AI Email Tools

AI Email Tools — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

SAP Cloud Infrastructure

SAP Cloud Infrastructure is an SAP-operated IaaS cloud platform, used to run SAP’s cloud business and customer-facing deployments for SAP and non-SAP workloads. It is developed and operated with open-source technologies within SAP’s data center network, based on OpenStack and Kubernetes and supporting SAP S/4HANA and general-purpose applications. It offers compute, storage, and platform services that are accessible to SAP customers. == History == In 2012, SAP promoted aspects of cloud computing. In October 2012, SAP announced a platform as a service called the SAP Cloud Platform. In May 2013, a managed private cloud called the S/4HANA Enterprise Cloud service was announced. SAP Converged Cloud was announced in January 2015. SAP Converged Cloud was originally developed as SAP's internal standardized Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering to support SAP’s cloud solutions. Originating from SAP Converged Cloud, SAP Cloud Infrastructure was developed and announced as SAP’s cloud computing offering that is provided for both SAP and customer workloads. In 2025, it had a global footprint of 15 regions and 29 data centers, encompassing more than 200,000 active VMs and over 6,000 hypervisors. In September 2025, SAP announced an expansion of its European “SAP Sovereign Cloud” portfolio, explicitly naming SAP Cloud Infrastructure (alongside SAP Sovereign Cloud On-Site) as part of the stack positioned for public sector and regulated environments. == Services and Features == SAP Cloud Infrastructure (SCI) is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering by SAP that provides virtual compute, storage, and networking services, together with identity, key management, and operational services. SCI follows a self-service model and is managed via APIs and a web-based user interface. === Compute === SCI provides virtual machine instances that can be provisioned from operating system images and selected in predefined sizes (“flavors”). It supports lifecycle operations such as create/modify/resize/delete, power control, and snapshots; instances can be organized into server groups to influence placement policies. === Storage === SCI provides persistent storage services including: Block storage (virtual volumes) with attach/detach to instances, online expansion, cloning, snapshots, and provisioning volumes from images or snapshots. Object storage (containers and objects) managed via API/CLI with access control lists (ACLs) and configurable redundancy options. File storage (shared file systems) with access controls, online resize, snapshots/restore, and replication across availability zones. === Networking === SCI provides software-defined networking (SDN) for tenant networks (networks, subnets, routers) and connectivity features such as floating IPs for public reachability. Network security controls include security groups and firewall policies; connectivity options include BGP-based VPN networking. === Load balancing and DNS === SCI includes managed load balancing for distributing traffic across backend instances and an authoritative DNS service (DNSaaS) with API-based management of DNS zones and records, including options for zone sharing/transfer across projects/tenants and service integrations for automated record creation. === Identity, access, and key management === SCI includes identity and access management for authentication/authorization in projects/tenants (for example token handling, role assignment, and credential management) and key/secrets management for storing and controlling access to secret material such as keys and certificates, including support for different backends (depending on configuration). === Cloud-native services === SCI includes a container image registry (image push/pull, access policies, and lifecycle controls) and an auto-scaling capability for file shares based on configurable rules. === Observability and audit === SCI includes metrics and audit logging capabilities for operational monitoring and for listing/filtering audit-relevant events across services. === Availability and service levels === SCI documentation describes availability-related features such as load balancing, storage redundancy options, and replication for file shares across availability zones. SAP cloud services are governed by contractual service-level agreements (SLA); SAP Cloud Infrastructure references an SLA supplement defining infrastructure-specific terms when referenced in order forms. === SAP cloud services === SAP cloud services can run on different underlying infrastructures, including SAP Cloud Infrastructure in addition to SAP NS2 or hyperscalers. SAP cloud solutions available on SAP Cloud Infrastructure include SAP Cloud ERP, SAP HCM, SAP Solutions for Spend Management, Supply Chain Management, Business Transformation Management, and SAP Business Technology Platform (including related analytics and business data solutions). For example, SAP HANA Cloud documentation lists SAP Cloud Infrastructure as one of the supported infrastructures alongside hyperscalers. === Sustainability === SAP describes sustainability initiatives for its data centers, including energy-efficient infrastructure (for example, advanced cooling systems and power management), renewable electricity usage where feasible, and operational practices such as recycling electronic waste and minimizing water usage. SAP also references environmental management and energy management standards such as ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 for its data center operations. SAP-owned data centers run with 100% renewable electricity and that renewable electricity has been used since 2014 to power SAP facilities including owned data centers and co-locations. == SAP Cloud Infrastructure for SAP Sovereign Cloud == SAP Sovereign Cloud is a portfolio of SAP solutions designed to help organizations adopt SAP cloud solutions such as the SAP Cloud ERP while maintaining control over data, infrastructure, and compliance in line with local laws and regulations. The portfolio offers multiple deployment options, including SAP Cloud Infrastructure and SAP Sovereign Cloud On-Site, alongside sovereign hyperscaler-based options such as via SAP NS2, and targets customers such as public-sector bodies and other highly regulated organizations. In Europe, SAP Cloud Infrastructure is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) deployment option within SAP Sovereign Cloud for SAP and customer / third party workloads, operated on SAP’s data center network and developed using open-source technologies, with customer data stored within the European Union. Sovereignty-related characteristics for the SAP Cloud Infrastructure include: EU footprint and ownership model: SAP-operated data centers in Germany include sites in St. Leon-Rot and Walldorf, and co-location sites in Frankfurt. EU AI Cloud: EU AI Cloud is a sovereign AI offering for Europe that provides secure, compliant environments for building and running AI, including governed access to auditable large language models from SAP and partners. It offers AI models on the SAP Cloud Infrastructure and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), enabling deployment of AI applications and models on high-performance European infrastructure (including accelerator/GPU-based compute for AI workloads). Availability zones and secure interconnect: Three availability zones in three independent data centers in Germany, connected via SAP-owned fiber on SAP-owned property. Facility and security standards: ISO/IEC 27001 governance of delivery and operations of SAP cloud services and SAP-owned data centers. Additional facility and availability standards: EN 50600 availability class 3 (European data centre standard) and/or ISO/IEC 22237 availability class 3 (international equivalent). Technology foundation: Based on open-source cloud infrastructure framework (OpenStack) and Kubernetes, without dependencies on hyperscaler technologies. Sovereignty controls: Data sovereignty (data residency), operational sovereignty (administration and maintenance restricted to approved, security-cleared personnel), technical sovereignty (locally hosted control planes with separation via encryption or dedicated infrastructure), and legal sovereignty (use of locally based legal entities or those in approved countries). Classified information processing: Roadmap to meet high and very high requirements for handling classified or sensitive information under European regulatory and security regimes. Public-sector readiness and EU sovereignty assurance levels: Implemented to meet SEAL-3 (Digital Resilience) and SEAL-4 (Full Digital Sovereignty) of the European Commission’s Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Staffing constraints: Operations model selectable to restrict sensitive operations to vetted personnel from EU or NATO countries.
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Interference (communication)

In telecommunications, an interference is that which modifies a signal in a disruptive manner, as it travels along a communication channel between its source and receiver. The term is often used to refer to the addition of unwanted signals to a useful signal. Common examples include: Electromagnetic interference (EMI) Co-channel interference (CCI), also known as crosstalk Adjacent-channel interference (ACI) Intersymbol interference (ISI) Inter-carrier interference (ICI), caused by doppler shift in OFDM modulation (multitone modulation). Common-mode interference (CMI) Conducted interference Noise is a form of interference but not all interference is noise. Radio resource management aims at reducing and controlling the co-channel and adjacent-channel interference. == Interference alignment == A solution to interference problems in wireless communication networks is interference alignment, which was crystallized by Syed Ali Jafar at the University of California, Irvine. A specialized application was previously studied by Yitzhak Birk and Tomer Kol for an index coding problem in 1998. For interference management in wireless communication, interference alignment was originally introduced by Mohammad Ali Maddah-Ali, Abolfazl S. Motahari, and Amir Keyvan Khandani, at the University of Waterloo, for communication over wireless X channels. Interference alignment was eventually established as a general principle by Jafar and Viveck R. Cadambe in 2008, when they introduced "a mechanism to align an arbitrarily large number of interferers, leading to the surprising conclusion that wireless networks are not essentially interference limited." This led to the adoption of interference alignment in the design of wireless networks. Jafar explained: My research group crystallized the concept of interference alignment and showed that through interference alignment, it is possible for everyone to access half of the total bandwidth free from interference. Initially this result was shown under a number of idealized assumptions that are typical in theoretical studies. We have since continued to work on peeling off these idealizations one at a time, to bring the theory closer to practice. Along the way we have made numerous discoveries through the lens of interference alignment, which reveal new and powerful signaling schemes. According to New York University senior researcher Paul Horn: Syed Jafar revolutionized our understanding of the capacity limits of wireless networks. He demonstrated the astounding result that each user in a wireless network can access half of the spectrum without interference from other users, regardless of how many users are sharing the spectrum. This is a truly remarkable result that has a tremendous impact on both information theory and the design of wireless networks.
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Ethiopian feminists facing digital gender-based violence

Against a background of traditional views of women, rising internet use, a young population and an unsafe offline life, women and girls in Ethiopia are facing increasing amounts of digital violence. Some women, feeling endangered, have left the country as a result. Researchers, activists and lawyers have called for online content to be taken down and specific digital legislation to be drafted and enforced. == Online violence and its offline effects == Sexual violence against women and girls in Ethiopia is common. In 2023, in the Women, Peace and Security Index by Georgetown University, Ethiopia came 146 out of 177 countries. Over several years online harassment of and violence against women and girls in Ethiopia has increased. It can range from sexist remarks about appearance and women’s role in society, to revenge porn, threats of beating, acid attacks, abduction, rape or death. The real-life effect on women and girls of these attacks can include mental health problems, damaged reputations and a withdrawal from public and economic life. When the online attacks migrate to the real world, for example when online attackers find out where the targeted women and girls live, this can result in physical attacks, street harassment, threats to children and can cause victims to move house or job or even flee the country in fear of femicide. In a country that criminalises homosexuality, it can also lead to physical attacks on LGBTQI+ people in particular and indeed on anybody labelled as homosexual. == Research studies == The Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) conducted interviews with Ethiopian women holding public roles or being active online. The centre published a report on this in 2024 entitled ‘Silenced, Shamed and Threatened’. They found that technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) had become “normalised to the point of invisibility.” In 2024, CER also published an analysis of gendered hate speech on social media in Ethiopia called ‘Normalised and invisible.’ It is thought that traditional views of women, the young population, the rise in internet use and the war in Tigray, when sexual violence was used as a weapon of war by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, have all helped to create an online environment in which even femicide is considered unremarkable. AFP Fact Check collaborated with Deutsche Welle Akademie, to investigate the cyber harassment of women in Ethiopia, analysing misogynistic posts published on TikTok and Facebook. They discovered disparaging remarks about women’s physical appearance, threats of acid attacks and other physical violence, and the public sharing of women’s phone numbers. == Individuals affected == Women in particular jeopardy of digital gender-based violence are feminists, activists, politicians and those with a public profile. Some women are known to have fled Ethiopia fearing for their lives after online and offline threats. Yordanos Bezabih, an Ethiopian women’s rights activist, started a campaign with the hashtag #JusticeforHeaven to fight against gender-based cyberspace violence. As a result, she herself become a target. She experienced years of online threats of acid attacks, gang-rape and death. In 2025, subscribers to an online community organised a search for her address. Deepfake nude images of her were shared, she was filmed in real life, her house and online accounts were broken into, her private photos and messages posted on social media. When the attackers finally circulated her address, suggesting that she be executed, she left Ethiopia on a human rights defender scholarship. In 2023, Lella Misikir helped to start a campaign, called ‘My Whistle, My Voice’, that suggested women carry whistles and use them if they were harassed in the street. A TikTok video of the campaign became popular. Shortly after, videos of Misikir were circulated suggesting that she was gay. Her online attackers next searched for her address. In November 2024, Misikir left the country. == Legal issues == Ethiopia has some laws on online harassment and defamation, for example the Computer Crimes Proclamation. However, technology-facilitated, gender-based violence (TFGBV), such as deepfakes, non-consensual image sharing, and coordinated harassment, is not explicitly recognized as crime. In practice too, women are often not believed when reporting such violence and are not taken seriously. Police advice is often that women affected should simply leave the online space. Social media platforms can remove content when it is brought to their attention but the offenders are not banned. Users can only block them.
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International World Wide Web Conference Committee

The International World Wide Web Conference Committee (abbreviated as IW3C2 also written as IW3C2) is a professional non-profit organization registered in Switzerland (Article 60ff of the Swiss Civil Code) that promotes World Wide Web research and development. The IW3C2 organizes and hosts the annual World Wide Web Conference in conjunction with the W3C. The IW3C2 was founded by Joseph Hardin and Robert Cailliau at a meeting held in Boston, United States, on 14 August 1994 to prepare for the upcoming Second International World Wide Web Conference in Chicago. The IW3C2 formally became an incorporated entity in May 1996 at the fifth conference in Paris, France. The organization is governed by laws of the Swiss Confederation and the By-laws. == Abbreviation == The abbreviation for the International World Wide Web Conference Committee as IW3C2 is as follow: I- The I is represents the leading I in International. W3- The W3 represents the three 3 leading W's in World Wide Web. C2- The C2 represents the three 2 leading C's in Conference Committee. == Mission == The mission of the IW3C2 is: To coordinate the organization and planning of the international WWW conference series and ensure that it remains the foremost conference addressing World Wide Web research and development; To promote a collaborative spirit among conference attendees that is essential to the success of the series; To ensure the global geographical diversity of conference sites and provide support to local organizers at those sites; To make sure that all content arising from these conferences and forums is permanently and openly available on the widest possible scale; To preserve the history of the conference series; To encourage the global development of the World Wide Web through collaboration with WWW standards organizations; To provide a permanent, broad-based international body to achieve these purposes. == Conferences == The conferences are organized by the IW3C2 in collaboration with local organizing committees and technical program committees. The series provides an open forum in which all opinions can be presented, subject to a strict process of peer review. The proceedings of the conference are published in the ACM Digital Library. === Endorsed conferences === The IW3C2 has endorsed regional conferences devoted to a special topic of the Web by working with endorsed conferences on cross-promotion, publicity and programs. == Membership == Members of the IW3C2 are ordinary members, ex officio members, non-voting members, and officers. === Ordinary members === Ordinary members are elected for a period of 3 years during a general meeting. Members are nominated due to their recognition in the WWW community and represent themselves. Members can be re-elected only after at least one year of absence. The following are the founding members at the time when IW3C2 was officially incorporated in May 1996: Jean-François Abramatic Tim Berners-Lee Robert Cailliau Dale Dougherty Ira Goldstein Joseph Hardin Tim Krauskopf Detlef Krömker Corinne Moore R. P. Channing Rodgers Albert Vezza Stuart Weibel Yuri Rubinsky (died prior to incorporation) The following are the current (April 2016) ordinary members: Robin Chen Chin-Wan Chung Allan Ellis Wendy Hall - IW3C2 Chair Ivan Herman Arun Iyengar - IW3C2 Vice Chair Irwin King Yoelle Maarek Luc Mariaux - IW3C2 Treasurer Daniel Schwabe - IW3C2 Vice-Chair === Ex officio members === Ex officio members are selected from the immediate past conference general co-chairs and from future conference co-chairs. Their term expires one year after the conference they organized. Ex officio members can be elected as ordinary members. The following are current (April 2016) ex officio members and the conference with which they are affiliated: Jacqueline Bourdeau - WWW2016 James Hendler - WWW2016 Rick Barrett - WWW2017 Rick Cummings - WWW2017 Laurent Flory - WWW2018 Fabien Gandon - WWW2018 === Officers === The IW3C2 officers consist of a chairperson, a vice-chair (chairperson-elect), a secretary, a treasurer, and other appointees. Officers are elected during a general meeting (usually at the annual WWW conference) and serve for one year. They can be re-elected an indefinite number of times. == The Seoul Test of Time Award == This annual award, presented at the WWW conference, is made possible by a generous contribution from the organizers of WWW2014 (Seoul Korea). Recipients are determined by the IW3C2 and honor the author, or authors, of a paper presented at a previous WWW conference that has "stood the test of time." The first award, announced at WWW2015 (Florence Italy), recognized Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google. The recipients of the WWW2016 award are LinkIn scientist Dr. Badrul Sarwar and University of Minnesota professors George Karypis, Joseph Konstan, and John Riedl (posthumous) for their work in item-item collaborative filtering.
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AI anthropomorphism

AI anthropomorphism is the attribution of human-like feelings, mental states, and behavioral characteristics to artificial intelligence systems. Factors related to the user of the AI – such as culture, age, education, gender, and personality traits – are also important determinants of the strength of anthropomorphic effects. Since the earliest days of AI development, humans have interpreted machine outputs through anthropomorphic frameworks, but the recent emergence of generative AI has amplified these tendencies. In research and engineering, there is a distinction between anthropomorphism and anthropomorphic design. The former is an innate human tendency toward non-human entities. The latter is the scientific community effort to “design anthropomorphism”. Such a design can involve the manipulation of cues, including AI appearance, behaviour and language. Contemporary AI systems today can generate extremely human-like outputs and are often designed specifically to do so, meaning that their anthropomorphic effects can be especially powerful. In some cases, anthropomorphism is accompanied with explicit beliefs that AI systems are capable of empathy, goodwill, understanding, or consciousness. == Background == === In early AIs === Views of artificial agents possessing a human-like intelligence have existed since the early development of computers in the mid-1900s. The use of the human mind as a metaphor for understanding the workings of machine systems was prevalent among researchers in the early days of computer science, with multiple influential works widely distributing the idea of intelligent machines. Among the most widely cited papers of this period was Alan Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in which he introduced the Turing Test, stating that a machine was intelligent if it could produce conversation that was indistinguishable from that of a human. These academic works in the 1940s and 1950s gave early credibility to the idea that machine workings could be thought of similarly to human minds. The public quickly came to view artificial systems similarly, with often exaggerated conceptions of the capabilities of early machines. Among the most well-known demonstrations of this was through the chatbot ELIZA designed by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966. ELIZA responded to user inputs with a rudimentary text-processing approach that could not be considered anything resembling true understanding of the inputs, yet users, even when operating with full conscious knowledge of ELIZA's limitations, often began to ascribe motivation and understanding to the program's output. Weizenbaum later wrote, "I had not realized ... that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people." Comparisons between the intellectual capabilities of artificial intelligence and human intelligence were continually intensified by the attempts of computer scientists to develop machines that could perform human tasks at a level equal to or better than humans. A symbolic turning point was achieved in 1997, when IBM's chess supercomputer Deep Blue defeated then-world champion Garry Kasparov in a highly publicized six-game match. The defeat of a human by a machine for the first time in chess – a game viewed as a canonical example of human intellect – and the media attention surrounding the match led to a significant shift, where views of parallels between human and artificial intelligence moved from abstract speculation to being concretely demonstrated. A similar achievement was reached in the board game Go in 2017, when the program AlphaGo defeated world top-ranked Ke Jie. === Large language models === The AI boom of the 2020s brought about the widespread emergence of generative AI; in particular, chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude based on large language models (LLMs) have become increasingly pervasive in everyday society. These systems are notable for the fact that they are able to respond to a wide range of prompts across contexts while producing strikingly human-like outputs – research has shown that humans are often unable to distinguish human-generated text from AI-generated text, and modern AI chatbots have formally been shown to pass the Turing test. As such, the anthropomorphic effects of AI are more powerful than ever. Given that LLMs have brought AI into the technological mainstream, considerable scientific effort has been devoted in recent years to understand existing and potential ramifications of AI in the public sphere; the prevalence and effects of anthropomorphism is one of those domains where much of this effort has been directed. == Current anthropomorphic attributions == === In the general public === Surveys have shown that a substantial portion of the public attributes human-like qualities to AI. In one sample of U.S. adults from 2024, two-thirds of people believed that ChatGPT is possibly conscious on some level, though other research has shown that the public still views the likelihood itself of AI consciousness as comparatively low. Another study conducted in 2025 found that women, people of color, and older individuals were most likely to anthropomorphize AI, as well as that – in general – humans view AIs as warm and competent, and anthropomorphic attributions to AI had increased by 34% in the past year. A YouGov poll reported that 46% of Americans believe that people should display politeness to AI chatbots by saying "please" and "thank you", demonstrating the application of social norms to AI. These beliefs extend to behavior, where majorities of AI users claim to always be polite to chatbots; of those who behave politely, most say they do so simply because it is the "nice" thing to do. In many recent cases, humans have developed robust interpersonal bonds with AI systems. For example: users of social chatbots like Replika and Character.ai have been documented to fall in love with the AIs, or to otherwise treat the AIs as intimate companions, and it has become increasingly common for individuals to use LLMs like ChatGPT as therapists. Chatbots are able to produce responses deeply attuned to users, as they are often designed to maximize agreeableness and mirror users' emotions; this can create compelling illusions of intimacy. === In the research community === In many cases, even AI researchers anthropomorphize AI systems in some capacity. Among the most extreme and well-publicized of these instances occurred in 2022, when engineer Blake Lemoine publicly claimed that Google's LLM LaMDA was conscious. Lemoine published the transcript of a conversation he had had with LaMDA regarding self identity and morality which he claimed was evidence of its sentience; he asserted that LaMDA was "a person" as defined by the United States Constitution and compared its mental capability to that of a 7- or 8-year-old. Lemoine's claims were widely dismissed by the scientific community and by Google itself, which described Lemoine's conclusions as "wholly unfounded" and fired him on the grounds that he had violated policies "to safeguard product information". It is much more common that AI researchers unintentionally imply humanness of AI through the ordinary use of anthropomorphic language to describe nonhuman agents. This kind of language, which Daniel Dennett coined the "intentional stance", is very common in everyday life in a variety of different contexts (e.g., "My computer doesn't want to turn on today"). For AI agents that may actually appear to very closely replicate some human abilities, however, the casual use of such anthropomorphic language in research has been scrutinized for being potentially misleading to the public. As early as 1976, Drew McDermott criticized the research community for the use of "wishful mnemonics", where AIs were referred to with terms like "understand" and "learn". In the LLM era, these criticisms have further intensified, with the negative effects of AI anthropomorphism in the public posing an especially salient danger given the elevated accessibility of modern AI. In some cases, the use of anthropomorphic language for AI is not unintentional, but is willfully used by researchers in order to promote better understanding of the brain – the idea being that, as AI can be functionally similar in some ways to the human brain, we may gain new insights and ideas from treating AI as a kind of model of the brain's workings. In particular, deep neuronal networks (DNNs) are often explicitly compared to the human brain, and significant advances in DNN research have stirred considerable enthusiasm about the ability of AI to emulate the human abilities. Caution has been urged in this domain as well, however; the use of anthropomorphic language can mask important differences that fundamentally distinguish AI from human intelligence. When it comes to DNNs, for example, it has been pointed out that they are still structurally quite different
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WebCL

WebCL (Web Computing Language) is a JavaScript binding to OpenCL for heterogeneous parallel computing within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins, first announced in March 2011. It is developed on similar grounds as OpenCL and is considered as a browser version of the latter. Primarily, WebCL allows web applications to actualize speed with multi-core CPUs and GPUs. With the growing popularity of applications that need parallel processing like image editing, augmented reality applications and sophisticated gaming, it has become more important to improve the computational speed. With these background reasons, a non-profit Khronos Group designed and developed WebCL, which is a Javascript binding to OpenCL with a portable kernel programming, enabling parallel computing on web browsers, across a wide range of devices. In short, WebCL consists of two parts, one being Kernel programming, which runs on the processors (devices) and the other being JavaScript, which binds the web application to OpenCL. The completed and ratified specification for WebCL 1.0 was released on March 19, 2014. == Implementation == Currently, no browsers natively support WebCL. However, non-native add-ons are used to implement WebCL. For example, Nokia developed a WebCL extension. Mozilla does not plan to implement WebCL in favor of WebGL Compute Shaders, which were in turn scrapped in favor of WebGPU. Mozilla (Firefox) - hg.mozilla.org/projects/webcl/ === WebCL working draft === Samsung (WebKit) - github.com/SRA-SiliconValley/webkit-webcl (unavailable) Nokia (Firefox) - github.com/toaarnio/webcl-firefox (down since Nov 2014, Last Version for FF 34) Intel (Crosswalk) - www.crosswalk-project.org === Example C code === The basic unit of a parallel program is kernel. A kernel is any parallelizable task used to perform a specific job. More often functions can be realized as kernels. A program can be composed of one or more kernels. In order to realize a kernel, it is essential that a task is parallelizable. Data dependencies and order of execution play a vital role in producing efficient parallelized algorithms. A simple example can be thought of the case of loop unrolling performed by C compilers, where a statement like:can be unrolled into:Above statements can be parallelized and can be made to run simultaneously. A kernel follows a similar approach where only the snapshot of the ith iteration is captured inside kernel. Rewriting the above code using a kernel:Running a WebCL application involves the following steps: Allow access to devices and provide context Hand over the kernel to a device Cause the device to execute the kernel Retrieve results from the device Use the data inside JavaScript Further details about the same can be found at == Exceptions List == WebCL, being a JavaScript based implementation, doesn't return an error code when errors occur. Instead, it throws an exception such as OUT_OF_RESOURCES, OUT_OF_HOST_MEMORY, or the WebCL-specific WEBCL_IMPLEMENTATION_FAILURE. The exception object describes the machine-readable name and human-readable message describing the error. The syntax is as follows: From the code above, it can be observed that the message field can be a NULL value. Other exceptions include: INVALID_OPERATION – if the blocking form of this function is called from a WebCLCallback INVALID_VALUE – if eventWaitList is empty INVALID_CONTEXT – if events specified in eventWaitList do not belong to the same context INVALID_DEVICE_TYPE – if deviceType is given, but is not one of the valid enumerated values DEVICE_NOT_FOUND – if there is no WebCLDevice available that matches the given deviceType More information on exceptions can be found in the specs document. There is another exception that is raised upon trying to call an object that is ‘released’. On using the release method, the object doesn't get deleted permanently but it frees the resources associated with that object. In order to avoid this exception, releaseAll method can be used, which not only frees the resources but also deletes all the associated objects created. == Security == WebCL, being an open-ended software developed for web applications, has lots of scope for vulnerabilities in the design and development fields too. This forced the developers working on WebCL to give security the utmost importance. Few concerns that were addressed are: Out-of-bounds Memory Access: This occurs by accessing the memory locations, outside the allocated space. An attacker can rewrite or erase all the important data stored in those memory locations. Whenever there arises such a case, an error must be generated at the compile time, and zero must be returned at run-time, not letting the program override the memory. A project WebCL Validator, was initiated by the Khronos Group (developers) on handling this vulnerability. Memory Initialization: This is done to prevent the applications to access the memory locations of previous applications. WebCL ensures that this doesn't happen by initializing all the buffers, variables used to zero before it runs the current application. OpenCL 1.2 has an extension ‘cl_khr_initialize_memory’, which enables this. Denial of Service: The most common attack on web applications cannot be eliminated by WebCL or the browser. OpenCL can be provided with watchdog timers and pre-emptive multitasking, which can be used by WebCL in order to detect and terminate the contexts that are taking too long or consume lot of resources. There is an extension of OpenCL 1.2 ‘cl_khr_terminate_context’ like for the previous one, which enables to terminate the process that might cause a denial of service attack. == Related browser bugs == Bug 664147 - [WebCL] add openCL in gecko, Mozilla Bug 115457: [Meta] WebCL support for WebKit, WebKit Bugzilla
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Event cinema

Event cinema sometimes called alternative content cinema or livecasts refers to the use of movie theaters to display a varied range of live and recorded entertainment excluding traditional films, such as sport, opera, musicals, ballet, music, one-off TV specials, current affairs, comedy and religious services. == History and development == Event Cinema was set up at the start of the century with rock concerts by Bon Jovi (2001), David Bowie (2003), and Robbie Williams (2005) bringing non-film audiences into cinemas that had newly installed digital equipment. The Metropolitan Opera in New York through their partnership with Fathom Events is acknowledged as the trailblazer in this area, aggressively seeking out new markets and setting high standards for live broadcasts via satellite. Emulated by other opera houses worldwide such as the Royal Opera House following a close second, Glyndebourne, La Scala and the Sydney Opera House the genre of opera within the 'Event Cinema' industry has been a huge success, and has brought new, younger audiences into cash-strapped opera houses depended on state funding and wealthy benefactors for the first time - an unforeseen and happy consequence of digitisation. Ballet and theater have also been very successful, as have rock concerts, both live and recorded. The UK's National Theatre has been a huge success here with their season of live broadcasts under the banner 'NT Live', featuring big name casts such as Helen Mirren, whose recent turn as Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience was a sell out everywhere. (This was in partnership with another West End theatre and the NT are keen to help other theatres maximise their potential through live broadcasts). The Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company are also producing work for live broadcast and recorded exhibition. As digitisation of cinemas matures, the Event Cinema industry is growing. The strongest territory is the US, followed by the UK and mainland European territories. Latin America is also a very strong market. Recent additions include Pompeii Live, a unique exhibition by the UK's British Museum, featuring celebrities and curators taking the audience on a live tour around the recreated set of Pompeii within the museum itself, and they are also exploring the schools market for the first time, following the live broadcast on June 18 with a daytime broadcast aimed at UK schools for the first time. If successful this will no doubt prove a model for future museums to emulate. An added incentive for exhibitors is the ability to show alternative content, i.e. alternative to mainstream, studio-driven content, such as live special events, sports, pre-show advertising and other digital or video content. In industry terms this has become known as 'Alternative Content', but has recently become known more widely as 'Event Cinema'. === Expanding markets === Some low-budget films that would normally not have a theatrical release because of distribution costs might be shown in smaller engagements than the typical large release studio pictures. The cost of duplicating a digital "print" is very low, so adding more theaters to a release has a small additional cost to the distributor. Movies that start with a small release could scale to a much larger release quickly if they were sufficiently successful, opening up the possibility that smaller movies could achieve box office success previously out of their reach. ==== Technical specifications ==== Event Cinema is also finding a market in 3rd world countries in which the higher costs and quality of DCI equipment are not yet affordable, as crucially there are no DCI specifications for Alternative Content as there is in mainstream [studio] content. This has led to an explosion in the variety of content on offer, but a lack of standardisation has led to questionable quality at times. As the industry matures, this lack of regulation is expected to change and there are moves afoot to introduce codes of practice and technical specifications. Recorded content complements mainstream studio content by maximising the 'downtime' that plagues the cinema industry, where screens worldwide spend a large proportion of their time in darkness and cinemas empty. Some cinema chains have targeted pensioners in particular, offering free tea and coffee for afternoon matinees of recorded opera, for example. Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs) have been useful to cinemas not yet equipped with satellite broadcasting capability and has enabled exhibitors to build their Event Cinema audience, which is not generally the 18-24 demographic that multiplexes are targeting. ==== New Audiences ==== Event Cinema has seen a return of an older, affluent audience, previously turned off by the multiplex experience, and cinemas are starting to capitalise on this by offering waiter-serviced, high class finger food and alcoholic beverages, complete with bars and restaurants, a world away from the traditional popcorn/soft drink model; art house cinemas are increasingly marketing themselves as 'destination' venues for an evening's entertainment, somewhere to spend an entire evening, rather than just a couple of hours. As exhibition admissions have plateau'd in recent years due to the explosion in VOD, tablet and mobile content technology, this new revenue stream has been a surprise and welcome addition to the cinema industry, though the US studios have been cautious in embracing the change as yet. The thrill of Live broadcasts means they are generally regarded as more popular than recorded events, but there are exceptions; artists with a loyal cult or teenage following tend to do particularly well in this area, as concert films featuring artists such as the Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam, JLS, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones have shown. ==== The Future ==== As more and more distributors are emerging, offering an increasingly broad range of content to cinemas worldwide, the landscape itself is shifting: screen advertising companies, technical providers, and exhibitors themselves are reinventing themselves as Alternative Content or Event Cinema distributors, and the industry is witnessing a re-evaluation of business models and practices worldwide. Predictions are that this industry could be work in excess of US$1bn by 2015. An illustration of the growth of this industry is the news the establishment of a European trade association promoting the industry to the general public and supporting those involved in it and the Event Cinema Association.
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Mashup (web application hybrid)

A mashup (computer industry jargon), in web development, is a web page or web application that uses content from more than one source to create a single new service displayed in a single graphical interface. For example, a user could combine the addresses and photographs of their library branches with a Google map to create a map mashup. The term implies easy, fast integration, frequently using open application programming interfaces (open API) and data sources to produce enriched results that were not necessarily the original reason for producing the raw source data. The term mashup originally comes from creating something by combining elements from two or more sources. The main characteristics of a mashup are combination, visualization, and aggregation. It is important to make existing data more useful, for personal and professional use. To be able to permanently access the data of other services, mashups are generally client applications or hosted online. In the past years, more and more Web applications have published APIs that enable software developers to easily integrate data and functions the SOA way, instead of building them by themselves. Mashups can be considered to have an active role in the evolution of social software and Web 2.0. Mashup composition tools are usually simple enough to be used by end-users. They generally do not require programming skills and rather support visual wiring of GUI widgets, services and components together. Therefore, these tools contribute to a new vision of the Web, where users are able to contribute. The term "mashup" is not formally defined by any standard-setting body. == History == The broader context of the history of the Web provides a background for the development of mashups. Under the Web 1.0 model, organizations stored consumer data on portals and updated them regularly. They controlled all the consumer data, and the consumer had to use their products and services to get the information. The advent of Web 2.0 introduced Web standards that were commonly and widely adopted across traditional competitors and which unlocked the consumer data. At the same time, mashups emerged, allowing mixing and matching competitors' APIs to develop new services. The first mashups used mapping services or photo services to combine these services with data of any kind and therefore to produce visualizations of data. In the beginning, most mashups were consumer-based, but recently the mashup is to be seen as an interesting concept useful also to enterprises. Business mashups can combine existing internal data with external services to generate new views on the data. There was also the free Yahoo! Pipes to build mashups for free using the Yahoo! Query Language. == Types of mashup == There are many types of mashup, such as business mashups, consumer mashups, and data mashups. The most common type of mashup is the consumer mashup, aimed at the general public. Business (or enterprise) mashups define applications that combine their own resources, application and data, with other external Web services. They focus data into a single presentation and allow for collaborative action among businesses and developers. This works well for an agile development project, which requires collaboration between the developers and customer (or customer proxy, typically a product manager) for defining and implementing the business requirements. Enterprise mashups are secure, visually rich Web applications that expose actionable information from diverse internal and external information sources. Consumer mashups combine data from multiple public sources in the browser and organize it through a simple browser user interface. (e.g.: Wikipediavision combines Google Map and a Wikipedia API) Data mashups, opposite to the consumer mashups, combine similar types of media and information from multiple sources into a single representation. The combination of all these resources create a new and distinct Web service that was not originally provided by either source. === By API type === Mashups can also be categorized by the basic API type they use but any of these can be combined with each other or embedded into other applications. ==== Data types ==== Indexed data (documents, weblogs, images, videos, shopping articles, jobs ...) used by metasearch engines Cartographic and geographic data: geolocation software, geovisualization Feeds, podcasts: news aggregators ==== Functions ==== Data converters: language translators, speech processing, URL shorteners... Communication: email, instant messaging, notification... Visual data rendering: information visualization, diagrams Security related: electronic payment systems, ID identification... Editors == Mashup enabler == In technology, a mashup enabler is a tool for transforming incompatible IT resources into a form that allows them to be easily combined, in order to create a mashup. Mashup enablers allow powerful techniques and tools (such as mashup platforms) for combining data and services to be applied to new kinds of resources. An example of a mashup enabler is a tool for creating an RSS feed from a spreadsheet (which cannot easily be used to create a mashup). Many mashup editors include mashup enablers, for example, Presto Mashup Connectors, Convertigo Web Integrator or Caspio Bridge. Mashup enablers have also been described as "the service and tool providers, [sic] that make mashups possible". === History === Early mashups were developed manually by enthusiastic programmers. However, as mashups became more popular, companies began creating platforms for building mashups, which allow designers to visually construct mashups by connecting together mashup components. Mashup editors have greatly simplified the creation of mashups, significantly increasing the productivity of mashup developers and even opening mashup development to end-users and non-IT experts. Standard components and connectors enable designers to combine mashup resources in all sorts of complex ways with ease. Mashup platforms, however, have done little to broaden the scope of resources accessible by mashups and have not freed mashups from their reliance on well-structured data and open libraries (RSS feeds and public APIs). Mashup enablers evolved to address this problem, providing the ability to convert other kinds of data and services into mashable resources. === Web resources === Of course, not all valuable data is located within organizations. In fact, the most valuable information for business intelligence and decision support is often external to the organization. With the emergence of rich web applications and online Web portals, a wide range of business-critical processes (such as ordering) are becoming available online. Unfortunately, very few of these data sources syndicate content in RSS format and very few of these services provide publicly accessible APIs. Mashup editors therefore solve this problem by providing enablers or connectors. == Mashups versus portals == Mashups and portals are both content aggregation technologies. Portals are an older technology designed as an extension to traditional dynamic Web applications, in which the process of converting data content into marked-up Web pages is split into two phases: generation of markup "fragments" and aggregation of the fragments into pages. Each markup fragment is generated by a "portlet", and the portal combines them into a single Web page. Portlets may be hosted locally on the portal server or remotely on a separate server. Portal technology defines a complete event model covering reads and updates. A request for an aggregate page on a portal is translated into individual read operations on all the portlets that form the page ("render" operations on local, JSR 168 portlets or "getMarkup" operations on remote, WSRP portlets). If a submit button is pressed on any portlet on a portal page, it is translated into an update operation on that portlet alone (processAction on a local portlet or performBlockingInteraction on a remote, WSRP portlet). The update is then immediately followed by a read on all portlets on the page. Portal technology is about server-side, presentation-tier aggregation. It cannot be used to drive more robust forms of application integration such as two-phase commit. Mashups differ from portals in the following respects: The portal model has been around longer and has had greater investment and product research. Portal technology is therefore more standardized and mature. Over time, increasing maturity and standardization of mashup technology will likely make it more popular than portal technology because it is more closely associated with Web 2.0 and lately Service-oriented Architectures (SOA). New versions of portal products are expected to eventually add mashup support while still supporting legacy portlet applications. Mashup technologies, in contrast, are not expected to provide support for portal standards. == Business mashups
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N-jet

An N-jet is the set of (partial) derivatives of a function f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} up to order N. Specifically, in the area of computer vision, the N-jet is usually computed from a scale space representation L {\displaystyle L} of the input image f ( x , y ) {\displaystyle f(x,y)} , and the partial derivatives of L {\displaystyle L} are used as a basis for expressing various types of visual modules. For example, algorithms for tasks such as feature detection, feature classification, stereo matching, tracking and object recognition can be expressed in terms of N-jets computed at one or several scales in scale space.
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Cringe culture

Cringe culture () is an Internet phenomenon and neologism characterized by the mockery and ridicule of content, behaviors, or expressions deemed embarrassing or awkward. The term cringe evolved semantically from describing personal secondhand embarrassment to becoming a dismissive label applied to various forms of online expression and fan behavior. The phenomenon emerged in the early 2000s as a response to awkward online content but gradually transformed into a cultural force that impacted fan communities, creative expression, and social media behavior. Cringe culture gained particular prominence through online platforms like Reddit and 4chan, and has been observed to cause the decline of various fandoms when they become labeled as cringe. Cringe culture has extended beyond Internet communities into academic and professional settings. Educators have noticed increased self-consciousness among students about displaying effort in their work (known as tryharding). By the early 2020s, a cultural pushback against cringe culture began to emerge, with public figures and celebrities advocating for authentic self-expression and rejecting the fear of being perceived as "trying too hard". == Origin == The term cringe underwent semantic change from its original usage describing an involuntary physical response, then to embarrassment. The term gained popularity in online forums during the early 2000s, when public self-humiliation online was a relatively novel phenomenon. Early cringe culture drew much of its content from YouTube. According to Kaitlyn Tiffany of The Atlantic, the majority of cringe stemmed from people who did not seem to understand that anyone in the world could see their videos. The phenomenon initially focused on empathy and secondhand embarrassment, with viewers relating to the awkward situations they witnessed. Popular early examples of cringe include the 2002 viral video Star Wars Kid and "My Video for Briona for Our 7 Month", in which a man winks, licks his lips, and makes romantic declarations to his partner. Early cringe culture encompassed multiple styles, including self-deprecating, playful, and hostile forms. On /b/ (4chan's "random" board), early cringe discussions targeted groups like Tumblr users, social justice warriors, fangirls, and furries, while also being used to describe "normies" who lacked sufficient knowledge of Internet culture to understand its ironic humor. In July 2012, Reddit user Michael Dombkowski took over the dormant r/cringe subreddit after watching a KENS5 segment about teen werewolves. Dombkowski created RSS feeds to alert him whenever someone mentioned cringe anywhere on Reddit, then encouraged users to visit his subreddit. The subreddit collected 10,000 monthly pageviews in its first month, which grew to 941,000 by September 2012 and 5 million the following month. According to The Daily Dot, Dombkowski had intended the subreddit to elicit empathy from viewers rather than to mock its subjects. On November 9, 2012, Dombkowski banned all images from r/cringe and created r/cringepics as a spinoff subreddit for image-based content. The community initially opposed this decision, as users worried that it would fragment the community. In a few months, r/cringepics overtook r/cringe in traffic and subscribers. By 2014, the combined subreddits amassed over 500,000 subscribers and more than 30 million monthly pageviews. In a March 2013 company AMA ("Ask Me Anything"), Reddit's general manager Erik Martin stated that he hates "r/cringepics and anything cringe related and the whole idea." == Impact == Cringe culture has impacted various fandoms. Screen Rant dubbed the phenomenon in which a fandom abruptly dissipates when suddenly deemed cringe (due to the actions of individuals within the fandom or the fandom being re-evaluated as a whole) as the "My Hero Academia Effect". My Hero Academia initially enjoyed popularity in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the resurfacing of embarrassing TikTok videos of convention-goers in 2020 caused the My Hero Academia fandom to be deemed cringy, and thus was abandoned by many anime fans. Similarly, the fandom of the Homestuck webcomic, which ran from 2009 to 2016, faced scrutiny when cosplayers filled bathtubs with Sharpies to achieve gray skin coloring (emulating the design of the Homestuck characters), which led to property damage at hotels and convention bans. Many fans subsequently abandoned the fandom, and as a result, according to Screen Rant, the Homestuck fandom was almost non-existent by 2024. It is worth noting that as of September 27, 2025 animation studio SpindleHorse, also responsible for the popular animated show Hazbin Hotel (another common recipient of Cringe Culture discussion) has released a Homestuck animated pilot episode on YouTube. Other fandoms that were deemed cringy include the Stranger Things and Hazbin Hotel fandoms. Isobel Heal of Varsity described being "far too insecure as a teen to even consider listening to songs inspired by My Little Pony or Five Nights at Freddy's regardless of how catchy they were," but found that attending a Living Tombstone concert allowed her to overcome these inhibitions. She wrote that everyone in the crowd was "completely unafraid to engage in the silliness of the entire night," which allowed her to "let my guard down and enjoy the evening without fear of feeling 'cringe.'" Heal described her experience of singing along to tracks like "Discord", a My Little Pony–themed song, provided what she described as healing "the wounds of the younger me" and represented a form of reclaiming interests that had been suppressed due to social pressure and bullying. == Reactions == New York University professor Ocean Vuong observed that students increasingly hesitate to reveal effort behind their creative work. Vuong stated that students often say "I want to be a good writer, but it's a bit cringe" and perform cynicism because it can be misread as intelligence. In May 2022, Taylor Swift addressed cringe culture in her commencement speech at New York University: she advised graduates to "learn to live alongside cringe" and that "cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime." Other celebrities have made public speeches fighting against the perceived notion that "tryharding" is cringe. In his 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards acceptance speech, Timothée Chalamet emphasized his pursuit of greatness and the effort he invested in his roles, which diverged from typical humble acceptance speeches. In her 67th Annual Grammy Awards acceptance speech, rapper Doechii also stressed her dedication and hard work. According to The Daily Dot, X users called Chalamet and Doechii's speeches "refreshing" and decried those who embrace cringe culture as "miserable losers". In 2023, Critical Role dungeon master Matthew Mercer spoke against cringe culture at New York Comic Con: "We live in an odd time of 'cringe culture' where anything that's honest can be called cringe. And I don't agree with that." Mercer argued that much of what is dismissed as cringe consists of "people being their authentic self." In October 2025, actress and singer Ariana Grande discussed her experience with cringe culture in an interview on the podcast Shut Up Evan. She described the phenomenon as "unfair", stating that people should be allowed to express passion and happiness without judgement. She further explained that in the wake of her leading role in the 2024 film Wicked there were those who perceived the behavior of her and costar Cynthia Erivo during the film's press tour as "inauthentic" and therefore cringe. == Analysis == In 2021, Steven Dashiell wrote in the journal Studies in Popular Culture that cringe culture functions as a mechanism for social boundaries within the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom, and that cringe culture operates not only between different communities but also within fandoms themselves. In his analysis, Dashiell examined a Reddit thread where a brony (an adult fan of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) expressed embarrassment about other bronies. The thread received over 400 comments in which participants engaged in what Dashiell termed other-izing: distancing themselves from behaviors they deemed cringeworthy. Rather than defending the criticized bronies, commenters consistently used the term cringe to describe their reactions to certain fan behaviors while distinguishing themselves from the so-called "deviant brony" to normalize their own participation in the fandom. A February 2024 Hinge report revealed that more than half of Generation Z worries about cringe while dating and are 50 percent more likely than millennials to delay responding to avoid seeming overeager.
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Bulletin (service)

Bulletin was an online newsletter platform launched by Facebook on July 6, 2021, that allows notable writers to make announcements directly to their subscribers. Its competitors included Substack, of which Bulletin was called a "near-clone." Writers participating in the platform's launch included Malcolm Gladwell, Mitch Albom, Tan France, Jessica Yellin, Jane Wells, Erin Andrews and Dorie Greenspan. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Bulletin represented the first time that the company had "built a project that is directly for journalists and individual writers." In October 2022 Meta announced the shutdown of Bulletin. The platform went into read only mode in January 2023 and became unavailable in April 2023. == History == Facebook announced Bulletin as its online newsletter platform on June 29, 2021. and launched by the company on July 6, 2021. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted the service by saying that Bulletin represented the first time that the company had "built a project that is directly for journalists and individual writers." Writers participating in the platform's launch included Malcolm Gladwell, Mitch Albom, Tan France, Jessica Yellin, Jane Wells, Erin Andrews and Dorie Greenspan. == Reception == Unlike competitor such as Substack, Facebook indicated upon service's launch that it would not take a cut of subscription fees of writers using that platform. According to Washington Post technology writer Will Oremus, the move was criticized by those who viewed it as a form of predatory pricing intended by Facebook to force those competitors out of business. Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director of the think tank Open Markets, called for the government to reexamine predatory pricing as a violation of antitrust law, saying, "We want companies to compete by making better products, investing in new equipment and tech — not purely relying on their financial advantages to capture market share."
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Gaumina

Gaumina is the largest interactive agency in the Baltics, providing services of web design, web development, online advertising, video, multimedia, mobile and viral. The company works on projects for Procter & Gamble, Nokia, Nissan, Unilever, YX Energi, 7 Up, Vodafone, MTV, Dunnes Stores, Philip Morris, FIBA Europe as well as Irish public sector. == History == Founded in 1998, Gaumina accounts for 39 percent of the Lithuanian interactive market and has completed more than 2,000 online projects. Since 2004 the company has been operating in the UK and Ireland as Gaumina.co.uk. In 2007 Gaumina gained wide media coverage for winning three awards in three days. A website developed by Gaumina won the Best Social Networking website award at the same the Irish Golden Spiders awards. A website developed by Gaumina was named among the 21 best European multimedia projects of 2007 in the final of Europrix Top Talent Award in Austria. The company was also named one of the winners of the national Innovation Prize 2007, awarding the Lithuania's most innovative companies, in the category of Innovative Enterprise. The agency was named "Digital Agency of the Year" by International advertising festival Golden Hammer in September 2008. The agency also won the main prize at the best at Best Use of Film, Digital Animation or Motion Graphics category by the Irish Golden Spider awards in November 2008. Gaumina is currently managed by CEO Darius Bagdžiūnas.
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SMART Health Card

The SMART Health Card framework is an open source immunity passport program designed to store and share medical information in paper or digital form. It was initially launched as a vaccine passport during the COVID-19 pandemic, but is envisioned for use for other infectious diseases. SMART Health Cards include a QR code which can be scanned and verified using the official SMART Health Card Verifier mobile app, supported by Apple and Android. It was rolled out by the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI) based on technology developed at Boston Children's Hospital, and standards set by Health Level Seven International (HL7) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It is recognized by the International Organization for Standardization. == History == === Founding === In February 2009, United States president Barack Obama signed an economic stimulus package which included $19 billion in funds for investment in health information technology. The following month, researchers from Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Kenneth Mandl and Isaac Kohane, published an article in The New England Journal of Medicine calling for the modernization of electronic health records through API integrations on mobile devices. In April 2010, the pair secured a $15 million grant through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program. With this federal funding, the researchers began development of an interoperable healthcare IT platform they called "Substitutable Medical Applications and Reusable Technologies" (SMART). The first iteration of the platform API was previewed later that year, and "SMART Classic" was released in 2011. In 2013, SMART adopted the open-source Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard developed by Health Level Seven International (HL7). The newly named SMART on FHIR platform was debuted in February 2014 at the Health Information Management Systems Society conference. === 21st Century Cures Act === According to SMART Health IT, Mandl successfully lobbied for the inclusion of a universal API requirement in the 21st Century Cures Act, signed into law on December 13, 2016. The team also advocated for a federal rule establishing SMART as the universal API. In 2019, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology published the "final rule" specifying the SMART framework as the standard to satisfy the requirements of the 21st Century Cures Act; the rule was implemented in June 2020. === COVID-19 === The SMART Health Card framework was deployed as a "de facto standard" for vaccine passports in the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and other international jurisdictions. On January 14, 2021, the Mitre Corporation announced the launch of a new public–private partnership called the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI) alongside the CARIN Alliance, Cerner, Change Healthcare, The Commons Project Foundation, Epic Systems, Evernorth, Mayo Clinic, Microsoft, Oracle, Safe Health, and Salesforce. VCI's purpose was to employ the SMART Health Card framework in order to create a unified proof-of-vaccination system for COVID-19 vaccines.The California Department of Public Health introduced a Digital Covid-19 Vaccine Record portal in June 2021, allowing individuals to verify their vaccination status using the SMART Health Card reader. On August 5, 2021, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the introduction of the "Excelsior Pass Plus" which would expand its Excelsior Pass program into other states and internationally by connecting it to the SMART Health Card system. As of August 27, 2021, 415,000 citizens of Louisiana had added their COVID-19 vaccination status to their state-run, SMART Health Card enabled LA Wallet. On September 8, 2021, Hawaii governor David Ige announced the rollout of the state's Hawaiʻi SMART Health Card. County-level health departments across the United States partnered with VaccineCheck to issue SMART Health Cards by verifying vaccine cards provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Government of Canada spent CAD$4.6 million to develop a proof-of-vaccination credential on the SMART Health Card framework, enabling its ArriveCAN travel application to store, recognize and verify credentials from every province, territory and foreign country. Since October 2021, Canadian provinces and territories used the SMART Health Card format as a requirement by the federal government, including British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the Yukon. On October 13, 2021, the American Immunization Registry Association (AIRA) published a statement encouraging adoption of SMART Health Cards as a common standard "where allowed by local law and policy." "SMARTHealth.Cards" was listed as a supporting member of AIRA through the VCI. A SMART Health Cards Global Forum was held on October 28, 2021. The event featured keynote speakers Andy Slavitt (former Senior Pandemic Advisor to President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 pandemic response team) and Mike Leavitt (former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services). On December 20, 2021, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare launched its COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate Application using the SMART Health Card. By January 2022, about 80% of Americans who had received a COVID-19 vaccine had access to a SMART Health Card through their state governments, local businesses, universities and healthcare systems. == Participants == === Developers === SMART Health IT is based out of the Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP) at the Boston Children's Hospital. CHIP's related projects include Apache cTAKES, Genomic Information Commons, HealthMap, and VaccineFinder. The SMART Health Card's project sponsor is HL7 International's Public Health Work Group, consisting of representatives from Allscripts, the Altarum Institute, Tennessee Department of Health and Washington State Department of Health. === Issuers === Official registries of authorized SMART Health Card issuers are maintained by SMART Health IT, the Vaccination Credential Initiative, and the CommonTrust Network. Authorized issuers include:
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Prix Ars Electronica

The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria). In 2005, the Golden Nica, the highest prize, was awarded in six categories: "Computer Animation/Visual Effects," "Digital Musics," "Interactive Art," "Net Vision," "Digital Communities" and the "u19" award for "freestyle computing." Each Golden Nica came with a prize of €10,000, apart from the u19 category, where the prize was €5,000. In each category, there are also Awards of Distinction and Honorary Mentions. The Golden Nica trophy is a replica of the Greek Nike of Samothrace. It is a handmade gold-plated wooden statuette that is approximately 35 cm high with a wingspan of about 20 cm. "Prix Ars Electronica" is a phrase composed of French, Latin and Spanish words, loosely translated as "Electronic Arts Prize." == Golden Nica winners == === Computer animation / film / vfx === The "Computer Graphics" category (1987–1994) was open to different kinds of computer images. The "Computer Animation" (1987–1997) was replaced by the current "Computer Animation/Visual Effects" category in 1998. ==== Computer Graphics ==== 1987 – Figur10 by Brian Reffin Smith, UK 1988 – The Battle by David Sherwin, US 1989 – Gramophone by Tamás Waliczky, HU 1990 – P-411-A by Manfred Mohr, Germany 1991 – Having encountered Eve for the second time, Adam begins to speak by Bill Woodard, US 1992 – RD Texture Buttons by Michael Kass and Andrew Witkin, US 1993 – Founders Series by Michael Tolson, US 1994 – Jellylife / Jellycycle / Jelly Locomotion by Michael Joaquin Grey, US ==== Computer Animation ==== 1987 – Luxo Jr. by John Lasseter, US 1988 – Red's Dream by John Lasseter, US 1989 – Broken Heart by Joan Staveley, US 1990 – Footprint by Mario Sasso and Nicola Sani, IT 1991 – Panspermia by Karl Sims, US 1992 – Liquid Selves / Primordial Dance by Karl Sims, US 1993 – Lakmé by Pascal Roulin, BE 1994 – Jurassic Park by Dennis Muren, Mark Dippé and Steve Williams, US/CA Distinction: Quarxs by Maurice Benayoun, FR Distinction: K.O. Kid by Marc Caro, FR 1995 – God's Little Monkey by David Atherton and Bob Sabiston, US 1996 – Toy Story by John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich and Ralph Eggleston, US 1997 – Dragonheart by Scott Squires, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), US ==== Computer Animation/Visual Effects ==== 1998 – The Sitter by Liang-Yuan Wang, TW Titanic by Robert Legato and Digital Domain, US 1999 – Bunny by Chris Wedge, US What Dreams May Come by Mass Illusions, POP, Digital Domain, Vincent Ward, Stephen Simon and Barnet Bain, US 2000 – Maly Milos by Jakub Pistecky, CA Maaz by Christian Volckman, FR 2001 – Le Processus by Xavier de l’Hermuzičre and Philippe Grammaticopoulos, FR 2002 – Monsters, Inc. by Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, Pete Docter and David Silverman, US 2003 – Tim Tom by Romain Segaud and Cristel Pougeoise, FR 2004 – Ryan by Chris Landreth, US. Distinction: Parenthèse from Francois Blondeau, Thibault Deloof, Jérémie Droulers, Christophe Stampe, France Distinction: Birthday Boy from Sejong Park, Australia 2005 – Fallen Art by Tomek Baginski, Poland. Distinction: The Incredibles from Pixar Distinction: City Paradise by Gaëlle Denis (UK), Passion Pictures (FR) 2006 – 458nm by Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck, Tom Weber, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Distinction: Kein platz Für Gerold by Daniel Nocke / Studio Film Bilder, Germany Distinction: Negadon, the monster from Mars, by Jun Awazu, Japan 2007 – Codehunters by Ben Hibon, (UK) 2008 – Madame Tutli-Putli by Chris Lavis, Maciek Szczerbowski. (Directors), Jason Walker (Special Visual Effects), National Film Board of Canada 2009 – HA'Aki by Iriz Pääbo, National Film Board of Canada 2010 – Nuit Blanche by Arev Manoukian (Director), Marc-André Gray (Visual Effects Artist), National Film Board of Canada 2011 – Metachaos by Alessandro Bavari (IT) 2012 – Rear Window Loop by Jeff Desom (LU) Distinction: Caldera by Evan Viera/Orchid Animation (US) Distinction: Rise of the Planet of the Apes by Weta Digital (NZ)/Twentieth Century Fox 2013 – Forms by Quayola (IT), Memo Akten (TR) Distinction: Duku Spacemarines by La Mécanique du Plastique (FR) Distinction: Oh Willy… by Emma De Swaef (BE), Marc James Roels (BE) / Beast Animation 2014 – Walking City by Universal Everything (UK) 2015 – Temps Mort by Alex Verhaest (BE)[1] Distinction: Bär by Pascal Floerks (DE) Distinction: The Reflection of Power by Mihai Grecu (RO/HU) === Digital Music === This category is for those making electronic music and sound art through digital means. From 1987 to 1998 the category was known as "Computer music." Two Golden Nicas were awarded in 1987, and none in 1990. There was no Computer Music category in 1991. 1987 – Peter Gabriel and Jean-Claude Risset 1988 – Denis Smalley 1989 – Kaija Saariaho 1990 – None 1991 – Category omitted 1992 – Alejandro Viñao 1993 – Bernard Parmegiani 1994 – Ludger Brümmer Distinction: Jonathan Impett 1995 – Trevor Wishart 1996 – Robert Normandeau 1997 – Matt Heckert 1998 – Peter Bosch and Simone Simons (joint award) 1999 – Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) and Chris Cunningham (joint award) Distinction: Birthdays by Ikue Mori (JP) Distinction: Mego (label), Hotel Paral.lel by Christian Fennesz, Seven Tons For Free by Peter Rehberg (a.k.a. Pita) 2000 – 20' to 2000 by Carsten Nicolai Distinction: Minidisc by Gescom Distinction: Outside the Circle of Fire by Chris Watson 2001 – Matrix by Ryoji Ikeda 2002 – Man'yo Wounded 2001 by Yasunao Tone 2003 – Ami Yoshida, Sachiko M and Utah Kawasaki (joint award) 2004 – Banlieue du Vide by Thomas Köner 2005 – TEO! A Sonic Sculpture by Maryanne Amacher 2006 – L'île ré-sonante by Éliane Radigue 2007 – Reverse-Simulation Music by Mashiro Miwa 2008 – Reactable by Sergi Jordà (ES), Martin Kaltenbrunner (AT), Günter Geiger (AT) and Marcos Alonso (ES) 2009 – Speeds of Time versions 1 and 2 by Bill Fontana (US) 2010 – rheo: 5 horizons by Ryoichi Kurokawa (JP) 2011 – Energy Field by Jana Winderen (NO) 2012 – "Crystal Sounds of a Synchrotron" by Jo Thomas (GB) 2013 – frequencies (a) by Nicolas Bernier (CA) Distinction: SjQ++ by SjQ++ (JP) Distinction: Borderlands Granular by Chris Carlson (US) 2015 – Chijikinkutsu by Nelo Akamatsu (JP) Distinction: Drumming is an elastic concept by Josef Klammer (AT) Distinction: Under Way by Douglas Henderson (DE) 2017 – Not Your World Music: Noise In South East Asia by Cedrik Fermont (CD/BE/DE), Dimitri della Faille (BE/CA) Distinction: Gamelan Wizard by Lucas Abela (AU), Wukir Suryadi (ID) und Rully Shabara (ID) Distinction: Corpus Nil by Marco Donnarumma (DE/IT) === Hybrid art === 2007 – Symbiotica 2008 – Pollstream – Nuage Vert by Helen Evans (FR/UK) and Heiko Hansen (FR/DE) HeHe 2009 – Natural History of the Enigma by Eduardo Kac (US) 2010 – Ear on Arm by Stelarc (AU) 2011 – May the Horse Live in me by Art Orienté Objet (FR) 2012 – Bacterial radio by Joe Davis (US) Distinction: Free Universal Construction Kit (F.U.C.K.) by Golan Levin and Shawn Sims 2013 – Cosmopolitan Chicken Project, Koen Vanmechelen (BE) 2015 – Plantas Autofotosintéticas, Gilberto Esparza (MX) 2017 – K-9_topology, Maja Smrekar (SI) === [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant === 2009 – Open_Sailing by Open_Sailing Crew led by Cesar Harada. 2010 – Hostage by [Frederik De Wilde]. 2011 – Choke Point Project by P2P Foundation (NL). 2012 – qaul.net – tools for the next revolution by Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud 2013 – Hyperform by Marcelo Coelho (BR), Skylar Tibbits (US), Natan Linder (IL), Yoav Reaches (IL) Honorary Mentions: GravityLight by Martin Riddiford (GB), Jim Reeves (GB) 2014 – BlindMaps by Markus Schmeiduch, Andrew Spitz and Ruben van der Vleuten 2015 – SOYA C(O)U(L)TURE by XXLab (ID) – Irene Agrivina Widyaningrum, Asa Rahmana, Ratna Djuwita, Eka Jayani Ayuningtias, Atinna Rizqiana === Interactive Art === Prizes in the category of interactive art have been awarded since 1990. This category applies to many categories of works, including installations and performances, characterized by audience participation, virtual reality, multimedia and telecommunication. 1990 – Videoplace installation by Myron Krueger 1991 – Think About the People Now project by Paul Sermon 1992 – Home of the Brain installation by Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss 1993 – Simulationsraum-Mosaik mobiler Datenklänge (smdk) installation by Knowbotic Research 1994 – A-Volve environment by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau 1995 – the concept of Hypertext, attributed to Tim Berners-Lee 1996 – Global Interior Project installation by Masaki Fujihata 1997 – Music Plays Images X Images Play Music concert by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Toshio Iwai 1998 – World Skin, a Photo Safari in the Land of War installation by Jean-Baptiste Barrière and Maurice Benayoun 1999 – Difference Engine #3 by construct and Lynn Hershman 2000 – Vectorial Elevati
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Greedy embedding

In distributed computing and geometric graph theory, greedy embedding is a process of assigning coordinates to the nodes of a telecommunications network in order to allow greedy geographic routing to be used to route messages within the network. Although greedy embedding has been proposed for use in wireless sensor networks, in which the nodes already have positions in physical space, these existing positions may differ from the positions given to them by greedy embedding, which may in some cases be points in a virtual space of a higher dimension, or in a non-Euclidean geometry. In this sense, greedy embedding may be viewed as a form of graph drawing, in which an abstract graph (the communications network) is embedded into a geometric space. The idea of performing geographic routing using coordinates in a virtual space, instead of using physical coordinates, is due to Rao et al. Subsequent developments have shown that every network has a greedy embedding with succinct vertex coordinates in the hyperbolic plane, that certain graphs including the polyhedral graphs have greedy embeddings in the Euclidean plane, and that unit disk graphs have greedy embeddings in Euclidean spaces of moderate dimensions with low stretch factors. == Definitions == In greedy routing, a message from a source node s to a destination node t travels to its destination by a sequence of steps through intermediate nodes, each of which passes the message on to a neighboring node that is closer to t. If the message reaches an intermediate node x that does not have a neighbor closer to t, then it cannot make progress and the greedy routing process fails. A greedy embedding is an embedding of the given graph with the property that a failure of this type is impossible. Thus, it can be characterized as an embedding of the graph with the property that for every two nodes x and t, there exists a neighbor y of x such that d(x,t) > d(y,t), where d denotes the distance in the embedded space. == Graphs with no greedy embedding == Not every graph has a greedy embedding into the Euclidean plane; a simple counterexample is given by the star K1,6, a tree with one internal node and six leaves. Whenever this graph is embedded into the plane, some two of its leaves must form an angle of 60 degrees or less, from which it follows that at least one of these two leaves does not have a neighbor that is closer to the other leaf. In Euclidean spaces of higher dimensions, more graphs may have greedy embeddings; for instance, K1,6 has a greedy embedding into three-dimensional Euclidean space, in which the internal node of the star is at the origin and the leaves are a unit distance away along each coordinate axis. However, for every Euclidean space of fixed dimension, there are graphs that cannot be embedded greedily: whenever the number n is greater than the kissing number of the space, the graph K1,n has no greedy embedding. == Hyperbolic and succinct embeddings == Unlike the case for the Euclidean plane, every network has a greedy embedding into the hyperbolic plane. The original proof of this result, by Robert Kleinberg, required the node positions to be specified with high precision, but subsequently it was shown that, by using a heavy path decomposition of a spanning tree of the network, it is possible to represent each node succinctly, using only a logarithmic number of bits per point. In contrast, there exist graphs that have greedy embeddings in the Euclidean plane, but for which any such embedding requires a polynomial number of bits for the Cartesian coordinates of each point. == Special classes of graphs == === Trees === The class of trees that admit greedy embeddings into the Euclidean plane has been completely characterized, and a greedy embedding of a tree can be found in linear time when it exists. For more general graphs, some greedy embedding algorithms such as the one by Kleinberg start by finding a spanning tree of the given graph, and then construct a greedy embedding of the spanning tree. The result is necessarily also a greedy embedding of the whole graph. However, there exist graphs that have a greedy embedding in the Euclidean plane but for which no spanning tree has a greedy embedding. === Planar graphs === Papadimitriou & Ratajczak (2005) conjectured that every polyhedral graph (a 3-vertex-connected planar graph, or equivalently by Steinitz's theorem the graph of a convex polyhedron) has a greedy embedding into the Euclidean plane. By exploiting the properties of cactus graphs, Leighton & Moitra (2010) proved the conjecture; the greedy embeddings of these graphs can be defined succinctly, with logarithmically many bits per coordinate. However, the greedy embeddings constructed according to this proof are not necessarily planar embeddings, as they may include crossings between pairs of edges. For maximal planar graphs, in which every face is a triangle, a greedy planar embedding can be found by applying the Knaster–Kuratowski–Mazurkiewicz lemma to a weighted version of a straight-line embedding algorithm of Schnyder. The strong Papadimitriou–Ratajczak conjecture, that every polyhedral graph has a planar greedy embedding in which all faces are convex, remains unproven. === Unit disk graphs === The wireless sensor networks that are the target of greedy embedding algorithms are frequently modeled as unit disk graphs, graphs in which each node is represented as a unit disk and each edge corresponds to a pair of disks with nonempty intersection. For this special class of graphs, it is possible to find succinct greedy embeddings into a Euclidean space of polylogarithmic dimension, with the additional property that distances in the graph are accurately approximated by distances in the embedding, so that the paths followed by greedy routing are short.
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