1.
Software developer
–
A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process, including the research, design, programming, and testing of computer software. Other job titles which are used with similar meanings are programmer, software analyst. According to developer Eric Sink, the differences between system design, software development, and programming are more apparent, even more so that developers become systems architects, those who design the multi-leveled architecture or component interactions of a large software system. In a large company, there may be employees whose sole responsibility consists of one of the phases above. In smaller development environments, a few people or even an individual might handle the complete process. The word software was coined as a prank as early as 1953, before this time, computers were programmed either by customers, or the few commercial computer vendors of the time, such as UNIVAC and IBM. The first company founded to provide products and services was Computer Usage Company in 1955. The software industry expanded in the early 1960s, almost immediately after computers were first sold in mass-produced quantities, universities, government, and business customers created a demand for software. Many of these programs were written in-house by full-time staff programmers, some were distributed freely between users of a particular machine for no charge. Others were done on a basis, and other firms such as Computer Sciences Corporation started to grow. The computer/hardware makers started bundling operating systems, systems software and programming environments with their machines, new software was built for microcomputers, so other manufacturers including IBM, followed DECs example quickly, resulting in the IBM AS/400 amongst others. The industry expanded greatly with the rise of the computer in the mid-1970s. In the following years, it created a growing market for games, applications. DOS, Microsofts first operating system product, was the dominant operating system at the time, by 2014 the role of cloud developer had been defined, in this context, one definition of a developer in general was published, Developers make software for the world to use. The job of a developer is to crank out code -- fresh code for new products, code fixes for maintenance, code for business logic, bus factor Software Developer description from the US Department of Labor
2.
OverDrive, Inc.
–
OverDrive, Inc. is an American digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks, music, and video titles. The company provides management, digital rights management and download fulfillment services for publishers, libraries, schools. OverDrives catalog includes more than 2 million digital titles from more than 5,000 publishers, the companys global network includes more than 27,000 libraries and schools. OverDrive was founded in 1986 and is located in Cleveland, Ohio, OverDrive was founded in 1986 and initially converted analog media to digital formats, such as interactive diskettes and CD-ROMs. As the Internet became a form of digital media distribution. In 2000, the company opened Content Reserve, an online ebook, in 2015, it was reported that Japans Rakuten was planning to buy out OverDrive for $410 million, with the deal set to close in April 2015. OverDrive CEO Steve Potash will remain in his current position and OverDrive will keep its name while operating under Rakuten USA, OverDrive launched its Digital Library Reserve, a digital download platform for public libraries, in 2002. The eBook distribution service included a download website and access to the Content Reserve collection development portal. In 2004, the platform evolved into a provider of DRM-protected audiobook downloads, by 2005, OverDrive was installing download stations into public libraries and adding music to its library platform. OverDrive added downloadable videos in April 2006, in 2007, the company launched its School Download Library, an eBook service for K–12 schools based on Digital Library Reserve. In March 2008, the announced plans to provide MP3 audiobooks to public libraries as well as retailers. As of October 2013, OverDrive content includes a selection of more than 1.8 million eBooks, audiobooks, and other digital content available in more than 64 languages. OverDrive is globally compatible with most major ereading devices, including Android, BlackBerry, ChromeOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kobo, Mac, NOOK, Palm, Sony Reader, and Windows. It is, however, not compatible with the most popular eReader, before entering the library market, OverDrive distributed eBooks to a number of e-tailers. In 2002, OverDrive was selected as the distributor of HarperCollins’ eBooks to the online retail stores. OverDrive launched web stores for Harlequin Enterprises in 2005, in 2008, OverDrive announced that it would provide download services for Borders Books. OverDrive has entered into partnerships with companies including Adobe Systems, Microsoft, Mobipocket. In 2008, Adobe and OverDrive jointly announced that OverDrive would be the co-developer and operator of Adobe ADEPT, in 2012, OverDrive partnered with Nokia to launch Nokia Reading, an eReading app and service for Nokia’s Lumia 900,800,710, and 610 Windows Phone devices
3.
Software release life cycle
–
Usage of the alpha/beta test terminology originated at IBM. As long ago as the 1950s, IBM used similar terminology for their hardware development, a test was the verification of a new product before public announcement. B test was the verification before releasing the product to be manufactured, C test was the final test before general availability of the product. Martin Belsky, a manager on some of IBMs earlier software projects claimed to have invented the terminology, IBM dropped the alpha/beta terminology during the 1960s, but by then it had received fairly wide notice. The usage of beta test to refer to testing done by customers was not done in IBM, rather, IBM used the term field test. Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the project before formal testing. These activities can include requirements analysis, software design, software development, in typical open source development, there are several types of pre-alpha versions. Milestone versions include specific sets of functions and are released as soon as the functionality is complete, the alpha phase of the release life cycle is the first phase to begin software testing. In this phase, developers generally test the software using white-box techniques, additional validation is then performed using black-box or gray-box techniques, by another testing team. Moving to black-box testing inside the organization is known as alpha release, alpha software can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version, in general, external availability of alpha software is uncommon in proprietary software, while open source software often has publicly available alpha versions. The alpha phase usually ends with a freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature complete, Beta, named after the second letter of the Greek alphabet, is the software development phase following alpha. Software in the stage is also known as betaware. Beta phase generally begins when the software is complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs. Software in the phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing, the process of delivering a beta version to the users is called beta release and this is typically the first time that the software is available outside of the organization that developed it. Beta version software is useful for demonstrations and previews within an organization
4.
Microsoft Windows
–
Microsoft Windows is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. Active Windows families include Windows NT, Windows Embedded and Windows Phone, defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows 10 Mobile is an active product, unrelated to the defunct family Windows Mobile. Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20,1985, Microsoft Windows came to dominate the worlds personal computer market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984. Apple came to see Windows as an encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa. On PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system, however, in 2014, Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android, because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2014, the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold and this comparison however may not be fully relevant, as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms. As of September 2016, the most recent version of Windows for PCs, tablets, smartphones, the most recent versions for server computers is Windows Server 2016. A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console, Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has registered several trademarks each of which denote a family of Windows operating systems that target a specific sector of the computing industry. It now consists of three operating system subfamilies that are released almost at the time and share the same kernel. Windows, The operating system for personal computers, tablets. The latest version is Windows 10, the main competitor of this family is macOS by Apple Inc. for personal computers and Android for mobile devices. Windows Server, The operating system for server computers, the latest version is Windows Server 2016. Unlike its clients sibling, it has adopted a strong naming scheme, the main competitor of this family is Linux. Windows PE, A lightweight version of its Windows sibling meant to operate as an operating system, used for installing Windows on bare-metal computers. The latest version is Windows PE10.0.10586.0, Windows Embedded, Initially, Microsoft developed Windows CE as a general-purpose operating system for every device that was too resource-limited to be called a full-fledged computer. The following Windows families are no longer being developed, Windows 9x, Microsoft now caters to the consumers market with Windows NT. Windows Mobile, The predecessor to Windows Phone, it was a mobile operating system
5.
Macintosh operating systems
–
The family of Macintosh operating systems developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the Classic Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded Mac OS in 1996, was preinstalled on every Macintosh until 2002, noted for its ease of use, it was also criticized for its lack of modern technologies compared to its competitors. The current Mac operating system is macOS, originally named Mac OS X until 2012, the current macOS is preinstalled with every Mac and is updated annually. It is the basis of Apples current system software for its devices, iOS, watchOS. Apples effort to expand upon and develop a replacement for its classic Mac OS in the 1990s led to a few cancelled projects, code named Star Trek, Taligent, the Macintosh is credited with having popularized this concept. The classic Mac OS is the original Macintosh operating system that was introduced in 1984 alongside the first Macintosh and remained in primary use on Macs through 2001. Apple released the original Macintosh on January 24,1984, its system software was partially based on the Lisa OS and the Xerox PARC Alto computer. It was originally named System Software, or simply System, Apple rebranded it as Mac OS in 1996 due in part to its Macintosh clone program that ended a year later, Mac OS is characterized by its monolithic system. Nine major versions of the classic Mac OS were released, the name Classic that now signifies the system as a whole is a reference to a compatibility layer that helped ease the transition to Mac OS X. Although the system was marketed as simply version 10 of Mac OS. Precursors to the release of Mac OS X include OpenStep, Apples Rhapsody project. MacOS makes use of the BSD codebase and the XNU kernel, the first desktop version of the system was released on March 24,2001, supporting the Aqua user interface. Since then, several more versions adding newer features and technologies have been released, since 2011, new releases have been offered on an annual basis. It was followed by several more official server-based releases, server functionality has instead been offered as an add-on for the desktop system since 2011. The first version of the system was ready for use in February 1988, in 1988, Apple released its first Unix-based OS, A/UX, which was a Unix operating system with the Mac OS look and feel. It was not very competitive for its time, due in part to the crowded Unix market, A/UX had most of its success in sales to the U. S. government, where POSIX compliance was a requirement that Mac OS could not meet. The Macintosh Application Environment was a software package introduced by Apple in 1994 that allowed users of certain Unix-based computer workstations to run Apple Macintosh application software, MAE used the X Window System to emulate a Macintosh Finder-style graphical user interface
6.
Android (operating system)
–
Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google, based on the Linux kernel and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition to devices, Google has further developed Android TV for televisions, Android Auto for cars. Variants of Android are also used on notebooks, game consoles, digital cameras, beginning with the first commercial Android device in September 2008, the operating system has gone through multiple major releases, with the current version being 7.0 Nougat, released in August 2016. Android applications can be downloaded from the Google Play store, which features over 2.7 million apps as of February 2017, Android has been the best-selling OS on tablets since 2013, and runs on the vast majority of smartphones. In September 2015, Android had 1.4 billion monthly active users, Android is popular with technology companies that require a ready-made, low-cost and customizable operating system for high-tech devices. The success of Android has made it a target for patent, Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White. Rubin described the Android project as tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are aware of its owners location. The early intentions of the company were to develop an operating system for digital cameras. Despite the past accomplishments of the founders and early employees, Android Inc. operated secretly and that same year, Rubin ran out of money. Steve Perlman, a friend of Rubin, brought him $10,000 in cash in an envelope. In July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc. for at least $50 million and its key employees, including Rubin, Miner and White, joined Google as part of the acquisition. Not much was known about Android at the time, with Rubin having only stated that they were making software for mobile phones, at Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to handset makers and carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system, Google had lined up a series of hardware components and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation. Speculation about Googles intention to enter the communications market continued to build through December 2006. In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony, the first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23,2008. Since 2008, Android has seen numerous updates which have improved the operating system, adding new features. Each major release is named in order after a dessert or sugary treat, with the first few Android versions being called Cupcake, Donut, Eclair. In 2010, Google launched its Nexus series of devices, a lineup in which Google partnered with different device manufacturers to produce new devices and introduce new Android versions
7.
Windows 8
–
Windows 8 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Development of Windows 8 started before the release of its predecessor, Windows 7 and it was announced at CES2011, and followed by the release of three pre-release versions from September 2011 to May 2012. The operating system was released to manufacturing on August 1,2012, Windows 8 added support for USB3.0, Advanced Format hard drives, near field communications, and cloud computing. Windows 8 was released to a critical reception. Despite these shortcomings,60 million Windows 8 licenses were sold through January 2013, on October 17,2013, Microsoft released Windows 8.1. It addressed some aspects of Windows 8 that were criticized by reviewers and early adopters, Windows 8 was ultimately succeeded by Windows 10 in July 2015. Support for Windows 8 RTM ended on January 12,2016, per Microsoft lifecycle policies regarding service packs, Windows 8.1 must be installed to maintain support, Windows 8 development started before Windows 7 had shipped in 2009. Three milestone releases of Windows 8 leaked to the general public, milestone 1, Build 7850, was leaked on April 12,2011. It was the first build where the text of a window was written centered instead of aligned to the left and it was also probably the first appearance of the Metro-style font, and its wallpaper had the text shhh. Lets not leak our hard work, however, its detailed build number reveals that the build was created on September 22,2010. The leaked copy was Enterprise edition, the OS still reads as Windows 7. Milestone 2, Build 7955, was leaked on April 25,2011, the traditional Blue Screen of Death was replaced by a new black screen, although this was later scrapped. This build introduced a new ribbon in Windows Explorer, Build 7959, with minor changes but the first 64-bit version, was leaked on May 1,2011. The Windows 7 logo was replaced with text displaying Microsoft Confidential. On June 17,2011, build 7989 64-bit edition was leaked and it introduced a new boot screen featuring the same fish as the default Windows 7 Beta wallpaper, which was later scrapped, and the circling dots as featured in the final. It also had the text Welcome below them, although this was also scrapped, on June 1,2011, Microsoft unveiled Windows 8s new user interface, as well as additional features at both Computex Taipei and the D9, All Things Digital conference in California. The Building Windows 8 blog launched on August 15,2011, featuring details surrounding Windows 8s features, Microsoft unveiled more Windows 8 features and improvements on the first day of the Build conference on September 13,2011. Microsoft released the first public build of Windows 8, Windows Developer Preview at the event
8.
Operating system
–
An operating system is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. All computer programs, excluding firmware, require a system to function. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer – from cellular phones, the dominant desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 83. 3%. MacOS by Apple Inc. is in place, and the varieties of Linux is in third position. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors, other specialized classes of operating systems, such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. A single-tasking system can run one program at a time. Multi-tasking may be characterized in preemptive and co-operative types, in preemptive multitasking, the operating system slices the CPU time and dedicates a slot to each of the programs. Unix-like operating systems, e. g. Solaris, Linux, cooperative multitasking is achieved by relying on each process to provide time to the other processes in a defined manner. 16-bit versions of Microsoft Windows used cooperative multi-tasking, 32-bit versions of both Windows NT and Win9x, used preemptive multi-tasking. Single-user operating systems have no facilities to distinguish users, but may allow multiple programs to run in tandem, a distributed operating system manages a group of distinct computers and makes them appear to be a single computer. The development of networked computers that could be linked and communicate with each other gave rise to distributed computing, distributed computations are carried out on more than one machine. When computers in a work in cooperation, they form a distributed system. The technique is used both in virtualization and cloud computing management, and is common in large server warehouses, embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded computer systems. They are designed to operate on small machines like PDAs with less autonomy and they are able to operate with a limited number of resources. They are very compact and extremely efficient by design, Windows CE and Minix 3 are some examples of embedded operating systems. A real-time operating system is a system that guarantees to process events or data by a specific moment in time. A real-time operating system may be single- or multi-tasking, but when multitasking, early computers were built to perform a series of single tasks, like a calculator. Basic operating system features were developed in the 1950s, such as resident monitor functions that could run different programs in succession to speed up processing
9.
Windows XP
–
Windows XP is a personal computer operating system that was produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on August 24,2001, however, in January 2000, both projects were shelved in favor of a single OS codenamed Whistler, which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. Windows XP was an advance from the MS-DOS based versions of Windows in security, stability. It introduced a significantly redesigned graphical user interface and was the first version of Windows to use product activation in an effort to reduce its copyright infringement. Despite some initial concerns over the new licensing model and product activation system, Windows XP eventually proved to be popular and widely used. It is estimated that at least 400 million copies of Windows XP were sold globally within its first five years of availability, sales of Windows XP licenses to original equipment manufacturers ceased on June 30,2008, but continued for netbooks until October 2010. Windows XP remained popular even after the release of newer versions, vistas 2009 successor, Windows 7, only overtook XP in total market share at the end of 2011. Extended support for Windows XP ended on April 8,2014, as of November 2016, Windows XP desktop market share makes it the fourth most popular Windows version after Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows 8.1. Windows XP is still popular in some countries, Africa as a whole and in Asia, e. g. in China. A number of activity centers were planned, serving as hubs for email communications, playing music, managing or viewing photos, searching the Internet, however, the project proved to be too ambitious. Microsoft discussed a plan to delay Neptune in favor of an interim OS known as Asteroid, which would have been an update to Windows 2000, and since Neptune and Odyssey would be based on the same code-base anyway, it made sense to combine them into a single project. In June 2000, Microsoft began the technical beta testing process, Whistler was expected to be available in Personal, Professional, Server, Advanced Server. At PDC on July 13,2000, Microsoft announced that Whistler would be released during the half of 2001. Build 2257 featured further refinements to the Watercolor theme, along with the introduction of the two-column Start menu. Microsoft released Whistler Beta 1, build 2296, on October 31,2000, build 2410 in January 2001 introduced Internet Explorer 6.0 and the Microsoft Product Activation system. Making it very friendly for the user to use. Builds 2416 and 2419 added the File and Transfer Settings Wizard, on February 5,2001, Microsoft officially announced that Whistler would be known as Windows XP, where XP stands for experience. As a complement, the version of Microsoft Office was also announced as Office XP
10.
Windows Vista
–
Windows Vista is an operating system by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs. Development was completed on 8 November 2006, and over the three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers. On 30 January 2007, it was released worldwide and was available for purchase. It was succeeded by Windows 7, which was released to manufacturing on 22 July 2009, Vista aimed to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and media between computers and devices. Windows Vista included version 3.0 of the. NET Framework, Microsofts primary stated objective with Windows Vista was to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system. One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors was their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses, Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing Windows Vista, thus delaying its completion. While these new features and security improvements have garnered positive reviews, Vista has also been the target of much criticism, as a result of these and other issues, Windows Vista had seen initial adoption and satisfaction rates lower than Windows XP. In May 2010, Windows Vistas market share had a range from 15% to 26%. On 22 October 2010, Microsoft ceased sales of copies of Windows Vista. As of March 2017, Vistas market share was 0. 72%, Microsoft stopped providing mainstream support for Windows Vista on 10 April 2012. Extended support will end on 11 April 2017, Microsoft began work on Windows Vista, known at the time by its codename Longhorn, in May 2001, five months before the release of Windows XP. It was originally expected to ship sometime late in 2003 as a step between Windows XP and Blackcomb, which was planned to be the companys next major operating system release. Gradually, Longhorn assimilated many of the important new features and technologies slated for Blackcomb, in some builds of Longhorn, their license agreement said For the Microsoft product codenamed Whistler. Many of Microsofts developers were also re-tasked to build updates to Windows XP, faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft announced on 27 August 2004, that it had revised its plans. Longhorn became known as Vista in 2005, the early development stages of Longhorn were generally characterized by incremental improvements and updates to Windows XP. After several months of relatively little news or activity from Microsoft with Longhorn, Microsoft released Build 4008 and it was also privately handed out to a select group of software developers. An optional new taskbar was introduced that was thinner than the previous build, the most notable visual and functional difference, however, came with Windows Explorer. The incorporation of the Plex theme made blue the dominant color of the entire application, the Windows XP-style task pane was almost completely replaced with a large horizontal pane that appeared under the toolbars
11.
Windows 7
–
Windows 7 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft. It is a part of the Windows NT family of operating systems, Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22,2009, and became generally available on October 22,2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7s server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time, Windows 7 continued improvements on Windows Aero with the addition of a redesigned taskbar that allows applications to be pinned to it, and new window management features. Other new features were added to the system, including libraries, the new file sharing system HomeGroup. A new Action Center interface was added to provide an overview of system security and maintenance information. Windows 7 also shipped with updated versions of several applications, including Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player. Windows 7 was a success for Microsoft, even prior to its official release. Originally, a version of Windows codenamed Blackcomb was planned as the successor to Windows XP, major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS to enable such scenarios. However, an interim, minor release, codenamed Longhorn, was announced for 2003, by the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb. Development of Longhorn was also restarted, and thus delayed, in August 2004, a number of features were cut from Longhorn. Blackcomb was renamed Vienna in early 2006, as such, adoption of Vista in comparison to XP remained somewhat low. In July 2007, six months following the release of Vista, it was reported that the next version of Windows would then be codenamed Windows 7. Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that Windows 7 would be more user-centric, Gates later said that Windows 7 would also focus on performance improvements. Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP, an estimated 1,000 developers worked on Windows 7. These were broadly divided into core operating system and Windows client experience, in October 2008, it was announced that Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system. The first external release to select Microsoft partners came in January 2008 with Milestone 1, at PDC2008, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 7 with its reworked taskbar. On December 27,2008, the Windows 7 Beta was leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent. According to a performance test by ZDNet, Windows 7 Beta beat both Windows XP and Vista in several key areas, including boot and shutdown time and working with files, such as loading documents
12.
Windows RT
–
Windows RT is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. It is an edition of Windows 8. x built for the 32-bit ARM architecture, unlike Windows 8, Windows RT is only available as preloaded software on devices specifically designed for the operating system by original equipment manufacturers. Windows RT was released to mixed reviews from various outlets and critics and these developments left Microsofts future support of the platform in doubt. As of February 2015, with the end of production for both Surface 2 and Lumia 2520, Microsoft and its subsidiaries no longer manufacture any Windows RT devices, there is no upgrade path to Windows 10 for devices running Windows RT. Windows 10 Mobile, based on Windows Phone, was unveiled for use on future tablets, at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, it was officially announced that the next version of Windows would provide support for system-on-chip implementations based on the ARM architecture. The prototypes featured working versions of Internet Explorer 9, PowerPoint and Word, initial development on WoA took place by porting code from Windows 7, Windows Mobile smartphones were used to test early builds of WoA because of lack of readily available ARM-based tablets. Later testing was performed using an array of rack-mounted ARM-based systems. Changes to the Windows codebase were made to optimize the OS for the hardware of ARM devices. WoA devices would use UEFI firmware, and have a software-based Trusted Platform Module to support device encryption, ACPI is also used to detect and control plug and play devices and provide power management outside the SoC. To enable wider hardware support, peripherals such as human interface devices, storage and other components that use USB and I²C connections use class drivers, Windows Update serves as the mechanism for updating all system drivers, software, and firmware. Microsoft showcased other aspects of the new operating system, to be known as Windows 8, among these changes was the introduction of Windows Runtime. Consequentially, this lack of backwards compatibility would also prevent existing malware from running on the operating system, on April 16,2012, Microsoft announced that Windows on ARM would be officially branded as Windows RT. Microsoft did not explicitly indicate what the RT in the operating systems name referred to, Steven Sinofsky stated that Microsoft would ensure the differences between Windows RT and 8 were adequately addressed in advertising. The first Windows RT devices were released alongside Windows 8 on October 26,2012. Windows 8.1, an upgrade for Windows 8 and RT, was released in Windows Store on October 17,2013, containing a number of improvements to the systems interface. For Windows RT devices, the update also adds Outlook to the included Office RT suite, on October 21,2013, Microsoft released recovery media and instructions which could be used to repair the device, and restored access to Windows 8.1 the next day. While Windows RT functions similarly to Windows 8, there are some notable differences. So you could give it to your kid and hes not going to load it up with a bunch of toolbars accidentally out of Internet Explorer and then come to you later and say and it just isnt capable of doing that by design
13.
Mac OS X Tiger
–
Mac OS X10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apples desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29,2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X10.3 Panther. Mac OS X10.4 Tiger was included with all new Macs, the server edition, Mac OS X Server 10.4, was also available for some Macintosh product lines. Six weeks after its release, Apple had delivered 2 million copies of Mac OS X10.4 Tiger. Apple claimed that Mac OS X10.4 Tiger was the most successful Apple OS release in the companys history. At the WWDC on June 11,2007, Apples CEO, Steve Jobs, announced that out of the 22 million Mac OS X users, more than 67% were using Mac OS X10.4 Tiger. Apple announced a transition to Intel x86 processors during Mac OS X10.4 Tigers lifetime, the last security update released for Mac OS X10.4 Tiger users was the 2009-005 update. The next security update, 2009-006 only included support for Mac OS X10.5 Leopard, the latest supported version of QuickTime is 7.6.4. The latest version of iTunes that can run on Mac OS X10.4 Tiger is 9.2.1, because 10.0 only supports Mac OS X10.5 Leopard and later. Safari 4.1.3 is the version for Mac OS X10.4 Tiger as of November 18,2010. Despite not having received security updates since then, Mac OS X10, Mac OS X10.4 Tiger was initially available in a PowerPC edition, with an Intel edition released beginning at Mac OS X10.4.4 Tiger. There is no version of the client operating system, although Mac OS X10.4 Tiger Server was made available on a universal DVD from version Mac OS X10.4.7 Tiger. These grey colored ‘restore’ DVDs supplied with new Macs, are designed to restore on the model of Mac that they are intended for. However, they can be modified to work on any Intel Mac, also, Mac OS X10.4 Tiger can be installed on unsupported New World ROM Macs by installing it on a supported Mac, then swapping hard drives. Old World ROM Macs require the use of XPostFacto to install Mac OS X10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X10.4 Tiger was the last version of Mac OS X that supported the PowerPC G3 processor. Apple CEO Steve Jobs first presented Mac OS X10.4 Tiger in his presentation at the WWDC on June 28,2004. Four months before official release, several non-commercial, developers releases of Mac OS X10.4 Tiger leaked onto the internet via BitTorrent file sharers. It was first mentioned on Apples website on May 4,2004, on April 12,2005, Apple announced Mac OS X10.4 Tigers official, worldwide release would be April 29
14.
IOS 4
–
IOS4 is the fourth major release of the iOS mobile operating system designed by Apple Inc. being the successor to iPhone OS3. IOS4 was succeeded by iOS5, which was released on October 12,2011, IOS4 was introduced during the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 7,2010 together with the iPhone 4. With the release of the first-generation iPad earlier that year, the company renamed iPhone OS to iOS to reflect the entire family of devices, IOS4.0 supported only the iPhone and iPod touch at launch, but later added iPad support. It also added over 1500 new APIs for developers, including the highly anticipated multitasking feature, IOS4.0.1 was released on July 15,2010, as the first update to iOS4. The update has a carrier signal strength display, along with other bug fixes. IOS4.0.2 was released on August 11,2010, IOS4.1 was released on September 8,2010. The update included a known as HDR for better photos. It also introduced Game Center, along with high definition videos and it was the first version of iOS available on the Apple TV. IOS4.2.1 was released on November 22,2010 and it was the first version to bring major feature parity to the iPhone and iPad. It was also the last to support the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch, IOS4.2.5 was released on February 7,2011. It includes support for the CDMA version of iPhone 4, IOS4.2.6 -4.2.10 are the set of updates which was released in each dates for the CDMA version of iPhone 4. Along with iOS4.2.5, it includes bug fixes, IOS4.3 was released on March 9,2011. The update included support for Personal Hotspot, iTunes Home Sharing, improvements on AirPlay, IOS4.3. x did not support the CDMA iPhone 4. IOS4.3.4 was released on July 15,2011, Re-introducing the ability to cancel and delete apps that are currently downloading, IOS4.3.5 was released on July 25,2011, with a security update to fix certificate validation. IOS4 raised the number of home screen apps from 180 to 2160 due to the addition of folders. These folders would automatically be named based on the containing apps respective App Store category, the ability to add custom wallpapers to the home screen was also added. The dock was also redesigned to be reflective and match that of Mac OS X10. 5-10.6. It allows user to switch between the apps instantly by double clicking the home button and it was implemented in such a way that did not cause excessive battery drain or a large performance hit
15.
Android Eclair
–
The version history of the Android mobile operating system began with the release of the Android alpha in November 5,2007. The first commercial version, Android 1.0, was released in September 2008, Android is continually developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, and it has seen a number of updates to its base operating system since the initial release. Versions 1.0 and 1.1 were not released under specific code names, each is in alphabetical order, with the most recent major version being Android 7.0 Nougat, released in August 2016. A version of Android KitKat exclusive to Android Wear devices was released on June 25,2014, the development of Android started in 2003 by Android, Inc. which was purchased by Google in 2005. There were at least two internal releases of the software inside Google and the OHA before the version was released. The code names Astro Boy and Bender were used internally for some pre-1.0 milestones, dan Morrill created some of the first mascot logos, but the current Android logo was designed by Irina Blok. The project manager, Ryan Gibson, conceived the confectionery-themed naming scheme that has used for the majority of the public releases. The beta was released on November 5,2007, while the development kit was released on November 12,2007. The main hardware platform for Android is the ARM architecture, with x86, unofficial Android-x86 project used to provide support for the x86 and MIPS architectures ahead of the official support. Since 2012, Android devices with Intel processors began to appear, including phones, while gaining support for 64-bit platforms, Android was first made to run on 64-bit x86 and then on ARM64. Since Android 5.0 Lollipop, 64-bit variants of all platforms are supported in addition to the 32-bit variants. Requirements for the amount of RAM for devices running Android 5.1 range from 512 MB of RAM for normal-density screens. Android 4.4 requires a 32-bit ARMv7, MIPS or x86 architecture processor, Android supports OpenGL ES1.1,2.0,3.0,3.2 and as of latest major version Vulkan. Some applications may require a certain version of the OpenGL ES
16.
BlackBerry OS
–
BlackBerry OS is a proprietary mobile operating system developed by BlackBerry Limited for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices. The BlackBerry platform is perhaps best known for its support for corporate email, through Java Micro Edition MIDP1.0 and, more recently. The operating system also supports WAP1.2, updates to the operating system may be automatically available from wireless carriers that support the BlackBerry over the air software loading service. Third-party developers can write software using the available BlackBerry API classes, research from June 2011, indicated that approximately 45% of mobile developers were using the platform at the time of publication. BlackBerry OS was discontinued after the release of BlackBerry 10, however, the latest devices, the BlackBerry Priv and the BlackBerry DTEK50, use the Android operating system. The BlackBerry 9720 runs a version of BlackBerry OS7, the following is a list of fonts that were included in some versions of BlackBerry, BBAlphaSans and BBAlphaSerif are based on the free software DejaVu fonts. On September 27,2010, BlackBerry Ltd. announced a new unrelated QNX-based platform, BlackBerry Tablet OS, BlackBerry BlackBerry 10 Comparison of mobile operating systems Index of articles related to BlackBerry OS Usage share of operating systems Official website
17.
Computing platform
–
Computing platform means in general sense, where any piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the system, even a web browser or other application. The term computing platform can refer to different abstraction levels, including a hardware architecture, an operating system. In total it can be said to be the stage on which programs can run. For example, an OS may be a platform that abstracts the underlying differences in hardware, platforms may also include, Hardware alone, in the case of small embedded systems. Embedded systems can access hardware directly, without an OS, this is referred to as running on bare metal, a browser in the case of web-based software. The browser itself runs on a platform, but this is not relevant to software running within the browser. An application, such as a spreadsheet or word processor, which hosts software written in a scripting language. This can be extended to writing fully-fledged applications with the Microsoft Office suite as a platform, software frameworks that provide ready-made functionality. Cloud computing and Platform as a Service, the social networking sites Twitter and facebook are also considered development platforms. A virtual machine such as the Java virtual machine, applications are compiled into a format similar to machine code, known as bytecode, which is then executed by the VM. A virtualized version of a system, including virtualized hardware, OS, software. These allow, for instance, a typical Windows program to run on what is physically a Mac, some architectures have multiple layers, with each layer acting as a platform to the one above it. In general, a component only has to be adapted to the layer immediately beneath it, however, the JVM, the layer beneath the application, does have to be built separately for each OS
18.
Media player (software)
–
A media player is a computer program for playing multimedia files like videos movies and music. Media players display standard media control icons known from physical devices such as recorders and CD players, such as play, pause, fastforward, backforward. Mainstream operating systems have at least one media player. For example, Windows comes with Windows Media Player while OS X comes with QuickTime Player, linux distributions may also come with a media players, such as SMPlayer, Amarok, Audacious, Banshee, MPlayer, Rhythmbox, Totem, VLC Media Player, and xine. Android OS comes with Google Play Music as default media player and many apps like Poweramp, Beautiful Music Player, different media players may have different goals and feature sets. Video players are a group of players that have their features geared more towards playing digital video. For example, Windows DVD Player exclusively plays DVD-Video discs and nothing else, audio players, on the other hand, specialize in digital audio. For example, AIMP exclusively plays audio formats, in addition, watching video files on it can be a trying feat. General-purpose media players also do exist, for example, Windows Media Player has exclusive features for both audio and video material, although it cannot match the feature set of Media Player Classic and MediaMonkey combined. 3D video players are used to play 2D video in 3D format, a high-quality three-dimensional video presentation requires that each frame of a motion picture be embedded with information on the depth of objects present in the scene. Tedious and costly, this method is used in a small fraction of movies produced worldwide. It is, however, possible to give an otherwise two-dimensional picture the appearance of depth, using a technique known as anaglyph processing a flat picture can be transformed so as to give an illusion of depth when viewed through anaglyph glasses. An image viewed through anaglyph glasses appears to have both protruding and deeply embedded objects in it, at the expense of somewhat distorted colours. e. as the video is being played back. Although computers with some of these capabilities were available from the late 1980s, since 2007, other types of consumer electronics, including gaming systems and dedicated media devices have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term media center also refers to specialized computer programs designed to run on personal computers
19.
Software license
–
A software license is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law all software is copyright protected, in code as also object code form. The only exception is software in the public domain, most distributed software can be categorized according to its license type. Two common categories for software under copyright law, and therefore with licenses which grant the licensee specific rights, are proprietary software and free, unlicensed software outside the copyright protection is either public domain software or software which is non-distributed, non-licensed and handled as internal business trade secret. Contrary to popular belief, distributed unlicensed software is copyright protected. Examples for this are unauthorized software leaks or software projects which are placed on public software repositories like GitHub without specified license. As voluntarily handing software into the domain is problematic in some international law domains, there are also licenses granting PD-like rights. Therefore, the owner of a copy of software is legally entitled to use that copy of software. Hence, if the end-user of software is the owner of the respective copy, as many proprietary licenses only enumerate the rights that the user already has under 17 U. S. C. §117, and yet proclaim to take away from the user. Proprietary software licenses often proclaim to give software publishers more control over the way their software is used by keeping ownership of each copy of software with the software publisher. The form of the relationship if it is a lease or a purchase, for example UMG v. Augusto or Vernor v. Autodesk. The ownership of goods, like software applications and video games, is challenged by licensed. The Swiss based company UsedSoft innovated the resale of business software and this feature of proprietary software licenses means that certain rights regarding the software are reserved by the software publisher. Therefore, it is typical of EULAs to include terms which define the uses of the software, the most significant effect of this form of licensing is that, if ownership of the software remains with the software publisher, then the end-user must accept the software license. In other words, without acceptance of the license, the end-user may not use the software at all, one example of such a proprietary software license is the license for Microsoft Windows. The most common licensing models are per single user or per user in the appropriate volume discount level, Licensing per concurrent/floating user also occurs, where all users in a network have access to the program, but only a specific number at the same time. Another license model is licensing per dongle which allows the owner of the dongle to use the program on any computer, Licensing per server, CPU or points, regardless the number of users, is common practice as well as site or company licenses
20.
IOS
–
IOS is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the system that presently powers many of the companys mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad. It is the second most popular operating system globally after Android. IPad tablets are also the second most popular, by sales, originally unveiled in 2007 for the iPhone, iOS has been extended to support other Apple devices such as the iPod Touch and the iPad. As of January 2017, Apples App Store contains more than 2.2 million iOS applications,1 million of which are native for iPads and these mobile apps have collectively been downloaded more than 130 billion times. The iOS user interface is based upon direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures, interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. Internal accelerometers are used by applications to respond to shaking the device or rotating it in three dimensions. Apple has been praised for incorporating thorough accessibility functions into iOS, enabling users with vision. Major versions of iOS are released annually, the current version, iOS10, was released on September 13,2016. In iOS, there are four layers, the Core OS, Core Services, Media. In 2005, when Steve Jobs began planning the iPhone, he had a choice to either shrink the Mac, forstall was also responsible for creating a software development kit for programmers to build iPhone apps, as well as an App Store within iTunes. The operating system was unveiled with the iPhone at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9,2007, and released in June of that year. At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed, iPhone runs OS X and runs applications, but at the time of the iPhones release. Initially, third-party native applications were not supported, Steve Jobs reasoning was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that would behave like native apps on the iPhone. In October 2007, Apple announced that a native Software Development Kit was under development, on March 6,2008, Apple held a press event, announcing the iPhone SDK. The iOS App Store was opened on July 10,2008 with an initial 500 applications available.2 million in January 2017, as of March 2016,1 million apps are natively compatible with the iPad tablet computer. These apps have collectively been downloaded more than 130 billion times, App intelligence firm Sensor Tower has estimated that the App Store will reach 5 million apps by the year 2020. On September 5,2007, Apple released the iPod Touch, Apple also sold more than one million iPhones during the 2007 holiday season
21.
IPad
–
IPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. which run the iOS mobile operating system. The first iPad was released on April 3,2010, the most recent iPad models are the 9. 7-inch iPad Pro released on March 31,2016, the user interface is built around the devices multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard. The iPad includes built-in Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity on select models, as of January 2015, there have been over 250 million iPads sold. IPad tablets are second most popular, by sales, against Android-based ones, since 2013, an iPad can shoot video, take photos, play music, and perform Internet functions such as web-browsing and emailing. Other functions – games, reference, GPS navigation, social networking, as of March 2016, the App Store has more than one million apps for the iPad by Apple and third parties. There have been six versions of the iPad, the first generation established design precedents, such as the 9. 7-inch screen size and button placement, that have persisted through all models. The third generation added a Retina Display, the new Apple A5X processor with a graphics processor, a 5-megapixel camera, HD 1080p video recording, voice dictation. The fourth generation added the Apple A6X processor and replaces the 30-pin connector with an all-digital Lightning connector, the iPad Air added the Apple A7 processor and the Apple M7 motion coprocessor, and reduced the thickness for the first time since the iPad 2. The iPad Air 2 added the Apple A8X processor, the Apple M8 motion coprocessor, an 8-megapixel camera, and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, there have been four versions of the iPad Mini. The first generation features a screen size of 7.9 inches and features similar internal specifications as the iPad 2 except it uses the Lightning connector. The iPad Mini 2 features the Retina Display, the Apple A7 processor, the iPad Mini 3 features the Touch ID fingerprint sensor. The iPad Mini 4 features the Apple A8 and the Apple M8 motion coprocessor, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in a 1983 speech that the companys strategy is really simple. What we want to do is we want to put a great computer in a book that you can carry around with you. And we really want to do it with a link in it so you don’t have to hook up to anything and you’re in communication with all of these larger databases. Apples first tablet computer was the Newton MessagePad 100, introduced in 1993, powered by an ARM6 processor core developed by ARM, Apple also developed a prototype PowerBook Duo based tablet, the PenLite, but decided not to sell it in order to avoid hurting MessagePad sales. Apple released several more Newton-based PDAs, the one, the MessagePad 2100, was discontinued in 1998. Apple re-entered the mobile-computing markets in 2007 with the iPhone, smaller than the iPad, but featuring a camera and mobile phone, it pioneered the multi-touch finger-sensitive touchscreen interface of Apples iOS mobile operating system. By late 2009, the release had been rumored for several years
22.
IPhone
–
IPhone is a line of smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc. They run Apples iOS mobile operating system, the first generation iPhone was released on June 29,2007, the most recent iPhone model is the iPhone 7, which was unveiled at a special event on September 7,2016. The user interface is built around the devices multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard, the iPhone has Wi-Fi and can connect to cellular networks. Other functionality, such as games, reference works, and social networking. As of January 2017, Apples App Store contained more than 2.2 million applications available for the iPhone, Apple has released ten generations of iPhone models, each accompanied by one of the ten major releases of the iOS operating system. The iPhone 5 featured a taller, 4-inch display and Apples newly introduced Lightning connector, in 2013, Apple released the 5S with improved hardware and a fingerprint reader, and the lower-cost 5C, a version of the 5 with colored plastic casings instead of metal. They were followed by the larger iPhone 6, with models featuring 4.7 and 5. 5-inch displays.5 mm headphone jack found on previous phones. The iPhones commercial success has been credited with reshaping the smartphone industry, the original iPhone was one of the first phones to use a design featuring a slate format with a touchscreen interface. Almost all modern smartphones have replicated this style of design, in the US, the iPhone holds the largest share of the smartphone market. As of late 2015, the iPhone had a 43. 6% market share, followed by Samsung, LG, Apple CEO Steve Jobs steered the original focus away from a tablet and towards a phone. Apple created the device during a collaboration with Cingular Wireless at the time—at an estimated development cost of US$150 million over thirty months. Apple rejected the design by committee approach that had yielded the Motorola ROKR E1, among other deficiencies, the ROKR E1s firmware limited storage to only 100 iTunes songs to avoid competing with Apples iPod nano. Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the public on January 9,2007, the passionate reaction to the launch of the iPhone resulted in sections of the media dubbing it the Jesus phone. Following this successful release in the US, the first generation iPhone was made available in the UK, France, and Germany in November 2007, on July 11,2008, Apple released the iPhone 3G in twenty-two countries, including the original six. Apple released the iPhone 3G in upwards of eighty countries and territories. Apple announced the iPhone 3GS on June 8,2009, along with plans to release it later in June, July, many would-be users objected to the iPhones cost, and 40% of users had household incomes over US$100,000. The back of the original first generation iPhone was made of aluminum with a black plastic accent, the iPhone 3G and 3GS feature a full plastic back to increase the strength of the GSM signal. The iPhone 3G was available in an 8 GB black model, the iPhone 3GS was available in both colors, regardless of storage capacity
23.
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
24.
Barnes & Noble
–
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company, the largest retail bookseller in the United States, and one of the nations leading retailers of content, digital media, and educational products. As of January 6,2017, the company operates 638 retail stores in all 50 U. S. states. After a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the American bookstore industry since the 1990s, previously, Barnes and Noble operated the chain of small B. Dalton Booksellers stores in malls until they announced the liquidation of the chain. The company is known for large retail outlets, many of which contain a café serving Starbucks coffee and other consumables, from cannolis to spinach and feta pretzels. Most stores sell books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, graphic novels, gifts, games, toys, music, Barnes & Noble originated in 1886 with a bookstore called Arthur Hinds & Company, located in the Cooper Union Building in New York City. In the fall of 1886, Gilbert Clifford Noble, a then-recent Harvard graduate from Westfield, in 1894, Noble was made a partner, and the name of the shop was changed to Hinds & Noble. In 1901, Hinds & Noble moved to 31–35 W. 15th Street, in 1917, Noble bought out Hinds and entered into a partnership with William Barnes, son of his old friend Charles, the name of the store was changed accordingly to Barnes & Noble. In 1930, Noble sold his share of the company to William Barnes son John Wilcox Barnes, Noble died on June 6,1936, at the age of 72. In the long history of the bookstore, the partnership was a brief interlude of thirteen years. In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the moved to a flagship location on 18th Street and Fifth Avenue. The Noble family retained ownership of a publishing business. In 1940, the store was one of the first businesses to feature Muzak and that decade the company opened stores in Brooklyn and Chicago. William Barnes died in 1945, at the age of 78, John Barnes died in 1964, and the company was sold to the conglomerate Amtel two years later. The business was purchased in 1971, by Leonard Riggio for $1.2 million, by then, it had been badly mismanaged over the prior two years and consisted only of a significantly reduced wholesale operation and a single retail location—the store at 105 Fifth Avenue. Between the 1970s and the 1980s, Barnes & Noble opened smaller discount stores and they also began to publish their own books to be sold to mail-order customers. These titles were primarily affordable reissues of out-of-print titles and selling them through mail-order catalogs allowed Barnes & Noble to reach new customers nationwide. Barnes & Noble continued to expand throughout the 1980s, and it purchased the primarily shopping mall-based B. Dalton chain from Dayton Hudson in 1986, the last B. Dalton stores were scheduled to close in January 2010. In 1989, Barnes and Noble had purchased the 22-store chain Bookstop, the acquisition of the 797 B. Dalton bookstores turned the company into a nationwide retailer, and by the end of fiscal year 1999, the second-largest online bookseller in the United States
25.
Nook Color
–
The Nook Color is a tablet computer/e-reader that was marketed by Barnes & Noble. A 7-inch tablet with multitouch touchscreen input, it is the first device in the Nook line to feature a full-color screen, the device is designed for viewing of books, newspapers, magazines, and childrens picture books. A limited number of the books available for the Nook Color include interactive animations. It was announced on 26 October 2010 and shipped on 16 November 2010, Nook Color became available at the introductory price of US$249. In December 2011, with the release of the Nook Tablet, on 12 August 2012, the price lowered to US$149. On 4 November 2012, the price was lowered to US$139. The Tablet Ran On Android Froyo, as of December 2012, Barnes and Noble discontinued the Nook Color in favor of the Nook HD and Nook HD+. The device was designed by Yves Behar from fuseproject and its frame is graphite in color, with an angled lower corner intended to evoke a turned page. The soft back is designed to make holding the more comfortable. The Nook color has a 7-inch 1024x600 resolution multi-touch touchscreen LCD display, presenting a vivid image. It does not feature an electronic display, making it a tablet computer. It has a display with color options, six font sizes. The Nook Color allows installing applications approved by Barnes & Noble, with the planning to provide tools for third-party software developers. Applications pre-loaded on the Nook Color include Chess, Sudoku, crossword puzzles, Pandora Radio, as with the prior Nook, the Nook Color provides a LendMe feature allowing users to share some books with other people depending upon licensing by the books publisher. The purchaser is permitted to share a book once with one user for up to two weeks. The other users may view the book using a Nook, Nook Color, or Barnes & Nobles free reader software on any other device running iOS, BlackBerry OS, Windows, Mac OS X. Adobe Digital Editions installed on Laptops paired to the Nook Color enables downloads from public libraries, the Share feature on the Nook is only accessible to a small percentage of books purchased from B&N. The Nook works better/easier with purchased publications from B&N than other sources with its easier access, the Nook Color uses a Texas Instruments ARM Cortex-A8 processor running at 800 MHz
26.
Nook HD
–
The Nook HD and Nook HD+ are the third generation of Nooks line of color tablet e-reader/media players by Barnes & Noble for using their copy restricted proprietary files, or other files. They are the successors to the Nook Tablet and both were released on November 8,2012. The 7-inch version, the Nook HD, is available in two internal memory sizes -8 GB with approximately 5 GB available for content, and 16 GB with about 13 GB available for user content. Memory is expandable via a microSD card, the Nook HD is available in two colors, Snow and Smoke. A 9-inch version, the Nook HD+, is available with 32 GB of internal memory and its memory is also expandable via a microSD card. The Nook HD+ is only available in one color, Slate, when the devices were first introduced, purchasers of the Nook HD or Nook HD+ received an incentive of a $30 gift card to the Barnes & Noble shop. In June 2013, B&N announced they would stop making Nook tablets in-house, later, B&N changed its mind and said a new Nook tablet would be released. The Galaxy Tab 4 Nook began to be sold in the US in August 2014, the company plans to significantly reduce losses in the NOOK segment by limiting risks associated with manufacturing, ” Barnes & Noble said in a press release. “Going forward, the company intends to continue to design eReading devices and reading platforms, at the same time, the company intends to continue to build its digital catalog, adding thousands of eBooks every week, and launching new NOOK Apps. For instance you can use such as Titanium Backup to back up or restore all of the apps on your device. On February 1,2014, official CyanogenMod 10.2.1 was released for the Nook HD, CyanogenMod versions for Nook HD and Nook HD+ are released for download under the hummingbird and ovation codenames respectively. CyanogenMod releases monthly M-builds and no versions marked stable are to be expected after version 11.0 M6 Release, the latest version is available for the Nook HD/Nook HD+ as a SNAPSHOT and NIGHTLIES versions. Since August 2013, a preview of Ubuntu Touch 13.10 is also available based on the above ovation. Ubuntu Touch can be installed along with Android, allowing dual booting, transferring a users files to another computer is possible, provided that the files are not copy restricted by DRM, using the Media Transfer Protocol in supported operating systems. Comparison of, E-book readers Tablet computers
27.
Barnes & Noble Nook
–
The Barnes & Noble Nook is a brand of e-readers developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the United States in October 2009, the original Nook had a six-inch E-paper display and a separate, smaller color touchscreen that serves as the primary input device and was capable of Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity. The original nook was followed in November 2010 by a color LCD device called the Nook Color, in June 2011 by the Nook Simple Touch, and in November 2011 and February 2012 by the Nook Tablet. On April 30,2012, Barnes & Noble entered into a partnership with Microsoft that will spin off the Nook, on August 28,2012, Barnes and Noble announced partnerships with retailers in the UK, which began offering the Nook digital products in October 2012. In December 2014, B&N purchased Microsofts Nook shares, ending the partnership, Nook users may read nearly any Nook Store e-book, digital magazines or newspapers for one hour once per day while connected to the stores Wi-Fi. This may encourage customers to visit B&N stores, the Nook name and Identity was devised and created by the Brand Development Group at R/GA. Nook was initially rejected as a name by Barnes & Noble and this decision pivoted on the information contained within an NPR article which suggested that women readers tend to read more than men. The name is claimed by Rex Wilder when he was consulting for Ammunition Design Group. The Nook software is run on Android 4.4 KitKat, the GlowLight Plus uses a Freescale i. MX61 GHz CPU and has 512MB RAM. Since the device runs Android 4.4, third party apps, due to the lack of physical buttons, initial set up to install third party apps is done through a USB connection to a computer. In February 2014, B&N announced a new Nook color tablet would be released in 2014, in June 2014, Barnes & Noble announced it would be teaming up with Samsung to develop co-branded tablets titled the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook. The devices would feature Samsungs hardware with a 7-inch display, the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook was released in the US in August 21,2014, with B&Ns Nook Division focusing on the software and content, and Samsung focusing on the hardware. The product specs, matching the Samsung Galaxy Tab 47.0 and it launched with a US$199 retail price. In May 2015, the price was reduced to $149, in September 2015, B&N released the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 Nook, which is a Nook branded Samsung Galaxy Tab S28 LCD tablet that includes some Samsung and B&N software. It uses Android 5.0.99 retail price, in October 2015, B&N released the Samsung Galaxy Tab E Nook, which is a Nook branded Samsung Galaxy Tab 9.6 LCD tablet that includes some Samsung, B&N and Microsoft software. In November 2016, B&N released the Nook Tablet 7, which is a Nook branded Chinese tablet 7 screen has a resolution of 600 x 1024 and it is using Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Nook apps included with a 1. 3GHz MediaTek CPU. It has 8GB storage, a card slot, Wi-Fi. It weighs 8.8 ounces and has a battery for up to 7 hours, the device has two versions, a Nook that includes Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity, and one that only includes Wi-Fi
28.
Kindle Fire
–
The Kindle Fire is a tablet computer developed by Amazon. com. The Kindle Fire HD followed in September 2012, and the Kindle Fire HDX in September 2013, in September 2014, when the fourth generation was introduced, the adjective Kindle was dropped. In September 2015, the fifth generation Fire 7 was released, followed by the sixth generation Fire HD8, on September 7,2012, upgrades to the device were announced with consumer availability to those European countries with a localized version of Amazons website. The original Kindle Fire retailed for US$199 in 2011, estimates of the devices initial bill of materials cost ranged from $150 to $202. Amazons business strategy was stated in 2011 as making money through sales of digital content on the Fire, rather than through sales of the device itself. On September 6,2012, the Kindle Fire was upgraded to the second generation, a more powerful and video-friendly version, the Kindle Fire HD was also made available, initially priced at $199 and $299. On September 25,2013, the Kindle Fire HD was upgraded as the third generation Fire, priced at US$139, the Kindle Fire HDX had an improved graphics engine, double the memory, and triple the processor speed of the previous model. The 7-inch and 8. 99-inch versions were introduced at US$229, in September 2014, the Fire HDX8.9 and the Fire HD were upgraded to the fourth generation of Fire tablets, removing the Kindle adjective in the naming scheme. There was also the Fire HD6 that has a screen with a quad-core processor priced at US$99. In September 2015, Amazon announced the release of the Fire 7, as of March 2016 it was the lowest-priced Amazon tablet. In June 2016, its price was dropped briefly to US$39.99 and this fifth generation tablet includes for the first time a micro SD card slot for extra storage. In September 2016, Amazon announced the release of the Fire HD8, as with most of Amazon’s devices, the aim isn’t to make money off of the hardware but instead to sell digital content such as books, movies, and TV shows to users reports Fortune. The Kindle Fire hardware was manufactured by Quanta Computer, which had also helped design the BlackBerry PlayBook. First-generation Kindle Fire devices employed a 1-GHz Texas Instruments OMAP4430 dual-core processor, the device has a 2-point multi-touch color LCD screen with a diagonal length of 7 inches and a 600×1024-pixel resolution. Connectivity is through 802. 11n Wi-Fi and USB2.0, the device includes 8 GB of internal storage—said to be enough for 80 applications, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books. The first-generation Kindle Fire has a sensor on the upper corner of the screen. This was widely considered to be a sensor, disabled since an early software upgrade. The first generation of Kindle Fire devices run a customized Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread OS, the second-generation Kindle Fire HD runs a customized Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich OS
29.
Amazon (company)
–
Amazon. com, also called Amazon, is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company that was founded on July 5,1994, by Jeff Bezos and is based in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest Internet-based retailer in the world by total sales, the company also produces consumer electronics—notably, Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Echo—and is the worlds largest provider of cloud infrastructure services. Amazon also sells certain low-end products like USB cables under its in-house brand AmazonBasics. Amazon has separate retail websites for the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Japan, China, India, and Mexico. Amazon also offers international shipping to other countries for some of its products. In 2016, Dutch, Polish, and Turkish language versions of the German Amazon website were launched. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization, in 1994, Bezos left his employment as vice-president of D. E. Shaw & Co. a Wall Street firm and moved to Seattle. He began to work on a plan for what would eventually become Amazon. com. Bezos incorporated the company as Cadabra on July 5,1994, Bezos changed the name to Amazon a year later after a lawyer misheard its original name as cadaver. In September 1994, Bezos purchased the URL Relentless. com and briefly considered naming his online store Relentless, the domain is still owned by Bezos and still redirects to the retailer. The company went online as Amazon. com in 1995, Bezos placed a premium on his head start in building a brand, telling a reporter, Theres nothing about our model that cant be copied over time. But you know, McDonalds got copied, and it still built a huge, multibillion-dollar company. A lot of it comes down to the brand name, brand names are more important online than they are in the physical world. Additionally, a beginning with A was preferential due to the probability it would occur at the top of any list that was alphabetized. Since June 19,2000, Amazons logotype has featured a curved arrow leading from A to Z, representing that the company carries every product from A to Z, with the arrow shaped like a smile. After reading a report about the future of the Internet that projected annual Web commerce growth at 2, 300% and he narrowed the list to what he felt were the five most promising products, which included, compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos and books. Amazon was founded in the garage of Bezos home in Bellevue, the company began as an online bookstore, an idea spurred off with discussion with John Ingram of Ingram Book, along with Keyur Patel who still holds a stake in Amazon. Amazon was able to access books at wholesale from Ingram, in the first two months of business, Amazon sold to all 50 states and over 45 countries
30.
EPUB
–
EPUB is an e-book file format with the extension. epub that can be downloaded and read on devices like smartphones, tablets, computers, or e-readers. It is a standard published by the International Digital Publishing Forum. The term is short for electronic publication and is sometimes styled ePub, EPUB became an official standard of the IDPF in September 2007, superseding the older Open eBook standard. The Book Industry Study Group endorses EPUB3 as the format of choice for packaging content and has stated that the book publishing industry should rally around a single standard. EPUB is the most widely supported vendor-independent XML-based e-book format, that is, EPUB2.0 was approved in October 2007, with a maintenance update approved in September 2010. The EPUB3.0 specification became effective in October 2011, new major features include support for precise layout or specialized formatting, such as for comic books, and MathML support. The current version of EPUB is 3.1, effective January 5,2017, the format specification underwent reorganization and clean-up, format supports remotely-hosted resources and new font formats and uses more pure HTML and CSS. In May 2016 IDPF Members approved World Wide Web Consortium merger, to align the publishing industry. Like an HTML web site, the format supports inline raster and vector images, metadata and this could affect the level of support for various DRM systems on devices and the portability of purchased e-books. Consequently, such DRM incompatibility may segment the EPUB format along the lines of DRM systems, undermining the advantages of a standard format. It is also used on many software readers such as iBooks on iOS and Google Books on Android. IBooks also supports the proprietary format, which is based on the EPUB format. As final product As in the eBook market PDF format is not generally sold at sites that sell eBooks, the main EPUB producers are suppliers of public domain and open licensed content, as Project Gutenberg, PubMed Central, SciELO and many others. In that context is growing and replacing the PDF format, data interchange EPUB is a popular way to feed ebook creation process, because is an open format and is based in HTML, while Amazons format is proprietary. EPUB is the first step content format in many production process, an EPUB file is a ZIP archive that contains, in effect, a website—including HTML files, images, CSS style sheets, and other assets. EPUB3 is the latest version, by using HTML5, publications can contain video, audio, and interactivity, just like websites in web browsers. An ePub publication is delivered as a single file and this file is an unencrypted zipped archive containing a set of interrelated resources. An OCF Abstract Container defines a system model for the contents of the container
31.
Portable Document Format
–
The Portable Document Format is a file format used to present documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, graphics, PDF was developed in the early 1990s as a way to share computer documents, including text formatting and inline images. It was among a number of competing formats such as DjVu, Envoy, Common Ground Digital Paper, Farallon Replica, in those early years before the rise of the World Wide Web and HTML documents, PDF was popular mainly in desktop publishing workflows. Adobe Systems made the PDF specification available free of charge in 1993 and these proprietary technologies are not standardized and their specification is published only on Adobe’s website. Many of them are not supported by popular third-party implementations of PDF. So when organizations publish PDFs which use proprietary technologies, they present accessibility issues for some users. In 2014, ISO TC171 voted to deprecate XFA for ISO 32000-2, on January 9,2017, the final draft for ISO 32000-2 was published, thus reaching the approval stage. The PDF combines three technologies, A subset of the PostScript page description programming language, for generating the layout, a font-embedding/replacement system to allow fonts to travel with the documents. A structured storage system to bundle these elements and any associated content into a single file, PostScript is a page description language run in an interpreter to generate an image, a process requiring many resources. It can handle graphics and standard features of programming such as if. PDF is largely based on PostScript but simplified to remove flow control features like these, often, the PostScript-like PDF code is generated from a source PostScript file. The graphics commands that are output by the PostScript code are collected and tokenized, any files, graphics, or fonts to which the document refers also are collected. Then, everything is compressed to a single file, therefore, the entire PostScript world remains intact. PDF supports graphic transparency, PostScript does not, PostScript is an interpreted programming language with an implicit global state, so instructions accompanying the description of one page can affect the appearance of any following page. Therefore, all preceding pages in a PostScript document must be processed to determine the appearance of a given page. A PDF file is a 7-bit ASCII file, except for elements that may have binary content. A PDF file starts with a header containing the magic number, the format is a subset of a COS format. A COS tree file consists primarily of objects, of which there are eight types, Boolean values, representing true or false Numbers Strings, enclosed within parentheses, objects may be either direct or indirect
32.
MP3
–
Compared to CD quality digital audio, MP3 compression commonly achieves 75 to 95% reduction in size. MP3 files are thus 1/4 to 1/20 the size of the digital audio stream. This is important for both transmission and storage concerns, the basis for such comparison is the CD digital audio format which requires 1411200 bit/s. A commonly used MP3 encoding setting is CBR128 kbit/s resulting in file size 1/11 of the original CD-quality file, the MP3 lossy compression works by reducing the accuracy of certain parts of a continuous sound that are considered to be beyond the auditory resolution ability of most people. This method is referred to as perceptual coding or psychoacoustics. It uses psychoacoustic models to discard or reduce the precision of less audible to human hearing. MP3 was designed by the Moving Picture Experts Group as part of its MPEG-1 standard, the first subgroup for audio was formed by several teams of engineers at Fraunhofer IIS, University of Hanover, AT&T-Bell Labs, Thomson-Brandt, CCETT, and others. MPEG-1 Audio, which included MPEG-1 Audio Layer I, II and III was approved as a draft of ISO/IEC standard in 1991, finalised in 1992. A backwards compatible MPEG-2 Audio extension with lower sample and bit rates was published in 1995, MP3 is a streaming or broadcast format meaning that individual frames can be lost without affecting the ability to decode successfully delivered frames. Storing an MP3 stream in a file enables time-shifted playback, the MP3 lossy audio data compression algorithm takes advantage of a perceptual limitation of human hearing called auditory masking. In 1894, the American physicist Alfred M. Mayer reported that a tone could be rendered inaudible by another tone of lower frequency, in 1959, Richard Ehmer described a complete set of auditory curves regarding this phenomenon. Ernst Terhardt et al. created an algorithm describing auditory masking with high accuracy and this work added to a variety of reports from authors dating back to Fletcher, and to the work that initially determined critical ratios and critical bandwidths. A wide variety of compression algorithms were reported in IEEEs refereed Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. The genesis of the MP3 technology is described in a paper from Professor Hans Musmann who chaired the ISO MPEG Audio group for several years. The immediate predecessors of MP3 were Optimum Coding in the Frequency Domain, the first practical implementation of an audio perceptual coder in hardware, was an implementation of a psychoacoustic transform coder based on Motorola 56000 DSP chips. Another predecessor of the MP3 format and technology is to be found in the perceptual codec MUSICAM based on an integer arithmetics 32 sub-bands filterbank, driven by a psychoacoustic model. It was primarily designed for Digital Audio Broadcasting and digital TV and this codec incorporated into a broadcasting system using COFDM modulation was demonstrated on air and on the field together with Radio Canada and CRC Canada during the NAB show in 1991. F. As a doctoral student at Germanys University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Karlheinz Brandenburg began working on music compression in the early 1980s
33.
Windows Media Audio
–
Windows Media Audio is the name of a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs, the original WMA codec, known simply as WMA, was conceived as a competitor to the popular MP3 and RealAudio codecs. WMA Pro, a newer and more advanced codec, supports multichannel, a lossless codec, WMA Lossless, compresses audio data without loss of audio fidelity. WMA Voice, targeted at voice content, applies compression using a range of low bit rates, Microsoft has also developed a digital container format called Advanced Systems Format to store audio encoded by WMA. The first WMA codec was based on work by Henrique Malvar. Malvar was a researcher and manager of the Signal Processing Group at Microsoft Research. The first finalized codec was initially referred to as MSAudio 4.0 and it was later officially released as Windows Media Audio, as part of Windows Media Technologies 4.0. Microsoft claimed that WMA could produce files that were half the size of equivalent-quality MP3 files, the former claim however was rejected by some audiophiles. RealNetworks also challenged Microsofts claims regarding WMAs superior audio quality compared to RealAudio, newer versions of WMA became available, Windows Media Audio 2 in 1999, Windows Media Audio 7 in 2000, Windows Media Audio 8 in 2001, and Windows Media Audio 9 in 2003. Microsoft first announced its plans to license WMA technology to third parties in 1999, although earlier versions of Windows Media Player played WMA files, support for WMA file creation was not added until the seventh version. In 2003, Microsoft released new audio codecs that were not compatible with the original WMA codec and these codecs were Windows Media Audio 9 Professional, Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless, and Windows Media Audio 9 Voice. All versions of WMA released since version 9.0 - namely 9.1,9.2 and 10 - have been compatible with the original v9 decoder and are therefore not considered separate codecs. The sole exception to this is the WMA10 Professional codec whose Low Bit Rate mode is only compatible with the older WMA Professional decoders at half sampling rate. Full fidelity decoding of WMA10 Professional LBR bitstreams requires a WMA version 10 or newer decoder, a WMA file is in most circumstances contained in the Advanced Systems Format, a proprietary Microsoft container format for digital audio or digital video. The ASF container format specifies how metadata about the file is to be encoded, metadata may include song name, track number, artist name, and also audio normalization values. See Windows Media DRM for further information, related industry standards such as DECE UltraViolet and MPEG-DASH have not standardized WMA as a supported audio codec, deciding in favor of the more industry-prevalent MPEG and Dolby audio codecs. Each WMA file features an audio track in one of the four sub-formats, WMA, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless
34.
3M
–
The 3M Company, formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Maplewood, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul. 3M has operations in more than 65 countries including 29 international companies with manufacturing operations and 35 companies with laboratories, 3M products are available for purchase through distributors and retailers, and online directly from the company. Five businessmen founded 3M in Two Harbors, Minnesota, in 1902, originally a mining venture, the goal was to mine corundum, but this failed because the mines mineral holdings were anorthosite, which had no commercial value. Co-founder John Dwan solicited funds in exchange for stock and Edgar Ober, the company moved to Duluth and began research and producing sandpaper products. William L. McKnight, later a key executive, joined the company in 1907, 3M finally became financially stable in 1916 and was able to pay dividends. The company moved to St. Paul in 1910, where it remained for 52 years before outgrowing the campus and moving to its current headquarters at 3M Center in Maplewood, Minnesota in 1962. The new Maplewood campus is 475 acres and has over 50 buildings, the company began by mining stone from quarries for use in grinding wheels. Struggling with quality and marketing of its products, management supported its workers to innovate and develop new products, twelve years after its inception, 3M developed its first exclusive product, Three-M-ite cloth. Other innovations in this era included masking tape, waterproof sandpaper, by 1929, 3M had made its first moves toward international expansion by forming Durex to conduct business in Europe. The same year, the stock was first traded over the counter. The company is currently a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the founders original plan was to sell the mineral corundum to manufacturers in the East for making grinding wheels. In reality, however, Dwan and his associates were not selling what they thought, failing to make sandpaper with the anorthosite, the founders decided to import minerals like Spanish garnet, after which sale of sandpapers grew. In 1914, customers complained that the garnet was falling off the paper, the founders discovered that the stones had traveled across the Atlantic Ocean packed near olive oil, and the oil had penetrated the stones. Unable to take the loss of selling expensive inventory, they roasted the stones over fire to remove the olive oil, the companys late innovations include waterproof sandpaper and masking tape, as well as cellophane Scotch Tape and sound-deadening materials for cars. In 1947, 3M began producing PFOA by electrochemical fluorination, during the 1950s, the company expanded worldwide with operations in Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom in large part by Clarence Sampair. DuPont referred to PFOA as C8, in 1951, international sales were approximately $20 million. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, 3M published a line of board games and these games were marketed to adults and sold through department stores, with easily learned simple rules but complex game play and depth and with uniformly high-quality components. As such, they are the ancestors of the German Eurogames, the games covered a variety of topics, from business and sports simulations to word and abstract strategy games
35.
Portable media player
–
A portable media player or digital audio player is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is stored on a CD, DVD, flash memory, microdrive. Most portable media players are equipped with a 3.5 mm headphone jack, in contrast, analog portable audio players play music from non-digital media that use analog signal storage, such as cassette tapes or vinyl records. Often mobile digital audio players are marketed and sold as portable MP3 players, even if they support other file formats. Portable DVD players are still manufactured by brands across the world and this article focuses on portable devices that have the main function of playing media. The immediate predecessor in the place of the digital audio player was the portable CD player and prior to that. British scientist Kane Kramer invented the first digital audio player, which he called the IXI and his 1979 prototypes were capable of approximately one hour of audio playback but did not enter commercial production. His UK patent application was not filed until 1981 and was issued in 1985 in the UK and 1987 in the US. However, in 1988 Kramers failure to raise the £60,000 required to renew the patent meant it entering the public domain, but he still owns the designs. Apple Inc. hired Kramer as a consultant and presented his work as an example of art in the field of digital audio players during their litigation with Burst. com almost two decades later. At about the same time AT&T also developed an internal Web based music streaming service that had the ability to download music to FlashPAC, AAC and such music downloading services later formed the foundation for the Apple iPod and iTunes. The first portable MP3 player was launched in 1997 by Saehan Information Systems, in mid-1998, the South Korean company licensed the players for North American distribution to Eiger Labs, which rebranded them as the EigerMan F10 and F20. The flash-based players were available in 32 MB or 64 MB storage capacity and had a LCD screen to tell the user the song currently playing. The first production-volume portable digital audio player was The Audible Player from Audible. com available for sale in January 1998 and it only supported playback of digital audio in Audibles proprietary, low-bitrate format which was developed for spoken word recordings. Capacity was limited to 4 MB of internal memory, or about 2 hours of play. The unit had no display and rudimentary controls, the Rio PMP300 from Diamond Multimedia was introduced in September 1998, a few months after the MPMan, and also featured a 32 MB storage capacity. It was a success during the season, with sales exceeding expectations. Interest and investment in digital music were subsequently spurred from it, because of the players notoriety as the target of a major lawsuit, the Rio is erroneously assumed to be the first digital audio player
36.
Windows Media Player
–
Editions of Windows Media Player were also released for classic Mac OS, Mac OS X and Solaris but development of these has since been discontinued. Windows Media Player replaced an earlier application called Media Player, adding features beyond simple video or audio playback, Windows Media Player 11 is available for Windows XP and included in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. The default file formats are Windows Media Video, Windows Media Audio, and Advanced Systems Format, the player is also able to utilize a digital rights management service in the form of Windows Media DRM. Windows Media Player 12 is the most recent version of Windows Media Player. It was released on July 22,2009 along with Windows 7 and has not been available for previous versions of Windows nor has it been updated since for Windows 8, Windows 8.1. Unlike Windows 8, Windows RT does not run Windows Media Player, the first version of Windows Media Player appeared in 1991, when Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions was released. Originally called Media Player, this component was included with Multimedia PC-compatible machines and it was capable of playing. mmm animation files, and could be extended to support other formats. It used MCI to handle media files, being a component of Windows, Media Player shows the same version number as that of the version Windows with which it was included. Microsoft continually produced new programs to play media files, indeo 3.2 was added in a later release. Video for Windows was first available as a free add-on to Windows 3.1, in 1995, Microsoft released ActiveMovie with DirectX Media SDK. ActiveMovie incorporates a new way of dealing with files. In 1996, ActiveMovie was renamed DirectShow, however, Media Player continued to come with Windows until Windows XP, in which it was officially renamed Windows Media Player v5.1. In 1999, Windows Media Players versioning broke away from that of Windows itself, Windows Media Player 7.0 and its successors also came in the same fashion, replacing each other but leaving Media Player and Windows Media Player 6.4 intact. Windows XP is the operating system to have three different versions of Windows Media Player side by side. All versions branded Windows Media Player support DirectShow codecs, Windows Media Player version 7 was a large revamp, with a new user interface, visualizations and increased functionality. Windows Vista, however, dropped older versions of Windows Media Player in favor of v11, Windows Media Player 12 was released with Windows 7. It included support for more media formats and added new features, with Windows 8, however, the player did not receive an upgrade. On April 16,2012, Microsoft announced that Windows Media Player would not be included in Windows RT, Windows Media Player supports playback of audio, video and pictures, along with fast forward, reverse, file markers and variable playback speed
37.
E-book
–
An electronic book is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as a version of a printed book. Commercially produced and sold e-books are usually intended to be read on dedicated e-reader devices, however, almost any sophisticated computer device that features a controllable viewing screen can also be used to read e-books, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. In the 2000s, there was a trend of print and e-book sales moving to the Internet, where readers buy traditional paper books and e-books on websites using e-commerce systems. With e-books, users can browse through online, and then when they select and order titles. At the start of 2012 in the U. S. more e-books were published online than were distributed in hardcover, the main reasons that people are buying e-books online are due to possibly lower prices, increased comfort and a larger selection of titles. With e-books, lectronic bookmarks make referencing easier, and e-book readers may allow the user to annotate pages, although fiction and non-fiction books come in e-book formats, technical material is especially suited for e-book delivery because it can be searched for keywords. In addition, for programming books, code examples can be copied, E-book reading is increasing in the U. S. by 2014, 28% of adults had read an e-book, compared to 23% in 2013. This is increasing, because by 2014 50% of American adults had an e-reader or a tablet, E-books are also referred to as ebooks, eBooks, e-Books, e-journals, e-editions or as digital books. The devices that are designed specifically for reading e-books are called e-readers, the idea of an e-reader that would enable a reader to view books on a screen came to Bob Brown after watching his first talkie. In 1930, he wrote a book on this idea and titled it The Readies, although Brown came up with the idea intellectually in the 1930s, early commercial e-readers did not follow his model. Schuessler relates it to a DJ spinning bits of old songs to create a beat or a new song as opposed to just a remix of a familiar song. The inventor of the first e-book is not widely agreed upon and her idea behind the device was to decrease the number of books that her pupils carried to school. The first e-book may be the Index Thomisticus, a heavily annotated electronic index to the works of Thomas Aquinas, prepared by Roberto Busa beginning in 1949, although originally stored on a single computer, a distributable CD-ROM version appeared in 1989. In 2005, the Index was published online, augment ran on specialized hardware, while FRESS ran on IBM mainframes. All these systems also provided extensive hyperlinking, graphics, and other capabilities, van Dam is generally thought to have coined the term electronic book, and it was established enough to use in an article title by 1985. FRESS was used for reading extensive primary texts online, as well as for annotation and online discussions in several courses, browns faculty made extensive use of FRESS, for example the philosopher Roderick Chisholm used it to produce several of his books. Thus in the Preface to Person and Object he writes The book would not have been completed without the epoch-making File Retrieval, despite the extensive earlier history, several publications report Michael S. Hart as the inventor of the e-book
38.
Comparison of e-book formats
–
The following is a comparison of e-book formats used to create and publish e-books. The EPUB format is the most widely supported vendor-independent XML-based e-book format, formats available include, but are not limited to, The digital book format originally used by Sony Corporation. It is a format, but some reader software for general-purpose computers. The LRX file extension represents a DRM encrypted eBook, more recently, Sony has converted its books from BBeB to EPUB and is now issuing new titles in EPUB. CHM format is a format based on HTML. Multiple pages and embedded graphics are distributed along with metadata as a compressed file. The indexing is both for keywords for full text search, the Digital Accessible Information SYstem is an XML-based open standard maintained by the DAISY Consortium for people with print disabilities. DAISY has wide support with features for multimedia, navigation and synchronization. DAISY is already aligned with the EPUB technical standard, and is expected to converge with its forthcoming EPUB3 revision. DjVu is a format specialized for storing scanned documents and it includes advanced compressors optimized for low-color images, such as text documents. Individual files may contain one or more pages, the contained page images are divided in separate layers, each compressed in the best available method. The format is designed to very quickly, even faster than vector-based formats. The advantage of DjVu is that it is possible to take a high-resolution scan, several dozens of 300 DPI black-and-white scans can be stored in less than a megabyte. DOC is a document file format that is supported by few ebook readers. Its advantages as a format is that it can be easily converted to other ebook formats. DOCX is a document file format that is supported by few ebook readers. Its advantages as an ebook format are that it can be converted to other ebook formats. The. epub or OEBPS format is a standard for e-books created by the International Digital Publishing Forum
39.
FictionBook
–
FictionBook is an open XML-based e-book format which originated and gained popularity in Russia. FictionBook files have the. fb2 filename extension, the FictionBook format does not specify the appearance of a document, instead, it describes its structure. For example, there are special tags for epigraphs, verses, all ebook metadata, such as author name, title, and publisher, is also present in the ebook file. This makes the format convenient for processing, indexing, and ebook collection management. Images are converted to Base64 and reside inside the <binary> tag, FictionBook files are often distributed inside Zip archives, and most of hardware and software readers can work with compressed FictionBook files directly. The metadata and the plain text data are always placed in the beginning of the FictionBook file, while more heavyweight binary images are placed in the end and this allows software to start rendering or processing FictionBook before the file is available entirely. FictionBook is the format of choice of some community-driven online electronic libraries and it does not allow for digital rights management of any kind. The format is supported by e-book readers such as FBReader, AlReader, Haali Reader, STDU Viewer, CoolReader, Fly Reader, Okular, Ectaco jetBooks, Documents for iOS, and some others. Devices based on the Hanvon N516 design can read FictionBook if custom OpenInkpot firmware is installed, amazons Kindle, Barnes & Nobles Nook, and Sony devices do not support FictionBook directly. Conversion to and from FictionBook2 files is possible via the cross-platform ebook management software Calibre, while conversion to, but not from, FictionBook2 format is available via Pandoc. - FictionBook 2. de – free online platform for creating and editing ebooks Lexcycle Stanza List of e-book readers STDU Viewer – free universal e-book reader
40.
Kindle File Format
–
The Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. com. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, all Kindle devices integrate with Kindle Store content and as of January 2017, the store has over five million e-books available in the US. Founder and CEO of Amazon. com Jeff Bezos commanded his deputies in 2004 to build the worlds best e-reader before Amazons competitors could, in reference to this e-reader, Amazon originally used the codename Fiona. The Kindle name was devised by branding consultants Michael Cronan and Karin Hibma, lab126 tasked them to name the product, so Cronan and Hibma suggested Kindle, meaning to light a fire. They felt this was an apt metaphor for reading and intellectual excitement, Kindle hardware has evolved from the original Kindle introduced in 2007 and the Kindle DX introduced in 2009. The range includes devices with a keyboard, devices with high resolution and contrast screens, a tablet with the Kindle app. Amazon has also introduced Kindle software for use on devices and platforms, including Microsoft Windows, iOS, BlackBerry, Mac OS X, Android, webOS. Amazon also has a reader to allow users to read. Content for the Kindle can be purchased online and downloaded wirelessly in some countries, through a service called Whispersync, customers can synchronize reading progress, bookmarks, and other information across Kindle hardware and other mobile devices. Amazon released the Kindle, its first e-reader, on November 19,2007 and it sold out in five and a half hours. The device remained out of stock for five months until late April 2008, the device features a 6 inches 4-level grayscale display, with 250 MB of internal storage, which can hold approximately 200 non-illustrated titles. It also has a speaker and a jack that allows the user to listen to audio files on Kindle. It is the only Kindle with expandable storage, via an SD card slot, the devices Whispernet feature was co-designed with Qualcomm, and Kindle was the first device to include free US-wide 3G access to download e-books from Amazons Kindle Store. Amazon did not sell the first generation Kindle outside the US, on February 10,2009, Amazon announced the Kindle 2, the second generation Kindle. It became available for purchase on February 23,2009, the Kindle 2 features a text-to-speech option to read the text aloud, and 2 GB of internal memory of which 1.4 GB is user-accessible. By Amazons estimates, the Kindle 2 can hold about 1,500 non-illustrated books, unlike the first generation Kindle, Kindle 2 does not have a slot for SD memory cards. It was slimmer than the original Kindle, the Kindle 2 features a Freescale 532 MHz, ARM-1190 nm processor,32 MB main memory,2 GB flash memory and a 3.7 V1,530 mAh lithium polymer battery. To promote the Kindle 2, in February 2009 author Stephen King made UR, his then-new novella, on July 8,2009, Amazon reduced price of the Kindle 2 from $359 to $299
41.
Mobipocket
–
On October 31,2016, Amazon permanently shut down the Mobipocket website and servers. Mobipocket. com was bought by Amazon. com in 2005, Amazons acquisition was believed to be a result of Adobe Systems’ announcement that it would no longer sell its eBook packaging and serving software. An alpha release of the Java-based version of the Mobipocket reader was available for cellphones on June 30,2008. There is also a reader for desktop computers running Microsoft Windows and it has been widely reported that since Amazons acquisition of Mobipocket, software support, user support, and platform growth was ended. In December 2011, it was reported that Amazon officially notified the book publishers that it was ending support for Mobipocket, the status of Mobipocket Digital Rights Management content previously purchased by users continues to be unclear since no other ebook reader supports its proprietary DRM method. The software provides, A personalized press review using the Mobipocket Web Companion, eBooks, including for each book a biography of the writer. Each downloaded eBook is registered in the My Mobipocket personal virtual library, a secure reading system, as a result of the encryption of eBooks using DRM and unique signature, a timestamp added to each book at the time of purchase. Depending on the device, different functions are available, when transferring documents to other device types, functions that are not supported on the device will be ignored, but the information one is reading will not be altered or deleted. Each book has one or two language attribute, in the case it is meant to be a dictionary. As a typical example, reading a book in Fr language, dictionaries are always unidirectional so Fr → En dictionary cannot be used in reverse - a separate En → Fr dictionary is needed for that. There is a reader for personal computers that works with either encrypted or unencrypted Mobipocket books. Unencrypted Mobipocket books can be read on the Amazon Kindle natively, as well as in Amazon Kindle programs on Mac OS X, iOS devices, Android devices, Windows, and Windows Phone devices. By using third-party programs such as Lexcycle Stanza, calibre or Okular, unencrypted Mobipocket books can also be read on Mac OS X, iOS, Android devices and Linux. Third party tools exist to decrypt encrypted Mobipocket books, allowing them to be read using software that does not support encryption, a user can thus create documents in the Mobipocket format. mobi and use personal comments, bookmarks, and more on all devices supporting those features. Mobipocket has not released a version for Android, long term plans for the Mobipocket platform are in question in the wake of Amazons announcement of the Kindle Format 8, which moves in the direction of HTML5 and CSS3. As one of the most popular e-readers, the Kindle has great sway in the popularity of e-reader formats, comparison of e-book formats List of e-book readers Microsoft Reader TomeRaider Official website
42.
Text file
–
A text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists within a file system. The end of a file is often denoted by placing one or more special characters. Such markers were required under the CP/M and MS-DOS operating systems, on modern operating systems such as Windows and Unix-like systems, text files do not contain any special EOF character. Text file refers to a type of container, while plain text refers to a type of content, Text files can contain plain text, but they are not limited to such. At a generic level of description, there are two kinds of files, text files and binary files. Because of their simplicity, text files are used for storage of information. They avoid some of the problems encountered with other formats, such as endianness, padding bytes. Further, when data corruption occurs in a file, it is often easier to recover. A disadvantage of text files is that usually have a low entropy. A simple text file needs no additional metadata to assist the reader in interpretation, and therefore may contain no data at all, the ASCII character set is the most common format for English-language text files, and is generally assumed to be the default file format in many situations. For accented and other characters, it is necessary to choose a character encoding. In many systems, this is chosen on the basis of the locale setting on the computer it is read on. Common character encodings include ISO 8859-1 for many European languages, because many encodings have only a limited repertoire of characters, they are often only usable to represent text in a limited subset of human languages. Unicode is an attempt to create a standard for representing all known languages. On most operating systems the name text file refers to file format that only plain text content with very little formatting. Such files can be viewed and edited on text terminals or in text editors. Text files usually have the MIME type text/plain, usually with additional information indicating an encoding, MS-DOS and Windows use a common text file format, with each line of text separated by a two-character combination, carriage return and line feed
