AI For Kids Course

AI For Kids Course — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

Signal-to-noise ratio (imaging)

Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is used in imaging to characterize image quality. The sensitivity of a (digital or film) imaging system is typically described in the terms of the signal level that yields a threshold level of SNR. Industry standards define sensitivity in terms of the ISO film speed equivalent, using SNR thresholds (at average scene luminance) of 40:1 for "excellent" image quality and 10:1 for "acceptable" image quality. SNR is sometimes quantified in decibels (dB) of signal power relative to noise power, though in the imaging field the concept of "power" is sometimes taken to be the power of a voltage signal proportional to optical power; so a 20 dB SNR may mean either 10:1 or 100:1 optical power, depending on which definition is in use. == Definition of SNR == Traditionally, SNR is defined to be the ratio of the average signal value μ s i g {\displaystyle \mu _{\mathrm {sig} }} to the standard deviation of the signal σ s i g {\displaystyle \sigma _{\mathrm {sig} }} : S N R = μ s i g σ s i g {\displaystyle \mathrm {SNR} ={\frac {\mu _{\mathrm {sig} }}{\sigma _{\mathrm {sig} }}}} when the signal is an optical intensity, or as the square of this value if the signal and noise are viewed as amplitudes (field quantities).
Read more →
Tridium

Tridium Inc. is an American engineering hardware and software company based in Richmond, Virginia, whose products facilitate and integrate the automation of building and other engineering control systems. Since November 2005, the company has operated as an independent business entity of Honeywell International Inc. == History == Tridium Inc. was founded in 1995. In 1999, Tridium launched the Niagara Framework, a software infrastructure that connects all systems and devices to a central console. In 2002, John Petze became president and CEO, replacing Jerry Frank. The company was acquired by Honeywell International Inc in 2005. == Products == Tridium's products facilitate by integrating building automation using open and proprietary communications protocols such as Modbus, Lonworks and BACnet. Tridium is the developer of Niagara Framework. The Niagara Framework is a universal software infrastructure that allows building controls integrators, HVAC and mechanical contractors to build custom, web-enabled applications for accessing, automating and controlling smart devices real-time via local network or over the Internet.
Read more →
Observability (software)

In software engineering, more specifically in distributed computing, observability is the ability to collect data about programs' execution, modules' internal states, and the communication among components. To improve observability, software engineers use a wide range of logging and tracing techniques to gather telemetry information, and tools to analyze and use it. Observability is foundational to site reliability engineering, as it is the first step in triaging a service outage. One of the goals of observability is to minimize the amount of prior knowledge needed to debug an issue. == Etymology, terminology and definition == The term is borrowed from control theory, where the "observability" of a system measures how well its state can be determined from its outputs. Similarly, software observability measures how well a system's state can be understood from the obtained telemetry (metrics, logs, traces, profiling). The definition of observability varies by vendor: Observability is the process of making a system’s internal state more transparent. Systems are made observable by the data they produce, which in turn helps you to determine if your infrastructure or application is healthy and functioning normally. a measure of how well you can understand and explain any state your system can get into, no matter how novel or bizarre [...] without needing to ship new code software tools and practices for aggregating, correlating and analyzing a steady stream of performance data from a distributed application along with the hardware and network it runs onobservability starts by shipping all your raw data to central service before you begin analysisthe ability to measure a system’s current state based on the data it generates, such as logs, metrics, and traces Observability is tooling or a technical solution that allows teams to actively debug their system. Observability is based on exploring properties and patterns not defined in advance. proactively collecting, visualizing, and applying intelligence to all of your metrics, events, logs, and traces—so you can understand the behavior of your complex digital system The term is frequently referred to as its numeronym o11y (where 11 stands for the number of letters between the first letter and the last letter of the word). This is similar to other computer science abbreviations such as i18n and l10n and k8s. === Observability vs. monitoring === Observability and monitoring are sometimes used interchangeably. As tooling, commercial offerings and practices evolved in complexity, "monitoring" was re-branded as observability in order to differentiate new tools from the old. The terms are commonly contrasted in that systems are monitored using predefined sets of telemetry, and monitored systems may be observable. Majors et al. suggest that engineering teams that only have monitoring tools end up relying on expert foreknowledge (seniority), whereas teams that have observability tools rely on exploratory analysis (curiosity). == Telemetry types == Observability relies on three main types of telemetry data: metrics, logs and traces. Those are often referred to as "pillars of observability". === Metrics === A metric is a point in time measurement (scalar) that represents some system state. Examples of common metrics include: number of HTTP requests per second; total number of query failures; database size in bytes; time in seconds since last garbage collection. Monitoring tools are typically configured to emit alerts when certain metric values exceed set thresholds. Thresholds are set based on knowledge about normal operating conditions and experience. Metrics are typically tagged to facilitate grouping and searchability. Application developers choose what kind of metrics to instrument their software with, before it is released. As a result, when a previously unknown issue is encountered, it is impossible to add new metrics without shipping new code. Furthermore, their cardinality can quickly make the storage size of telemetry data prohibitively expensive. Since metrics are cardinality-limited, they are often used to represent aggregate values (for example: average page load time, or 5-second average of the request rate). Without external context, it is impossible to correlate between events (such as user requests) and distinct metric values. === Logs === Logs, or log lines, are generally free-form, unstructured text blobs that are intended to be human readable. Modern logging is structured to enable machine parsability. As with metrics, an application developer must instrument the application upfront and ship new code if different logging information is required. Logs typically include a timestamp and severity level. An event (such as a user request) may be fragmented across multiple log lines and interweave with logs from concurrent events. === Traces === ==== Distributed traces ==== A cloud native application is typically made up of distributed services which together fulfill a single request. A distributed trace is an interrelated series of discrete events (also called spans) that track the progression of a single user request. A trace shows the causal and temporal relationships between the services that interoperate to fulfill a request. Instrumenting an application with traces means sending span information to a tracing backend. The tracing backend correlates the received spans to generate presentable traces. To be able to follow a request as it traverses multiple services, spans are labeled with unique identifiers that enable constructing a parent-child relationship between spans. Span information is typically shared in the HTTP headers of outbound requests. === Continuous profiling === Continuous profiling is another telemetry type used to precisely determine how an application consumes resources. === Instrumentation === To be able to observe an application, telemetry about the application's behavior needs to be collected or exported. Instrumentation means generating telemetry alongside the normal operation of the application. Telemetry is then collected by an independent backend for later analysis. In fast-changing systems, instrumentation itself is often the best possible documentation, since it combines intention (what are the dimensions that an engineer named and decided to collect?) with the real-time, up-to-date information of live status in production. Instrumentation can be automatic, or custom. Automatic instrumentation offers blanket coverage and immediate value; custom instrumentation brings higher value but requires more intimate involvement with the instrumented application. Instrumentation can be native - done in-code (modifying the code of the instrumented application) - or out-of-code (e.g. sidecar, eBPF). Verifying new features in production by shipping them together with custom instrumentation is a practice called "observability-driven development". == "Pillars of observability" == Metrics, logs and traces are most commonly listed as the pillars of observability. Majors et al. suggest that the pillars of observability are high cardinality, high-dimensionality, and explorability, arguing that runbooks and dashboards have little value because "modern systems rarely fail in precisely the same way twice." == Self monitoring == Self monitoring is a practice where observability stacks monitor each other, in order to reduce the risk of inconspicuous outages. Self monitoring may be put in place in addition to high availability and redundancy to further avoid correlated failures.
Read more →
Twproject

Twproject (say: T W Project) is a web-based project and groupware management tool created by Open Lab, an Italian software house founded in 2001. It won the 17th Jolt Productivity Award in 2007 in the project management category. In March 2019 it becomes property of Twproject company. It has widespread use in universities as a teaching tool in project management courses. It is used by Oracle Corporation, Prada, Calzedonia, General Electric and many other companies from corporations to small start-ups. == History == April 2001 - The idea of Teamwork came to Open-Lab founders from a need to overcome the PM tools used at that time. It was built in Microsoft ASP and Adobe Flash November 2002 - Open-Lab decide to move from Flash to HTML and from ASP to Java-JSP. Teamwork 2 development is started. June 2004 - Teamwork 2 released, using top open-source technologies like Hibernate, jBlooming, dynamic CSS, Ajax 7 January 2005 - Teamwork goes open source, under LGPL license; remains such until June 2006 (18 months): it is a hit application on SourceForge, with 38.000 downloads, covered by greeting but starving April 2005 - Open-Lab takes the decision to change commercial strategy to finance development of Teamwork version 3 6 June 2006 - Teamwork 3 is finally out (15 months development). New interface, many new features, agile support and much more 27 March 2007 - Teamwork wins the 2007 JOLT Productivity Awards for project management category July 2007 - Teamwork 4 development started: new interface, extended use of new HTML capabilities, JS-oriented interface, start using jQuery February 2009 - Teamwork 4.0 is out February 2010 - Teamwork 4.4: public project pages, Chinese interface. jQuery is getting more space in Teamwork December 2010 - Teamwork 4.6: released Mobile module available for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry. Intensive usage of jQuery June 2011 - Teamwork 4.7: released Issue Kanban / Organizer January 2012 - Teamwork 5.0 development started. Lighter interface, extensive usage of dynamic pages, easier installer and first time approach. Learning curve highly reduced. A jQuery Gantt editor included and released free for the community July 2012 - Teamwork 5 released and also the free online Gantt editor November 2012 - Teamwork 5.1 with new trees and improved model for staffing March 2013 - Teamwork 5.2 with stronger support for customizations and Japanese interface. April 2014 - Teamwork has changed its name in Twproject because the domain teamwork.com has been purchased by Teamwork. April 2013 - Twproject 5.4 with a redesigned more powerful Gantt chart. August 2015 - Twproject 5 finale release. September 2015 - Twproject 6 with a completely redesigned user interface. March 2019 - A new company Twproject srl has been spun off. September 2021 - Twproject 7 has been released introducing WBS based management and workload management. == Features == Project & task management (with Microsoft Project import/export), and JSON format Gantt editor. Uses jQuery Gantt components Time tracking. Several entry points: dashboard, weekly view, issues, start/stop buttons Resource planning with weekly/monthly view, work load overview, unavailability from agenda Issue tracking & planning(with Kanban), e-mail integration, task dedicated inboxes Dashboard configuration, with customizable portlets and layout Message boards Scrum module Meeting and minute management, attached documents Agenda (Integrates with iCal, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Entourage, and Google Calendar) Document management, remote file systems link with NTFS, FTP, SVN, S3 (Dropbox, Google drive) Mobile application for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows phone == Integration == A complete JSON API is available for integrations. The applications runs in Java JDK 8+ on the Hibernate object/relational mapping. The standard distribution uses Apache Tomcat 9, but can run on any J2EE application server. Twproject is tested on these DB servers: MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSql, HSQLDB, but as uses Hibernate can run on many others. There is simple graphical step-by-step installer for Windows, Mac, Linux, .zip/.tar.gz/.rpm packages.
Read more →
Lexalytics

Lexalytics, Inc. provides sentiment and intent analysis to an array of companies using SaaS and cloud based technology. Salience 6, the engine behind Lexalytics, was built as an on-premises, multi-lingual text analysis engine. It is leased to other companies who use it to power filtering and reputation management programs. In July, 2015 Lexalytics acquired Semantria to be used as a cloud option for its technology. In September, 2021 Lexalytics was acquired by CX company InMoment. == History == Lexalytics spun into existence in January 2003 out of a content management startup called Lightspeed. Lightspeed consolidated on America's West Coast. Jeff Catlin, a Lightspeed General Manager, and Mike Marshall, a Lighstpeed Principal Engineer, convinced investors to give them the East Coast company so as to avoid shutdown costs. Catlin and Marshall renamed the operation Lexalytics. Catlin took on the role of chief executive officer with Marshall working as Chief Technology Officer. Lexalytics opted to not accept venture cash. Instead, the company initially shared sales and marketing expenses with U.K. based document management company Infonic. The partner companies soon formed a joint venture in July 2008, which was later dissolved. Since then, Lexalytics has worked with many other companies, like Bottlenose, Salesforce, Thomson Reuters, Oracle and DataSift. Relationships with social media monitoring companies like Datasift tend to find Lexalytics’ Salience engine baked into the product itself. Lexalytics is used similarly to monitor sentiment as it relates to stock trading. In December 2014, Lexalytics announced the latest iteration to its sentiment analysis engine, Salience 6. Earlier that year Lexalytics acquired Semantria in a bid to appeal to a wider variety of business models. Created by former Lexalytics Marketing Director Oleg Rogynskyy, Semantria is a SaaS text mining service offered as an API and Excel based plugin that measures sentiment. The goal of the acquisition, which cost Lexalytics less than US$10 million, was to expand the customer base both within the United States and abroad with multilingual support. The engine that powers Semantria, Salience, is grounded in its deep learning ability. An example of this is its concept matrix, which allows Salience an understanding of concepts and relationship between concepts based on a detailed reading of the entire repository of Wikipedia. This matrix allows Salience to use Wikipedia for automatic categorization. Along with features like the concept matrix, Salience supports 16 international languages. The engine has earned Lexalytics a spot on EContent's “Top 100 Companies in the Digital Content Industry” List for 2014–2015. In September 2018, Lexalytics launched document data extraction market using natural language processing (NLP).
Read more →
Poop Map

Poop Map is a social app where users can track on a map where and when they defecate. In addition to logging location and time of each bowel movement, users can also add a photo, "like" other users' logs, and rate each account. The social elements of the app allow for groups of users to create a competitive league. Certain behaviors unlock achievements in-app. == Development == The app was created by app developer Nino Uzelac. It was launched in July 2013. == Popularity == The app charted at number one on the Apple App Store charts in 2021 after going viral on TikTok. As of September 2024, the app has a 4.8 rating on the App Store and more than 58,000 ratings. It also has more than one million downloads on the Google Play Store. Poop Map is notably popular among hikers, and has been written about in the outdoors magazine Outside.
Read more →
Tail latency

Tail latency is a term used to describe the high-percentile response times seen in a system. This is usually measured at the 95th, 99th, or 99.9th percentile, not the average latency. In distributed systems, cloud computing, and large-scale web services, even a small number of slow requests can make the user experience and system performance much worse. Tail latency often happens because of things like resource contention, network variability, garbage collection pauses, and hardware heterogeneity. A major problem in system design is managing tail latency, because lowering average latency doesn't always make the worst-case performance better. To lessen its effects, people often use techniques like request hedging, replication, load balancing, and adaptive timeouts. In latency-sensitive applications like search engines, financial systems, and real-time services, where service-level objectives (SLOs) are often based on high-percentile latencies, it is especially important to understand and improve tail latency.
Read more →
Fuse Services Framework

Fuse Services Framework is an open source SOAP and REST web services platform based on Apache CXF for use in enterprise IT organizations. It is productized and supported by the Fuse group at FuseSource Corp. Fuse Services Framework service-enables new and existing systems for use in enterprise SOA infrastructure. Fuse Services Framework is a pluggable, small-footprint engine that creates high performance, secure and robust services in minutes using front-end programming APIs like JAX-WS and JAX-RS. It supports multiple transports and bindings and is extensible so developers can add bindings for additional message formats so all systems can work together without having to communicate through a centralized server. Fuse Services Framework is now a part of Red Hat JBoss Fuse. Fabric8 is a free Apache 2.0 Licensed upstream community for the JBoss Fuse product from Red Hat.
Read more →
Automated negotiation

Automated negotiation is a form of interaction in systems that are composed of multiple autonomous agents, in which the aim is to reach agreements through an iterative process of making offers. Automated negotiation can be employed for many tasks human negotiators regularly engage in, such as bargaining and joint decision making. The main topics in automated negotiation revolve around the design of protocols and negotiating strategies. == History == Through digitization, the beginning of the 21st century has seen a growing interest in the automation of negotiation and e-negotiation systems, for example in the setting of e-commerce. This interest is fueled by the promise of automated agents being able to negotiate on behalf of human negotiators, and to find better outcomes than human negotiators. == Examples == Examples of automated negotiation include: Online dispute resolution, in which disagreements between parties are settled. Sponsored search auction, where bids are placed on advertisement keywords. Content negotiation, in which user agents negotiate over HTTP about how to best represent a web resource. Negotiation support systems, in which negotiation decision-making activities are supported by an information system.
Read more →
CloudSim

CloudSim is a framework for modeling and simulation of cloud computing infrastructures and services. Originally built primarily at the Cloud Computing and Distributed Systems (CLOUDS) Laboratory, the University of Melbourne, Australia, CloudSim has become one of the most popular open source cloud simulators in the research and academia. CloudSim is completely written in Java. The latest version of CloudSim is CloudSim v6.0.0-beta on GitHub. Cloudsim is suitable for implementing simulations scenarios based on Infrastructure as a service as well as with latest version Platform as a service, so get started here == CloudSim extensions == Initially developed as a stand-alone cloud simulator, CloudSim has further been extended by independent researchers. GPUCloudSim is an enhanced CloudSim tool for modeling GPU-based cloud infrastructures and data centers. It offers simulations for multi-GPU setups, customizable GPU policies, GPU remoting, etc. It also examines performance impacts and interactions within virtualized GPU environments. CloudSim Plus is a totally re-engineered CloudSim fork providing general-purpose cloud computing simulation and exclusive features such as: multi-cloud simulations, vertical and horizontal VM scaling, host fault injection and recovery, joint power- and network-aware simulations and more. Though CloudSim itself does not have a graphical user interface, extensions such as CloudReports offer a GUI for CloudSim simulations. CloudSimEx extends CloudSim by adding MapReduce simulation capabilities and parallel simulations. Cloud2Sim extends CloudSim to execute on multiple distributed servers, by leveraging Hazelcast distributed execution framework. RECAP DES extends the CloudSim Plus framework to model synchronous hierarchical architectures (such as ElasticSearch). ThermoSim extends CloudSim toolkit by incorporating thermal characteristics, and uses Deep learning-based temperature predictor for cloud nodes.
Read more →
IWork

iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple for its macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. iWork includes the presentation application Keynote, the word-processing and desktop-publishing application Pages, and the spreadsheet application Numbers. Apple's design goals in creating iWork have been to allow Mac users to easily create attractive documents and spreadsheets, making use of macOS's extensive font library, integrated spelling checker, sophisticated graphics APIs and its AppleScript automation framework. The equivalent Microsoft Office applications to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, respectively. Although Microsoft Office applications cannot open iWork documents, iWork applications can open Office documents for editing, and export documents from iWork's native formats (.pages, .numbers, .key) to Microsoft Office formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.) as well as to PDF files. The oldest application in iWork is Keynote, first released as a standalone application in 2003 for use by Steve Jobs in his presentations. Steve Jobs announced Keynote saying "It's for when your presentation really matters". Pages was released with the first iWork bundle in 2004; Numbers was added in 2007 with the release of iWork '08. The next release, iWork '09, also included beta access to iWork.com, an online service that allowed users to upload and share documents on the web, now integrated into Apple's iCloud service. A version of iWork for iOS was released in 2010 with the first iPad, and the apps have been regularly updated since, including the addition of iPhone support. In 2013, Apple launched iWork web apps in iCloud; even years later, however, their functionality is somewhat limited compared to equivalents on the desktop. iWork was initially sold as a suite for $79, then later at $19.99 per app on OS X and $9.99 per app on iOS. Apple announced in October 2013 that all iOS and OS X devices purchased onwards, whether new or refurbished, would be eligible for a free download of all three iWork apps: after device setup, the user can "claim" the apps on the App Store, after which they are permanently linked to the user’s Apple ID. iWork for iCloud, which also incorporates a document hosting service, is free to all iCloud users. iWork was released for free on macOS and iOS (including older or resold devices) in April 2017. In September 2016, Apple announced that the real-time collaboration feature would be available for all iWork apps. == History == The first version of iWork, iWork '05, was announced on January 11, 2005 at the Macworld Conference & Expo and made available on January 22 in the United States and on January 29 worldwide. iWork '05 comprised two applications: Keynote 2, a presentation creation program, and Pages, a word processor. iWork '05 was sold for US$79. A 30-day trial was also made available for download on Apple's website. Originally IGG Software held the rights to the name iWork. While iWork was billed by Apple as "a successor to AppleWorks", it does not replicate AppleWorks's database and drawing tools. However, iWork integrates with existing applications from Apple's iLife suite through the Media Browser, which allows users to drag and drop music from iTunes, movies from iMovie, and photos from iPhoto and Aperture directly into iWork documents. iWork '06 was released on January 10, 2006 and contained updated versions of both Keynote and Pages. Both programs were released as universal binaries for the first time, allowing them to run natively on both PowerPC processors and the Intel processors used in the new iMac desktop computers and MacBook Pro notebooks which had been announced on the same day as the new iWork suite. The next version of the suite, iWork '08, was announced and released on August 7, 2007 at a special media event at Apple's campus in Cupertino, California. iWork '08, like previous updates, contained updated versions of Keynote and Pages. A new spreadsheet application, Numbers, was also introduced. Numbers differed from other spreadsheet applications, including Microsoft Excel, in that it allowed users to create documents containing multiple spreadsheets on a flexible canvas using a number of built-in templates. iWork '09, was announced on January 6, 2009 and released the same day. It contains updated versions of all three applications in the suite. iWork '09 also included access to a beta version of the iWork.com service, which allowed users to share documents online until that service was decommissioned at the end of July 2012. Users of iWork '09 could upload a document directly from Pages, Keynote, or Numbers and invite others to view it online. Viewers could write notes and comments in the document, and download a copy in iWork, Microsoft Office, or PDF formats. iWork '09 was also released with the Mac App Store on January 6, 2011 at $19.99 per application, and received regular updates after this point, including links to iCloud and a high-DPI version designed to match Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina Display. On January 27, 2010, Apple announced iWork for iPad, to be available as three separate $9.99 applications from the App Store. This version has also received regular updates including a version for pocket iPhone and iPod Touch devices, and an update to take advantage of Retina Display devices and the larger screens of recent iPhones. On October 22, 2013, Apple announced an overhaul of the iWork software for both the Mac and iOS. Both suites were made available via the respective App Stores. The update is free for current iWork owners and was also made available free of charge for anyone purchasing an OS X or iOS device after October 1, 2013. Any user activating the newly free iWork apps on a qualifying device can download the same apps on another iOS or OS X device logged into the same App Store account. The new OS X versions have been criticized for losing features such as multiple selection, linked text boxes, bookmarks, 2-up page views, mail merge, searchable comments, ability to read/export RTF files, default zoom and page count, integration with AppleScript. Apple has provided a road-map for feature re-introduction, stating that it hopes to reintroduce some missing features within the next six months. As of April 1, 2014 a few features—e.g., the ability to set the default zoom—had been reintroduced, though scores had not. Due to using a completely new file format that can work across macOS, Windows, and in most web browsers by using the online iCloud web apps, versions of iWork beginning with iWork 13 and later do not open or allow editing of documents created in versions prior to iWork '09, with users who attempt to open older iWork files being given a pop-up in the new iWork 13 app versions telling them to use the previous iWork '09 (which users may or may not have on their machine) in order to open and edit such files. Accordingly, the current version for OS X (which was initially only compatible with OS X Mavericks 10.9 onwards) moves any previously installed iWork '09 apps to an iWork '09 folder on the users machine (in /Applications/iWork '09/), as a work-around to allow users continued use of the earlier suite in order to open and edit older iWork documents locally on their machine. In October 2015, Apple released an update to mitigate this issue, allowing users to open documents saved in iWork '06 and iWork '08 formats in the latest version of Pages. In 2016, Apple announced that the real-time collaboration feature would be available for all iWork apps, instead of being constrained to using iWork for iCloud. The feature is comparable to Google Docs. == Versions == === Major releases === === Updates === iWork '09 received several updates: iWork 9.0.3 DVD (for Mac OS X 10.5.6 "Leopard" or newer; released August 26, 2010) iWork 9.0.4 (for Mac OS X 10.5.6 "Leopard" or newer; released August 26, 2010) iWork 9.1 (for Mac OS X 10.6.6 "Snow Leopard" or newer; released July 20, 2011) iWork 9.3 (for Mac OS X 10.7.4 "Lion" or newer; released December 4, 2012) The Mac App Store version of iWork was updated on October 15, 2015 for 10.10 "Yosemite" or newer. It is the final release to support 10.10 "Yosemite" and 10.11 "El Capitan". Keynote 6.6, Pages 5.6 and Numbers 3.6 are included. iWork received a major update again on March 28, 2019 with Keynote 9.0, Pages 8.0 and Numbers 6.0. == Components == === Common components === Products in the iWork suite share a number of components, largely as a result of sharing underlying code from the Cocoa and similar shared application programming interfaces (APIs). Among these are the well known universal multilingual spell checker, which can also be found in products like Safari and Mail. Grammar checking, find and replace, style and color pickers are similar examples of design features found throughout the Apple application space. Moreover, the applications
Read more →
Thai QR Payment

Thai QR Payment or PromptPay (พร้อมเพย์) is a real-time payment system in Thailand that allows money transfers through digital channels using identifiers linked to a bank account, including a mobile phone number, citizen identification number, tax identification number or bank account number. The system was introduced in 2016 as part of Thailand's national e-payment infrastructure and was developed under the National e-Payment Master Plan, a government programme intended to expand digital payment infrastructure and reduce the use of cash in everyday transactions. It is owned by National ITMX ltd and Bank of Thailand and developed by Vocalink, a group by Mastercard == History == PromptPay (originally AnyID) is one of the National e-Payment projects and policies by Thailand, to regulate and standardize electronic payments to follow the technologies with internet and smartphones that is expanding and bringing technology into Finance and Commerce. By 22 December 2015, The First Prayut cabinet have approved the project as a national infastructure PromptPay has also been used in cross-border payment linkages with other real-time payment systems in Southeast Asia. In April 2021, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Thailand launched a linkage between Singapore's PayNow and Thailand's PromptPay, allowing customers of participating banks to send money between the two countries using a mobile phone number. In June 2021, the central banks of Thailand and Malaysia launched a cross-border QR payment linkage between PromptPay and Malaysia's DuitNow system. == Services == PromptPay's Services have included Encrypted Transactions and Payment between Two Individuals (C2C) Government Infrastructure Payment Tax Returns Individual PromptPay e-Wallet Thai QR Payment Pay Alert e-Donation Cross Border QR Payment
Read more →
Alipay

Alipay (simplified Chinese: 支付宝; traditional Chinese: 支付寶; pinyin: zhīfùbǎo) is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China, in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company Ant Financial remains Hangzhou-based. Alipay overtook PayPal as the world's largest mobile (digital) payment platform in 2013. As of June 2020, Alipay serves over 1.3 billion users and 80 million merchants. According to the statistics of the fourth quarter of 2018, Alipay has a 55.32% share of the third-party payment market in mainland China, and it continues to grow. Along with WeChat, Alipay has been described to be China's super-app with a wide range of functionalities including ridesharing, travel booking and medical appointments. == History == The service was first launched in 2003, by Taobao. The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, issued licensing regulations in June 2010 for third-party payment providers. It also issued separate guidelines for foreign-funded payment institutions. Because of this, Alipay, which accounted for half of China's non-bank online payment market, was restructured as a domestic company controlled by Alibaba CEO Jack Ma in order to facilitate the regulatory approval for the license. The 2010 transfer of Alipay's ownership was controversial, with media reports in 2011 that Yahoo! and Softbank (Alibaba Group's controlling shareholders) were not informed of the sale for nominal value. Chinese business publication Century Weekly criticised Ma, who stated that Alibaba Group's board of directors was aware of the transaction. The incident was criticised in foreign and Chinese media as harming foreign trust in making Chinese investments. The ownership dispute was resolved by Alibaba Group, Yahoo!, and Softbank in July 2011. In 2013, Alipay launched a financial product platform called Yu'e Bao. Alipay partnered with Tianhong Asset Management to launch the it. Yu'e Bao offers an online money market account in which Alipay customers can deposit money and receive a higher interest rate than that available from banks. It soon became China's largest online money market fund and prompted competitors like Baidu and Tencent to introduce alternatives. Alibaba (the parent company of Alipay) reported having 152 million Yu'e Bao users in mid-2016, with 810 billion RMB (US$117 billion) in funds under management. In 2015, Alipay's parent company was re-branded as Ant Financial Services Group. In 2017, Alipay unveiled their facial recognition payment service. In 2020, Alipay upgraded from a payment financial instrument to an open platform for digital life. In 2021, the mandate by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to open up the "walled garden" ecosystems of the major tech companies has led to the introduction of interoperability of payment QR codes of Alipay and competing WeChat Pay and UnionPay's Cloud QuickPass platforms. In response to the increase in Alipay's payment volume due to use on Alibaba's e-commerce sites and others, Chinese regulators introduced new rules in 2020. The new rules focused on Alipay because the payment volume exploded due to its use on Alibaba's e-commerce sites and other platforms. By the second quarter in 2020, Alipay held 55.6% of China's third party mobile payment market. The People's Bank of China made rules that required payment firms to place money with regulators and anti-monopoly reviews would be triggered if the amount exceeded 50% market share. The rules included that the People's Bank of China mandate an online-payment clearing route through the NetsUnion Clearing Corporation, a centralized, state-overseen clearing body, and that unused consumer funds be held by a third-party payment provider in a non-interest-bearing account. These measures increased transparency and reduced systemic risk. When Alipay operates outside of China, it must comply with local financial regulations, which may treat specific functions such as money-market funds or investment-linked products. In Singapore, such services may require prior authorization from securities or financial-services regulators before they can be offered to residents. == Services == Alipay states that it operates with more than 65 financial institutions including Visa and MasterCard to provide payment services for Taobao and Tmall as well as more than 460,000 online and local Chinese businesses. Alipay is used in smartphones with their Alipay Wallet app. QR code payment codes are used for local in-store payments. The Alipay app also provides features such as credit card bill payments, bank account managements, P2P transfer, prepay mobile phone top-up, bus and train ticket purchases, food orders, vehicles for hire, insurance selections and a digital identification document storage. Alipay also allows online check-out on most Chinese-based websites such as Taobao and Tmall. The Alipay app allows users to add their own services provided from different companies to create a more personalised experience. Since late 2008, Alipay has promoted public service payment services and has covered more than 300 cities nationwide, supporting more than 1,200 partner organizations. In addition to utility bills such as water and electricity, Alipay also extends their services to areas such as paying transportation fines, property fees, and cable television fees. Common online payment services also include hydropower coal payment, tuition payment and traffic fine. On 15 January 2009, Alipay launched a credit card repayment service, supporting 39 domestic bank-issued credit cards. It is currently the most popular third-party repayment platform. The main advantages are free credit card bills checking, repayments with no administrative fee, as well as automatic repayment, repayment reminders and other value-added services. In the first quarter of 2014, 76% of credit cards were also paid by Alipay Wallet. From December 2013, several chain convenience store companies, including Meiyijia, Hongqi Chain, and Qishiduo C-STORE and 7-Eleven, have successively supported Alipay payment; in December, Beijing taxi drivers began to accept Alipay to pay the fare. Subsequently, Wanda Cinema, Joy City, Wangfujing and other large-scale retail companies as well as movie theaters, KTV, and catering companies have access to Alipay. From 26 March 2019, the service fee will be charged for the payment of credit card through Alipay. Customers only pay the portion of the payment that exceeds 2,000 yuan at 0.1%. In addition to this, in 2019, Walgreens accepted Alipay as payment in 3,000 US stores. Walgreen's products are available to Chinese customers through Alibaba's Tmall online marketplace. The payment application can also be used on Alibaba.com's site and Taobao as a means of payment. A Nielsen report suggests that over 90% of Chinese tourists would be willing to use mobile payment overseas if given the option. Many Chinese tourists do not have international credit cards, and so Alipay is a payment option. Digital payments have become the norm in China as the government pushes a cashless system even in rural and village areas. In November 2019, Alipay introduced Tourpass, a service component that allows non-Chinese users to use its mobile payment feature by pre-loading Chinese Yuan equivalent foreign currency into the app. In 2020, Alipay used a QR code system to help in containing the COVID-19 outbreak. The health code system tags users one of three colors according to their location, basic health information and travel history. "Beauty filters" were included to Alipay's face-scan payment system in a new upgrade that was released in July 2019. The market has responded well to the "beauty filters," which make users seem better when they use the program to make payments. Alipay Tap is a payment function launched by Alipay in July 2024. Alipay+ NFC enables wallets to offer tap-to-pay acceptance across Mastercard's global contactless network, all within your existing wallet infrastructure. == Foreign expansion == Outside of China, more than 300 worldwide merchants use Alipay to sell directly to consumers in China. It currently supports transactions in 18 foreign currencies. Since the launch of Alipay in the Mainland China, Ant Financial introduced a series of expansion of the services to other countries. Other than expanding into individual countries, the system would also be integrated with online payment platform providers. Ant Group had acquired a majority stake into 2C2P, a Singapore-based provider used by merchants worldwide in April 2022, and would eventually integrate Alipay with 2C2P. === Asia === ==== Bangladesh ==== In 2018, Alipay bought 20% shares in Bangladeshi mobile financial service provider bKash Limited. ==== Hong Kong ==== In 2017, Ant Financial expanded to Hong Kong. In a joint venture with CK Hutchison, as Alipay Payment Ser
Read more →
Gamma (app)

Gamma is a web-based software platform that uses artificial intelligence to generate presentations, documents, webpages, and other visual content. The platform allow users to create structured layouts and draft text based on prompts or uploaded material. It operates as an online application and provides tools for editing, organizing, and sharing content. == History == Gamma was established in the early 2020s by Grant Lee, James Fox, and Jon Noronha during a period of increased development in artificial intelligence–based productivity software. The platform was introduced as a web-based format designed to present information through structured visual layouts rather than traditional slide-based presentations. Its interface was developed to adapt content to different screen sizes and devices. In later updates, Gamma expanded its functionality to support additional formats, including documents and simple webpages. By November 2025, the company reported that the platform had reached approximately 70 million users. Gamma has raised venture capital funding from a number of technology-focused investors since its founding. == Features == Gamma allows users to create presentations, documents, and webpages by entering prompts, pasting text, or uploading source files. The platform uses artificial intelligence to generate draft text, organize information, and apply structured layouts. Users can edit generated material manually and adjust formatting, structure, and visual elements. The software also supports collaborative editing, allowing multiple users to contribute to and revise the same project. Instead of relying only on fixed slide-based formats, Gamma presents content in scrollable layouts designed for web viewing across different screen sizes. Projects created on the platform can be shared through web links or exported to formats compatible with other software. Gamma also provides integration options and developer access through an application programming interface (API). == Technology == Gamma uses generative artificial intelligence models to interpret user input and generate structured content. The software automates elements of layout selection, formatting, and visual presentation. As with other AI-assisted tools, output produced by the system may require human review and revision to ensure accuracy and appropriate context. == Funding == Gamma has raised venture capital funding from a number of technology-focused investors since its founding. In November 2025, the company announced a Series B funding round that raised $68 million at a reported valuation of approximately $2.1 billion. Investors in the round included Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and Uncork Capital, among others. == Controversy == In 2025, cybersecurity researchers reported that Gamma had been used in a phishing campaign targeting Microsoft accounts. Attackers shared links to presentations hosted on the platform that redirected users to a spoofed Microsoft SharePoint login page intended to collect credentials. Researchers noted that the incident reflected the broader misuse of legitimate online services in phishing schemes.
Read more →
Cloud manufacturing

Cloud manufacturing (CMfg) is a new manufacturing paradigm developed from existing advanced manufacturing models (e.g., ASP, AM, NM, MGrid) and enterprise information technologies under the support of cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), virtualization and service-oriented technologies, and advanced computing technologies. It transforms manufacturing resources and manufacturing capabilities into manufacturing services, which can be managed and operated in an intelligent and unified way to enable the full sharing and circulating of manufacturing resources and manufacturing capabilities. CMfg can provide safe and reliable, high quality, cheap and on-demand manufacturing services for the whole lifecycle of manufacturing. The concept of manufacturing here refers to big manufacturing that includes the whole lifecycle of a product (e.g. design, simulation, production, test, maintenance). The concept of Cloud manufacturing was initially proposed by the research group led by Prof. Bo Hu Li and Prof. Lin Zhang in China in 2010. Related discussions and research were conducted hereafter, and some similar definitions (e.g. Cloud-Based Design and Manufacturing (CBDM). ) to cloud manufacturing were introduced. Cloud manufacturing is a type of parallel, networked, and distributed system consisting of an integrated and inter-connected virtualized service pool (manufacturing cloud) of manufacturing resources and capabilities as well as capabilities of intelligent management and on-demand use of services to provide solutions for all kinds of users involved in the whole lifecycle of manufacturing. == Types == Cloud Manufacturing can be divided into two categories. The first category concerns deploying manufacturing software on the Cloud, i.e. a “manufacturing version” of Computing. CAx software can be supplied as a service on the Manufacturing Cloud (MCloud). The second category has a broader scope, cutting across production, management, design and engineering abilities in a manufacturing business. Unlike with computing and data storage, manufacturing involves physical equipment, monitors, materials and so on. In this kind of Cloud Manufacturing system, both material and non-material facilities are implemented on the Manufacturing Cloud to support the whole supply chain. Costly resources are shared on the network. This means that the utilisation rate of rarely used equipment rises and the cost of expensive equipment is reduced. According to the concept of Cloud technology, there will not be direct interaction between Cloud Users and Service Providers. The Cloud User should neither manage nor control the infrastructure and manufacturing applications. As a matter of fact, the former can be considered part of the latter. In CMfg system, various manufacturing resources and abilities can be intelligently sensed and connected into wider Internet, and automatically managed and controlled using IoT technologies (e.g., RFID, wired and wireless sensor network, embedded system). Then the manufacturing resources and abilities are virtualized and encapsulated into different manufacturing cloud services (MCSs), that can be accessed, invoked, and deployed based on knowledge by using virtualization technologies, service-oriented technologies, and cloud computing technologies. The MCSs are classified and aggregated according to specific rules and algorithms, and different kinds of manufacturing clouds are constructed. Different users can search and invoke the qualified MCSs from related manufacturing cloud according to their needs, and assemble them to be a virtual manufacturing environment or solution to complete their manufacturing task involved in the whole life cycle of manufacturing processes under the support of cloud computing, service-oriented technologies, and advanced computing technologies. Four types of cloud deployment modes (public, private, community and hybrid clouds) are ubiquitous as a single point of access. Private cloud refers to a centralized management effort in which manufacturing services are shared within one company or its subsidiaries. Enterprises' mission-critical and core-business applications are often kept in a private cloud. Community cloud is a collaborative effort in which manufacturing services are shared between several organizations from a specific community with common concerns. Public cloud realizes the key concept of sharing services with the general public in a multi-tenant environment. Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community or public) that remain distinct entities but are also bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment modes. == Resources == From the resource’s perspective, each kind of manufacturing capability requires support from the related manufacturing resource. For each type of manufacturing capability, its related manufacturing resource comes in two forms, soft resources and hard resources. === Soft resources === Software: software applications throughout the product lifecycle including design, analysis, simulation, process planning, and are only beginning to be embraced by the electronics manufacturing industry. Knowledge: experience and know-how needed to complete a production task, i.e. engineering knowledge, product models, standards, evaluation procedures and results, customer feedback, and manufacturing in the cloud provides just as many solutions as the number of questions it also raises for manufacturing executives wanting to make the best possible decision. Skill: expertise in performing a specific manufacturing task. Personnel: human resource engaged in the manufacturing process, i.e. designers, operators, managers, technicians, project teams, customer service, etc. Experience: performance, quality, client evaluation, etc. Business Network: business relationships and business opportunity networks that exist in an enterprise. === Hard resources === Manufacturing Equipment: facilities needed for completing a manufacturing task, e.g. machine tools, cutters, test and monitoring equipment and other fabrication tools. Monitoring/Control Resource: devices used to identify and control other manufacturing resource, for instance, RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification), WSN (Wireless Sensor Network), virtual managers and remote controllers. Computational Resource: computing devices to support production process, e.g. servers, computers, storage media, control devices, etc. Materials: inputs and outputs in a production system, e.g. raw material, product-in-progress, finished product, power, water, lubricants, etc. Storage: automated storage and retrieval systems, logic controllers, location of warehouses, volume capacity and schedule/optimization methods. Transportation: movement of manufacturing inputs/outputs from one location to another. It includes the modes of transport, e.g. air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline and space, and the related price, and time taken.
Read more →