1.
Watson (computer)
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Watson was named after IBMs first CEO, industrialist Thomas J. Watson. The computer system was developed to answer questions on the quiz show Jeopardy. In 2011, Watson competed on Jeopardy, against former winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Watson received the first place prize of $1 million, for each clue, Watsons three most probable responses were displayed on the television screen. Watson consistently outperformed its human opponents on the signaling device. IBM Watsons former business chief, Manoj Saxena, says that 90% of nurses in the field who use Watson now follow its guidance. According to IBM, more than 100 different techniques are used to analyze natural language, identify sources, find and generate hypotheses, find and score evidence, Watson uses IBMs DeepQA software and the Apache UIMA framework. Watson employs a cluster of ninety IBM Power 750 servers, each of which uses a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight-core processor, in total, the system has 2,880 POWER7 processor threads and 16 terabytes of RAM. According to John Rennie, Watson can process 500 gigabytes, the equivalent of a million books, IBMs master inventor and senior consultant, Tony Pearson, estimated Watsons hardware cost at about three million dollars. Its Linpack performance stands at 80 TeraFLOPs, which is half as fast as the cut-off line for the Top 500 Supercomputers list. According to Rennie, all content was stored in Watsons RAM for the Jeopardy game because data stored on hard drives would be too slow to be competitive with human Jeopardy champions. The sources of information for Watson include encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, newswire articles, Watson also used databases, taxonomies, and ontologies. Specifically, DBPedia, WordNet, and Yago were used, the IBM team provided Watson with millions of documents, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference material that it could use to build its knowledge. Watson parses questions into different keywords and sentence fragments in order to find statistically related phrases, the more algorithms that find the same answer independently the more likely Watson is to be correct. Once Watson has a number of potential solutions, it is able to check against its database to ascertain whether the solution makes sense. Watsons basic working principle is to parse keywords in a clue while searching for related terms as responses and this gives Watson some advantages and disadvantages compared with human Jeopardy. Watson has deficiencies in understanding the contexts of the clues, as a result, human players usually generate responses faster than Watson, especially to short clues. Watsons programming prevents it from using the tactic of buzzing before it is sure of its response
2.
Ticker symbol
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A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. A stock symbol may consist of letters, numbers or a combination of both, ticker symbol refers to the symbols that were printed on the ticker tape of a ticker tape machine. Stock symbols are unique identifiers assigned to each security traded on a particular market, for example, AAPL is for Apple Inc. OODH is for Orion DHC, Inc. and HD is for Home Depot, a stock symbol can consist of letters, numbers, or a combination of both, and is a way to uniquely identify that stock. The symbols were kept as short as possible to reduce the number of characters that had to be printed on the ticker tape, the allocation of symbols and formatting convention is specific to each stock exchange. In the US, for example, stock tickers are typically between 1 and 4 letters and represent the name where possible. In Europe, most exchanges use three-letter codes, for example Dutch consumer goods company Unilever traded on the Amsterdam Euronext exchange has the symbol UNA, while in Asia, numbers are often used as stock tickers to avoid issues for international investors when using non-Latin scripts. For example, the bank HSBCs stock traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has the ticker symbol 0005, symbols sometimes change to reflect mergers. Prior to the 1999 merger with Mobil Oil, Exxon used a spelling of the company XON as its ticker symbol. The symbol of the firm after the merger was XOM, symbols are sometimes reused, in the US the single-letter symbols are particularly sought after as vanity symbols. For example, since Mar 2008 Visa Inc. has used the symbol V that had previously used by Vivendi which had delisted. To fully qualify a stock, both the ticker and the exchange or country of listing needs to be known, on many systems both must be specified to uniquely identify the security. This is often done by appending the location or exchange code to the ticker, although stock tickers identify a security, they are exchange dependent, generally limited to stocks and can change. These limitations have led to the development of other codes in financial markets to identify securities for settlement purposes, the most prevalent of these is the International Securities Identifying Number. An ISIN uniquely identifies a security and its structure is defined in ISO6166, Securities for which ISINs are issued include bonds, commercial paper, stocks, and warrants. The ISIN identifies the security, not the exchange on which it trades, for instance, Daimler AG stock trades on twenty-two different stock exchanges worldwide, and is priced in five different currencies, it has the same ISIN on each, though not the same ticker symbol. ISIN cannot specify a particular trade in this case, and another identifier, following the introduction of the Sequence trading platform in 1996, EPICs were renamed Tradable Instrument Display Mnemonics, but they are still widely referred to as EPICs. Stocks can also be identified using their SEDOL number or their ISIN, in the United States, modern letter-only ticker symbols were developed by Standard & Poors to bring a national standard to investing
3.
New York Stock Exchange
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The New York Stock Exchange, is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York. It is by far the worlds largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its companies at US$19.3 trillion as of June 2016. The average daily trading value was approximately US$169 billion in 2013, the NYSE trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street and is composed of 21 rooms used for the facilitation of trading. A fifth trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007, the main building and the 11 Wall Street building were designated National Historic Landmarks in 1978. The NYSE is owned by Intercontinental Exchange, an American holding company that it also lists, previously, it was part of NYSE Euronext, which was formed by the NYSEs 2007 merger with Euronext. NYSE and Euronext now operate as divisions of Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE has been the subject of several lawsuits regarding fraud or breach of duty and in 2004 was sued by its former CEO for breach of contract and defamation. The earliest recorded organization of securities trading in New York among brokers directly dealing with each other can be traced to the Buttonwood Agreement, previously securities exchange had been intermediated by the auctioneers who also conducted more mundane auctions of commodities such as wheat and tobacco. In 1817 the stockbrokers of New York operating under the Buttonwood Agreement instituted new reforms, after sending a delegation to Philadelphia to observe the organization of their board of brokers, restrictions on manipulative trading were adopted as well as formal organs of governance. Several locations were used between 1817 and 1865, when the present location was adopted, the invention of the electrical telegraph consolidated markets, and New Yorks market rose to dominance over Philadelphia after weathering some market panics better than other alternatives. The Civil War greatly stimulated speculative securities trading in New York, by 1869 membership had to be capped, and has been sporadically increased since. The latter half of the century saw rapid growth in securities trading. Securities trade in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was prone to panics. The Stock Exchange Luncheon Club was situated on the floor from 1898 until its closure in 2006. The main building, located at 18 Broad Street, between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange Place, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, as was the 11 Wall Street building. The NYSE announced its plans to merge with Archipelago on April 21,2005, NYSEs governing board voted to merge with rival Archipelago on December 6,2005, and became a for-profit, public company. It began trading under the name NYSE Group on March 8,2006, Wall Street is the leading US money center for international financial activities and the foremost US location for the conduct of wholesale financial services. It comprises a matrix of wholesale financial sectors, financial markets, financial institutions, the principal sectors are securities industry, commercial banking, asset management, and insurance. Prior to the acquisition of NYSE Euronext by the ICE in 2013, Marsh Carter was the Chairman of the NYSE, presently, the chairman is Jeffrey Sprecher
4.
Dow Jones Industrial Average
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The industrial average was first calculated on May 26,1896. Currently owned by S&P Dow Jones Indices, which is majority owned by S&P Global, it is the most notable of the Dow Averages, the averages are named after Dow and one of his business associates, statistician Edward Jones. It is an index that shows how 30 large publicly owned companies based in the United States have traded during a trading session in the stock market. It is the second-oldest U. S. market index after the Dow Jones Transportation Average, the Industrial portion of the name is largely historical, as many of the modern 30 components have little or nothing to do with traditional heavy industry. The average is price-weighted, and to compensate for the effects of stock splits and other adjustments, since the divisor is currently less than one, the value of the index is larger than the sum of the component prices. General Electric has had the longest continuous presence on the index, more recent changes to the index include the following, On February 19,2008, Chevron and Bank of America replaced Altria Group and Honeywell. Chevron was previously a Dow component from July 18,1930, during Chevrons absence, its split-adjusted price per share went from $44 to $85, while the price of petroleum rose from $24 to $100. On September 22,2008, Kraft Foods Inc replaced the American International Group in the index, on September 24,2012, UnitedHealth Group replaced Kraft Foods Inc following Krafts split into Mondelēz International and Kraft Foods Group. On September 20,2013, Goldman Sachs, Nike, and Visa replaced Alcoa, Bank of America, and Hewlett-Packard. Visa replaced Hewlett-Packard because of the split into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise On March 19,2015, Apple replaced AT&T, though comprising the same number of stocks, this index contained only one of the original twelve industrials that would eventually form Dows most famous index. Dow calculated his first average purely of industrial stocks on May 26,1896, of the original 12 industrials, only General Electric currently remains part of that index. The other 11 were, American Cotton Oil Company, a company to Bestfoods. American Sugar Company, became Domino Sugar in 1900, now Domino Foods, American Tobacco Company, broken up in a 1911 antitrust action. Chicago Gas Company, bought by Peoples Gas Light in 1897, distilling & Cattle Feeding Company, now Millennium Chemicals, formerly a division of LyondellBasell, the latter of which recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Laclede Gas Company, still in operation as the Laclede Group, national Lead Company, now NL Industries, removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1916. North American Company, a utility holding company, broken up by the U. S. Securities. Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company in Birmingham, Alabama, bought by U. S. Steel in 1907, United States Rubber Company, changed its name to Uniroyal in 1961, merged with private B. F. Goodrich in 1986, bought by Michelin in 1990. When it was first published in the mid-1880s, the index stood at a level of 62.76
5.
S&P 500
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The S&P500 index components and their weightings are determined by S&P Dow Jones Indices. It differs from other U. S. stock market indices, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the Nasdaq Composite index, because of its diverse constituency and weighting methodology. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices, and many consider it one of the best representations of the U. S. stock market, the National Bureau of Economic Research has classified common stocks as a leading indicator of business cycles. The S&P500 was developed and continued to be maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices, S&P Dow Jones Indices publishes many stock market indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P MidCap 400, the S&P SmallCap 600, and the S&P Composite 1500. It is a free-float capitalization-weighted index, and has many symbols, such as, ^GSPC, INX. The Composite Index, as the S&P500 was first called when it introduced its first stock index in 1923, three years later in 1926, the Composite Index expanded to 90 stocks and then in 1957 it expanded to its current 500. Standard & Poors, a company that doles out financial information, in 1941 Poors Publishing merged with Standard Statistics and therein assumed the name Standard and Poors Corporation. The S&P500 index in its present form began on March 4,1957, technology has allowed the index to be calculated and disseminated in real time. The S&P500 is widely used as a measure of the level of stock prices. In September 1962, Ultronic Systems Corp. entered into an agreement with Standard, under the terms of this agreement, Ultronics computed the S&P500 Stock Composite Index, the 425 Stock Industrial Index, the 50 Stock Utility Index, and the 25 Stock Rail Index. Throughout the market day these statistics were furnished to Standard & Poors, in addition, Ultronics also computed and reported the 94 S&P sub-indexes. On August 12,1982, the index closed at 102.42, the index reached a relative intraday high—which was not exceeded for over seven years—of 1,552.87, on March 24,2000, during the dot-com bubble. The index then declined by approximately 50%, to 768.63, on October 10,2002, on May 30,2007, the S&P500 closed at 1,530.23, to set its first all-time closing high in more than seven years. Less than a later, it dropped to 1,400. In mid-2007, the mortgage crisis spread to the wider U. S. financial sector. On November 20,2008, the index closed at 752.44, a modest recovery the following day still left the index down 45. 5% for the year. This year-to-date loss was the greatest since 1931, when the market declined more than 50%. The index closed the year at 903.25, for a loss of 38. 5%, the market continued to decline in early 2009, surrounding the financial crisis of 2008
6.
Cloud computing
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Cloud computing is a type of Internet-based computing that provides shared computer processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a pool of configurable computing resources. Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economy of scale, advocates claim that cloud computing allows companies to avoid up-front infrastructure costs. As well, it enables organizations to focus on their core businesses instead of spending time, Cloud providers typically use a pay as you go model. This will lead to unexpectedly high charges if administrators do not adapt to the pricing model. Companies can scale up as computing needs increase and then scale down again as demands decrease, the origin of the term cloud computing is unclear. In analogy to the usage, the word cloud was used as a metaphor for the Internet. Later it was used to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams, with this simplification, the implication is that the specifics of how the end points of a network are connected are not relevant for the purposes of understanding the diagram. The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1977, the term cloud has been used to refer to platforms for distributed computing. No one had conceived that before, references to cloud computing in its modern sense appeared as early as 1996, with the earliest known mention in a Compaq internal document. The popularization of the term can be traced to 2006 when Amazon. com introduced its Elastic Compute Cloud, during the 1960s, the initial concepts of time-sharing became popularized via RJE, this terminology was mostly associated with large vendors such as IBM and DEC. Full time-sharing solutions were available by the early 1970s on such platforms as Multics, Cambridge CTSS, yet, the data center model where users submitted jobs to operators to run on IBM mainframes was overwhelmingly predominant. By switching traffic as they saw fit to balance server use and they began to use the cloud symbol to denote the demarcation point between what the provider was responsible for and what users were responsible for. Cloud computing extended this boundary to all servers as well as the network infrastructure. As computers became more diffused, scientists and technologists explored ways to make large-scale computing power available to users through time-sharing. They experimented with algorithms to optimize the infrastructure, platform, and applications to prioritize CPUs, since 2000, cloud computing has come into existence. Will result in growth in IT products in some areas. In August 2006 Amazon introduced its Elastic Compute Cloud, Microsoft Azure was announced as Azure in October 2008 and was released on 1 February 2010 as Windows Azure, before being renamed to Microsoft Azure on 25 March 2014
7.
Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company
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The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems subsequently known as IBM. In 1911 financier and noted trust organizer, Father of Trusts, located in Endicott it was renamed International Business Machines in 1924. The individual companies of CTR continued to using their established names until the businesses were integrated in 1933. They manufactured a range of products, including employee time-keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat slicers. Herman Hollerith initially did business under his own name, as The Hollerith Electric Tabulating System, in 1896 he incorporated as the Tabulating Machine Company and in 1905 reincorporated as The Tabulating Machine Company. Holleriths series of patents on tabulating machine technology, first applied for in 1884, Hollerith was initially trying to reduce the time and complexity needed to tabulate the 1890 Census. His development of punched cards in 1886 set the standard for the next 80 years of tabulating and computing data input. In 1896 the Tabulating Machine Company leased some machines to a railway company, after winning the government contract and completing the project, Hollerith was faced with the challenge of sustaining the company in non-Census years. He returned to targeting private businesses both in the United States and abroad, attempting to identify industry applications for his punching, tabulating and sorting machines. Flint bought the business for $2.3 million in 1911. F, simpson Company of Detroit, Michigan, and The Stimpson Computing Scale Company of Elkhart, Indiana. The first time clock was invented on November 20,1888, by Willard Bundy, a year later his brother, Harlow Bundy, organized the Bundy Manufacturing Company, and began mass-producing time clocks. In 1900, Bundy Manufacturing sold its recording business to a new company. Bundy Manufacturing went on to produce adding machines, in 1906 Harlow Bundy moved his business into a new three-story brick building in Endicott, New York. In 1894, J. L. Willard and F. A. Frick of Rochester, New York, in 1901, the company was re-incorporated in Binghamton, New York. The same year, it acquired the Chicago Time-Register Co. the first autograph time recorder company in the world, in 1906, ITR relocated to Endicott, New York, where it had built a larger factory next to the new building of the Bundy Manufacturing Company. Before the CTR amalgamation, Harlow Bundy would be named ITRs Treasurer, the first dial recorder was invented by Dr. Alexander Dey in 1888, and in 1907 ITR acquired the Del Ray Register Company. In 1908, ITR acquired the Syracuse Time Recorder Company, a manufacturer of dial recorders, ITRs 1935 catalog lists a wide variety of clocks, from industrial timeclocks, recording clocks, and program clocks, to ornamental store-front clocks. It also lists the Series 970 Intercommunicating Telephone System, since 1907 or earlier ITR had published a magazine, Time, for employees and customers, in 1935 IBM renamed the magazine Think
8.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
9.
Charles Ranlett Flint
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Charles Ranlett Flint was an American and was the founder of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company which later became IBM. For his financial dealings he earned the moniker Father of Trusts, Flint was born on January 24,1850 in Thomaston, Maine. His father, Benjamin Chapman, had changed the name to Flint after being adopted by an uncle on his mothers side. The family moved from Maine to New York City where his father ran the familys mercantile firm Chapman & Flint, from 1876 to 1879, he served as the Chilean consul at New York City. He also served as general to the United States for Nicaragua. In 1892, he consolidated several companies to form U. S. Rubber, in 1899 he repeated the same with Adams Chewing Gum, Chiclets, Dentyne, and Beemans to form American Chicle. He was also responsible for the formation of American Woolen in 1899, amalgamation was unusual at the time, Flint described it as an allied consolidation. In 1924, CTR was re-christened as International Business Machines, Flint served on the board of directors of IBM until 1930 when he retired. He died on February 26,1934 in Washington, D. C, Charles Flint was an avid sportsman and loved swimming, hunting, fishing, sailing, and aviation. He helped found the Automobile Club of America and his Time Magazine obituary stated he negotiated the Wright Brothers first sales of airplanes overseas. But it was the Wrights themselves, in contentious negotiations with Charles R. Flint & Co. who determined contract terms. Memories of a life, Men, and Ships. Industrial combinations, Address by Charles R. Flint, before The Commercial Club of Providence on the evening of April 29th,1892, Flint, Charles Ranlett, James J. Hill, James H. Bridge, S. C. T. Dodd, Francis B. The Trust, Its Book, Being a presentation of the aspects of the latest form of industrial revolution. Works by or about Charles Ranlett Flint at Internet Archive Charles Ranlett Flint at the IBM Archives
10.
Armonk, New York
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Armonk is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of North Castle, New York located in Westchester County. As of the 2010 census, Armonks CDP population is 4,330 and it has an area of 6.1 square miles, of which 6.0 square miles is land and 0.077 square miles. Armonk is well known as being the headquarters of IBM, as of the census of 2000, there were 3,461 people,1,172 households, and 995 families residing in the CDP. The population density is 568.9 per square mile, there are 1,204 housing units at an average density of 197. 9/sq mi. 3.76 percent of the population are Hispanic and Latino Americans,13.1 percent of all households are made up of individuals and 6.0 percent have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.95 and the family size is 3.23. The median age is 39 years, for every 100 females there are 90.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 90.2 males, as of the census of 2013, the median income for a household in the CDP is $159,530, and the median income for a family is $189,163. The per capita income for the CDP is $92,750,1.3 percent of the population and 0.0 percent of families are below the poverty line. Out of the population,0.0 percent of those under the age of 18 and 3.9 percent of those 65. Fordham Universitys Louis Calder Center is a field station established in 1967 for ecological research. The Calder Center consists of 113 acres of forest, with opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to gain skills in field biology. The Calder Center is one of the few stations in North America with relatively undisturbed natural communities near a large urban center. The Byram Hills Central School District serves North Castle, New Castle, Mount Pleasant, All of the schools in the district are located in Armonk. The district has one school, Byram Hills High School, one middle school. Crittenden Middle School, and two schools, Wampus Elementary School and Coman Hill Elementary School. Before 2002, grade 5 was in Crittenden, grades 3 and 4 were in Coman Hill, the Byram Hills district placed first at the 2006 National Academic Championship, and H. C. Crittenden is the winner of the National Blue Ribbon award, athletics at the high school have seen success in the soccer, track and baseball teams
11.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
12.
Ginni Rometty
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Virginia Marie Ginni Rometty is an American business executive. She is the current chairman, president and CEO of IBM, prior to becoming president and CEO in January 2012, she held the positions of senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing, and strategy at IBM. She joined IBM as an engineer in its Detroit office in 1981. She has been named in Fortune magazines 50 Most Powerful Women in Business for ten consecutive years and she has received similar awards from various publications and criticism from others. Rometty was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, eventually serving as its president, after graduation in 1979, Rometty went to work for General Motors Institute, in 1981, she joined IBM as a systems engineer in its Detroit office. She joined IBMs Consulting Group in 1991, in 2002, she championed the purchase of the big business consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, for $3.5 billion. She was also at the helm of readying Watson, the Jeopardy, on October 25,2011, IBM announced that she was to be the companys next president and CEO, with Sam Palmisano stepping down but retaining his position as chairman. Romettys appointment marks the first time a woman has been CEO of IBM, regarding her promotion, Palmisano stated, Ginni got it because she deserved it. It’s got zero to do with social policies. On September 26,2012, IBM announced that Rometty was taking on the role of chairman of IBM. Rometty commenced her duty as chairman, president and CEO of IBM on October 1,2012, one of her goals is to focus company efforts on the cloud and cognitive computing systems, such as Watson. She also served on the Board of Directors of AIG from 2006 until 2009, in 2014, Rometty was featured in the PBS documentary The Boomer List. Also that year, she became the female member of the Augusta National Golf Club. She has received honorary degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Northwestern University. In Fortunes September 15,2015 issue, Rometty ranked 3rd on their Most Powerful Women List, Rometty is married to Mark Anthony Rometty, a principal investor in the Bam Oil Company. Media related to Ginni Rometty at Wikimedia Commons
13.
Earnings before interest and taxes
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In accounting and finance, earnings before interest and taxes, is a measure of a firms profit that includes all expenses except interest and income tax expenses. It is the difference between operating revenues and operating expenses, when a firm does not have non-operating income, then operating income is sometimes used as a synonym for EBIT and operating profit. To calculate EBIT, expenses are subtracted from revenues, net income is later obtained by subtracting interest and taxes from the result
14.
Net income
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In business, net income is an entitys income minus cost of goods sold, expenses and taxes for an accounting period. In the context of the presentation of financial statements, the IFRS Foundation defines net income as synonymous with profit, net income is a distinct accounting concept from profit but the same as net profit. Net income can also be calculated by adding a companys operating income to non-operating income, net income can be distributed among holders of common stock as a dividend or held by the firm as an addition to retained earnings. As profit and earnings are used synonymously for income, net earnings, often, the term income is substituted for net income, yet this is not preferred due to the possible ambiguity. Net income is called the bottom line because it is typically found on the last line of a companys income statement. The items deducted will typically include tax expense, financing expense, likewise, preferred stock dividends will be subtracted too, though they are not an expense. For a merchandising company, subtracted costs may be the cost of goods sold, sales discounts, for a product company advertising, manufacturing, and design and development costs are included
15.
Asset
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In financial accounting, an asset is an economic resource. Anything tangible or intangible that can be owned or controlled to produce value, simply stated, assets represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash. The balance sheet of a firm records the value of the assets owned by that firm. It covers money and other valuables belonging to an individual or to a business, one can classify assets into two major asset classes, tangible assets and intangible assets. Tangible assets contain various subclasses, including current assets and fixed assets, current assets include inventory, while fixed assets include such items as buildings and equipment. Intangible assets are resources and rights that have a value to the firm because they give the firm some kind of advantage in the marketplace. Examples of intangible assets include goodwill, copyrights, trademarks, patents and computer programs, an asset is a resource controlled by the entity as a result of past events and from which future economic benefits are expected to flow to the entity. One of the most widely accepted accounting definitions of asset is the one used by the International Accounting Standards Board, employees are not considered assets like machinery is, even though they can generate future economic benefits. This is because an entity does not have sufficient control over its employees to satisfy the Frameworks definition of an asset, similarly, in economics an asset is any form in which wealth can be held. The accounting equation is the structure of the balance sheet. It relates assets, liabilities, and owners equity, Assets = Liabilities + Capital Liabilities = Assets − Capital Equity = Assets − Liabilities Assets are listed on the balance sheet. On a companys balance sheet certain divisions are required by generally accepted accounting principles, Assets can be divided into e. g. current assets and fixed assets, often with further subdivisions such as cash, receivables and inventory. Assets are formally controlled and managed within larger organizations via the use of asset tracking tools and these monitor the purchasing, upgrading, servicing, licensing, disposal etc. of both physical and non-physical assets. Current assets are cash and other assets expected to be converted to cash or consumed either in a year or in the operating cycle and these assets are continually turned over in the course of a business during normal business activity. There are 5 major items included into current assets, Cash and cash equivalents – it is the most liquid asset, which includes currency, deposit accounts, short-term investments – include securities bought and held for sale in the near future to generate income on short-term price differences. Receivables – usually reported as net of allowance for non-collectable accounts, inventory – trading these assets is a normal business of a company. The inventory value reported on the sheet is usually the historical cost or fair market value. This is known as the lower of cost or market rule, prepaid expenses – these are expenses paid in cash and recorded as assets before they are used or consumed
16.
Equity (finance)
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In accounting, equity is the difference between the value of the assets and the value of the liabilities of something owed. Equity can be negative if liabilities exceeds assets, shareholders equity represents the equity of a company as divided among shareholders of common or preferred stock. Negative shareholders equity is often referred to as a shareholders deficit, alternatively, equity can also refer to the capital stock of a corporation. The value of the stock depends on the future economic prospects. For a company in liquidation proceedings, the equity is that which remains after all liabilities have been paid, when starting a business, the owners fund the business to finance various operations. Throughout the businesss existence, the equity of the business will be the difference between its assets and debt liabilities, this is the accounting equation, when a business liquidates during bankruptcy, the proceeds from the assets are used to reimburse creditors. The creditors are ranked by priority, with secured creditors being paid first, other creditors being paid next, owners equity is this remaining or residual claim against assets, which is paid only after all other creditors are paid. In such cases where even creditors could not get money to pay their bills. In financial accounting, owners equity consists of the net assets of an entity, net assets is the difference between the total assets and total liabilities. Equity appears on the sheet, one of the four primary financial statements. The assets of an entity can be tangible and intangible items. Intangible assets include such as brand names, copyrights or goodwill. Tangible assets include land, equipment, and cash, issue of new equity in which the firm obtains new capital increases the total shareholders equity. Share repurchases, in which a firm returns money to investors, reducing on the side its financial assets. For practical purposes, share repurchasing is similar to a dividend payment, rather than giving money to all shareholders immediately in the form of a dividend payment, a share repurchase reduces the number of shares outstanding. Dividends paid out to preferred stock owners are considered an expense to be subtracted from net income, sometimes assets bought and held in other countries get translated back into the reporting currency at different exchange rates, resulting in a changed value. When the owners are shareholders, the interest can be called shareholders equity, the remains the same. If all shareholders are in one and the class, they share equally in ownership equity from all perspectives
17.
Thomas J. Watson
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Thomas John Watson Sr. was an American businessman. He served as the chairman and CEO of International Business Machines He oversaw the growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBMs management style and corporate culture from John Henry Pattersons training at NCR and he turned the company into a highly-effective selling organization, based largely on punched card tabulating machines. A leading self-made industrialist, he was one of the richest men of his time and was called the worlds greatest salesman when he died in 1956. Thomas J. Watson was born in Campbell, New York and his four older siblings were all girls —Jennie, Effie, Loua, and Emma. His father farmed and owned a modest lumber business located near Painted Post, Thomas worked on the family farm in East Campbell, New York and attended the District School Number Five in the late 1870s. As Watson entered his teen years he attended Addison Academy In Addison, having given up his first job—teaching—after just one day, Watson took a years course in accounting and business at the Miller School of Commerce in Elmira. He left the school in 1891, taking a job at $6 a week as bookkeeper for Clarence Risleys Market in Painted Post. One year later he joined a traveling salesman, George Cornwell, peddling organs and pianos around the farms for William Bronsons local hardware store, when Cornwell left, Watson continued alone, earning $10 per week. After two years of life, he realized he would be earning $70 per week if he were on a commission. His indignation on making this discovery was such that he quit, Watson then spent a very brief period selling sewing machines for Wheeler and Wilcox. According to Tom Watson, Jr. in his autobiography, One day my dad went into a saloon to celebrate a sale and had too much to drink. When the bar closed, he found that his entire rig—horse, buggy, Wheeler and Wilcox fired him and dunned him for the lost property. Word got around, of course, and it took Dad more than a year to another steady job. Watson would later enforce strict rules at IBM against alcohol consumption and this anecdote never made it into IBM lore, which is too bad, because it would have helped explain Father to the tens of thousands of people who had to follow his rules. Watsons next job was peddling shares of the Buffalo Building and Loan Company for a huckster named C. B, barron, a showman renowned for his disreputable conduct, which Watson, as a lifelong Methodist, deplored. Barron absconded with the commission and the loan funds, next Watson opened a butcher shop in Buffalo, which soon failed, leaving Watson with no money, no investment, and no job. Watson had a newly acquired NCR cash register in his butcher shop, on visiting NCR, he met John J. Range and asked him for a job
18.
Think (IBM)
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THINK is a slogan first used by Thomas J. Watson in December,1911, while managing the sales and advertising departments at the National Cash Register Company. At an uninspiring sales meeting Watson interrupted, saying The trouble with one of us is that we dont think enough. We dont get paid for working with our feet — we get paid for working with our heads, Watson then wrote THINK on the easel. Asked later what he meant by the slogan, Watson replied, I refuse to make the sign more specific. If a man just sees THINK, hell find out what I mean, were not interested in a logic course. In 1914, Watson brought the slogan with him to the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company and its subsidiaries, international Time Recording, one of the subsidiaries, published a magazine, Time, for employees and customers that, in 1935, IBM would rename THINK. IBM continues to use the slogan, THINK is also an IBM trademark, IBM named its laptop computers ThinkPads and named a line of business-oriented desktop computers ThinkCentre. The Apple slogan, Think Different has been taken as a response to IBMs THINK. THINK entered the culture, often in a humorous context. For early examples, see Corey Fords Guide to Thimking, Mad magazine also used a THINK parody motto along with using the word directly on the cover of the last Mad comic book issue #23 from May 1955
19.
Computer hardware
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Computer hardware is the collection of physical components that constitute a computer system. By contrast, software is instructions that can be stored and run by hardware, hardware is directed by the software to execute any command or instruction. A combination of hardware and software forms a usable computing system, the template for all modern computers is the Von Neumann architecture, detailed in a 1945 paper by Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann. The meaning of the term has evolved to mean a stored-program computer in which an instruction fetch and this is referred to as the Von Neumann bottleneck and often limits the performance of the system. For the third year, U. S. business-to-business channel sales increased. The impressive growth was the fastest sales increase since the end of the recession, sales growth accelerated in the second half of the year peaking in fourth quarter with a 6.9 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2012. There are a number of different types of system in use today. The personal computer, also known as the PC, is one of the most common types of computer due to its versatility, laptops are generally very similar, although they may use lower-power or reduced size components, thus lower performance. The computer case is a plastic or metal enclosure that houses most of the components, a case can be either big or small, but the form factor of motherboard for which it is designed matters more. A power supply unit converts alternating current electric power to low-voltage DC power for the components of the computer. Laptops are capable of running from a battery, normally for a period of hours. The motherboard is the component of a computer. It is usually cooled by a heatsink and fan, or water-cooling system, most newer CPUs include an on-die Graphics Processing Unit. The clock speed of CPUs governs how fast it executes instructions, many modern computers have the option to overclock the CPU which enhances performance at the expense of greater thermal output and thus a need for improved cooling. The chipset, which includes the bridge, mediates communication between the CPU and the other components of the system, including main memory. Random-Access Memory, which stores the code and data that are being accessed by the CPU. For example, when a web browser is opened on the computer it takes up memory, RAM usually comes on DIMMs in the sizes 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB, but can be much larger. Read-Only Memory, which stores the BIOS that runs when the computer is powered on or otherwise begins execution, the BIOS includes boot firmware and power management firmware
20.
Middleware
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Middleware is computer software that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as software glue, middleware makes it easier for software developers to implement communication and input/output, so they can focus on the specific purpose of their application. The term is most commonly used for software that enables communication, an IETF workshop in 2000 defined middleware as those services found above the transport layer set of services but below the application environment. In this more specific sense middleware can be described as the dash in client-server, middleware includes web servers, application servers, content management systems, and similar tools that support application development and delivery. ObjectWeb defines middleware as, The software layer that lies between the system and applications on each side of a distributed computing system in a network. Services that can be regarded as middleware include enterprise application integration, data integration, message oriented middleware, object request brokers, database access services are often characterised as middleware. Some of them are language specific implementations and support heterogeneous features, examples of database-oriented middleware include ODBC, JDBC and transaction processing monitors. Distributed computing system middleware can loosely be divided into two categories—those that provide services and those that perform in machine-time. This latter middleware is somewhat standardized through the Service Availability Forum and is used in complex, embedded systems within telecom, defense. The term middleware is used in contexts as well. Middleware is sometimes used in a sense to a software driver. The mer software distribution is a middleware, it lacks the Linux kernel, mer is targeted at hardware vendors mobile-oriented operating systems. The Android operating system uses the Linux kernel at its core, in addition, Android provides a middleware layer including libraries that provide services such as data storage, screen display, multimedia, and web browsing. Because the middleware libraries are compiled to machine language, services execute quickly, middleware libraries also implement device-specific functions, so applications and the application framework need not concern themselves with variations between various Android devices. Androids middleware layer also contains the Dalvik virtual machine and its core Java application libraries, game engine software such as Gamebryo and Renderware are sometimes described as middleware, because they provide many services to simplify game development. In simulation technology, middleware is used in the context of the high level architecture that applies to many distributed simulations. It is a layer of software that lies between the code and the run-time infrastructure. Wireless networking developers can use middleware to meet the associated with a wireless sensor network
21.
Mainframe computer
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The term originally referred to the large cabinets called main frames that housed the central processing unit and main memory of early computers. Later, the term was used to distinguish high-end commercial machines from less powerful units, most large-scale computer system architectures were established in the 1960s, but continue to evolve. Their high stability and reliability enable these machines to run uninterrupted for decades, Mainframes are defined by high availability, one of the main reasons for their longevity, since they are typically used in applications where downtime would be costly or catastrophic. The term reliability, availability and serviceability is a characteristic of mainframe computers. Proper planning and implementation is required to exploit these features, and if improperly implemented, in the late 1950s, most mainframes had no explicitly interactive interface, but only accepted sets of punched cards, paper tape, or magnetic tape to transfer data and programs. In cases where interactive terminals were supported, these were used almost exclusively for applications rather than program development, typewriter and Teletype devices were also common control consoles for system operators through the 1970s, although ultimately supplanted by keyboard/display devices. By the early 1970s, many mainframes acquired interactive user interfaces and operated as timesharing computers, users gained access through specialized terminals or, later, from personal computers equipped with terminal emulation software. By the 1980s, many mainframes supported graphical terminals, and terminal emulation and this format of end-user computing reached mainstream obsolescence in the 1990s due to the advent of personal computers provided with GUIs. After 2000, most modern mainframes have partially or entirely phased out classic green screen terminal access for end-users in favour of Web-style user interfaces, the infrastructure requirements were drastically reduced during the mid-1990s, when CMOS mainframe designs replaced the older bipolar technology. IBM claimed that its newer mainframes could reduce data center energy costs for power and cooling, modern mainframes can run multiple different instances of operating systems at the same time. This technique of virtual machines allows applications to run as if they were on physically distinct computers, in this role, a single mainframe can replace higher-functioning hardware services available to conventional servers. While mainframes pioneered this capability, virtualization is now available on most families of computer systems, Mainframes can add or hot swap system capacity without disrupting system function, with specificity and granularity to a level of sophistication not usually available with most server solutions. Modern mainframes, notably the IBM zSeries, System z9 and System z10 servers, such a two-mainframe installation can support continuous business service, avoiding both planned and unplanned outages. In practice many customers use multiple mainframes linked either by Parallel Sysplex and shared DASD, or with shared, Mainframes are designed to handle very high volume input and output and emphasize throughput computing. Since the late-1950s, mainframe designs have included subsidiary hardware which manage the I/O devices and it is common in mainframe shops to deal with massive databases and files. Gigabyte to terabyte-size record files are not unusual, compared to a typical PC, mainframes commonly have hundreds to thousands of times as much data storage online, and can access it reasonably quickly. Other server families also offload I/O processing and emphasize throughput computing, Mainframes also have execution integrity characteristics for fault tolerant computing. This hardware-level feature, also found in HPs NonStop systems, is known as lock-stepping, not all applications absolutely need the assured integrity that these systems provide, but many do, such as financial transaction processing
22.
Nanotechnology
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Nanotechnology is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. It is therefore common to see the plural form nanotechnologies as well as nanoscale technologies to refer to the range of research. Because of the variety of applications, governments have invested billions of dollars in nanotechnology research. Until 2012, through its National Nanotechnology Initiative, the USA has invested 3.7 billion dollars, scientists currently debate the future implications of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology may be able to create new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such as in nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, biomaterials energy production. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on whether regulation of nanotechnology is warranted. The term nano-technology was first used by Norio Taniguchi in 1974, also in 1986, Drexler co-founded The Foresight Institute to help increase public awareness and understanding of nanotechnology concepts and implications. In the 1980s, two major breakthroughs sparked the growth of nanotechnology in modern era, the microscopes developers Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. Binnig, Quate and Gerber also invented the atomic force microscope that year. Second, Fullerenes were discovered in 1985 by Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl, in the early 2000s, the field garnered increased scientific, political, and commercial attention that led to both controversy and progress. Controversies emerged regarding the definitions and potential implications of nanotechnologies, exemplified by the Royal Societys report on nanotechnology, challenges were raised regarding the feasibility of applications envisioned by advocates of molecular nanotechnology, which culminated in a public debate between Drexler and Smalley in 2001 and 2003. Meanwhile, commercialization of products based on advancements in nanoscale technologies began emerging and these products are limited to bulk applications of nanomaterials and do not involve atomic control of matter. Governments moved to promote and fund research into nanotechnology, such as in the U. S, by the mid-2000s new and serious scientific attention began to flourish. Projects emerged to produce nanotechnology roadmaps which center on atomically precise manipulation of matter and discuss existing and projected capabilities, goals, Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. This covers both current work and concepts that are more advanced, one nanometer is one billionth, or 10−9, of a meter. By comparison, typical carbon-carbon bond lengths, or the spacing between atoms in a molecule, are in the range 0. 12–0.15 nm. On the other hand, the smallest cellular life-forms, the bacteria of the genus Mycoplasma, are around 200 nm in length, by convention, nanotechnology is taken as the scale range 1 to 100 nm following the definition used by the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the US. The lower limit is set by the size of atoms since nanotechnology must build its devices from atoms and molecules
23.
Patent
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A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention. An invention is a solution to a technological problem and is a product or a process. Patents are a form of intellectual property, the procedure for granting patents, requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims that define the invention. A patent may include many claims, each of which defines a specific property right and these claims must meet relevant patentability requirements, such as novelty, usefulness, and non-obviousness. Nevertheless, there are variations on what is patentable subject matter from country to country, the word patent originates from the Latin patere, which means to lay open. More directly, it is a version of the term letters patent. Similar grants included land patents, which were land grants by early state governments in the USA, and printing patents, a precursor of modern copyright. In modern usage, the term patent usually refers to the granted to anyone who invents any new, useful. The additional qualification utility patent is used to distinguish the primary meaning from these other types of patents. Particular species of patents for inventions include biological patents, business method patents, chemical patents, the period of protection was 10 years. These were mostly in the field of glass making, as Venetians emigrated, they sought similar patent protection in their new homes. This led to the diffusion of patent systems to other countries, by the 16th century, the English Crown would habitually abuse the granting of letters patent for monopolies. After public outcry, King James I of England was forced to revoke all existing monopolies, the Statute became the foundation for later developments in patent law in England and elsewhere. Important developments in patent law emerged during the 18th century through a process of judicial interpretation of the law. During the reign of Queen Anne, patent applications were required to supply a complete specification of the principles of operation of the invention for public access. Influenced by the philosophy of John Locke, the granting of patents began to be viewed as a form of property right. The English legal system became the foundation for patent law in countries with a common law heritage, including the United States, New Zealand, in the Thirteen Colonies, inventors could obtain patents through petition to a given colonys legislature
24.
Automated teller machine
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According to the ATM Industry Association, there are now close to 3 million ATMs installed worldwide. Authentication is provided by the customer entering a personal identification number which must match the PIN stored in the chip on the card or in the financial institutions database. Using an ATM, customers can access their deposit or credit accounts in order to make a variety of transactions such as cash withdrawals, check balances. If the currency being withdrawn from the ATM is different from that in which the account is denominated the money will be converted at an official exchange rate. Thus, ATMs often provide the best possible exchange rates for foreign travellers, the idea of out-of-hours cash distribution developed from bankers needs in Asia, Europe and North America. Little is known of the Japanese device other than it was called Computer Loan Machine, the device was operational in 1966. In the US patent record, Luther George Simjian has been credited with developing a prior art device, specifically his 132nd patent, which was first filed on 30 June 1960. The roll-out of this machine, called Bankograph, was delayed by a couple of years, an experimental Bankograph was installed in New York City in 1961 by the City Bank of New York, but removed after six months due to the lack of customer acceptance. The Bankograph was an automated envelope deposit machine and did not have cash dispensing features and it is widely accepted that the first ATM was put into use by Barclays Bank in its Enfield Town branch in north London, United Kingdom, on 27 June 1967. This machine was inaugurated by English comedy actor Reg Varney and this instance of the invention is credited to the engineering team led by John Shepherd-Barron of printing firm De La Rue, who was awarded an OBE in the 2005 New Year Honours. Shepherd-Barron stated, It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash. The Barclays-De La Rue machine beat the Swedish saving banks and a company called Metiors machine by a nine days. The online version of the Swedish machine is listed to have been operational on 6 May 1968, the collaboration of a small start-up called Speytec and Midland Bank developed a fourth machine which was marketed after 1969 in Europe and the US by the Burroughs Corporation. The patent for this device was filed on September 1969 by John David Edwards, Leonard Perkins, John Henry Donald, Peter Lee Chappell, Sean Benjamin Newcombe & Malcom David Roe. Both the DACS and MD2 accepted only a token or voucher which was retained by the machine while the Speytec worked with a card with a magnetic stripe at the back. They used principles including Carbon-14 and low-coercivity magnetism in order to make more difficult. The idea of a PIN stored on the card was developed by a British engineer working on the MD2 named James Goodfellow in 1965, the essence of this system was that it enabled the verification of the customer with the debited account without human intervention. This patent is also the earliest instance of a complete currency dispenser system in the patent record and this patent was filed on 5 March 1968 in the US and granted on 1 December 1970
25.
Personal computer
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A personal computer is a multi-purpose electronic computer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. PCs are intended to be operated directly by a end-user, rather than by an expert or technician. In the 2010s, PCs are typically connected to the Internet, allowing access to the World Wide Web, personal computers may be connected to a local area network, either by a cable or a wireless connection. In the 2010s, a PC may be, a multi-component desktop computer, designed for use in a location a laptop computer, designed for easy portability or a tablet computer. In the 2010s, PCs run using a system, such as Microsoft Windows, Linux. The very earliest microcomputers, equipped with a front panel, required hand-loading of a program to load programs from external storage. Before long, automatic booting from permanent read-only memory became universal, in the 2010s, users have access to a wide range of commercial software, free software and free and open-source software, which are provided in ready-to-run or ready-to-compile form. Since the early 1990s, Microsoft operating systems and Intel hardware have dominated much of the computer market, first with MS-DOS. Alternatives to Microsofts Windows operating systems occupy a minority share of the industry and these include Apples OS X and free open-source Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and Berkeley Software Distribution. Advanced Micro Devices provides the alternative to Intels processors. PC is an initialism for personal computer, some PCs, including the OLPC XOs, are equipped with x86 or x64 processors but not designed to run Microsoft Windows. PC is used in contrast with Mac, an Apple Macintosh computer and this sense of the word is used in the Get a Mac advertisement campaign that ran between 2006 and 2009, as well as its rival, Im a PC campaign, that appeared in 2008. Since Apples transition to Intel processors starting 2005, all Macintosh computers are now PCs, the “brain” may one day come down to our level and help with our income-tax and book-keeping calculations. But this is speculation and there is no sign of it so far, in the history of computing there were many examples of computers designed to be used by one person, as opposed to terminals connected to mainframe computers. Using the narrow definition of operated by one person, the first personal computer was the ENIAC which became operational in 1946 and it did not meet further definitions of affordable or easy to use. An example of an early single-user computer was the LGP-30, created in 1956 by Stan Frankel and used for science and it came with a retail price of $47, 000—equivalent to about $414,000 today. Introduced at the 1965 New York Worlds Fair, the Programma 101 was a programmable calculator described in advertisements as a desktop computer. It was manufactured by the Italian company Olivetti and invented by the Italian engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto, the Soviet MIR series of computers was developed from 1965 to 1969 in a group headed by Victor Glushkov
26.
Floppy disk
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Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive. Floppy disks, initially as 8-inch media and later in 5¼-inch and 3½-inch sizes, were a form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s into the mid-2000s. These formats are usually handled by older equipment and these disks and associated drives were produced and improved upon by IBM and other companies such as Memorex, Shugart Associates, and Burroughs Corporation. The term floppy disk appeared in print as early as 1970, in 1976, Shugart Associates introduced the first 5¼-inch FDD. By 1978 there were more than 10 manufacturers producing such FDDs, there were competing floppy disk formats, with hard- and soft-sector versions and encoding schemes such as FM, MFM and GCR. The 5¼-inch format displaced the 8-inch one for most applications, the most common capacity of the 5¼-inch format in DOS-based PCs was 360 kB and in 1984 IBM introduced the 1.2 MB dual-sided floppy disk along with its PC-AT model. IBM started using the 720 kB double-density 3½-inch microfloppy disk on its Convertible laptop computer in 1986 and these disk drives could be added to older PC models. In 1988 IBM introduced a drive for 2.88 MB DSED diskettes in its top-of-the-line PS/2 models, throughout the early 1980s, limitations of the 5¼-inch format became clear. Originally designed to be practical than the 8-inch format, it was itself too large, as the quality of recording media grew. A number of solutions were developed, with drives at 2-, 2½-, 3-, 3½-, the large market share of the 5¼-inch format made it difficult for these new formats to gain significant market share. A variant on the Sony design, introduced in 1982 by a number of manufacturers, was then rapidly adopted. By the end of the 1980s, 5¼-inch disks had been superseded by 3½-inch disks, by the mid-1990s, 5¼-inch drives had virtually disappeared, as the 3½-inch disk became the predominant floppy disk. Floppy disks became ubiquitous during the 1980s and 1990s in their use with computers to distribute software, transfer data. Before hard disks became affordable to the population, floppy disks were often used to store a computers operating system. Most home computers from that period have a primary OS and BASIC stored as ROM, by the early 1990s, the increasing software size meant large packages like Windows or Adobe Photoshop required a dozen disks or more. In 1996, there were a five billion standard floppy disks in use. Then, distribution of packages was gradually replaced by CD-ROMs, DVDs. External USB-based floppy disk drives are available, many modern systems provide firmware support for booting from such drives
27.
Hard disk drive
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The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed in a manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order. HDDs are a type of storage, retaining stored data even when powered off. Introduced by IBM in 1956, HDDs became the dominant secondary storage device for computers by the early 1960s. Continuously improved, HDDs have maintained this position into the era of servers. More than 200 companies have produced HDDs historically, though after extensive industry consolidation most current units are manufactured by Seagate, Toshiba, as of 2016, HDD production is growing, although unit shipments and sales revenues are declining. While SSDs have higher cost per bit, SSDs are replacing HDDs where speed, power consumption, small size, the primary characteristics of an HDD are its capacity and performance. Capacity is specified in unit prefixes corresponding to powers of 1000, the two most common form factors for modern HDDs are 3. 5-inch, for desktop computers, and 2. 5-inch, primarily for laptops. HDDs are connected to systems by standard interface cables such as PATA, SATA, Hard disk drives were introduced in 1956, as data storage for an IBM real-time transaction processing computer and were developed for use with general-purpose mainframe and minicomputers. The first IBM drive, the 350 RAMAC in 1956, was approximately the size of two medium-sized refrigerators and stored five million six-bit characters on a stack of 50 disks. In 1962 the IBM350 RAMAC disk storage unit was superseded by the IBM1301 disk storage unit, cylinder-mode read/write operations were supported, and the heads flew about 250 micro-inches above the platter surface. Motion of the head array depended upon a binary system of hydraulic actuators which assured repeatable positioning. The 1301 cabinet was about the size of three home refrigerators placed side by side, storing the equivalent of about 21 million eight-bit bytes, access time was about a quarter of a second. Also in 1962, IBM introduced the model 1311 disk drive, users could buy additional packs and interchange them as needed, much like reels of magnetic tape. Later models of removable pack drives, from IBM and others, became the norm in most computer installations, non-removable HDDs were called fixed disk drives. Some high-performance HDDs were manufactured with one head per track so that no time was lost physically moving the heads to a track, known as fixed-head or head-per-track disk drives they were very expensive and are no longer in production. In 1973, IBM introduced a new type of HDD code-named Winchester and its primary distinguishing feature was that the disk heads were not withdrawn completely from the stack of disk platters when the drive was powered down. Instead, the heads were allowed to land on an area of the disk surface upon spin-down
28.
Magnetic stripe card
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A magnetic stripe card is a type of card capable of storing data by modifying the magnetism of tiny iron-based magnetic particles on a band of magnetic material on the card. The magnetic stripe, sometimes called swipe card or magstripe, is read by swiping past a reading head. Magnetic stripe cards are used in credit cards, identity cards. They may also contain an RFID tag, a transponder device and/or a microchip mostly used for business premises access control or electronic payment, Magnetic recording on steel tape and wire was invented during World War II for recording audio. In the 1950s, magnetic recording of computer data on plastic tape coated with iron oxide was invented. In 1960 IBM used the magnetic tape idea to develop a way of securing magnetic stripes to plastic cards. They also provide the standards for financial cards, including the allocation of number ranges to different card issuing institutions. Magnetic storage was known from World War II and computer data storage in the 1950s, in 1969 Forrest Parry, an IBM engineer, had the idea of securing a piece of magnetic tape, the predominant storage medium at the time, to a plastic card base. He became frustrated because every adhesive he tried produced unacceptable results, the tape strip either warped or its characteristics were affected by the adhesive, rendering the tape strip unusable. After a frustrating day in the laboratory, trying to get the right adhesive, he came home with several pieces of magnetic tape, as he walked in the door at home, his wife Dorothea was ironing clothing. When he explained the source of his frustration, inability to get the tape to stick to the plastic in a way that would work and he tried it and it worked. The heat of the iron was just high enough to bond the tape to the card, the major development of the magnetic striped plastic card began in 1969 at the IBM Information Records Division headquartered in Dayton N. J. This engineering effort resulted in IBM IRD producing the first magnetic striped plastic credit and ID cards used by banks, insurance companies, hospitals and many others. Arthur E. Hahn Jr. was hired by IBM IRD in Dayton, other members of the group were David Morgan, Billy House, William Creeden, and E. J. Gillen. They were given a recently announced IBM360 Model 30 computer with 50k of RAM for control of the encoding/embossing of the Magnetic Stripe Cards. The IBM360 computer was for scientific/business applications so the IRD engineers first had to convert the 360 into a control computer. Due to the limited RAM the software was developed in 360 Assembler Language and this conversion enabled the 360 computer to monitor and control the entire production process the IRD engineers designed and built. The engineering design/build effort was carried out in a raised floor secured area of IBM IRD in Dayton and this tightly secured area with limited access was required because of the sensitivity of the data that would ultimately be used to encode and emboss the credit and ID cards
29.
Relational model
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A database organized in terms of the relational model is a relational database. Most relational databases use the SQL data definition and query language, a table in an SQL database schema corresponds to a predicate variable, the contents of a table to a relation, key constraints, other constraints, and SQL queries correspond to predicates. However, SQL databases deviate from the model in many details. The content of the database at any time is a finite model of the database, i. e. a set of relations, one per predicate variable. A request for information from the database is also a predicate, other models are the hierarchical model and network model. Also of note are newer object-oriented databases, as of October 2015 Rel is one of the more recent attempts to do this. The relational model was the first database model to be described in mathematical terms. Hierarchical and network databases existed before relational databases, but their specifications were relatively informal, the relational model was invented by Edgar Codd as a general model of data, and subsequently maintained and developed by Chris Date and Hugh Darwen among others. In The Third Manifesto Date and Darwen show how the model can accommodate certain desired object-oriented features. But these have never implemented, presumably because of attending complexity. SQLs NULL construct was intended to be part of a three-valued logic system, the fundamental assumption of the relational model is that all data is represented as mathematical n-ary relations, an n-ary relation being a subset of the Cartesian product of n domains. In the mathematical model, reasoning about such data is done in two-valued predicate logic, data are operated upon by means of a relational calculus or relational algebra, these being equivalent in expressive power. The relational model of data permits the designer to create a consistent. Consistency is achieved by including declared constraints in the database design, the theory includes a process of database normalization whereby a design with certain desirable properties can be selected from a set of logically equivalent alternatives. The access plans and other implementation and operation details are handled by the DBMS engine and this contrasts with common practice for SQL DBMSs in which performance tuning often requires changes to the logical model. The basic relational building block is the domain or data type, a tuple is an ordered set of attribute values. An attribute is a pair of attribute name and type name. An attribute value is a valid value for the type of the attribute
30.
SQL
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Originally based upon relational algebra and tuple relational calculus, SQL consists of a data definition language, data manipulation language, and data control language. The scope of SQL includes data insert, query, update and delete, schema creation and modification, although SQL is often described as, and to a great extent is, a declarative language, it also includes procedural elements. SQL was one of the first commercial languages for Edgar F. Codds relational model, as described in his influential 1970 paper, despite not entirely adhering to the relational model as described by Codd, it became the most widely used database language. SQL became a standard of the American National Standards Institute in 1986, since then, the standard has been revised to include a larger set of features. Despite the existence of such standards, most SQL code is not completely portable among different database systems without adjustments, SQL was initially developed at IBM by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce in the early 1970s. The acronym SEQUEL was later changed to SQL because SEQUEL was a trademark of the UK-based Hawker Siddeley aircraft company, in June 1979, Relational Software, Inc. introduced the first commercially available implementation of SQL, Oracle V2 for VAX computers. SQL deviates in several ways from its foundation, the relational model. In that model, a table is a set of tuples, while in SQL, tables and query results are lists of rows, the same row may occur multiple times, and the order of rows can be employed in queries. Critics argue that SQL should be replaced with a language that strictly returns to the foundation, for example. The SQL language is subdivided into several elements, including, Clauses. Queries, which retrieve the data based on specific criteria and this is an important element of SQL. Statements, which may have a persistent effect on schemata and data, or may control transactions, program flow, connections, sessions, SQL statements also include the semicolon statement terminator. Though not required on every platform, it is defined as a part of the SQL grammar. Insignificant whitespace is ignored in SQL statements and queries, making it easier to format SQL code for readability. Other operators have at times been suggested or implemented, such as the skyline operator, SQL has the case/when/then/else/end expression, which was introduced in SQL-92. In its most general form, which is called a case in the SQL standard, it works like else if in other programming languages. If the source does not specify an ELSE expression, SQL defaults to ELSE NULL, an abbreviated syntax—called simple case in the SQL standard—mirrors switch statements, This syntax uses implicit equality comparisons, with the usual caveats for comparing with NULL. For the Oracle-SQL dialect, the latter can be shortened to an equivalent DECODE construct, The last value is the default, if none is specified, however, unlike the standards simple case, Oracles DECODE considers two NULLs equal with each other
31.
Universal Product Code
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UPC consists of 12 numeric digits, that are uniquely assigned to each trade item. Along with the related EAN barcode, the UPC is the mainly used for scanning of trade items at the point of sale. UPC data structures are a component of GTINs and follow the global GS1 specification, but some retailers do not use the GS1 system. On the other hand, some use the EAN/UPC barcode symbology. Wallace Flint proposed an automated system in 1932 using punched cards. Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland, a student from Drexel Institute of Technology, developed a bulls-eye style code. In the 1960s, railroads experimented with a barcode for tracking rail cars. Technology firms including Charegon, IBM, Litton-Zellweger, Pitney Bowes-Alpex, Plessey-Anker, RCA, singer, and Dymo Industries/Data General proposed alternative symbol representations to the council. In the end the Symbol Selection Committee chose to modify, changing the font in the human readable area. The first UPC marked item scanned at a retail checkout was at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio at 8,01 a. m. on June 26,1974. The shopper was Clyde Dawson and cashier Sharon Buchanan made the first UPC scan, the NCR cash register rang up 67 cents. The entire shopping cart also had barcoded items in it, and this item went on display at the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of American History in Washington, D. C. Around late 1969, IBM at Research Triangle Park in North Carolina assigned George Laurer to determine how to make a supermarket scanner, in late 1970, Heard Baumeister provided equations to calculate characters per inch achievable by two IBM bar codes, Delta A and Delta B. In February,1971, Baumeister joined Laurer, in mid 1971, William Bill Crouse invented a new bar code called Delta C. It achieved four times the characters per inch as Delta B, Delta B compared bar widths to space width to code bits. This was extremely sensitive to ink spread where too much ink or pressure would cause both edges of a bar to spread outward and too little to them to shrink. To make it worse as bars spread spaces shrink and vice versa, Delta C achieved its higher performance by only using leading to leading or trailing to trailing edges which was unaffected by uniform ink spread. The code provided best performance when it had a character set with a fixed reference distance that spanned most or preferably all the character
32.
Dynamic random-access memory
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Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be charged or discharged, these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1. Since even nonconducting transistors always leak a small amount, the capacitors will slowly discharge, because of this refresh requirement, it is a dynamic memory as opposed to static random-access memory and other static types of memory. Unlike flash memory, DRAM is volatile memory, since it loses its data quickly when power is removed, however, DRAM does exhibit limited data remanence. DRAM is widely used in digital electronics where low-cost and high-capacity memory is required, one of the largest applications for DRAM is the main memory in modern computers, and as the main memories of components used in these computers such as graphics cards. In contrast, SRAM, which is faster and more expensive than DRAM, is used where speed is of greater concern than cost. The advantage of DRAM is its simplicity, only one transistor. This allows DRAM to reach high densities. The transistors and capacitors used are small, billions can fit on a single memory chip. Due to the nature of its memory cells, DRAM consumes relatively large amounts of power. The cryptanalytic machine code-named Aquarius used at Bletchley Park during World War II incorporated a dynamic memory. Paper tape was read and the characters on it were remembered in a dynamic store, the store used a large bank of capacitors, which were either charged or not, a charged capacitor representing cross and an uncharged capacitor dot. Since the charge gradually leaked away, a pulse was applied to top up those still charged. In 1964, Arnold Farber and Eugene Schlig, working for IBM, created a hard-wired memory cell, using a transistor gate and they replaced the latch with two transistors and two resistors, a configuration that became known as the Farber-Schlig cell. In 1965, Benjamin Agusta and his team at IBM created a 16-bit silicon memory chip based on the Farber-Schlig cell, with 80 transistors,64 resistors, in 1966, DRAM was invented by Dr. Robert Dennard at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He was granted U. S. patent number 3,387,286 in 1968, capacitors had been used for earlier memory schemes such as the drum of the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, the Williams tube and the Selectron tube. The Toshiba Toscal BC-1411 electronic calculator, which was introduced in November 1966, the first DRAM was introduced in 1969 by Advanced Memory system, Inc of Sunnyvale, CA </ref>. This 1000 bit chip was sold to Honeywell, Raytheon, Wang Computer among others, in 1969 Honeywell asked Intel to make a DRAM using a three-transistor cell that they had developed
33.
IBM mainframe
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IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM since 1952. During the 1960s and 1970s, the mainframe computer was almost synonymous with IBM products due to their marketshare. Current mainframes in IBMs line of computers are developments of the basic design of the IBM System/360. From 1952 into the late 1960s, IBM manufactured and marketed several large computer models, the first-generation 700s were based on vacuum tubes, while the later, second-generation 7000s used transistors. These machines established IBMs dominance in electronic data processing, IBM had two model categories, one for engineering and scientific use, and one for commercial or data processing use. The two categories, scientific and commercial, generally used common peripherals but had completely different instruction sets, IBM initially sold its computers without any software, expecting customers to write their own, programs were manually initiated, one at a time. Later, IBM provided compilers for the newly developed higher-level programming languages Fortran, the first operating systems for IBM computers were written by IBM customers who did not wish to have their very expensive machines sitting idle while operators set up jobs manually. These first operating systems were essentially scheduled work queues and it is generally thought that the first operating system used for real work was GM-NAA I/O, produced by General Motors Research division in 1956. IBM enhanced one of GM-NAA I/Os successors, the SHARE Operating System, the second generation products were a mainstay of IBMs business and IBM continued to make them for several years after the introduction of the System/360. Prior to System/360, IBM also sold computers smaller in scale that were not considered mainframes, though they were still bulky, the 7010 was introduced in 1962 as a mainframe-sized 1410. The later Systems 360 and 370 could emulate the 1400 machines, a desk size machine with a different instruction set, the IBM1130, was released concurrently with the System/360 to address the niche occupied by the 1620. It used the same EBCDIC character encoding as the 360 and was programmed in Fortran. Midrange computer is a used by IBM for a class of computer systems which fall in between mainframes and microcomputers. All that changed with the announcement of the System/360 in April,1964, the System/360 was a single series of compatible models for both commercial and scientific use. The number 360 suggested a 360 degree, or all-around computer system, System/360 incorporated features which had previously been present on only either the commercial line or the engineering and scientific line. Some of the units and addressing features were optional on some models of the System/360. However, models were compatible and most were also downward compatible. The System/360 was also the first computer in use to include dedicated hardware provisions for the use of operating systems
34.
IBM System/360
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The IBM System/360 is a mainframe computer system family that was announced by IBM on April 7,1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover the range of applications, from small to large. The design made a distinction between architecture and implementation, allowing IBM to release a suite of compatible designs at different prices. The launch of the System/360 family introduced IBMs Solid Logic Technology, the slowest System/360 model announced in 1964, the Model 30, could perform up to 34,500 instructions per second, with memory from 8 to 64 KB. The 1967 IBM System/360 Model 91 could do up to 16.6 million instructions per second, up to 8 megabytes of slower Large Capacity Storage was also available. Many consider the one of the most successful computers in history. The chief architect of System/360 was Gene Amdahl, and the project was managed by Fred Brooks, the commercial release was piloted by another of Watsons lieutenants, John R. Opel, who managed the launch of IBM’s System 360 mainframe family in 1964. Application level compatibility for System/360 software is maintained to present day with the System z servers, contrasting with at-the-time normal industry practice, IBM created an entire series of computers, from small to large, low to high performance, all using the same instruction set. This feat allowed customers to use a model and then upgrade to larger systems as their needs increased without the time. This flexibility greatly lowered barriers to entry, with other vendors, customers had to choose between machines they could outgrow and machines that were potentially overpowered. This meant that many simply did not buy computers. IBM initially announced a series of six computers and forty common peripherals, IBM eventually delivered fourteen models, including rare one-off models for NASA. The initial announcement in 1964 included Models 30,40,50,60,62, the first three were low- to middle-range systems aimed at the IBM1400 series market. All three first shipped in mid-1965, the last three, intended to replace the 7000 series machines, never shipped and were replaced by the 65 and 75, which were first delivered in November 1965, and January 1966, respectively. Later additions to the low-end included models 20,22, and 25, the Model 20 had several sub-models, sub-model 5 was at the higher end of the model. A succession of high-end machines included the Model 67,85,91,95, the 85 design was intermediate between the System/360 line and the follow-on System/370 and was the basis for the 370/165. There was a System/370 version of the 195, but it did not include Dynamic Address Translation, the implementations differed substantially, using different native data path widths, presence or absence of microcode, yet were extremely compatible. Except where specifically documented, the models were architecturally compatible, the 91, for example, was designed for scientific computing and provided out-of-order instruction execution, but lacked the decimal instruction set used in commercial applications
35.
Market (economics)
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A market is one of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers and it can be said that a market is the process by which the prices of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enable the distribution and allocation of resources in a society, Markets allow any trade-able item to be evaluated and priced. A market emerges more or less spontaneously or may be constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights of services, Markets can also be worldwide, for example the global diamond trade. National economies can be classified, for example as developed markets or developing markets, in mainstream economics, the concept of a market is any structure that allows buyers and sellers to exchange any type of goods, services and information. The exchange of goods or services, with or without money, is a transaction, a major topic of debate is how much a given market can be considered to be a free market, that is free from government intervention. However it is not always clear how the allocation of resources can be improved since there is always the possibility of government failure, a market is one of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers and it can be said that a market is the process by which the prices of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enables the distribution and allocation of resources in a society, Markets allow any trade-able item to be evaluated and priced. A market sometimes emerges more or less spontaneously but is often constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights of services. Markets of varying types can spontaneously arise whenever a party has interest in a good or service that other party can provide. Hence there can be a market for cigarettes in correctional facilities, another for chewing gum in a playground, and yet another for contracts for the future delivery of a commodity. Markets vary in form, scale, location, and types of participants, as well as the types of goods and services traded, nevertheless, violence and they apply the market dynamics to facilitate information aggregation. However, market prices may be distorted by a seller or sellers with monopoly power, such price distortions can have an adverse effect on market participants welfare and reduce the efficiency of market outcomes. Also, the level of organization and negotiating power of buyers and sellers markedly affects the functioning of the market. Markets are a system, and systems have structure, the structure of a well-functioning market is defined by the theory of perfect competition. Market failures are often associated with time-inconsistent preferences, information asymmetries, non-perfectly competitive markets, principal–agent problems, externalities, among the major negative externalities which can occur as a side effect of production and market exchange, are air pollution and environmental degradation. There exists a popular thought, especially among economists, that markets would have a structure of a perfect competition
36.
Spin out
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A corporate spin-off, also known as a spin-out, or starburst, is a type of corporate action where a company splits off a section as a separate business. Shareholders of the parent company receive equivalent shares in the new company in order to compensate for the loss of equity in the original stocks. In contrast, divestment can also sever one business from another, many times the management team of the new company are from the same parent organization. Spin-offs also allow high-growth divisions, once separated from other low-growth divisions, the United States Securities and Exchange Commissions definition of spin-off is more precise. Spin-offs occur when the equity owners of the parent company receive equity stakes in the spun off company. For example, when Agilent Technologies was spun off from Hewlett-Packard in 1999, a company not considered a spin-off in the SECs definition may also be called a spin-off in common usage. A second definition of a spin-out is a firm formed when an employee or group of leaves a existing entity to form an independent start-up firm. The prior employer can be a firm, a university, or another organization, spin-outs typically operate at arms length from the previous organizations and have independent sources of financing, products, services, customers, and other assets. In some cases, the spin-out may license technology from the parent or supply the parent with products or services, conversely, such spin-outs are important sources of technological diffusion in high-tech industries. For example, Fosters Group, an Australian beverage company, was prepared to sell its wine business, but due to the lack of a decent offer, it decided to spin off the wine business, which is now called Treasury Wine Estates. Some examples of spin-offs, Guidant was spun off from Eli Lilly and Company in 1994, formed from Lillys Medical Devices, Agilent Technologies spun off from Hewlett-Packard in 1999, formed from HPs former test-and-measurement equipment division. Cenovus Energy was spun off from Encana Corporation in 2009, ocean Rig UDW Inc was spun off from Dryships Inc in September 2011. AOL was a Time Warner spin-off, this effectively was a demerger, DreamWorks Animation was spun off from DreamWorks Studios in 2004. Nuage Networks was spun off from Alcatel Lucent in 2012 News Corporations publishing operations were spun off as News Corp in 2013, the previous News Corporations remaining media properties were retained under the name 21st Century Fox. Over £266 million in external investment has been raised by Isis spin-out companies since 2000, mirror company formation is a specialized form of spin-off used to create a new public company. It simplifies the process of listing the shares on a stock exchange. It works by a public company issuing a bonus share at a 1-for-1 rate in the new company. This new company is sold to another company that does not want to go through the complex
37.
Lexmark
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Lexmark International, Inc. is a Chinese-owned corporation based in the United States that manufactures laser printers and imaging products. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky, Lexmark became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange on November 15,1995. It was reported in April 2016 that Lexmark would be acquired by Apex Technology, Lexmark was set to be acquired at $40.50 per share in the transaction. Initial talks for the acquisition were begun at the Remax World Expo in 2015, the deal was closed on November 29,2016. Lexmark stated that its headquarters would remain in Lexington, and that its enterprise software line of business would be spun off, Lexmark has offices throughout North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. The company has more than 12,000 employees worldwide, in May 2010, Lexmark acquired Perceptive Software for $280 million to build upon its software offerings. Perceptive Software was a firm that developed enterprise content management and document output management applications. In 2011, Lexmark International purchased Netherlands-based Pallas Athena in a transaction valued at approximately $50.2 million. The purchase of Pallas Athena added business process management, document output management, in March 2012, Lexmark announced the acquisition of Luxembourg-based BDGB Enterprise, including its U. S. subsidiary Brainware, Inc. for a cash purchase price of approximately $148 million. In March 2012, Lexmark acquired Australia-based ISYS Search Software and U. S. -based Nolij Corporation, ISYS built enterprise search solutions and Nolij developed Web-based document imaging and workflow software. In January 2013, Lexmark acquired Minnesota-based Acuo Technologies for $45 million, Acuo Technologies developed medical imaging document management software. In March 2013, Lexmark announced acquisitions of AccessVia and Twistage for a purchase price of approximately $31.5 million. In late August 2013, Lexmark signed an agreement to acquire Germany-based Saperion AG, Saperion was a developer and provider of enterprise content management and business process management software in Europe. The company was purchased for $72 million, in early October 2013, Lexmark acquired PACSGEAR. PACSGEAR was a provider of connectivity solutions for medical image management, the company was purchased for approximately $54 million. In September 2014, Lexmark acquired Stockholm, Sweden-based ReadSoft for $251 million, ReadSoft was a financial process automation solutions company that specialized in software solutions for document process automation on-premises or in the cloud. In May 2015, Lexmark announced that it had acquired Kofax for roughly $1 billion, Kofax, headquartered in Irvine, California, was a provider of smart process applications. They combined capture, process management, analytics and mobile capabilities to organizations and this line of business was, in turn, spun off from Lexmark when it was acquired by Apex Technology in November 2016
38.
ThinkPad
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ThinkPad is a line of laptop computers and tablets developed by Lenovo. The series was designed, developed, and sold by IBM until Lenovo acquired the division, ThinkPads are popular with large businesses and schools. Older ThinkPad models are revered by technology enthusiasts, collectors and power due to their durable design, relatively high resale value. ThinkPad laptops have been used in space and, by 2003, were the only certified for use on the International Space Station. IBM introduced the ThinkPad line in 1992, the name ThinkPad is a product of IBMs corporate history and culture. Thomas J. Watson, Sr. had first introduced THINK as an IBM slogan in the 1920s, with every minicomputer and mainframe IBM installed, a blue plastic sign was placed atop the operators console, with the Think command on an aluminum plate. For decades, IBM distributed small notepads with the word THINK emblazoned on a brown leatherette cover to customers, the name ThinkPad was suggested by IBM employee Denny Wainwright, who had a THINK notepad in his pocket. The name was opposed by the IBM corporate naming committee as the names for IBM computers were all numeric at that time, ThinkPad was kept due to praise from journalists and the public. In April 1992, IBM announced the first ThinkPad tablet computer at a news conference, the first ThinkPad tablet, a PenPoint-based device formally known as the IBM2521 ThinkPad, was positioned as a developers release. The ThinkPad tablet became available for purchase by the public in October of the same year. IBM even worked with archaeologists excavating the ancient Egyptian city of Leontopolis to field test the ThinkPad, the device was loaned to the dig team for the summer. The resulting report documented the ThinkPads excellent performance under difficult conditions, the report said, The ThinkPad is an impressive machine, rugged enough to be used without special care in the worst conditions Egypt has to offer. The first three ThinkPad notebook models were the 700, 700C, and 700T and they were publicly announced in October 1992. The bright red TrackPoint, a kind of pointing stick embedded in the keyboard, the first ThinkPads were very successful, collecting more than 300 awards for design and quality. ThinkPad 755C laptop computers were used as Payload and General Support Computers aboard the Space Shuttle in the 1990s, the Thinkpad 760ED was also tested as part of the Shuttle-Mir program in that same period. The 760ED computer was used without modification, while in use in space, the laptops were subject to radiation, which could cause errors, and the 760ED was noted as an improvement in this area over the 755C. Traditionally black, ThinkPads have commonly featured magnesium, carbon fiber reinforced plastic or titanium composite cases, the original design concept of ThinkPad was created in 1990 by Italy-based designer Richard Sapper, a corporate design consultant of IBM and, since 2005, Lenovo. Sapper is noted for the design of products such as the Tizio lamp for Artemide, office chair for Knoll, kitchenwares for Alessi
US$ 79.139 billion (2017)[3]
US$125.35 billion (2017)[3]
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