A data processing unit (DPU) is a programmable computer processor that tightly integrates a general-purpose CPU with network interface hardware. They are also occasionally called "IPUs" (infrastructure processing unit) or "SmartNICs". They can be used in place of traditional NICs to relieve the main CPU of complex networking responsibilities and other "infrastructural" duties; although their features vary, they may be used to perform encryption/decryption, serve as a firewall, handle TCP/IP, process HTTP requests, or even function as a hypervisor or storage controller. These devices can be attractive to cloud computing providers whose servers might otherwise spend a significant amount of CPU time on these tasks, cutting into the cycles they can provide to guests. They see use in other kinds of data center environments as well due to their improved power consumption efficiency for routine networking tasks compared to general-purpose CPUs.
Personality computing
Personality computing is a research field related to artificial intelligence and personality psychology that studies personality by means of computational techniques from different sources, including text, multimedia, and social networks. == Overview == Personality computing addresses three main problems involving personality: automatic personality recognition, perception, and synthesis. Automatic personality recognition is the inference of the personality type of target individuals from their digital footprint. Automatic personality perception is the inference of the personality attributed by an observer to a target individual based on some observable behavior. Automatic personality synthesis is the generation of the style or behaviour of artificial personalities in Avatars and virtual agents. Self-assessed personality tests or observer ratings are always exploited as the ground truth for testing and validating the performance of artificial intelligence algorithms for the automatic prediction of personality types. There is a wide variety of personality tests, such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the MMPI, but the most used are tests based on the Five Factor Model such as the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Personality computing can be considered as an extension or complement of Affective computing, where the former focuses on personality traits and the latter on affective states. A further extension of the two fields is Character Computing which combines various character states and traits including but not limited to personality and affect. == History == Personality computing began around 2005 with the pioneering research in personality recognition by Shlomo Argamon and later by François Mairesse. These works showed that personality traits could be inferred with reasonable accuracy from text, such as blogs, self-presentations, and email addresses. In 2008, the concept of "portable personality" for the distributed management of personality profiles has been developed. A few years later, research began in personality recognition and perception from multimodal and social signals, such as recorded meetings and voice calls. In the 2010s, the research focused mainly on personality recognition and perception from social media, helped by the first workshops organized by Fabio Celli. In particular personality was extracted from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In the same years, automatic personality synthesis helped improve the coherence of simulated behavior in virtual agents. Scientific works by Michal Kosinski demonstrated the validity of Personality Computing from different digital footprints, in particular from user preferences such as Facebook page likes, showed that machines can recognize personality better than humans and raised a warning against Cambridge Analytica and misuse of this kind of technology. == Applications == Personality computing techniques, in particular personality recognition and perception, have applications in Social media marketing, where they can help reducing the cost of advertising campaigns through psychological targeting.
Web API
A web API is an application programming interface (API) for either a web server or a web browser. As a web development concept, it can be related to a web application's client side (including any web frameworks being used). A server-side web API consists of one or more publicly exposed endpoints to a defined request–response message system, typically expressed in JSON or XML by means of an HTTP-based web server. A server API (SAPI) is not considered a server-side web API, unless it is publicly accessible by a remote web application. == Client side == A client-side web API is a programmatic interface to extend functionality within a web browser or other HTTP client. Originally these were most commonly in the form of native plug-in browser extensions however most newer ones target standardized JavaScript bindings. The Mozilla Foundation created their WebAPI specification which is designed to help replace native mobile applications with HTML5 applications. Google created their Native Client architecture which is designed to help replace insecure native plug-ins with secure native sandboxed extensions and applications. They have also made this portable by employing a modified LLVM AOT compiler. == Server side == A server-side web API consists of one or more publicly exposed endpoints to a defined request–response message system, typically expressed in JSON or XML. The web API is exposed most commonly by means of an HTTP-based web server. Mashups are web applications which combine the use of multiple server-side web APIs. Webhooks are server-side web APIs that take input as a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that is designed to be used like a remote named pipe or a type of callback such that the server acts as a client to dereference the provided URI and trigger an event on another server which handles this event thus providing a type of peer-to-peer IPC. === Endpoints === Endpoints are important aspects of interacting with server-side web APIs, as they specify where resources can be accessed by third-party software. Usually the access is via a URI to which HTTP requests are posted, and from which the response is thus expected. Web APIs may be public or private, the latter of which requires an access token. Endpoints need to be static, otherwise the correct functioning of software that interacts with them cannot be guaranteed. If the location of a resource changes (and with it the endpoint) then previously written software will break, as the required resource can no longer be found at the same place. As API providers still want to update their web APIs, many have introduced a versioning system in the URI that points to an endpoint. === Resources versus services === Web 2.0 Web APIs often use machine-based interactions such as REST and SOAP. RESTful web APIs use HTTP methods to access resources via URL-encoded parameters, and use JSON or XML to transmit data. By contrast, SOAP protocols are standardized by the W3C and mandate the use of XML as the payload format, typically over HTTP. Furthermore, SOAP-based Web APIs use XML validation to ensure structural message integrity, by leveraging the XML schemas provisioned with WSDL documents. A WSDL document accurately defines the XML messages and transport bindings of a Web service. === Documentation === Server-side web APIs are interfaces for the outside world to interact with the business logic. For many companies this internal business logic and the intellectual property associated with it are what distinguishes them from other companies, and potentially what gives them a competitive edge. They do not want this information to be exposed. However, in order to provide a web API of high quality, there needs to be a sufficient level of documentation. One API provider that not only provides documentation, but also links to it in its error messages is Twilio. However, there are now directories of popular documented server-side web APIs. === Growth and impact === The number of available web APIs has grown consistently over the past years, as businesses realize the growth opportunities associated with running an open platform, that any developer can interact with. ProgrammableWeb tracks over 24000 Web APIs that were available in 2022, up from 105 in 2005. Web APIs have become ubiquitous. There are few major software applications/services that do not offer some form of web API. One of the most common forms of interacting with these web APIs is via embedding external resources, such as tweets, Facebook comments, YouTube videos, etc. In fact there are very successful companies, such as Disqus, whose main service is to provide embeddable tools, such as a feature-rich comment system. Any website of the TOP 100 Alexa Internet ranked websites uses APIs and/or provides its own APIs, which is a very distinct indicator for the prodigious scale and impact of web APIs as a whole. As the number of available web APIs has grown, open source tools have been developed to provide more sophisticated search and discovery. APIs.json provides a machine-readable description of an API and its operations, and the related project APIs.io offers a searchable public listing of APIs based on the APIs.json metadata format. === Business === ==== Commercial ==== Many companies and organizations rely heavily on their Web API infrastructure to serve their core business clients. In 2014 Netflix received around 5 billion API requests, most of them within their private API. ==== Governmental ==== Many governments collect a lot of data, and some governments are now opening up access to this data. The interfaces through which this data is typically made accessible are web APIs. Web APIs allow for data, such as "budget, public works, crime, legal, and other agency data" to be accessed by any developer in a convenient manner. == Example == An example of a popular web API is the Astronomy Picture of the Day API operated by the American space agency NASA. It is a server-side API used to retrieve photographs of space or other images of interest to astronomers, and metadata about the images. According to the API documentation, the API has one endpoint: https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod The documentation states that this endpoint accepts GET requests. It requires one piece of information from the user, an API key, and accepts several other optional pieces of information. Such pieces of information are known as parameters. The parameters for this API are written in a format known as a query string, which is separated by a question mark character (?) from the endpoint. An ampersand (&) separates the parameters in the query string from each other. Together, the endpoint and the query string form a URL that determines how the API will respond. This URL is also known as a query or an API call. In the below example, two parameters are transmitted (or passed) to the API via the query string. The first is the required API key and the second is an optional parameter — the date of the photograph requested. https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod?api_key=DEMO_KEY&date=1996-12-03 Visiting the above URL in a web browser will initiate a GET request, calling the API and showing the user a result, known as a return value or as a return. This API returns JSON, a type of data format intended to be understood by computers, but which is somewhat easy for a human to read as well. In this case, the JSON contains information about a photograph of a white dwarf star: The above API return has been reformatted so that names of JSON data items, known as keys, appear at the start of each line. The last of these keys, named url, indicates a URL which points to a photograph: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/9612/ngc2440_hst2.jpg Following the above URL, a web browser user would see this photo: Although this API can be called by an end user with a web browser (as in this example) it is intended to be called automatically by software or by computer programmers while writing software. JSON is intended to be parsed by a computer program, which would extract the URL of the photograph and the other metadata. The resulting photo could be embedded in a website, automatically sent via text message, or used for any other purpose envisioned by a software developer.
Content strategy
Content strategy guides the planning, development, and management of content. It is a recognized field in user experience design, and it also draws from adjacent disciplines such as information architecture, content management, business analysis, digital marketing, and technical communication. == Definitions == Content strategy has been described as planning for "the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content." It has also been called "a repeatable system that defines the entire editorial content development process for a website development project." In a 2007 article titled "Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data," Rachel Lovinger describes the goal of content strategy as using "words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful, interactive experiences." Here, she also provided the analogy that "content strategy is to copywriting as information architecture is to design." She encourages content strategists and collaborators to engage in early discussions about content meaning, models, and tools, to make sure strategy is integrated from the start rather than as an afterthought. The Content Strategy Alliance combines Kevin Nichols' definition with Kristina Halvorson's and defines content strategy as "getting the right content to the right user at the right time through strategic planning of content creation, delivery, and governance." == Practitioners == Content strategists are often familiar with a wide range of approaches, techniques, and tools. The perspectives that content strategists bring also depend heavily on their professional training and education. For instance, some specialize in "front-end strategy," which includes developing personas, journey mapping the user experience, aligning business strategy and user needs, developing a brand strategy, exploring different channels, and creating style guidelines and search engine optimization (SEO) guidelines. Others specialize in "back-end strategy," which includes creating content models, planning taxonomies and metadata, structuring content management systems, and building systems to support content reuse. Both roles involve addressing workflow and governance issues. Many organizations and individuals tend to confuse content strategists with editors. However, content strategy is "about more than just the written word," according to Washington State University associate professor Brett Atwood. For example, Atwood indicates that a practitioner needs to also "consider how content might be re-distributed and/or re-purposed in other channels of delivery." It has also been proposed that the content strategist performs the role of a curator. Just as a museum curator sifts through a collection of content and identifies key pieces that can be juxtaposed against each other to create meaning and spur excitement, a content strategist "must approach a business’s content as a medium that needs to be strategically selected and placed to engage the audience, convey a message, and inspire action."
Microelectronics
Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-scale or smaller. These devices are typically made from semiconductor materials. Many components of a normal electronic design are available in a microelectronic equivalent. These include transistors, capacitors, inductors, resistors, diodes and (naturally) insulators and conductors can all be found in microelectronic devices. Unique wiring techniques such as wire bonding are also often used in microelectronics because of the unusually small size of the components, leads and pads. This technique requires specialized equipment and is expensive. Digital integrated circuits (ICs) consist of billions of transistors, resistors, diodes, and capacitors. Analog circuits commonly contain resistors and capacitors as well. Inductors are used in some high frequency analog circuits, but tend to occupy larger chip area due to their lower reactance at low frequencies. Gyrators can replace them in many applications. As techniques have improved, the scale of microelectronic components has continued to decrease. At smaller scales, the relative impact of intrinsic circuit properties, such as unintended interactions between components or their parts, may become more significant. These are called parasitic effects, and the goal of the microelectronics design engineer is to find ways to compensate for or to minimize these effects, while delivering smaller, faster, and cheaper devices. Today, microelectronics design is largely aided by electronic design automation (EDA) software.
NAPLPS
NAPLPS (North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax) is a graphics language for use originally with videotex and teletext services. NAPLPS was developed from the Telidon system developed in Canada, with a small number of additions from AT&T Corporation. The basics of NAPLPS were later used as the basis for several other microcomputer-based graphics systems. == History == The Canadian Communications Research Centre (CRC), based in Ottawa, had been working on various graphics systems since the late 1960s, much of it led by Herb Bown. Through the 1970s they turned their attention to building out a system of "picture description instructions", which encoded graphics commands as a text stream. Graphics were encoded as a series of instructions (graphics primitives) each represented by a single ASCII character. Graphic coordinates were encoded in multiple 6-bit strings of XY coordinate data, flagged to place them in the printable ASCII range so that they could be transmitted with conventional text transmission techniques. ASCII SI/SO characters were used to differentiate the text from graphic portions of a transmitted "page". These instructions were decoded by separate programs to produce graphics output, on a plotter for instance. Other work produced a fully interactive version. In 1975, the CRC gave a contract to Norpak to develop an interactive graphics terminal that could decode the instructions and display them on a color display. During this period, a number of companies were developing the first teletext systems, notably the BBC's Ceefax system. Ceefax encoded character data into the lines in the vertical blanking interval of normal television signals where they could not be seen on-screen, and then used a buffer and decoder in the user's television to convert these into "pages" of text on the display. The Independent Broadcasting Authority quickly introduced their own ORACLE system, and the two organizations subsequently agreed to use a single standard, the "Broadcast Teletext Specification". This later became World System Teletext. At about the same time, other organizations were developing videotex systems, similar to teletext except they used modems to transmit their data instead of television signals. This was potentially slower and used up a telephone line, but had the major advantage of allowing the user to transmit data back to the sender. The UK's General Post Office developed a system using the Ceefax/ORACLE standard, launching it as Prestel, while France prepared the first steps for its ultimately very successful Minitel system, using a rival display standard called Antiope. By 1977, the Norpak system was running, and from this work the CRC decided to create their own teletext/videotext system. Unlike the systems being rolled out in Europe, the CRC decided from the start that the system should be able to run on any combination of communications links. For instance, it could use the vertical blanking interval to send data to the user, and a modem to return selections to the servers. It could be used in a one-way or two-way system. In teletext mode, character codes were sent to users' televisions by encoding them as dot patterns in the vertical blanking interval of the video signal. Various technical "tweaks" and details of the NTSC signals used by North American televisions allowed the downstream videotex channel to increase to 600 bit/s, about twice that used in the European systems. In videotext mode, Bell 202 modems were typical, offering a 1,200 bit/s download rate. A set top box attached to the TV decoded these signals back into text and graphics pages, which the user could select among. The system was publicly launched as Telidon on August 15, 1978. Compared to the European standards, the CRC system was faster, bi-directional, and offered real graphics as opposed to simple character graphics. The downside of the system was that it required much more advanced decoders, typically featuring Zilog Z80 or Motorola 6809 processors with RGB and/or RF output. The Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (then Department of Communications) launched a four-year plan to fund public roll-outs of the technology in an effort to spur the development of a commercial Telidon system. AT&T Corporation was so impressed by Telidon that they decided to join the project. They added a number of useful extensions, notably the ability to define original graphics commands (macro) and character sets (DRCS). They also tabled algorithms for proportionally spaced text, which greatly improved the quality of the displayed pages. A joint CSA/ANSI working group (X3L2.1) revised the specifications, which were submitted for standardization. In 1983, they became CSA T500 and ANSI X3.110, or NAPLPS. The data encoding system was also standardized as the NABTS (North American Broadcast Teletext Specification) protocol. Business models for Telidon services were poorly developed. Unlike the UK, where teletext was supported by one of only two large companies whose whole revenue model was based on a read-only medium (television), in North America Telidon was being offered by companies who worked on a subscriber basis. == One-way systems == Telidon-based teletext was tested in a few North American trials in the early 1980s — CBC IRIS, TVOntario, MTS-sponsored Project IDA, to name a few. NAPLPS was also part of the NABTS teletext standard, for the encoding and display of teletext pages. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, affiliates of the regional sports network group SportsChannel ran a service called Sports Plus Network, which ran sports news and scores while SportsChannel was not otherwise on the air. The screens, which frequently featured team logos or likenesses of players in addition to text, were drawn entirely with NAPLPS graphics and resembled the loading of Prodigy pages over a modem, though slightly faster. == Two-way systems == Various two-way systems using NAPLPS appeared in North America in the early 1980s. The biggest North American examples were Knight Ridder's Viewtron (based in Miami) and the Los Angeles Times' Gateway service (based in Orange County). Both used the Sceptre NAPLPS terminal from AT&T. The Sceptre contained a slow modem that connected over the consumer's telephone line to host computers. The Sceptre was expensive whether purchased or rented. Despite huge investments by their parent companies, neither Viewtron nor Gateway lasted into the second half of the decade. Another system, Keyfax, was developed by Keycom Electronic Publishing, a joint venture of Honeywell, Centel (since acquired by Sprint) and Field Enterprises, then-owner of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. Keyfax had originally been a WST teletext service, broadcast overnights on Field's Chicago television station WFLD-32 and through the VBI of both WFLD and national superstation WTBS; the decision was made to convert Keyfax into a subscription service, using a proprietary NAPLPS terminal device in a last-ditch effort to save the service. It did not work and Keyfax had ceased operations by the end of 1986. Other early-1980s NAPLPS technology was deployed in Canada, both as a way for rural Canadians to get news and weather information and as the platform for touchscreen information kiosks. In Vancouver these were featured at Expo 86. The kiosks became ubiquitous in Toronto under the name Teleguide, and were deployed in many shopping centres and at major tourist attractions. The latter city was the North American nexus of NAPLPS and the home of Norpak, the most successful of NAPLPS-oriented developers. Norpak created and sold hardware and software for NAPLPS development and display. TVOntario also developed NAPLPS content creation software. London, Ontario - based Cableshare used NAPLPS as the basis of touch-screen information kiosks for shopping malls, the flagship of which was deployed at Toronto's Eaton Centre. The system relied on an 8085-based microcomputer which drove several NAPLPS terminals fitted with touch screens, all communicating via Datapac to a back end database. The system offered news, weather and sports information along with shopping mall guides and coupons. Cableshare also developed and sold a leading NAPLPS page creation utility called the "Picture Painter." In the late 1980s, Tribune Media Services (TMS) and the Associated Press operated a cable television channel called AP News Plus that provided NAPLPS-based news screens to cable television subscribers in many U.S. cities. The news pages were created and edited by TMS staffers working on an Atex editing system in Orlando, Florida, and sent by satellite to NAPLPS decoder devices located at the local cable television companies. Among the firms providing technology to TMS and the Associated Press for the AP News Plus channel was Minneapolis-based Electronic Publishers Inc. (1985–1988). In 1981, two amateur radio operators (VE3FTT and VE3GQW) received special permission from the Canad
Proximedia Group
Proximedia Group is a Belgian media group. == History == Proximedia Belgium was founded in 1998, by Fabrice Wuyts and Eric Glachant. The company specializes in providing websites for SMEs. The Proximedia Group SA was founded in 1999 and became the coordinating organization of Proximedia Belgium, Online, Bizbook Channel, Globule Bleu bvba, Click+, Proximedia France, Proximedia Nederland, and Proximedia Spain. The Proximedia Group has been listed at the Free Market of Euronext Brussels since 2005. In 2007, the Proximedia Group founded the Bizbook Channel. This branch specialized in creating corporate videos. In 2008, Proximedia SA took over the web agency Globule Bleu. The following year, Proximedia launched the brand BeUP. They were also elected ‘Enterprise of The Year 2009’ by Ernst & Young. Proximedia launched two new services in 2011: Videobiz and Promobook. In 2012, the Bizbook Channel was launched. Proximedia was acquired by Publicis Groupe S.A. in July 2014. == Branches == Proximedia Belgium: the oldest branch of the Proximedia Group. It makes websites and provides support for their customers. Similar branches are Proximedia France and Proximedia Nederland. Batibouw +: specialized in bringing contractors and clients together. Bizbook Channel: specialized in creating corporate videos for SMEs. Click+: offers the management of Google AdWords campaigns. This contains advertising in Google's search results. Globule Bleu: specialized in digital campaigns for larger companies or organisations. Online: an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that provides internet access, domain names, hosting of websites and data centers, email service, etc. Bizbook: an online guestbook where users can post reviews on products and services of a company. Promobook: an online service which can be used to print promotions and coupons. == Key figures == == Sale tactics and lawsuits == There are a lot of websites, forums and blogs that warn for Proximedia. This is because of the long duration of the contract, the inability to terminate the contract and the alleged aggressive approach of Proximedia and the alleged low quality of service that Proximedia offers. Also, there are a lot of lawsuits every month, some of which are customers that wish to terminate the contract, others that allege Proximedia of misguiding. List of some example lawsuits: Mitigation of contractual termination compensation on the basis of article 6:248 paragraph 2 of the Dutch Civil Code A clause on the basis of which a termination fee is claimed can be considered a penalty clause. Mitigation of the penalty based on article 6:94 of the Dutch Civil Code? Performance claim rejected; successful appeal to breach of contract; dissolution; restitution claim awarded. Agreement for IT services. Contents of the agreement. No reflex effect of the Door-to-Door Sales Act for small entrepreneurs. Implementation Act of the Consumer Rights Directive. Breach of contract? Unreasonably onerous clause? Cassation: ECLI:NL:HR:2016:996, (Partial) annulment with referral. Final judgment: ECLI:NL:GHSHE:2014:4228 Error. Reflex effect of the unfair commercial practices law? Compelling evidentiary force of written agreement. (No summary provided by court) Proximedia case. No valid defense against the claim concerning a number of monthly invoices. Article 7.1 of the agreement (containing a termination fee) is a general term in the sense of article 6:231 introductory text and under a of the Dutch Civil Code. No "reflex effect" of article 6:237 introductory text and under i of the Dutch Civil Code. Insufficiently argued why article 7.1 would be unreasonably onerous in the sense of article 6:233 of the Dutch Civil Code and that granting the claim would be unacceptable according to standards of reasonableness and fairness. Termination fee is not a penalty in the sense of article 6:91 of the Dutch Civil Code. A retailer (sole proprietorship) is approached by a representative of a company and enters into an "agreement for IT services" with a term of four years, which includes a dissolution fee of 60% of the not yet due monthly payments. The retailer is instructed to prove that, at the time of entering the agreement, the company promised him that he could terminate the agreement without any further obligations if he terminated his business. The retailer is considered to have succeeded in the burden of proof, and the company's claim for payment of the dissolution fee is rejected.