displaystyle t;} motion blur can be produced by averaging L o {\displaystyle L_{\text{o}}} over some given time interval (by integrating over the time interval and dividing by the length of the interval). Note that a solution to the rendering equation is the function L o {\displaystyle L_{\text{o}}} . The function L i {\displaystyle L_{\text{i}}} is related to L o {\displaystyle L_{\text{o}}} via a ray-tracing operation: The incoming radiance from some direction at one point is the outgoing radiance at some other point in the opposite direction. == Applications == Solving the rendering equation for any given scene is the primary challenge in realistic rendering. One approach to solving the equation is based on finite element methods, leading to the radiosity algorithm. Another approach using Monte Carlo methods has led to many different algorithms including path tracing, photon mapping, and Metropolis light transport, among others. == Limitations == Although the equation is very general, it does not capture every aspect of light reflection. Some missing aspects include the following: Transmission, which occurs when light is transmitted through the surface, such as when it hits a glass object or a water surface, Subsurface scattering, where the spatial locations for incoming and departing light are different. Surfaces rendered without accounting for subsurface scattering may appear unnaturally opaque — however, it is not necessary to account for this if transmission is included in the equation, since that will effectively include also light scattered under the surface, Polarization, where different light polarizations will sometimes have different reflection distributions, for example when light bounces at a water surface, Phosphorescence, which occurs when light or other electromagnetic radiation is absorbed at one moment and emitted at a later moment, usually with a longer wavelength (unless the absorbed electromagnetic radiation is very intense), Interference, where the wave properties of light are exhibited, Fluorescence, where the absorbed and emitted light have different wavelengths, Non-linear effects, where very intense light can increase the energy level of an electron with more energy than that of a single photon (this can occur if the electron is hit by two photons at the same time), and emission of light with higher frequency than the frequency of the light that hit the surface suddenly becomes possible, and Doppler effect, where light that bounces off an object moving at a very high speed will get its wavelength changed: if the light bounces off an object that is moving towards it, the light will be blueshifted and the photons will be packed more closely so the photon flux will be increased; if it bounces off an object moving away from it, it will be redshifted and the photon flux will be decreased. This effect becomes apparent only at speeds comparable to the speed of light, which is not the case for most rendering applications. For scenes that are either not composed of simple surfaces in a vacuum or for which the travel time for light is an important factor, researchers have generalized the rendering equation to produce a volume rendering equation suitable for volume rendering and a transient rendering equation for use with data from a time-of-flight camera.

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  • CU-RTC-WEB

    CU-RTC-WEB

    Customizable, Ubiquitous Real Time Communication over the Web is an API definition being drafted by Bernard Aboba at Microsoft. It is a competing standard to WebRTC, which drafted by a World Wide Web Consortium working group since May 2011. As of 2024, CU-RTC-WEB is still in the drafting phase, with ongoing discussions and contributions from various stakeholders in the tech community. Bernard Aboba, who serves as a co-chair of the W3C WebRTC Working Group, is actively involved in both CU-RTC-WEB and WebRTC, indicating a commitment to advancing real-time communication standards across platforms.

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  • Media Block

    Media Block

    A Media Block or Integrated Media Block (IMB) is a component in a digital cinema projection system. Its purpose is to convert the Digital Cinema Package (DCP) content into data that ultimately produces picture and sound in a theater in compliance with DCI anti-piracy encryption requirements. == Terminology == DCI specification allows for two different security system architectures. In the first the Media Block is outside of the projector. This design is simply referred to as a "Media Block" and is typically a device attached directly to the motherboard of a Digital Cinema server. The media block is usually connected to the projector by dual-link SDI cables. Such media block is limited to processing 2K output, downscaling 4K DCPs if necessary. The second architecture describes an "Integrated Media Block". This refers to a device attached and integrated directly into the projector, which receives image data from the server, usually via a cat6 Ethernet connection. They can process 2K and 4K output. Some hardware implementations integrate the entire server on a single board and are able to work both as a MB as well as an IMB. == Security features == All security functions are contained within a Secure Processing Block (SPB), a tamper-proof physical device. Upon ingestion into a DCP server, Key Delivery Messages (KDM) are stored on flash memory in the media block or IMB. A KDM is written to enable the playback of a specific DCP during a specific time window and on a specific media block or IMB, identified by its serial number during the authoring process. Media blocks and IMBs also contain a secure clock that is set in the factory cannot be altered by the end user, which the DCP servers to which they are attached use to determine showtimes. The secure clock prevents theaters from showing encrypted movies outside the times authorized by the KDM (e.g. after it has expired) by simply changing the date and time in the server's BIOS. Media blocks and IMBs also typically include anti-tamper devices, designed to self-destruct the unit if unauthorized modification of its hardware, software or secure clock is attempted.

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  • Open Media Framework Interchange

    Open Media Framework Interchange

    Open Media Format (OMF), Open Media Framework, or Open Media Framework Interchange (OMFI), is a platform-independent file format intended for transfer of digital media between different software applications. OMFI is a file format that aids in exchange of digital media across applications and platforms. This framework enables users to import media elements and to edit information and effects summaries. Sequential media representation is the primary concern that is addressed by this format. The primary objective of OMFI is video production. However, there are a number of additional features which can be listed as follows: The origin of the data can be easily backtracked or identified since the import material is in the form of a videotape or film. There are predefined effects and transitions, which paves the way for easy and quick overlapping and sequencing of various track. The format supports motion control. (i.e. enabling a particular segment to play at a ratio of the speed of another segment) Some of the key benefits of OMFI are: It saves time by getting rid of tape-based file transfers. It brings in flexibility owing to its ability to use a number of applications on multiple workstations. The format preserves the best sound and picture quality during all imports. It eliminates the risk of file formatting and incompatibilities, which in turn allows users to spend their productive time on the creative aspects of their work. It preserves the formatting information during file transfers between applications or workstations. Hence, the need for rebuilding the effects and sequences is eliminated. The OMFI format consists of four primary sections namely Header, Object data, Object dictionary and Track data. The header contains an index of all the segments that constitute the file.

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  • MSpy

    MSpy

    mSpy is a brand of mobile and computer parental control monitoring software for iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS. The app monitors and logs user activity on the client device and sends the data to a personalized dashboard. Data the users can monitor includes text messages, calls, GPS locations, social media chats, and more. It is owned by Virtuoso Holding. == History == mSpy was launched as a product for mobile monitoring by Altercon Group in 2010. In 2012, the application allowed parents to monitor not only smartphones but also computers running Windows and macOS. In 2013, mSpy became TopTenReviews cell phone monitoring software award winner. By 2014, the business grew nearly 400%, and the app's user numbers exceeded 1 million. In 2015, mSpy received the Parents Tested Parents Approved (PTPA) Winner’s Seal of Approval in the United States. In 2015 and 2018, mSpy was the victim of data breaches which released user data. In 2016, mLite, a light version of mSpy, became available from Google Play. The same year, it was awarded the kidSAFE Certified Seal in the United States. In 2017, mSpy collaborated with YouTuber and journalist Coby Persin to conduct a social experiment on the dangers of social media and online predators. A social experiment, conducted with parental consent, involved Coby Persin to befriend three children—aged 12, 13, and 14—via Snapchat and then invite them to meet personally. Each of the participants agreed to the meeting and arrived at the designated location. The video of the experiment received widespread attention and helped to raise awareness about the importance of online security and parental controls. In early 2021, mSpy released a new feature - Screenrecorder. The feature allows parents to take screenshots of the kid's screen when they are browsing certain apps. In 2024, mSpy's Zendesk was compromised by an unknown threat actor, revealing their customer list. As of 2025, mSpy is compatible with Android, iPhone, and iPad devices. It provides access to various types of data stored on the device, including contact information, calendar entries, emails, SMS messages, browser history, photos, videos, and installed applications. Functions also include GPS tracking, geofencing, keyword alerts etc. == Reception == It was noted that since MSpy runs inconspicuously, there is risk of the software being used illegally. mSpy was called "terrifying" by The Next Web and was featured in NPR coverage of spyware used against victims of stalking and other domestic violence. In response mSpy released security updates aimed at reducing the risk of misuse and stated that it "uses encryption protocols to protect user data and that access is restricted to the account holder". In May 2015, Brian Krebs reported that mSpy was hacked, leaking personal data for hundreds of thousands of users of devices with mSpy installed. mSpy claimed that there was no data leak, but that instead, it was the victim of blackmailers. In September 2018, Krebs claimed and demonstrated that anyone could easily gain access to the mSpy database containing data for millions of users. The company responded by stating that the exposed data consisted primarily of error logs and incorrect login attempts. Following the incident, mSpy implemented new security measures, changed encryption keys, and reset passwords for affected accounts. A 2024 Sky News story characterised mSpy as "stalkerware". Leaked customer support messages from mSpy reveal misuse of its app for illegally monitoring partners and children.

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  • HTTP cookie

    HTTP cookie

    An HTTP cookie (also called web cookie, Internet cookie, browser cookie, or simply cookie) is a small block of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's web browser. Cookies are placed on the device used to access a website, and more than one cookie may be placed on a user's device during a session. Cookies serve useful and sometimes essential functions on the web. They enable web servers to store stateful information (such as items added in the shopping cart in an online store) on the user's device or to track the user's browsing activity (including clicking particular buttons, logging in, or recording which pages were visited in the past). They can also be used to save information that the user previously entered into form fields, such as names, addresses, passwords, and payment card numbers for subsequent use. Authentication cookies are commonly used by web servers to authenticate that a user is logged in, and with which account they are logged in. Without the cookie, users would need to authenticate themselves by logging in on each page containing sensitive information that they wish to access. The security of an authentication cookie generally depends on the security of the issuing website and the user's web browser, and on whether the cookie data is encrypted. Security vulnerabilities may allow a cookie's data to be read by an attacker, used to gain access to user data, or used to gain access (with the user's credentials) to the website to which the cookie belongs (see cross-site scripting and cross-site request forgery for examples). Tracking cookies, and especially third-party tracking cookies, are commonly used as ways to compile long-term records of individuals' browsing histories — a potential privacy concern that prompted European and U.S. lawmakers to take action in 2011. European law requires that all websites targeting European Union member states gain "informed consent" from users before storing non-essential cookies on their device. == Background == === Origin of the name === The term cookie was coined by web-browser programmer Lou Montulli. It was derived from the term magic cookie, which is a packet of data a program receives and sends back unchanged, used by Unix programmers. === History === Magic cookies were already used in computing when computer programmer Lou Montulli had the idea of using them in web communications in June 1994. At the time, he was an employee of Netscape Communications, which was developing an e-commerce application for MCI. Vint Cerf and John Klensin represented MCI in technical discussions with Netscape Communications. MCI did not want its servers to have to retain partial transaction states, which led them to ask Netscape to find a way to store that state in each user's computer instead. Cookies provided a solution to the problem of reliably implementing a virtual shopping cart. Together with John Giannandrea, Montulli wrote the initial Netscape cookie specification the same year. Version 0.9beta of Mosaic Netscape, released on 13 October 1994, supported cookies. The first use of cookies (out of the labs) was checking whether visitors to the Netscape website had already visited the site. Montulli applied for a patent for the cookie technology in 1995, which was granted in 1998. Support for cookies was integrated with Internet Explorer in version 2, released in October 1995. The introduction of cookies was not widely known to the public at the time. In particular, cookies were accepted by default, and users were not notified of their presence. The public learned about cookies after the Financial Times published an article about them on 12 February 1996. In the same year, cookies received a lot of media attention, especially because of potential privacy implications. Cookies were discussed in two U.S. Federal Trade Commission hearings in 1996 and 1997. The development of the formal cookie specifications was already ongoing. In particular, the first discussions about a formal specification started in April 1995 on the www-talk mailing list. A special working group within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) was formed. Two alternative proposals for introducing state in HTTP transactions had been proposed by Brian Behlendorf and David Kristol respectively. But the group, headed by Kristol himself and Lou Montulli, soon decided to use the Netscape specification as a starting point. In February 1996, the working group identified third-party cookies as a considerable privacy threat. The specification produced by the group was eventually published as RFC 2109 in February 1997. It specifies that third-party cookies were either not allowed at all, or at least not enabled by default. At this time, advertising companies were already using third-party cookies. The recommendation about third-party cookies of RFC 2109 was not followed by Netscape and Internet Explorer. RFC 2109 was superseded by RFC 2965 in October 2000. RFC 2965 added a Set-Cookie2 header field, which informally came to be called "RFC 2965-style cookies" as opposed to the original Set-Cookie header field which was called "Netscape-style cookies". Set-Cookie2 was seldom used, however, and was deprecated in RFC 6265 in April 2011 which was written as a definitive specification for cookies as used in the real world. No modern browser recognizes the Set-Cookie2 header field. == Terminology == === Session cookie === A session cookie (also known as an in-memory cookie, transient cookie or non-persistent cookie) exists only in temporary memory while the user navigates a website. Session cookies expire or are deleted when the user closes the web browser. Session cookies are identified by the browser by the absence of an expiration date assigned to them. === Persistent cookie === A persistent cookie expires at a specific date or after a specific length of time. For the persistent cookie's lifespan set by its creator, its information will be transmitted to the server every time the user visits the website that it belongs to, or every time the user views a resource belonging to that website from another website (such as an advertisement). For this reason, persistent cookies are sometimes referred to as tracking cookies because they can be used by advertisers to record information about a user's web browsing habits over an extended period of time. Persistent cookies are also used for reasons such as keeping users logged into their accounts on websites, to avoid re-entering login credentials at every visit. (See § Uses, below.) === Secure cookie === A secure cookie can only be transmitted over an encrypted connection (i.e. HTTPS). They cannot be transmitted over unencrypted connections (i.e. HTTP). This makes the cookie less likely to be exposed to cookie theft via eavesdropping. A cookie is made secure by adding the Secure flag to the cookie. === Http-only cookie === An http-only cookie cannot be accessed by client-side APIs, such as JavaScript. This restriction eliminates the threat of cookie theft via cross-site scripting (XSS). However, the cookie remains vulnerable to cross-site tracing (XST) and cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks. A cookie is given this characteristic by adding the HttpOnly flag to the cookie. === Same-site cookie === In 2016 Google Chrome version 51 introduced a new kind of cookie with attribute SameSite with possible values of Strict, Lax or None. With attribute SameSite=Strict, the browsers would only send cookies to a target domain that is the same as the origin domain. This would effectively mitigate cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks. With SameSite=Lax, browsers would send cookies with requests to a target domain even it is different from the origin domain, but only for safe requests such as GET (POST is unsafe) and not third-party cookies (inside iframe). Attribute SameSite=None would allow third-party (cross-site) cookies, however, most browsers require secure attribute on SameSite=None cookies. The Same-site cookie is incorporated into a new RFC draft for "Cookies: HTTP State Management Mechanism" to update RFC 6265 (if approved). Chrome, Firefox, and Edge started to support Same-site cookies. The key of rollout is the treatment of existing cookies without the SameSite attribute defined, Chrome has been treating those existing cookies as if SameSite=None, this would let all website/applications run as before. Google intended to change that default to SameSite=Lax in Chrome 80 planned to be released in February 2020, but due to potential for breakage of those applications/websites that rely on third-party/cross-site cookies and COVID-19 circumstances, Google postponed this change to Chrome 84. === Supercookie === A supercookie is a cookie with an origin of a top-level domain (such as .com) or a public suffix (such as .co.uk). Ordinary cookies, by contrast, have an origin of a specific domain name, such as ex

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  • Librem

    Librem

    Librem is a line of computers manufactured by Purism, SPC featuring free (libre) software. The laptop line is designed to protect privacy and freedom by omitting non-free (proprietary) software in their operating system and kernel, avoiding the Intel Active Management Technology, and gradually freeing and securing firmware. Librem laptops feature hardware kill switches for the microphone, webcam, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. == Models == === Laptops === ==== Librem 13, Librem 15 and Librem 14 ==== In 2014, Purism launched a crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply to fund the creation and production of the Librem 15 laptop, conceived as a modern alternative to existing open-source hardware laptops, all of which used older hardware. The 15 in the name refers to its 15-inch screen size. The campaign succeeded after extending the original campaign, and the laptops were shipped to backers. In a second revision of the laptop, hardware kill switches for the camera, microphone, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth were added. After the successful launch of the Librem 15, Purism created another campaign on Crowd Supply for a 13-inch laptop named Librem 13, which also came with hardware kill switches similar to those on the Librem 15v2. The campaign was again successful and the laptops were shipped to customers. Purism announced in December 2016 that it would start shipping from inventory rather than building to order with the new batches of Librem 15 and 13. As of January 2023, Purism has one laptop model in production, the Librem 14. ==== Comparison of laptops ==== === Librem Mini === The Librem Mini is a small form factor desktop computer, which began shipping in June 2020. === Librem 5 === On August 24, 2017, Purism began a crowdfunding campaign for the Librem 5, a smartphone aimed to run 100% free software, which would "[focus] on security by design and privacy protection by default". Purism claimed that the phone would become "the world's first ever IP-native mobile handset, using end-to-end encrypted decentralized communication." Purism cooperated with KDE and GNOME in its development of Librem 5. Security features of the Librem 5 include separation of the CPU from the baseband processor, which, according to Linux Magazine, makes the Librem 5 unique in comparison to other mobile phones. The Librem 5 also features hardware kill switches for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication and the phone's camera, microphone, and baseband processor. The default operating system for the Librem 5 is Purism's PureOS, a Debian derivative. The operating system uses a new user interface named Phosh, based on Wayland, wlroots, GTK and GNOME middleware. It is planned that Phosh/Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch, and postmarketOS can also be installed on the phone. The release of the Librem 5 has been postponed several times. In September 2018, Purism announced that the launch date of Librem 5 would be moved from January to April 2019, because of two hardware bugs and the holiday season in Europe and North America. The Librem 5's DevKits for software developers were shipped in December 2018. The launch date was later postponed to the third quarter because of the necessity of further CPU tests. On September 24, 2019, Purism announced that the first batch of Librem 5 phones had begun shipping. The finished version of the Librem 5, known as "Evergreen", was finally shipped on November 18, 2020. === Librem Server === The Librem server is a rack mounted server, released to the public in December 2019. === Librem Key === Announced on 20 September 2018, the Librem Key is a hardware USB security token with multiple features, including integration with a tamper-evident Heads BIOS, which ensures that the Librem laptop Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) was not maliciously altered since the last laptop launch. The Librem Key also features one-time password storage with 3x HMAC-based One-time Password algorithm (HOTP) (RFC 4226) and 15 x Time-based One-time Password algorithm (TOTP) (RFC 6238) and an integrated password manager (16 entries), 40 kbit/s true random number generator, and a tamper-resistant smart card. The key supports type A USB 2.0, has dimensions of 48 x 19 x 7 mm, and weighs 6 g. == Operating system == Initially planning to preload its Librem laptops with the Trisquel operating system, Purism eventually moved off the Trisquel platform to Debian for the 2.0 release of its PureOS Linux operating system. As an alternative to PureOS, Librem laptops are purchasable with Qubes OS preinstalled. In December 2017, the Free Software Foundation added PureOS to its list of endorsed GNU/Linux distributions. == BIOS == In 2015, Purism began research to port the Librem 13 to coreboot but the effort was initially stalled. By the end of the year, a coreboot developer completed an initial port of the Librem 13 and submitted it for review. In December 2016, hardware enablement developer Youness Alaoui joined Purism and was tasked to complete the coreboot port for the original Librem 13 and prepare a port for the second revision of the device. Since summer 2017, new Librem laptops are shipped with coreboot as their standard BIOS, and updates are available for all older models. Purism calls a collection of these six components, involved in the boot process, as PureBoot: Neutralized and disabled Intel Management Engine coreboot A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip Heads, which has tamper-evident features to detect if the BIOS or important boot files have been modified Librem Key, Purism's USB security token Multi-factor authentication that unlocks disk encryption using the Librem Key PureBoot protects the users from various attacks like theft, BIOS malware and kernel rootkits, vulnerabilities and malicious code in the Intel Management Engine, and interdiction.

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