1.
Brand
–
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes one seller’s product from those of others. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising, however, the term has been extended to mean a strategic personality for a product or company, so that ‘brand’ now suggests the values and promises that a consumer may perceive and buy into. Branding is a set of marketing and communication methods that help to distinguish a company from competitors, the key components that form a brands toolbox include a brand’s identity, brand communication, brand awareness, brand loyalty, and various branding strategies. Brand equity is the totality of a brands worth and is validated by assessing the effectiveness of these branding components. To reach such an invaluable brand prestige requires a commitment to a way of doing business. A corporation who exhibits a strong brand culture is dedicated on producing intangible outputs such as customer satisfaction, reduced price sensitivity and customer loyalty. A brand is in essence a promise to its customers that they can expect long-term security, when a customer is familiar with a brand or favours it incomparably to its competitors, this is when a corporation has reached a high level of brand equity. Many companies are beginning to understand there is often little to differentiate between products in the 21st century. Branding remains the last bastion for differentiation, in accounting, a brand defined as an intangible asset is often the most valuable asset on a corporation’s balance sheet. The word ‘brand’ is often used as a referring to the company that is strongly identified with a brand. Marque or make are often used to denote a brand of motor vehicle, a concept brand is a brand that is associated with an abstract concept, like breast cancer awareness or environmentalism, rather than a specific product, service, or business. A commodity brand is a associated with a commodity. The word, brand, derives from Dutch brand meaning to burn and this product was developed at Dhosi Hill, an extinct volcano in northern India. Roman glassmakers branded their works, with Ennion being the most prominent, the Italians used brands in the form of watermarks on paper in the 13th century. Blind Stamps, hallmarks, and silver-makers marks are all types of brand, industrialization moved the production of many household items, such as soap, from local communities to centralized factories. When shipping their items, the factories would literally brand their logo or insignia on the barrels used, Bass & Company, the British brewery, claims their red-triangle brand as the worlds first trademark. Another example comes from Antiche Fornaci Giorgi in Italy, which has stamped or carved its bricks with the same proto-logo since 1731, cattle-branding has been used since Ancient Egypt. The term, maverick, originally meaning an un-branded calf, came from a Texas pioneer rancher, Sam Maverick, use of the word maverick spread among cowboys and came to apply to unbranded calves found wandering alone
2.
Laurence Spitters
–
Laurence Larry Spitters is an American industrialist and investor who co-founded Memorex. Spitters began his career as an investment banker with Blyth & Co. in 1954 and worked on Wall Street before transferring to Blyth’s office in San Francisco, California. In 1958 he joined Ampex Corporation in Redwood City, California, as Assistant to the Vice President and Treasurer at Ampex, he spearheaded Ampex’s initial public offering in 1959. In addition, he led Ampex’s study to merge with Orr Industries, in 1961, Laurence Spitters founded Memorex Corporation in Santa Clara, California, along with three engineers from Ampex in order to enter the precision magnetic tape market. Memorex was the first company to manufacture chromium dioxide cassettes in substantial volume, memorex’s disk drive division, led by Alan Shugart, produced the Memorex 650 in 1972, the first read-write floppy disk drive. The Memorex 650 had a capacity of 175kB, with 50 tracks,8 sectors per track, during the 1970s, Memorex also produced premium cassette tapes which were marketed vigorously through heavy television advertising. A consumer products division established in 1970 made Memorex a household name with the “Is it live or is it Memorex. ”Advertising campaign from the Leo Burnett agency which featured jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and a shattering wineglass. Laurence Spitters, who retired from Memorex in 1974, received a degree from Santa Clara University. He served on the Santa Clara University Board of Trustees, the Children’s Health Council, and The Embarcadero Publishing Company, publisher of the Palo Alto Weekly. University of Michigan Law School B. A, Western Michigan University Spitters has been a financial contributor to American Conservatory Theatre. Corporate Histories Collection, Computer History Museum,1401 N. Shoreline Blvd
3.
Consumer electronics
–
Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic or digital equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications, and home-office activities, in British English, they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers, to distinguish them from white goods such as washing machines and refrigerators. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, later products included telephones, personal computers, MP3 players, audio equipment, televisions and calculators. In the 2010s, consumer electronics stores often sell GPS, automotive electronics, video game consoles, electronic instruments, karaoke machines, digital cameras. Stores also sell digital cameras, camcorders, cell phones, some consumer electronics stores, such as Best Buy have also begun selling office and baby furniture. Consumer electronics stores may be bricks and mortar retail stores, online stores. The CEA estimated the value of 2015 consumer electronics sales at US$220 billion, for its first fifty years the phonograph turntable did not use electronics, the needle and soundhorn were purely mechanical technologies. However, in the 1920s radio broadcasting became the basis of production of radio receivers. The vacuum tubes that had made radios practical were used with record players as well, television was soon invented, but remained insignificant in the consumer market until the 1950s. The transistor, invented in 1947 by Bell Laboratories, led to significant research in the field of semiconductors in the early 1950s. The transistors advantages revolutionized that industry along with other electronics, by 1959 Fairchild Semiconductor had introduced the first planar transistor from which come the origins of Moores Law. Integrated circuits followed when manufacturers built circuits on a substrate using electrical connections between circuits within the chip itself. One overriding characteristic of consumer products is the trend of ever-falling prices. This is driven by gains in manufacturing efficiency and automation, lower costs as manufacturing has moved to lower-wage countries. Semiconductor components benefit from Moores Law, a principle which states that, for a given price. While consumer electronics continues in its trend of convergence, combining elements of many products, there is an ever increasing need to keep product information updated and comparable, for the consumer to make an informed choice. Style, price, specification, and performance are all relevant, there is a gradual shift towards e-commerce web-storefronts. Many products include Internet connectivity using technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, products not traditionally associated with computer use now provide options to connect to the Internet or to a computer using a home network to provide access to digital content
4.
Data storage
–
A data storage device is a device for recording information. A storage device may hold information, process information, or both, a device that only holds information is a recording medium. Devices that process information may either access a separate portable recording medium or a permanent component to store, Electronic data storage requires electrical power to store and retrieve that data. Most storage devices that do not require vision and a brain to read data fall into this category, electromagnetic data may be stored in either an analog data or digital data format on a variety of media. Most electronically processed data storage media are considered permanent storage, that is, in contrast, most electronically stored information within most types of semiconductor microcircuits are volatile memory, for it vanishes if power is removed. JISC/NPO Studies on the Preservation of Electronic Materials, A Framework of Data Types and Formats, british Library Research and Innovation Report 50
5.
Compact disc
–
Compact disc is a digital optical disc data storage format released in 1982 and co-developed by Philips and Sony. The format was developed to store and play only sound recordings but was later adapted for storage of data. The first commercially available Audio CD player, the Sony CDP-101, was released October 1982 in Japan, standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres and can hold up to about 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or about 700 MiB of data. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres, they are used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio. At the time of the introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard drive. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much space as a thousand CDs. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs, by 2007,200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide. In 2014, revenues from digital music services matched those from physical format sales for the first time. American inventor James T. Russell has been credited with inventing the first system to record information on an optical transparent foil that is lit from behind by a high-power halogen lamp. Russells patent application was first filed in 1966, and he was granted a patent in 1970, following litigation, Sony and Philips licensed Russells patents in the 1980s. The compact disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology, where a laser beam is used that enables the high information density required for high-quality digital audio signals. Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently in the late 1970s, although originally dismissed by Philips Research management as a trivial pursuit, the CD became the primary focus for Philips as the LaserDisc format struggled. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new audio disc. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the Red Book CD-DA standard was published in 1980, after their commercial release in 1982, compact discs and their players were extremely popular. Despite costing up to $1,000, over 400,000 CD players were sold in the United States between 1983 and 1984, by 1988 CD sales in the United States surpassed those of vinyl LPs, and by 1992 CD sales surpassed those of prerecorded music cassette tapes. The success of the disc has been credited to the cooperation between Philips and Sony, who came together to agree upon and develop compatible hardware. The unified design of the disc allowed consumers to purchase any disc or player from any company. In 1974, L. However, due to the performance of the analog format
6.
DVD
–
DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. The medium can store any kind of data and is widely used for software. DVDs offer higher capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions. Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD, such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs can be recorded using a DVD recorder. Rewritable DVDs can be recorded and erased many times, DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The OED also states that in 1995, The companies said the name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name ‘digital video disk’, but that was switched to ‘digital versatile disk’ after computer companies complained that it left out their applications, Digital versatile disc is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forums mission statement. There were several formats developed for recording video on optical discs before the DVD, Optical recording technology was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958 and first patented in 1961. A consumer optical disc data format known as LaserDisc was developed in the United States and it used much larger discs than the later formats. CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm size of audio CDs, Video CD became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc formats were being developed. By the time of the launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc. Representatives from the SD camp asked IBM for advice on the system to use for their disc. Alan E. Bell, a researcher from IBMs Almaden Research Center, got that request and this group was referred to as the Technical Working Group, or TWG. On August 14,1995, an ad hoc group formed from five computer companies issued a release stating that they would only accept a single format. The TWG voted to both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions, as a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB for a dual-layered, single-sided disc
7.
Flash memory
–
Flash memory is electronic non-volatile computer storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. Toshiba developed flash memory from EEPROM in the early 1980s and introduced it to the market in 1984, the two main types of flash memory are named after the NAND and NOR logic gates. The individual flash memory cells exhibit internal characteristics similar to those of the corresponding gates, where EPROMs had to be completely erased before being rewritten, NAND-type flash memory may be written and read in blocks which are generally much smaller than the entire device. NOR-type flash allows a machine word to be written—to an erased location—or read independently. The NAND type operates primarily in memory cards, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, NAND or NOR flash memory is also often used to store configuration data in numerous digital products, a task previously made possible by EEPROM or battery-powered static RAM. One key disadvantage of flash memory is that it can endure a relatively small number of write cycles in a specific block. In addition to being non-volatile, flash memory offers fast read access times, although flash memory is technically a type of EEPROM, the term EEPROM is generally used to refer specifically to non-flash EEPROM which is erasable in small blocks, typically bytes. Because erase cycles are slow, the block sizes used in flash memory erasing give it a significant speed advantage over non-flash EEPROM when writing large amounts of data. As of 2013, flash memory costs much less than byte-programmable EEPROM and had become the dominant memory type wherever a system required a significant amount of non-volatile solid-state storage, Flash memory was invented by Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980. According to Toshiba, the flash was suggested by Masuokas colleague, Shōji Ariizumi. Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention at the IEEE1984 International Electron Devices Meeting held in San Francisco, Intel Corporation saw the massive potential of the invention and introduced the first commercial NOR type flash chip in 1988. NOR-based flash has long erase and write times, but provides full address and data buses, allowing random access to any memory location. This makes it a replacement for older read-only memory chips. Its endurance may be from as little as 100 erase cycles for a flash memory, to a more typical 10,000 or 100,000 erase cycles. NOR-based flash was the basis of early flash-based removable media, CompactFlash was originally based on it, however, the I/O interface of NAND flash does not provide a random-access external address bus. Rather, data must be read on a basis, with typical block sizes of hundreds to thousands of bits. This makes NAND flash unsuitable as a replacement for program ROM. In this regard, NAND flash is similar to other data storage devices, such as hard disks and optical media
8.
Computer
–
A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. The ability of computers to follow a sequence of operations, called a program, such computers are used as control systems for a very wide variety of industrial and consumer devices. The Internet is run on computers and it millions of other computers. Since ancient times, simple manual devices like the abacus aided people in doing calculations, early in the Industrial Revolution, some mechanical devices were built to automate long tedious tasks, such as guiding patterns for looms. More sophisticated electrical machines did specialized analog calculations in the early 20th century, the first digital electronic calculating machines were developed during World War II. The speed, power, and versatility of computers has increased continuously and dramatically since then, conventionally, a modern computer consists of at least one processing element, typically a central processing unit, and some form of memory. The processing element carries out arithmetic and logical operations, and a sequencing, peripheral devices include input devices, output devices, and input/output devices that perform both functions. Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an external source and this usage of the term referred to a person who carried out calculations or computations. The word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century, from the end of the 19th century the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, a machine that carries out computations. The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the first attested use of computer in the 1640s, one who calculates, the Online Etymology Dictionary states that the use of the term to mean calculating machine is from 1897. The Online Etymology Dictionary indicates that the use of the term. 1945 under this name, theoretical from 1937, as Turing machine, devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, mostly using one-to-one correspondence with fingers. The earliest counting device was probably a form of tally stick, later record keeping aids throughout the Fertile Crescent included calculi which represented counts of items, probably livestock or grains, sealed in hollow unbaked clay containers. The use of counting rods is one example, the abacus was initially used for arithmetic tasks. The Roman abacus was developed from used in Babylonia as early as 2400 BC. Since then, many forms of reckoning boards or tables have been invented. In a medieval European counting house, a checkered cloth would be placed on a table, the Antikythera mechanism is believed to be the earliest mechanical analog computer, according to Derek J. de Solla Price. It was designed to calculate astronomical positions and it was discovered in 1901 in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to circa 100 BC
9.
Electronics
–
Electronics is the science of controlling electrical energy electrically, in which the electrons have a fundamental role. Commonly, electronic devices contain circuitry consisting primarily or exclusively of active semiconductors supplemented with passive elements, the science of electronics is also considered to be a branch of physics and electrical engineering. The ability of electronic devices to act as switches makes digital information processing possible, until 1950 this field was called radio technology because its principal application was the design and theory of radio transmitters, receivers, and vacuum tubes. Today, most electronic devices use semiconductor components to perform electron control and this article focuses on engineering aspects of electronics. Components are generally intended to be connected together, usually by being soldered to a circuit board. Components may be packaged singly, or in more complex groups as integrated circuits, some common electronic components are capacitors, inductors, resistors, diodes, transistors, etc. Components are often categorized as active or passive, vacuum tubes were among the earliest electronic components. They were almost solely responsible for the revolution of the first half of the Twentieth Century. They took electronics from parlor tricks and gave us radio, television, phonographs, radar, long distance telephony and they played a leading role in the field of microwave and high power transmission as well as television receivers until the middle of the 1980s. Since that time, solid state devices have all but completely taken over, vacuum tubes are still used in some specialist applications such as high power RF amplifiers, cathode ray tubes, specialist audio equipment, guitar amplifiers and some microwave devices. The 608 contained more than 3,000 germanium transistors, thomas J. Watson Jr. ordered all future IBM products to use transistors in their design. From that time on transistors were almost exclusively used for computer logic, circuits and components can be divided into two groups, analog and digital. A particular device may consist of circuitry that has one or the other or a mix of the two types, most analog electronic appliances, such as radio receivers, are constructed from combinations of a few types of basic circuits. Analog circuits use a range of voltage or current as opposed to discrete levels as in digital circuits. The number of different analog circuits so far devised is huge, especially because a circuit can be defined as anything from a single component, analog circuits are sometimes called linear circuits although many non-linear effects are used in analog circuits such as mixers, modulators, etc. Good examples of analog circuits include vacuum tube and transistor amplifiers, one rarely finds modern circuits that are entirely analog. These days analog circuitry may use digital or even microprocessor techniques to improve performance and this type of circuit is usually called mixed signal rather than analog or digital. Sometimes it may be difficult to differentiate between analog and digital circuits as they have elements of both linear and non-linear operation, an example is the comparator which takes in a continuous range of voltage but only outputs one of two levels as in a digital circuit
10.
Magnetic tape
–
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording, devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders. A device that stores data on magnetic tape is a tape drive. Magnetic tape revolutionized broadcast and recording, when all radio was live, it allowed programming to be recorded. At a time when gramophone records were recorded in one take, it allowed recordings to be made in multiple parts, which were then mixed and edited with tolerable loss in quality. It was a key technology in computer development, allowing unparalleled amounts of data to be mechanically created, stored for long periods. Nowadays, other technologies can perform the functions of magnetic tape, in many cases, these technologies are replacing tape. Despite this, innovation in the technology continues, and Sony, over years, magnetic tape made in the 1970s and 1980s can suffer from a type of deterioration called sticky-shed syndrome. Caused by hydrolysis of the binder of the tape, it can render the tape unusable, the oxide side of a tape is the surface that can be magnetically manipulated by a tape head. This is the side that stores the information, the side is simply a substrate to hold the tape together. The name originates from the fact that the side of most tapes is made of an oxide of iron. Magnetic tape was invented for recording sound by Fritz Pfleumer in 1928 in Germany, based on the invention of magnetic wire recording by Oberlin Smith in 1888, pfleumers invention used a ferric oxide powder coating on a long strip of paper. This invention was developed by the German electronics company AEG, which manufactured the recording machines and BASF. In 1933, working for AEG, Eduard Schuller developed the ring-shaped tape head, previous head designs were needle-shaped and tended to shred the tape. An important discovery made in this period was the technique of AC biasing, due to the escalating political tensions, and the outbreak of World War II, these developments were largely kept secret. A wide variety of recorders and formats have developed since, most significantly reel-to-reel, the practice of recording and editing audio using magnetic tape rapidly established itself as an obvious improvement over previous methods. Many saw the potential of making the same improvements in recording television, television signals are similar to audio signals. A major difference is that video signals use more bandwidth than audio signals, existing audio tape recorders could not practically capture a video signal
11.
Silicon Valley
–
Silicon Valley is a nickname for the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the northern part of the U. S. state of California. The valley in its name refers to the Santa Clara Valley in Santa Clara County, which includes the city of San Jose and surrounding cities and towns, where the region has been traditionally centered. The region has expanded to include the half of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County. It was in the Valley that the integrated circuit, the microprocessor. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of an information technology workers. The term is now used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The first published use of Silicon Valley is credited to Don Hoefler, hostler used the phrase as the title of a series of articles in the weekly trade newspaper Electronic News. The series, entitled Silicon Valley in the USA, began in the papers January 11,1971, the term gained widespread use in the early 1980s, at the time of the introduction of the IBM PC and numerous related hardware and software products to the consumer market. The silicon part of the name refers to the concentration of companies involved in the making of semiconductors. These firms slowly replaced the orchards and the fruits which gave the area its initial nickname — the Valley of Hearts Delight, Stanford University leadership was especially important in the valleys early development. Together these elements formed the basis of its growth and success, the ship had been outfitted with a wireless telegraph transmitter by a local newspaper, so that they could prepare a celebration on the return of the American sailors. Local historian Clyde Arbuckle states in Clyde Arbuckles History of San Jose that California first heard the click of a key on September 11,1853. It marked completion of an enterprise begun by a couple of San Francisco Merchants Exchange members named George Sweeney and it was known as the Inner Station, the second, as the Outer Station. Both used their primitive mode of communication until Messrs, Sweeney and Baugh connected the Outer Station directly with the Merchantss Exchange by electric telegraph Wire. According to Arbuckle Sweeney and Baughs line was strictly an intra-city, San Francisco-based service, allen and C. Burnham led the way to build a line from San Francisco to Marysville via San Jose, Stockton, and Sacramento. Delays to construction occurred until September 1853, but, …San Jose became the first station on the line when the wire arrived here on October 15, the line was completed when Gambles northbound crew met a similar crew working southward from Marysville on October 24. The Bay Area had long been a site of United States Navy research. In 1909, Charles Herrold started the first radio station in the United States with regularly scheduled programming in San Jose
12.
Disk storage
–
Disk storage is a general category of storage mechanisms where data are recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is a device implementing such a storage mechanism, notable types are the hard disk drive containing a non-removable disk, the floppy disk drive and its removable floppy disk, and various optical disc drives and associated optical disc media. Audio information was recorded by analog methods. Similarly the first video disc used a recording method. In the music industry, analog recording has mostly replaced by digital optical technology where the data are recorded in a digital format with optical information. The first commercial digital disk storage device was the IBM350 which shipped in 1956 as a part of the IBM305 RAMAC computing system, the random-access, low-density storage of disks was developed to complement the already used sequential-access, high-density storage provided by tape drives using magnetic tape. Disk storage is now used in computer storage and consumer electronic storage, e. g. audio CDs and video discs. Digital disk drives are block storage devices, each disk is divided into logical blocks. Blocks are addressed using their logical block addresses, read from or writing to disk happens at the granularity of blocks. Originally the disk capacity was low and has been improved in one of several ways. Improvements in mechanical design and manufacture allowed smaller and more precise heads, advancements in data compression methods permitted more information to be stored in each of the individual sectors. The drive stores data onto cylinders, heads, and sectors, the sectors unit is the smallest size of data to be stored in a hard disk drive and each file will have many sectors units assigned to it. The smallest entity in a CD is called a frame, which consists of 33 bytes, the other nine bytes consist of eight CIRC error-correction bytes and one subcode byte used for control and display. The information is sent from the processor to the BIOS into a chip controlling the data transfer. This is then sent out to the drive via a multi-wire connector. Once the data are received onto the board of the drive. The data are passed to a chip on the circuit board that controls the access to the drive. The drive is divided into sectors of data stored onto one of the sides of one of the internal disks, an HDD with two disks internally will typically store data on all four surfaces
13.
IBM
–
International Business Machines Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States, with operations in over 170 countries. The company originated in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company and was renamed International Business Machines in 1924, IBM manufactures and markets computer hardware, middleware and software, and offers hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. IBM is also a research organization, holding the record for most patents generated by a business for 24 consecutive years. IBM has continually shifted its business mix by exiting commoditizing markets and focusing on higher-value, also in 2014, IBM announced that it would go fabless, continuing to design semiconductors, but offloading manufacturing to GlobalFoundries. Nicknamed Big Blue, IBM is one of 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and one of the worlds largest employers, with nearly 380,000 employees. Known as IBMers, IBM employees have been awarded five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, in the 1880s, technologies emerged that would ultimately form the core of what would become International Business Machines. On June 16,1911, their four companies were amalgamated in New York State by Charles Ranlett Flint forming a fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company based in Endicott, New York. The five companies had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York, Dayton, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, Washington, D. C. and Toronto. They manufactured machinery for sale and lease, ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorders, meat and cheese slicers, to tabulators and punched cards. Thomas J. Watson, Sr. fired from the National Cash Register Company by John Henry Patterson, called on Flint and, Watson joined CTR as General Manager then,11 months later, was made President when court cases relating to his time at NCR were resolved. Having learned Pattersons pioneering business practices, Watson proceeded to put the stamp of NCR onto CTRs companies and his favorite slogan, THINK, became a mantra for each companys employees. During Watsons first four years, revenues more than doubled to $9 million, Watson had never liked the clumsy hyphenated title of the CTR and in 1924 chose to replace it with the more expansive title International Business Machines. By 1933 most of the subsidiaries had been merged into one company, in 1937, IBMs tabulating equipment enabled organizations to process unprecedented amounts of data, its clients including the U. S. During the Second World War the company produced small arms for the American war effort, in 1949, Thomas Watson, Sr. created IBM World Trade Corporation, a subsidiary of IBM focused on foreign operations. In 1952, he stepped down after almost 40 years at the company helm, in 1957, the FORTRAN scientific programming language was developed. In 1961, IBM developed the SABRE reservation system for American Airlines, in 1963, IBM employees and computers helped NASA track the orbital flight of the Mercury astronauts. A year later it moved its headquarters from New York City to Armonk. The latter half of the 1960s saw IBM continue its support of space exploration, on April 7,1964, IBM announced the first computer system family, the IBM System/360
14.
Mainframe computer
–
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
15.
Hard disk drive
–
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
16.
Front-end processor
–
Data is transferred between the host computer and the front end processor using a high-speed parallel interface. The front end processor communicates with devices using slower serial interfaces. Two examples are the IBM3705 Communications Controller and the Burroughs Data Communications Processor, sometimes FEP is synonymous with a communications controller, although the latter is not necessarily as flexible. Early communications controllers such as the IBM 270x series were hard wired, Front end processor is also used in a more general sense in asymmetric multi-processor systems. The FEP is a device which is closer to the input source than is the main processor. It performs some task such as control, data collection, reduction of raw sensor data, analysis of keyboard input. Front-end processes relates to the interface between the user and the application processes in the client/server architecture. The user enters input into the process where it is collected and processed in such a way that it conforms to what the receiving application on the server can accept. As an example, the user enters a URL into a GUI such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, the GUI then processes the URL in such a way that the user is able to reach or access the intended web pages on the web server. Front-end processors or communications processors relates to efficient use of the host CPU by off-loading processing for peripheral control, as an example, FEPs are responsible for linking client applications and their associated networks to host computer based applications. With the advent of the Internet and of IP as a protocol, it is often assumed that there is no longer any need for FEPs. This may be true where FEPs provide only straight connectivity, the need for these functions is especially important in mission critical transaction environments such as banking, government, point-of-sale, security, and health care applications. In these environments, FEP functionality is necessary than ever before. Although the IBM Corporation withdrew its 3745/3746 Communications Front End Processors from marketing in 2003, IBM also provides microcode enhancement features. Smaller companies have filled the void created by IBMs action, providing machines, features, parts and services worldwide
17.
MiniDisc
–
MiniDisc is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 74 minutes and, later,80 minutes, of digitized audio or 1 gigabyte of Hi-MD data. Sony brand audio players were on the market from September 1992 until March 2013, MiniDisc was announced by Sony in September 1992 and released that November of that year for sale in Japan and in December in Europe, Canada, the USA and other countries. MiniDiscs were very popular outside of the USA, Sony has ceased development of MD devices, with the last of the players sold by March 2013. It took, however, almost 10 years before their idea was commercialized, Sony had originally intended Digital Audio Tape to be the dominant home digital audio recording format, replacing the analog cassette. Due to technical delays, DAT was not launched until 1989, by the time Sony came up with MiniDisc in late 1992, Philips had introduced a competing system, DCC. This created marketing confusion very similar to the Betamax versus VHS battle of the late 1970s, Sony attempted to license MD technology to other manufacturers, with JVC, Sharp, Pioneer, Panasonic and others all producing their own MD systems. However, non-Sony machines were not widely available in North America, despite having a loyal customer base largely of musicians and audio enthusiasts, MiniDisc met with only limited success. It was relatively popular in Japan during the 1990s but did not enjoy comparable sales in other world markets, since then, recordable CDs, flash memory and HDD and solid-state-based digital audio players such as iPods have become increasingly popular as playback devices. The initial low uptake of MiniDisc was attributed to the number of pre-recorded albums available on MD as relatively few record labels embraced the format. The initial high cost of equipment and blank media was also a factor, mains-powered hi-fi MiniDisc player/recorders never got into the lower price ranges, and most consumers had to connect a portable machine to the hi-fi in order to record. This inconvenience contrasted with the common use of cassette decks as a standard part of an ordinary hi-fi set-up. The biggest competition for MiniDisc came from the emergence of MP3 players, with the Diamond Rio player in 1998 and the Apple iPod, the mass market began to eschew physical media in favor of file-based systems. This allowed the MiniDisc to better compete with HD recorders and MP3 players, on 7 July 2011, Sony announced that it would no longer ship MiniDisc Walkman products as of September 2011, effectively killing the format. On 1 February 2013, Sony issued a release on the Nikkei stock exchange that it will cease shipment of MD devices. However, it would continue to sell blank discs and offer repair services, MD Data, a version for storing computer data, was announced by Sony in 1993 but never gained significant ground. Its media were incompatible with standard audio MiniDiscs, which has been cited as one of the reasons behind the formats failure. MD Data could not write to audio-MDs, only the more expensive data blanks. In 1997, MD-Data2 blanks were introduced, which held 650 MB of data and they were only implemented in Sonys short-lived MD-based camcorder as well as a small number of multi-track recorders, Sonys MDM-X4, Tascams 564, and Yamahas MD-8, MD-4, & MD4S
18.
Advertisement film
–
A television advertisement is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization, which conveys a message, typically to market a product or service. Advertisers and marketeers may refer to television commercials as TVCs, Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately-owned television networks. As of 2016 the vast majority of television advertisements consist of advertising spots. Advertisements of this sort have promoted a variety of goods, services. The effects of television advertising upon the public have been the subject of philosophical discourse by such luminaries as Marshall McLuhan. In many countries, including the United States, television advertisements are considered indispensable for a political campaign. In other countries, such as France, political advertising on television is heavily restricted, while some countries, such as Norway, completely ban political advertisements. The announcement for Bulova watches, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 to $9.00, displayed a WNBT test pattern modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase Bulova Watch Time, appeared in the lower quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute. The first TV ad broadcast in the UK went to air on ITV on September 22,1955, the first TV ad broadcast in Asia appeared on Nippon Television in Tokyo on August 28,1953, advertising Seikosha, it also displayed a clock with the current time. To accomplish the first step means different things in different parts of the world depending on the regulation in place, in the UK for example, clearance must be given by the body Clearcast. Another example is Venezuela where clearance is governed by a body called CNAC, the clearance provides guarantee to the broadcasters that the content of the advertisement meets legal guidelines. Because of this, special extended clearance sometimes applies to food, after the advent of cheap video software and consumer cameras, numerous individuals have offered video production services on the internet. Some of these ad jingles or catch-phrases may take on lives of their own, spawning gags that appear in films, television shows, magazines, comics, or literature. These long-lasting advertising elements may be said to have taken a place in the pop culture history of the demographic to whom they appeared. An example is the phrase, Winston tastes good like a cigarette should. Variations of this dialogue and direct references to it appeared as long as two decades after the advertising campaign expired, another example is Wheres the Beef. which grew so popular it was used in the 1984 presidential election by Walter Mondale. Another popular catch-phrase is Ive fallen and I cant get up, Advertising agencies often use humor as a tool in their creative marketing campaigns
19.
Ella Fitzgerald
–
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz singer often referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz and Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, Fitzgeralds rendition of the nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket helped boost both her and Webb to national fame. Taking over the band after Webb died, Fitzgerald left it behind in 1942 to start a career that would last effectively the rest of her life. With Verve she recorded some of her more noted works. These partnerships produced recognizable songs like Dream a Little Dream of Me, Cheek to Cheek, Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall, in 1993, Fitzgerald capped off her sixty-year career with her last public performance. Three years later, she died at the age of 79, Fitzgerald was born on April 25,1917, in Newport News, Virginia, the daughter of William Fitzgerald and Temperance Tempie Fitzgerald. Her parents were unmarried but lived together for at least two and a years after she was born. Initially living in a room, her mother and Da Silva soon found jobs. Her half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923, by 1925, Fitzgerald and her family had moved to nearby School Street, then a predominantly poor Italian area. She began her education at the age of six and proved to be an outstanding student. Fitzgerald had been passionate about dancing from third grade, being a fan of Earl Snakehips Tucker in particular, Fitzgerald and her family were Methodists and were active in the Bethany African Methodist Episcopal Church, and she regularly attended worship services, Bible study, and Sunday school. The church provided Fitzgerald with her earliest experiences in music making. During this period Fitzgerald listened to recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby. Fitzgerald idolized the Boswell Sisters lead singer Connee Boswell, later saying, My mother brought home one of her records, in 1932, her mother died from serious injuries she received in a car accident when Fitzgerald was 15 years of age. This left her at first in the care of her stepfather but before the end of April 1933, following these traumas, Fitzgerald began skipping school and letting her grades suffer. During this period she worked at times as a lookout at a bordello, Ella Fitzgerald never talked publicly about this time in her life. When the authorities caught up with her, she was first placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, in the Bronx. However, when the orphanage proved too crowded, she was moved to the New York Training School for Girls in Hudson, New York, eventually she escaped and for a time she was homeless
20.
Compact Cassette
–
The Compact Cassette or Musicassette, also commonly called cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. It was released by Philips in 1962, having developed in Hasselt. Compact cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a cassette, or as a fully recordable blank cassette. Its uses ranged from portable audio to home recording to data storage for early microcomputers, the first cassette player designed for use in car dashes was introduced in 1968. Between the early 1970s and the early 2000s, the cassette was one of the two most common formats for prerecorded music, first alongside the LP record and later the compact disc. Compact Cassettes contain two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated, polyester-type plastic film is passed and wound and these spools and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic shell. This reversal is achieved either by flipping the cassette, or by having the machine itself change the direction of tape movement. In 1935, decades before the introduction of the Compact Cassette, AEG released the first reel-to-reel tape recorder and it was based on the invention of the magnetic tape by Fritz Pfleumer, which used similar technology but with open reels. These instruments were expensive and relatively difficult to use and were therefore used mostly by professionals in radio stations. In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, however, it was a large cassette, and offered few pre-recorded tapes. Despite the multiple versions, it failed, consumer use of tape only took off in the early 1960s, after playback machines reached a comfortable, user-friendly design. This was achieved primarily by the introduction of transistors which replaced the bulky, fragile, reel-to-reel tape then became more suitable to household use, but still remained an esoteric product. The team at Philips was led by Lou Ottens in Hasselt, Philips was competing with Telefunken and Grundig in a race to establish its cassette tape as the worldwide standard, and it wanted support from Japanese electronics manufacturers. However, the Philips Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips decision to license the format free of charge, Philips also released the Norelco Carry-Corder 150 recorder/player in the US in November 1964. By 1966 over 250,000 recorders had been sold in the US alone, by 1968,85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million players. By the end of the 1960s, the business was worth an estimated 150 million dollars. In the early years sound quality was mediocre, but it improved dramatically by the early 1970s when it caught up with the quality of 8-track tape, the Compact Cassette went on to become a popular alternative to the 12-inch vinyl LP during the late 1970s. The mass production of blank Compact Cassettes began in 1964 in Hanover, prerecorded music cassettes were launched in Europe in late 1965
21.
Burroughs Corporation
–
The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. The company was founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company, the companys history paralleled many of the major developments in computing. At its start it produced mechanical adding machines, and later moved into programmable ledgers and it was one of the largest producers of mainframe computers in the world, also producing related equipment including typewriters and printers. In 1886, the American Arithmometer Company was established in St. Louis, Missouri to produce, in 1904, six years after Burroughs death, the company moved to Detroit and changed its name to the Burroughs Adding Machine Company. It was soon the biggest adding machine company in America, the adding machine range began with the basic, hand-cranked P100 which was only capable of adding. The design included some features, foremost of which was the dashpot. The P200 offered a subtraction capability and the P300 provided a means of keeping 2 separate totals, the P400 provided a moveable carriage, and the P600 and top-of-the-range P612 offered some limited programmability based upon the position of the carriage. The range was extended by the inclusion of the J series which provided a single finger calculation facility. In the late 1960s, the Burroughs sponsored nixi-tube provided an electronic display calculator, Burroughs developed a range of adding machines with different capabilities, gradually increasing in their capabilities. A revolutionary adding machine was the Sensimatic, which was able to perform many business functions semi-automatically and it had a moving programmable carriage to maintain ledgers. It could store 9,18 or 27 balances during the ledger posting operations, the Sensimatic developed into the Sensitronic which could store balances on a magnetic stripe which was part of the ledger card. This balance was read into the accumulator when the card was inserted into the carriage, the Sensitronic was followed by the E1000, E2000, E3000, E4000, E6000 and the E8000, which were computer systems supporting card reader/punches and a line printer. Later, Burroughs was selling more than adding machines, including typewriters, electroData had built the Datatron 205 and was working on the Datatron 220. The first major product that came from this marriage was the B205 tube computer. In the late 1960s the L and TC series range was produced which had a golf ball printer and these were popular as branch terminals to the B5500/6500/6700 systems, and sold well in the banking sector, where they were often connected to non-Burroughs mainframes. In conjunction with these products, Burroughs also manufactured a range of cheque processing equipment. In terms of sales, Burroughs was always a distant second to IBM, in fact, IBMs market share was so much larger than all of the others that this group was often referred to as IBM and the Seven Dwarfs. By 1972 when GE and RCA were no longer in the business, the remaining five companies behind IBM became known as the BUNCH
22.
Unisys
–
Unisys Corporation is an American global information technology company based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, that provides a portfolio of IT services, software, and technology. It is the proprietor of the Burroughs and UNIVAC line of computers. Unisys traces its roots back to the founding of American Arithmometer Company in 1886, Unisys predecessor companies also include the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, which developed the worlds first commercial digital computers, the BINAC and the UNIVAC. In September 1986 Unisys was formed through the merger of the mainframe corporations Sperry and Burroughs, the name was chosen from over 31,000 submissions in an internal competition when Chuck Ayoub submitted the word Unisys which was composed of parts of the words united, information and systems. The merger was the largest in the industry at the time. At the time of the merger, Unisys had approximately 120,000 employees, michael Blumenthal became CEO and Chairman after the merger and resigned in 1990 after several years of losses. James Unruh, became the new CEO and Chairman after Blumenthals departure and continued in that role until 1997, by 1997, layoffs had reduced world-wide employee count to approximately 30,000. In addition to hardware, both Burroughs and Sperry had a history of working on U. S. government contracts, Unisys continues to provide hardware, software, and services to various government agencies. In 1988 the company acquired Convergent Technologies, makers of CTOS, joseph McGrath served as CEO and President from January,2005, until September,2008, he was never named chairman. On October 7,2008, J. Edward Coleman replaced J. McGrath as CEO and was named Chairman of the board as well. On November 10,2008, the company was removed from the S&P500 index as the market capitalization of the company had fallen below the S&P500 minimum of $4 billion. On October 6,2014, Unisys announced that Coleman would leave the company effective December 1,2014, Unisys share price immediately fell when this news became public. On January 1,2015, Unisys officially named Peter Altabef as its new president and CEO, paul Weaver, who was formerly Lead Independent Director, was named Chairman. Unisys promotes itself as an information technology company that solves complex IT challenges for some of the world’s largest companies. Including the CIA, FBI, INS, ICE, and the U. S. military, the company maintains a portfolio of over 1,500 U. S. and non-U. S. The companys mainframe line, Clearpath, is capable of running not only mainframe software, the Clearpath system is available in either a UNISYS 2200-based system or an MCP-based system. In 2014, Unisys phased out its CMOS processors, completing the migration of its ClearPath mainframes to Intel x86 chips, the company announced its new ClearPath Dorado 8380 and 8390 systems in May,2015, its most powerful Dorado systems ever. In 2014, CRN ranked Unisys Stealth on its list of Top 10 products for combatting advanced persistent threat, Platform among the Top 10 coolest servers of 2014
23.
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
24.
IPod
–
The iPod is a line of portable media players and multi-purpose pocket computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23,2001, about 8½ months after iTunes was released, the most recent iPod redesigns were announced on July 15,2015. There are three current versions of the iPod, the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle, the compact iPod Nano, like other digital music players, iPods can serve as external data storage devices. Storage capacity varies by model, ranging from 2 GB for the iPod Shuffle to 128 GB for the iPod Touch. Before the release of iOS5, the branding was used for the media player included with the iPhone and iPad. As of iOS5, separate apps named Music and Videos are standardized across all iOS-powered products, while the iPhone and iPad have essentially the same media player capabilities as the iPod line, they are generally treated as separate products. During the middle of 2010, iPhone sales overtook those of the iPod, in mid-2015, a new model of the iPod Touch was announced by Apple, and was officially released on the Apple store on July 15,2015. The sixth generation iPod Touch includes a variety of spec improvements such as the upgraded A8 processor. The core is over 5 times faster than models and is built to be roughly on par with the iPhone 5S. It is available in 5 different colors, Space grey, pink, gold, silver, though the iPod was released in 2001, its price and Mac-only compatibility caused sales to be relatively slow until 2004. The iPod line came from Apples digital hub category, when the company began creating software for the market of personal digital devices. The aesthetic was inspired by the 1958 Braun T3 transistor radio designed by Dieter Rams, the product was developed in less than one year and unveiled on October 23,2001. Jobs announced it as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put 1,000 songs in your pocket, Apple did not develop the iPod software entirely in-house, instead using PortalPlayers reference platform based on two ARM cores. The platform had rudimentary software running on a commercial microkernel embedded operating system, portalPlayer had previously been working on an IBM-branded MP3 player with Bluetooth headphones. Apple contracted another company, Pixo, to design and implement the user interface under the direct supervision of Steve Jobs. As development progressed, Apple continued to refine the softwares look, starting with the iPod Mini, the Chicago font was replaced with Espy Sans. Later iPods switched fonts again to Podium Sans—a font similar to Apples corporate font, color display iPods then adopted some Mac OS X themes like Aqua progress bars, and brushed metal meant to evoke a combination lock. In 2006 Apple presented an edition for iPod 5G of Irish rock band U2
25.
Blu-ray
–
Blu-ray or Blu-ray Disc is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was designed to supersede the DVD format, in that it is capable of storing high-definition, the plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Conventional Blu-ray Disc discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the standard for feature-length video discs. Triple-layer discs and quadruple layers are available for BD-XL re-writer drives, the name Blu-ray refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs. The main application of Blu-ray is as a medium for video material such as films and physical distribution of video games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4. Besides the hardware specifications, Blu-ray is associated with a set of multimedia formats, high-definition video may be stored on Blu-ray discs with up to 2160p resolution, at up to 60 frames per second. DVD discs had been limited to a resolution of 480p or 576p. The BD format was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group representing makers of consumer electronics, computer hardware, Sony unveiled the first Blu-ray disc prototypes in October 2000, and the first prototype player was released in April 2003 in Japan. Afterwards, it continued to be developed until its release in June 2006. During the high definition disc format war, Blu-ray Disc competed with the HD DVD format. Toshiba, the company that supported HD DVD, conceded in February 2008. According to Media Research, high-definition software sales in the US were slower in the first two years than DVD software sales, Blu-ray faces competition from video on demand and the continued sale of DVDs. As of January 2016, 44% of U. S. broadband households had a Blu-ray player, the information density of the DVD format was limited by the wavelength of the laser diodes used. Following protracted development, blue laser diodes operating at 405 nanometers became available on a production basis, Sony started two projects in collaboration with Philips applying the new diodes, UDO, and DVR Blue, a format of rewritable discs that would eventually become Blu-ray Disc. The core technologies of the formats are similar, the first DVR Blue prototypes were unveiled at the CEATEC exhibition in October 2000 by Sony. A trademark for the Blue Disc logo was filed February 9,2001, on February 19,2002, the project was officially announced as Blu-ray Disc, and Blu-ray Disc Founders was founded by the nine initial members. The first consumer device arrived in stores on April 10,2003, the Sony BDZ-S77, but there was no standard for prerecorded video, and no movies were released for this player. On October 4,2004, the name Blu-ray Disc Founders was officially changed to the Blu-ray Disc Association, the Blu-ray Disc physical specifications were completed in 2004
26.
Taiwan
–
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
27.
Ritek
–
RITEK Corporation was established on December 29,1989. It produced the first CD in Taiwan in 1990 and the first DVD in Taiwan in 1996, since then, Ritek has become the biggest manufacturer of optical storage media. Currently, it also produces HD DVD media for consumers, RITEK owns RIDATA and the Traxdata brands. It also includes the major subsidiary U-Tech which produces RFID chips, the RIDATA Trademark is listed on the Canadian Intellectual Property Office online database and registered under RITEK CORPORATION, No. 42, Kuanfu N. Road, Hsin Chu Industrial Park, Taiwan, RITEK is one of the worlds largest CD and DVD media producers. Media types produced by Ritek include CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, BD-R, Magneto-optical drive media and MiniDisc. RITEK-manufactured media is sold by different companies under many brands, including Fujifilm, Maxell, Memorex, Philips and it was also sold under the TDK brand from 2001–03, 2009-. Ritek is currently manufacturing DVD+R and Double Layer DVD+R media for TDK, rITEKs own brands include RIDATA, Traxdata, and Arita. Confusingly, Rimedia, Ridisc and Rivision are not Ritek brands, but instead come from E-net, note that the Rimedia, Ridisc and Rivision brands do nevertheless sometimes sell discs which use Ritek media. RITEK produces many types, sub-types and flavors of flash cards, including CompactFlash, SD cards, unbalanced SD cards, MMC cards. USB flash dongles are also made by RITEK, the first Taiwanese OLED screen was made by Ritek. RiTdisplay Corporation is a spin-off and member of the Ritek Group dedicated to display research, RITEK Foundation was established by RITEK Corporation Chairman Jintai Yeh in 1999. Verbatim Corporation TDK Corporation Imation Corporation Ritek Corporations web site
28.
Moser Baer
–
Moser Baer India Limited is an Indian manufacturer of digital storage devices. The companys products are being sold to more than 82 countries and its products are manufactured at its three manufacturing facilities located in the suburbs of New Delhi employing over 8,000 employees. Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, the company manufactures photovoltaic cells and modules using crystalline silicon, Moser Baer India was founded in New Delhi in 1983 as a Time Recorder unit in technical collaboration with Maruzen Corporation, Japan and Moser Baer Sumiswald, Switzerland. In 1988, it moved into the storage industry by commencing manufacturing of 5. 25-inch Floppy Diskettes. By 1993, it started manufacturing 3. 5-inch Micro Floppy Diskettes, in 1999, it set up a 150-million unit capacity plant to manufacture Recordable Compact Disks and Recordable Digital Versatile Disks. The company is today the only large Indian manufacturer of magnetic and optical data storage products. In 2006, the company expanded into the Photovoltaic cells and Home entertainment industries
29.
India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
30.
CBS
–
CBS is an American commercial broadcast television network that is a flagship property of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major facilities and operations in New York City. CBS is sometimes referred to as the Eye Network, in reference to the iconic logo. It has also called the Tiffany Network, alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of William S. Paley. It can also refer to some of CBSs first demonstrations of color television, the network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc. a collection of 16 radio stations that was purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paleys guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, in 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known simply as CBS, Inc. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, which was formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971, CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which also controls the current Viacom. The television network has more than 240 owned-and-operated and affiliated stations throughout the United States. The origins of CBS date back to January 27,1927, Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18,1927, with a presentation by the Howard Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, and fifteen affiliates. Operational costs were steep, particularly the payments to AT&T for use of its land lines, in early 1928 Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the networks Philadelphia affiliate WCAU, and their partner Jerome Louchenheim. With the record out of the picture, Paley quickly streamlined the corporate name to Columbia Broadcasting System. He believed in the power of advertising since his familys La Palina cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio. By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchenheim share of CBS, during Louchenheims brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 to A. H. Grebes Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC, which would become the networks flagship station. WABC was quickly upgraded, and the relocated to 860 kHz. The physical plant was relocated also – to Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan, by the turn of 1929, the network could boast to sponsors of having 47 affiliates. Paley moved right away to put his network on a financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered talks with Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures. The deal came to fruition in September 1929, Paramount acquired 49% of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3.8 million at the time
31.
CMX Systems
–
The companys name, CMX, stood for CBS, Memorex, and eXperimental. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, the company pioneered in integrating computers with videotape editing, starting in 1971 with the CMX600, the first non-linear video editing system. The 600 was designed primarily for off-line editing, by creating both a cut edit of a video program, along with an edit decision list. It stored its video & audio content on disk pack drives supplied by Memorex for instant random access of the video content. The 600 was paired with the CMX-200, which took the edit decision list created by the 600, the 600 was controlled using a Digital PDP-11 minicomputer, and the 200 used a Teletype Model 33 terminal to input EDLs from the 600. CMX also developed the CMX-300 in 1972, a used for online editing. It was a computer-controlled linear editing system, with support for up to four VTRs, the edits were input to the 300 using a Digital VT-05 terminal. CMX would later develop more advanced such as the 340 in 1976, and the CMX Edge. CMX was sold to John Herbert Orrs company Orrox in 1974 and it was then later purchased by Chyron, and remained under its ownership until 1998, when Chyron announced that it would discontinue all CMX products. During the mid-1980s, CMX hardware comprised 90% of all video editing systems used for video editing. The CMX keyboard control style was used as a basis of several other editing systems, including Grass Valley, Calaway, Strassner Editing Systems, one example of other CMX Style, PC-based editing systems. Another popular system was the Calloway, developed by Jack Calloway, and the ETC. All these were examples of CMX style systems,2 Quadruplex 1 Type A1 Type B IVC2 inch Helical scan 1 Type C See External Links below. A digital book on editing with entire CMX history An article on the demise of CMX
32.
Videotape
–
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either a signal or digital signal. Videotape is used in video tape recorders or, more commonly, videocassette recorders and camcorders. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the produced by an electrocardiogram. Tape is a method of storing information and thus imposes delays to access a portion of the tape that is not already under the heads. The early 2000s saw the introduction and rise to prominence of high quality video recording media such as hard disks. Since then, videotape has been relegated to archival and similar uses. The electronics division of entertainer Bing Crosbys production company, Bing Crosby Enterprises, overall the picture quality was still considered inferior to the best kinescope recordings on film. Bing Crosby Enterprises hoped to have a version available in 1954. The BBC experimented from 1952 to 1958 with a high-speed linear videotape system called VERA and it used half-inch tape traveling at 200 inches per second. RCA demonstrated the magnetic recording of both black-and-white and color television programs at its Princeton laboratories on December 1,1953. The high-speed longitudinal tape system, called Simplex, in development since 1951, could record, the color system used half-inch tape to record five tracks, one each for red, blue, green, synchronization, and audio. The black-and-white system used quarter-inch tape with two tracks, one for video and one for audio, both systems ran at 360 inches per second. RCA-owned NBC first used it on The Jonathan Winters Show on October 23,1956 when a song sequence by Dorothy Collins in color was included in the otherwise live television program. BCE demonstrated a color system in February 1955 using a longitudinal recording on half-inch tape. CBS, RCAs competitor, was about to order BCE machines when Ampex introduced the superior Quadruplex system, BCE was acquired by 3M Company in 1956. Quad employed a transverse four-head system on a tape. On January 22,1957, the NBC Television game show Truth or Consequences, produced in Hollywood, Ampex introduced a color videotape recorder in 1958 in a cross-licensing agreement with RCA, whose engineers had developed it from an Ampex black-and-white recorder
33.
Tandy Corporation
–
Tandy Corporation, was an American family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a supply store. In 2000, the Tandy Corporation name was dropped and the entity became the RadioShack Corporation, Hinckley and Tandy opened their first branch store in 1927 in Beaumont, Texas and in 1932, Dave Tandy moved the store from Beaumont to Houston, Texas. Tandys business survived the economic storms of the Depression, gathered strength, Dave Tandy had a son, Charles Tandy, who was drafted into the business during his early twenties. Charles obtained a B. A degree at Texas Christian University then began attending the Harvard Business School to further expand his education, as World War II escalated Charles was called to serve his country in the military and relocated to Hawaii. Leathercraft gave the men something useful to do and their handiwork, Charles Tandy returned home from the service as a Lieutenant Commander in 1948 and negotiated to operate the fledgling leathercraft division himself. He had encouraged and followed the development of that venture through correspondence with his father, within a short time Charles succeeded in opening the first of two retail stores in 1950 that specialized exclusively in leathercraft. Mr. Hinckley did not share the enthusiasm of Dave and Charles Tandy for the new leathercraft division, the first Tandy Catalog, only 8 pages long, was mailed to readers of Popular Science magazine who had responded to two-inch test ads that were placed by Tandy. From 1950 forward Tandy operated retail mail order stores supported by direct mail advertising and this successful formula helped the company expand into a chain of some 150 leathercraft stores. A growing do-it-yourself movement prompted by a shortage of consumer goods, the fifteen leathercraft stores opened during this divisions first two years of operation became quite successful. Sixteen additional retail stores were opened in 1953, and by 1955 Tandy Leather was a company with leased sales sites in 75 cities across the United States. Tandy Leather became a commodity and was purchased in 1955 by the American Hide. Charles continued to control of managing the Tandy Leather division while owned by GAI. During 1956, General American Industries acquired three other companies unrelated to the industry and a struggle for control of the parent company began. Charles saw the need to emancipate from the direction initiated by GAI and he used all his resources, raised additional money, and exercised his right to purchase the 500,000 shares of stock that were included in the original settlement. When the votes were counted on the day of that pivotal stockholders meeting, Tandy had a landmark year in 1961. The company name was changed to Tandy Corporation and the headquarters were moved to Fort Worth, Texas where Charles Tandy became the President. Tandy Leather was operating 125 stores in 105 cities of the United States and Canada, the first of the Tandy Marts was also opened in Fort Worth in December 1961
34.
Toshiba
–
Toshiba Corporation, commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Toshiba was founded in 1938 as Tokyo Shibaura Electric K. K. through the merger of Shibaura Seisaku-sho, the company name was officially changed to Toshiba Corporation in 1978. Toshiba is organized into four groupings, the Digital Products Group, the Electronic Devices Group, the Home Appliances Group and the Social Infrastructure Group. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX indices, the Osaka Securities Exchange, Toshiba is the seventh largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Toshiba was founded in 1939 by the merger of Shibaura Seisakusho, Shibaura Seisakusho had been founded as Tanaka Seisakusho by Tanaka Hisashige in July 1875 as Japans first manufacturer of telegraph equipment. In 1904, it was renamed Shibaura Seisakusho, Tokyo Denki was founded as Hakunetsusha in 1890 and had been Japans first producer of incandescent electric lamps. It later diversified into the manufacture of consumer products and in 1899 had been renamed Tokyo Denki. The merger of Shibaura and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura Denki and it was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it was not until 1978 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation. The group expanded rapidly, driven by a combination of growth and by acquisitions, buying heavy engineering. In 1977, Toshiba acquired the Brazilian company Semp, subsequently forming Semp Toshiba through the combination of the two companies South American operations, the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million, the contract ended in 2008, ending seven years of OEM production with Orion. In December 2004, Toshiba quietly announced it would discontinue manufacturing traditional in-house cathode ray tube televisions, in 2006, Toshiba terminated production of in-house plasma TVs. To ensure its competitiveness in the flat-panel digital television and display market. Before World War II, Toshiba was a member of the Mitsui Group zaibatsu, today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui keiretsu, and still has preferential arrangements with Mitsui Bank and the other members of the keiretsu. Membership in a keiretsu has traditionally meant loyalty, both corporate and private, to members of the keiretsu or allied keiretsu. This loyalty can extend as far as the beer the employees consume, in July 2005, BNFL confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse Electric Company, then estimated to be worth $1.8 billion. In late 2007, Toshiba took over from Discover Card as the sponsor of the top-most screen of One Times Square in New York City and it displays the iconic 60-second New Years countdown on its screen, as well as messages, greetings, and advertisements for the company. In January 2009, Toshiba acquired the HDD business of Fujitsu, Toshiba announced on 16 May 2011, that it had agreed to acquire all of the shares of the Swiss-based advanced-power-meter maker Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion
35.
Sperry Corporation
–
Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Through a series of mergers it exists today as a part of Unisys, during World War I the company diversified into aircraft components including bomb sights and fire control systems. In their early decades, Sperry Gyroscope and related companies were concentrated on Long Island, New York, over the years, it diversified to other locations. In 1918, Lawrence Sperry split from his father to compete over aero-instruments with the Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Company, in 1924, following the death of Lawrence on December 13,1923, the two firms were brought together. The company became Sperry Corporation in 1933, the new corporation was a holding company for a number of smaller entities such as the original Sperry Gyroscope, Ford Instrument Company, Intercontinental Aviation, Inc. and others. The company made advanced aircraft navigation equipment for the market, including the Sperry Gyroscope, the company prospered during World War II as military demand skyrocketed, ranking 19th among US corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. It specialized in high technology such as analog computer–controlled bomb sights, airborne radar systems. Postwar, the company expanded its interests in electronics and computing, producing the companys first digital computer, SPEEDAC, during the 1950s, a large part of Sperry Gyroscope moved to Phoenix, Arizona and soon became the Sperry Flight Systems Company. This was to preserve parts of this company in the event of a thermonuclear conflagration. The Gyroscope division remained headquartered in New York—in its massive Lake Success, Long Island, in 1955, Sperry acquired Remington Rand and renamed itself Sperry Rand. The company remained a military contractor. From 1967 to 1973 the corporation was involved in an acrimonious antitrust lawsuit with Honeywell, the company dropped Rand from its title and reverted to Sperry Corporation. At about the time as the Rand acquisition, Sperry Gyroscope decided to open a facility that would almost exclusively produce its marine instruments. After considerable searching and evaluation, a plant was built in Charlottesville, Virginia and it was later renamed Sperry Marine. Sperry also managed the operation from 1961 to 1975, of the large Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant near Minden, Sperry bought out and continued the RCA line of electronic digital computers, architectural cousins to the IBM System/360. In 1983, Sperry sold Vickers to Libbey Owens Ford, certain internal divisions of Sperry such as Sperry New Holland and Sperry Marine were sold off after the merger. This group is now part of Lockheed Martin, Sperry in Britain started with a factory in Pimlico, London in 1913, manufacturing gyroscopic compasses for the Royal Navy. It became the Sperry Gyroscope Co Ltd in 1915, in 1923, Lawrence Sperry was killed in an air crash near Rye, Sussex
36.
Naamloze vennootschap
–
Naamloze vennootschap is a legal structure of a company conformable law in in the Netherlands, Belgium, Indonesia, and Suriname. The company is owned by shareholders, and the shares are not registered to certain owners. The phrase literally means nameless partnership or anonymous venture and comes from the fact that the partners are not directly known and this is in contrast to the term for a private limited company, which is called besloten vennootschap. SE – additional legal structure of a company available in the European Union S. p. A Types of companies
37.
Hong Kong
–
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
38.
Imation
–
Glassbridge Enterprises, known as Imation Corporation prior to 2017, is an American holding company. Through the companys two subsidiaries, Glassbridge focuses primarily on investment, asset management and global enterprise data storage, prior to the name change, Glassbridge had three core elements – traditional storage, secure and scalable storage and what the company calls “audio and video information” products. Imation was started in 1996, when 3M spun off its data storage business. 5-inch floppy disk in 1984, the company now has a market presence in more than 100 countries. In October 2011, Imation products for small and medium businesses, centered on its DataGuard and InfiniVault multi-tier data protection, the company sold consumer electronics, headphones and accessories under the Imation, Memorex, TDK Life on Record, and XtremeMac brands. The combined Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record brands made the company into a market share leader in sales of CD-R. The storage media and accessories business was shut down in 2016, Imation changed its name to Glassbridge Enterprises on February 21,2017. 3M Computer data storage Memorex Glassbridge Enterprises
39.
Wayback Machine
–
The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
40.
History of hard disk drives
–
In 1953, IBM recognized the immediate application for what it termed a Random Access File having high capacity and rapid random access at a relatively low cost. After considering technologies such as matrices, rod arrays, drums, drum arrays. The commercial usage of hard disk drives began in 1956, with the shipment of an IBM305 RAMAC system including IBM Model 350 disk storage. US Patent 3,503,060 issued March 24,1970, each generation of disk drives replaced larger, more sensitive and more cumbersome devices. The earliest drives were only in the protected environment of a data center. Later generations progressively reached factories, offices and homes, eventually reaching ubiquity, Disk media diameter was initially 24-inches in diameter but over time it has been reduced to todays typically 95 or 65 millimetres. Drives with the larger 24-inch and 14-inch diameter media were typically mounted in standalone boxes or large equipment rack enclosures, individual drives often required high-current AC power due to the large motors required to spin the large disks. Drives with smaller media generally conformed to de facto standard form factors, the capacity of hard drives has grown exponentially over time. When hard drives became available for computers, they offered 5-megabyte capacity. During the mid-1990s the typical hard drive for a PC had a capacity of about 1 gigabyte. As of August 2016, desktop hard drives typically had a capacity of 1 to 4 terabytes. The IBM350 Disk File was developed under the code-name RAMAC by an IBM San Jose team led by Reynold Johnson and it was announced in 1956 with the then new IBM305 RAMAC computer. A variant the IBM355 Disk File was simultaneous announced with the IBM RAM650 computer, the IBM350 drive had fifty 24-inch platters, with a total capacity of five million 6-bit characters. A single head assembly having two heads was used for access to all the platters, yielding an average time of just under 1 second. The IBM1301 Disk Storage Unit, announced in 1961, introduced the usage of heads having self-acting air bearings with one head per surface of the disks. Also in 1961, Bryant Computer Products introduced its 4000 series disk drives and these massive units stood 52 inches tall,70 inches wide, and had up to 26 platters, each 39 inches in diameter, rotating at up to 1,200 rpm. Access times were from 50 to 205 milliseconds, the drives total capacity, depending on the number of platters installed, was up to 205,377,600 bytes. The first disk drive to use removable media was the IBM1311 drive and it was introduced in 1962 using the IBM1316 disk pack to store two million characters
41.
Seagate Technology
–
Seagate Technology PLC is an American data storage company. It was incorporated in 1978, as Shugart Technology, since 2010, the company is incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Cupertino, California, United States. Seagate developed the first 5. 25-inch hard disk drive, the 5-megabyte ST-506 and they were a major supplier in the microcomputer market during the 1980s, especially after the introduction of the IBM XT in 1983. Today Seagate along with Western Digital dominates the HDD market, much of their growth has come through acquisition of competitors. In 1989, Seagate acquired Control Data Corporations Imprimis division, makers of CDCs HDD products, Seagate acquired Conner Peripherals in 1996, Maxtor in 2006, and Samsungs HDD business in 2011. Seagate Technology was incorporated on November 1,1978, and commenced operations with co-founders Al Shugart, Tom Mitchell, Doug Mahon, Finis Conner, the name was changed to Seagate Technology to avoid a lawsuit from Xeroxs subsidiary Shugart Associates. The companys first product, the 5-megabyte ST-506, was released in 1980 and it was the first hard disk to fit the 5. 25-inch form factor of the Shugart mini-floppy drive. The hard disk, which used a Modified Frequency Modulation encoding, was a hit, and was released in a 10-megabyte version. With this Seagate secured a contract as a major OEM supplier for the IBM XT, the large volumes of units sold to IBM, the then-dominant supplier of PCs, fueled Seagates early growth. In their first year, Seagate shipped $10 million of units to consumers, by 1983, the company shipped over 200,000 units for revenues of $110 million. The 20-megabyte version, the ST-225, and the 30-megabyte version and these were also made in SCSI versions. In 1983, Al Shugart was replaced as president by then chief operating officer, Tom Mitchell, Shugart continued to oversee corporate planning. By this point the company had a 45% market share of the hard drive market. In 1989, Seagate acquired Control Datas Imprimis Technology, CDCs disk storage division, in September 1991, Tom Mitchell resigned as president under pressure from the board of directors, with Al Shugart reassuming presidency of the company. Shugart refocused the company on its more lucrative markets, and on mainframe drives instead of external drives and this included a domestic partnership with Corning Inc. which began using a new glass ceramic compound to manufacture disk substrates. In 1991, Seagate also introduced the Barracuda HDDs, the industrys first hard disk with a 7200-RPM spindle speed, in May 1993, Seagate became the first company to cumulatively ship 50 million HDDs over its firms history. The following year Seagate Technology Inc moved from the Nasdaq exchange to the New York Stock Exchange, upon leaving, the company was the 17th-largest company in terms of trading volume on the Nasdaq exchange. In 1996, Seagate merged with Conner Peripherals to form worlds largest independent hard-drive manufacturer, in 1996, Seagate introduced the industrys first hard disk with a 10, 000-RPM spindle speed, the Cheetah 4LP
42.
Western Digital
–
Western Digital Corporation is an American computer data storage company and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world, along with Seagate Technology. Western Digital Corporation has a history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker. Western Digital was founded on April 23,1970, by Alvin B, phillips, a Motorola employee, as General Digital, initially a manufacturer of MOS test equipment. It rapidly became a speciality semiconductor maker, with capital provided by several individual investors. Around July 1971, it adopted its current name and soon introduced its first product, the oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the bankruptcy of its biggest calculator customer, Bowmar Instrument, changed its fortunes, however, and in 1976 Western Digital declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After this, Emerson withdrew their support of the company, WDC introduced several landmark products during this time, including the MCP-1600 multi-chip, microcoded CPU. The MCP-1600 was used to implement DECs LSI-11 system and their own Pascal MicroEngine microcomputer which ran the UCSD p-System Version III, the processor was also used in several single-chip floppy disk drive controller chips, notably the FD1771. However, the WD integrated circuit that arguably drove Westerns forward integration was the 1771 chip, despite a price far higher than average CMOS chips of the time, it was very successful and extremely profitable. That controller, the WD1003, became the basis of the ATA interface, throughout most of the 1980s, the family of controllers based on the WD1003 provided the bulk of WDCs revenues and profits, and for a time generated enormous corporate growth. Much of the mid-to-late 1980s saw an effort by WDC to use the profits from their ATA storage controllers to become a general-purpose OEM hardware supplier for the PC industry, as a result, WDC purchased a number of hardware companies. These included graphics cards, core logic chipsets, SCSI controller chips for disk and tape devices and they did well, but storage-related chips and disk controllers were their biggest money makers. 1988 also brought what would be the biggest change in WDCs history and that year, WDC bought the hard drive production assets of PC hardware maker Tandon, the first products of that union under WDCs own name were the Centaur series of ATA and XT attachment drives. By 1991, things were starting to slow down, as the PC industry moved from ST-506 and ESDI drives to ATA and SCSI and that year saw the rise of WDCs Caviar drives, brand new designs that used the latest in embedded servo and computerized diagnostic systems. Eventually, the sales of the Caviar drives resulted in WDC starting to sell some of its divisions. Paradise was sold to Philips, and since disappeared and its networking and floppy drive controller divisions went to SMC Networks and its SCSI chip business went to Future Domain, which was later bought out by market leader Adaptec. Around 1995, the lead that the Caviar drives had enjoyed was eclipsed by newer offerings from other companies, especially Quantum Corp. Products and ideas of time did not go far. The Portfolio drive was a flop, as was the SDX hard disk to CD-ROM interface, in an attempt to turn the tide in 1998, WDC recruited the help of IBM
43.
HGST
–
HGST, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital that sells hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was founded on January 6,2003 as a merger of the disk drive businesses of IBM. Hitachi paid IBM US$2.05 billion for its HDD business, on March 8,2012, Western Digital acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of WD common stock valued at approximately $0.9 billion. The deal resulted in Hitachi, Ltd. owning approximately 10 percent of WD shares outstanding and it was agreed that WD would operate with WD Technologies and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries and they would compete in the marketplace with separate brands and product lines. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Japan, Ltd. is the Japanese branch of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, in November 2013, the company announced a 6 TB capacity drive filled with helium. In September 2014, the company announced a 10 TB helium drive, as such, as of October 19,2015, HGST is a Western Digital brand, and no longer a separate entity. Ultrastar – Enterprise-class line of 3. 5-inch and 2. 5-inch HDDs with SCSI, Fibre Channel, SAS, and SATA interfaces, deskstar – Desktop-class line in 3. 5-inch form factor with SATA interfaces. Travelstar – Mobile-class line in 2. 5-inch form factor with SATA interfaces, endurastar – Ruggedized line in 2. 5-inch form factor with PATA or SATA interfaces, primarily for automotive applications. Cinemastar –3. 5-inch and 2. 5-inch form factors, optimized for consumer electronics applications requiring quiet operation and streaming support. LifeStudio products, announced in 2010 but now discontinued, were external hard drives that combine photo organization software, a 3D Wall for displaying content, touro family of cloud storage backup products. Hitachi-LG Data Storage – joint venture of Hitachi and LG, manufacturer of DVD, Hitachi Data Systems – manufacturer of modular enterprise storage systems, software and services. Official website 日立グローバルストレージテクノロジーズ Hitachi Establishes Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Taking a Bold New Step for Storage Innovation
44.
Conner Peripherals
–
Conner Peripherals was a company that manufactured hard drives for personal computers. Conner Peripherals was founded in 1985 by Seagate Technology co-founder and San Jose State University alumnus Finis Conner, in 1986, they merged with CoData, a Colorado start-up founded by MiniScribe founders Terry Johnson and John Squires. CoData was developing a new type of hard disk that put the capacity of a 5. 25-inch drive into the smaller 3. 5-inch format. The CoData drive was the first Conner Peripherals product, the company was partially financed by Compaq, who was also a major customer for many years. Conners 1/3-height drives used a domed, cast aluminum lid with four screws, one on each corner, the printed circuit board was bolted to the bottom of the base plate, with the mounting holes for the drive drilled into tabs cast into the sides of the base plate. This design would be Conners trademark look well into the 1990s, another cost-saving measure was the ability of the drive to test itself when it was initially powered on after being assembled in the factory. Unlike many competitive products, this only a power connection. To remedy this, Conner produced a number of dual-actuator drives for high-throughput applications. These drives used the SCSI interface and had two independently controlled servo and read/write systems, and two sets of read/write heads. Chinook was limited by its physical size — internally it used 3. 5-inch disks, in the mid-1990s, just prior to their buyout by Seagate, Conner Peripherals started using a cost-saving measure on its low-end drives. This design used no screws to hold on the lid — just cutting the tape could permanently damage the drive by making the lid come off and this design was kept well after the Seagate buyout, and was discontinued in 1999. In 1990, Conner Peripherals set a record by reaching $1.337 billion in sales in four years, without acquisitions, the company also started manufacturing tape drives in 1993, when it purchased Archive Corporation. In 1996, Conner Peripherals was acquired by Seagate, the company could never deliver the low prices required for personal computer suppliers to switch, and the company shut down its operations in 1998 and merged with ExcelStor in 2001. StorCard was a dedicated to developing a new standard in high capacity smart cards. StorCard offered an encrypted, low-cost removable card using semiconductor memory in a credit card size format, a Novel Idea, Customer Satisfaction, The New York Times,27 May 1990, page F1. International Directory of Company Histories, Vol.6, St. James Press,1992, fundinguniverse. com, History of Conner Peripherals, Inc
45.
Control Data Corporation
–
Control Data Corporation was a supercomputer firm. CDC was one of the nine major United States computer companies through most of the 1960s, the others were IBM, Burroughs Corporation, DEC, NCR, General Electric, Honeywell, RCA, CDC was well-known and highly regarded throughout the industry at the time. The remaining businesses of CDC currently operate as Ceridian, during World War II the U. S. Navy had built up a team of engineers to build codebreaking machinery for both Japanese and German electro-mechanical ciphers. A number of these were produced by a dedicated to the task working in the Washington. Eventually they found their solution, the owner of a Chase Aircraft affiliate in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Navy never told Parker exactly what the team did, since it would have taken too long to get top secret clearance. Instead they simply said the team was important, and they would be happy if he hired them all. The result was Engineering Research Associates, an engineering company that worked on a number of seemingly unrelated projects in the early 1950s. One of these was one of the first commercial stored program computers, the machine was built for the Navy, which intended to use it in their non-secret code-breaking centers. In 1952, Parker sold ERA to Remington Rand, although Rand kept the ERA team together and developing new products, it was most interested in ERAs magnetic drum memory systems. Rand soon merged with Sperry Corporation to become Sperry Rand, in the process of merging the companies, the ERA division was folded into Sperrys UNIVAC division. At first this did not cause too many changes at ERA, however, one major project was moved from UNIVAC to ERA, the UNIVAC II project, which led to lengthy delays and upsets to nearly everyone involved. Of the members forming CDC, William Norris was the choice to become the chief executive officer of the new company. CDC started business by selling subsystems, mostly drum memory systems, Cray joined the next year, and he immediately built a small transistor-based 6-bit machine known as the CDC Little Character to test his ideas on large-system design and transistor-based machines. Little Character was a great success, legend has it that the 1604 designation was chosen by adding CDCs first street address to Crays former project, the ERA-Univac 1103. A 12-bit cut-down version was released as the CDC 160A in 1960. The 160A was particularly notable as it was built as an office desk. New versions of the basic 1604 architecture were rebuilt into the CDC3000 series, Cray immediately turned to the design of a machine that would be the fastest machine in the world, setting the goal at 50 times the speed of the 1604. This required radical changes in design, and as the project dragged on — it had gone on for four years by then — the management got increasingly upset
