1.
Storage area network
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A storage area network is a network which provides access to consolidated, block level data storage. A SAN typically has its own network of devices that are generally not accessible through the local area network by other devices. The cost and complexity of SANs dropped in the early 2000s to levels allowing wider adoption across both enterprise and small to medium-sized business environments, a SAN does not provide file abstraction, only block-level operations. However, file systems built on top of SANs do provide file-level access, essentially, a SAN consolidates such storage islands together using a high-speed network. Operating systems maintain their own systems on their own dedicated, non-shared LUNs. If multiple systems were simply to attempt to share a LUN, any planned sharing of data on different computers within a LUN requires software, such as SAN file systems or clustered computing. Despite such issues, SANs help to increase capacity utilization. Common uses of a SAN include provision of transactionally accessed data that require high-speed block-level access to the hard drives such as servers, databases. Network-attached storage was designed independently of SAN systems, both NAS and SAN have the potential to reduce the amount of excess storage that must be purchased and provisioned as spare space. In a DAS-only architecture, each computer must be provisioned with enough storage to ensure that the computer does not run out of space at an untimely moment. In a DAS architecture the spare storage on one computer cannot be utilized by another, in a NAS the storage devices are directly connected to a file server that makes the storage available at a file-level to the other computers. In a SAN, the storage is available at a lower block-level. SAN protocols include Fibre Channel, iSCSI, ATA over Ethernet, instead the CPUs use the LAN to communicate, potentially creating bandwidth as well as performance bottlenecks. To understand their differences, a comparison of SAN, DAS and NAS architectures may be helpful, sharing storage usually simplifies storage administration and adds flexibility since cables and storage devices do not have to be physically moved to shift storage from one server to another. Other benefits include the ability to allow servers to boot from the SAN itself and this allows for a quick and easy replacement of faulty servers since the SAN can be reconfigured so that a replacement server can use the LUN of the faulty server. SANs also tend to more effective disaster recovery processes. A SAN could span a distant location containing a secondary storage array and this enables storage replication either implemented by disk array controllers, by server software, or by specialized SAN devices. Since IP WANs are often the least costly method of long-distance transport, the traditional physical SCSI layer could support only a few meters of distance - not nearly enough to ensure business continuance in a disaster
2.
Data storage
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A data storage device is a device for recording information. A storage device may hold information, process information, or both, a device that only holds information is a recording medium. Devices that process information may either access a separate portable recording medium or a permanent component to store, Electronic data storage requires electrical power to store and retrieve that data. Most storage devices that do not require vision and a brain to read data fall into this category, electromagnetic data may be stored in either an analog data or digital data format on a variety of media. Most electronically processed data storage media are considered permanent storage, that is, in contrast, most electronically stored information within most types of semiconductor microcircuits are volatile memory, for it vanishes if power is removed. JISC/NPO Studies on the Preservation of Electronic Materials, A Framework of Data Types and Formats, british Library Research and Innovation Report 50
3.
Sanjay Mehrotra
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Sanjay Mehrotra is co-founder of SanDisk and the companys president and chief executive officer. He was appointed to this role in January 2011, Mehrotra co-founded SanDisk in 1988 and has served as president and chief operating officer since June 2006. He has more than 30 years of experience in the semiconductor memory industry, including engineering and management positions at SanDisk, Integrated Device Technology. Mehrotra spent a few years of his education in a Delhi school, Sardar Patel Vidyalaya. He started college at BITS Pilani and then transferred to University of California, Mehrotra was awarded his bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences by Berkeley. He is a 2009 graduate of the Stanford University Graduate School of Businesses Executive Education Program, Mehrotra holds more than 70 patents. He has published articles in the area of non-volatile memory design, “Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Chinese Institute of Engineers USA at the 13th annual Asian American Engineer of the Year Award ceremony March 1,2014. CEO of the Year” from the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Silicon Valley in recognition of his leadership in advancing SanDisk’s community service activities, distinguished Alumni Award in Electrical Engineering” from the University of California, Berkeley,2013. Mehrotra delivered a commencement address to graduates of the University of California and his speech detailed his own journey and related the lessons he has learned along the way from being an international student to the head of a Fortune 500 company. The lab was funded by a $1 million donation by SanDisk to the College of Engineering, the donation also funded recently completed renovations to Cory Hall, home of the College’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
4.
Milpitas, California
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Milpitas /mɪlˈpiːtəs/ is a city in Santa Clara County, California. It is located with San Jose to its south and Fremont to its north, at the end of State Route 237. With Alameda County bordering directly on the north, Milpitas sits in the extreme northeast section of the South Bay, bordering the East Bay, Milpitas is also located within the Silicon Valley. The corporate headquarters of Maxtor, LSI Corporation, Adaptec, Intersil, FireEye, Viavi and Lumentum, KLA-Tencor, SanDisk, Flex and Cisco also have offices in Milpitas. The population was 66,790 at the 2010 census, Milpitas was first inhabited by the Tamyen, a linguistic subgroup of the Muwekma Ohlone people who had resided in the San Francisco Bay Area for thousands of years. The Ohlone Indians lived a life based on everyday hunting and gathering. Some of the Ohlone lived in villages within what is now Milpitas, including sites underneath what are now the Calvary Assembly of God Church. Archaeological evidence gathered from Ohlone graves at the Elmwood Correctional Facility in 1993 revealed a rich trade with tribes from Sacramento to Monterey. During the Spanish expeditions of the late 18th century, several missions were founded in the San Francisco Bay Area, during the mission period, Milpitas served as a crossroads between Mission San José de Guadalupe in modern-day Fremont and Mission Santa Clara de Asis, in present Santa Clara. Jose Maria Alviso was the son of Francisco Xavier Alviso and Maria Bojorquez, both landowners had built prominent adobe homes on their properties. Today, both still exist and are the oldest structures in Milpitas. The seriously eroded walls of the Jose Higuera Adobe, now in Higuera Adobe Park, are encapsulated in a shell built c.1970 by Marian Weller. The Alviso Adobe can be mostly in its original form with one kitchen addition made by the Cuciz family after they purchased the adobe from the Gleason family in 1922. Alviso Adobe History Park is to be opened, after the restoration of the adobe and outbuildings is completed, as an educational museum with historic items, trees, buildings. In the 1850s, large numbers of Americans of English, German, the Burnett, Rose, Dempsey, Jacklin, Trimble, Ayer, Parks, Wool, Weller, Minnis, and Evans are among the early settlers of Milpitas. These early settlers farmed the land that was once the ranchos, some set up businesses on what was then called Mission Road between Calaveras Road and the Alviso-Milpitas Road. By the late 20th century this became known as the Midtown district. Yet another influx of immigration came in the 1870s and 1880s as Portuguese sharecroppers from the Azores came to farm the Milpitas hillsides, many of the Azoreans had such locally well-known surnames like Coelho, Covo, Mattos, Nunes, Spangler, Serpa, and Silva
5.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
6.
Memory card
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A memory card, flash card or memory cartridge is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital information. PC Cards were the first commercial memory card formats to come out, since 1994, a number of memory card formats smaller than the PC Card arrived, the first one was CompactFlash later SmartMedia and Miniature Card. The desire for smaller cards for cell-phones, PDAs, and compact digital cameras drove a trend that left the previous generation of compact cards looking big, in digital cameras SmartMedia and CompactFlash had been very successful. In 2001, SM alone captured 50% of the camera market. By 2005 however, SD/MMC had nearly taken over SmartMedias spot, though not to the level and with stiff competition coming from Memory Stick variants. In industrial and embedded fields, even the venerable PC card memory cards still manage to maintain a niche, while in mobile phones and PDAs, since 2010, new products of Sony and Olympus have been offered with an additional SD-Card slot. Effectively the format war has turned in SD-Cards favor, PCMCIA ATA Type I Card PCMCIA Type II, Type III cards CompactFlash Card, CompactFlash High-Speed CompactFlash Type II, CF+, CF3. MU-Flash C-Flash SIM card Smart card UFC FISH Universal Transportable Memory Card Standard Intelligent Stick SxS memory card, SxS complies to the ExpressCard industry standard. Nexflash Winbond Serial Flash Module cards, size range 1 mb,2 mb and 4 mb, many older video game consoles used memory cards to hold saved game data. Cartridge-based systems primarily used battery-backed volatile RAM within each individual cartridge to hold saves for that game, cartridges without this RAM may have used a password system, or wouldnt save progress at all. The Neo Geo AES, released in 1990 by SNK, was the first video game console able to use a memory card, AES memory cards were also compatible with Neo-Geo MVS arcade cabinets, allowing players to migrate saves between home and arcade systems and vice versa. Memory cards became commonplace when home consoles moved to read-only optical discs for storing the game program, until the sixth generation of video game consoles, memory cards were based on proprietary formats, later systems have used established industry hardware formats for memory cards, such as FAT32. Comparison of memory cards Hot swapping
7.
USB flash drive
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USB flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than 30 grams, since first appearing on the market in late 2000, as with virtually all computer memory devices, storage capacities have risen while prices have dropped. As of March 2016, flash drives with anywhere from 8 to 256 GB are frequently sold, storage capacities as large as 2 TB are planned, with steady improvements in size and price per capacity expected. Some allow up to 100,000 write/erase cycles, depending on the type of memory chip used. USB flash drives are used for the same purposes for which floppy disks or CDs were once used, i. e. for storage, data back-up. They are smaller, faster, have thousands of times more capacity, additionally, they are immune to electromagnetic interference, and are unharmed by surface scratches.44 MB3. 5-inch floppy disk. The USB connector may be protected by a cap or by retracting into the body of the drive. Most flash drives use a standard type-A USB connection allowing connection with a port on a personal computer, USB flash drives draw power from the computer via the USB connection. Some devices combine the functionality of a media player with USB flash storage. Pua Khein-Seng from Malaysia is considered by many to be the Father of Pen Drive and he is notable for incorporating the worlds first single chip USB flash controller. Pua hails from Sekinchan, Selangor, Malaysia, pua founded Phison Electronics based in Taiwan with four other partners and is believed to have produced the worlds first USB flash drive with system-on-chip technology. Competing claims have made by Singaporean company Trek Technology and Chinese company Netac Technology, Both Trek Technology. Trek won a Singaporean suit, but a court in the United Kingdom revoked one of Treks UK patents, Trek Technology and IBM began selling the first USB flash drives commercially in 2000. IBMs USB flash drive became available on December 15,2000, in 2000, Lexar introduced a Compact Flash card with a USB connection, and a companion card read/writer and USB cable that eliminated the need for a USB hub. That is considerably slower than what a hard drive or solid-state drive can achieve when connected via the SATA interface. Transfer rates may be given in megabytes per second, megabits per second, or in optical drive multipliers such as 180X.1, which is limited to 12 Mbit/s with accounted overhead. The effective transfer rate of a device is significantly affected by the access pattern, for example. Like USB2.0 before it, USB3.0 dramatically improved data rates compared to its predecessor
8.
Dynamic random-access memory
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Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be charged or discharged, these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1. Since even nonconducting transistors always leak a small amount, the capacitors will slowly discharge, because of this refresh requirement, it is a dynamic memory as opposed to static random-access memory and other static types of memory. Unlike flash memory, DRAM is volatile memory, since it loses its data quickly when power is removed, however, DRAM does exhibit limited data remanence. DRAM is widely used in digital electronics where low-cost and high-capacity memory is required, one of the largest applications for DRAM is the main memory in modern computers, and as the main memories of components used in these computers such as graphics cards. In contrast, SRAM, which is faster and more expensive than DRAM, is used where speed is of greater concern than cost. The advantage of DRAM is its simplicity, only one transistor. This allows DRAM to reach high densities. The transistors and capacitors used are small, billions can fit on a single memory chip. Due to the nature of its memory cells, DRAM consumes relatively large amounts of power. The cryptanalytic machine code-named Aquarius used at Bletchley Park during World War II incorporated a dynamic memory. Paper tape was read and the characters on it were remembered in a dynamic store, the store used a large bank of capacitors, which were either charged or not, a charged capacitor representing cross and an uncharged capacitor dot. Since the charge gradually leaked away, a pulse was applied to top up those still charged. In 1964, Arnold Farber and Eugene Schlig, working for IBM, created a hard-wired memory cell, using a transistor gate and they replaced the latch with two transistors and two resistors, a configuration that became known as the Farber-Schlig cell. In 1965, Benjamin Agusta and his team at IBM created a 16-bit silicon memory chip based on the Farber-Schlig cell, with 80 transistors,64 resistors, in 1966, DRAM was invented by Dr. Robert Dennard at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He was granted U. S. patent number 3,387,286 in 1968, capacitors had been used for earlier memory schemes such as the drum of the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, the Williams tube and the Selectron tube. The Toshiba Toscal BC-1411 electronic calculator, which was introduced in November 1966, the first DRAM was introduced in 1969 by Advanced Memory system, Inc of Sunnyvale, CA </ref>. This 1000 bit chip was sold to Honeywell, Raytheon, Wang Computer among others, in 1969 Honeywell asked Intel to make a DRAM using a three-transistor cell that they had developed
9.
Portable media player
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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
10.
Solid-state drive
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A solid-state drive is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data persistently. SSD technology primarily uses electronic interfaces compatible with traditional block input/output hard disk drives, additionally, new I/O interfaces like SATA Express and M.2 have been designed to address specific requirements of the SSD technology. SSDs have no moving mechanical components and this distinguishes them from traditional electromechanical magnetic disks such as hard disk drives or floppy disks, which contain spinning disks and movable read/write heads. Compared with electromechanical disks, SSDs are typically resistant to physical shock, run silently. However, while the price of SSDs has continued to decline over time, as of 2015, most SSDs use MLC NAND-based flash memory, which is a type of non-volatile memory that retains data when power is lost. For applications requiring fast access but not necessarily data persistence after power loss, such devices may employ batteries as integrated power sources to retain data for a certain amount of time after external power is lost. SSDs had origins in the 1950s with two similar technologies, magnetic core memory and charged capacitor read-only storage and these auxiliary memory units emerged during the era of vacuum-tube computers, though their use ceased with the introduction of cheaper drum storage units. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, SSDs were implemented in memory for early supercomputers of IBM, Amdahl, and Cray. In the late 1970s, General Instruments produced an electrically alterable ROM which operated somewhat like the later NAND flash memory, unfortunately, a ten-year life was not achievable and many companies abandoned the technology. In 1976, Dataram started selling a product called Bulk Core, in 1978, Texas Memory Systems introduced a 16 kilobyte RAM solid-state drive to be used by oil companies for seismic data acquisition. The following year, StorageTek developed the first RAM solid-state drive, the Sharp PC-5000, introduced in 1983, used 128-kilobyte solid-state storage cartridges containing bubble memory. In 1984, Tallgrass Technologies Corporation had a backup unit of 40 MB with a solid state 20 MB unit built in. The 20 MB unit could be used instead of a hard drive, in September 1986, Santa Clara Systems introduced BatRam, a 4 megabyte mass storage system expandable to 20 MB using 4 MB memory modules. The package included a battery to preserve the memory chip contents when the array was not powered. 1987 saw the entry of EMC Corporation into the SSD market, however, by 1993, EMC had exited the SSD market. Software-based RAM disks remain in use as of 2016 because they are an order of faster than other technology, though they consume CPU resources. In 1989, the Psion MC400 laptop included four slots for removable storage in the form of flash-based solid-state disk cards, in 1991, SanDisk Corporation created a 20 MB solid state drive which sold for around $1,000. In 1994, STEC, Inc. bought Cirrus Logics flash controller operation, in 1995, M-Systems introduced flash-based solid-state drives
11.
Western Digital
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Western Digital Corporation is an American computer data storage company and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world, along with Seagate Technology. Western Digital Corporation has a history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker. Western Digital was founded on April 23,1970, by Alvin B, phillips, a Motorola employee, as General Digital, initially a manufacturer of MOS test equipment. It rapidly became a speciality semiconductor maker, with capital provided by several individual investors. Around July 1971, it adopted its current name and soon introduced its first product, the oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the bankruptcy of its biggest calculator customer, Bowmar Instrument, changed its fortunes, however, and in 1976 Western Digital declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After this, Emerson withdrew their support of the company, WDC introduced several landmark products during this time, including the MCP-1600 multi-chip, microcoded CPU. The MCP-1600 was used to implement DECs LSI-11 system and their own Pascal MicroEngine microcomputer which ran the UCSD p-System Version III, the processor was also used in several single-chip floppy disk drive controller chips, notably the FD1771. However, the WD integrated circuit that arguably drove Westerns forward integration was the 1771 chip, despite a price far higher than average CMOS chips of the time, it was very successful and extremely profitable. That controller, the WD1003, became the basis of the ATA interface, throughout most of the 1980s, the family of controllers based on the WD1003 provided the bulk of WDCs revenues and profits, and for a time generated enormous corporate growth. Much of the mid-to-late 1980s saw an effort by WDC to use the profits from their ATA storage controllers to become a general-purpose OEM hardware supplier for the PC industry, as a result, WDC purchased a number of hardware companies. These included graphics cards, core logic chipsets, SCSI controller chips for disk and tape devices and they did well, but storage-related chips and disk controllers were their biggest money makers. 1988 also brought what would be the biggest change in WDCs history and that year, WDC bought the hard drive production assets of PC hardware maker Tandon, the first products of that union under WDCs own name were the Centaur series of ATA and XT attachment drives. By 1991, things were starting to slow down, as the PC industry moved from ST-506 and ESDI drives to ATA and SCSI and that year saw the rise of WDCs Caviar drives, brand new designs that used the latest in embedded servo and computerized diagnostic systems. Eventually, the sales of the Caviar drives resulted in WDC starting to sell some of its divisions. Paradise was sold to Philips, and since disappeared and its networking and floppy drive controller divisions went to SMC Networks and its SCSI chip business went to Future Domain, which was later bought out by market leader Adaptec. Around 1995, the lead that the Caviar drives had enjoyed was eclipsed by newer offerings from other companies, especially Quantum Corp. Products and ideas of time did not go far. The Portfolio drive was a flop, as was the SDX hard disk to CD-ROM interface, in an attempt to turn the tide in 1998, WDC recruited the help of IBM
12.
Flash memory
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Flash memory is electronic non-volatile computer storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. Toshiba developed flash memory from EEPROM in the early 1980s and introduced it to the market in 1984, the two main types of flash memory are named after the NAND and NOR logic gates. The individual flash memory cells exhibit internal characteristics similar to those of the corresponding gates, where EPROMs had to be completely erased before being rewritten, NAND-type flash memory may be written and read in blocks which are generally much smaller than the entire device. NOR-type flash allows a machine word to be written—to an erased location—or read independently. The NAND type operates primarily in memory cards, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, NAND or NOR flash memory is also often used to store configuration data in numerous digital products, a task previously made possible by EEPROM or battery-powered static RAM. One key disadvantage of flash memory is that it can endure a relatively small number of write cycles in a specific block. In addition to being non-volatile, flash memory offers fast read access times, although flash memory is technically a type of EEPROM, the term EEPROM is generally used to refer specifically to non-flash EEPROM which is erasable in small blocks, typically bytes. Because erase cycles are slow, the block sizes used in flash memory erasing give it a significant speed advantage over non-flash EEPROM when writing large amounts of data. As of 2013, flash memory costs much less than byte-programmable EEPROM and had become the dominant memory type wherever a system required a significant amount of non-volatile solid-state storage, Flash memory was invented by Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980. According to Toshiba, the flash was suggested by Masuokas colleague, Shōji Ariizumi. Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention at the IEEE1984 International Electron Devices Meeting held in San Francisco, Intel Corporation saw the massive potential of the invention and introduced the first commercial NOR type flash chip in 1988. NOR-based flash has long erase and write times, but provides full address and data buses, allowing random access to any memory location. This makes it a replacement for older read-only memory chips. Its endurance may be from as little as 100 erase cycles for a flash memory, to a more typical 10,000 or 100,000 erase cycles. NOR-based flash was the basis of early flash-based removable media, CompactFlash was originally based on it, however, the I/O interface of NAND flash does not provide a random-access external address bus. Rather, data must be read on a basis, with typical block sizes of hundreds to thousands of bits. This makes NAND flash unsuitable as a replacement for program ROM. In this regard, NAND flash is similar to other data storage devices, such as hard disks and optical media
13.
EEPROM
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EEPROMs are organized as arrays of floating-gate transistors. EEPROMs can be programmed and erased in-circuit, by applying special programming signals, originally, EEPROMs were limited to single byte operations which made them slower, but modern EEPROMs allow multi-byte page operations. It also has a life for erasing and reprogramming, now reaching a million operations in modern EEPROMs. In an EEPROM that is frequently reprogrammed while the computer is in use, unlike most other kinds of non-volatile memory, an EEPROM typically allows bytes to be read, erased, and re-written individually. Eli Harari at Hughes Aircraft invented the EEPROM in 1977 utilising Fowler-Nordheim tunneling through a floating gate. Hughes went on to produce the first EEPROM devices, in 1978, George Perlegos at Intel developed the Intel 2816, which was built on earlier EPROM technology, but used a thin gate oxide layer enabling the chip to erase its own bits without a UV source. Perlegos and others later left Intel to form Seeq Technology, which used on-device charge pumps to supply the high voltages necessary for programming EEPROMs, EEPROM devices use a serial or parallel interface for data input/output. The common serial interfaces are SPI, I²C, Microwire, UNI/O and these use from 1 to 4 device pins and allow devices to use packages with 8-pins or less. A typical EEPROM serial protocol consists of three phases, OP-Code Phase, Address Phase and Data Phase. The OP-Code is usually the first 8-bits input to the input pin of the EEPROM device, followed by 8 to 24 bits of addressing depending on the depth of the device. Each EEPROM device typically has its own set of OP-Code instructions mapped to different functions, most devices have chip select and write protect pins. Some microcontrollers also have integrated parallel EEPROM, EEPROM memory is used to enable features in other types of products that are not strictly memory products. It was also used on game cartridges to save game progress and configurations. There are two limitations of stored information, endurance, and data retention, during rewrites, the gate oxide in the floating-gate transistors gradually accumulates trapped electrons. The electric field of the trapped electrons adds to the electrons in the floating gate, after sufficient number of rewrite cycles, the difference becomes too small to be recognizable, the cell is stuck in programmed state, and endurance failure occurs. The manufacturers usually specify the number of rewrites being 1 million or more. During storage, the electrons injected into the gate may drift through the insulator, especially at increased temperature. The manufacturers usually guarantee data retention of 10 years or more, flash memory is a later form of EEPROM
14.
M-Systems
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M-Systems Ltd. was a Nasdaq-listed Israeli producer of flash memory storage products founded in 1989 by Dov Moran and based in Kfar Saba, Israel. They were best known for developing and patenting the first flash drive, marketed in 1995 as DiskOnChip, and they also created the patented True Flash Filing System which presented the flash memory as a disk drive to the computer. After 17 years of business, they were acquired by their competitor, SanDisk. The DiskOnChip was developed at the R&D Center established by M-Systems called EUROM, rick Iorillo, Rony Levy and David Deitcher were the individuals that worked on the development and marketing of the first 2 MB DOC. This product went on to receive the Most Innovative Award from EDN in 1995 and later went on to become the Flash Drive, DiskOnKey was a small Flash memory device encased in a plastic enclosure with an integrated flash controller that connected to the USB port on a computer. It required no power or device drivers from the computer if running Windows 2000, or Windows ME, it was a true plug. In Windows 98 it required a driver which was supplied on a CD-ROM, the computer saw the device as a hard disk drive and it came in capacities of 8,16, and 32 MB. It was marketed as a disk on a keychain. It had an integrated LED which indicated when the device was reading or writing data to prevent premature removal from the computer, the performance was about 10 times faster than writing data to a floppy drive. The DiskOnChip product line became popular because they could easily be integrated into small embedded applications, the device was supplied as a module in a 32-pin dual in-line package with a pinout and electrical interface compatible with a standard JEDEC socket for memory chips. It employed a memory-mapped interface with an 8 KB window for models of all capacities, the subsidiary of M-Systems called EUROM was established to design, build and sell the DOC to the U. S. and Asian embedded computer distributors. The first customer for the DOC was Amrpo, the software that made the computer see the Flash memory as a disk drive was called TrueFFS and it was awarded US patent No.5404485 in 1995. This software and initially the Flash memory from Toshiba were combined to form the first solid state storage product called DiskOnChip, the DiskOnChip was first designed for the Single Board Computer manufacturers and was a 2 MB chip. The DiskOnChip was made to work with TFFS and was able to bypass the BIOS by disabling the F000 address in the advance CMOS setup. Rick Iorillo lead the development and design efforts in the U. S. sales of the DOC were established with IBM and Brazil to help in capturing the data off the public transportation systems. IBM was the first to market USB flash drives in North America, purchasing them from M-Systems and selling them under the IBM-brand label. These USB flash drives became available from IBM on December 15,2000, M-Systems did not produce the Flash memory used in their devices. Instead they worked closely with other flash memory manufacturers to use multiple suppliers of memory, in July 1996, Samsung and M-Systems announced a cooperative agreement between them that would combine the Samsung NAND flash memory technology with the M-Systems TrueFFS controller
15.
Fusion-io
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Fusion-io, Inc. was a computer hardware and software systems company based in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, that designed and manufactured products using flash memory technology. The Fusion ioMemory was marketed for applications such as databases, virtualization, cloud computing and their ioDrive product was considered around 2011 to be one of the fastest storage devices on the market. The company was founded in December 2005 as Canvas Technologies in Nevada, co-founders were David Flynn and Rick White. The company was based in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, near Salt Lake City, in June 2006 the company name was changed to Fusion Multisystems, Incorporated. A product with the brand name ioDrive was demonstrated and announced in September 2007, in March 2008, Fusion-io raised $19 million in a series A round of funding from a group of investors led by New Enterprise Associates. David Flynn was chief officer, while Don Basile was chief executive officer at the time. Michael Dell invested in Fusion-io during this round and it was chosen as an innovation up-and-comer in an online Business Week poll by early 2009. In 2009 and 2010, David Bradford, served as CEO, in February 2009 Fusion-io hired Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak as chief scientist. It was chosen by Red Herring magazine as a top 100 company in February 2009, Fusion-io announced $47.5 million in a series B round of investment led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in April 2009. Hardware partner Samsung later invested in Fusion-io in October 2009, a third round of funding led by Meritech Capital Partners, with additional capital from Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, provided a total of $45 million in April 2010. It was named the second most promising information technology company by The Wall Street Journal in March 2010, in May 2010, the Linux block-io principal developer, Jens Axboe, joined Fusion-io after leaving Oracle. Fusion-io first filed for a public offering in March 2011. At the time, Facebook accounted for most of its revenues, in June 2011, Fusion-io announced it increased the price of its IPO to put the companys total value at $1.4 billion. The company had previously priced its shares to value the company at about $1.17 billion, the shares were offered on June 9, raising the valuation to about $2 billion. On August 5,2011, Fusion-io acquired IO Turbine for about $95 million, IO Turbines main product was the ioTurbine hybrid array software, which is virtualization-aware, particularly of VMware environments. In January 2012, Fusion-io achieved a record breaking billion IOPS from eight servers at the DEMO Enterprise event in San Francisco, in June 2012, the Btrfs principal developers Chris Mason joined Fusion-io after leaving Oracle, and Josef Bacik left Red Hat to join Fusion-io. In August 2012 Fusion-io announced the ION Data Accelerator software, since February 2014 the ION product is offered as an appliance instead of a software product. In March 2013, Fusion-io acquired the Linux software defined storage firm ID7, at Storage Field Day 3, Fusion-io announced their acquisition of NexGen Storage in April 2013 for $114 million cash and $5 million in stock
16.
National Medal of Technology and Innovation
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The award may be granted to a specific person, to a group of people or to an entire organization or corporation. It is the highest honor the United States can confer to a US citizen for achievements related to technological progress, the National Medal of Technology was created in 1980 by the United States Congress under the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act. It was an effort to foster technological innovation and the technological competitiveness of the United States in the international arena. The first National Medals of Technology were issued in 1985 by then-U. S, President Ronald Reagan to 12 individuals and one company. Among the first recipients were Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, founders of Apple Computer, the medal has since been awarded annually. On August 9,2007, President George Bush signed the America COMPETES Act of 2007, the Act amended Section 16 of the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980, changing the name of the Medal to the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Each year the Technology Administration under the U. S. Department of Commerce calls for the nomination of new candidates for the National Medal of Technology, candidates are nominated by their peers who have direct, first-hand knowledge of the candidates achievements. Candidates may be individuals, teams of individuals, organizations or corporations, individuals and all members of teams nominated must be U. S. citizens and organizations and corporations must be U. S. -owned. All nominations are referred to the National Medal of Technology Evaluation Committee which issues recommendations to the U. S. Secretary of Commerce, all nominees selected as finalists through the merit review process will be subject to an FBI security check. Information collected through the security check may be considered in the selection of winners. The Secretary of Commerce is then able to advise the President of the United States as to which candidates ought to receive the National Medal of Technology. The new National Medal of Technology laureates are announced by the U. S. President once the final selections have been made. As of 2005, there have more than 135 individuals and 12 companies recognized. Summarized here is a list of laureates and a summary of their accomplishments
17.
Barack Obama
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Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He is the first African American to have served as president and he previously served in the U. S. Senate representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008, and in the Illinois State Senate from 1997 to 2004. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, two years after the territory was admitted to the Union as the 50th state and he grew up mostly in Hawaii, but also spent one year of his childhood in Washington State and four years in Indonesia. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago, in 1988 Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he became a civil rights attorney and professor, Obama represented the 13th District for three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, when he ran for the U. S. Senate. In 2008, Obama was nominated for president, a year after his campaign began and he was elected over Republican John McCain, and was inaugurated on January 20,2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, during his first two years in office, Obama signed more landmark legislation than any Democratic president since LBJs Great Society. Main reforms were the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, after a lengthy debate over the national debt limit, Obama signed the Budget Control and the American Taxpayer Relief Acts. In foreign policy, Obama increased U. S. troop levels in Afghanistan, reduced nuclear weapons with the U. S. -Russian New START treaty, and ended military involvement in the Iraq War. He ordered military involvement in Libya in opposition to Muammar Gaddafi, after winning re-election over Mitt Romney, Obama was sworn in for a second term in 2013. Obama also advocated gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and issued wide-ranging executive actions concerning climate change and immigration. In foreign policy, Obama ordered military intervention in Iraq in response to gains made by ISIL after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, Obama left office in January 2017 with a 60% approval rating. He currently resides in Washington, D. C and his presidential library will be built in Chicago. Obama was born on August 4,1961, at Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu and he is the only President to have been born in Hawaii. He was born to a mother and a black father. His mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas, of mostly English descent, with some German, Irish, Scottish, Swiss and his father, Barack Obama Sr. was a married Luo Kenyan man from Nyangoma Kogelo. Obamas parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the couple married in Wailuku, Hawaii on February 2,1961, six months before Obama was born. In late August 1961, Obamas mother moved him to the University of Washington in Seattle for a year
18.
Enough Project
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The Enough Project is a Washington, D. C. based non-profit organization that was founded in 2007. The project was co-founded by the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group in 2007 and its stated mission is to end genocide and crimes against humanity. The Enough Project facilitates several campaigns and initiatives which work to bring attention to these crises, including The Sentry, Raise Hope for Congo, and its co-founders are John Prendergast and Gayle Smith. In 2014, the Enough Project released a report on war lordism, securities and Exchange Commission and publish their supply chain, control over the mines had passed out of the hands of the warlords and local militias
19.
Conflict resource
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Conflict resources are natural resources extracted in a conflict zone and sold to perpetuate the fighting. There is both anecdotal and statistical evidence that belligerent accessibility to precious commodities can prolong conflicts and these minerals are essential in the manufacture of a variety of devices, including consumer electronics such as mobile phones, laptops, and MP3 players. The extraction and sale of diamonds, also known as conflict diamonds, is a better-known phenomenon which occurs under virtually identical conditions. Even petroleum can be a resource, ISIL uses oil revenue to finance its military. International efforts to trade in conflict resources, tried to reduce incentives to extract. For example, in the United States, the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act required manufacturers to audit their supply chains and report use of conflict minerals. In 2015 a US federal appeals court struck down aspects of the reporting requirements as a violation of corporations’ freedom of speech. The concept of resource, or conflict commodity emerged in the late 1990s, initially in relation to the conflict diamonds that were financing rebellions in Angola. Then conflict timber financed hostilities in Cambodia and Liberia, the concept was first officially discussed by the UN General Assembly in the context of conflict diamonds, The UN Security Council has since referred to conflict resources in several resolutions. Since 1996 the Bonn International Center for Conversion has tracked resource governance, aside from fossil fuels, metals, diamonds, and timber it tracks the governance of other primary goods that might fund conflicts, including, poppy seeds, rubber, cotton, and cocoa. The four most prominent conflict minerals, for example codified in the U. S, Conflict Minerals Law, are, Columbite-tantalite is the metal ore from which the element tantalum is extracted. In its carbide form, tantalum possesses significant hardness and wear resistance properties, as a result, it is used in jet engine/turbine blades, drill bits, end mills and other tools. Cassiterite is the ore needed to produce tin, essential for the production of tin cans. Tin is also commonly a component of biocides, fungicides and as tetrabutyl tin/tetraoctyl tin, wolframite is an important source of the element tungsten. Tungsten is a dense metal and is frequently used for this property, such as in fishing weights, dart tips. Like tantalum carbide, tungsten carbide possesses hardness and wear properties and is frequently used in applications like metalworking tools, drill bits. Smaller amounts are used to lead in green ammunition. Minimal amounts are used in devices, including the vibration mechanism of cell phones
20.
U3 (software)
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U3 was a joint venture between SanDisk and M-Systems, producing a proprietary method of launching Windows applications from special USB flash drives. Flash drives adhering to the U3 specification are termed U3 smart drives, U3 smart drives come preinstalled with the U3 Launchpad, which looks similar to the Windows OS start menu and controls program installation. Applications that comply with U3 specifications are allowed to write files or registry information to the host computer, customizations and settings are instead stored with the application on the flash drive. Microsoft and SanDisk created a successor called StartKey, SanDisk began phasing out support for U3 Technology in late 2009. A U3 flash drive itself to the host system as a USB hub with a CD drive. U3 compliant applications can be preloaded by manufacturers, the U3 Launchpad is a Windows program manager that is preinstalled on every U3 smart drive. The U3 Launchpad automatically starts at insertion of a U3 enabled device, to be fully U3 compliant, an application has to be programmed to clean up its own data from the local machine. It must also be packaged in U3s special program format, U3 applications will only run from a U3 device. U3 programs can be downloaded from the U3 website and other places, applications include Opera and Skype and do not need to be installed on the computer. The U3 application programming interfaces allow U3 programs lower-level access to USB flash drive, the latest version of U3 launchpad supports Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Data can be accessed using any OS capable of reading from USB mass storage devices, early versions of the U3 launchpad software had Vista compatibility issues, although this problem could be eliminated by updating the launcher software. Prior to Sandisks updated launcher software being released, Microsoft supported U3 by releasing an update to Vista, information on building U3 compliant applications and the U3 software development kit were available to registered developers at the official U3 website. Individuals must register to download the SDK, or participate in the forums, a wizard which packages distribution files and creates the special manifest file is provided. As of May 2009, the development kit was no longer available. Reformatting the drive will remove some of the software, but not all of it, u3_tool is another option that includes the ability to remove the virtual CD-ROM drive, as well as ways to reconfigure it to the users liking. Numerous criticisms have made of the U3 platform. These criticisms are, Malware-like integration behaviour Software comes preinstalled on USB disk and, U3 removal is possible, but requires complete data backup. Questioned use There are already portable versions of many Windows software available, removed user data, but not all of it Recent files and programs had it listed
21.
SanDisk Sansa
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The SanDisk Sansa is a line of 2- to 32-gigabyte flash memory-based portable media players produced by SanDisk. The Clip Jam was released in 2015, and is similar to the Clip Sport with a smaller screen, the Clip Sport was announced on February 10,2014, with capacities of 4GB, 8GB. It is similar to previous Clip models, with a screen and longer battery life. Later firmware uses the button for locking. A microSDHC card slot is provided to increase the storage capacity and this is the first SanDisk mp3 player to not carry the Sansa name. SanDisk Clip Sport Plus was released in 2016 this mp3 player is the first Sandisk Mp3 player with Bluetooth, note, Refers to latest version of the SanDisk firmware. Earlier version may have fewer features, Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, Replaygain and folder browsing are always included in Rockbox. Source, On August 24,2011, SanDisk announced the Sansa Clip Zip, two versions are available, a 4 GB model for US$50 and an 8 GB model for US$70. The 4 GB model comes in nine colors, while the 8 GB model is available in black or grey. The Clip Zip includes all the features of the Clip+ and is based on the processor as the Clip+ and Fuze v2. The new Clip Zip will be alongside the Clip+. Internally the Clip Zip is similar to the Clip+, and so retains its high quality DAC and amplifier. The Sansa Fuze+, announced on August 31,2010, in capacities of 4 GB,8 GB &16 GB, is a media player with a 2.4 inch color display. It also features an FM radio with FM recording, a voice recorder and it supports the following audio formats, MP3, WMA, Secure WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, Audible, Podcasts. For video it supports MPEG-4, H.264, and WMV, storage is expandable via a microSDHC slot, and it can be used to play slotMusic and slotRadio cards. There are 2 GB,4 GB and 8 GB models, the case has been redesigned to look more square and is constructed of higher-quality plastic, the clip is no longer removable, and the player now supports folder browsing and ReplayGain support. Transition times between tracks was reduced, but Sandisk officially declined to support gapless playback, a microSDHC card slot has been added, allowing the storage capacity of the device to be expanded by up to an additional 32 GB. The Clip+ also has added features when playing slotMusic and slotRadio, hold mode is now activated by holding the Home button on the device
22.
Eye-Fi
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Eye-Fi is a company based in Mountain View, California that produces SD memory cards and SDHC cards with Wi-Fi capabilities. Using an Eye-Fi card inside a camera, one can wirelessly and automatically upload digital photos to a local computer or a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Eye-Fi offers three models, varying in speed, storage capacity, and software services provided, Eye-Fi is originally known for its WiFi enabled SD card product line which began commercial shipments in 2007. Since its original creation, Eye-Fi has continually released upgraded versions of its hardware products, Eye-Fi Cards are compatible with virtually all digital cameras manufactured since 2010. Approximately 400 models from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Casio, Eyefi Connected cameras are able to control various functions of the Eye-Fi Cards, including the ability to manually turn the WiFi feature on/off. The core feature of all Eyefi Cards is the ability to detect when a new image file has been captured on a camera. Once a device running the Eyefi Mobi software detects the presence of an Eyefi Mobi Card and this mode is referred to as automatic transfer. In addition, the Mobi Pro product line provides for a transfer mode in which only photos designated by the user are transferred to the Eyefi Mobi app. Identification of which files to transfer is accomplished using an in-camera operation, initial set-up of Eyefi Mobi and Eyefi Mobi Pro Cards is accomplished by installing the Eyefi Mobi app on the users device. Once installed, the user is directed to insert the Eyefi Card into their camera, when users start the Eyefi Mobi app on their device the first time, they are prompted to enter the activation code for their Eyefi Card. The activation code is provided on a card inside the Eyefi product packaging, once the user enters the code into the app, the Eyefi Card will begin transferring new files to that device. The set-up operation must be completed for any device the user wishes to transfer images from their camera, once completed, the set-up does not need to be repeated. Eyefi Mobi Pro products support two major WiFi network types - so called direct and infrastructure wireless networks, a direct network connection is a peer-to-peer transfer between the Card and the device running the Eyefi app. Infrastructure transfer is accomplished when both the Card and the running the Eyefi Mobi app are within range of the same router based network. In the latter case, the Eyefi Mobi Pro card must be set-up to recognize the SSID, configuration of the Eyefi Mobi Pro Card to enabled selective transfer as well as set-up for router based transfer is accomplished using the Eyefi Mobi Desktop apps on Mac and Windows PC platforms. Eyefi Mobi Cards only support direct mode, automatic file transfer so no desktop set-up is required, the card was designed by Eye-Fi and is manufactured in Thailand with proprietary and off-the-shelf components. Users who wished to continue to be able to use X2 cards regardless created a petition in order to encourage Eye-Fi to reconsider the discontinuation of services for the legacy X2 cards. The petition offers the solution of offering a subscription to those customers wishing to continue using their X2 range cards
23.
ULLtraDIMM
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The ULLtraDIMM is a solid state storage device from SanDisk Inc. that connects flash storage directly onto the DDR3 memory bus. Unlike traditional PCIe Flash Storage devices, the ULLtraDIMM is plugged directly into an industry standard RDIMM memory bus slot in a server and this design and connection location provides deterministic known latency to enable applications to be streamlined for improved performance. The ULLtraDIMM is compatible with the JEDEC MO-269 DDR3 RDIMM specification, the ULLtraDIMM supports support both 1. 35V and 1. 5V operation from 800-1333 MHz, and 1. 5V @1600 MHz DDR3 transfer rates. DDR3 ECC bits are used to verify the integrity of the data being sent across memory bus, the ULLtraDIMM will verify that correct ECC is received and, if there are errors, the device driver will re-run the transfer. The CPU treats the ECC from the ULLtraDIMM in the manner as ECC from a memory DIMM. The DDR3 ECC bits are not stored in the flash array, a separate ECC scheme is used for protecting data in the flash array. Memory interleaving of standard RAM is not affected by the presence of ULLtraDIMMs, uEFI/BIOS updates are required to properly recognize an ULLtraDIMM in the system as a block device and not halt the bootstrap sequence
24.
Princeton University
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Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later, Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton has the largest endowment per student in the United States. The university has graduated many notable alumni, two U. S. Presidents,12 U. S. Supreme Court Justices, and numerous living billionaires and foreign heads of state are all counted among Princetons alumni body. New Light Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey in 1746 in order to train ministers, the college was the educational and religious capital of Scots-Irish America. In 1754, trustees of the College of New Jersey suggested that, in recognition of Governors interest, gov. Jonathan Belcher replied, What a name that would be. In 1756, the moved to Princeton, New Jersey. Its home in Princeton was Nassau Hall, named for the royal House of Orange-Nassau of William III of England, following the untimely deaths of Princetons first five presidents, John Witherspoon became president in 1768 and remained in that office until his death in 1794. During his presidency, Witherspoon shifted the focus from training ministers to preparing a new generation for leadership in the new American nation. To this end, he tightened academic standards and solicited investment in the college, in 1812, the eighth president the College of New Jersey, Ashbel Green, helped establish the Princeton Theological Seminary next door. The plan to extend the theological curriculum met with approval on the part of the authorities at the College of New Jersey. Today, Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary maintain separate institutions with ties that include such as cross-registration. Before the construction of Stanhope Hall in 1803, Nassau Hall was the sole building. The cornerstone of the building was laid on September 17,1754, during the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall, making Princeton the countrys capital for four months. The class of 1879 donated twin lion sculptures that flanked the entrance until 1911, Nassau Halls bell rang after the halls construction, however, the fire of 1802 melted it. The bell was then recast and melted again in the fire of 1855, James McCosh took office as the colleges president in 1868 and lifted the institution out of a low period that had been brought about by the American Civil War. McCosh Hall is named in his honor, in 1879, the first thesis for a Doctor of Philosophy Ph. D. was submitted by James F. Williamson, Class of 1877. In 1896, the officially changed its name from the College of New Jersey to Princeton University to honor the town in which it resides
25.
Bose Corporation
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Bose Corporation /ˈboʊz/ is an American privately held corporation, based in Framingham, Massachusetts, that designs, develops and sells audio equipment. Founded in 1964 by Amar Bose, the company sells its products throughout the world, forbes estimates that in the 2015 financial year, Bose received revenue of US$3.5 billion and employed approximately 11,700 people. Bose is best known for its home audio systems and speakers, noise cancelling headphones, professional audio systems, the company has also conducted research into suspension technologies for cars and heavy-duty trucks and into the subject of cold fusion. Bose has a reputation for being particularly protective of its patents, trademarks, a majority of Bose Corporations shares were given by Amar Bose in 2011 to his alma mater and former employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, while they receive cash dividends, they are prohibited from selling their shares in Bose and are unable to participate in the management, the company was founded in 1964 by Amar Bose. Eight years earlier, Bose, then a student at MIT, had purchased a stereo system and was disappointed with its performance. This led him to research the importance of reverberant sound on perceived audio quality, Bose began extensive research aimed at clarifying factors that he saw as fundamental weaknesses plaguing high-end audio systems. e. The listeners head as a sonic diffraction object as part of the system, eight years later, he started the company, charging it with a mission to achieve Better Sound Through Research, now the company slogan. In an interview in 2007 Bose talked about a review that kept the company alive. One magazine in the United States High Fidelity, a really credible magazine, had one reviewer named Norman Eisenburg who really knew his music, in those days I used to take the loudspeaker to the reviewer. I packed my son and loudspeaker in the car and went off and he came out with a review titled Surround and Conquer. He was not known to do things like that, everybody in the press knew he knew music, and it resulted in rave reviews one after another, and we were able to survive. Boses first loudspeaker product, the model 2201, dispersed 22 small mid-range speakers over an eighth of a sphere and it was designed to be located in the corner of a room, using reflections off the walls to increase the apparent size of the room. An electronic equalizer was used to flatten the spectrum of this system. The results of listening tests were disappointing and he believes that distortion is much overrated as a factor in perceived quality in the complex sounds that comprise music. The ultimate test, Bose insists, is the perception of audible quality. This reluctance to publish information is due to Boses rejection of these measurements in favour of more meaningful measurement and this led to a speaker design that aimed eight identical mid-range drivers at the wall behind the speaker, and a ninth driver towards the listener. The purpose of design was to achieve a dominance of reflected over direct sound in home listening spaces
26.
Cisco Systems
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Through its numerous acquired subsidiaries, such as OpenDNS, WebEx, and Jasper, Cisco specializes into specific tech markets, such as Internet of Things, domain security, and energy management. Cisco is the largest networking company in the world, the stock was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 8,2009, and is also included in the S&P500 Index, the Russell 1000 Index, NASDAQ-100 Index and the Russell 1000 Growth Stock Index. By the time the company went public in 1990, when it was listed on the NASDAQ, Cisco was the most valuable company in the world by 2000, with a more than $500 billion market capitalization. Despite founding Cisco in 1984, Bosack, along with Kirk Lougheed, continued to work at Stanford on Ciscos first product and it consisted of exact replicas of Stanfords Blue Box router and a stolen copy of the Universitys multiple-protocol router software. The software was written some years earlier at Stanford medical school by research engineer William Yeager. Bosack and Lougheed adapted it into what became the foundation for Cisco IOS, in 1987, Stanford licensed the router software and two computer boards to Cisco. In addition to Bosack, Lerner and Lougheed, Greg Satz, a programmer, and Richard Troiano, the companys first CEO was Bill Graves, who held the position from 1987 to 1988. In 1988, John Morgridge was appointed CEO, the name Cisco was derived from the city name San Francisco, which is why the companys engineers insisted on using the lower case cisco in its early years. The logo is intended to depict the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, on February 16,1990, Cisco Systems went public and was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. On August 28,1990, Lerner was fired, upon hearing the news, her husband Bosack resigned in protest. The couple walked away from Cisco with $170 million, 70% of which was committed to their own charity, although Cisco was not the first company to develop and sell dedicated network nodes, it was one of the first to sell commercially successful routers supporting multiple network protocols. Classical, CPU-based architecture of early Cisco devices coupled with flexibility of operating system IOS allowed for keeping up with evolving technology needs by means of frequent software upgrades, some popular models of that time managed to stay in production for almost a decade virtually unchanged—a rarity in high-tech industry. This philosophy dominated the companys product lines throughout the 1990s, in 1995, John Morgridge was succeeded by John Chambers. The phenomenal growth of the Internet in mid-to-late 1990s quickly changed the telecom landspe, as the Internet Protocol became widely adopted, the importance of multi-protocol routing declined. In late March 2000, at the height of the bubble, Cisco became the most valuable company in the world. In July 2014, with a cap of about US$129 billion. One of them, Juniper Networks, shipped their first product in 1999, Cisco answered the challenge with homegrown ASICs and fast processing cards for GSR routers and Catalyst 6500 switches. In 2004, Cisco also started migration to new high-end hardware CRS-1, as part of a massive rebranding campaign in 2006, Cisco Systems adopted the shortened name Cisco and created The Human Network advertising campaign
27.
Dell
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Dell Inc. is a multinational computer technology company based in Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. The company is a subsidiary of Dell Technologies, which was formed by the 2016 merger of Dell Inc. eponymously named after its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest technological corporations in the world, employing more than 103,300 people worldwide. Dell sells personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals, HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players, and electronics built by other manufacturers. Dell was a pure hardware vendor for much of its existence, Dell was listed at number 51 in the Fortune 500 list, until 2014. After going private in 2013, the confidential nature of its financial information prevents the company from being ranked by Fortune. In 2015, it was the third largest PC vendor in the world after Lenovo, Dell is currently the #1 shipper of PC monitors in the world. Dell is the sixth largest company in Texas by total revenue and it is the second largest non-oil company in Texas – behind AT&T – and the largest company in the Greater Austin area. It was a traded company, as well as a component of the NASDAQ-100 and S&P500. On September 7,2016, Dell Inc. acquired EMC Corporation to form Dell Technologies, Michael Dell founded PCs Limited while a student of the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components, Dell dropped out of school to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting $1,000 in expansion-capital from his family. In 1985, the company produced the first computer of its own design, the Turbo PC, Dell appeared in PCs Limited advertisements in national magazines, asking readers to give us a chance to show you what can do. Selling directly to consumers custom-assembled computers according to a selection of options, in 1986, Michael Dell brought in Lee Walker, a 51-year-old venture capitalist, as president and chief operating officer, to serve as mentor and to implement Dells ideas for growing the company. Walker was also instrumental in recruiting members to the board of directors when the company went public in 1988, the company dropped the PC’s Limited name in 1987 to become Dell Computer Corporation and began expanding globally. In June 1988, Dells market capitalization grew by $30 million to $80 million from its June 22 initial public offering of 3.5 million shares at $8.50 a share. In 1992, Fortune magazine included Dell Computer Corporation in its list of the worlds 500 largest companies, making Michael Dell the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company ever. In 1993, to complement its own direct sales channel, Dell planned to sell PCs at big-box retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, bain consultant Kevin Rollins persuaded Michael Dell to pull out of these deals, believing they would be money losers in the long run. Margins at retail were thin at best and Dell left the channel in 1994. Rollins would soon join Dell full-time and eventually become the company President, Dell found an opportunity among PC-savvy individuals who liked the convenience of buying direct, customizing their PC to their means, and having it delivered in days
28.
Dolby Laboratories
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Dolby Laboratories, Inc. is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression. Dolby licenses its technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers, Dolby Labs was founded by American Ray Dolby in the United Kingdom in 1965. He moved the company to the United States in 1967, the first product Dolby Labs produced was the Dolby 301 unit which incorporated Type A Dolby Noise Reduction, a compander based noise reduction system. These units were intended for use in recording studios. Dolby was persuaded by Henry Kloss of KLH to manufacture a version of his noise reduction. Dolby worked more on companding systems and introduced Type B in 1968, Dolby also sought to improve film sound. As the corporations history explains, Upon investigation, Dolby found that many of the limitations in optical sound stemmed directly from its high background noise. The first film with Dolby sound was A Clockwork Orange, which used Dolby noise reduction on all pre-mixes and masters, callan was the first film with a Dolby-encoded optical soundtrack. In 1975, Dolby released Dolby Stereo, which included a reduction system in addition to more audio channels. The first film with a Dolby-encoded stereo optical soundtrack was Lisztomania, the first true LCRS soundtrack was encoded on the movie A Star Is Born in 1976. In less than ten years,6,000 cinemas worldwide were equipped to use Dolby Stereo sound, Dolby developed a digital surround sound compression scheme for the cinema. Dolby Stereo Digital was first featured on the 1992 film Batman Returns, Dolby Digital is now found in the HDTV standard of the United States, DVD players, and many satellite-TV and cable-TV receivers. Dolby developed a digital surround sound compression scheme for TV series The Simpsons, on February 17,2005, the company became public, offering its shares on the New York Stock Exchange, under the symbol DLB. On March 15,2005, Dolby celebrated its fortieth anniversary at the ShoWest 2005 Festival in San Francisco, on January 8,2007, Dolby announced the arrival of Dolby Volume at the International Consumer Electronics Show. It enables users to maintain a steady volume while switching through channels or program elements, on June 18,2010, Dolby introduced Dolby Surround 7.1, and set up theaters worldwide with 7.1 surround speaker setups to deliver theatrical 7.1 surround sound. The first film to be released with this format was Pixars Toy Story 3 which was followed by 50 releases using the format. As of April 2012, there are 3,600 Dolby Surround 7.1 movie theaters, in April 2012, Dolby introduced its Dolby Atmos, a new cinematic technology adding overhead sound, first applied in Pixars motion picture Brave. In July 2014, Dolby Laboratories announced plans to bring Atmos to home theater, the first television show to use the technology on disc was Game of Thrones
29.
Harman International Industries
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On November 14,2016, Harman entered into an agreement to be acquired by South Korean company Samsung Electronics. The sale was completed on March 10,2017, Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon founded the predecessor to Harman International, Harman Kardon, in 1953. Both Harman and Kardon were engineers by training and had worked at the Bogen Company and their collaboration helped to create a new industry, high-fidelity audio. Harman bought out his partner in 1956 and then expanded Harman Kardon into an audio powerhouse, in the 1970s, Harman accepted an appointment in the Carter administration as deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce. When Harman took office in 1976, he sold his company to conglomerate Beatrice Foods to avoid a conflict of interest, Beatrice promptly sold many portions of the company, including the original Harman Kardon division, and by 1980 only 60% of the original company remained. After he left government in 1978, he created Harman International Industries, Harman International went public in 1986 with a stock offering on the New York Stock Exchange. In July 2011, Harman acquired MWM Acoustics, a privately held company that specialized in speaker and microphone technology for consumer electronics, the combination of MWM Acoustics, Branded Audio, and AKG Automotive Microphones became the Embedded Audio Business Team. Harman expanded to include lighting in 2013 with the acquisition of Martin Professional, in March 2015, Harman acquired the automotive division of Bang & Olufsen for 145 million euros for the unit as well as technology license fees. The purchase didn’t include Bang & Olufsen’s consumer-electronics business, with these additions, Harman announced the formation of a fourth division, which they called Connected Services. In March 2016, Harman acquired the automotive cyber-security firm TowerSec and this acquisition increased Harmans competencies in the emerging automotive cyber-security field. This was evidenced by the subsequent launch of the companys 5+1 security framework incorporating TowerSecs ECU shield technology and this acquisition was notable for further demonstrating Harmans desire to expand beyond its traditional business areas of in-car audio and entertainment systems. In November 2016, Samsung decided to acquire the company for an $8 Billion all cash deal, in February 2017, Harman International shareholders have voted in favor of the acquisition by Samsung. On March 10,2017, the acquisition is complete, with Harman becoming a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, Harman International Industries was to disappear from NYSE in Q3/2007 due to a buy-out by KKR and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. However, as of mid September 2007, KKR announced they would back out of the deal, Harman shares plummeted by more than 24% that day, on the news. Coincident with the deal, Dinesh C. Paliwal was hired as company President and CEO in July 2007, Paliwal was a veteran of the corporate turn-around. During his tenure as president of U. S, on July 1,2008, Sidney Harman was succeeded by Dinesh Paliwal as Chairman of the Board. Soundcraft - mixing consoles Studer - mixing consoles Official website Harman Japan website Harman Korea website Harman Connected Services
30.
JBL
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JBL is an American audio electronics company founded in 1946 by James Bullough Lansing. Their primary products are loudspeakers and associated electronics, there are two independent divisions within the company — JBL Consumer and JBL Professional. The former produces audio equipment for the home market while the latter produces professional equipment for the studio, installed sound, tour sound, portable sound. Lansing founded JBL one year after leaving Altec Lansing as their Vice President of Engineering in 1945, the company was first called Lansing Sound, Inc. from 1 October 1946, and later changed its name to James B. The first products were the model D101 15-inch loudspeaker and the model D175 high-frequency driver, the D175 remained in the JBL catalog through the 1970s. Both of these were near-copies of Altec Lansing products, the first original product was the D130, a 15-inch transducer for which a variant would remain in production for the next 55 years. The D130 featured a flat ribbon wire voice coil and Alnico V magnet. Two other products were the 12-inch D131 and the 8-inch D208 cone drivers, the Marquardt Corporation gave the company early manufacturing space and a modest investment. William H. Thomas, the treasurer of Marquardt Corporation, represented Marquardt on Lansings Board of Directors, in 1948 Marquardt took over operation of the JBL. In 1949 Marquardt was purchased by General Tire Company, the new company was not interested in the loudspeaker business and severed ties with Lansing. Lansing, Incorporated, and moved the newly formed company to its first private location on 2439 Fletcher Drive, a key to JBLs early development was Lansings close business relationship with its primary supplier of Alnico V magnetic material, Robert Arnold of Arnold Engineering. Arnold Engineering extended favorable terms and deep credit to Lansing, Robert Arnold saw JBL as an opportunity to sell Alnico V magnetic material into a new market. James Lansing was noted as an engineer, but a poor businessman. For the next three years, Lansing struggled to pay invoices and ship product, as a result of deteriorating business conditions and personal issues, he committed suicide on September 4,1949. The company then passed into the hands of Bill Thomas, JBLs then vice-president, Lansing had taken out a $10,000 life insurance policy, naming the company as the beneficiary, a decision that allowed Thomas to continue the company after Lansings death. Soon after, Thomas purchased Mrs. Lansings one-third interest in the company, Thomas is credited with revitalizing the company and spearheading a period of strong growth for the two decades following the founding of JBL. Early products included the model 375 high-frequency driver and the 075 UHF ring-radiator driver, the ring-radiator drivers are also known as JBL bullets because of their distinctive shape. The 375 was a re-invention of the Western Electric 594 driver but with an Alnico V magnet, the 375 shared the same basic magnet structure as the D-130 woofer
31.
Honeywell
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The company operates three business units, known as Strategic Business Units – Honeywell Aerospace, Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions, and Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies. Honeywell is a Fortune 100 company, in 2016, Honeywell ranked 75th in the Fortune 500. Honeywell has a workforce of approximately 130,000, of whom approximately 58,000 are employed in the United States. The company is headquartered in Morris Plains, New Jersey and its current chief executive officer is Darius Adamczyk. The company and its predecessors were part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index from December 7,1925 until February 9,2008. The companys current name, Honeywell International Inc. is the product of a merger in which Honeywell Inc. was acquired by the much larger AlliedSignal in 1999. The company headquarters were consolidated with AlliedSignals headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey, in 2015, the headquarters were moved to Morris Plains. Honeywell has many brands that commercial and retail consumers may recognize, including its line of home thermostats, the following year he founded the Butz Thermo-Electric Regulator Company. As the years passed, CTCC struggled with growing debts, in 1906, Mark Honeywell founded the Honeywell Heating Specialty Company in Wabash, Indiana to manufacture and market his invention, the mercury seal generator. As Honeywell’s company grew it began to clash with the renamed Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company and this led to the merging of the two companies into the publicly held Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company in 1927. Honeywell named its first president, W. R. Sweatt as its first chairman, W. R. Sweatt and his son Harold provided 75 years of uninterrupted leadership for the company. W. R. Sweatt survived rough spots and turned an innovative idea – thermostatic heating control – into a thriving business. Harold, who took over in 1934, led Honeywell through a period of growth, the merger into the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company proved to be a saving grace for the corporation. This expansion into international markets continued in 1936, with their first distributorship in London, by 1937, ten years after the merger, Minneapolis-Honeywell had over 3,000 employees, with $16 million in annual revenue. Having survived the Depression, Minneapolis-Honeywell was approached by the US military for engineering and manufacturing projects, in 1941, Minneapolis-Honeywell developed a superior tank periscope and camera stabilizers, as well as the C-1 autopilot. The C-1 revolutionized precision bombing in the war effort, and was used on the two B-29 bombers that dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, Honeywell also helped develop and manufacture the RUR-5 ASROC for the US Navy. Technologically, this effort had parallels to contemporary efforts in missile guidance, Honeywell also developed the Wagtail missile with the USAF. From the 1950s until the mid-1970s, Honeywell was the United States importer of Pentax cameras, through most of the 1960s, Honeywell was one of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of computing
32.
HP Inc.
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HP Inc. is an American technology company. HP is the successor of Hewlett-Packard, after the corporate spin-off of Hewlett Packard Enterprise on November 11,2015. HP develops personal computers as well as printers and related supplies, approximately 63% of revenue in 2016 came from outside of the United States. In 2016, HP announced a focus on consumers who upgrade their computers frequently and spend money on games. HP released the gamer-centric Omen line of laptops and desktops targeted at mid-range consumers, Hewlett Packard Hewlett Packard Enterprise HP Labs List of the largest information technology companies HP Customer Support
33.
Kingston Technology
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Headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, United States, Kingston Technology employs more than 3,000 employees worldwide as of Q12016. The company has manufacturing and logistics facilities in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Taiwan and it is the largest independent producer of DRAM memory modules, currently owning 64% of the third-party worldwide DRAM module market share, according to IHS. Kingston is arguably the second largest supplier of flash memory, Gartner ranks Kingston as the worlds #2 supplier of USB Flash drives, #2 in flash cards and #2 in PC based solid-state drives. In 2015, Kingston generated revenues of over US $7.0 billion, Forbes lists Kingston as #54 on its list of The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U. S. and #3 in the Technology Hardware & Equipment category. Kingston serves a network of distributors, resellers, retailers. The company also provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers, Kingston Technology was founded on October 17,1987, in response to a severe shortage of 1Mbit surface-mount memory chips. In response, Taiwanese immigrants John Tu designed a new single in-line memory module that used readily available, in 1990 following year the company branched out into its first non-memory product line, processor upgrades. By 1992, the firm was ranked #1 by Inc. as the privately held company in America. The company expanded into networking and storage product lines, and introduced DataTraveler, in September 1994, Kingston became ISO9000 certified on its first assessment attempt. Kingston opened a office in Munich, Germany to provide technical support. In October 1995, the joined the Billion-Dollar Club. Ads also appeared in publications and The Wall Street Journal thanking the companys suppliers and distributors. On August 15,1996 SoftBank Corporation of Japan acquired 80 percent of Kingston for a total of $1.8 billion. In November of the year, Kingston and Toshiba co-marketed memory upgrades for Toshiba PCs - the first time that a PC OEM. In 1999, Tu and Sun eventually bought back the 80 percent of Kingston owned by Softbank for $450 million. On December 14,1996 John Tu and David Sun allocated $100 million for employee bonuses as a result of the acquisition, Kingston announced a 49% increase in unit sales for its memory module products in calendar year 1996 over calendar year 1995. The company also expanded its American manufacturing capacity by purchasing PC-OEM manufacturing buildings in Fountain Valley, Kingston also introduced ValueRAM, which was a high-quality, low-cost memory designed for system integrators to use in white box solutions. Kingston launched Advanced Validation Labs, Inc. a sister company that provides memory validation services, Kingston began manufacturing removable disk drive storage products in 1989 in their Kingston Storage Products Division
34.
Kimball International
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Kimball International consists of three furniture brands, Kimball Office, National Office Furniture and Kimball Hospitality. It is the successor to W. W, Kimball and Company, the worlds largest piano and organ manufacturer at certain times in the 19th and 20th centuries. This division started as a dealership in Chicago in 1857 as W. W. Kimball and Company by William Wallace Kimball. C, lighte, Joseph P. Hale, and the W. P. Kimball also sold less expensive reed organs, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed all of Kimballs commercial assets in 1871, but he continued selling from his home, and rebuilt his dealership business. Kimball began assembling its own reed organs, using actions made by the J. G, earhuff Company and cases made by contractors. After three years, the company began offering organs made entirely in house, in 1882, the Kimball company was incorporated, and an expansive factory was built to produce reed organs. Soon, the factory was producing 15,000 organs a year, Kimball stopped making reed organs in 1922 after having produced 403,390 instruments. In 1887, Kimball began building a factory for making its own pianos. Kimball hired veterans from Steinway & Sons and C, bechstein Pianofortefabrik, and these men initiated improvements to the piano line. In 1890, Kimball hired Englishman Frederic W. Hedgeland, trained at his familys organworks in London, Hedgeland supervised a portable pipe organ design about the size of a large upright piano. The pipe organ division of Kimball also built large, permanent pipe organs, when the pipe organ division was closed down in 1942, some 7,326 models had been built. Kimball was involved in making player pianos, the first effort being an automatic mechanism in 1901, as well, from 1915 to 1925, Kimball produced a popular line of phonographs. During World War II, Kimball produced aircraft parts for major military airplane manufacturers such as Boeing, Douglas, after the war, piano production resumed but a series of poor financial decisions by W. W. Kimball Jr led the company into decline, Kimball had slipped from being the worlds largest piano maker to the seventh largest, and it was nearly insolvent. The combined company was later renamed Kimball International, piano production was relocated to the small, southern Indiana town of West Baden, Indiana, where the company was rejuvenated and once again began to grow. Ten years after the purchase, Kimball was once again the worlds largest piano company, the Jasper Corporation was founded in 1950 in Jasper, Indiana, to make television cabinets, kitchen cabinets, and office furniture. Jasper prospered from expanding television sales and from its investment in vertical integration, in 1959, Jasper, Inc. purchased the W. W. Kimball Company as a wholly owned subsidiary
35.
Lexmark
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Lexmark International, Inc. is a Chinese-owned corporation based in the United States that manufactures laser printers and imaging products. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky, Lexmark became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange on November 15,1995. It was reported in April 2016 that Lexmark would be acquired by Apex Technology, Lexmark was set to be acquired at $40.50 per share in the transaction. Initial talks for the acquisition were begun at the Remax World Expo in 2015, the deal was closed on November 29,2016. Lexmark stated that its headquarters would remain in Lexington, and that its enterprise software line of business would be spun off, Lexmark has offices throughout North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. The company has more than 12,000 employees worldwide, in May 2010, Lexmark acquired Perceptive Software for $280 million to build upon its software offerings. Perceptive Software was a firm that developed enterprise content management and document output management applications. In 2011, Lexmark International purchased Netherlands-based Pallas Athena in a transaction valued at approximately $50.2 million. The purchase of Pallas Athena added business process management, document output management, in March 2012, Lexmark announced the acquisition of Luxembourg-based BDGB Enterprise, including its U. S. subsidiary Brainware, Inc. for a cash purchase price of approximately $148 million. In March 2012, Lexmark acquired Australia-based ISYS Search Software and U. S. -based Nolij Corporation, ISYS built enterprise search solutions and Nolij developed Web-based document imaging and workflow software. In January 2013, Lexmark acquired Minnesota-based Acuo Technologies for $45 million, Acuo Technologies developed medical imaging document management software. In March 2013, Lexmark announced acquisitions of AccessVia and Twistage for a purchase price of approximately $31.5 million. In late August 2013, Lexmark signed an agreement to acquire Germany-based Saperion AG, Saperion was a developer and provider of enterprise content management and business process management software in Europe. The company was purchased for $72 million, in early October 2013, Lexmark acquired PACSGEAR. PACSGEAR was a provider of connectivity solutions for medical image management, the company was purchased for approximately $54 million. In September 2014, Lexmark acquired Stockholm, Sweden-based ReadSoft for $251 million, ReadSoft was a financial process automation solutions company that specialized in software solutions for document process automation on-premises or in the cloud. In May 2015, Lexmark announced that it had acquired Kofax for roughly $1 billion, Kofax, headquartered in Irvine, California, was a provider of smart process applications. They combined capture, process management, analytics and mobile capabilities to organizations and this line of business was, in turn, spun off from Lexmark when it was acquired by Apex Technology in November 2016
36.
Logitech
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Logitech International S. A. is a Swiss global provider of personal computer and mobile accessories, with EMEA headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland and American headquarters in Newark, California. In addition to its Swiss and American headquarters, the company has offices throughout Europe, Asia, Logitechs sales and marketing activities are organized into three geographic regions, America, Europe, and the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. The company develops and markets personal peripherals for PC navigation, video communication and collaboration, music and this includes products like keyboards, mice, tablet accessories, webcams, bluetooth speakers, universal remotes and more. Logitech International S. A. was co-founded in Apples, Vaud, Switzerland, the mass-marketed computer mouse was the product that made Logitech well-known. For a time during its years, Logitechs Silicon Valley offices occupied space at 165 University Avenue, Palo Alto, California. From there, Logitech expanded its line to encompass many mass market computer peripherals. In 2007, Logitech licensed Hillcrest Labs Freespace motion control technology to produce the MX Air Mouse, in August 2008, Logitech acquired Ultimate Ears, supplier of custom in-ear monitors for professional musicians and earphones for the consumer market. In December 2008, Logitech announced that it had manufactured one billion mice since 1985, in August 2009, Logitech introduced the Logitech Unifying receiver, which enabled multiple wireless devices to connect through one USB port. In May 2010, Logitech, in partnership with Google, introduced the Internet-enabled television, in May 2011, Logitech entered the tablet market with a line of accessories, including cases and keyboards, speakers and mice for iPad and Android-based tablets. In July 2011, Logitech acquired the mobile communications provider. In January 2013, Bracken Darrell became Logitech’s chief executive officer, in November 2013, the company announced the launch of its new iPhone game controller, the PowerShell, which also doubles as a battery pack with a built-in 1500mAh battery. Logitechs profits were hurt by the proliferation of tablet devices, in 2013 the company made a loss, but returned to profit in 2014. On July 8,2015, Logitech announced the biggest brand transformation in its history, the transformation included a new, simplified and modernized logo and the announcement of a greater emphasis on design going forward. Logitech also highlighted that they are looking to move beyond PC peripherals, in July 2015, Logitech announced a 2 percent first-quarter revenue drop to $470 million, due to a strong dollar and falling demand for the companys computer accessories. The U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the alleged accounting issues left investors without a view of the Swiss-U. S. companys finances. On April 12,2016, Logitech acquired Jaybird, makers of fitness-focused wireless earbuds, on September 15,2016, Logitech announced that they had purchased the Saitek brand and assets from Mad Catz for $13 million in cash. The first Logitech mice were made in Le Lieu, in the Swiss Canton of Vaud by Dubois Depraz SA, production facilities were then established in the US, Taiwan, Hungary and Ireland before being moved subsequently to Suzhou, China. As of 2005, the operations in China produce approximately half of Logitechs products
37.
Magnavox
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Magnavox, is an American electronics company founded in the United States. Today it is a subsidiary of electronics corporation Philips, six decades later, Magnavox produced the Odyssey, the worlds first home video game console toy. Magnavox is the brand name worn by a line of products made by Funai under license from trademark owner Philips. Jensen and Pridham founded the Commercial Wireless and Development Company in 1911, moved from Napa to San Francisco then Oakland in 1916, Jensen moved on to the Jensen Radio Manufacturing Company, Chicago, in the late 1920s. Pridham stayed on with Magnavox, which moved manufacturing to Fort Wayne by the 1940s, the term Commercial Wireless had a different meaning in the early days of radio and telephone. Magnavox manufactured radios, TVs, and record players, in the 1960s Magnavox manufactured the first plasma panels for the military and for computer applications. In 1972, Magnavox introduced the Odyssey, which was the worlds first home game console toy. The introduction of the toy triggered the beginning of the video game toys market. In the late 1970s, Philips developed LaserDisc technology, producing an optically read,12 inch disc that would contain recorded video material, in the early 1980s, Philips worked with Sony to invent a standard for optical audio discs, using the technology developed for the LaserDisc. Philips acquired Magnavoxs consumer electronics division in 1974, to nationwide distribution for their VLP Videodisc technology. During the late 1970s the company released the Odyssey², also known as the Philips Videopac, in the early 1980s, Philips merged Sylvania, Philco and Magnavox into one division headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, with a manufacturing plant in Greeneville, Tennessee. The Sylvania plant in Batavia, New York was closed and all moved to Greeneville. Philips also abandoned the Sylvania trademark which is owned by Osram, in the late 1980s, Magnavox sold the Magnavox/Philips VideoWriter with some success. Released in 1985, the VideoWriter was a standalone word processing machine. Starting in the early 1990s, some Philips electronics were marketed under the brand name Philips Magnavox, the three areas of business of the MESC operation during the late 1980s and early 1990s were C-Cubed, Electronic Warfare, and sonobuoys. When Hughes Electronics sold its aerospace and defense operations to Raytheon, shortly thereafter, Raytheon spun off the sonobuoy operation to form Under Sea Systems Inc, in Columbia City, Indiana. In 1998, Raytheon sold USSI to a British defense consortium named Ultra Electronics, the company is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Ultra, manufacturing water and acoustic sensing and communications devices for military and civil defense. The brand also has worked with Funai with their televisions after the Philips Magnavox name was popular
38.
Microsoft
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Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface tablet lineup, as of 2016, it was the worlds largest software maker by revenue, and one of the worlds most valuable companies. Microsoft was founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates on April 4,1975, to develop and it rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Microsoft Windows. The companys 1986 initial public offering, and subsequent rise in its share price, since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions. In May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion, in June 2012, Microsoft entered the personal computer production market for the first time, with the launch of the Microsoft Surface, a line of tablet computers. The word Microsoft is a portmanteau of microcomputer and software, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, childhood friends with a passion for computer programming, sought to make a successful business utilizing their shared skills. In 1972 they founded their first company, named Traf-O-Data, which offered a computer that tracked and analyzed automobile traffic data. Allen went on to pursue a degree in science at Washington State University. The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systemss Altair 8800 microcomputer, Allen suggested that they could program a BASIC interpreter for the device, after a call from Gates claiming to have a working interpreter, MITS requested a demonstration. Since they didnt actually have one, Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter and they officially established Microsoft on April 4,1975, with Gates as the CEO. Allen came up with the name of Micro-Soft, as recounted in a 1995 Fortune magazine article. In August 1977 the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office, the company moved to a new home in Bellevue, Washington in January 1979. Microsoft entered the OS business in 1980 with its own version of Unix, however, it was MS-DOS that solidified the companys dominance. For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, branding it as MS-DOS, following the release of the IBM PC in August 1981, Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS. Since IBM copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS, other companies had to engineer it in order for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles. Due to various factors, such as MS-DOSs available software selection, the company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with a publishing division named Microsoft Press. Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkins disease, while jointly developing a new OS with IBM in 1984, OS/2, Microsoft released Microsoft Windows, a graphical extension for MS-DOS, on November 20,1985. Once Microsoft informed IBM of NT, the OS/2 partnership deteriorated, in 1990, Microsoft introduced its office suite, Microsoft Office
39.
Razer Inc.
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Razer is dedicated to the creation and development of products mainly focused on PC gaming such as laptops, tablet computer, various PC peripherals, wearables, and accessories. The Razer brand is currently being marketed under Razer USA Ltd, Razer was founded in 1998 by a team of marketers and engineers to develop and market a high-end computer gaming mouse, the Boomslang, targeted to computer gamers. At Consumer Electronics Show 2011, Razer unveiled the Razer Switchblade, at CES2013, Razer unveiled its Razer Edge gaming tablet computer, which was previously known as Project Fiona. The tablet uses the Windows 8 operating system and is designed with gaming in mind, in May 2013, Razer unveiled the 14-inch Razer Blade and 17-inch Razer Blade Pro gaming laptops with fourth-generation Intel Haswell processors. At CES2014, Razer unveiled Project Christine, a modular gaming PC, each of the branches on the PC is a discrete component—a CPU, a GPU, a hard drive, memory—that simply plug into the central backbone. Once slotted in, Project Christine automatically syncs the newly added modules through PCI-Express, in July 2015, Razer announced it was purchasing the software division of video-game company Ouya. At Consumer Electronics Show 2016, Razer has been selected for Peoples Choice Winner for Razer Blade Stealth Ultrabook. The company won the year before for the Razer Forge TV, and this year, it took home the prize for the Razer Blade Stealth Ultrabook, in October 2016, Razer purchased THX according to THX CEO Ty Ahmad-Taylor. At CES2017, Razer revealed Project Valerie, a triple display laptop, and Project Ariana, in January 2017, Razer bought manufacturer Nextbit, the startup behind the Robin smartphone. Razers products are targeted at gamers, and include gaming laptops, gaming tablets, and PC peripherals such as mice, audio devices, keyboards, mouse mats. Razer has also released a VOIP software called Razer Comms, the Razer DeathAdder gaming mouse is the companys most popular product by sales numbers. The Razer Blade series is a series of gaming laptops developed by Razer and include the 12. 5-inch Razer Blade Stealth, the 14-inch Razer Blade, the Blade stealth was announced alongside the Razer Core. At DreamHack 2015, Razer and Lenovo announced a partnership to make a gaming desktop called the Lenovo Y900 Razer Edition gaming desktop. The Razer Edge is a gaming tablet PC developed by Razer specifically for games which run on Windows OS, in late 2014, Razer released their Chroma series of products. All Chroma series products have customizable RGB lighting, the first item in the series was the Blackwidow Chroma. The Blackwidow Chroma is a keyboard that has new features added onto the original Blackwidow keyboard. After the first Chroma product was released, Razer has continued to add products to the series and they have also added their RGB lighting onto another mouse they recently released called the Razer Mamba Chroma, which has RGB on the sides of the mouse with 14 different zones. A new version of the Razer Diamondback gaming mouse was also released, the Razer Nabu is a smart band developed by Razer with features such as mobile app notifications, fitness tracking, and more which was first released in December,2014
40.
Seagate Technology
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Seagate Technology PLC is an American data storage company. It was incorporated in 1978, as Shugart Technology, since 2010, the company is incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Cupertino, California, United States. Seagate developed the first 5. 25-inch hard disk drive, the 5-megabyte ST-506 and they were a major supplier in the microcomputer market during the 1980s, especially after the introduction of the IBM XT in 1983. Today Seagate along with Western Digital dominates the HDD market, much of their growth has come through acquisition of competitors. In 1989, Seagate acquired Control Data Corporations Imprimis division, makers of CDCs HDD products, Seagate acquired Conner Peripherals in 1996, Maxtor in 2006, and Samsungs HDD business in 2011. Seagate Technology was incorporated on November 1,1978, and commenced operations with co-founders Al Shugart, Tom Mitchell, Doug Mahon, Finis Conner, the name was changed to Seagate Technology to avoid a lawsuit from Xeroxs subsidiary Shugart Associates. The companys first product, the 5-megabyte ST-506, was released in 1980 and it was the first hard disk to fit the 5. 25-inch form factor of the Shugart mini-floppy drive. The hard disk, which used a Modified Frequency Modulation encoding, was a hit, and was released in a 10-megabyte version. With this Seagate secured a contract as a major OEM supplier for the IBM XT, the large volumes of units sold to IBM, the then-dominant supplier of PCs, fueled Seagates early growth. In their first year, Seagate shipped $10 million of units to consumers, by 1983, the company shipped over 200,000 units for revenues of $110 million. The 20-megabyte version, the ST-225, and the 30-megabyte version and these were also made in SCSI versions. In 1983, Al Shugart was replaced as president by then chief operating officer, Tom Mitchell, Shugart continued to oversee corporate planning. By this point the company had a 45% market share of the hard drive market. In 1989, Seagate acquired Control Datas Imprimis Technology, CDCs disk storage division, in September 1991, Tom Mitchell resigned as president under pressure from the board of directors, with Al Shugart reassuming presidency of the company. Shugart refocused the company on its more lucrative markets, and on mainframe drives instead of external drives and this included a domestic partnership with Corning Inc. which began using a new glass ceramic compound to manufacture disk substrates. In 1991, Seagate also introduced the Barracuda HDDs, the industrys first hard disk with a 7200-RPM spindle speed, in May 1993, Seagate became the first company to cumulatively ship 50 million HDDs over its firms history. The following year Seagate Technology Inc moved from the Nasdaq exchange to the New York Stock Exchange, upon leaving, the company was the 17th-largest company in terms of trading volume on the Nasdaq exchange. In 1996, Seagate merged with Conner Peripherals to form worlds largest independent hard-drive manufacturer, in 1996, Seagate introduced the industrys first hard disk with a 10, 000-RPM spindle speed, the Cheetah 4LP
41.
HGST
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HGST, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital that sells hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was founded on January 6,2003 as a merger of the disk drive businesses of IBM. Hitachi paid IBM US$2.05 billion for its HDD business, on March 8,2012, Western Digital acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of WD common stock valued at approximately $0.9 billion. The deal resulted in Hitachi, Ltd. owning approximately 10 percent of WD shares outstanding and it was agreed that WD would operate with WD Technologies and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries and they would compete in the marketplace with separate brands and product lines. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Japan, Ltd. is the Japanese branch of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, in November 2013, the company announced a 6 TB capacity drive filled with helium. In September 2014, the company announced a 10 TB helium drive, as such, as of October 19,2015, HGST is a Western Digital brand, and no longer a separate entity. Ultrastar – Enterprise-class line of 3. 5-inch and 2. 5-inch HDDs with SCSI, Fibre Channel, SAS, and SATA interfaces, deskstar – Desktop-class line in 3. 5-inch form factor with SATA interfaces. Travelstar – Mobile-class line in 2. 5-inch form factor with SATA interfaces, endurastar – Ruggedized line in 2. 5-inch form factor with PATA or SATA interfaces, primarily for automotive applications. Cinemastar –3. 5-inch and 2. 5-inch form factors, optimized for consumer electronics applications requiring quiet operation and streaming support. LifeStudio products, announced in 2010 but now discontinued, were external hard drives that combine photo organization software, a 3D Wall for displaying content, touro family of cloud storage backup products. Hitachi-LG Data Storage – joint venture of Hitachi and LG, manufacturer of DVD, Hitachi Data Systems – manufacturer of modular enterprise storage systems, software and services. Official website 日立グローバルストレージテクノロジーズ Hitachi Establishes Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Taking a Bold New Step for Storage Innovation
42.
Xerox
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Xerox Corporation /ˈzɪərɒks/ is an American global corporation that sells document solutions and services, and document technology products in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, though its largest population of employees is based around Rochester, New York, the company purchased Affiliated Computer Services for $6.4 billion in early 2010. As a large developed company, it is placed in the list of Fortune 500 companies. Xerox completed the separation of Conduent Incorporated effective on Dec.31,2016, creating two market-leading, publicly- traded companies. In connection with the spin-off, Xerox received a transfer from Conduent of $1.8 billion. Xerox continues to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “XRX”, researchers at Xerox and its Palo Alto Research Center invented several important elements of personal computing, such as the desktop metaphor GUI, the computer mouse and desktop computing. These concepts were frowned upon by the board of directors. The concepts were adopted by Apple and, later, Microsoft, with the help of these innovations, Apple and Microsoft came to dominate the personal computing revolution of the 1980s, whereas Xerox was not a major player. Xerox was founded in 1906 in Rochester as The Haloid Photographic Company, in 1938 Chester Carlson, a physicist working independently, invented a process for printing images using an electrically charged photoconductor-coated metal plate and dry powder toner. However, it would more than 20 years of refinement before the first automated machine to make copies was commercialized, using a document feeder, scanning light. Wilson, credited as the founder of Xerox, took over Haloid from his father and he saw the promise of Carlsons invention and, in 1946, signed an agreement to develop it as a commercial product. Wilson remained as President/CEO of Xerox until 1967 and served as Chairman until his death in 1971, looking for a term to differentiate its new system, Haloid coined the term Xerography from two Greek roots meaning dry writing. Haloid subsequently changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958 and then Xerox Corporation in 1961, before releasing the 914, Xerox tested the market by introducing a developed version of the prototype hand-operated equipment known as the Flat-plate 1385. The 1385 was not actually a viable copier because of its speed of operation and it was little more than a high quality, commercially available plate camera mounted as a horizontal rostrum camera, complete with photo-flood lighting and timer. The glass film/plate had been replaced with an aluminum plate. Clever electrics turned this into a developing and reusable substitute for film. A skilled user could produce fast, paper and metal printing plates of a higher quality than almost any other method, having started as a supplier to the offset lithography duplicating industry, Xerox now set its sights on capturing some of offsets market share. The 1385 was followed by the first automatic xerographic printer, the Copyflo, the Copyflo was a large microfilm printer which could produce positive prints on roll paper from any type of microfilm negative
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Electronics
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Electronics is the science of controlling electrical energy electrically, in which the electrons have a fundamental role. Commonly, electronic devices contain circuitry consisting primarily or exclusively of active semiconductors supplemented with passive elements, the science of electronics is also considered to be a branch of physics and electrical engineering. The ability of electronic devices to act as switches makes digital information processing possible, until 1950 this field was called radio technology because its principal application was the design and theory of radio transmitters, receivers, and vacuum tubes. Today, most electronic devices use semiconductor components to perform electron control and this article focuses on engineering aspects of electronics. Components are generally intended to be connected together, usually by being soldered to a circuit board. Components may be packaged singly, or in more complex groups as integrated circuits, some common electronic components are capacitors, inductors, resistors, diodes, transistors, etc. Components are often categorized as active or passive, vacuum tubes were among the earliest electronic components. They were almost solely responsible for the revolution of the first half of the Twentieth Century. They took electronics from parlor tricks and gave us radio, television, phonographs, radar, long distance telephony and they played a leading role in the field of microwave and high power transmission as well as television receivers until the middle of the 1980s. Since that time, solid state devices have all but completely taken over, vacuum tubes are still used in some specialist applications such as high power RF amplifiers, cathode ray tubes, specialist audio equipment, guitar amplifiers and some microwave devices. The 608 contained more than 3,000 germanium transistors, thomas J. Watson Jr. ordered all future IBM products to use transistors in their design. From that time on transistors were almost exclusively used for computer logic, circuits and components can be divided into two groups, analog and digital. A particular device may consist of circuitry that has one or the other or a mix of the two types, most analog electronic appliances, such as radio receivers, are constructed from combinations of a few types of basic circuits. Analog circuits use a range of voltage or current as opposed to discrete levels as in digital circuits. The number of different analog circuits so far devised is huge, especially because a circuit can be defined as anything from a single component, analog circuits are sometimes called linear circuits although many non-linear effects are used in analog circuits such as mixers, modulators, etc. Good examples of analog circuits include vacuum tube and transistor amplifiers, one rarely finds modern circuits that are entirely analog. These days analog circuitry may use digital or even microprocessor techniques to improve performance and this type of circuit is usually called mixed signal rather than analog or digital. Sometimes it may be difficult to differentiate between analog and digital circuits as they have elements of both linear and non-linear operation, an example is the comparator which takes in a continuous range of voltage but only outputs one of two levels as in a digital circuit
