Headquartered in Tel Aviv Cortica utilizes unsupervised learning methods to recognize and analyze digital images and video. The technology developed by the Cortica team is based on research of the function of the human brain. == Company Founding == Cortica was founded in 2007 by Igal Raichelgauz, Karina Odinaev and Yehoshua Zeevi. Together, the founders developed the company’s core technology while at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. By combining discoveries in neuroscience with developments in computer programming, the team created technology that possesses the ability to interpret large amounts of visual data with increased accuracy. This technology, called Image2Text, is based on the founders’ work in digitally replicating cortical neural networks’ ability to identify complex patterns within massive quantities of ambiguous and noisy data. Cortica’s offerings have application in the automotive industry, media industries, as well as the smart city and medical industries. Industry experts suggest that the self-driving automotive industry alone will be worth upwards of $7 trillion while each connected car is expected to generate 4,000 GB of data per day. Beyond that, industry analysts expect the proliferation of surveillance cameras to continue leading to an expected 2,500 Petabytes of data being generated daily by new surveillance cameras. Cortica operates in these high scale industries. The company currently employs professionals from many domains including AI researchers as well as veterans of intelligence units within the Israeli Defense Forces. == Research and Technology == In 2006, Founders Raichelgauz, Odinaev, and Zeevi shared their findings with the 28th IEEE EMBS Annual International Conference in New York in a paper titled, “Natural Signal Classification by Neural Cliques and Phase-Locked Attractors”. That same year, the team also published “Cliques in Neural Ensembles as Perception Carriers" CB Insights recently identified Cortica as the number one patent holder among AI companies. Cortica is researching to develop a machine-learning driving system which can identify objects and pedestrians. Connecting to it, Elon Musk has been rumored to partner with Cortica for his electric car company, Tesla. However, Tesla denies it stating that Musk did not discuss a collaboration with artificial intelligence firm Cortica. == Funding == Cortica raised $7 million in its Series A funding round, announced in August 2012. Investors included Horizons Ventures (the investment firm of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing), and Ynon Kreiz, the former chairman and CEO of the Endemol Group. In May 2013, it was announced that Cortica had raised $1.5 million from Russian firm Mail.ru Group. It later transpired that this was a part of Cortica's Series B funding round for $6.4 million, announced in June 2013. The round was led by Horizons Ventures, with participation from the Russian firm Mail.ru Group and other angel investors. In its fourth funding round, Cortica has raised $20 million, bringing the total investments to $38 million. According to a report from The Israeli lead Daily economic newspaper, TheMarker, the fourth round was led by a strategic Chinese investor who will probably help the company expand into the Asian market. == Media coverage == GigaOm listed Cortica as one of the top deep learning startups in a November 2013 article surveying the field, along with AlchemyAPI, Ersatz, and Semantria. Business Insider ranked Cortica as one of the coolest tech companies in Israel. CB Insights has identified Cortica as the top patent holding AI company. In 2017 several leading automotive media outlets covered the launch of Cortica's automotive business unit
Proximal gradient methods for learning
Proximal gradient (forward backward splitting) methods for learning is an area of research in optimization and statistical learning theory which studies algorithms for a general class of convex regularization problems where the regularization penalty may not be differentiable. One such example is ℓ 1 {\displaystyle \ell _{1}} regularization (also known as Lasso) of the form min w ∈ R d 1 n ∑ i = 1 n ( y i − ⟨ w , x i ⟩ ) 2 + λ ‖ w ‖ 1 , where x i ∈ R d and y i ∈ R . {\displaystyle \min _{w\in \mathbb {R} ^{d}}{\frac {1}{n}}\sum _{i=1}^{n}(y_{i}-\langle w,x_{i}\rangle )^{2}+\lambda \|w\|_{1},\quad {\text{ where }}x_{i}\in \mathbb {R} ^{d}{\text{ and }}y_{i}\in \mathbb {R} .} Proximal gradient methods offer a general framework for solving regularization problems from statistical learning theory with penalties that are tailored to a specific problem application. Such customized penalties can help to induce certain structure in problem solutions, such as sparsity (in the case of lasso) or group structure (in the case of group lasso). == Relevant background == Proximal gradient methods are applicable in a wide variety of scenarios for solving convex optimization problems of the form min x ∈ H F ( x ) + R ( x ) , {\displaystyle \min _{x\in {\mathcal {H}}}F(x)+R(x),} where F {\displaystyle F} is convex and differentiable with Lipschitz continuous gradient, R {\displaystyle R} is a convex, lower semicontinuous function which is possibly nondifferentiable, and H {\displaystyle {\mathcal {H}}} is some set, typically a Hilbert space. The usual criterion of x {\displaystyle x} minimizes F ( x ) + R ( x ) {\displaystyle F(x)+R(x)} if and only if ∇ ( F + R ) ( x ) = 0 {\displaystyle \nabla (F+R)(x)=0} in the convex, differentiable setting is now replaced by 0 ∈ ∂ ( F + R ) ( x ) , {\displaystyle 0\in \partial (F+R)(x),} where ∂ φ {\displaystyle \partial \varphi } denotes the subdifferential of a real-valued, convex function φ {\displaystyle \varphi } . Given a convex function φ : H → R {\displaystyle \varphi :{\mathcal {H}}\to \mathbb {R} } an important operator to consider is its proximal operator prox φ : H → H {\displaystyle \operatorname {prox} _{\varphi }:{\mathcal {H}}\to {\mathcal {H}}} defined by prox φ ( u ) = arg min x ∈ H φ ( x ) + 1 2 ‖ u − x ‖ 2 2 , {\displaystyle \operatorname {prox} _{\varphi }(u)=\operatorname {arg} \min _{x\in {\mathcal {H}}}\varphi (x)+{\frac {1}{2}}\|u-x\|_{2}^{2},} which is well-defined because of the strict convexity of the ℓ 2 {\displaystyle \ell _{2}} norm. The proximal operator can be seen as a generalization of a projection. We see that the proximity operator is important because x ∗ {\displaystyle x^{}} is a minimizer to the problem min x ∈ H F ( x ) + R ( x ) {\displaystyle \min _{x\in {\mathcal {H}}}F(x)+R(x)} if and only if x ∗ = prox γ R ( x ∗ − γ ∇ F ( x ∗ ) ) , {\displaystyle x^{}=\operatorname {prox} _{\gamma R}\left(x^{}-\gamma \nabla F(x^{})\right),} where γ > 0 {\displaystyle \gamma >0} is any positive real number. === Moreau decomposition === One important technique related to proximal gradient methods is the Moreau decomposition, which decomposes the identity operator as the sum of two proximity operators. Namely, let φ : X → R {\displaystyle \varphi :{\mathcal {X}}\to \mathbb {R} } be a lower semicontinuous, convex function on a vector space X {\displaystyle {\mathcal {X}}} . We define its Fenchel conjugate φ ∗ : X → R {\displaystyle \varphi ^{}:{\mathcal {X}}\to \mathbb {R} } to be the function φ ∗ ( u ) := sup x ∈ X ⟨ x , u ⟩ − φ ( x ) . {\displaystyle \varphi ^{}(u):=\sup _{x\in {\mathcal {X}}}\langle x,u\rangle -\varphi (x).} The general form of Moreau's decomposition states that for any x ∈ X {\displaystyle x\in {\mathcal {X}}} and any γ > 0 {\displaystyle \gamma >0} that x = prox γ φ ( x ) + γ prox φ ∗ / γ ( x / γ ) , {\displaystyle x=\operatorname {prox} _{\gamma \varphi }(x)+\gamma \operatorname {prox} _{\varphi ^{}/\gamma }(x/\gamma ),} which for γ = 1 {\displaystyle \gamma =1} implies that x = prox φ ( x ) + prox φ ∗ ( x ) {\displaystyle x=\operatorname {prox} _{\varphi }(x)+\operatorname {prox} _{\varphi ^{}}(x)} . The Moreau decomposition can be seen to be a generalization of the usual orthogonal decomposition of a vector space, analogous with the fact that proximity operators are generalizations of projections. In certain situations it may be easier to compute the proximity operator for the conjugate φ ∗ {\displaystyle \varphi ^{}} instead of the function φ {\displaystyle \varphi } , and therefore the Moreau decomposition can be applied. This is the case for group lasso. == Lasso regularization == Consider the regularized empirical risk minimization problem with square loss and with the ℓ 1 {\displaystyle \ell _{1}} norm as the regularization penalty: min w ∈ R d 1 n ∑ i = 1 n ( y i − ⟨ w , x i ⟩ ) 2 + λ ‖ w ‖ 1 , {\displaystyle \min _{w\in \mathbb {R} ^{d}}{\frac {1}{n}}\sum _{i=1}^{n}(y_{i}-\langle w,x_{i}\rangle )^{2}+\lambda \|w\|_{1},} where x i ∈ R d and y i ∈ R . {\displaystyle x_{i}\in \mathbb {R} ^{d}{\text{ and }}y_{i}\in \mathbb {R} .} The ℓ 1 {\displaystyle \ell _{1}} regularization problem is sometimes referred to as lasso (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator). Such ℓ 1 {\displaystyle \ell _{1}} regularization problems are interesting because they induce sparse solutions, that is, solutions w {\displaystyle w} to the minimization problem have relatively few nonzero components. Lasso can be seen to be a convex relaxation of the non-convex problem min w ∈ R d 1 n ∑ i = 1 n ( y i − ⟨ w , x i ⟩ ) 2 + λ ‖ w ‖ 0 , {\displaystyle \min _{w\in \mathbb {R} ^{d}}{\frac {1}{n}}\sum _{i=1}^{n}(y_{i}-\langle w,x_{i}\rangle )^{2}+\lambda \|w\|_{0},} where ‖ w ‖ 0 {\displaystyle \|w\|_{0}} denotes the ℓ 0 {\displaystyle \ell _{0}} "norm", which is the number of nonzero entries of the vector w {\displaystyle w} . Sparse solutions are of particular interest in learning theory for interpretability of results: a sparse solution can identify a small number of important factors. === Solving for L1 proximity operator === For simplicity we restrict our attention to the problem where λ = 1 {\displaystyle \lambda =1} . To solve the problem min w ∈ R d 1 n ∑ i = 1 n ( y i − ⟨ w , x i ⟩ ) 2 + ‖ w ‖ 1 , {\displaystyle \min _{w\in \mathbb {R} ^{d}}{\frac {1}{n}}\sum _{i=1}^{n}(y_{i}-\langle w,x_{i}\rangle )^{2}+\|w\|_{1},} we consider our objective function in two parts: a convex, differentiable term F ( w ) = 1 n ∑ i = 1 n ( y i − ⟨ w , x i ⟩ ) 2 {\displaystyle F(w)={\frac {1}{n}}\sum _{i=1}^{n}(y_{i}-\langle w,x_{i}\rangle )^{2}} and a convex function R ( w ) = ‖ w ‖ 1 {\displaystyle R(w)=\|w\|_{1}} . Note that R {\displaystyle R} is not strictly convex. Let us compute the proximity operator for R ( w ) {\displaystyle R(w)} . First we find an alternative characterization of the proximity operator prox R ( x ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {prox} _{R}(x)} as follows: u = prox R ( x ) ⟺ 0 ∈ ∂ ( R ( u ) + 1 2 ‖ u − x ‖ 2 2 ) ⟺ 0 ∈ ∂ R ( u ) + u − x ⟺ x − u ∈ ∂ R ( u ) . {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}u=\operatorname {prox} _{R}(x)\iff &0\in \partial \left(R(u)+{\frac {1}{2}}\|u-x\|_{2}^{2}\right)\\\iff &0\in \partial R(u)+u-x\\\iff &x-u\in \partial R(u).\end{aligned}}} For R ( w ) = ‖ w ‖ 1 {\displaystyle R(w)=\|w\|_{1}} it is easy to compute ∂ R ( w ) {\displaystyle \partial R(w)} : the i {\displaystyle i} th entry of ∂ R ( w ) {\displaystyle \partial R(w)} is precisely ∂ | w i | = { 1 , w i > 0 − 1 , w i < 0 [ − 1 , 1 ] , w i = 0. {\displaystyle \partial |w_{i}|={\begin{cases}1,&w_{i}>0\\-1,&w_{i}<0\\\left[-1,1\right],&w_{i}=0.\end{cases}}} Using the recharacterization of the proximity operator given above, for the choice of R ( w ) = ‖ w ‖ 1 {\displaystyle R(w)=\|w\|_{1}} and γ > 0 {\displaystyle \gamma >0} we have that prox γ R ( x ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {prox} _{\gamma R}(x)} is defined entrywise by ( prox γ R ( x ) ) i = { x i − γ , x i > γ 0 , | x i | ≤ γ x i + γ , x i < − γ , {\displaystyle \left(\operatorname {prox} _{\gamma R}(x)\right)_{i}={\begin{cases}x_{i}-\gamma ,&x_{i}>\gamma \\0,&|x_{i}|\leq \gamma \\x_{i}+\gamma ,&x_{i}<-\gamma ,\end{cases}}} which is known as the soft thresholding operator S γ ( x ) = prox γ ‖ ⋅ ‖ 1 ( x ) {\displaystyle S_{\gamma }(x)=\operatorname {prox} _{\gamma \|\cdot \|_{1}}(x)} . === Fixed point iterative schemes === To finally solve the lasso problem we consider the fixed point equation shown earlier: x ∗ = prox γ R ( x ∗ − γ ∇ F ( x ∗ ) ) . {\displaystyle x^{}=\operatorname {prox} _{\gamma R}\left(x^{}-\gamma \nabla F(x^{})\right).} Given that we have computed the form of the proximity operator explicitly, then we can define a standard fixed point iteration procedure. Namely, fix some initial w 0 ∈ R d {\displaystyle w^{0}\in \mathbb {R} ^{d}} , and for k = 1 , 2 , … {\displaystyle k=1,2,\ldots } define w k + 1 = S γ ( w k − γ ∇ F ( w k ) ) . {\displaystyle w^{k+1}=S_{\gamma }\left(w^{k}-\gamma \nabla F\l
TRAME
TRAME (TRAnsmission of MEssages) was the name of the second computer network in the world similar to the internet to be used in an electric utility. Like the internet, the base technology was packet switching; it was developed by the electric utility ENHER in Barcelona. It was deployed by the same utility, first in Catalonia and Aragón, Spain, and later in other places. Its development started in 1974 and the first routers, called nodes at that time, were deployed by 1978. The network was in operation until 2016 (38 years) with successive technological software and hardware updates. == Beginnings == In 1974, packet switching was a technology known only in research circles. The concept began in 1968 in association with the United States' Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) research project ARPANET. The idea of applying the packet switching concept to electric utilities control communication networks first appeared in 1974 when the Swedish power utility Vattenfall started to create its TIDAS packet-switching network and was followed by the Spanish electric utility ENHER, which aimed to telecontrol and automate its high-voltage power grid. For this purpose, ENHER created a specific team of people to develop both the packet-switching network and the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, also called the telecontrol system. By 1978 the first four TRAME routers were available and by 1980, eight of them were deployed and operating. The printed circuit boards (PCBs) controlling the communication lines were connected to a shared memory PCB allowing them to exchange data and messages. The project was developed together with its main initial application, the Telecontrol or SCADA system SICL (Sistema Integral de Control Local) with which initially they shared a very similar hardware. The maximum link capacity was 9600 bit/s, which in 1980 was the maximum possible on a 4 kHz wide voice channel at the time. These channels were the basic unit of the then-analog communication systems in use. By that time power utilities used either telephone calls or low speed (below 1200bit/s) dedicated links for telecontrol, typically shared among ten high-voltage electrical substations. == Services == The basic service provided by the TRAME network was SCADA or Telecontrol to automate the high-voltage power grid, thus improving operational efficiency, which was until then operated manually with telephone communication between human operators. Each TRAME router was associated with one or more remote terminal units (RTUs) of the SICL telecontrol system. It also had connected screens, and later PCs, located in electrical substations to interchange messages between them and with the Control Center located in the well-known Casa Fuster in Barcelona. It was a kind of predecessor to today's e-mail. Later, in the 1990s, other protocols (X.25, IP) were developed to include corporate information technology (IT) terminals, company physical surveillance systems and other services. Additionally, applications and terminals were developed for the transmission of voice and video over the TRAME network. == Protocols == The TRAME routing system, like that of the original ARPANET, was based on the Bellman-Ford algorithm but with "split-horizon" as in the Swedish TIDAS network, but with an original improvement. This protocol allows optimal paths to be found in meshed networks for each packet to be transmitted, allowing the shared use of the same network by multiple services. In contrast, traditional circuit-switched technology used to establish dedicated circuits for each service or communication. The addressing of routers and terminals used a proprietary system with a 16-bit address; it would be the equivalent of the well-known IP (Internet Protocol) version 4 (IPv4), still in use on the internet today, which uses 32-bit addresses. It is necessary to take into account that in 1978, the IPv4 protocol did not yet exist since the IPv4 version used on the internet did not appear until 1981, and in fact, did not reach the general public until much later. The line protocols were also proprietary and were called UCL (Unidad de Control de Línea, 'line control unit'), which linked the routers together, and UTR (Unión TRAME-Remotas), the access protocol. They were designed to offer the highest quality of service required by the telecontrol/SCADA function in terms of data integrity and availability set by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) IEC-870-5-1 and ANSI C37.1. standards, and because the protocol used at the time in corporate computer networks, HDLC (high-level data link control), did not offer enough quality for critical industrial applications. Later on, other protocols like X.25 and IP were also made compatible with the aforementioned TRAME protocols. In 2000, the UTR protocol was replaced by the international standard IEC 60870- 5-101/104. Initially network flow control was based on the management of eight data priorities in head-of-the-line (HOL) waiting queues. Later and after some experimentation, a flow control method based on a bit indicating route congestion and management of the gap between packets when accessing the network was adopted. This required measuring the capacity of the route bottleneck. An end-to-end protocol was also added for some flows requiring order preservation like X.25. == Evolution == To last for 38 years, the technology had to endure intense evolution. There were essentially four TRAME generations which are summarized in the table. A description of the four generations of TRAME is provided below. === TRAME 1 === The project began in 1974 and in 1978 a first network with four routers was already installed and in operation at the electric utility ENHER. In 1980, the network had eight nodes in operation (see Figure I). The hardware was based on the Zilog Z80 processor and had a multiprocessor structure with 16 processors sharing a common memory. The software was developed at ENHER's headquarters located in the well-known Casa Fuster, Passeig de Gràcia, 132, Barcelona, using the Z80 assembly language. Beyond 1980 the software began to be written in C programming language and an HP64000 Logic Development System emulator was used for the purpose. The hardware was produced by ISEL, an INI (Instituto Nacional de Indústria) company. The routing system was a variant of Bellman-Ford with split-horizon. It was an improvement of the original ARPA network routing system consisting of an original update procedure which allowed for a faster reaction to changes. The distance function was the number of packets in the output waiting queues plus one. The line protocols (UCL for internal lines linking routers and UTR for accessing the network) were designed to meet the stringent requirements set for telecontrol (SCADA) of high-voltage power networks (IEC-870-5-1 and ANSI C37.1 standards). At the OSI transport layer, windows with a width of 1 to 8, depending on the required service, residing in the terminals were used. Initially, addresses were only 14 bits long to address both the routers (called nodes by then) and the devices connected to them. They were made up of two fields, an 8-bit field to address the router and a 6-bit sub-address to address the terminals connected to it. The node address was assigned to the nodes and not to the ends of the links as in the internet. The basic advantages of TRAME over other technologies used in electric utilities at the time were in part due to the packet technology itself: ability to manage any network topology, automatic adaptability to topological and traffic changes, integration of different link technologies (digital or analog) and capacities in a single network, open and decentralized intercommunicability between users and devices, simultaneous communication with several users and locations from a single physical connection, and integrated network supervision. In fact, the network was provided from its inception with a supervision center consisting of a computer and a synoptic board located at the company's headquarters (see Figure II). But other advantages were due to the specific design of TRAME: high data integrity, priority support for packets, and ease of including special protocols such as the many SCADA protocols in use at that time. All of the above resulted in improved quality of service, especially with respect to data availability and data integrity, and in the integration of services in a single network. Part of the evolution of its deployment can be seen in Figures II to IV. === TRAME 2 === In 1990, TRAME 2 was fully deployed and TRAME 1 was replaced. The processor of the new hardware was Intel 80286 and the hardware structure and external appearance of the routers was very similar to that of TRAME 1. The software was written in C and the above-mentioned emulator continued to be used. Improvements over TRAME 1 were the introduction of the standardized X.25 access protocol
Instagram egg
The Instagram egg is a photo of an egg posted by the account @world_record_egg on the social media platform Instagram. It became a global phenomenon and an internet meme within days of its publication on 4 January 2019. It is the second most-liked Instagram post and was the most-liked Instagram post from 14 January 2019 until 20 December 2022, when it was overtaken by Lionel Messi's post showing him and his teammates celebrating after Argentina won the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The owner of the account was revealed to be Chris Godfrey, a British advertising creative, who later worked with his two friends Alissa Khan-Whelan and CJ Brown on a Hulu commercial featuring the egg, intended to raise mental health awareness. == Background == The photo was originally taken by Serghei Platanov, who then posted it to Shutterstock on 23 June 2015 with the title "eggs isolated on white background". == History == On 4 January 2019, the @world_record_egg account was created, and posted an image of a bird egg with the caption, "Let's set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this." Jenner's previous record, the first photo of her daughter Stormi, had garnered a total of 18.4 million likes. The post quickly reached 18.4 million likes in just under 10 days, becoming the most-liked Instagram post at the time. It then continued to rise over 45 million likes in the next 48 hours, surpassing the "Despacito" music video and taking the world record for the most-liked online post (on any media platform) in history. After the account became verified on 14 January 2019, the post rose in popularity and likes, which snowballed into coverage in various media outlets. By 18 March 2019, the post had accumulated over 53.3 million likes, nearly three times the previous record of 18.4 million. It posted frequent updates for a few days in the form of Instagram Stories. Alongside the like tally, as of January 2023 the post has 3.8 million comments. Several individuals tried to claim that they were the account's creator, the claims being dismissed by "the egg" on Instagram direct messages. On 3 February 2019, the creator of the Instagram egg was revealed by Hulu and The New York Times to be Chris Godfrey, a British advertising creative. Alissa Khan-Whelan, his colleague, was also outed. On 18 January 2019, the account posted a second picture of an egg, almost identical to the first one apart from a small crack at the top left. As of 25 February 2019, the post accumulated 11.8 million likes. On 22 January 2019, the account posted a third picture of an egg, this time having two larger cracks. In less than 25 minutes, the post accumulated 1 million likes, and by 25 February 2019, it had accumulated 9.5 million likes. On 29 January 2019, a fourth picture of an egg was posted to the account which has another large crack on the right hand side, attracting 7.6 million likes by 25 February 2019. On 1 February 2019, a fifth picture of an egg was posted with stitching like that of a football, referencing the upcoming Super Bowl. That post had accumulated 6.5 million likes by 25 February 2019. The account promised that it would reveal what was inside the egg on 3 February, on the subscription video on demand service Hulu. The Hulu Instagram egg reveal was used to promote an animation about a mental health campaign. A caption from the clip read, "Recently I've started to crack, the pressure of social media is getting to me. If you're struggling too, talk to someone." The video was later posted on the @world_record_egg Instagram account, and this post received over 33 million views by May 2019. As of May 2020, it had received over 41 million views. On 16 July 2019, Chris Godfrey (the creator of the account) was listed as one of the top 25 most influential people on the internet. On 20 December 2022, the record for the most-liked Instagram post was surpassed by a post from Argentine footballer Lionel Messi, showing him and his teammates celebrating after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup with their national team. The world record egg responded to being overtaken in likes by Messi with "Today [Lionel Messi] has taken the crown, for now. But I'm still left with one question… Who is the greatest of all time – Cristiano Ronaldo or Leo Messi?" The account sold to Dubai-based investor Mustafa El Fishawy in April 2024 for an undisclosed seven-figure sum. Reed Smith, who advised Godfrey, Brown, and Khan-Whelan in the transaction, stated they opted to sell it to "focus on new ventures." On 3 June, @world_record_egg posted an egg with the flag of Palestine in support of the country during the Gaza war; the post's caption described it as an "Egg for Peace" and hoped to "set a new world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram for a good cause." == Reception == In response to breaking the world record for the most-liked Instagram post, the account's owner wrote "This is madness. What a time to be alive." Hours later, Jenner posted a video on Instagram of her cracking open an egg and pouring its yolk onto the ground, with the caption: "Take that little egg." Pundits pontificated on the meaning of the egg picture's dominance over social media's "first family". As Vogue observed, tapping a heart pictogram is easy, and eggs are "lovable". More pointedly: [T]he attention economy is a scam based on requiring little to no labor from both producer and consumer despite commanding the most space, and therefore value, in our digital lives... but it very well could be: As a metaphor for the fragility of the influencer ecosystem, the egg has broken the Internet. The significance of the event and its massive republishing are a topic of discussion. A University of Westminster researcher of internet memes compared it to the movement to name a scientific research vessel in the United Kingdom as Boaty McBoatface. The Instagrammer's success is a rare victory for the unpaid viral campaign on social media. "There is a bit of an anti-celebrity revolt here – 'look what we can do with a simple egg'" The researcher suggests that the accomplishment of becoming such a widely heralded unpaid viral post may become increasingly rare, as social networks rely more on paid and business promotion. The post's spread has been characterized as a populist backlash against "consumerism" and is seen by some as a triumph of community over celebrity. However, propelled by their popular success, the creators promised to release 'egg-centric' memorabilia. Hundreds of games based on the Instagram egg have appeared on Apple's App Store. The creators of the Instagram egg also reached a deal to promote Hulu.
Content inventory
A content inventory is the process and the result of cataloging the entire contents of a website. An allied practice—a content audit—is the process of evaluating that content. A content inventory and a content audit are closely related concepts, and they are often conducted in tandem. == Description == A content inventory typically includes all information assets on a website, such as web pages (HTML), meta elements (e.g., keywords, description, page title), images, audio and video files, and document files (e.g., .pdf, .doc, .ppt). A content inventory is a quantitative analysis of a website. It simply logs what is on a website. The content inventory will answer the question: “What is there?” and can be the start of a website review. A related (and sometimes confused term) is a content audit, a qualitative analysis of information assets on a website. It is the assessment of that content and its place in relationship to surrounding Web pages and information assets. The content audit will answer the question: “Is it any good?” Over the years, techniques for creating and managing a content inventory have been developed and refined in the field of website content management. A spreadsheet application (e.g., Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc) is the preferred tool for keeping a content inventory; the data can be easily configured and manipulated. Typical categories in a content inventory include the following: Link — The URL for the page Format — For example, .HTML, .pdf, .doc, .ppt Meta page title — Page title as it appears in the meta
Application performance engineering
Application performance engineering is a method to develop and test application performance in various settings, including mobile computing, the cloud, and conventional information technology (IT). == Methodology == According to the American National Institute of Standards and Technology, nearly four out of every five dollars spent on the total cost of ownership of an application is directly attributable to finding and fixing issues post-deployment. A full one-third of this cost could be avoided with better software testing. Application performance engineering attempts to test software before it is published. While practices vary among organizations, the method attempts to emulate the real-world conditions that software in development will confront, including network deployment and access by mobile devices. Techniques include network virtualization.
Data exchange
Data exchange is the process of moving data from one information system to another. It often involves transforming data that is native to the source system into a form that is consumable by the target system or to a standardized form that is consumable by any compatible system. In particular, data exchange allows data to be shared between computer programs. Data exchange is similar to data integration except that data may be restructured with possible loss of content. There may be no way to transform a particular collection based on exchange constraints. Conversely, there may be multiple ways to transform the data, in which case one option must be identified in order to achieve compatibility between source and target. There are two main types of data exchange: broadcast and peer-to-peer (a.k.a. unicast). For broadcast, data is transmitted simultaneously to all consumers. Just as a conference call, all participants get the same information from the speaker at the same time. For peer-to-peer, data is sent to a single receiver, defined by a specific address. For example, a letter goes to just one mail box. == Single-domain == In some domains, a multiple source and target schema (proprietary data formats) may exist. An exchange or interchange format is often developed for a single domain, and then necessary routines (mappings) are written to (indirectly) transform/translate each and every source schema to each and every target schema by using the interchange format as an intermediate step. That requires less work than writing and debugging the many routines that would be required to directly translate each source schema directly to each target schema. Examples of these transformative interchange formats include: Standard Interchange Format for geospatial data; Data Interchange Format for spreadsheet data; Open Document Format for spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents; GPS eXchange Format or Keyhole Markup Language for describing GPS data; GDSII for integrated circuit layout. == Representation == A data exchange (a.k.a. interchange) language defines a domain-independent way to represent data. These languages have evolved from being markup and display-oriented to support the encoding of metadata that describes the structural attributes of the information. Practice has shown that certain types of formal languages are better suited for this task than others, since their specification is driven by a formal process instead of particular software implementation. For example, XML is a markup language that was designed to enable the creation of dialects (the definition of domain-specific sublanguages). However, it does not contain domain-specific dictionaries or fact types. Beneficial to a reliable data exchange is the availability of standard dictionaries-taxonomies and tools libraries such as parsers, schema validators, and transformation tools. === XML === The popularity of XML for data exchange on the World Wide Web has several reasons. First of all, it is closely related to the preexisting standards Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and as such a parser written to support these two languages can be easily extended to support XML as well. For example, XHTML has been defined as a format that is formal XML, but understood correctly by most (if not all) HTML parsers. === YAML === YAML was designed to be human-readable and authored via a text editor with notion similar to reStructuredText and wiki syntax. YAML 1.2 also includes a shorthand notion that is compatible with JSON, and as such any JSON document is also valid YAML; this however does not hold the other way. === REBOL === REBOL was designed to be human-readable and authored via a text editor. It uses a simple free-form syntax with minimal punctuation and a rich set of data types (such as URL, email, date and time, tuple, string, tag) that respect common standards. It is designed to not need any additional meta-language, being designed in a metacircular fashion which is why the parse dialect used for definitions and transformations of REBOL dialects is also itself a dialect of REBOL. REBOL was used as a source of inspiration for JSON. === Gellish === Gellish English is a formalized subset of natural English (language), which includes a simple grammar and a large, extensible dictionary (taxonomy) that defines the general and domain specific terminology, whereas the concepts are arranged in a hierarchy, which supports inheritance of knowledge and requirements. The dictionary also includes standardized fact types. The terms and relation types together can be used to create and interpret expressions of facts, knowledge, requirements and other information. Gellish can be used in combination with SQL, RDF/XML, OWL and various other meta-languages. The Gellish standard is a combination of ISO 10303-221 (AP221) and ISO 15926. === List === The following describes and compares popular data exchange languages. Columns Schemas – Whether supports representing domain specific data structure definition Flexible – Whether supports extension of the semantic expression capabilities without modifying the schema Semantic verification – Whether supports semantic verification of the correctness of expressions in the language Dictionary – Whether includes a dictionary and a taxonomy (hierarchy) of concepts with inheritance Information model – Whether supports an information model Synonyms and homonyms – Whether supports the use of synonyms and homonyms in expressions Dialecting – Whether is available in multiple natural languages or dialects Web standard – Whether is standardized by a recognized body Transformations – Whether includes a translation to other standards Lightweight – Whether a lightweight version is available Human readable – Whether expressions are understandable without training Compatibility – Which other tools can be used or are required