1.
Billiard ball
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A billiard ball is a small, hard ball used in cue sports, such as carom billiards, pool, and snooker. The number, type, diameter, color, and pattern of the balls differ depending upon the game being played. Various particular ball properties such as hardness, friction coefficient and resilience are important to accuracy, early balls were made of various materials, including wood and clay. The billiard industry realized that the supply of elephants was endangered, inventors were challenged to come up with an alternative material that could be manufactured, with a US$10,000 prize being offered by a New York supplier, Phelan and Collender. Although not the first artificial substance to be used for the balls and it is unclear if the cash prize was ever awarded, and there is no evidence suggesting he did in fact win it. By 1870 it was commercially branded Celluloid, the first industrial plastic, unfortunately, the nature of celluloid made it volatile in production, occasionally exploding, which ultimately made this early plastic impractical. Urban legend has it that celluloid billiard balls themselves would occasionally explode during rough play, the exacting requirements of the billiard ball are met today with balls cast from plastic materials that are strongly resistant to cracking and chipping. Currently Saluc, under the brand names Aramith and Brunswick Centennial, other plastics and resins such as polyester and clear acrylic are also used, by competing companies such as Elephant Balls Ltd. and Frenzy Sports. Ivory balls remained in use in artistic billiards competition until the late 20th century, the predominantly Asian game four-ball uses four balls. Carom balls are not numbered, and at 61–61.5 mm in diameter are larger than pool balls, the 61.5 mm size are more common. In North America, they are referred to simply as billiard balls. According to WPA/BCA equipment specifications, the weight may be from 5.5 to 6 oz with a diameter of 2.250 inch and these are often referred to as 2 1⁄4 inch balls. Balls 1 through 7 are often referred to as solids and 9 through 15 as stripes though there are many colloquial terms for each suit of balls. Though it looks similar to the solids, the 8 ball is not considered a solid because it is the ball that is black. Some games such as nine-ball do not distinguish between stripes and solids, but rather use the numbering on the balls to determine which object ball must be pocketed, in other games such as three-ball and straight pool neither type of marking is of any consequence. In eight-ball, straight pool, and related games, all sixteen balls are employed, in the games of seven-ball, nine-ball, ten-ball and related, only object balls 1 through 7,9 and 10, respectively are used. Some balls used in televised games are colored differently in order to make them distinguishable on television monitors. The TV is also the genesis of the cue ball with numerous spots on its surface so that spin placed on it is evident to viewers
2.
Pointing device
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A pointing device is an input interface that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer. Movements of the device are echoed on the screen by movements of the pointer and other visual changes. Common gestures are point and click and drag and drop, while the most common pointing device by far is the mouse, many more devices have been developed. However, the mouse is commonly used as a metaphor for devices that move the cursor. For most pointing devices, Fittss law can be used to predict the speed with which users can point at a target position. To classify several pointing devices, an amount of features can be considered. For example, the movement, controlling, positioning or resistance. The following points should provide an overview of the different classifications, direct vs. indirect input In case of a direct-input pointing device, the on-screen pointer is at the same physical position as the pointing device. An indirect-input pointing device is not at the physical position as the pointer. Absolute vs. relative movement An absolute-movement input device provides a consistent mapping between a point in the space and a point in the output space. A relative-movement input device maps displacement in the space to displacement in the output state. It therefore controls the position of the cursor compared to its initial position. Isotonic vs. elastic vs. isometric An isotonic pointing device is movable and measures its displacement whereas a device is fixed. An elastic device increases its force resistance with displacement, position control vs. rate control A position-control input device directly changes the absolute or relative position of the on-screen pointer. A rate-control input device changes the speed and direction of the movement of the on-screen pointer, translation vs. rotation Another classification is the differentiation between whether the device is physically translated or rotated. Degrees of freedom Different pointing devices have different degrees of freedom, a computer mouse has two degrees of freedom, namely its movement on the x- and y-axis. However the Wiimote has 6 degrees of freedom, x-, y-, possible states As mentioned later in this article, pointing devices have different possible states. Examples for these states are out of range, tracking or dragging, examples a computer mouse is an indirect, relative, isotonic, position-control, translational input device with two degrees of freedom and three states
3.
Ball
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A ball is a round object with various uses. It is used in games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit. Balls can also be used for activities, such as catch, marbles. Balls made from hard-wearing materials are used in engineering applications to very low friction bearings. Black-powder weapons use stone and metal balls as projectiles, although many types of balls are today made from rubber, this form was unknown outside the Americas until after the voyages of Columbus. The Spanish were the first Europeans to see bouncing rubber balls which were employed most notably in the Mesoamerican ballgame, balls used in various sports in other parts of the world prior to Columbus were made from other materials such as animal bladders or skins, stuffed with various materials. As balls are one of the most familiar spherical objects to humans, no Old English representative of any of these is known. If ball- was native in Germanic, it may have been a cognate with the Latin foll-is in sense of a blown up or inflated. In the later Middle English spelling balle the word coincided graphically with the French balle ball, French balle is assumed to be of Germanic origin, itself, however. In Ancient Greek the word πάλλα for ball is attested besides the word σφαίρα, a ball, as the essential feature in many forms of gameplay requiring physical exertion, must date from the very earliest times. A rolling object appeals not only to a baby but to a kitten. Some form of game with a ball is found portrayed on Egyptian monuments, in Homer, Nausicaa was playing at ball with her maidens when Odysseus first saw her in the land of the Phaeacians. And Halios and Laodamas performed before Alcinous and Odysseus with ball play, of regular rules for the playing of ball games, little trace remains, if there were any such. Pollux mentions a game called episkyros, which has often been looked on as the origin of football and it seems to have been played by two sides, arranged in lines, how far there was any form of goal seems uncertain. Among the Romans, ball games were looked upon as an adjunct to the bath, and were graduated to the age and health of the bathers and this was struck from player to player, who wore a kind of gauntlet on the arm. These games are known to us through the Romans, though the names are Greek, the various modern games played with a ball or balls and subject to rules are treated under their various names, such as polo, cricket, football, etc. Several sports use a ball in the shape of a prolate spheroid, Ball Buckminster Fullerene Football Kickball Marbles Penny floater Prisoner Ball Shuttlecock Super Ball
4.
Computer mouse
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A computer mouse is a pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, physically, a mouse consists of an object held in ones hand, with one or more buttons. Mice often also other elements, such as touch surfaces and wheels. The earliest known publication of the mouse as referring to a computer pointing device is in Bill Englishs July 1965 publication. The plural for the rodent is always mice in modern usage. The plural of a mouse is mouses and mice according to most dictionaries. The first recorded usage is mice, the online Oxford Dictionaries cites a 1984 use. The trackball, a pointing device, was invented in 1944 by Ralph Benjamin as part of a World War II-era fire-control radar plotting system called Comprehensive Display System. Benjamin was then working for the British Royal Navy Scientific Service, Benjamins project used analog computers to calculate the future position of target aircraft based on several initial input points provided by a user with a joystick. Benjamin felt that a more elegant input device was needed and invented what they called a ball for this purpose. The device was patented in 1947, but only a prototype using a ball rolling on two rubber-coated wheels was ever built, and the device was kept as a military secret. Another early trackball was built by British electrical engineer Kenyon Taylor in collaboration with Tom Cranston, Taylor was part of the original Ferranti Canada, working on the Royal Canadian Navys DATAR system in 1952. DATAR was similar in concept to Benjamins display, the trackball used four disks to pick up motion, two each for the X and Y directions. When the ball was rolled, the pickup discs spun and contacts on their outer rim made periodic contact with wires, by counting the pulses, the physical movement of the ball could be determined. A digital computer calculated the tracks and sent the data to other ships in a task force using pulse-code modulation radio signals. This trackball used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball and it was not patented, since it was a secret military project. Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute has been credited in published books by Thierry Bardini, Paul Ceruzzi, Howard Rheingold, Engelbart was also recognized as such in various obituary titles after his death in July 2013. That November, while attending a conference on computer graphics in Reno, Nevada, Engelbart began to ponder how to adapt the underlying principles of the planimeter to X-Y coordinate input
5.
Touchpad
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Touchpads are a common feature of laptop computers, and are also used as a substitute for a mouse where desk space is scarce. Because they vary in size, they can also be found on personal digital assistants, wireless touchpads are also available as detached accessories. Touchpads operate in one of several ways, including capacitive sensing, the most common technology used as of 2010 entails sensing the capacitive virtual ground effect of a finger, or the capacitance between sensors. Capacitance-based touchpads will not sense the tip of a pencil or other similar implement, gloved fingers may also be problematic. While touchpads, like touchscreens, are able to sense absolute position, resolution is limited by their size, hardware buttons equivalent to a standard mouses left and right buttons are positioned below, above, or beside the touchpad. Some touchpads and associated device driver software may interpret tapping the pad as a click, Tactile touchpads allow for clicking and dragging by incorporating button functionality into the surface of the touchpad itself. To select, one presses down on the touchpad instead of a physical button, to drag, instead performing the click-and-a-half technique, one presses down while on the object, drags without releasing pressure and lets go when done. Touchpad drivers can also allow the use of fingers to facilitate the other mouse buttons. Some touchpads have hotspots, locations on the used for functionality beyond a mouse. Many touchpads use two-finger dragging for scrolling, also, some touchpad drivers support tap zones, regions where a tap will execute a function, for example, pausing a media player or launching an application. All of these functions are implemented in the device driver software. By 1982 Apollo desktop computers were equipped with a touchpad on the side of the keyboard. Introduced a year later, the Gavilan SC included a touchpad above its keyboard, a touchpad was first developed for Psions MC 200/400/600/WORD Series in 1989. Olivetti and Triumph-Adler introduced the first laptops with touchpad in 1992. Cirque introduced the first widely available touchpad, branded as GlidePoint, in 1994. Apple Inc introduced touchpads to the laptop in the PowerBook series in 1994, using Cirque’s GlidePoint technology. Another early adopter of the GlidePoint pointing device was Sharp, later, Synaptics introduced their touchpad into the marketplace, branded the TouchPad. Epson was an early adopter of this product, as touchpads began to be introduced in laptops in the 1990s, there was often confusion as to what the product should be called. No consistent term was used, and references varied, such as, glidepoint, touch sensitive input device, touchpad, trackpad, users were often presented the option to purchase a pointing stick, touchpad, or trackball
6.
Laptop
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Laptops are folded shut for transportation, and thus are suitable for mobile use. Although originally there was a distinction between laptops and notebooks, the former being bigger and heavier than the latter, as of 2014, there is often no longer any difference. Laptops are commonly used in a variety of settings, such as at work, in education, Internet surfing using sites such as YouTube and for personal multimedia, most 2016-era laptops also have integrated webcams and built-in microphones. Laptops can be powered either from a battery or by an external power supply from an AC adapter. Hardware specifications, such as the speed and memory capacity. Design elements, form factor, and construction can also vary significantly between models depending on intended use, as portable computers evolved into the modern laptop, they became widely used for a variety of purposes. The terms laptop and notebook are used interchangeably to describe a computer in English. Regardless of the etymology, by the late 1990s, the terms were interchangeable, as the personal computer became feasible in 1971, the idea of a portable personal computer soon followed. A personal, portable information manipulator was imagined by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in 1968, the IBM Special Computer APL Machine Portable was demonstrated in 1973. This prototype was based on the IBM PALM processor, the IBM5100, the first commercially available portable computer, appeared in September 1975, and was based on the SCAMP prototype. As 8-bit CPU machines became widely accepted, the number of portables increased rapidly, the Osborne 1, released in 1981, used the Zilog Z80 and weighed 23.6 pounds. It had no battery, a 5 in CRT screen, in the same year the first laptop-sized portable computer, the Epson HX-20, was announced. The Epson had an LCD screen, a battery. Both Tandy/RadioShack and HP also produced portable computers of varying designs during this period, the first laptops using the flip form factor appeared in the early 1980s. The Dulmont Magnum was released in Australia in 1981–82, but was not marketed internationally until 1984–85, the US$8,150 GRiD Compass 1101, released in 1982, was used at NASA and by the military, among others. The Sharp PC-5000, Ampere and Gavilan SC released in 1983, the Gavilan SC was the first computer described as a laptop by its manufacturer, while the Ampere had a modern clamshell design. The Toshiba T1100 won acceptance not only among PC experts but the market as a way to have PC portability. From 1983 onward, several new techniques were developed and included in laptops, including the touchpad, the pointing stick
7.
Computer keyboard
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In computing, a computer keyboard is a typewriter-style device which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as a mechanical lever or electronic switch. Following the decline of punch cards and paper tape, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards became the input device for computers. A keyboard typically has characters engraved or printed on the keys, however, to produce some symbols requires pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence. While most keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs, other keys or simultaneous key presses can produce actions or execute computer commands. In normal usage, the keyboard is used as a text entry interface to type text and numbers into a word processor, in a modern computer, the interpretation of key presses is generally left to the software. A computer keyboard distinguishes each physical key from every other and reports all key presses to the controlling software, Keyboards are also used for computer gaming, either with regular keyboards or by using keyboards with special gaming features, which can expedite frequently used keystroke combinations. A keyboard is used to give commands to the operating system of a computer, such as Windows Control-Alt-Delete combination. A command-line interface is a type of user interface operated entirely through a keyboard and it was through such devices that modern computer keyboards inherited their layouts. Earlier models were developed separately by individuals such as Royal Earl House, earlier, Herman Hollerith developed the first keypunch devices, which soon evolved to include keys for text and number entry akin to normal typewriters by the 1930s. From the 1940s until the late 1960s, typewriters were the means of data entry. The keyboard remained the primary, most integrated computer peripheral well into the era of personal computing until the introduction of the mouse as a device in 1984. By this time, text-only user interfaces with sparse graphics gave way to comparatively graphics-rich icons on screen, One factor determining the size of a keyboard is the presence of duplicate keys, such as a separate numeric keyboard, for convenience. A keyboard with few keys is called a keypad, another factor determining the size of a keyboard is the size and spacing of the keys. Reduction is limited by the consideration that the keys must be large enough to be easily pressed by fingers. Alternatively a tool is used for pressing small keys, standard alphanumeric keyboards have keys that are on three-quarter inch centers, and have a key travel of at least 0.150 inches. Desktop computer keyboards, such as the 101-key US traditional keyboards or the 104-key Windows keyboards, include characters, punctuation symbols, numbers. The internationally common 102/104 key keyboards have a left shift key. Also the enter key is usually shaped differently, computer keyboards are similar to electric-typewriter keyboards but contain additional keys, such as the command or Windows keys
8.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
9.
Analog computer
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An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities symbolically, as their values change. As an analog computer does not use values, but rather continuous values, processes cannot be reliably repeated with exact equivalence. Unlike digital signal processing, analog computers do not suffer from the quantization noise, Analog computers were widely used in scientific and industrial applications where digital computers of the time lacked sufficient performance. Analog computers can have a wide range of complexity. Slide rules and nomographs are the simplest, while naval gunfire control computers, systems for process control and protective relays used analog computation to perform control and protective functions. More complex applications, such as synthetic aperture radar, remained the domain of analog computing well into the 1980s, setting up an analog computer required scale factors to be chosen, along with initial conditions—that is, starting values. Another essential was creating the network of interconnections between computing elements. Sometimes it was necessary to re-think the structure of the problem so that the computer would function satisfactorily, no variables could be allowed to exceed the computers limits, and differentiation was to be avoided, typically by rearranging the network of interconnects, using integrators in a different sense. Running an electronic computer, assuming a satisfactory setup, started with the computer held with some variables fixed at their initial values. Moving a switch released the holds and permitted the problem to run, in some instances, the computer could, after a certain running time interval, repeatedly return to the initial-conditions state to reset the problem, and run it again. This is a list of examples of early computation devices which are considered to be precursors of the modern computers, some of them may even have been dubbed as computers by the press, although they may fail to fit the modern definitions. The south-pointing chariot can be considered the earliest analog computer and it was a mechanical-geared wheeled vehicle used for to discern the southern cardinal direction. The Antikythera mechanism was an orrery and is claimed to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer. It was designed to calculate astronomical positions and it was discovered in 1901 in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to circa 100 BC. Devices of a level of complexity comparable to that of the Antikythera mechanism would not reappear until a thousand years later, many mechanical aids to calculation and measurement were constructed for astronomical and navigation use. The planisphere was a star chart invented by Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī in the early 11th century, the astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world in either the 1st or 2nd centuries BC and is often attributed to Hipparchus. A combination of the planisphere and dioptra, the astrolabe was effectively an analog computer capable of working out different kinds of problems in spherical astronomy
10.
Telefunken
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Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft. The name Telefunken appears in, the brand name Telefunken. System Telefunken, founded 1903 in Berlin as a subsidiary of AEG and Siemens & Halske, Telefunken, KG in Heilbronn, Germany, the company Telefunken Lighting technologies S. L. The company Telefunken USA was incorporated in early 2001 to provide restoration services, around the start of the 20th century, two groups of German researchers worked on the development of techniques for wireless communication. The one group at AEG, led by Adolf Slaby and Georg Graf von Arco, developed systems for the Kaiserliche Marine and their main competitor was the British Marconi Company. On 17 April 1923, it was renamed Telefunken, The Company for Wireless Telegraphy, Telefunken was the companys telegraph address. The first technical director of Telefunken was Count Georg von Arco, Telefunken rapidly became a major player in the radio and electronics fields, both civilian and military. During World War I, they supplied radio sets and telegraphy equipment for the military, the Telefunken Kompass Sender operated from 1908 to 1918, allowing the Zeppelins to navigate throughout the North Sea area in any weather. Starting in 1923, Telefunken built broadcast transmitters and radio sets, in 1928, Telefunken made history by designing the V-41 amplifier for the German Radio Network. This was the very first two-stage, Hi-Fi amplifier, over time, Telefunken perfected their designs and in 1950 the V-72 amplifier was developed. The TAB V-72 soon became popular with radio stations and recording facilities. The V-72S was the type of amplifier found in the REDD.37 console used by the Beatles at Abbey Road Studios on many of their early recordings. In 1932, record players were added to the product line, during the war, manufacturing plants were shifted to and developed in west of Germany or relocated. Thus, Telefunken, under AEG, turned into the smaller subsidiary, Telefunken was also the originator of the FM radio broadcast system. Telefunken, through the subsidiary company Teldec, was for decades one of the largest German record companies. In 1959, Telefunken established a modern semiconductor works in Heilbronn, the works was expanded several times, and in 1970 a new 6-storey building was built at the northern edge of the area. At the beginning of the 1970s it housed approximately 2,500 employees, in 1967, Telefunken was merged with AEG, which was then renamed to AEG-Telefunken. In the beginning of the 1960s, Walter Bruch developed the PAL-colour television system for the company, PAL is established i. e. in the United Kingdom and, except France, many other European countries - also in Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, India and Australia
11.
Logitech
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Logitech International S. A. is a Swiss global provider of personal computer and mobile accessories, with EMEA headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland and American headquarters in Newark, California. In addition to its Swiss and American headquarters, the company has offices throughout Europe, Asia, Logitechs sales and marketing activities are organized into three geographic regions, America, Europe, and the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. The company develops and markets personal peripherals for PC navigation, video communication and collaboration, music and this includes products like keyboards, mice, tablet accessories, webcams, bluetooth speakers, universal remotes and more. Logitech International S. A. was co-founded in Apples, Vaud, Switzerland, the mass-marketed computer mouse was the product that made Logitech well-known. For a time during its years, Logitechs Silicon Valley offices occupied space at 165 University Avenue, Palo Alto, California. From there, Logitech expanded its line to encompass many mass market computer peripherals. In 2007, Logitech licensed Hillcrest Labs Freespace motion control technology to produce the MX Air Mouse, in August 2008, Logitech acquired Ultimate Ears, supplier of custom in-ear monitors for professional musicians and earphones for the consumer market. In December 2008, Logitech announced that it had manufactured one billion mice since 1985, in August 2009, Logitech introduced the Logitech Unifying receiver, which enabled multiple wireless devices to connect through one USB port. In May 2010, Logitech, in partnership with Google, introduced the Internet-enabled television, in May 2011, Logitech entered the tablet market with a line of accessories, including cases and keyboards, speakers and mice for iPad and Android-based tablets. In July 2011, Logitech acquired the mobile communications provider. In January 2013, Bracken Darrell became Logitech’s chief executive officer, in November 2013, the company announced the launch of its new iPhone game controller, the PowerShell, which also doubles as a battery pack with a built-in 1500mAh battery. Logitechs profits were hurt by the proliferation of tablet devices, in 2013 the company made a loss, but returned to profit in 2014. On July 8,2015, Logitech announced the biggest brand transformation in its history, the transformation included a new, simplified and modernized logo and the announcement of a greater emphasis on design going forward. Logitech also highlighted that they are looking to move beyond PC peripherals, in July 2015, Logitech announced a 2 percent first-quarter revenue drop to $470 million, due to a strong dollar and falling demand for the companys computer accessories. The U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the alleged accounting issues left investors without a view of the Swiss-U. S. companys finances. On April 12,2016, Logitech acquired Jaybird, makers of fitness-focused wireless earbuds, on September 15,2016, Logitech announced that they had purchased the Saitek brand and assets from Mad Catz for $13 million in cash. The first Logitech mice were made in Le Lieu, in the Swiss Canton of Vaud by Dubois Depraz SA, production facilities were then established in the US, Taiwan, Hungary and Ireland before being moved subsequently to Suzhou, China. As of 2005, the operations in China produce approximately half of Logitechs products
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
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