The dominance-based rough set approach (DRSA) is an extension of rough set theory for multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), introduced by Greco, Matarazzo and Słowiński. The main change compared to the classical rough sets is the substitution for the indiscernibility relation by a dominance relation, which permits one to deal with inconsistencies typical to consideration of criteria and preference-ordered decision classes. == Multicriteria classification (sorting) == Multicriteria classification (sorting) is one of the problems considered within MCDA and can be stated as follows: given a set of objects evaluated by a set of criteria (attributes with preference-order domains), assign these objects to some pre-defined and preference-ordered decision classes, such that each object is assigned to exactly one class. Due to the preference ordering, improvement of evaluations of an object on the criteria should not worsen its class assignment. The sorting problem is very similar to the problem of classification, however, in the latter, the objects are evaluated by regular attributes and the decision classes are not necessarily preference ordered. The problem of multicriteria classification is also referred to as ordinal classification problem with monotonicity constraints and often appears in real-life application when ordinal and monotone properties follow from the domain knowledge about the problem. As an illustrative example, consider the problem of evaluation in a high school. The director of the school wants to assign students (objects) to three classes: bad, medium and good (notice that class good is preferred to medium and medium is preferred to bad). Each student is described by three criteria: level in Physics, Mathematics and Literature, each taking one of three possible values bad, medium and good. Criteria are preference-ordered and improving the level from one of the subjects should not result in worse global evaluation (class). As a more serious example, consider classification of bank clients, from the viewpoint of bankruptcy risk, into classes safe and risky. This may involve such characteristics as "return on equity (ROE)", "return on investment (ROI)" and "return on sales (ROS)". The domains of these attributes are not simply ordered but involve a preference order since, from the viewpoint of bank managers, greater values of ROE, ROI or ROS are better for clients being analysed for bankruptcy risk . Thus, these attributes are criteria. Neglecting this information in knowledge discovery may lead to wrong conclusions. == Data representation == === Decision table === In DRSA, data are often presented using a particular form of decision table. Formally, a DRSA decision table is a 4-tuple S = ⟨ U , Q , V , f ⟩ {\displaystyle S=\langle U,Q,V,f\rangle } , where U {\displaystyle U\,\!} is a finite set of objects, Q {\displaystyle Q\,\!} is a finite set of criteria, V = ⋃ q ∈ Q V q {\displaystyle V=\bigcup {}_{q\in Q}V_{q}} where V q {\displaystyle V_{q}\,\!} is the domain of the criterion q {\displaystyle q\,\!} and f : U × Q → V {\displaystyle f\colon U\times Q\to V} is an information function such that f ( x , q ) ∈ V q {\displaystyle f(x,q)\in V_{q}} for every ( x , q ) ∈ U × Q {\displaystyle (x,q)\in U\times Q} . The set Q {\displaystyle Q\,\!} is divided into condition criteria (set C ≠ ∅ {\displaystyle C\neq \emptyset } ) and the decision criterion (class) d {\displaystyle d\,\!} . Notice, that f ( x , q ) {\displaystyle f(x,q)\,\!} is an evaluation of object x {\displaystyle x\,\!} on criterion q ∈ C {\displaystyle q\in C} , while f ( x , d ) {\displaystyle f(x,d)\,\!} is the class assignment (decision value) of the object. An example of decision table is shown in Table 1 below. === Outranking relation === It is assumed that the domain of a criterion q ∈ Q {\displaystyle q\in Q} is completely preordered by an outranking relation ⪰ q {\displaystyle \succeq _{q}} ; x ⪰ q y {\displaystyle x\succeq _{q}y} means that x {\displaystyle x\,\!} is at least as good as (outranks) y {\displaystyle y\,\!} with respect to the criterion q {\displaystyle q\,\!} . Without loss of generality, we assume that the domain of q {\displaystyle q\,\!} is a subset of reals, V q ⊆ R {\displaystyle V_{q}\subseteq \mathbb {R} } , and that the outranking relation is a simple order between real numbers ≥ {\displaystyle \geq \,\!} such that the following relation holds: x ⪰ q y ⟺ f ( x , q ) ≥ f ( y , q ) {\displaystyle x\succeq _{q}y\iff f(x,q)\geq f(y,q)} . This relation is straightforward for gain-type ("the more, the better") criterion, e.g. company profit. For cost-type ("the less, the better") criterion, e.g. product price, this relation can be satisfied by negating the values from V q {\displaystyle V_{q}\,\!} . === Decision classes and class unions === Let T = { 1 , … , n } {\displaystyle T=\{1,\ldots ,n\}\,\!} . The domain of decision criterion, V d {\displaystyle V_{d}\,\!} consist of n {\displaystyle n\,\!} elements (without loss of generality we assume V d = T {\displaystyle V_{d}=T\,\!} ) and induces a partition of U {\displaystyle U\,\!} into n {\displaystyle n\,\!} classes Cl = { C l t , t ∈ T } {\displaystyle {\textbf {Cl}}=\{Cl_{t},t\in T\}} , where C l t = { x ∈ U : f ( x , d ) = t } {\displaystyle Cl_{t}=\{x\in U\colon f(x,d)=t\}} . Each object x ∈ U {\displaystyle x\in U} is assigned to one and only one class C l t , t ∈ T {\displaystyle Cl_{t},t\in T} . The classes are preference-ordered according to an increasing order of class indices, i.e. for all r , s ∈ T {\displaystyle r,s\in T} such that r ≥ s {\displaystyle r\geq s\,\!} , the objects from C l r {\displaystyle Cl_{r}\,\!} are strictly preferred to the objects from C l s {\displaystyle Cl_{s}\,\!} . For this reason, we can consider the upward and downward unions of classes, defined respectively, as: C l t ≥ = ⋃ s ≥ t C l s C l t ≤ = ⋃ s ≤ t C l s t ∈ T {\displaystyle Cl_{t}^{\geq }=\bigcup _{s\geq t}Cl_{s}\qquad Cl_{t}^{\leq }=\bigcup _{s\leq t}Cl_{s}\qquad t\in T} == Main concepts == === Dominance === We say that x {\displaystyle x\,\!} dominates y {\displaystyle y\,\!} with respect to P ⊆ C {\displaystyle P\subseteq C} , denoted by x D p y {\displaystyle xD_{p}y\,\!} , if x {\displaystyle x\,\!} is better than y {\displaystyle y\,\!} on every criterion from P {\displaystyle P\,\!} , x ⪰ q y , ∀ q ∈ P {\displaystyle x\succeq _{q}y,\,\forall q\in P} . For each P ⊆ C {\displaystyle P\subseteq C} , the dominance relation D P {\displaystyle D_{P}\,\!} is reflexive and transitive, i.e. it is a partial pre-order. Given P ⊆ C {\displaystyle P\subseteq C} and x ∈ U {\displaystyle x\in U} , let D P + ( x ) = { y ∈ U : y D p x } {\displaystyle D_{P}^{+}(x)=\{y\in U\colon yD_{p}x\}} D P − ( x ) = { y ∈ U : x D p y } {\displaystyle D_{P}^{-}(x)=\{y\in U\colon xD_{p}y\}} represent P-dominating set and P-dominated set with respect to x ∈ U {\displaystyle x\in U} , respectively. === Rough approximations === The key idea of the rough set philosophy is approximation of one knowledge by another knowledge. In DRSA, the knowledge being approximated is a collection of upward and downward unions of decision classes and the "granules of knowledge" used for approximation are P-dominating and P-dominated sets. The P-lower and the P-upper approximation of C l t ≥ , t ∈ T {\displaystyle Cl_{t}^{\geq },t\in T} with respect to P ⊆ C {\displaystyle P\subseteq C} , denoted as P _ ( C l t ≥ ) {\displaystyle {\underline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\geq })} and P ¯ ( C l t ≥ ) {\displaystyle {\overline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\geq })} , respectively, are defined as: P _ ( C l t ≥ ) = { x ∈ U : D P + ( x ) ⊆ C l t ≥ } {\displaystyle {\underline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\geq })=\{x\in U\colon D_{P}^{+}(x)\subseteq Cl_{t}^{\geq }\}} P ¯ ( C l t ≥ ) = { x ∈ U : D P − ( x ) ∩ C l t ≥ ≠ ∅ } {\displaystyle {\overline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\geq })=\{x\in U\colon D_{P}^{-}(x)\cap Cl_{t}^{\geq }\neq \emptyset \}} Analogously, the P-lower and the P-upper approximation of C l t ≤ , t ∈ T {\displaystyle Cl_{t}^{\leq },t\in T} with respect to P ⊆ C {\displaystyle P\subseteq C} , denoted as P _ ( C l t ≤ ) {\displaystyle {\underline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\leq })} and P ¯ ( C l t ≤ ) {\displaystyle {\overline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\leq })} , respectively, are defined as: P _ ( C l t ≤ ) = { x ∈ U : D P − ( x ) ⊆ C l t ≤ } {\displaystyle {\underline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\leq })=\{x\in U\colon D_{P}^{-}(x)\subseteq Cl_{t}^{\leq }\}} P ¯ ( C l t ≤ ) = { x ∈ U : D P + ( x ) ∩ C l t ≤ ≠ ∅ } {\displaystyle {\overline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\leq })=\{x\in U\colon D_{P}^{+}(x)\cap Cl_{t}^{\leq }\neq \emptyset \}} Lower approximations group the objects which certainly belong to class union C l t ≥ {\displaystyle Cl_{t}^{\geq }} (respectively C l t ≤ {\displaystyle Cl_{t}^{\leq }} ). This certainty comes from the fact, that object x ∈ U {\displaystyle x\in U} belongs to the lower approximation P _ ( C l t ≥ ) {\displaystyle {\underline {P}}(Cl_{t}^{\geq })} (respectively P _ ( C l t ≤ ) {\displaystyle {\underl
Distributed manufacturing
Distributed manufacturing, also known as distributed production, cloud producing, distributed digital manufacturing, and local manufacturing, is a form of decentralized manufacturing practiced by enterprises using a network of geographically dispersed manufacturing facilities that are coordinated using information technology. It can also refer to local manufacture via the historic cottage industry model, or manufacturing that takes place in the homes of consumers. == Enterprise == In enterprise environments, the primary attribute of distributed manufacturing is the ability to create value at geographically dispersed locations. For example, shipping costs could be minimized when products are built geographically close to their intended markets. Also, products manufactured in a number of small facilities distributed over a wide area can be customized with details adapted to individual or regional tastes. Manufacturing components in different physical locations and then managing the supply chain to bring them together for final assembly of a product is also considered a form of distributed manufacturing. Digital networks combined with additive manufacturing allow companies a decentralized and geographically independent distributed production (cloud manufacturing). == Consumer == Within the maker movement and DIY culture, small scale production by consumers often using peer-to-peer resources is being referred to as distributed manufacturing. Consumers download digital designs from an open design repository website like Youmagine or Thingiverse and produce a product for low costs through a distributed network of 3D printing services such as 3D Hubs, Geomiq. In the most distributed form of distributed manufacturing the consumer becomes a prosumer and manufacturers products at home with an open-source 3-D printer such as the RepRap. In 2013 a desktop 3-D printer could be economically justified as a personal product fabricator and the number of free and open hardware designs were growing exponentially. Today there are millions of open hardware product designs at hundreds of repositories and there is some evidence consumers are 3-D printing to save money. For example, 2017 case studies probed the quality of: (1) six common complex toys; (2) Lego blocks; and (3) the customizability of open source board games and found that all filaments analyzed saved the prosumer over 75% of the cost of commercially available true alternative toys and over 90% for recyclebot filament. Overall, these results indicate a single 3D printing repository, MyMiniFactory, is saving consumers well over $60 million/year in offset purchases of only toys. These 3-D printers can now be used to make sophisticated high-value products like scientific instruments. Similarly, a study in 2022 found that 81% of open source designs provided economic savings and the total savings for the 3D printing community is more than $35 million from downloading only the top 100 products at YouMagine. In general, the savings are largest when compared to conventional products when prosumers use recycled materials in 'distributed recycling and additive manufacturing' (DRAM). == Emergency Distributed Manufacturing During COVID-19 Pandemic == Distributed manufacturing became far more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic because it offered a practical response to the breakdown of centralized global supply chains. As lock downs, border restrictions, and factory shutdowns disrupted conventional production, decentralized networks using local facilities such as Open Source Medical Supplies stepped in and manufactured over 48 million products. Additive manufacturing /3D printing were used to produce urgently needed items such as face shields, ventilators and their components, nasopharyngeal swabs, and other personal protective equipment. This demonstrated that distributed manufacturing could reduce lead times, improve responsiveness, and lessen dependence on distant suppliers during crisis conditions for a wide range of products. Peer-reviewed studies on pandemic-era manufacturing note that additive manufacturing was especially valuable because digital design files could be shared rapidly and produced close to the point of need, enabling hospitals, universities, small firms, and maker communities to supplement strained medical supply chains. The pandemic also helped shift distributed manufacturing from being seen as a niche or experimental model to a credible strategy for resilience, flexibility, and emergency response. At the same time, scholars caution that its wider adoption depends on solving issues related to quality assurance, regulation, material consistency, and coordination across distributed production sites. Overall, COVID-19 popularized distributed manufacturing by showing that localized, digitally enabled production could complement traditional manufacturing systems when speed, adaptability, and supply-chain resilience were critical. == Social change == Some call attention to the conjunction of commons-based peer production with distributed manufacturing techniques. The self-reinforced fantasy of a system of eternal growth can be overcome with the development of economies of scope, and here, the civil society can play an important role contributing to the raising of the whole productive structure to a higher plateau of more sustainable and customised productivity. Further, it is true that many issues, problems and threats rise due to the large democratization of the means of production, and especially regarding the physical ones. For instance, the recyclability of advanced nanomaterials is still questioned; weapons manufacturing could become easier; not to mention the implications on counterfeiting and on "intellectual property". It might be maintained that in contrast to the industrial paradigm whose competitive dynamics were about economies of scale, commons-based peer production and distributed manufacturing could develop economies of scope. While the advantages of scale rest on cheap global transportation, the economies of scope share infrastructure costs (intangible and tangible productive resources), taking advantage of the capabilities of the fabrication tools. And following Neil Gershenfeld in that "some of the least developed parts of the world need some of the most advanced technologies", commons-based peer production and distributed manufacturing may offer the necessary tools for thinking globally but act locally in response to certain problems and needs. As well as supporting individual personal manufacturing social and economic benefits are expected to result from the development of local production economies. In particular, the humanitarian and development sector are becoming increasingly interested in how distributed manufacturing can overcome the supply chain challenges of last mile distribution. Further, distributed manufacturing has been proposed as a key element in the Cosmopolitan localism or cosmolocalism framework to reconfigure production by prioritizing socio-ecological well-being over corporate profits, over-production and excess consumption. == Technology == By localizing manufacturing, distributed manufacturing may enable a balance between two opposite extreme qualities in technology development: Low technology and High tech. This balance is understood as an inclusive middle, a "mid-tech", that may go beyond the two polarities, incorporating them into a higher synthesis. Thus, in such an approach, low-tech and high-tech stop being mutually exclusive. They instead become a dialectic totality. Mid-tech may be abbreviated to "both…and…" instead of "neither…nor…". Mid-tech combines the efficiency and versatility of digital/automated technology with low-tech's potential for autonomy and resilience. == Contracting in Distributed Manufacturing == Research into contracting and order processing models tailored for distributed manufacturing has highlighted the need for flexible, role-based frameworks and advanced digital tools. These tools and frameworks are essential for addressing issues related to quality assurance, payment structures, legal compliance, and coordination among multiple actors. By addressing these challenges, contracting models for distributed manufacturing can unlock its potential for more localized, efficient, and sustainable production systems. A system prototype has been developed to simplify contracting for distributed manufacturing. This tool allows buyers to manage orders across multiple manufacturers using a single interface, automating workflows to ensure clarity and accountability for everyone involved. This research was led by the Internet of Production, as part of the mAkE project (African European Maker Innovation Ecosystem), funded by the European Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
Flutter (software)
Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit created by Google. It can be used to develop cross platform applications from a single codebase for the web, Fuchsia, Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. First described in 2015, Flutter was released in May 2017. Flutter is used internally by Google in apps such as Google Pay and Google Earth as well as by other software developers including ByteDance and Alibaba. Flutter ships applications with its own rendering engine which directly outputs pixel data to the screen. This is in contrast to many other UI frameworks that rely on the target platform to provide a rendering engine, such as native Android apps which rely on the device-level Android SDK or iOS SDK which use the target platform's built-in UI stack. Flutter's control of its rendering pipeline simplifies multi-platform support as identical UI code can be used for all target platforms.One of Flutter’s key features is hot reload, which allows developers to see code changes instantly without restarting the application. == Architecture == The basic component in a Flutter program is a "widget", which can in turn consist of other widgets. A widget describes the logic, interaction, and design of a UI element with an implementation similar to React. Unlike other cross-platform toolkits such as React Native and Xamarin which draw widgets using native platform components, Flutter renders widgets itself on a per-pixel basis. Flutter has two types of widgets: stateless and stateful. Stateless widgets only update if their inputs change, meaning they otherwise won't need to be rebuilt when other elements of the screen change, while stateful widgets can call the setState() method to update an internal state and redraw. Although widgets are the primary method of constructing Flutter applications, they can also be bypassed in favor of directly drawing on a canvas. This feature has been occasionally used to implement game engines in Flutter. The Flutter framework contains two sets of widgets that conform to specific design languages: Material Design widgets implement Google's design language of the same name, and Cupertino widgets implement Apple's iOS Human interface guidelines. Flutter allows the developer to use either set of widgets on either platform. Developers can use Cupertino widgets on Android. Flutter apps are written in the Dart language. Release versions of Flutter apps on all platforms use ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation except for on the Web where code is transpiled to JavaScript or WebAssembly. Flutter inherits Dart's Pub package manager and software repository, which allows users to publish and use custom packages as well as Flutter-specific plugins. The Foundation library, written in Dart, provides basic classes and functions that are used to construct applications using Flutter, such as APIs to communicate with the engine. Flutter's engine, written primarily in C++, provides low-level rendering support using either Google's Skia graphics library or the custom "Impeller" graphics layer, which is enabled by default on iOS and Android API 29 and higher. The engine interfaces with platform-specific SDKs such as those provided by Android and iOS to implement features like accessibility, file and network I/O, native plugin support, etc. == History == The first version of Flutter was known as "Sky" and ran on the Android operating system. It was unveiled at the 2015 Dart developer summit with the stated intent of being able to render consistently at 120 frames per second. On December 4, 2018, Flutter 1.0 was released at the Flutter conference in London. On May 6, 2020, the Dart software development kit (SDK) version 2.8 and Flutter 1.17.0 were released, adding support for the Metal API. On March 3, 2021, Google released Flutter 2 during an online Flutter Engage event. It added a Canvas-based renderer for web in addition to the HTML-based renderer and early-access desktop application support for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It also shipped with Dart 2.0 which included support for null-safety. Null safety was initially optional as it was a breaking change and was made mandatory in Dart 3 released in 2023. On May 12, 2022, Flutter 3 and Dart 2.17 were released with support for all desktop platforms as stable. On October 27, 2024, a number of Flutter community developers announced Flock, a fork of Flutter intended to be easier to contribute to while still keeping in sync with all changes made in the upstream code base. In 2025, Google continued Flutter's evolution with enhanced modular architecture, foldable device support, and ARM IoT optimizations as outlined in the updated roadmap. === Major releases in Flutter === Prior to the Flutter 2.0 release in March of 2021, the Flutter framework was centered on mobile development. The developers of Flutter were primarily focused on the two main platforms, IOS and Android. Specifically, they wanted to deliver strong performance and improve access to native API and platform features and expand the widget system. With the release of Flutter 2.0, the framework moved beyond mobile and introduced support for the web platform. This marked a shift into a broader cross platform development environment. With this release, developers could produce applications for Web, Android and IOS from the same codebase. This release also brought the desktop platform closer to stable. There have been a number of improvements since then that have broadened platform support. They introduced enhancements to performance and workflow, redefined the developer’s toolkit, and added an improved rendering engine. "Flutter 2.10.0 release notes". docs.flutter.dev. Retrieved 2025-11-11.
The Business Cloud
The Business Cloud is an API enabled self-service platform, developed by Domo, that provides an array of services like data connection and data visualization. == History == Domo, Inc. was founded in 2010 by Josh James who also co-founded the web analytics software company Omniture in 1996, which he took public in 2006. Domo launched the Domo Appstore, with 1,000 apps with social and mobile capabilities, in 2016. This appstore creates a network of business apps and an ecosystem of companies into a single, integrated business cloud. This decision came after Domo announced a $131 million round of funding from BlackRock. According to the company, the concept behind The Business Cloud is to connect smaller clouds relating to apps or other functional areas of a business into a single business cloud that allows self-service and other social features to customers. == Services == The Business Cloud is offered as a free service, claimed to be the world's first business cloud with Domo appstore as one of its core services. This free package includes all of the Domo's features and functionality including Domo platform, Domo Apps, visualizations, alerts, company directories, org charts, profiles, tasks and Domo Mobile. The Business Cloud allows customers to leverage their preferred cloud as well as on-premises software and monitor all aspects of their business in routine. The company is supported by a $500 million fund from investors all over the world.
Magisto
Magisto provided an online video editing tool (both as a web application and a mobile app) for automated video editing and production. In 2019, the company was acquired by Vimeo for an estimated US$200 million. The Magisto app contained a library of music. The music, largely by independent artists, was sorted by mood and is licensed for in-app use. Magisto had a freemium business model where users can create basic video clips for free. In addition, advanced business, professional and personal service tiers are available via various subscription plans, unlocking more features; such as longer videos, HD, premium themes, customization, and control features. == History == Magisto was founded in 2009 as SightEra (LTD) by Oren Boiman (CEO) and Alex Rav-Acha (CTO). Boiman, frustrated with the amount of time it took editing together videos of his daughter, wanted an easier to use application to capture and share videos. Boiman, a computer scientist that graduated from Tel Aviv University, followed with graduate work in computer vision at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Boiman developed several patent-pending image analysis technologies that analyze unedited videos to identify the most interesting parts. The system recognized faces, animals, landscapes, action sequences, movements and other important content within the video, as well as analyzing speech and audio. These scenes are then edited together, along with music and effects. Magisto was launched publicly on September 20, 2011, as a video editing software web application through which users could upload unedited video footage, choose a title and soundtrack and have their video edited for them automatically. On the following day, Magisto was added to YouTube Create's collection of video production applications. The Magisto iPhone app was launched publicly at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. At CES, the company was also awarded first place in the 2012 CES Mobile App Showdown. In August 2012, Magisto launched the Android app on Google Play. In September 2012, Magisto launched a Google Chrome App and announced Google Drive integration. In March 2013, Magisto claimed it had 5 million users. Google listed Magisto as an "Editors’ Choice" on its list of "Best Apps of 2013". In September 2013, the company claimed that 10 million users had downloaded the App. In February 2014, Magisto claimed that they had 20 million users, with 2 million new users per month. The company also confirmed investment from Mail.Ru. In September 2014, Magisto rolled out a feature called 'Instagram Ready' which allowed users to upload 15 second clips that are automatically formatted for Instagram. In the same month, Magisto launched a feature for iOS and Android users, called 'Surprise Me', which created video from still photography on users’ smartphones. In October 2014, Magisto was placed 9th on the 2014 Deloitte Israel Technology Fast 50 list and named as a finalist in the Red Herring's Top 100 Europe award. In July 2015, Magisto released an editing theme dedicated to Jerry Garcia. In April 2019, the company was acquired by Vimeo, the IAC-owned platform for hosting, sharing and monetizing streamed video, for an estimated $200 million. === Financing === In 2011, the company received more than $5.5 million in a Series B venture round funding from Magma Venture Partners and Horizons Ventures. In September 2011, at the same time as the public launch of their web application, Magisto announced a $5.5 million Series B funding round led by Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures. Li Ka-Shing is known for making early-stage investments in companies like Facebook, Spotify, SecondMarket and Siri. In October 2013, the company received $13 million in funding from Qualcomm and Sandisk. In 2014, the company received $2 million in Venture Funding from Magma Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Horizons Ventures and the Mail.Ru Group. == Awards == Magisto won first place at Technonomy3, an annual Internet Technology start-up competition in Israel. Judges of the competition included Jeff Pulver, TechCrunch editor Mike Butcher, investor Yaron Samid, Bessemer Venture Partners Israel partner Adam Fisher and Brad McCarty of The Next Web. Magisto won first place at CES 2012 Mobile app competition, during the launch of Magisto iOS mobile app. Magisto was awarded twice the Google Play Editor's Choice and was part of iPhone App Store Best App awards for 2013 and 2014, and Wired Essential iPad Apps. Magisto was declared by Deloitte as the 7th fastest growing company in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in 2016.
Collaboration-oriented architecture
Collaboration Oriented Architecture (COA) is a computer system that is designed to collaborate, or use services, from systems that are outside of the operators control. Collaboration Oriented Architecture will often use Service Oriented Architecture to deliver the technical framework. Collaboration Oriented Architecture is the ability to collaborate between systems that are based on the Jericho Forum principles or "Commandments". Bill Gates and Craig Mundie (Microsoft) clearly articulated the need for people to work outside of their organizations in a secure and collaborative manner in their opening keynote to the RSA Security Conference in February 2007. Successful implementation of a Collaboration Oriented Architecture implies the ability to successfully inter-work securely over the Internet and will typically mean the resolution of the problems that come with de-perimeterisation. == Etymology == The term Collaboration Oriented Architectures was defined and developed in a meeting of the Jericho Forum at a meeting held at HSBC on 6 July 2007. == Definition == The key elements that qualify a security architecture as a Collaboration Oriented Architecture are as follows; Protocol: Systems use appropriately secure protocols to communicate. Authentication: The protocol is authenticated with user and/or system credentials. Federation: User and/or systems credentials are accepted and validated by systems that are not under your (locus of) control. Network Agnostic: The design does not rely on a secure network, thus it will operate securely from an Intranet to raw-Internet Trust: The collaborating system have the capacity to be able to confirm to a specified degree of confidence that the components in a transaction chain have. Risk: The collaborating systems can make a risk assessment on any transaction based on the communicated levels of required trust, based on the required degree of identity, confidentiality, integrity, availability. == Authentication == Working in a collaborative multi-sourced environment implies the need for authentication, authorization and accountability which must interoperate / exchange outside of your locus / area of control. People/systems must be able to manage permissions of resources and rights of users they don't control There must be capability of trusting an organization, which can authenticate individuals or groups, thus eliminating the need to create separate identities In principle, only one instance of person / system / identity may exist, but privacy necessitates the support for multiple instances, or one instance with multiple facets, often referred to as personas Systems must be able to pass on security credentials /assertions Multiple loci (areas) of control must be supported
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo! Mail (also written as Yahoo Mail) is a mailbox provider by Yahoo. It is one of the largest email services worldwide, with 225 million users. It is accessible via a web browser (webmail), mobile app, or through third-party email clients via the POP, SMTP, and IMAP protocols. Users can also connect non-Yahoo e-mail accounts to their Yahoo Mail inbox. The service was launched on October 8, 1997. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. It is also available in several languages other than English. == History == === 1997–2002 === On October 8, 1997, Yahoo announced its acquisition of online communications company Four11 for $92 million in stock. As part of the purchase, Yahoo received Four11's RocketMail webmail service. Yahoo Mail, based on the RocketMail technology, launched at the same time. Yahoo! chose acquisition rather than internal platform development, because, as Healy said, "Hotmail was growing at thousands and thousands users per week. We did an analysis. For us to build, it would have taken four to six months, and by then, so many users would have taken an email account. The speed of the market was critical." On March 21, 2002, Yahoo! eliminated free software client access and introduced the $29.99 per year Mail Forwarding Service. Mary Osako, a Yahoo! Spokeswoman, told CNET, "For-pay services on Yahoo!, originally launched in February 1999, have experienced great acceptance from our base of active registered users, and we expect this adoption to continue to grow." === 2002–2010 === During 2002, the Yahoo network was gradually redesigned, including the company website, Yahoo Mail and other services. Along with the new design, new features were implemented, including drop-down menus in DHTML and keyboard shortcuts. On July 9, 2004, Yahoo! acquired Oddpost, a webmail service which simulated a desktop email client. Oddpost had features such as drag-and-drop support, right-click menus, RSS feeds, a preview pane, and increased speed using email caching to shorten response time. Many of the features were incorporated into an updated Yahoo! Mail service. ==== Competition ==== On April 1, 2004, Google announced its Gmail service with 1 GB of storage, although Gmail's invitation-only accounts kept the other webmail services at the forefront. Most major webmail providers, including Yahoo! Mail, increased their mailbox storage in response. Yahoo! first announced 100 MB of storage for basic accounts and 2 GB of storage for premium users. However, soon Yahoo Mail increased its free storage quota to 1 GB, before eventually allowing unlimited storage from March 27, 2007, until October 8, 2013. === 2011–2021 === In May 2011, Yahoo Mail rolled out a new interface. It included updated design, enhanced performance, and improved Facebook integration. In 2013, Yahoo! redesigned the site and removed several features, such as simultaneously opening multiple emails in tabs, sorting by sender name, and dragging mails to folders. The new email interface was geared to give an improved user-experience for mobile devices, but was criticized for having an inferior desktop interface. Many users objected to the unannounced nature of the changes through an online post asking Yahoo! to bring back mail tabs with one hundred thousand voting and nearly ten thousand commenting. The redesign produced a problem that caused an unknown number of users to lose access to their accounts for several weeks. In December 2013, Yahoo! Mail suffered a major outage where approximately one million users, one percent of the site's total users, could not access their emails for several days. Yahoo!'s then-CEO Marissa Mayer publicly apologized to the site's users. China Yahoo Mail announced in April 2013 that it would shut down that August as part of Yahoo ceasing services in China since acquiring a stake in Alibaba in 2005. Users with email address suffixes @yahoo.com.cn and @yahoo.cn could transfer their accounts to AliCloud to continue receiving messages through the end of 2014. In January 2014, an undisclosed number of usernames and passwords were released to hackers, following a security breach that Yahoo! believed had occurred through a third-party website. Yahoo! contacted affected users and requested that passwords be changed. In October 2015, Yahoo! updated the mail service with a "more subtle" redesign, as well as improved mobile features. The same release introduced the Yahoo! Account Key, a smartphone-based replacement for password logins. The app also added support for third-party mail accounts. In 2017, Yahoo! again redesigned the web interface with a "more minimal" look, and introduced the option to customize it with different color themes and layouts. In 2019, Yahoo released a redesigned Yahoo Mail app to organize user inboxes, introducing features including a one-tap unsubscribe tool, package tracking, and travel updates. In 2020, Yahoo Mail users were able to fill Walmart shopping carts directly from their inboxes, an industry first. Yahoo! also added a feature to view NFL matches. === 2022–present === In 2022, updates to the Yahoo Mail mobile app added tools to help manage receipts, gift cards, and subscriptions. AI-based additions in 2023 included a feature that automates tracking coupon codes and credits for online shopping, as well as updates to search suggestions, message summaries and AI writing assistance. In 2024, updates to the desktop interface added more AI-based features, including a "priority inbox" tab with automatically generated summaries of important messages and automated suggestions of next actions based on message contents. In February 2025, Yahoo aired its first Super Bowl ad since 2002, in which Bill Murray invited viewers to contact him at his Yahoo Mail email address ([email protected]). The address received nearly 150,000 emails in the first two hours after broadcast. In June 2025, Yahoo Mail introduced a "Catch Up" feature that provides AI-generated summaries and email previews and prompts users to choose to delete or retain each one. As part of the feature's launch, Yahoo Mail collaborated with streetwear brand Anti Social Social Club on an apparel release. == User interface == As many as three web interfaces were available at any given time. The traditional "Yahoo! Mail Classic" preserved the availability of their original 1997 interface until July 2013 in North America. A 2005 version included a new Ajax interface, drag-and-drop, improved search, keyboard shortcuts, address auto-completion, and tabs. However, other features were removed, such as column widths and one click delete-move-to-next. In October 2010, Yahoo! released a beta version of Yahoo! Mail, which included improvements to performance, search, and Facebook integration. In May 2011, this became the default interface. Their current Webmail interface was introduced in 2017. == Spam policy == Yahoo! Mail is often used by spammers to provide a "remove me" email address. Often, these addresses are used to verify the recipient's address, thus opening the door for more spam. Yahoo! does not tolerate this practice and terminates accounts connected with spam-related activities without warning, causing spammers to lose access to any other Yahoo! services connected with their ID under the Terms of Service. Additionally, Yahoo! stresses that its servers are based in California and any spam-related activity which uses its servers could potentially violate that state's anti-spam laws. In February 2006, Yahoo! announced its decision (along with AOL) to give some organizations the option to "certify" mail by paying up to one cent for each outgoing message, allowing the mail in question to bypass inbound spam filters. Few mailers used it and, Goodmail, the company running the certification process, shut down in 2011. === Filters === In order to prevent abuse, in 2002 Yahoo! Mail activated filters which changed certain words (that could trigger unwanted JavaScript events) and word fragments into other words. "mocha" was changed to "espresso", "expression" became "statement", and "eval" (short for "evaluation") became "review". This resulted in many unintended corrections, such as "prevent" (prevalent), "revalidation" (evaluation) and "media review" (medieval). When asked about these changes, Yahoo! explained that the changed words were common terms used in their privacy dashboard and were blacklisted to prevent hackers from sending damaging commands via the program's HTML function. Starting before February 7, 2006, Yahoo! Mail ended the practice, and began to add an underscore as a prefix to certain suspicious words and word fragments. === Greylisting === Incoming mail to Yahoo! addresses can be subjected to deferred delivery as part of Yahoo's incoming spam controls. This can delay delivery of mail sent to Yahoo! addresses without the sender or recipients being aware of it. The deferral is typically of short duration, but