MoltenVK is a software library which allows Vulkan applications to run on top of Metal on Apple's macOS, iOS, and tvOS operating systems. It is the first software component to be released for the Vulkan Portability Initiative, a project to have a subset of Vulkan run on platforms lacking native Vulkan drivers. There are some limitations compared with a native Vulkan implementation. == History == MoltenVK was first released as a proprietary and commercially licensed product by The Brenwill Workshop on July 27, 2016. On July 31, 2017, Khronos announced the formation of the Vulkan Portability Technical Subgroup. === Open source === On February 26, 2018, Khronos announced that Vulkan became available on macOS and iOS products through the MoltenVK library. Valve announced that Dota 2 will run on macOS using the Vulkan API with the aid of MoltenVK, and that they had made an arrangement with developer The Brenwill Workshop Ltd to release MoltenVK as open-source software under the Apache License version 2.0. On May 30, 2018, Qt was updated with Vulkan for Qt on macOS using MoltenVK. On May 31, 2018, optional Vulkan support for Dota 2 on macOS was released. Benchmarks for the game were available the following day, showing better performance using Vulkan and MoltenVK compared to OpenGL. On July 20, 2018, Wine was updated with Vulkan support on macOS using MoltenVK. On 29 July 2018, the first app using MoltenVK was accepted onto the App Store, after initially being rejected. On 6 August 2018, Google open-sourced Filament, a crossplatform real-time physically based rendering engine with MoltenVK for macOS/iOS. On November 28, 2018, Valve released Artifact, their first Vulkan-only game on macOS using MoltenVK. === Version 1.0 === On 29 January 2019, MoltenVK 1.0.32 was released with early prototype of Vulkan Portability Extensions. RPCS3 and Dolphin emulators were updated with Vulkan support on macOS using MoltenVK. On 13 April 2019, MoltenVK 1.0.34 was released with support for tessellation. On July 30, 2019, MoltenVK 1.0.36 was released targeting Metal 3.0. On July 31, 2020, MoltenVK 1.0.44 was released, adding support for the tvOS platform. On January 23, 2020, MoltenVK was updated to support for some of the new features of Vulkan 1.2, as of Vulkan SDK 1.2.121. === Version 1.1 === On October 1, 2020, MoltenVK 1.1.0 was released, adding full support for Vulkan 1.1, as of Vulkan SDK 1.2.154. On 9 December 2020, MoltenVK 1.1.1 was released, providing support for Vulkan on Apple silicon GPUs and support for the Mac Catalyst platform for porting iOS/iPadOS apps to macOS. === Version 1.2 === On October 18, 2022, MoltenVK 1.2.0 was released, adding full support for Vulkan 1.2 as of Vulkan SDK 1.3.231. In January 2023, MoltenVK 1.2.2 added support for Vulkan as of SDK 1.3.239, while this version of Vulkan SDK fixed some issues with the interconnectivity with Metal API, while version 1.2.3 supported some additional extensions. === Version 1.3 === On May 1, 2025, MoltenVK 1.3 was released with support for Vulkan 1.3. === Version 1.4 === On August 20, 2025, MoltenVK 1.4 was released with support for Vulkan 1.4.
Amália (LLM)
Amália is a Portuguese large language model (LLM) announced in November 2024 by the Portuguese Prime-Minister Luís Montenegro. Its final version is expected to be launched in 2026. It is being developed by Center for Responsible AI (Centro para a AI Responsável) and by the research centers of NOVA School of Science and Technology and Instituto Superior Técnico. == History == In 2024 it was announced that the Portuguese Agency for Administrative Modernization (Agência para a Modernização Administrativa) transpose this LLM to Portuguese Public Administration. According to Paulo Dimas (CEO of the Center for Responsible AI) the three fundamental points of this LLM project are the linguistic variant (European Portuguese), cultural representation and data protection. In April 2025 it was announced that Amália had entered beta phase with an improved version being expected to be launched in September 2025. The beta version released in September is available only to the Public Administration, but the website launched in October reiterates the final version will be an open model.
Viewport
A viewport is a polygon viewing region in computer graphics. In computer graphics theory, there are two region-like notions of relevance when rendering some objects to an image. In textbook terminology, the world coordinate window is the area of interest (meaning what the user wants to visualize) in some application-specific coordinates, e.g. miles, centimeters etc. The word window as used here should not be confused with the GUI window, i.e. the notion used in window managers. Rather it is an analogy with how a window limits what one can see outside a room. In contrast, the viewport is an area (typically rectangular) expressed in rendering-device-specific coordinates, e.g. pixels for screen coordinates, in which the objects of interest are going to be rendered. Clipping to the world-coordinates window is usually applied to the objects before they are passed through the window-to-viewport transformation. For a 2D object, the latter transformation is simply a combination of translation and scaling, the latter not necessarily uniform. An analogy of this transformation process based on traditional photography notions is to equate the world-clipping window with the camera settings and the variously sized prints that can be obtained from the resulting film image as possible viewports. Because the physical-device-based coordinates may not be portable from one device to another, a software abstraction layer known as normalized device coordinates is typically introduced for expressing viewports; it appears for example in the Graphical Kernel System (GKS) and later systems inspired from it. In 3D computer graphics, the viewport refers to the 2D rectangle used to project the 3D scene to the position of a virtual camera. A viewport is a region of the screen used to display a portion of the total image to be shown. In virtual desktops, the viewport is the visible portion of a 2D area which is larger than the visualization device. When viewing a document in a web browser, the viewport is the region of the browser window which contains the visible portion of the document. If the size of the viewport changes, for example as a result of the user resizing the browser window, then the browser may reflow the document (recalculate the locations and sizes of elements of the document). If the document is larger than the viewport, the user can control the portion of the document which is visible by scrolling in the viewport.
Wavelet noise
Wavelet noise is an alternative to Perlin noise which reduces the problems of aliasing and detail loss that are encountered when Perlin noise is summed into a fractal. == Algorithm detail == The basic algorithm for 2-dimensional wavelet noise is as follows: Create an image, R {\displaystyle R} , filled with uniform white noise. Downsample R {\displaystyle R} to half-size to create R ↓ {\displaystyle R^{\downarrow }} , then upsample it back up to full size to create R ↓↑ {\displaystyle R^{\downarrow \uparrow }} . Subtract R ↓↑ {\displaystyle R^{\downarrow \uparrow }} from R {\displaystyle R} to create the end result, N {\displaystyle N} . This results in an image that contains all the information that cannot be represented at half-scale. From here, N {\displaystyle N} can be used similarly to Perlin noise to create fractal patterns.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 Computer graphics, image processing and environmental data representation is a standardization subcommittee of the joint subcommittee ISO/IEC JTC 1 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which develops and facilitates standards within the field of computer graphics, image processing, and environmental data representation. The international secretariat of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 is the British Standards Institute (BSI) located in the United Kingdom. == History == ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 was formed in 1987 from ISO/TC 97 as a result of Resolution 21 at the ISO/IEC JTC 1 plenary. The group's origins began in computer graphics, the standardization of which was originally under ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 21/WG 2. However, when ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 was created, the standardization activity of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 21/WG 2 was carried over to the new subcommittee. The initial five working groups of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 were titled, “Architecture,” “Application programming interfaces,” “Metafiles and interfaces,” “Language bindings,” and “Validation, testing and registration.” The work of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 began with the Graphical Kernel System (GKS), which was adopted from ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 21/WG 2. However, since GKS only addressed 2D functionality, attention turned to the standardization of 3D functionality. This resulted in two standards being published: GKS-3D in 1988 and PHIGS in 1989, both of which addressed 3D functionality. Since 1991, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 has held plenaries in a number of countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, United States, France, Canada, Japan, Sweden, Korea, United Kingdom, Australia, and Czech Republic. == Scope == The scope of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 is the “Standardization of interfaces for information technology based applications relating to”: Computer graphics Image processing Environmental data representation Support for the Mixed and Augmented Reality (MAR) Interaction with, and visual representation of, information Included are the following related areas: Modeling and simulation and related reference models Virtual reality with accompanying augmented reality/augmented virtuality aspects and related reference models Application program interfaces Functional specifications Representation models Interchange formats, encodings and their specifications, including metafiles Device interfaces Testing methods Registration procedures Presentation and support for creation of multimedia, hypermedia, and mixed reality documents Excluded are the following areas: Character and image coding Coding of multimedia, hypermedia, and mixed reality document interchange formats JTC 1 work in user system interfaces and document presentation ISO/TC 207 work on ISO 14000 environment management, ISO/TC 211 work on geographic information and geomatics Software environments as described by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 == Structure == ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 is made up of four active working groups, each of which carries out specific tasks in standards development within the field of computer graphics, image processing and environmental data representation, together with ITU-T Study Group 16. As a response to changing standardization needs, working groups of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 can be disbanded if their area of work is no longer applicable, or established if new working areas arise. The focus of each working group is described in the group's terms of reference. Active working groups of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 are: == Collaborations == ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 works in close collaboration with a number of other organizations or subcommittees, both internal and external to ISO or IEC, in order to avoid conflicting or duplicative work. Organizations internal to ISO or IEC that collaborate with or are in liaison to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 include: ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 7, Sensor Networks ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29, Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32, Data management and interchange ISO/TAG 14, Imagery and technology ISO/TC 130, Graphic Technology ISO/TC 184/SC 4, Industrial data ISO/TC 211, Geographic information/Geomatics ISO/TC 215, Health informatics IEC TC 100, Audio, video and multimedia system and equipment Some organizations external to ISO or IEC that collaborate with or are in liaison to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 include: Defence Geospatial Information Working Group (DGIWG) Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) The Khronos Group NATO - Joint Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Capability Group (JISRCG) OMG Robotics DTF Open CGM Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) SEDRIS Organization Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) US National Imagery Transmission Format Standard (NITFS) Technical Board (US NTB) Web3D Consortium World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) == Member countries == Countries pay a fee to ISO to be members of subcommittees. The 11 "P" (participating) members of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 are: Australia, China, Egypt, France, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Portugal, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, and United States. The 22 "O" (observer) members of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 are: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czech Republic, Finland, Ghana, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Thailand. == Published standards == ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 currently has 80 published standards under their direct responsibility within the field of computer graphics, image processing, and environmental data representation, including:
Secure environment
In computing, a secure environment is any system which implements the controlled storage and use of information. In the event of computing data loss, a secure environment is used to protect personal or confidential data. It may also be known as a trusted execution environment (TEE). Often, secure environments employ cryptography as a means to protect information. This is typically used for processing confidential or restricted information. Some secure environments employ cryptographic hashing, simply to verify that the information has not been altered since it was last modified.
Zolostays
Zolostays is a real-tech co-living focused startup that provides ready-to-move rooms/beds. It was founded in 2015 by Nikhil Sikri, Akhil Sikri and Sneha Choudhry. == Overview == During the pandemic, Zolo provided 75 of rent-free accommodation to those who lost their jobs. Zolo uses bulk inventory in usually residential township and ties up with real estate companies to make the rooms/beds available. Zolostays has both revenue sharing and leased model. == History == Zolostays was founded in 2015 to solve the problem of students and young professionals who would move to temporarily go to other cities to study and work and look for affordable housing. In 2020, it was operating in 10 Indian cities. It has four round of funding, with total $98 million.