1.
System on a chip
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A system on a chip or system on chip is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic systems. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single substrate, SoCs are very common in the mobile computing market because of their low power-consumption. A typical application is in the area of embedded systems, the contrast with a microcontroller, SoC integrates microcontroller with advanced peripherals like graphics processing unit, Wi-Fi module, or coprocessor. As long as we remember that the SoC does not necessarily contain built-in memory, in general, we can distinguish three types of SoC. SoC built around a microcontroller, SoC built around a microprocessor, a separate category may be Programmable SoC, part of elements is not permanently defined and can be programmable in a manner analogous to the FPGA or CPLD. When it is not feasible to construct a SoC for a particular application, in large volumes, SoC is believed to be more cost-effective than SiP since it increases the yield of the fabrication and because its packaging is simpler. Another option, as seen for example in cell phones, is package on package stacking during board assembly. The SoC includes processors and numerous digital peripherals, and comes in a ball grid package with lower and upper connections. The lower balls connect to the board and various peripherals, with the balls in a ring holding the memory buses used to access NAND flash. Memory packages could come from multiple vendors, DMA controllers route data directly between external interfaces and memory, bypassing the processor core and thereby increasing the data throughput of the SoC. A SoC consists of both the hardware, described above, and the controlling the microcontroller, microprocessor or DSP cores, peripherals. The design flow for a SoC aims to develop hardware and software in parallel. Most SoCs are developed from pre-qualified hardware blocks for the elements described above. Of particular importance are the protocol stacks that drive industry-standard interfaces like USB, the hardware blocks are put together using CAD tools, the software modules are integrated using a software-development environment. Once the architecture of the SoC has been defined, any new elements are written in an abstract language termed RTL which defines the circuit behaviour. These elements are connected together in the same RTL language to create the full SoC design, chips are verified for logical correctness before being sent to foundry. This process is called functional verification and it accounts for a significant portion of the time, with the growing complexity of chips, hardware verification languages like SystemVerilog, SystemC, e, and OpenVera are being used. Bugs found in the stage are reported to the designer
2.
Nvidia
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Nvidia Corporation is an American technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It designs graphics processing units for the market, as well as system on a chip units for the mobile computing. Its primary GPU product line, labeled GeForce, is in competition with Advanced Micro Devices Radeon products. Nvidia expanded its presence in the industry with its handheld SHIELD Portable, SHIELD Tablet. Since 2014, Nvidia has shifted to become a company focused on four markets – gaming, professional visualization, data centers. In addition to GPU manufacturing, Nvidia provides parallel processing capabilities to researchers and they are deployed in supercomputing sites around the world. More recently, It has moved into the computing market. In addition to AMD, its competitors include Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia is now focused on artificial intelligence. The name of the company comes from Invidia in Roman mythology who corresponds to Nemesis, RIVA TNT in 1998 solidified Nvidias reputation for capable hardware. Autumn 1999 saw the release of the GeForce, most notably introducing on-board transformation, running at 120 MHz and featuring four pixel pipelines, it implemented advanced video acceleration, motion compensation and hardware sub-picture alpha blending. The GeForce outperformed existing products by a wide margin, due to the success of its products, Nvidia won the contract to develop the graphics hardware for Microsofts Xbox game console, which earned Nvidia a $200 million advance. However, the project drew the time of many of its best engineers away from other projects, in the short term this did not matter, and the GeForce2 GTS shipped in the summer of 2000. In December 2000, Nvidia reached an agreement to acquire the assets of its one-time rival 3dfx. The acquisition process was finalized in April 2002, in July 2002, Nvidia acquired Exluna for an undisclosed sum. Exluna made software rendering tools and the personnel were merged into the Cg project, in August 2003, Nvidia acquired MediaQ for approximately US$70 million. On April 22,2004, Nvidia acquired iReady, also a provider of high performance TCP/IP, in December 2004, it was announced that Nvidia would assist Sony with the design of the graphics processor in the PlayStation 3 game console. In March 2006, it emerged that Nvidia would deliver RSX to Sony as an IP core, under the agreement, Nvidia would provide ongoing support to port the RSX to Sonys fabs of choice, as well as die shrinks to 65 nm. This practice contrasted with its business arrangement with Microsoft, in which Nvidia managed production, meanwhile, in May 2005 Microsoft chose to license a design by ATI and to make its own manufacturing arrangements for the Xbox 360 graphics hardware, as had Nintendo for the Wii console
3.
Smartphone
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A smartphone is a mobile phone with an advanced mobile operating system that combines features of a personal computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use. Smartphones can access the Internet and can run a variety of third-party software components and they typically have a color display with a graphical user interface that covers more than 76% of the front surface. In 1999, the Japanese firm NTT DoCoMo released the first smartphones to achieve mass adoption within a country, smartphones became widespread in the late 2000s. Most of those produced from 2012 onward have high-speed mobile broadband 4G LTE, motion sensors, in the third quarter of 2012, one billion smartphones were in use worldwide. Global smartphone sales surpassed the sales figures for regular cell phones in early 2013, devices that combined telephony and computing were first conceptualized by Nikola Tesla in 1909 and Theodore Paraskevakos in 1971 and patented in 1974, and were offered for sale beginning in 1993. Paraskevakos was the first to introduce the concepts of intelligence, data processing and they were installed at Peoples Telephone Company in Leesburg, Alabama and were demonstrated to several telephone companies. The original and historic working models are still in the possession of Paraskevakos, the first mobile phone to incorporate PDA features was a prototype developed by Frank Canova in 1992 while at IBM and demonstrated that year at the COMDEX computer industry trade show. It included PDA features and other mobile applications such as maps, stock reports. A refined version was marketed to consumers in 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator, the Simon was the first commercially available device that could be properly referred to as a smartphone, although it was not called that in 1994. The term smart phone appeared in print as early as 1995, in the mid-late 1990s, many mobile phone users carried a separate dedicated PDA device, running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS, BlackBerry OS or Windows CE/Pocket PC. These operating systems would later evolve into mobile operating systems, in March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released the OmniGo 700LX, a modified HP 200LX palmtop PC that supported a Nokia 2110 phone with ROM-based software to support it. It had a 640×200 resolution CGA compatible four-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to place and receive calls and it was also 100% DOS5.0 compatible, allowing it to run thousands of existing software titles, including early versions of Windows. In August 1996, Nokia released the Nokia 9000 Communicator, a cellular phone based on the Nokia 2110 with an integrated PDA based on the PEN/GEOS3.0 operating system from Geoworks. The two components were attached by a hinge in what known as a clamshell design, with the display above. The PDA provided e-mail, calendar, address book, calculator and notebook applications, text-based Web browsing, when closed, the device could be used as a digital cellular phone. In June 1999 Qualcomm released the pdQ Smartphone, a CDMA digital PCS Smartphone with an integrated Palm PDA, subsequent landmark devices included, The Ericsson R380 by Ericsson Mobile Communications. The first device marketed as a smartphone, it combined the functions of a phone and PDA. The Kyocera 6035 introduced by Palm, Inc, combining a PDA with a mobile phone, it operated on the Verizon network, and supported limited Web browsing
4.
Personal digital assistant
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A personal digital assistant, also known as a handheld PC, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. PDAs were largely discontinued in the early 2010s after the adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS. Nearly all PDAs have the ability to connect to the Internet, a PDA has an electronic visual display, letting it include a web browser. All models also have audio capabilities, allowing usage as a media player. Most PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi or Wireless Wide Area Networks, the first PDA was released in 1984 by Psion, the Organizer, followed by Psions Series 3, in 1991. The latter began to resemble the more familiar PDA style, including a full keyboard, the term PDA was first used on January 7,1992 by Apple Computer CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. In 1994, IBM introduced the first PDA with full mobile phone functionality, the IBM Simon, then in 1996, Nokia introduced a PDA with full mobile phone functionality, the 9000 Communicator, which became the worlds best-selling PDA. The Communicator spawned a new category of PDAs, the PDA phone, another early entrant in this market was Palm, with a line of PDA products which began in March 1996. A typical PDA has a touchscreen for entering data, a card slot for data storage. PDAs with wireless data connections also typically include an email client, many of the original PDAs, such as the Apple Newton and Palm Pilot, featured a touchscreen for user interaction, having only a few buttons—usually reserved for shortcuts to often-used programs. Some touchscreen PDAs, including Windows Mobile devices, had a stylus to facilitate making selections. The user interacts with the device by tapping the screen to select buttons or issue commands, typical methods of entering text on touchscreen PDAs include, A virtual keyboard, where a keyboard is shown on the touchscreen. Text is entered by tapping the on-screen keyboard with a finger or stylus, an external keyboard connected via USB, Infrared port, or Bluetooth. Some users may choose a chorded keyboard for one-handed use, handwriting recognition, where letters or words are written on the touchscreen, often with a stylus, and the PDA converts the input to text. Recognition and computation of handwritten horizontal and vertical formulas, such as 1 +2 =, stroke recognition allows the user to make a predefined set of strokes on the touchscreen, sometimes in a special input area, representing the various characters to be input. The strokes are often simplified character shapes, making them easier for the device to recognize, one widely known stroke recognition system is Palms Graffiti. Despite research and development projects, end-users experience mixed results with handwriting recognition systems, some find it frustrating and inaccurate, while others are satisfied with the quality of the recognition. Touchscreen PDAs intended for use, such as the BlackBerry and Palm Treo, usually also offer full keyboards and scroll wheels or thumbwheels to facilitate data entry
5.
Mobile Internet device
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A mobile Internet device is a multimedia-capable mobile device providing wireless Internet access. They are designed to entertainment, information and location-based services for personal or business use. They allow 2-way communication and real-time sharing and they have been described as filling a niche between smartphones and tablet computers. As all the features of MID started becoming available on smartphones and tablets, the class of mobile Internet tablets from Archos has included multiple operating systems, Windows CE, Android, and Windows 7. The form factor is similar to the Lenovo image on the right. The Android tablet uses an ARM Cortex CPU and a touchscreen, Intel announced a prototype MID at the Intel Developer Forum in Spring 2007 in Beijing. A MID development kit by Sophia Systems using Intel Centrino Atom was announced in April 2008, Intel MID platforms are based on an Intel processor and chipset which consume less power than most of the x86 derivatives. A few platforms have been announced as listed below, Intels first generation MID platform contains a 90 nm Intel A100/A110 processor which runs at 600–800 MHz, on 2 March 2008, Intel introduced the Intel Atom processor brand for a new family of low-power processor platforms. The components have thin, small designs and work together to enable the best mobile computing and Internet experience on mobile and low-power devices. Intels second generation MID platform contains a 45 nm Intel Atom processor which can run up to 2.0 GHz and this platform was initially branded as Centrino Atom but such practice was discontinued in Q32008. Intels third generation MID/smartphone platform contains a 45 nm Intel Atom processor, Intels fourth generation MID/smartphone platform contains a 32 nm Intel Atom SoC. Intels MID/smartphone platform based on its Clover Trail tablet platform and it contains a 32 nm Intel Atom SoC. Intels fifth generation MID/smartphone platform contains a 22 nm Intel Atom SoC, Intels sixth generation MID/smartphone platform contains a 22 nm Intel Atom SoC. Intels seventh generation MID/smartphone platform contains a 14 nm Intel Atom SoC, Intel announced collaboration with Ubuntu to create Ubuntu for mobile internet devices distribution, known as Ubuntu Mobile. Ubuntus website says the new distribution will provide a rich Internet experience for users of Intel’s 2008 Mobile Internet Device platform, another MID Open Source Linux distribution is Moblin, which had been merged into the new MeeGo project that has been merged with LiMo into Tizen project. Centrino Phablet Android CrunchPad Moblin project Netbook / Smartbook Ubuntu Mobile Ultra-Mobile PC WiMAX Mobile web
6.
ARM architecture
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ARM, originally Acorn RISC Machine, later Advanced RISC Machine, is a family of reduced instruction set computing architectures for computer processors, configured for various environments. It also designs cores that implement this instruction set and licenses these designs to a number of companies that incorporate those core designs into their own products, a RISC-based computer design approach means processors require fewer transistors than typical complex instruction set computing x86 processors in most personal computers. This approach reduces costs, heat and power use and these characteristics are desirable for light, portable, battery-powered devices—including smartphones, laptops and tablet computers, and other embedded systems. For supercomputers, which large amounts of electricity, ARM could also be a power-efficient solution. ARM Holdings periodically releases updates to architectures and core designs, some older cores can also provide hardware execution of Java bytecodes. The ARMv8-A architecture, announced in October 2011, adds support for a 64-bit address space, with over 100 billion ARM processors produced as of 2017, ARM is the most widely used instruction set architecture in terms of quantity produced. Currently, the widely used Cortex cores, older classic cores, the British computer manufacturer Acorn Computers first developed the Acorn RISC Machine architecture in the 1980s to use in its personal computers. Its first ARM-based products were coprocessor modules for the BBC Micro series of computers, according to Sophie Wilson, all the tested processors at that time performed about the same, with about a 4 Mbit/second bandwidth. After testing all available processors and finding them lacking, Acorn decided it needed a new architecture, inspired by white papers on the Berkeley RISC project, Acorn considered designing its own processor. Wilson developed the set, writing a simulation of the processor in BBC BASIC that ran on a BBC Micro with a 6502 second processor. This convinced Acorn engineers they were on the right track, Wilson approached Acorns CEO, Hermann Hauser, and requested more resources. Hauser gave his approval and assembled a team to implement Wilsons model in hardware. The official Acorn RISC Machine project started in October 1983 and they chose VLSI Technology as the silicon partner, as they were a source of ROMs and custom chips for Acorn. Wilson and Furber led the design and they implemented it with a similar efficiency ethos as the 6502. A key design goal was achieving low-latency input/output handling like the 6502, the 6502s memory access architecture had let developers produce fast machines without costly direct memory access hardware. The first samples of ARM silicon worked properly when first received and tested on 26 April 1985, Wilson subsequently rewrote BBC BASIC in ARM assembly language. The in-depth knowledge gained from designing the instruction set enabled the code to be very dense, the original aim of a principally ARM-based computer was achieved in 1987 with the release of the Acorn Archimedes. In 1992, Acorn once more won the Queens Award for Technology for the ARM, the ARM2 featured a 32-bit data bus, 26-bit address space and 27 32-bit registers
7.
Central processing unit
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The computer industry has used the term central processing unit at least since the early 1960s. The form, design and implementation of CPUs have changed over the course of their history, most modern CPUs are microprocessors, meaning they are contained on a single integrated circuit chip. An IC that contains a CPU may also contain memory, peripheral interfaces, some computers employ a multi-core processor, which is a single chip containing two or more CPUs called cores, in that context, one can speak of such single chips as sockets. Array processors or vector processors have multiple processors that operate in parallel, there also exists the concept of virtual CPUs which are an abstraction of dynamical aggregated computational resources. Early computers such as the ENIAC had to be rewired to perform different tasks. Since the term CPU is generally defined as a device for software execution, the idea of a stored-program computer was already present in the design of J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchlys ENIAC, but was initially omitted so that it could be finished sooner. On June 30,1945, before ENIAC was made, mathematician John von Neumann distributed the paper entitled First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC and it was the outline of a stored-program computer that would eventually be completed in August 1949. EDVAC was designed to perform a number of instructions of various types. Significantly, the programs written for EDVAC were to be stored in high-speed computer memory rather than specified by the wiring of the computer. This overcame a severe limitation of ENIAC, which was the considerable time, with von Neumanns design, the program that EDVAC ran could be changed simply by changing the contents of the memory. Early CPUs were custom designs used as part of a larger, however, this method of designing custom CPUs for a particular application has largely given way to the development of multi-purpose processors produced in large quantities. This standardization began in the era of discrete transistor mainframes and minicomputers and has accelerated with the popularization of the integrated circuit. The IC has allowed increasingly complex CPUs to be designed and manufactured to tolerances on the order of nanometers, both the miniaturization and standardization of CPUs have increased the presence of digital devices in modern life far beyond the limited application of dedicated computing machines. Modern microprocessors appear in electronic devices ranging from automobiles to cellphones, the so-called Harvard architecture of the Harvard Mark I, which was completed before EDVAC, also utilized a stored-program design using punched paper tape rather than electronic memory. Relays and vacuum tubes were used as switching elements, a useful computer requires thousands or tens of thousands of switching devices. The overall speed of a system is dependent on the speed of the switches, tube computers like EDVAC tended to average eight hours between failures, whereas relay computers like the Harvard Mark I failed very rarely. In the end, tube-based CPUs became dominant because the significant speed advantages afforded generally outweighed the reliability problems, most of these early synchronous CPUs ran at low clock rates compared to modern microelectronic designs. Clock signal frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 4 MHz were very common at this time, the design complexity of CPUs increased as various technologies facilitated building smaller and more reliable electronic devices
8.
Graphics processing unit
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GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles. In a personal computer, a GPU can be present on a video card, the term GPU was popularized by Nvidia in 1999, who marketed the GeForce 256 as the worlds first GPU, or Graphics Processing Unit. It was presented as a processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping. Rival ATI Technologies coined the visual processing unit or VPU with the release of the Radeon 9700 in 2002. Arcade system boards have been using specialized graphics chips since the 1970s, in early video game hardware, the RAM for frame buffers was expensive, so video chips composited data together as the display was being scanned out on the monitor. Fujitsus MB14241 video shifter was used to accelerate the drawing of sprite graphics for various 1970s arcade games from Taito and Midway, such as Gun Fight, Sea Wolf, the Namco Galaxian arcade system in 1979 used specialized graphics hardware supporting RGB color, multi-colored sprites and tilemap backgrounds. The Galaxian hardware was used during the golden age of arcade video games, by game companies such as Namco, Centuri, Gremlin, Irem, Konami, Midway, Nichibutsu, Sega. In the home market, the Atari 2600 in 1977 used a video shifter called the Television Interface Adaptor,6502 machine code subroutines could be triggered on scan lines by setting a bit on a display list instruction. ANTIC also supported smooth vertical and horizontal scrolling independent of the CPU and it became one of the best known of what were known as graphics processing units in the 1980s. The Williams Electronics arcade games Robotron,2084, Joust, Sinistar, in 1985, the Commodore Amiga featured a custom graphics chip, with a blitter unit accelerating bitmap manipulation, line draw, and area fill functions. Also included is a coprocessor with its own instruction set, capable of manipulating graphics hardware registers in sync with the video beam. In 1986, Texas Instruments released the TMS34010, the first microprocessor with on-chip graphics capabilities and it could run general-purpose code, but it had a very graphics-oriented instruction set. In 1990-1992, this chip would become the basis of the Texas Instruments Graphics Architecture Windows accelerator cards, in 1987, the IBM8514 graphics system was released as one of the first video cards for IBM PC compatibles to implement fixed-function 2D primitives in electronic hardware. Fujitsu later competed with the FM Towns computer, released in 1989 with support for a full 16,777,216 color palette, in 1988, the first dedicated polygonal 3D graphics boards were introduced in arcades with the Namco System 21 and Taito Air System. In 1991, S3 Graphics introduced the S3 86C911, which its designers named after the Porsche 911 as an implication of the performance increase it promised. The 86C911 spawned a host of imitators, by 1995, all major PC graphics chip makers had added 2D acceleration support to their chips. By this time, fixed-function Windows accelerators had surpassed expensive general-purpose graphics coprocessors in Windows performance, throughout the 1990s, 2D GUI acceleration continued to evolve. As manufacturing capabilities improved, so did the level of integration of graphics chips, arcade systems such as the Sega Model 2 and Namco Magic Edge Hornet Simulator in 1993 were capable of hardware T&L years before appearing in consumer graphics cards
9.
Northbridge (computing)
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A northbridge or host bridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset architecture on a PC motherboard, the other being the southbridge. Unlike the southbridge, northbridge is connected directly to the CPU via the bus and is thus responsible for tasks that require the highest performance. The northbridge is usually paired with a southbridge, also known as I/O controller hub, in systems where they are included, these two chips manage communications between the CPU and other parts of the motherboard, and constitute the core logic chipset of the PC motherboard. On older Intel based PCs, the northbridge was also named external memory controller hub or graphics, increasingly these functions became integrated into the CPU chip itself, beginning with memory and graphics controllers. Separating the different functions into the CPU, northbridge, and southbridge chips was due to the difficulty of integrating all components onto a single chip. As CPU speeds increased over time, a bottleneck eventually emerged between the processor and the motherboard, due to limitations caused by data transmission between the CPU and its support chipset. Accordingly, starting with the AMD Athlon64 series CPUs, a new architecture was used where some functions of the north-, modern Intel Core processors have the northbridge integrated on the CPU die, where it is known as the uncore or system agent. The northbridge typically handles communications among the CPU, in some cases RAM, and PCI Express video cards, some northbridges also contain integrated video controllers, also known as a Graphics and Memory Controller Hub in Intel systems. Because different processors and RAM require different signaling, a given northbridge will typically work with one or two classes of CPUs and generally only one type of RAM. There are a few chipsets that support two types of RAM.3 GHz and utilize DDR SDRAM, and the Intel i915g chipset only works with the Intel Pentium 4 and the Celeron, the name is derived from drawing the architecture in the fashion of a map. The CPU would be at the top of the map comparable to due north on most general purpose geographical maps, the CPU would be connected to the chipset via a fast bridge located north of other system devices as drawn. The northbridge would then be connected to the rest of the chipset via a bridge located south of other system devices as drawn. The northbridge plays an important part in how far a computer can be overclocked and this chip typically gets hotter as processor speed becomes faster, requiring more cooling. The overall trend in design has been to integrate more functions onto fewer components. The memory controller, which handles communication between the CPU and RAM, was moved onto the die by AMD beginning with their AMD64 processors. One of the advantages of having the memory controller integrated on the CPU die is to reduce latency from the CPU to memory, another example of this kind of change is Nvidias nForce3 for AMD64 systems. It combines all of the features of a normal southbridge with an Accelerated Graphics Port port, on nForce4 boards it was marketed as a media communications processor. AMD Accelerated Processing Unit processors feature full integration of northbridge functions onto the CPU chip, along with processor cores, memory controller and this was an evolution of the AMD64, since the memory controller was integrated on the CPU die in the AMD64
10.
Southbridge (computing)
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The southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a personal computer motherboard, the other being the northbridge. The southbridge typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture, in systems with Intel chipsets, the southbridge is named I/O Controller Hub, while AMD has named its southbridge Fusion Controller Hub since the introduction of its Fusion APUs. The southbridge can usually be distinguished from the northbridge by not being connected to the CPU. Rather, the ties the southbridge to the CPU. Through the use of controller integrated channel circuitry, the northbridge can directly link signals from the I/O units to the CPU for data control, the southbridge became redundant and it was replaced by the Platform Controller Hub architecture introduced with the Intel 5 Series chipset in 2008. All southbridge features and remaining I/O functions are managed by the PCH which is connected to the CPU via the Direct Media Interface. A southbridge chipset handles all of a computers I/O functions, such as USB, audio, serial, the system BIOS, the ISA bus, the interrupt controller, traditionally, the interface between a northbridge and southbridge was the PCI bus. The main bridging interfaces used now are DMI and UMI, the name is derived from representing the architecture in the fashion of a map and was first described as such with the introduction of the PCI Local Bus Architecture in 1991. At Intel, the authors of the PCI specification viewed the PCI local bus as being at the centre of the PC platform architecture. The northbridge extends to the north of the PCI bus backbone in support of CPU, memory/cache, likewise the southbridge extends to the south of the PCI bus backbone and bridges to less performance-critical I/O capabilities such as the disk interface, audio, etc. The CPU is located at the top of the map at due north, the CPU is connected to the chipset via a fast bridge located north of other system devices as drawn. The northbridge is connected to the rest of the chipset via a bridge located south of other system devices as drawn. Although the current PC platform architecture has replaced the PCI bus backbone with faster I/O backbones, the functionality found in a contemporary southbridge includes, PCI bus. The PCI bus support includes the traditional PCI specification, but may include support for PCI-X. ISA support remains a part of the modern southbridge, though ISA slots are no longer provided on more recent motherboards. The LPC bridge provides a data and control path to the super I/O, the SPI bus is a simple serial bus mostly used for firmware flash storage access. The SMBus is used to communicate with devices on the motherboard. The DMA controller allows ISA or LPC devices direct access to main memory without needing help from the CPU, interrupt controllers such as 8259A and/or I/O APIC
11.
Smartbook
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A smartbook was a class of mobile device that combined certain features of both a smartphone and netbook computer, produced between 2009 and 2010. A German company sold laptops under the brand Smartbook and held a trademark for the word in many countries and it acted to preempt others from using the term smartbook to describe their products. Smartbooks tended to be designed more for entertainment purposes than for productivity and they were projected to be sold subsidized through mobile network operators, like mobile phones, along with a wireless data plan. The advent of more popular tablets like Android tablets and the iPad, coupled with the prevailing popularity of conventional desktop computers. The smartbook concept was mentioned by Qualcomm in May 2009 during marketing for its Snapdragon technology, difficulties in adapting key software to the ARM architecture delayed releases until the first quarter of 2010. Smartbooks would have been powered by processors which were more energy-efficient than traditional ones typically found in desktop and laptop computers, the first smartbooks were expected to use variants of the Linux operating system, such as Googles Android or Chrome OS. The ARM processor would have allowed them to longer battery life than many larger devices using x86 processors. In February 2010, ABI Research projected that 163 million smartbooks would ship in 2015, in many countries the word Smartbook was a trademark registered by Smartbook AG. In August 2009 a German court ruled Qualcomm must block access from Germany to all its webpages containing the word Smartbook unless Smartbook AG is mentioned, a February 2010 ruling prevented Lenovo from using the term. By the end of 2010, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs admitted that tablet computers such as the already occupied the niche of the smartbook. In February 2011 Qualcomm won its legal battle when the German patent office ruled the words smart, however, several trademarks have been registered. In March 2009 the Always Innovating company announced the Touch Book and it was based on the Texas Instruments OMAP3530 which implemented the ARM Cortex-A8 architecture. It was originally developed from the Texas Instruments Beagle Board and it had a touchscreen and a detachable keyboard which contained a second battery. The device came with a Linux operating system and the company offered to license their hardware designs, sharp Electronics, introduced their PC-Z1 Netwalker device in August 2009 with a promised ship date of October 2009. It featured a 5.5 touchscreen, runs Ubuntu on an ARM Cortex-A8 based Freescale i. MX515 and was packaged in a clamshell design. Sharp reported the device less than 500 grams and will run 10 hours on one battery charge. The device is said to run 720p video, and have both 2D and 3D graphics acceleration and it comes with Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 installed. Pegatron, an Asus company, showed a prototype of a smartbook in August 2009
12.
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
13.
Zune HD
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The Zune HD was a portable media player in the Zune product family released on September 15,2009 by Microsoft. It was a competitor with Apples iPod touch series of mobile devices. It was initially released in 16 and 32 GB capacities, a 64 GB version was released on April 9,2010. It has an interface for navigation and included Wi-Fi for synchronization, access to the Zune Marketplace. The Zune HD utilized the Nvidia Tegra APX2600 chip, allowing it to play 720p video through the optional HDMI Zune dock on a high-definition television, otherwise, content would be scaled down to 480×272 pixels on the players OLED touchscreen. Soon after Apple released the iPod Touch, Microsoft R&D department head, the department started immediately on reworking the Windows CE-based OS of the older Zune to suit the new multitouch PMP. Astro Studios was contracted to design the Zune HDs aluminum casing, on June 19,2009, Zune Insider host Matt Akers confirmed that the Zune HD would have an Nvidia Tegra APX2600 chip and OLED touchscreen. Two months later, on November 6,2009, firmware update 4.3 was released, the new firmware version improved the performance of the web browser, added support for the apps that were to be released in the days that followed, and fixed several notable bugs. On November 11,2009, several new apps appeared on the Zune Marketplace, the apps included Project Gotham Racing, Ferrari Edition, Audiosurf, Tilt, Lucky Lanes Bowling, Vans Sk8, Pool Service, Checkers, and Piano. The Zune HDs Twitter app was released on December 16,2009 to the Zune Marketplace, however, Microsoft promptly fixed this following an outcry among Zune HD owners in version 1.1 of the app. After previously being promised before the end of 2009, the Facebook app was available on the Zune Marketplace on March 1,2010. Initially, the app had some API issues in which it could not download most information from Facebook, but these issues were corrected 2 days later without a software update. Less than one week later, on the 9th of April, a 64GB capacity Zune HD went on sale, in addition, on October 3,2011, Microsoft announced that it has discontinued all Zune hardware, encouraging users to transition to Windows Phone. While that announcement was removed as potentially erroneous, it was reposted permanently. In 2012, Microsoft launched Xbox Music, a successor to the Zune Marketplace, leading up to the launch of that service, a number features of Zune and the Zune Marketplace were discontinued. Zune HD apps were no longer available though the Zune Software, social components of Zune were deactivated, as of late 2012, the ability to download songs directly to the Zune HD has been broken. According to the Zune Support Twitter feed, Microsoft will not be fixing it,720 x 576 pixels with a bit rate of up to 10.0 Mbit/s and a framerate of up to 25 frames per second. Advanced profile up to L2, CBR or VBR1280 x 720 pixels with a bit rate of up to 14.0 Mbit/s, and a framerate of up to 30 frames per second
14.
Samsung
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Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, Samsung was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938 as a trading company. Over the next three decades, the group diversified into areas including food processing, textiles, insurance, securities, Samsung entered the electronics industry in the late 1960s and the construction and shipbuilding industries in the mid-1970s, these areas would drive its subsequent growth. Following Lees death in 1987, Samsung was separated into four business groups – Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group, since 1990, Samsung has increasingly globalised its activities and electronics, in particular, its mobile phones and semiconductors have become its most important source of income. Notable Samsung industrial affiliates include Samsung Electronics, Samsung Heavy Industries, other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance, Samsung Everland and Cheil Worldwide. Samsung has an influence on South Koreas economic development, politics, media. Its affiliate companies produce around a fifth of South Koreas total exports, Samsungs revenue was equal to 17% of South Koreas $1,082 billion GDP. On 17 February 2017, Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was arrested for bribery, embezzlement, hiding assets overseas, according to Samsungs founder, the meaning of the Korean hanja word Samsung is tri-star or three stars. The word three represents something big, numerous and powerful, in 1938, Lee Byung-chull of a large landowning family in the Uiryeong county moved to nearby Daegu city and founded Samsung Sanghoe. Samsung started out as a trading company with forty employees located in Su-dong. It dealt in dried-fish, locally-grown groceries and made noodles, the company prospered and Lee moved its head office to Seoul in 1947. When the Korean War broke out, he was forced to leave Seoul and he started a sugar refinery in Busan named Cheil Jedang. In 1954, Lee founded Cheil Mojik and built the plant in Chimsan-dong and it was the largest woollen mill ever in the country. Samsung diversified into different areas. Lee sought to establish Samsung as leader in a range of industries. Samsung moved into lines of such as insurance, securities. President Park Chung Hee placed great importance on industrialization and he focused his economic development strategy on a handful of large domestic conglomerates, protecting them from competition and assisting them financially. In 1947, Cho Hong-jai, the Hyosung groups founder, jointly invested in a new company called Samsung Mulsan Gongsa, or the Samsung Trading Corporation, the trading firm grew to become the present-day Samsung C&T Corporation
15.
Microsoft Kin
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Kin was a short-lived mobile phone line from Microsoft designed for users of social networking. Microsoft described the target demographic as men and women between ages 15 and 30. It was manufactured by Sharp Corporation and sold through Verizon Wireless, Microsoft invested two years and about US$1 billion developing the Kin platform, beginning with their acquisition of Danger Incorporated. The Kin was based on Windows CE, the Kin ONE and TWO went on the market in May 2010. Within two months, Verizon stopped selling the phones because of poor sales, Microsoft scrapped its planned European release, stopped promoting the devices, ceased production, and reassigned the Kin development team to other projects. In January 2011, Microsoft shut down the Kin. com website, the Kin TWOm was discontinued in August 2011, unsold inventory could still be found for sale on deals sites as late as June 2013. The Kin project was first known by the codename Project Pink, in order to gain a head start, Microsoft acquired Danger Incorporated, which built the Danger Hiptop/T-Mobile Sidekick, in 2008 for a purchase price rumored to be around US$500 million. In September 2009, a ZDNet source reported that Project Pink would bring a new software stack. Some reports predicted that the new mobile platform would be based on the Zune media device. The project was managed by Roz Ho, who coined the name, Pink. Engineers and project managers used the Twitter hash tag #TMDP to communicate in code with one another—the acronym expands to Truly, Madly, Deeply for Roz Hos favorite movie, engineers were told they should feel passion for the project, Truly, Madly, Deeply. When milestones were reached or there was a successful test, Roz Ho would cheer the team on by exclaiming Truly, Madly, Deeply in meetings or emails, Kin was developed inside Microsofts Premium Mobile Experiences division by a group that included employees from Danger. Handset manufacturers and network carriers were said to be enthusiastic about Kin. Dangers Sidekick, the predecessor to Kin, was based on the Java programming language, Microsoft planned to base Kin on Windows Phone. Due to delays with Windows Phone, however, the software instead had to be based directly upon Windows CE, Engadget claims that Andy Lees lacked enthusiasm for the Kin project. Nonetheless, Microsoft spent a two years developing the Kin until its release in 2010. The unveiling of Microsoft Kin began when the company sent out invitations to select reporters for an event in San Francisco on April 12,2010. The tagline on the invitation said Its time to share, however, just hours later a source confirmed that the event was about Project Pink
16.
Opera Software
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Opera Software ASA is a Norwegian software company, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers. Across multiple platforms, Opera browsers have more than 350 million users worldwide, Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange. The company also has offices in Sweden, Poland, the Peoples Republic of China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Russia, Ukraine, Iceland, Singapore, Taiwan, Operas stated vision is to deliver the best Internet experience on any device. On 10 February 2016 a group of Chinese investors offered $1.2 billion USD to buy the company, the transaction for sale of Operas consumer business was approved on 31 October,2016 by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. On 4 November,2016, Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I L. P. completed the acquisition, Opera Software was founded as an independent company in Norway on 30 August 1995 by Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy. The company was created to continue what was originally a project at Telenor. Opera Softwares first product, the Opera web browser version 2.1 for Windows, was released in 1997, Opera Software had an IPO in February 2004, and was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange March 11,2004. In an attempt to capitalize on the market for Internet-connected handheld devices. Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new core that facilitated creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating systems and platforms. Up to this point, the Opera browser was trialware and had to be purchased after the period ended, however this ended with version 5.0. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying advertisements to users without a license, in newer versions, the user was allowed a choice of generic graphical banners or text-based targeted advertisements provided by Google based upon the page being viewed. In 2004, Opera Software settled a lawsuit with an international corporation paying $12.75 million USD to Opera and it was speculated that the international corporation named in the statement announcing the settlement was Microsoft, which had previously blocked Opera users from correctly viewing MSN. com. On 12 January 2005, Opera Software announced that it would offer free licenses to higher education institutions — a change from the previous cost of $1,000 USD for unlimited licenses. Schools that opted for the license included Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, University of Oxford, Georgia Institute of Technology. With version 8.5 the advertisements were removed entirely and primary support came through revenue from Google. The complaint resulted in the creation of BrowserChoice. eu, in 2012, Opera Software and Bharti Airtel signed an agreement to provide Opera Mini browsers to the Airtel mobile customers. In 2013 Opera Software decided to not use their in-house rendering engine for the Desktop Browser anymore, from Version 15 on the Opera browser for computers would be using the Blink rendering engine, a fork of Webkit developed together with Google
17.
Opera (web browser)
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Opera is a web browser for Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. It is developed by Opera Software, on 4 November 2016 Operas consumer business, including the browser, was acquired by a Chinese group of investors under the name Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I Limited Partnership. It uses the Blink layout engine, an earlier version using the Presto layout engine is still available, and runs on FreeBSD systems. According to Opera Software, the browser had more than 350 million users worldwide in the 4th quarter of 2014, total Opera mobile users reached 291 million in June 2015. According to SlashGeek, Opera has originated features later adopted by other web browsers, including Speed Dial, pop-up blocking, browser sessions, private browsing, Opera began in 1994 as a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995, it branched out into a company named Opera Software ASA. Opera was first released publicly in 1996 with version 2.0, in an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port Opera to mobile device platforms was started in 1998. Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new core that facilitated creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating systems and platforms. Up to this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the period ended. Version 5.0 saw the end of this requirement, instead, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying advertisements to users who had not paid for it. Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google, with version 8.5 the advertisements were removed entirely and primary financial support for the browser came through revenue from Google. This feature was improved and expanded in version 9.5, when GeoTrust was replaced with Netcraft. Also in 2006, Opera Software ASA released Internet Channel and Nintendo DS Browser for Nintendos DS, a new JavaScript engine called Carakan, after the Javanese alphabet, was introduced with version 10.50. According to Opera Software, Carakan makes Opera 10.50 more than seven times faster in SunSpider than Opera 10.10, on 16 December 2010, Opera 11 was released, featuring extensions, tab stacking, visual mouse gestures, and changes to the address bar. Opera 12 was released on 14 June 2012, on 12 February 2013, Opera Software announced that it would drop its own Presto layout engine in favour of WebKit as implemented by Googles Chrome browser, using code from the Chromium project. Opera Software also planned to contribute code to WebKit, on 28 May 2013, a beta release of Opera 15 was made available, the first version based on the Chromium project. Many distinctive features of the versions were dropped, and Opera Mail was separated into a standalone application derived from Opera 12. In July 2016, the Opera browser was sold to Qihoo for $600 million, on 4 November 2016 Golden Brick Capital completed the acquisition
18.
Windows Mobile
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Windows Mobile is a family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and Pocket PCs. Its origins dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as PocketPC2000 and it was renamed Windows Mobile in 2003, at which point it came in several versions and was aimed at business and enterprise consumers. By 2007, it was the most popular software in the U. S. In February 2010, facing competition from rival OSs including iOS and Android, as a result, Windows Mobile has been deprecated. Windows Phone is incompatible with Windows Mobile devices and software, the last version of Windows Mobile, released after the announcement of Windows Phone, was 6.5.5. After this, Microsoft ceased development on Windows Mobile, in order to concentrate on Windows Phone, similarly to its desktop counterpart, it comes bundled with a set of applications that perform basic tasks. Internet Explorer Mobile is the web browser, and Windows Media Player is the default media player used for playing digital media. The mobile version of Microsoft Office, is the office suite. Internet Connection Sharing, supported on compatible devices, allows the phone to share its Internet connection with computers via USB, Windows Mobile supports virtual private networking over PPTP protocol. Most devices with mobile connectivity also have a Radio Interface Layer, the Radio Interface Layer provides the system interface between the Cell Core layer within the Windows Mobile OS and the radio protocol stack used by the wireless modem hardware. This allows OEMs to integrate a variety of modems into their equipment, the user interface changed dramatically between versions, only retaining similar functionality. The Today Screen, later called the Home Screen, shows the current date, owner information, upcoming appointments, e-mails, the taskbar display the current time as well as the volume level. Devices with a cellular radio also show the strength on said taskbar. Windows Mobile is based on the Windows CE kernel and first appeared as the Pocket PC2000 operating system and it includes a suite of basic applications developed with the Microsoft Windows API, and is designed to have features and appearance somewhat similar to desktop versions of Windows. It allowed third party developers to develop software for Windows Mobile with no restrictions imposed by Microsoft, software applications were purchasable from Windows Marketplace for Mobile during the services lifespan. Most early Windows Mobile devices came with a stylus, which can be used to enter commands by tapping it on the screen, the primary touch input technology behind most devices were resistive touchscreens which often required a stylus for input. Later devices used capacitive sensing which does not require a stylus, along with touchscreens, a large variety of form factors existed for the platform. Some devices featured slideout keyboards, while others featured minimal face buttons, Microsofts work on handheld portable devices began with research projects in 1990, with the work on Windows CE beginning in 1992
19.
Windows Embedded Compact
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Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is based on Windows NT, Microsoft licenses Windows CE to original equipment manufacturers, who can modify and create their own user interfaces and experiences, with Windows CE providing the technical foundation to do so. The current version of Windows Embedded Compact supports x86 and ARM processors with board support package directly, the MIPS and SHx architectures had support prior to version 7.0. Windows CE is optimized for devices that have memory, a Windows CE kernel may run with one megabyte of memory. Devices are often configured without disk storage, and may be configured as a system that does not allow for end-user extension. Windows CE conforms to the definition of a operating system. From Version 3 and onward, the system supports 256 priority levels, the fundamental unit of execution is the thread. This helps to simplify the interface and improve execution time, since then, Windows CE has evolved into a component-based, embedded, real-time operating system. It is no longer targeted solely at hand-held computers, Windows CE even powered select games for the Dreamcast, was the operating system of the Gizmondo handheld, and can partially run on modified Xbox game consoles. A distinctive feature of Windows CE compared to other Microsoft operating systems is that parts of it are offered in source code form. First, source code was offered to several vendors, so they could adjust it to their hardware, then products like Platform Builder offered several components in source code form to the general public. However, a number of components that do not need adaptation to specific hardware environments are still distributed in binary only form. Windows Embedded Compact was formerly known as Windows CE, the name changed once in 2006, with the release of Windows Embedded CE6.0, and again in 2011, with the release of Windows Embedded Compact 7. Windows CE was originally announced by Microsoft at the COMDEX expo in 1996 and was demonstrated on stage by Bill Gates, Microsoft had been testing Pegasus in early 1995 and released a strict reference platform to several hardware partners. Each window took over the full display, navigation was done by tapping or double tapping on an item. A contextual menu was available by the user pressing the ALT key. Windows CE1.0 did not include a cascading Start menu unlike Windows 95, Microsoft released the Windows CE1.0 Power Toys that included a cascading menu icon that appeared in the system tray. The release of Windows CE2.0 was well received, Microsoft learned its lessons from consumer feedback of Windows CE1.0 and made many improvements to the operating system
20.
Mobile World Congress
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The event, initially named as GSM World Congress and later renamed as the 3GSM World Congress, is still often referred to as 3GSM or 3GSM World. In 2014, the GSMA announced that their annual event in China would be rebranded under the Mobile World Congress banner as Mobile World Congress Shanghai. In 2016, the GSMA announced the creation of Mobile World Congress Americas, the GSMA Mobile World Congress usually takes place in February but occasionally the show occurs the first week of March. The location is the Fira Gran Via venue in Barcelona, Spain, annual attendance is generally more than 100,000 people. Up until 2006, the event took place in Cannes and was known as 3GSM World, attendees represent more than 200 countries from across the globe. GSMA Mobile World Congress 2018 will take place in Barcelona from 26 February to 1 March 2018
21.
Google
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Google is an American multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, software, Google was founded in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph. D. students at Stanford University, in California. Together, they own about 14 percent of its shares, and they incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4,1998. An initial public offering took place on August 19,2004, in August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google, Alphabets leading subsidiary, will continue to be the company for Alphabets Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond Googles core search engine. The company leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome OS, the new hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, stated, a lot of the innovation that we want to do now ends up requiring controlling the end-to-end user experience. Google has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier, alexa, a company that monitors commercial web traffic, lists Google. com as the most visited website in the world. Several other Google services also figure in the top 100 most visited websites, including YouTube, Googles mission statement, from the outset, was to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful, and its unofficial slogan was Dont be evil. In October 2015, the motto was replaced in the Alphabet corporate code of conduct by the phrase Do the right thing, Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford, California. They called this new technology PageRank, it determined a websites relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages, Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine BackRub, because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. Originally, Google ran under Stanford Universitys website, with the domains google. stanford. edu, the domain name for Google was registered on September 15,1997, and the company was incorporated on September 4,1998. It was based in the garage of a friend in Menlo Park, craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee. The first funding for Google was an August 1998 contribution of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given before Google was incorporated. At least three other investors invested in 1998, Amazon. com founder Jeff Bezos, Stanford University computer science professor David Cheriton. Author Ken Auletta claims that each invested $250,000, early in 1999, Brin and Page decided they wanted to sell Google to Excite. They went to Excite CEO George Bell and offered to sell it to him for $1 million, vinod Khosla, one of Excites venture capitalists, talked the duo down to $750,000, but Bell still rejected it. Googles initial public offering took place five years later, on August 19,2004, at that time Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024
22.
Android (operating system)
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Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google, based on the Linux kernel and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition to devices, Google has further developed Android TV for televisions, Android Auto for cars. Variants of Android are also used on notebooks, game consoles, digital cameras, beginning with the first commercial Android device in September 2008, the operating system has gone through multiple major releases, with the current version being 7.0 Nougat, released in August 2016. Android applications can be downloaded from the Google Play store, which features over 2.7 million apps as of February 2017, Android has been the best-selling OS on tablets since 2013, and runs on the vast majority of smartphones. In September 2015, Android had 1.4 billion monthly active users, Android is popular with technology companies that require a ready-made, low-cost and customizable operating system for high-tech devices. The success of Android has made it a target for patent, Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White. Rubin described the Android project as tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are aware of its owners location. The early intentions of the company were to develop an operating system for digital cameras. Despite the past accomplishments of the founders and early employees, Android Inc. operated secretly and that same year, Rubin ran out of money. Steve Perlman, a friend of Rubin, brought him $10,000 in cash in an envelope. In July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc. for at least $50 million and its key employees, including Rubin, Miner and White, joined Google as part of the acquisition. Not much was known about Android at the time, with Rubin having only stated that they were making software for mobile phones, at Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to handset makers and carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system, Google had lined up a series of hardware components and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation. Speculation about Googles intention to enter the communications market continued to build through December 2006. In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony, the first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23,2008. Since 2008, Android has seen numerous updates which have improved the operating system, adding new features. Each major release is named in order after a dessert or sugary treat, with the first few Android versions being called Cupcake, Donut, Eclair. In 2010, Google launched its Nexus series of devices, a lineup in which Google partnered with different device manufacturers to produce new devices and introduce new Android versions
23.
Consumer Electronics Show
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The Consumer Electronics Show is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association. Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, the first CES was held in June 1967 in New York City. It was a spinoff from the Chicago Music Show, which then had served as the main event for exhibiting consumer electronics. The event had 17,500 attendees and over 100 exhibitors, from 1978 to 1994, CES was held twice each year, once in January in Las Vegas known as Winter Consumer Electronics Show and once in June in Chicago, known as Summer Consumer Electronics Show. The winter show was held in Las Vegas in 1995 as planned. However, the inaugural E3 gaming show was scheduled to be held on the West Coast in May and proved a source of increasing competition, causing the Philadelphia Summer CES show to be cancelled. The 1996 Winter show was held in Las Vegas in January, followed by a Summer show this time in Orlando, Florida. Again, the 1997 Winter show in Las Vegas was very successful, the next Summer show was scheduled to be held in conjunction with Spring COMDEX in Atlanta, however when only two dozen-or-so exhibitors signed on, the CES portion of the show was cancelled. In 1998, the changed to a once-a-year format with Las Vegas as the location. In Las Vegas, the show is one of the largest, taking up to 18 days to set up, run, organizers held the first CES in New York City from June 24 to 28,1967. The 200 exhibitors attracted 17,500 attendees to the Hilton, on view, the latest pocket radios and TVs sporting integrated circuits. In a one-time experiment, the Summer CES1993 was open to the general public, major announcements during this edition were, Capcom unveils Mega Man X First Time in North American. The Blu-ray Group held at the January 2004 CES the first US press conference to promote the Blu-ray Disc format, the 2005 CES was from January 6–9,2005, in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Samsung showed off a 102-inch plasma television, zimiti Ltd won the Best of Innovators award for Personal Electronics. It is the only British company to have won this award, the 2006 exhibition took place on January 5–8,2006 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Sands Convention Center, the Alexis Park Hotel and the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel. HDTV was a theme in the Bill Gates keynote as well as many of the other manufacturers speeches. The standards competition between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc was conspicuous, with some of the first HD movie releases, philips showed a rollable display prototype whose screen can retain an image for several months without electricity. Hillcrest Labs won the Best Of Innovations award in the video category for software and hardware that allows a television to be controlled with natural gestures
24.
Booting
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In computing, booting is the initialization of a computerized system. The system can be a computer or a computer appliance, the booting process can be hard, e. g. after electrical power to the CPU is switched from off to on, or soft, when those power-on self-tests can be avoided. On some systems a soft boot may optionally clear RAM to zero, both hard and soft booting can be initiated by hardware such as a button press, or by software command. Booting is complete when the normal, operative, runtime environment is attained, within the hard reboot process, it runs after completion of the self-tests, then loads and runs the software. A boot loader is loaded into memory from persistent memory, such as a hard disk drive or, in some older computers, from a medium such as punched cards, punched tape. The boot loader then loads and executes the processes that finalize the boot, the process of hibernating or sleeping does not involve booting. Minimally, some embedded systems do not require a noticeable sequence to begin functioning. All computing systems are state machines, and a reboot may be the method to return to a designated zero-state from an unintended, locked state. In addition to loading an operating system or stand-alone utility, the process can also load a storage dump program for diagnosing problems in an operating system. Boot is short for bootstrap or bootstrap load and derives from the phrase to pull oneself up by ones bootstraps, early computers used a variety of ad-hoc methods to get a small program into memory to solve this problem. The invention of read-only memory of various types solved this paradox by allowing computers to be shipped with a start up program that could not be erased, growth in the capacity of ROM has allowed ever more elaborate start up procedures to be implemented. There are many different methods available to load a short initial program into a computer and these methods reach from simple, physical input to removable media that can hold more complex programs. Early computers in the 1940s and 1950s were one-of-a-kind engineering efforts that could take weeks to program and program loading was one of problems that had to be solved. An early computer, ENIAC, had no program stored in memory, bootstrapping did not apply to ENIAC, whose hardware configuration was ready for solving problems as soon as power was applied. The program was stored as a bit image on a continuously running magnetic drum, core memory was probably cleared manually via the maintenance console, and startup from when power was fully up was very fast, only a few seconds. In its general design, the DIP compared roughly with a DEC PDP-8, thus, it was not the kind of single-button-pressure bootstrap that came later, nor a read-only memory in strict terms, since the magnetic drum involved could be written to. The first programmable computers for commercial sale, such as the UNIVAC I and they typically included instructions that performed a complete input or output operation. The left 18-bit half-word was then executed as an instruction, which usually read additional words into memory, the loaded boot program was then executed, which, in turn, loaded a larger program from that medium into memory without further help from the human operator
25.
Ubuntu (operating system)
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Ubuntu is published by Canonical Ltd, who offer commercial support. It uses Unity as its user interface for the desktop. Ubuntu is the most popular operating system running in hosted environments, so–called clouds, development of Ubuntu is led by UK-based Canonical Ltd. a company of South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. Canonical generates revenue through the sale of technical support and other related to Ubuntu. The Ubuntu project is committed to the principles of open-source software development, people are encouraged to use free software, study how it works, improve upon it. Ubuntu is built on Debians architecture and infrastructure, to provide Linux server, desktop, phone, tablet, the first release was in October 2004. Starting with Ubuntu 6.06, every release, one release every two years, receives long-term support. Long-term support includes updates for new hardware, security patches and updates to the Ubuntu stack. The first LTS releases were supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server, since Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, LTS releases get regular point releases with support for new hardware and integration of all the updates published in that series to date. Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debians unstable branch, both distributions use Debians deb package format and package management tools. Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily compatible with each other, however. Many Ubuntu developers are also maintainers of key packages within Debian, Ubuntu cooperates with Debian by pushing changes back to Debian, although there has been criticism that this does not happen often enough. Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, had expressed concern about Ubuntu packages potentially diverging too far from Debian to remain compatible, before release, packages are imported from Debian unstable continuously and merged with Ubuntu-specific modifications. One month before release, imports are frozen, and packagers then work to ensure that the frozen features interoperate well together, Ubuntu is currently funded by Canonical Ltd. On 8 July 2005, Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical announced the creation of the Ubuntu Foundation, the purpose of the foundation is to ensure the support and development for all future versions of Ubuntu. Mark Shuttleworth describes the goal as to ensure the continuity of the Ubuntu project. On 12 March 2009, Ubuntu announced developer support for 3rd-party cloud management platforms, Unity has become the default GUI for Ubuntu Desktop, although following the release of Ubuntu 17.10 it will move to the GNOME3 desktop instead as work on Unity ends. A default installation of Ubuntu contains a range of software that includes LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Transmission
26.
Multi-core processor
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A multi-core processor is a single computing component with two or more independent actual processing units, which are units that read and execute program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions, but the multiple cores can run multiple instructions at the same time, manufacturers typically integrate the cores onto a single integrated circuit die, or onto multiple dies in a single chip package. A multi-core processor implements multiprocessing in a physical package. Designers may couple cores in a multi-core device tightly or loosely, for example, cores may or may not share caches, and they may implement message passing or shared-memory inter-core communication methods. Common network topologies to interconnect cores include bus, ring, two-dimensional mesh, homogeneous multi-core systems include only identical cores, heterogeneous multi-core systems have cores that are not identical. Just as with single-processor systems, cores in multi-core systems may implement architectures such as VLIW, superscalar, Multi-core processors are widely used across many application domains, including general-purpose, embedded, network, digital signal processing, and graphics. The improvement in performance gained by the use of a multi-core processor depends very much on the algorithms used. In particular, possible gains are limited by the fraction of the software that can run in parallel simultaneously on multiple cores, most applications, however, are not accelerated so much unless programmers invest a prohibitive amount of effort in re-factoring the whole problem. The parallelization of software is a significant ongoing topic of research, the terms multi-core and dual-core most commonly refer to some sort of central processing unit, but are sometimes also applied to digital signal processors and system on a chip. This article uses the terms multi-core and dual-core for CPUs manufactured on the integrated circuit. In contrast to systems, the term multi-CPU refers to multiple physically separate processing-units. The terms many-core and massively multi-core are sometimes used to describe multi-core architectures with a high number of cores. Some systems use many soft microprocessor cores placed on a single FPGA, each core can be considered a semiconductor intellectual property core as well as a CPU core. While manufacturing technology improves, reducing the size of individual gates and these physical limitations can cause significant heat dissipation and data synchronization problems. Various other methods are used to improve CPU performance, some instruction-level parallelism methods such as superscalar pipelining are suitable for many applications, but are inefficient for others that contain difficult-to-predict code. Many applications are better suited to thread-level parallelism methods, and multiple independent CPUs are commonly used to increase a systems overall TLP, a combination of increased available space and the demand for increased TLP led to the development of multi-core CPUs. Several business motives drive the development of multi-core architectures, for decades, it was possible to improve performance of a CPU by shrinking the area of the integrated circuit, which reduced the cost per device on the IC. Alternatively, for the circuit area, more transistors could be used in the design
27.
Audi
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Audi is a German automobile manufacturer that designs, engineers, produces, markets and distributes luxury vehicles. Audi is a member of the Volkswagen Group and has its roots at Ingolstadt, Bavaria, audi-branded vehicles are produced in nine production facilities worldwide. The modern era of Audi essentially began in the 1960s when Auto Union was acquired by Volkswagen from Daimler-Benz. After relaunching the Audi brand with the 1965 introduction of the Audi F103 series, Volkswagen merged Auto Union with NSU Motorenwerke in 1969, the company name is based on the Latin translation of the surname of the founder, August Horch. Horch, meaning listen in German, becomes audi in Latin, the four rings of the Audi logo each represent one of four car companies that banded together to create Audis predecessor company, Auto Union. Audis slogan is Vorsprung durch Technik, meaning Advancement through Technology, however, since 2007 Audi USA has used the slogan Truth in Engineering. Audi, along with BMW and Mercedes are among the luxury automobile brands in the world. Originally in 1885, automobile company Wanderer was established, later becoming a branch of Audi AG, another company, NSU, which also later merged into Audi, was founded during this time, and later supplied the chassis for Gottlieb Daimlers four-wheeler. On 14 November 1899, August Horch established the company A. Horch & Cie. in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne, three years later in 1902 he moved with his company to Reichenbach im Vogtland. On May, 10th,1904 he founded the August Horch & Cie. Motorwagenwerke AG, after troubles with Horch chief financial officer, August Horch left Motorwagenwerke and founded in Zwickau on 16 July 1909, his second company, the August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH. His former partners sued him for trademark infringement, the German Reichsgericht in Leipzig, eventually determined that the Horch brand belonged to his former company. Since August Horch was prohibited from using Horch as a name in his new car business, he called a meeting with close business friends, Paul and Franz Fikentscher from Zwickau. At the apartment of Franz Fikentscher, they discussed how to come up with a new name for the company, during this meeting, Franzs son was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room. Horch. in German means Hark. or hear, which is Audi in the imperative form of audire – to listen – in Latin. The idea was accepted by everyone attending the meeting. On 25 April 1910 the Audi Automobilwerke GmbH Zwickau was entered in the register of Zwickau registration court. The first Audi automobile, the Audi Type A 10/22 hp Sport-Phaeton, was produced in the same year, followed by the successor Type B 10/28PS in the same year. Audi started with a 2,612 cc inline-four engine model Type A, followed by a 3,564 cc model and these cars were successful even in sporting events
28.
In-car entertainment
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In-car entertainment, or in-vehicle infotainment, is a collection of hardware and software in automobiles that provides audio or video entertainment. Once controlled by simple dashboards knobs and dials, ICE systems can include steering wheel audio controls, driven by the demand for more connected vehicles, in-car entertainment is getting more and more sophisticated. With the mass adoption of smartphones worldwide, a new issue has emerged and this raises safety concerns related to distracted driving and also pushes the automotive industry to integrate those devices in a safely manner. Traditional car makers increasingly rely on the software and electronics expertise of auto suppliers, policies regarding in-car entertainment systems are less developed than cell phone usage laws regarding similar distractions in cars. In the United States,10 states, D. C, guam, and the Virgin Islands prohibit all drivers from using handheld cell phones while driving. Guam, and the Virgin Islands ban text messaging for all drivers, however, few states have developed laws to limit the content that drivers can view on in-car entertainment systems. Since 2016, its illegal in all 50 states of the U. S. to a use rear seat entertainment system in new pickup trucks with the 2016 model year or newer, still, researchers are beginning to analyze the potential impact of distracted drivers on the roads. Charlie Klauer, a researcher at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, furthermore, the risk of crashing rises exponentially the longer a driver has taken their eyes off the road. Automotive companies like Ford and Audi contend that they have tested and revised their latest systems in order to reduce the amount of time that drivers spend looking away from the road. As car infotainment systems can access more and more functions of the vehicle, GENIVI Alliance List of car audio manufacturers and brands
29.
Tesla, Inc.
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Tesla, Inc. is an American automaker, energy storage company, and solar panel manufacturer based in Palo Alto, California. The company was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, although the company also considers Elon Musk, JB Straubel. The company specializes in electric cars, Lithium-ion battery energy storage, Tesla first gained widespread attention following its production of the Tesla Roadster, the first electric sports car, in 2008. The companys second vehicle, the Model S, a luxury sedan. In Q12013, Tesla released its stock profits for the first time from its NASDAQ ticker symbol, the Model S has been the worlds best-selling plug-in electric car for two years in a row,2015 and 2016. Its global sales achieved the 150,000 unit milestone in November 2016, four years, as of December 2016, the Model S ranks as the worlds all-time second best-selling plug-in after the Nissan Leaf. The Model S was then followed by the Model X, a crossover SUV, Teslas next vehicle is the Model 3, which was unveiled in March 2016. It is slated for release in 2017 with a price at US$35,000, for two years running,2015 and 2016, Tesla ranked as the worlds second best selling manufacturer of plug-in electric cars after BYD Auto. Musk, the CEO, has said that he envisions Tesla as a company and independent automaker. Tesla has a network of high-powered Superchargers located across North America, Europe, the company also operates a Destination Charging program, under which shops, restaurants and other venues are offered fast chargers for their customers. Although Tesla operates a number of production and assembly plants, the companys most iconic facility is the Gigafactory 1 near Reno, Nevada, Tesla also manufactures the Tesla Powerwall, Powerpack batteries, and solar panels for home and industry applications. Elon Musk owns 20. 8% stake in the company as of March 2017, Tesla is named after electrical engineer and physicist Nikola Tesla. The Tesla Roadster uses an AC motor descended directly from Nikola Teslas original 1882 design, the Roadster, the companys first vehicle, was the first production automobile to use lithium-ion battery cells and the first production EV with a range greater than 200 miles per charge. Between 2008 and March 2012, Tesla sold more than 2,250 Roadsters in 31 countries, Tesla stopped taking orders for the Roadster in the U. S. market in August 2011. In December 2012, Tesla employed almost 3,000 full-time employees, by December 31,2015, this number had grown to 13,058 employees, and to over 30,000 after acquiring Grohmann and SolarCity in late 2016. Tesla unveiled the Tesla Model S all-electric sedan on March 26,2009, Tesla unveiled the Model X crossover SUV on February 9,2012 and first deliveries began in September 2015. Global sales of the Model S passed the 100,000 unit milestone in December 2015, the Model 3, the companys first model aimed for the mass market, was unveiled in March 2016. A week after the unveiling, global reservations totaled 325,000 units, as of November 2016, the Model S ranks as the worlds second-best-selling plug-in electric car in history after the Nissan Leaf, and ahead of the Volt/Ampera family of plug-in hybrids
30.
Tesla Model S
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The Tesla Model S is a full-sized all-electric five-door, luxury liftback, produced by Tesla Inc. and introduced in June 2012. EPA rated the 2012 85kWh Model Ss energy consumption at 237.5 watt-hours per kilometer for a fuel economy of 89 miles per gallon gasoline equivalent. In 2016, Tesla updated the design of the Model S to closely match that of the Model X, as of January 2017, the following versions are available,60, 60D,75, 75D, 90D and P100D. Owners of the earlier 70 and 70D Model S have the option to unlock the 75 kWh capacity via a software update, adding up to 19 miles per charge. The 60 and 60D Model S, reintroduced in June 2016, have a US$9,000 option to unlock the full 75 kWh capacity via a software update any time after purchase, in August 2016, Tesla introduced the P100D as the new top-level model. The P100D model has a 100 kWh battery, a 0–60 mph time of 2.28 seconds, and over 300 miles of EPA rated range. The Model S became the first electric car to top the new car sales ranking in any country, twice leading in Norway, in September and December 2013. Global Model S sales passed the 150,000 unit milestone in November 2016, other leading country markets are Norway, China, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. The Tesla Model S has ranked as the worlds best-selling plug-in electric car for two years in a row,2015 and 2016, the Model S also ranked as the top selling plug-in electric car in the U. S. for two years running,2015 and 2016. As of December 2016, the Model S is the second best selling plug-in electric car in history after the Nissan Leaf. In 2015, Car and Driver named the Model S the Car of the Century, after declining to recommend the Model S in 2015 due to reliability issues, one year later Consumer Reports added the car to the magazines recommended list. The Model S was styled by Franz von Holzhausen, who worked for Mazda North American Operations. The car was codenamed WhiteStar during research and preliminary development and it was officially announced in a press release on June 30,2008. The prototype vehicle was displayed at a conference on March 26,2009. In February 2008 it was reported that Tesla Inc. was planning to offer a version of its Model S. This version would have included an engine to extend the driving range of the vehicle. At the GoingGreen conference in September 2008 Teslas CEO, Elon Musk, construction of an assembly factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico was supposed to begin in April 2007, but was cancelled. A factory to be built in San Jose, California was also announced, in May 2010 Tesla announced it would produce the Model S at the former NUMMI assembly plant in Fremont, California, now known as the Tesla Factory
31.
Sedan (automobile)
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A sedan /sᵻˈdæn/ or saloon is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with A, B & C-pillars and principal volumes articulated in separate compartments for engine, passenger and cargo. The passenger compartment features two rows of seats and adequate passenger space in the compartment for adult passengers. The cargo compartment is typically in the rear, with the exception of some rear-engined models, such as the Renault Dauphine, Tatra T613, Volkswagen Type 3 and it is one of the most common car body styles. A battery electric sedan such as the Tesla Model S has no engine compartment, but a front cargo compartment, the primary purpose of the sedan is to transport people and their baggage on ordinary roads. Sedan versions of the body style have a central pillar that supports the roof and come in two-. Sedans usually have a two-box or three-box body, popular in the U. S. from the 1950s through the 1970s, true hardtop body designs have become increasingly rare. For example,1962 Rambler Classic sedans feature identical windshield, A-pillar, roof, C-pillar, and rear window. A two- or four-door design built on a chassis, but with a shorter roof and interior space. Originating from the car on a Pullman passenger train that was well appointed. A notchback sedan is a sedan, where the passenger volume is clearly distinct from the trunk volume of the vehicle. The roof is on one plane, generally parallel to the ground, the window at a sharp angle to the roof. A fastback sedan is a sedan, with continuous slope from the roof to the base of the decklid. They are not fastbacks because their bodyline changes from the roof to the rear deck and their steeply raked rear windows end with a decklid that does not continue down to the bumper. Instead, their ends are tall — sometimes in a Kammback style — to increase trunk space. Typically this design is chosen for its aerodynamic advantages, automakers can no longer afford the penalty in fuel consumption produced by the traditional notchback three box form. In historic terminology, a sedan will have a frame around the door windows, a true hardtop design also has no center or B pillar for roof support behind the front doors). This pillarless body style offers greater visibility, however, it requires extra underbody strengthening for structural rigidity. The hardtop design can be considered separately, or it can be called a hardtop sedan, during the 1960s and 1970s, hardtop sedans were often sold as sport sedans by several American manufacturers and they were among the top selling body styles
32.
Touchscreen
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A touchscreen is a input and output device normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. A user can give input or control the processing system through simple or multi-touch gestures by touching the screen with a special stylus and/or one or more fingers. Some touchscreens use ordinary or specially coated gloves to work while others may only work using a special stylus/pen, the user can use the touchscreen to react to what is displayed and to control how it is displayed, for example, zooming to increase the text size. The touchscreen enables the user to interact directly with what is displayed, rather using a mouse, touchpad. Touchscreens are common in such as game consoles, personal computers, tablet computers, electronic voting machines, point of sale systems. They can also be attached to computers or, as terminals and they also play a prominent role in the design of digital appliances such as personal digital assistants and some e-readers. The popularity of smartphones, tablets, and many types of appliances is driving the demand and acceptance of common touchscreens for portable. The application of technology for air traffic control was described in an article published in 1968. Frank Beck and Bent Stumpe, engineers from CERN, developed a transparent touchscreen in the early 1970s, then manufactured by CERN, it was put to use in 1973. A resistive touchscreen was developed by American inventor George Samuel Hurst, the first version was produced in 1982. This arrangement can sense any fingertip-sized opaque object in close proximity to the screen, a similar touchscreen was used on the HP-150 starting in 1983, this was one of the worlds earliest commercial touchscreen computers. HP mounted their infrared transmitters and receivers around the bezel of a 9 Sony Cathode Ray Tube, in 1984, Fujitsu released a touch pad for the Micro 16, to deal with the complexity of kanji characters, which were stored as tiled graphics. In 1985, Sega released the Terebi Oekaki, also known as the Sega Graphic Board, for the SG-1000 video game console and it consisted of a plastic pen and a plastic board with a transparent window where the pen presses are detected. It was used primarily for a software application. A graphic touch tablet was released for the Sega AI Computer in 1986, touch-sensitive Control-Display Units were evaluated for commercial aircraft flight decks in the early 1980s. In 1985, the University of Toronto group including Bill Buxton developed a tablet that used capacitance rather than bulky camera-based optical sensing systems. In 1986, the first graphical point of sale software was demonstrated on the 16-bit Atari 520ST color computer and it featured a color touchscreen widget-driven interface. In 1987, Casio launched the Casio PB-1000 pocket computer with a touchscreen consisting of a 4x4 matrix, until 1988 touchscreens had the bad reputation of being imprecise
33.
Electronic instrument cluster
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Many refer to it simply as a digital speedometer. The first application of an instrument cluster, in a production automobile, was in the 1976 Aston Martin Lagonda. The first American manufacturer application was the 1978 Cadillac Seville with available Cadillac Trip Computer and they included not only a speedometer with a digital readout, but also a trip computer that displayed factors like the outdoor temperature, travel direction, fuel economy and distance to empty. In 1983, the Renault 11 Electronic was the first European hatchback to have a digital dashboard, many vehicles made today have an analog speedometer paired with the latter in digital form. For example, while an analog speedometer can theoretically display a number of speeds. Digital dashes were considered to be unpopular during the years when they were widely produced, however, many vehicles are made today with a standard or optional trip computer located independently from the speedometer. Modern analog displays receive information in the manner as the digital units. In the 2000s, digital speedometers have been produced in hybrid vehicles, including the Toyota Prius. Most digital speedometers have had green numbers displayed on a green or black background. The current model Honda Civic has a digital dashboard with white numbers against a blue screen, digital fuel. The lower dashboard has an analog tachometer and digital odometer, automotive head-up displays have seen applications in several cars, augmenting analog gauges with a digital readout on the windshield glass. Many modern motorcycles are now equipped with speedometers, most often these are sports bikes. Toyota is using electronic instruments for showing the cars parameters for its Yaris/Vitz model, for the 2011 model year, Chrysler began using a common dashboard across their model line that has an integrated trip computer in addition to the analog gauges. This trip computer can also be used to show a digital speedometer, because many drivers perceive the speedometer needle to be too wide, they are relying on the digital speedometer more than the analog gauge. The French manufacturer Citroën, is using digital indicators as speedometer for many models in its range, including the C2, C3, C4, automakers have begun offering vehicles with LCD instrument clusters that display analog gauges on screen, while integrating additional interactive features. In 2014, Audi launched its virtual cockpit on Audi TT, the technology has been developed together with the Finnish company Rightware, using its Kanzi software suite. Electronic instrument clusters are being increasingly common features on railway vehicles, early uses of instrument clusters often employed LEDs to display analog-type or numeric readings for pressure gauges, electrical gauges, and other displays. Air core gauge Head-up display Saab Information Display
34.
Epic Games
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Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game development company based in Cary, North Carolina, partially owned by Tencent. Founded in 1991, they are best known for their Unreal Engine technology and it is the parent company of game developer Chair Entertainment, and also owns game studios in Seattle, Guildford, Berlin, Tokyo, and Seoul. Key developers at Epic Games include chairman, CEO and technical director Tim Sweeney, jerry OFlaherty was the studio art director from 2003 to 2007. Chris Perna has been the art director since OFlahertys departure from the company, Cliff Bleszinski, Epics design director, announced his departure on October 3,2012. Epic Games was founded as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991 by Tim Sweeney in Rockville, Maryland, releasing its product, ZZT. In 1996, Epic MegaGames produced a shareware isometric shooter called Fire Fight and it was later released commercially by Electronic Arts. In 1997, Safari Software was acquired in whole by Epic MegaGames, in 1998, Epic MegaGames released Unreal, a 3D first-person shooter co-developed with Digital Extremes, which expanded into a series of Unreal games. The company also began to license the technology, the Unreal Engine. In 1999, the changed its name to Epic Games and moved its offices, including its Rockville headquarters, to Cary. In 2006, Epic released the Xbox 360 and PC bestseller Gears of War and completed work on Unreal Tournament 3 for PC, PS3, on May 20,2008, Epic Games acquired Utah based Chair Entertainment. In summer 2009, Epic released the Chair developed Shadow Complex on Xbox Live Arcade, on November 7,2008, Epic Games released Gears of War 2, the sequel to their bestselling game Gears of War, which continues the story of humanitys struggle against the Locust Horde. Epic worked on an iOS game, Infinity Blade, which was released on December 9,2010 and they also released Gears of War 3, the third game in the Gears of War series on September 20,2011. In 2011, Epics subsidiary Titan Studios was dissolved, at the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Epic Games announced their new game Fortnite. In June 2012, Epic announced that they were opening up a new studio, Epic Baltimore, Epic Baltimore was renamed to Impossible Studios in August 2012. However, the studio ended up closing its doors in February 2013, Tencent Holdings has the right to nominate directors to the board of Epic Games and thus counts as an associate of the Group. A number of staff left the company months after the deal was announced. In October 2012, Cliff Bleszinski announced he was leaving Epic Games after 20 years with the company and his official reason was Its time for a much needed break. Later in December 2012, Epic Games president Mike Capps announced his retirement and cite the reasons as the arrival of a boy he is having with his wife
35.
Unreal Engine
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The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs. With its code written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a used by many game developers today. It has been awarded by Guinness World Records as the most successful video game engine, the current release is Unreal Engine 4, designed for Microsofts DirectX11 and 12, GNM, OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal, and JavaScript/WebGL. Unreal Engine 1 provided a software rasterizer and a hardware-accelerated rendering path using the Glide API, specifically developed for 3dfx GPUs. The release of Unreal Tournament marked great strides in both performance and Direct3D and OpenGL support. The second version was released in 2002 with Americas Army, a free multiplayer shooter created by the US Army and this generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written. In addition, it featured UnrealEd 2, a level editor and this physics engine powered the ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Other engine elements were also updated, with improved assets as well as adding support for the GameCube, support for the PlayStation 2 console was previously added in UE1. Taking Xbox aside, both GameCube and PS2 were never supported directly by Epic, support being instead farmed out to Secret Level. As such, third parties looking to use further Unreal Engine revisions had to do their own throughout the generation, as they had to in more recent years with the Wii, X360, PS3, PSP. UE2.5, an update to the version of UE2, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, a particle system editor for UnrealEd. A specialized version of UE2.5 called UE2X was used for Unreal Championship 2 and it features optimizations specific to that console. EAX3.0 is also supported for sound, in March 2011, Ubisoft Montreal revealed that UE2 was successfully running on the Nintendo 3DS. The first screenshots of Unreal Engine 3 were presented in 2004, unlike Unreal Engine 2, which still supported fixed-function pipeline, Unreal Engine 3 was designed to take advantage of fully programmable shader hardware. All lighting calculations were done per-pixel, instead of per-vertex, Unreal Engine 3 supports a gamma-correct high-dynamic range renderer. Initially, Unreal Engine 3 only supported Windows, PlayStation 3, OS X support was added in 2011. Its renderer supports techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows, in October 2011, the engine was ported to support Adobe Flash Player 11 through the Stage 3D hardware-accelerated APIs
36.
Nintendo Switch
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The Nintendo Switch is the seventh major home video game console developed by Nintendo. Known in development as the NX, it was unveiled in October 2016, Nintendo considers the Switch a hybrid console, it is designed primarily as a home console, with the main unit inserted onto a docking station to connect to a television. Alternatively, it can be removed from the dock and used similarly to a computer through its LCD touchscreen. The Switch supports both physical flash ROM cartridges and digital content for games and software, and does not use region locking. From 2014, Nintendo had several quarters of financial losses due to poor sales of its previous console, the Wii U. Then-Nintendo president Satoru Iwata pushed the company towards mobile gaming and novel hardware, the Switchs design is aimed at a wider demographic of video game players through the multiple modes of use, while retaining Nintendos hardware uniqueness and innovation. Nintendo saw 2014 as one of its largest financial losses in its modern history, previously, the company had been hesitant about this market, with then-president Satoru Iwata considering that they would cease to be Nintendo and lose their identity if they attempted to enter it. Following Iwatas death in July 2015, Kimishima was named as president of Nintendo, in an interview with Asahi Shimbun, Kimishima stated that the Switch was designed to provide a new way to play that would have a larger impact than the Wii U. In some cases, games for the Switch are designed to encourage social interactions in groups, Kimishima said that as Nintendo is an entertainment company, they see games on the Switch that encourage enjoyable social interactions such as these as supporting their ultimate goals. EPD deputy general manager Yoshiaki Koizumi served as the producer of the Switch during development. According to Miyamoto, the Switchs development within Nintendo was headed by employees, with him saying. its really been them that have put this forward. For Miyamoto, his limited involvement allowed him to more time on Nintendos software titles being developed at the time. The development of the Switch continued Nintendos blue ocean approach for the competitive console marketplace, One choice made by the development team was to use an existing system on a chip rather than creating their own as they had done on previous consoles. Koizumi said that this break from tradition was to help be able to gain more third-party support for the console by using an SOC they could easily port to. The first public news of the Switch hardware was alongside the announcement of Nintendo, at this stage, Nintendo referred to the console under the codename NX, and described it as a brand new concept. At an investors meeting in April 2016, Nintendo announced that it planned to release the NX worldwide in March 2017. At a Nintendo shareholders meeting following the conference, Miyamoto stated that the company had concerns that competitors could copy ideas from the NX if they revealed it too soon. The following month, rumors began to surface surrounding the nature of the console, including its use of Nvidia Tegra hardware, and being a hybrid device intended for both home and mobile use
37.
ARM11
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ARM11 is a group of older 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Holdings. The cores were released from 2002 to 2005 and consisted of ARM1136J-S, ARM1156T2-S, ARM1176JZ-S, the ARM11 microarchitecture introduced the ARMv6 architectural additions which had been announced in October 2001. These include SIMD media instructions, multiprocessor support and a new cache architecture, the implementation included a significantly improved instruction processing pipeline, compared to previous ARM9 or ARM10 families, and is used in smartphones from Apple, Nokia, and others. The initial ARM11 core was released to licensees in October 2002, the ARM11 family are currently the only ARMv6-architecture cores. There are, however, ARMv6-M cores, addressing microcontroller applications, in terms of instruction set, ARM11 builds on the preceding ARM9 generation. It incorporates all ARM926EJ-S features and adds the ARMv6 instructions for media support, unaligned and mixed-endian data access is supported. Load/store parallelism ALU parallelism 64-bit data paths JTAG debug support was simplified, the EmbeddedICE module was replaced with an interface which became part of the ARMv7 architecture. The hardware tracing modules are compatible, but updated, versions of those used in the ARM9, in particular, trace semantics were updated to address parallel instruction execution and data transfers. ARM makes an effort to promote good Verilog coding styles and techniques and this ensures semantically rigorous designs, preserving identical semantics throughout the chip design flow, which included extensive use of formal verification techniques. Without such attention, integrating an ARM11 with third-party designs could risk exposing hard-to-find latent bugs, the ARM11 generation focused more on synthesis than previous generations, making such concerns be more of an issue. AST25xx Broadcom BCM2835, BCM21553 Cavium ECONA CNS3000 series CSR Quatro 4230, 45xx, 53xx Freescale Semiconductor i. MX3x series, such as i. MX31, other ARM11 lacks an integer hardware division instruction Yurichev, Dennis, An Introduction To Reverse Engineering for Beginners including ARM assembly. Online book, http, //yurichev. com/writings/RE_for_beginners-en. pdf The ARM11 Architecture,2009, by Ian Davey and Payton Oliveri
38.
Graphics display resolution
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The graphics display resolution is the width and height dimensions of an electronic visual display device, such as a computer monitor, in pixels. Certain combinations of width and height are standardized and typically given a name, a higher display resolution in a display of the same size means that displayed content appears sharper. The favored aspect ratio of mass market display industry products has changed gradually from 4,3, then to 16,10, and then to 16,9, the 4,3 aspect ratio generally reflects older products, especially the era of the cathode ray tube. The 16,10 aspect ratio had its largest use in the 1995–2010 period, and the 16,9 aspect ratio tends to reflect post-2010 mass market computer monitor, laptop, and entertainment products displays. The 4,3 aspect ratio was common in older cathode ray tube displays. The 16,10 ratio allowed some compromise between showing older 4,3 aspect ratio broadcast TV shows, but also allowing better viewing of widescreen movies. However, around the year 2005, entertainment industry displays gradually moved from 16,10 to the 16,9 aspect ratio, by about 2007, virtually all mass market entertainment displays were 16,9. In 2011, 1920×1080 was the resolution in the most heavily marketed entertainment market displays. The next standard, 3840×2160 emerged on the market in 2013, also in 2013, displays with 2560×1080 appeared, which closely approximate the common CinemaScope movie standard aspect ratio of 2. 35–2.40. In 2014,21,9 screens with pixel dimensions of 3440×1440 became available as well, in this time frame, with the notable exception of Apple, almost all desktop, laptop, and display manufacturers gradually moved to promoting only 16,9 aspect ratio displays. By 2011, the 16,10 aspect ratio had virtually disappeared from the Windows laptop display market, one consequence of this transition was that the highest available resolutions moved generally downward. NHD is a resolution of 640×360 pixels, which is exactly one ninth of a Full HD frame. Pixel doubling nHD frames will form one 720p frame and pixel tripling nHD frames will form one 1080p frame, one drawback of this resolution is that the vertical resolution is not an even multiple of 16, which is a common macroblock size for video codecs. Video frames encoded with 16×16 pixel macroblocks would be padded to 640×368, H.264 codecs have this padding and cropping ability built-in as standard. The same is true for qHD and 1080p but the amount of padding is more for lower resolutions such as nHD. To avoid storing the eight lines of padded pixels, some prefer to encode video at 624×352. When such video streams are encoded from HD frames or played back on HD displays in full screen mode they are scaled by non-integer scale factors. True nHD frames on the hand has integer scale factors
39.
Pixel
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The address of a pixel corresponds to its physical coordinates. LCD pixels are manufactured in a grid, and are often represented using dots or squares. Each pixel is a sample of an image, more samples typically provide more accurate representations of the original. The intensity of each pixel is variable, in color imaging systems, a color is typically represented by three or four component intensities such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The word pixel is based on a contraction of pix and el, the word pixel was first published in 1965 by Frederic C. Billingsley of JPL, to describe the elements of video images from space probes to the Moon. Billingsley had learned the word from Keith E. McFarland, at the Link Division of General Precision in Palo Alto, McFarland said simply it was in use at the time. The word is a combination of pix, for picture, the word pix appeared in Variety magazine headlines in 1932, as an abbreviation for the word pictures, in reference to movies. By 1938, pix was being used in reference to pictures by photojournalists. The concept of a picture element dates to the earliest days of television, some authors explain pixel as picture cell, as early as 1972. In graphics and in image and video processing, pel is often used instead of pixel, for example, IBM used it in their Technical Reference for the original PC. A pixel is generally thought of as the smallest single component of a digital image, however, the definition is highly context-sensitive. For example, there can be printed pixels in a page, or pixels carried by electronic signals, or represented by digital values, or pixels on a display device, or pixels in a digital camera. This list is not exhaustive and, depending on context, synonyms include pel, sample, byte, bit, dot, Pixels can be used as a unit of measure such as,2400 pixels per inch,640 pixels per line, or spaced 10 pixels apart. For example, a high-quality photographic image may be printed with 600 ppi on a 1200 dpi inkjet printer, even higher dpi numbers, such as the 4800 dpi quoted by printer manufacturers since 2002, do not mean much in terms of achievable resolution. The more pixels used to represent an image, the closer the result can resemble the original, the number of pixels in an image is sometimes called the resolution, though resolution has a more specific definition.3 megapixels. The pixels, or color samples, that form an image may or may not be in one-to-one correspondence with screen pixels. In computing, a composed of pixels is known as a bitmapped image or a raster image
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720p
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720p is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines and an aspect ratio of 16,9, normally known as widescreen HDTV. The number 720 stands for the 720 horizontal scan lines of display resolution. The p stands for progressive scan, i. e. non-interlaced, when broadcast at 60 frames per second, 720p features the highest temporal resolution possible under the ATSC and DVB standards. The term assumes a widescreen ratio of 16,9. 720i is a term found in numerous sources and publications. Typically, it is an error in which the author is referring to the 720p HDTV format. However, in cases it is incorrectly presented as an actual alternative format to 720p. No proposed or existing broadcast standard permits 720 interlaced lines in a frame at any frame rate. Progressive scanning reduces the need to prevent flicker by anti-aliasing single high contrast horizontal lines and it is also easier to perform high-quality 50↔60 Hz conversion and slow-motion clips with progressive video. A 720p60 video has advantage over 480i and 1080i60 in that it reduces the number of 3,2 artifacts introduced during transfer from 24 frame/s film. However, 576i and 1080i50, which are common in Europe, generally do not suffer from pull down artifacts as film frames are simply played at 25 frames and the audio pitch corrected by 25/24ths. As a result, 720p60 is used for U. S. broadcasts while European HD broadcasts often use 1080i50 24* frame, arte, a dual-language French-German channel produced in collaboration by ARD, ZDF and France Télévisions, broadcasts in German at 720p50 but in French at 1080i50. EBU Technical paper on HDTV formats
41.
GeForce
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GeForce is a brand of graphics processing units designed by Nvidia. As of 2016, there have been thirteen iterations of the design, most recently, GeForce technology has been introduced into Nvidias line of embedded application processors, designed for electronic handhelds and mobile handsets. With respect to discrete GPUs, found in add-in graphics-boards, Nvidias GeForce, along with its nearest competitor, the AMD Radeon, the GeForce architecture is moving toward general-purpose graphics processor unit. The GeForce name originated from a contest held by Nvidia in early 1999 called Name That Chip, the company called out to the public to name the successor to the RIVA TNT2 line of graphics boards. There were over 12,000 entries received and 7 winners received a RIVA TNT2 Ultra graphics card as a reward, the license has common terms against reverse engineering, copying and sub-licensing, and it disclaims warranties and liability. Starting in 2016 the GeFORCE license says Nvidia collects, personally identifiable information about Customer and CUSTOMER SYSTEM as well as configures CUSTOMER SYSTEM in order to. The privacy notice goes on to say, We are not able to respond to Do Not Track signals set by a browser at this time and we also permit third party online advertising networks and social media companies to collect information. We may combine personal information that we collect about you with the browsing and tracking information collected by these technologies, initial GeForce 256 boards shipped with SDR SDRAM memory, and later boards shipped with faster DDR SDRAM memory. Launched in April 2000, the first GeForce2 was another high-performance graphics chip, Nvidia moved to a twin texture processor per pipeline design, doubling texture fillrate per clock compared to GeForce 256. Later, Nvidia released the GeForce2 MX, which offered similar to the GeForce 256. The MX was a value in the low/mid-range market segments and was popular with OEM PC manufacturers and users alike. The GeForce 2 Ultra was the model in this series. Launched in February 2001, the GeForce3 introduced programmable vertex and pixel shaders to the GeForce family and it had good overall performance and shader support, making it popular with enthusiasts although it never hit the midrange price point. The NV2A developed for the Microsoft Xbox game console is a derivative of the GeForce 3, launched in February 2002, the then-high-end GeForce4 Ti was mostly a refinement to the GeForce3. Another member of the GeForce 4 family, the budget GeForce4 MX, was based on the GeForce2 and it targeted the value segment of the market and lacked pixel shaders. Most of these used the AGP 4× interface, but a few began the transition to AGP 8×. Launched in 2003, the GeForce FX was a change in architecture compared to its predecessors. The GPU was designed not only to support the new Shader Model 2 specification, however, initial models like the GeForce FX5800 Ultra suffered from weak floating point shader performance and excessive heat which required infamously noisy two-slot cooling solutions
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OpenGL ES
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It is designed for embedded systems like smartphones, computer tablets, video game consoles and PDAs. OpenGL ES is the most widely deployed 3D graphics API in history, the API is cross-language and multi-platform. The libraries GLUT and GLU are not available for OpenGL ES, OpenGL ES is managed by the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group. Vulkan, a next-generation API from Khronos, is made for high performance drivers for mobile. Several versions of the OpenGL ES specification now exist. OpenGL ES1.0 is drawn up against the OpenGL1.3 specification, OpenGL ES1.1 is defined relative to the OpenGL1.5 specification, OpenGL ES comes with its own version of shading language, which is different from OpenGL SL. OpenGL ES1.0 was released publicly July 28,2003, OpenGL ES1.0 is based on the original OpenGL API, with much functionality removed and a little bit added. One significant difference between OpenGL and OpenGL ES is that OpenGL ES removed the need to bracket OpenGL library calls with glBegin, attributes were also added to better support the computational abilities of embedded processors, which often lack a floating point unit. Many other functions and rendering primitives were removed in version 1, OpenGL ES2.0 was publicly released in March 2007. It is based roughly on OpenGL2.0, but it eliminates most of the rendering pipeline in favor of a programmable one in a move similar to transition from OpenGL3.0 to 3.1. Control flow in shaders is generally limited to forward branching and to loops where the number of iterations can easily be determined at compile time. As a result, OpenGL ES2.0 is not backward compatible with OpenGL ES1.1, some incompatibilities between the desktop version of OpenGL and OpenGL ES2.0 persisted until OpenGL4.1, which added the GL_ARB_ES2_compatibility extension. The OpenGL ES3.0 specification was released in August 2012. OpenGL ES3.0 is backwards compatible with OpenGL ES2.0, OpenGL4.3 provides full compatibility with OpenGL ES3.0. Version 3.0 is also base of WebGL2.0, new functionality in the OpenGL ES3. The OpenGL ES3.1 specification was released in March 2014. The OpenGL ES3.2 specification was released in August 2015. New capabilities in OpenGL ES3.2 include, Geometry, floating point render targets for increased flexibility in higher precision compute operations
43.
Direct3D
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Direct3D is a graphics application programming interface for Microsoft Windows. Part of DirectX, Direct3D is used to render graphics in applications where performance is important. Direct3D uses hardware acceleration if it is available on the graphics card, Microsoft strives to continually update Direct3D to support the latest technology available on 3D graphics cards. Direct3D offers full vertex software emulation but no pixel software emulation for features not available in hardware. The API does include a Reference Rasterizer, which emulates a generic graphics card in software, as part of DirectX, Direct3D is available for Windows 95 and above, and is the base for the vector graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems. The Wine compatibility layer, a free software reimplementation of several Windows APIs, direct3Ds main competitor is Khronos OpenGL and its follow-on Vulkan. Fahrenheit was an attempt by Microsoft and SGI to unify OpenGL and Direct3D in the 1990s, in 1992, Servan Keondjian and Doug Rabson started a company named RenderMorphics, which developed a 3D graphics API named Reality Lab, which was used in medical imaging and CAD software. Two versions of this API were released, Microsoft bought RenderMorphics in February 1995, bringing Keondjian on board to implement a 3D graphics engine for Windows 95. The first version of Direct3D shipped in DirectX2.0, Direct3D initially implemented both retained mode and immediate mode 3D APIs. Like other DirectX APIs, such as DirectDraw, both were based on COM, the retained mode was a scene graph API that attained little adoption. Game developers clamored for more control of the hardwares activities than the Direct3D retained mode could provide. Only two games sold a significant volume, Lego Island and Lego Rock Raiders, were based on the Direct3D retained mode. For DirectX2.0 and 3.0, the Direct3D immediate mode used an execute buffer programming model that Microsoft hoped hardware vendors would support directly, execute buffers were intended to be allocated in hardware memory and parsed by the hardware to perform the 3D rendering. From the beginning, the mode also supported Talismans tiled rendering with the BeginScene/EndScene methods of the IDirect3DDevice interface. No substantive changes were planned to Direct3D for DirectX4.0, in December 1996, a team in Redmond took over development of the Direct3D Immediate Mode, while the London-based RenderMorphics team continued work on the Retained Mode. The first beta of DrawPrimitive shipped in February 1997, and the version shipped with DirectX5.0 in August 1997. Besides introducing an easier-to-use immediate mode API, DirectX5.0 added the SetRenderTarget method that enabled Direct3D devices to write their graphical output to a variety of DirectDraw surfaces. DirectX6.0 introduced numerous features to cover contemporary hardware as well as optimized geometry pipelines for x87, SSE and 3DNow. s3 texture compression support was one such feature, renamed as DXTC for purposes of inclusion in the API
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HDMI
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HDMI is a digital replacement for analog video standards. HDMI implements the EIA/CEA-861 standards, which video formats and waveforms, transport of compressed, uncompressed, and LPCM audio, auxiliary data. CEA-861 signals carried by HDMI are electrically compatible with the CEA-861 signals used by the visual interface. No signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used. The CEC capability allows HDMI devices to each other when necessary. Several versions of HDMI have been developed and deployed since initial release of the technology but all use the same cable and connector. Other than improved audio and video capacity, performance, resolution and color spaces, newer versions have optional advanced features such as 3D, Ethernet data connection, production of consumer HDMI products started in late 2003. In Europe either DVI-HDCP or HDMI is included in the HD ready in-store labeling specification for TV sets for HDTV, HDMI began to appear on consumer HDTV camcorders and digital still cameras in 2006. As of January 6,2015, over 4 billion HDMI devices have been sold, the HDMI founders are Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson, RCA and Toshiba. Digital Content Protection, LLC provides HDCP for HDMI, HDMI has the support of motion picture producers Fox, Universal, Warner Bros. and Disney, along with system operators DirecTV, EchoStar and CableLabs. The HDMI founders began development on HDMI1.0 on April 16,2002, at the time, DVI-HDCP and DVI-HDTV were being used on HDTVs. HDMI1.0 was designed to improve on DVI-HDTV by using a connector and adding audio capability and enhanced YCbCr capability. The first Authorized Testing Center, which tests HDMI products, was opened by Silicon Image on June 23,2003, in California, the first ATC in Japan was opened by Panasonic on May 1,2004, in Osaka. The first ATC in Europe was opened by Philips on May 25,2005, in Caen, the first ATC in China was opened by Silicon Image on November 21,2005, in Shenzhen. The first ATC in India was opened by Philips on June 12,2008, the HDMI website contains a list of all the ATCs. According to In-Stat, the number of HDMI devices sold was 5 million in 2004,17.4 million in 2005,63 million in 2006, and 143 million in 2007. HDMI has become the de facto standard for HDTVs, and according to In-Stat, In-Stat has estimated that 229 million HDMI devices were sold in 2008. On April 8,2008 there were over 850 consumer electronics, on January 7,2009, HDMI Licensing, LLC announced that HDMI had reached an installed base of over 600 million HDMI devices
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VGA
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Video Graphics Array is the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987. Today, the VGA analog interface is used for high definition video, including resolutions of 1080p, while the transmission bandwidth of VGA is high enough to support even higher resolution playback, there can be picture quality degradation depending on cable quality and length. How discernible this degradation is depends on the individuals eyesight and the display, though it is noticeable when switching to. The VGA supports both All Points Addressable graphics modes, and alphanumeric text modes, the other color modes defaulted to standard EGA or CGA compatible palettes, but could still be redefined if desired using VGA-specific programming. g. 400×600 or 360×480, and thin pixels,16 colors and the 70 Hz refresh rate with e. g. 736×410 mode. Its single-chip implementation allowed the VGA to be placed directly on a PC′s motherboard with a minimum of difficulty, since it only required video memory, timing crystals, the original VGA specifications are as follows,256 KB Video RAM 16-color and 256-color paletted display modes. 262, 144-color global palette Selectable 25.175 MHz or 28.322 MHz master pixel clock Usual line rate fixed at 31, compatibility is almost full at BIOS level, but even at register level, a very high value of compatibility is reached. The formula for the VGA horizontal frequency is thus ×525 kHz =4500 ÷143 kHz ≈31.4685 kHz, All other frequencies used by the VGA card are derived from this value by integer multiplication or division. Since the exactness of quartz oscillators is limited, real cards will have higher or lower frequency. All derived VGA timings can be varied widely by software that bypasses the VGA firmware interface and communicates directly with the VGA hardware, the use of other timings may in fact damage such monitors and thus was usually avoided by software publishers. For the most common VGA mode, the timings are. The figures shown in this image may be inaccurate and not match the above table exactly. The same general layout applies, merely at a lower frequency and these timings are the same in the higher frequency mode, but all pixel counts are correspondingly multiplied by 9/8ths – thus,720 active pixels,900 total per line, and a 54 pixel back porch. The monitor is triggered into synchronising at the higher frame rate by use of a positive-polarity VSync pulse. Depending on manufacturer, the details of active period and front/back porch widths, particularly in the horizontal domain. 640×400 @70 Hz is traditionally the video used for booting most VGA-compatible x86 personal computers which show a graphical boot screen. 640×480 @60 Hz is the default Windows graphics mode, up to Windows 2000 and it remains an option in XP and later versions via the boot menu low resolution video option and per-application compatibility mode settings. 320×200 @70 Hz is the most common mode for VGA-era PC games, using exactly the same timings as the 640×400 mode, the actual timings vary slightly from the defined standard
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Composite video
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Composite video is an analog video transmission that carries standard definition video typically at 480i or 576i resolution. Video information is encoded on one channel, unlike the higher-quality S-video, Composite video is usually in standard formats such as NTSC, PAL, and SECAM and is often designated by the CVBS initialism, for color, video, blanking and sync, or simply as video. A composite video signal combines on one wire the video information required to recreate a picture, as well as line. The color video signal is a combination of the luminance of the picture, and a modulated subcarrier carries the chrominance or color information. Details of the process vary between the NTSC, PAL and SECAM systems. The burst signal is inverted in phase from the reference subcarrier, Composite video can easily be directed to any broadcast channel simply by modulating the proper RF carrier wave with it. On playback, these devices often give the user the option to output the signal or to modulate it onto a VHF or UHF frequency compatible with a TV tuner. In home applications, the video signal is typically connected using an RCA connector. It is often accompanied with red and white connectors for right, BNC connectors and higher quality coaxial cable are often used in professional television studios and post-production applications. BNC connectors were used for composite video connections on early home VCRs. The BNC connector, in turn post dated the PL-259 connector which featured on first generation VCRs. In Europe, SCART connections are used instead of RCA jacks, so where available, RGB is used instead of composite video with computers, video game consoles. Video cables are 75 ohm impedance, low in capacitance, typical values run from 52 pF/m for an HDPE-foamed dielectric precision video cable to 69 pF/m for a solid PE dielectric cable. Some devices that connect to a TV, such as VCRs, older video game consoles and home computers of the 1980s and this may then be converted to RF with an external box known as an RF modulator that generates the proper carrier. Sometimes this modulator was built into the product and sometimes it was a unit powered by the computer or with an independent power supply. In the United States, using an external RF modulator frees the manufacturer from obtaining FCC approval for each variation of a device, Video game consoles on the other hand were less of an issue with FCC approval because the circuitry was inexpensive enough to allow for channel 3/4 outputs. Modern day devices with analog outputs have typically omitted channel 3 and 4 outputs in favor of composite and S-video outputs as composite, in addition, many TV sets sold these days no longer have analog television tuners and cannot accept channel 3/4. The process of modulating RF with the video signal, and then demodulating the original signal again in the TV
