1.
Xiph.Org Foundation
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Xiph. Org Foundation is a non-profit organization that produces free multimedia formats and software tools. It focuses on the Ogg family of formats, and the most successful one has been Vorbis, as of 2013, the current development work is focusing on Daala, an open and patent-free video format and codec designed to compete with the patented High Efficiency Video Coding and VP9. These include Speex, a codec designed for speech, and FLAC. The Xiph. Org Foundation has criticized Microsoft and the RIAA for their lack of openness and they also condemn the RIAA for their support of projects such as Secure Digital Music Initiative. In 2008, the Free Software Foundation listed the Xiph. Org projects as High Priority Free Software Projects, chris Montgomery, creator of the Ogg container format, founded the Xiphophorus company and later the Xiph. Org Foundation. The first work that became the Ogg media projects started in 1994, the name Xiph abbreviates the original organizational name, Xiphophorus, named after the common swordtail fish, Xiphophorus hellerii. The name Xiphophorus company was used until 2002, when it was renamed to Xiph. Org Foundation, in 2002, the Xiph. Org Foundation defined itself on its website as a non-profit corporation dedicated to protecting the foundations of Internet multimedia from control by private interests. In March 2003, the Xiph. Org Foundation was recognized by the IRS as a 501 Non-Profit Organization, Ogg – a multimedia container format, a reference implementation, and the native file and stream format for the Xiph
2.
Software release life cycle
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Usage of the alpha/beta test terminology originated at IBM. As long ago as the 1950s, IBM used similar terminology for their hardware development, a test was the verification of a new product before public announcement. B test was the verification before releasing the product to be manufactured, C test was the final test before general availability of the product. Martin Belsky, a manager on some of IBMs earlier software projects claimed to have invented the terminology, IBM dropped the alpha/beta terminology during the 1960s, but by then it had received fairly wide notice. The usage of beta test to refer to testing done by customers was not done in IBM, rather, IBM used the term field test. Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the project before formal testing. These activities can include requirements analysis, software design, software development, in typical open source development, there are several types of pre-alpha versions. Milestone versions include specific sets of functions and are released as soon as the functionality is complete, the alpha phase of the release life cycle is the first phase to begin software testing. In this phase, developers generally test the software using white-box techniques, additional validation is then performed using black-box or gray-box techniques, by another testing team. Moving to black-box testing inside the organization is known as alpha release, alpha software can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version, in general, external availability of alpha software is uncommon in proprietary software, while open source software often has publicly available alpha versions. The alpha phase usually ends with a freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature complete, Beta, named after the second letter of the Greek alphabet, is the software development phase following alpha. Software in the stage is also known as betaware. Beta phase generally begins when the software is complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs. Software in the phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing, the process of delivering a beta version to the users is called beta release and this is typically the first time that the software is available outside of the organization that developed it. Beta version software is useful for demonstrations and previews within an organization
3.
Audio coding format
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An audio coding format is a content representation format for storage or transmission of digital audio. Examples of audio coding formats include MP3, AAC, Vorbis, FLAC, some audio coding formats are documented by a detailed technical specification document known as an audio coding specification. Some such specifications are written and approved by standardization organizations as technical standards, the term standard is also sometimes used for de facto standards as well as formal standards. Audio content encoded in an audio coding format is normally encapsulated within a container format. As such, the user doesnt have a raw AAC file, but instead has a. m4a audio file. The container also contains metadata such as title and other tags, a notable exception is MP3 files, which are raw audio coding without a container format. In video files with audio, the audio content is bundled with video inside a multimedia container format. An audio coding format does not dictate all algorithms used by a codec implementing the format, a lossless audio coding format reduces the total data needed to represent a sound but can be de-coded to its original, uncompressed form. A lossy audio coding format reduces the bit resolution of the sound on top of compression. Consumer audio is most often compressed using lossy audio codecs as the size is far more convenient for distribution. Lossless audio coding formats such as FLAC and Apple Lossless are sometimes available, uncompressed audio formats, such as pulse-code modulation, are also sometimes used. Comparison of audio coding formats Data compression#Audio Audio file format
4.
Ogg
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Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph. Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and its name is derived from ogging, jargon from the computer game Netrek. The Ogg container format can multiplex a number of independent streams for audio, video, text, in the Ogg multimedia framework, Theora provides a lossy video layer. The audio layer is most commonly provided by the music-oriented Vorbis format or its successor Opus, lossless audio compression formats include FLAC, and OggPCM. Before 2007, the. ogg filename extension was used for all files whose content used the Ogg container format, since 2007, the Xiph. Org Foundation recommends that. ogg only be used for Ogg Vorbis audio files. As of August 4,2011, the current version of the Xiph. Org Foundations reference implementation, is libogg 1.3.0, another version, libogg2, has been in development, but is awaiting a rewrite as of 2008. Both software libraries are free software, released under the New BSD License, Ogg reference implementation was separated from Vorbis on September 2,2000. It is sometimes assumed that the name Ogg comes from the character of Nanny Ogg in Terry Pratchetts Discworld novels, Ogg is derived from ogging, jargon from the computer game Netrek, which came to mean doing something forcefully, possibly without consideration of the drain on future resources. At its inception, the Ogg project was thought to be somewhat ambitious given the power of the PC hardware of the time, still, to quote the same reference, Vorbis, on the other hand is named after the Terry Pratchett character from the book Small Gods. The Ogg Vorbis project started in 1993 and it was originally named Squish but that name was already trademarked, so the project underwent a name change. The new name, OggSquish, was used until 2001 when it was changed again to Ogg, Ogg has since come to refer to the container format, which is now part of the larger Xiph. org multimedia project. Today, Squish refers to an audio coding format typically used with the Ogg container format. The Ogg bitstream format, spearheaded by the Xiph, the format consists of chunks of data each called an Ogg page. Each page begins with the characters, OggS, to identify the file as Ogg format, a serial number and page number in the page header identifies each page as part of a series of pages making up a bitstream. Multiple bitstreams may be multiplexed in the file where pages from each bitstream are ordered by the time of the contained data. Bitstreams may also be appended to existing files, a known as chaining. A BSD-licensed library, called libvorbis, is available to encode and decode data from Vorbis streams, independent Ogg implementations are used in several projects such as RealPlayer and a set of DirectShow filters. Mogg, the Multi-Track-Single-Logical-Stream Ogg-Vorbis, is the multi-channel or multi-track Ogg file format, the following is the field layout of an Ogg page header, Capture pattern –32 bits The capture pattern or sync code is a magic number used to ensure synchronization when parsing Ogg files
5.
WebM
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WebM is a video file format. It is primarily intended to offer an alternative to use in the HTML5 video tag. It has a sister project WebP for images, the development of the format is sponsored by Google, and the corresponding software is distributed under a BSD license. The WebM container is based on a profile of Matroska, WebM initially supported VP8 video and Vorbis audio streams. In 2013 it was updated to accommodate VP9 video and Opus audio, native WebM support by Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Google Chrome was announced at the 2010 Google I/O conference. Internet Explorer 9 requires third-party WebM software, Safari for Mac OS X relies on QuickTime to play web media, which as of 1 April 2011, does not support WebM unless a third-party plug-in is installed. In January 2011, Google announced that the WebM Project Team will release plugins for Internet Explorer, as of 9 June 2012, a public preview version of this plug-in is available for Internet Explorer 9. VLC media player, MPlayer and K-Multimedia Player have native support for playing WebM files, FFmpeg can encode and decode VP8 videos when built with support for libvpx, the VP8/VP9 codec library of the WebM project, as well as mux/demux WebM-compliant files. On 23 July 2010, Fiona Glaser, Ronald Bultje, through testing they determined that ffvp8 was faster than Googles own libvpx decoder. MKVToolNix, the popular Matroska creation tools, have implemented support for multiplexing/demultiplexing WebM-compliant files out of the box, haali Media Splitter has also announced support for muxing/demuxing of WebM. As of version 1.4.9, the LiVES video editor has support for realtime decoding, MPC-HC as of SVN2071 and higher builds supports WebM playback with internal VP8 decoder based on FFmpegs code. The full decoding support for WebM is available in MPC-HC since version 1.4.2499.0, Android is WebM-enabled since version 2.3 - Gingerbread, which was first made available via the Nexus S mobile phone and streamable since Android 4.0. In September 2015, Microsoft announced that the Edge browser in Windows 10 will add support for WebM. iOS does not natively play WebM, WebM Project licenses VP8 hardware accelerators to semiconductor companies for 1080p encoding and decoding at zero cost. AMD, ARM and Broadcom have announced support for hardware acceleration of the WebM format, intel is also considering hardware-based acceleration for WebM in its Atom-based TV chips if the format gains popularity. Qualcomm and Texas Instruments have announced support, with support coming to the TI OMAP processor. Chips&Media have announced a hardware decoder for VP8 that can decode full HD resolution VP8 streams at 60 frames per second. Nvidia is supporting VP8 and provides both hardware decoding and encoding in the Tegra 4 and Tegra 4i SoCs, Nvidia announced 3D video support for WebM through HTML5 and their Nvidia 3D Vision technology. On 7 January 2011, Rockchip released the worlds first chip to host a full implementation of 1080p VP8 decoding
6.
International standard
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International standards are standards developed by international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide, the most prominent organization is the International Organization for Standardization. International standards may be used either by application or by a process of modifying an international standard to suit local conditions. Technical barriers arise when different groups together, each with a large user base. Establishing international standards is one way of preventing or overcoming this problem, the implementation of standards in industry and commerce became highly important with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the need for high-precision machine tools and interchangeable parts. Henry Maudslay developed the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe in 1800, maudslays work, as well as the contributions of other engineers, accomplished a modest amount of industry standardization, some companies in-house standards spread a bit within their industries. Joseph Whitworths screw thread measurements were adopted as the first national standard by companies around the country in 1841 and it came to be known as the British Standard Whitworth, and was widely adopted in other countries. By the end of the 19th century differences in standards between companies were making trade increasingly difficult and strained, the Engineering Standards Committee was established in London in 1901 as the worlds first national standards body. After the First World War, similar national bodies were established in other countries, by the mid to late 19th century, efforts were being made to standardize electrical measurement. An important figure was R. E. B, Crompton, who became concerned by the large range of different standards and systems used by electrical engineering companies and scientists in the early 20th century. Many companies had entered the market in the 1890s and all chose their own settings for voltage, frequency, current, adjacent buildings would have totally incompatible electrical systems simply because they had been fitted out by different companies. Crompton could see the lack of efficiency in this system and began to consider proposals for a standard for electric engineering. In 1904, Crompton represented Britain at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis as part of a delegation by the Institute of Electrical Engineers. He presented a paper on standardisation, which was so well received that he was asked to look into the formation of a commission to oversee the process. By 1906 his work was complete and he drew up a permanent constitution for the first international standards organization, the body held its first meeting that year in London, with representatives from 14 countries. In honour of his contribution to electrical standardisation, Lord Kelvin was elected as the bodys first President, the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations was founded in 1926 with a broader remit to enhance international cooperation for all technical standards and specifications. The body was suspended in 1942 during World War II, after the war, ISA was approached by the recently formed United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee with a proposal to form a new global standards body. List of international common standards List of technical standard organisations Global Frameworks and standards organized along function lines, accessed 2014 ^ Cordova
7.
Software developer
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A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process, including the research, design, programming, and testing of computer software. Other job titles which are used with similar meanings are programmer, software analyst. According to developer Eric Sink, the differences between system design, software development, and programming are more apparent, even more so that developers become systems architects, those who design the multi-leveled architecture or component interactions of a large software system. In a large company, there may be employees whose sole responsibility consists of one of the phases above. In smaller development environments, a few people or even an individual might handle the complete process. The word software was coined as a prank as early as 1953, before this time, computers were programmed either by customers, or the few commercial computer vendors of the time, such as UNIVAC and IBM. The first company founded to provide products and services was Computer Usage Company in 1955. The software industry expanded in the early 1960s, almost immediately after computers were first sold in mass-produced quantities, universities, government, and business customers created a demand for software. Many of these programs were written in-house by full-time staff programmers, some were distributed freely between users of a particular machine for no charge. Others were done on a basis, and other firms such as Computer Sciences Corporation started to grow. The computer/hardware makers started bundling operating systems, systems software and programming environments with their machines, new software was built for microcomputers, so other manufacturers including IBM, followed DECs example quickly, resulting in the IBM AS/400 amongst others. The industry expanded greatly with the rise of the computer in the mid-1970s. In the following years, it created a growing market for games, applications. DOS, Microsofts first operating system product, was the dominant operating system at the time, by 2014 the role of cloud developer had been defined, in this context, one definition of a developer in general was published, Developers make software for the world to use. The job of a developer is to crank out code -- fresh code for new products, code fixes for maintenance, code for business logic, bus factor Software Developer description from the US Department of Labor
8.
C (programming language)
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C was originally developed by Dennis Ritchie between 1969 and 1973 at Bell Labs, and used to re-implement the Unix operating system. C has been standardized by the American National Standards Institute since 1989, C is an imperative procedural language. Therefore, C was useful for applications that had formerly been coded in assembly language. Despite its low-level capabilities, the language was designed to encourage cross-platform programming, a standards-compliant and portably written C program can be compiled for a very wide variety of computer platforms and operating systems with few changes to its source code. The language has become available on a wide range of platforms. In C, all code is contained within subroutines, which are called functions. Function parameters are passed by value. Pass-by-reference is simulated in C by explicitly passing pointer values, C program source text is free-format, using the semicolon as a statement terminator and curly braces for grouping blocks of statements. The C language also exhibits the characteristics, There is a small, fixed number of keywords, including a full set of flow of control primitives, for, if/else, while, switch. User-defined names are not distinguished from keywords by any kind of sigil, There are a large number of arithmetical and logical operators, such as +, +=, ++, &, ~, etc. More than one assignment may be performed in a single statement, function return values can be ignored when not needed. Typing is static, but weakly enforced, all data has a type, C has no define keyword, instead, a statement beginning with the name of a type is taken as a declaration. There is no function keyword, instead, a function is indicated by the parentheses of an argument list, user-defined and compound types are possible. Heterogeneous aggregate data types allow related data elements to be accessed and assigned as a unit, array indexing is a secondary notation, defined in terms of pointer arithmetic. Unlike structs, arrays are not first-class objects, they cannot be assigned or compared using single built-in operators, There is no array keyword, in use or definition, instead, square brackets indicate arrays syntactically, for example month. Enumerated types are possible with the enum keyword and they are not tagged, and are freely interconvertible with integers. Strings are not a data type, but are conventionally implemented as null-terminated arrays of characters. Low-level access to memory is possible by converting machine addresses to typed pointers
9.
Audio codec
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An audio codec is a device or computer program capable of coding or decoding a digital data stream of audio. In software, a codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompresses digital audio data according to a given audio file or streaming media audio coding format. The objective of the algorithm is to represent the high-fidelity audio signal with minimum number of bits while retaining the quality and this can effectively reduce the storage space and the bandwidth required for transmission of the stored audio file. Most codecs are implemented as libraries which interface to one or more multimedia players, in hardware, audio codec refers to a single device that encodes analog audio as digital signals and decodes digital back into analog. In other words, it both an analog-to-digital converter and digital-to-analog converter running off the same clock. This is used in cards that support both audio in and out, for instance. Comparison of audio formats List of codecs Open source codecs and containers Transcoding Video codec
10.
Software license
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A software license is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law all software is copyright protected, in code as also object code form. The only exception is software in the public domain, most distributed software can be categorized according to its license type. Two common categories for software under copyright law, and therefore with licenses which grant the licensee specific rights, are proprietary software and free, unlicensed software outside the copyright protection is either public domain software or software which is non-distributed, non-licensed and handled as internal business trade secret. Contrary to popular belief, distributed unlicensed software is copyright protected. Examples for this are unauthorized software leaks or software projects which are placed on public software repositories like GitHub without specified license. As voluntarily handing software into the domain is problematic in some international law domains, there are also licenses granting PD-like rights. Therefore, the owner of a copy of software is legally entitled to use that copy of software. Hence, if the end-user of software is the owner of the respective copy, as many proprietary licenses only enumerate the rights that the user already has under 17 U. S. C. §117, and yet proclaim to take away from the user. Proprietary software licenses often proclaim to give software publishers more control over the way their software is used by keeping ownership of each copy of software with the software publisher. The form of the relationship if it is a lease or a purchase, for example UMG v. Augusto or Vernor v. Autodesk. The ownership of goods, like software applications and video games, is challenged by licensed. The Swiss based company UsedSoft innovated the resale of business software and this feature of proprietary software licenses means that certain rights regarding the software are reserved by the software publisher. Therefore, it is typical of EULAs to include terms which define the uses of the software, the most significant effect of this form of licensing is that, if ownership of the software remains with the software publisher, then the end-user must accept the software license. In other words, without acceptance of the license, the end-user may not use the software at all, one example of such a proprietary software license is the license for Microsoft Windows. The most common licensing models are per single user or per user in the appropriate volume discount level, Licensing per concurrent/floating user also occurs, where all users in a network have access to the program, but only a specific number at the same time. Another license model is licensing per dongle which allows the owner of the dongle to use the program on any computer, Licensing per server, CPU or points, regardless the number of users, is common practice as well as site or company licenses
11.
Free and open-source software
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Free and open-source software is computer software that can be classified as both free software and open-source software. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright, the benefits of using FOSS can include decreasing software costs, increasing security and stability, protecting privacy, and giving users more control over their own hardware. Free, open-source operating systems such as Linux and descendents of BSD are widely utilized today, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones, Free software licenses and open-source licenses are used by many software packages. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s to 1980s, it was common for users to have the source code for all programs they used. Software, including source code, was shared by individuals who used computers. Most companies had a model based on hardware sales, and provided or bundled software with hardware. Organizations of users and suppliers were formed to facilitate the exchange of software, see, for example, SHARE, by the late 1960s, the prevailing business model around software was changing. In United States vs. IBM, filed 17 January 1969, while some software might always be free, there would be a growing amount of software that was for sale only. Software development for the GNU operating system began in January 1984, an article outlining the project and its goals was published in March 1985 titled the GNU Manifesto. The manifesto included significant explanation of the GNU philosophy, Free Software Definition, the Linux kernel, started by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely modifiable source code in 1991. Initially, Linux was not released under a free or open-source software license, however, with version 0.12 in February 1992, he relicensed the project under the GNU General Public License. Much like Unix, Torvalds kernel attracted the attention of volunteer programmers, freeBSD and NetBSD were released as free software when the USL v. BSDi lawsuit was settled out of court in 1993. OpenBSD forked from NetBSD in 1995, also in 1995, The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache, was released under the Apache License 1.0. In 1997, Eric Raymond published The Cathedral and the Bazaar and this code is today better known as Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. Netscapes act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the FSFs free software ideas, the new name they chose was open source, and quickly Bruce Perens, publisher Tim OReilly, Linus Torvalds, and others signed on to the rebranding. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage use of the new term, a Microsoft executive publicly stated in 2001 that open source is an intellectual property destroyer. I cant imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and this view perfectly summarizes the initial response to FOSS by some software corporations. IBM, Oracle, Google and State Farm are just a few of the companies with a serious public stake in todays competitive open-source market, there has been a significant shift in the corporate philosophy concerning the development of free and open-source software
12.
Lossy compression
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In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data encoding methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size for storage, handling, different versions of the photo of the cat above show how higher degrees of approximation create coarser images as more details are removed. This is opposed to data compression which does not degrade the data. The amount of data reduction possible using lossy compression is often higher than through lossless techniques. Well-designed lossy compression technology often reduces file sizes significantly before degradation is noticed by the end-user, even when noticeable by the user, further data reduction may be desirable. Lossy compression is most commonly used to compress multimedia data, especially in such as streaming media. By contrast, lossless compression is required for text and data files, such as bank records. A picture, for example, is converted to a file by considering it to be an array of dots and specifying the color. If the picture contains an area of the color, it can be compressed without loss by saying 200 red dots instead of red dot. The original data contains an amount of information, and there is a lower limit to the size of file that can carry all the information. Basic information theory says there is an absolute limit in reducing the size of this data. When data is compressed, its entropy increases, and it cannot increase indefinitely, as an intuitive example, most people know that a compressed ZIP file is smaller than the original file, but repeatedly compressing the same file will not reduce the size to nothing. Most compression algorithms can recognize when further compression would be pointless, in many cases, files or data streams contain more information than is needed for a particular purpose. Developing lossy compression techniques as closely matched to human perception as possible is a complex task, the terms irreversible and reversible are preferred over lossy and lossless respectively for some applications, such as medical image compression, to circumvent the negative implications of loss. The type and amount of loss can affect the utility of the images, artifacts or undesirable effects of compression may be clearly discernible yet the result still useful for the intended purpose. Or lossy compressed images may be visually lossless, or in the case of medical images and this is because uncompressed audio can only reduce file size by lowering bit rate or depth, whereas compressing audio can reduce size while maintaining bit rate and depth. This compression becomes a loss of the least significant data. From this point of view, perceptual encoding is not essentially about discarding data, green, and 50 pixels of blue vs. red, which are proportional to human sensitivity to each component
13.
Data compression
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In signal processing, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction involves encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Compression can be lossy or lossless. Lossless compression reduces bits by identifying and eliminating statistical redundancy, no information is lost in lossless compression. Lossy compression reduces bits by removing unnecessary or less important information, the process of reducing the size of a data file is referred to as data compression. In the context of data transmission, it is called coding in opposition to channel coding. Compression is useful because it reduces resources required to store and transmit data, computational resources are consumed in the compression process and, usually, in the reversal of the process. Data compression is subject to a space–time complexity trade-off, Lossless data compression algorithms usually exploit statistical redundancy to represent data without losing any information, so that the process is reversible. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistical redundancy, for example, an image may have areas of color that do not change over several pixels, instead of coding red pixel, red pixel. The data may be encoded as 279 red pixels and this is a basic example of run-length encoding, there are many schemes to reduce file size by eliminating redundancy. The Lempel–Ziv compression methods are among the most popular algorithms for lossless storage, DEFLATE is a variation on LZ optimized for decompression speed and compression ratio, but compression can be slow. DEFLATE is used in PKZIP, Gzip, and PNG, LZW is used in GIF images. LZ methods use a table-based compression model where table entries are substituted for repeated strings of data, for most LZ methods, this table is generated dynamically from earlier data in the input. The table itself is often Huffman encoded, current LZ-based coding schemes that perform well are Brotli and LZX. LZX is used in Microsofts CAB format, the best modern lossless compressors use probabilistic models, such as prediction by partial matching. The Burrows–Wheeler transform can also be viewed as a form of statistical modelling. The basic task of grammar-based codes is constructing a context-free grammar deriving a single string, sequitur and Re-Pair are practical grammar compression algorithms for which software is publicly available. In a further refinement of the use of probabilistic modelling. Arithmetic coding is a more modern coding technique that uses the mathematical calculations of a machine to produce a string of encoded bits from a series of input data symbols
14.
Chris Montgomery
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He is also known as Monty and uses xiphmont as an online pseudonym. He holds a B. S. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a multimedia programmer, free software advocate and musician, Monty resides in the Boston area. He previously worked for Red Hat on improving the quality of the Ogg Theora format, in October 2013, he announced his almost immediate switch to Mozilla. Work on Daala will be an important part of his work there, montgomery was the evening keynote at the Ohio LinuxFest in September 2010
15.
Fraunhofer Society
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The Fraunhofer Society is a German research organization with 67 institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science. It employs around 24,000 people, mainly scientists and engineers, some basic funding for the Fraunhofer Society is provided by the state, but more than 70% of the funding is earned through contract work, either for government-sponsored projects or from industry. It is named after Joseph von Fraunhofer who, as a scientist, an engineer, the organization has seven centers in the United States, under the name Fraunhofer USA, and three in Asia. In October 2010, Fraunhofer announced that it would open its first research center in South America, Fraunhofer UK Research Ltd was established along with the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics, in Glasgow, Scotland, in March 2012. The so-called Fraunhofer Model has been in existence since 1973 and has led to the continuing growth. Under the model, the Fraunhofer Society earns about 70% of its income through contracts with industry or specific government projects, the other 30% of the budget is sourced in the proportion 9,1 from federal and state government grants and is used to support preparatory research. Thus the size of the societys budget depends largely on its success in maximizing revenue from commissions and this funding model applies not just to the central society itself but also to the individual institutes. The Fraunhofer Society currently operates 67 institutes and research units and its license revenues generated about €100 million in revenue for the society in 2005. The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute was a significant contributor to the H. 264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard and this includes the Fraunhofer FDK AAC library. Fraunhofer is developing a program for use at IKEA stores, which would allow people to take a picture of their home into a store to view a fully assembled, E-puzzler, a pattern-recognition machine, which can digitally put back together even the most finely shredded papers. The E-puzzler uses a conveyor belt that runs shards of shredded and torn paper through a digital scanner. The Fraunhofer Society was founded in Munich on March 26,1949, by representatives of industry and academia, the government of Bavaria, in 1952, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs declared the Fraunhofer Society to be the third part of the non-university German research landscape. Whether the Fraunhofer Society should support applied research through its own facilities was, however, from 1954, the Societys first institutes developed. By 1956, it was developing research facilities in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, in 1959, the Fraunhofer Society comprised nine institutes with 135 coworkers and a budget of 3.6 million Deutsche Mark. In 1965, the Fraunhofer Society was identified as an organization for applied research. In 1968, the Fraunhofer Society became the target of criticism for its role in military research. By 1969, Fraunhofer had more than 1,200 employees in 19 institutes, the budget stood at 33 million Deutsche Mark. At this time, a commission for the promotion of the development of the Fraunhofer Society planned the development of the Fraunhofer Society
16.
MP3
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Compared to CD quality digital audio, MP3 compression commonly achieves 75 to 95% reduction in size. MP3 files are thus 1/4 to 1/20 the size of the digital audio stream. This is important for both transmission and storage concerns, the basis for such comparison is the CD digital audio format which requires 1411200 bit/s. A commonly used MP3 encoding setting is CBR128 kbit/s resulting in file size 1/11 of the original CD-quality file, the MP3 lossy compression works by reducing the accuracy of certain parts of a continuous sound that are considered to be beyond the auditory resolution ability of most people. This method is referred to as perceptual coding or psychoacoustics. It uses psychoacoustic models to discard or reduce the precision of less audible to human hearing. MP3 was designed by the Moving Picture Experts Group as part of its MPEG-1 standard, the first subgroup for audio was formed by several teams of engineers at Fraunhofer IIS, University of Hanover, AT&T-Bell Labs, Thomson-Brandt, CCETT, and others. MPEG-1 Audio, which included MPEG-1 Audio Layer I, II and III was approved as a draft of ISO/IEC standard in 1991, finalised in 1992. A backwards compatible MPEG-2 Audio extension with lower sample and bit rates was published in 1995, MP3 is a streaming or broadcast format meaning that individual frames can be lost without affecting the ability to decode successfully delivered frames. Storing an MP3 stream in a file enables time-shifted playback, the MP3 lossy audio data compression algorithm takes advantage of a perceptual limitation of human hearing called auditory masking. In 1894, the American physicist Alfred M. Mayer reported that a tone could be rendered inaudible by another tone of lower frequency, in 1959, Richard Ehmer described a complete set of auditory curves regarding this phenomenon. Ernst Terhardt et al. created an algorithm describing auditory masking with high accuracy and this work added to a variety of reports from authors dating back to Fletcher, and to the work that initially determined critical ratios and critical bandwidths. A wide variety of compression algorithms were reported in IEEEs refereed Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. The genesis of the MP3 technology is described in a paper from Professor Hans Musmann who chaired the ISO MPEG Audio group for several years. The immediate predecessors of MP3 were Optimum Coding in the Frequency Domain, the first practical implementation of an audio perceptual coder in hardware, was an implementation of a psychoacoustic transform coder based on Motorola 56000 DSP chips. Another predecessor of the MP3 format and technology is to be found in the perceptual codec MUSICAM based on an integer arithmetics 32 sub-bands filterbank, driven by a psychoacoustic model. It was primarily designed for Digital Audio Broadcasting and digital TV and this codec incorporated into a broadcasting system using COFDM modulation was demonstrated on air and on the field together with Radio Canada and CRC Canada during the NAB show in 1991. F. As a doctoral student at Germanys University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Karlheinz Brandenburg began working on music compression in the early 1980s
17.
Source code
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In computing, source code is any collection of computer instructions, possibly with comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as ordinary text. The source code of a program is designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers. The source code is often transformed by an assembler or compiler into binary machine code understood by the computer, the machine code might then be stored for execution at a later time. Alternatively, source code may be interpreted and thus immediately executed, most application software is distributed in a form that includes only executable files. If the source code were included it would be useful to a user, programmer or a system administrator, the Linux Information Project defines source code as, Source code is the version of software as it is originally written by a human in plain text. The notion of source code may also be more broadly, to include machine code and notations in graphical languages. It is therefore so construed as to include code, very high level languages. Often there are several steps of program translation or minification between the source code typed by a human and an executable program. The earliest programs for stored-program computers were entered in binary through the front panel switches of the computer and this first-generation programming language had no distinction between source code and machine code. When IBM first offered software to work with its machine, the code was provided at no additional charge. At that time, the cost of developing and supporting software was included in the price of the hardware, for decades, IBM distributed source code with its software product licenses, until 1983. Most early computer magazines published source code as type-in programs, Source code can also be stored in a database or elsewhere. The source code for a piece of software may be contained in a single file or many files. Though the practice is uncommon, a source code can be written in different programming languages. For example, a program written primarily in the C programming language, in some languages, such as Java, this can be done at run time. The code base of a programming project is the larger collection of all the source code of all the computer programs which make up the project. It has become practice to maintain code bases in version control systems. Moderately complex software customarily requires the compilation or assembly of several, sometimes dozens or even hundreds, in these cases, instructions for compilations, such as a Makefile, are included with the source code
18.
Richard Stallman
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Richard Matthew Stallman, often known by his initials, rms, is an American software freedom activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in a such that its users receive the freedoms to use, study, distribute. Software that ensures these freedoms is termed free software, Stallman launched the GNU Project, founded the Free Software Foundation, developed the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs, and wrote the GNU General Public License. Stallman launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to create a Unix-like computer operating system composed entirely of free software, with this, he also launched the free software movement. In October 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation, in 1989 he co-founded the League for Programming Freedom. This has included software license agreements, non-disclosure agreements, activation keys, dongles, copy restriction, proprietary formats, as of 2016, he has received fifteen honorary doctorates and professorships. Stallman was born to Alice Lippman, a teacher, and Daniel Stallman. He was interested in computers at an age, when Stallman was a pre-teen at a summer camp. From 1967 to 1969, Stallman attended a Columbia University Saturday program for school students. Stallman was also a laboratory assistant in the biology department at Rockefeller University. Although he was interested in mathematics and physics, his professor at Rockefeller thought he showed promise as a biologist. His first experience with computers was at the IBM New York Scientific Center when he was in high school. He was hired for the summer in 1970, following his year of high school. He completed the task after a couple of weeks and spent the rest of the writing a text editor in APL. As a first-year student at Harvard University in fall 1970, Stallman was known for his performance in Math 55. He was happy, For the first time in my life, Stallman graduated from Harvard magna cum laude earning a bachelors degree in Physics in 1974. Stallman considered staying on at Harvard, but instead he decided to enroll as a student at MIT. He pursued a doctorate in physics for one year, but left that program to focus on his programming at the MIT AI Laboratory
19.
Fork (software development)
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The term often implies not merely a development branch, but also a split in the developer community, a form of schism. Free and open-source software is that which, by definition, may be forked from the development team without prior permission without violating copyright law. However, licensed forks of proprietary software also happen, the word fork stems from the Latin word furca, meaning a fork or similarly shaped instrument. Fork in the meaning of to divide in branches, go separate ways has been used as early as the 14th century. In the software environment, the word evokes the fork system call, however, fork was in use in the present sense by 1995 to describe the XEmacs split, and was an understood usage in the GNU Project by 1996. Thus, there is a penalty associated with forking. The relationship between the different teams can be cordial or very bitter and he notes in the Jargon File, David A. Wheeler notes four possible outcomes of a fork, with examples, The death of the fork. This is by far the most common case and it is easy to declare a fork, but considerable effort to continue independent development and support. With a DVCS such as Mercurial or Git, the way to contribute to a project is to first branch the repository. Forks often restart version numbering from 0.1 or 1.0 even if the software was at version 3.0,4.0. An exception is when the software is designed to be a drop-in replacement for the original project. In proprietary software, the copyright is held by the employing entity. This is almost always an economic decision to generate a greater market share, a notable proprietary fork not of this kind is the many varieties of proprietary Unix—almost all derived from AT&T Unix under license and all called Unix, but increasingly mutually incompatible. The BSD licenses permit forks to become proprietary software, and some say that commercial incentives thus make proprietisation almost inevitable, examples include macOS, Cedega and CrossOver, EnterpriseDB, Supported PostgreSQL with their proprietary ESM storage system, and Netezzas proprietary highly scalable derivative of PostgreSQL. Some of these vendors contribute back changes to the community project, while some keep their changes as their own competitive advantages
20.
Discworld
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The series is popular, with more than 80 million books sold in 37 languages. Forty-one Discworld novels have been published, Pratchett, who suffered from Alzheimers disease, said that he would be happy for his daughter Rhianna to continue the series when he is no longer able to do so. However, Rhianna has stated she will only be involved in spin-offs, adaptations and tie-ins, the original British editions of the first 26 novels, up to Thief of Time, had distinctive cover art by Josh Kirby. The American editions, published by Harper Collins, used their own cover art, since Kirbys death in October 2001, the covers have been designed by Paul Kidby. Companion publications include eleven short stories, four popular science books, in addition, the series has been adapted for graphic novels, for the theatre, as computer and board games, as music inspired by the series, and repeatedly for television. Newly released Discworld books regularly topped The Sunday Times best-sellers list, Discworld novels have also won awards such as the Prometheus Award and the Carnegie Medal. In the BBCs Big Read, four Discworld novels were in the top 100, very few of the Discworld novels have chapter divisions and instead feature interweaving storylines. Pratchett is quoted as saying that he just never got into the habit of chapters, however, the first Discworld novel The Colour of Magic was divided into books, as is Pyramids. The Discworld novels contain common themes and motifs that run through the series, fantasy clichés are parodied in many of the novels, as are various subgenres of fantasy, such as fairy tales, witch and vampire stories and so on. Analogies of real-world issues, such as religion, business and politics, are recurring themes, parodies of non-Discworld fiction also occur frequently, including Shakespeare, Beatrix Potter, and several movies. Major historical events, especially battles, are used as the basis for both trivial and key events in Discworld stories, as are trends in science, technology. There are also humanist themes in many of the Discworld novels, Discworld stories stand alone as independent works set in the same fantasy universe. However, a number of novels and stories can be grouped together into grand story arcs dealing with a set number of characters and events, and some books refer to earlier events. The main threads within the Discworld series are, Rincewind was the first protagonist of Discworld, a wizard with no skill, no wizardly qualifications and he is the archetypal coward but is constantly thrust into extremely dangerous adventures. As such, he not only succeeds in staying alive, but also saves Discworld on several occasions. Rincewind appeared in eight Discworld novels as well as the four Science of Discworld supplementary books, Death appears in every novel except The Wee Free Men and Snuff, although sometimes with only a few lines. As dictated by tradition, he is a skeleton in a black robe who sits astride a pale horse. As the anthropomorphic personification of death, Death has the job of guiding souls onward from this world into the next, over millennia in the role, he has developed a fascination with humanity, even going so far as to create a house for himself in his personal dimension
21.
Small Gods
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Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchetts Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om, and his relations with his prophet, in the process, it satirises religious institutions, people, and practices, and the role of religion in political life. The Great God Om tries to manifest himself once more in the world and he is surprised, however, when he finds himself in the body of a tortoise, stripped of his divine powers. In the gardens of Omnias capital he addresses the novice Brutha, Om has a hard time convincing the boy of his godliness, as Brutha is convinced that Om can do anything he wants, and would not want to appear as a tortoise. Brutha is gifted with a memory and is therefore chosen by Vorbis. However, Brutha is also considered unintelligent, since he never learned to read, with the help of Ephebes Great Library, and the philosophers Didactylos, his nephew, Urn, and Abraxas, Om learns that Brutha is the only one left who believes in him. All others either just fear the Quisitions wrath or go along with the out of habit. While in Ephebe, Bruthas memory aids an Omnian raid through the Labyrinth guarding the Tyrants palace, while in the library of Ephebe, Brutha also memorizes many scrolls in order to protect Ephebeian knowledge as Didactylos sets fire to the building, to stop Vorbis reading the scrolls there. Fleeing the ensuing struggle by boat, Brutha, Om and a severely injured Vorbis end up lost in the desert, trekking home to Omnia, they encounter ruined temples as well as the small gods who are faint ghost-like beings yearning to be believed in to become powerful. Realizing his mortality and how important his believers are to him, on the deserts edge, a recovered Vorbis attempts to finish off Oms tortoise form, abducts Brutha, and proceeds to become ordained as the Eighth Prophet. Brutha is to be burned for heresy while strapped on a heatable bronze turtle when Om comes to the rescue. As a great crowd witnesses this miracle they come to believe in Om, Om manifests himself within the citadel and attempts to grant Brutha the honour of establishing the Churchs new doctrines. However, Brutha does not agree with Oms new rule and explains that the Church should care for people while having a tolerance for religious practices. Meanwhile, Ephebe has gained the support of other nations and has sent an army against Omnia. Brutha attempts to establish contact with the generals of the opposing army. Despite trusting Brutha, the state they do not trust Omnia. At the same time, Simony leads the Omnian military to the beachhead, while the fighting occurs on the beachhead, Om attempts to physically intervene, but Brutha demands he does not interfere with the actions of humans. Om becomes infuriated but obeys Brutha, but he travels to an area of the Discworld where gods gamble on the lives of humans in order to gain or lose belief, while there, Om manages to unleash his fury, even striking the other gods
22.
Terry Pratchett
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Sir Terence David John Terry Pratchett, OBE was an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels, Pratchetts first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983 and his 2011 Discworld novel Snuff was at the time of its release the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-readership novel since records began in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days. His final Discworld novel, The Shepherds Crown, was published in August 2015, Pratchett, with more than 85 million books sold worldwide in 37 languages, was the UKs best-selling author of the 1990s. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in the 2009 New Year Honours, in 2001 he won the annual Carnegie Medal for The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, the first Discworld book marketed for children. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2010, in December 2007, Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers disease. Pratchett died on 12 March 2015 at age 66, Pratchett was born on 28 April 1948 in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, England, the only child of David and Eileen Pratchett, of Hay-on-Wye where he attended Holtspur School. Pratchett described himself as a student and, in his Whos Who entry. He collected Brooke Bond tea cards about space, owned a telescope and wanted to be an astronomer and he developed an interest in reading science fiction and began attending science fiction conventions from about 1963–1964, but stopped when he got his first job a few years later. His early reading included the works of H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, and every book you ought to read. Pratchett published his first short story entitled Business Rivals in the High Wycombe Technical School magazine in 1962 and it is the tale of a man named Crucible who finds the Devil in his flat in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. The Hades Business, which was published in the magazine when he was 13 was published commercially when he was 15. Pratchett earned five O-levels and started A-level courses in Art, English, One of these episodic stories contains characters found in his novel, The Carpet People. The stories are part of a project by the Bucks Free Press to make them available online. While on day release he finished his A-Level in English and took a course for journalists. Pratchett had his breakthrough in 1968 when he interviewed Peter Bander van Duren, co-director of a small publishing company. During the meeting, Pratchett mentioned he had written a manuscript, Colin Smythe Ltd published the book in 1971, with illustrations by Pratchett. The book received strong, if few, reviews and was followed by the science fiction novels The Dark Side of the Sun, after various positions in journalism, in 1980 Pratchett became Press Officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board in an area which covered four nuclear power stations
23.
Nanny Ogg
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Gytha Ogg is a character from Terry Pratchetts Discworld series. She is a witch and member of the Lancre coven, the character of Nanny Ogg is based on the Mother stereotype of the Triple Goddess myth. Nanny Ogg has been married three times, with fifteen children who survived their childhood, and has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What makes her the Mother, however, is her mentality, people go to Granny Weatherwax for help when they have no choice, but they go to Nanny for advice all the time. Granny is respected, but Nanny is actually liked, Nanny Ogg has a talent for getting along with people and fitting in. As described in Maskerade, people, after knowing her for fifteen minutes, Granny Weatherwax knows about this ability, and recognizes its use, and wonders sometimes if it would have been worth acquiring it. Nanny Ogg is wiser than Esme Weatherwax in some ways, Nanny Ogg is seen as one of the people in a way that Esme is not. While Granny sees no point in competing if you arent going to win, Granny comes across as judgemental, whereas Nanny is broadminded. She appears to be kinder than Granny, but is prepared to make tough decisions if necessary. The difference has also been summarised like this, Granny Weatherwaxs legendary reputation around the Ramtops can ensure cooperation, if Granny should be away from where shes known, her commanding presence is usually enough to get people to do what she says. But people dont mind doing things when Nanny asks them, people tend to give her things and her home is filled with knick-knacks such as pink skulls and rude garden gnomes that serve no useful purpose except to highlight her eccentricities. Her family brings back souvenirs for her whenever they go more than a few miles from home, since she doesnt care whether theyre cheap or not, she has several things with legends such as To The Worlds Greatest Mum on them. She shares this home with Greebo, a tomcat of evil aroma and astonishing viciousness, indeed, incurring Nannys wrath is suggested to be much more dangerous because of her reflexively kind personality. Within the Discworld universe, Nanny has written books, including The Joye of Snacks, Mother Oggs Tales For Tiny Folk. The first two were following the publisher discovering what the dishes described in the recipes did, the third survived with heavy editing. Nanny enjoys food and drink despite only having one remaining tooth, when she is drunk, she has a tendency to sing very special songs, the most popular being The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All or simply The Hedgehog Song. A close runner up for the most popular Nanny Ogg song is A Wizards Staff has a Knob on the End, residents of Lancre tend to hide their livestock at this time as well, as the trauma causes the sheep and goats to give yogurt for weeks afterwards. This event usually occurs once a year, so everyone has plenty of time to prepare and it is also notable that she once gave Agnes Nitt lessons on how to sing, including how sing in harmony with herself
24.
Netrek
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Netrek is an Internet game for up to 16 players, written almost entirely in cross-platform open source software. It combines features of multi-directional shooters and team-based real-time strategy games, players attempt to disable or destroy their opponents ships in real-time combat, while taking over enemy planets by bombing them and dropping off armies they pick up on friendly planets. The goal of the game is to all the opposing teams planets. Developed as a successor to 1986s Xtrek, Netrek was first played in 1988 and it was the third Internet game, the first Internet team game, and as of 2011 is the oldest Internet game still actively played. It pioneered many technologies used in games, and has been cited as prior art in patent disputes. Xtrek and Netrek are the oldest games of what is now called the MOBA genre, the following describes Bronco Netrek, also known as Vanilla Netrek. Other variations of the game exist, such as Hockey Netrek in which players use tractor beams to manipulate a hockey puck, however, Bronco is the most prevalent form. Netrek is essentially an expanded version of Empire, a multi-user space combat game that ran on the PLATO. Empire, in turn, is essentially a version of the seminal Spacewar. Like those games, in Netrek each player takes command of a starship, the game combines both tactical combat and strategic goals. The game galaxy consists of 40 planets distributed about the map, the map is further divided into 4 sectors of 10 planets each. Netrek divided the players one of four teams, loosely based on the Star Trek universe, the Federation, Romulans, Klingons. Each team is assigned to a single sector when the map is reset, some worlds, however, have special facilities that help any friendly units in orbit of them. Repair facilities, represented by a wrench, speed up repairs to the hull and shields. Fuel depots, represented by a fuel can, speed up the recharge rate of any ships in orbit of the planet. Some worlds may have both these while others have one or none, as well as fuel and repair facilities, some planets generate armies at a faster rate than other planets, these planets are known as agricultural planets, or agris. A teams home planet always offers fuel and repair facilities, but is never an agricultural planet, of the nine other starting planets, two are agricultural and others are assigned fuel depots or repair facilities. Planets slowly generate armies, which may be beamed up by players, planets can be bombed to kill off armies, but only to a point, dropping armies is always required
25.
Free software
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The right to study and modify software entails availability of the software source code to its users. This right is conditional on the person actually having a copy of the software. Richard Stallman used the existing term free software when he launched the GNU Project—a collaborative effort to create a freedom-respecting operating system—and the Free Software Foundation. The FSFs Free Software Definition states that users of software are free because they do not need to ask for permission to use the software. Free software thus differs from proprietary software, such as Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides or iWork from Apple, which users cannot study, change, freeware, which is a category of freedom-restricting proprietary software that does not require payment for use. For computer programs that are covered by law, software freedom is achieved with a software license. Software that is not covered by law, such as software in the public domain, is free if the source code is in the public domain. Proprietary software, including freeware, use restrictive software licences or EULAs, Users are thus prevented from changing the software, and this results in the user relying on the publisher to provide updates, help, and support. This situation is called vendor lock-in, Users often may not reverse engineer, modify, or redistribute proprietary software. Other legal and technical aspects, such as patents and digital rights management may restrict users in exercising their rights. Free software may be developed collaboratively by volunteer computer programmers or by corporations, as part of a commercial, from the 1950s up until the early 1970s, it was normal for computer users to have the software freedoms associated with free software, which was typically public domain software. Software was commonly shared by individuals who used computers and by manufacturers who welcomed the fact that people were making software that made their hardware useful. Organizations of users and suppliers, for example, SHARE, were formed to exchange of software. As software was written in an interpreted language such as BASIC. Software was also shared and distributed as printed source code in computer magazines and books, in United States vs. IBM, filed January 17,1969, the government charged that bundled software was anti-competitive. While some software might always be free, there would henceforth be an amount of software produced primarily for sale. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the industry began using technical measures to prevent computer users from being able to study or adapt the software as they saw fit. In 1980, copyright law was extended to computer programs, Software development for the GNU operating system began in January 1984, and the Free Software Foundation was founded in October 1985
26.
Video game
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A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. The word video in video game referred to a raster display device. Some theorists categorize video games as an art form, but this designation is controversial, the electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms, examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms range from large mainframe computers to small handheld computing devices, the input device used for games, the game controller, varies across platforms. Common controllers include gamepads, joysticks, mouse devices, keyboards, the touchscreens of mobile devices, and buttons, or even, with the Kinect sensor, a persons hands and body. Players typically view the game on a screen or television or computer monitor, or sometimes on virtual reality head-mounted display goggles. There are often game sound effects, music and, in the 2010s, some games in the 2000s include haptic, vibration-creating effects, force feedback peripherals and virtual reality headsets. In the 2010s, the game industry is of increasing commercial importance, with growth driven particularly by the emerging Asian markets and mobile games. As of 2015, video games generated sales of USD74 billion annually worldwide, early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example is from 1947—a Cathode ray tube Amusement Device was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U. S. Written by MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanens on a DEC PDP-1 computer in 1961, and the hit ping pong-style Pong, used the DEC PDP-1s vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. In 1971, Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was the first commercially sold and it used a black-and-white television for its display, and the computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips. The game was featured in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green, Computer Space was followed in 1972 by the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console. Modeled after a late 1960s prototype console developed by Ralph H. Baer called the Brown Box and these were followed by two versions of Ataris Pong, an arcade version in 1972 and a home version in 1975 that dramatically increased video game popularity. The commercial success of Pong led numerous other companies to develop Pong clones and their own systems, the game inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants, and convenience stores. The game also became the subject of articles and stories on television and in newspapers and magazines. Space Invaders was soon licensed for the Atari VCS, becoming the first killer app, the term platform refers to the specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware which, in conjunction with software, allows a video game to operate. The term system is commonly used
27.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
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Amnesia, The Dark Descent is a survival horror video game by Frictional Games, released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and PlayStation 4 platforms. The game features a protagonist named Daniel exploring a dark and foreboding castle, while avoiding monsters, the game was critically well received, earning two awards from the Independent Games Festival and numerous positive reviews. Originally released independently via online distribution, the game has since been published in retail by 1C Company in Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as THQ in North America. A collection of five short stories set in the world of Amnesia, written by Mikael Hedberg and illustrated by the games concept artists, was also made available. The Amnesia Collection – which contains The Dark Descent, its Amnesia, Justine expansion, in a similar vein to the developer Frictional Games previous games, Amnesia is an adventure game played from a first-person perspective. The game retains the physical object used in the Penumbra series, allowing for physics-based puzzles and interactions such as opening doors. Few in-game objects are operated by toggle, to open a door, for instance, in addition to a health indicator, Daniels sanity must be managed. Being in darkness too long, witnessing unsettling events, or staring at monsters will reduce Daniels sanity, causing visual and auditory hallucinations and drawing the attention of monsters. However, the number of tinderboxes and the amount of oil available are both limited, and standing in a source also makes the player more noticeable to monsters. The player must balance the amount of time Daniel spends in light, sanity is fully restored once Daniel completes an objective or progresses the games story. It may also be restored by staying in the shadows until Daniel passes out, if a monster spots Daniel, it will chase him until hes out of sight. If spotted, Daniel must flee, as Amnesia does not give the player access to weapons, players can also choose to hide Daniel in the shadows, at cost to sanity. Monsters who lose sight of Daniel will search for him for a time and they can also choose, preferably while being chased, to pick up an object and throw it to the monster, temporarily stunning the monster for about two seconds and giving Daniel some extra distance. In late August 1839, Daniel, a man from London, awakens in the dark. All he can remember is his name, that he lives in Mayfair, as he makes his way through the castle, Daniel gradually learns both about its mysteries and about his own past, through notes and diaries he finds as well as through sudden flashbacks and visions. Separated from his men in the tomb, Daniel discovered a mystical orb and felt it calling to him, afterwards, Herbert sent him back to London to recover and he brought the orb with him. He began to be plagued by nightmares, and found that Herberts expedition has disappeared, feeling desperate and hunted, he decided to accept the invitation of Alexander, who had replied to his letter by offering him protection at Brennenburg. Broken, he decided to kill Alexander in revenge for making him a monster and he has been seeking a way to use an orb to return to his dimension, and now needs to do this as soon a possible since he fears that other nobles no longer trust him
28.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
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Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas is an open world action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 26 October 2004 for the PlayStation 2, a high definition remaster received a physical release on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 on 30 June 2015 and 1 December 2015, respectively. It is the title in the Grand Theft Auto series. It was released on the day as the handheld game Grand Theft Auto Advance. Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas is played from a perspective in an open world environment. The game is set within the fictional U. S. state of San Andreas, the state of San Andreas consists of three metropolitan cities, Los Santos, based on Los Angeles, San Fierro, based on San Francisco, and Las Venturas, based on Las Vegas. The single-player story follows Carl CJ Johnson, who returns home to Los Santos from Liberty City after his mothers murder. It became the video game of 2004, and has sold over 27.5 million copies worldwide as of 2011. The game, like its predecessors, is cited as a landmark in video games for its influence within the industry. However, the violence and sexual content of San Andreas has been the source of public concern. In particular, a software patch, dubbed the Hot Coffee mod. The next main entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto IV, was released on 29 April 2008, San Andreas has been ported to various other platforms and services, such as OS X, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and mobile devices. San Andreas is structured similarly to the two games in the series. The core gameplay consists of elements of a shooter and a driving game, affording the player a large. On foot, the character is capable of walking, running, sprinting, swimming, climbing and jumping as well as using weapons. Players can drive a variety of vehicles, including automobiles, buses, semis, boats, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, trains, tanks, players may also import vehicles in addition to stealing them. The open, non-linear environment allows players to explore and choose how they wish to play the game, although storyline missions are necessary to progress through the game and unlock certain cities and content, they are not required as players can complete them at their own leisure. When not taking on a mission, players can free-roam and look around the cities of San Andreas, eat in restaurants, or cause havoc by attacking people
29.
Halo: Combat Evolved
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Halo, Combat Evolved is a 2001 military science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The first game of the Halo franchise, it was released as a title for the Xbox gaming system on November 15,2001. More than five copies were sold worldwide by November 2005. The game was released as a downloadable Xbox Original for the Xbox 360. Halo is set in the century, with the player assuming the role of the Master Chief. The player is accompanied by Cortana, an artificial intelligence who occupies the Master Chiefs neural interface, players battle various aliens as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the eponymous Halo, a ring-shaped artificial world. Halo has been praised as one of the greatest video games of all time, the games popularity has led to labels such as Halo clone and Halo killer, applied respectively to games either similar to or anticipated to be better than it. In addition, the inspired and was used in the fan-created Red vs. Blue video series, which is credited as the first big success of machinima, the player can move around and look up, down, left, or right. The game features vehicles, ranging from armored jeeps and tanks to alien hovercraft and aircraft, the game switches to a third-person perspective during vehicle use for pilots and mounted gun operators, passengers maintain a first-person view. The games heads-up display includes a motion tracker that registers moving allies, moving or firing enemies, the player character is equipped with an energy shield which nullifies damage from weapons fire and forceful impacts. The shields charge appears as a bar in the corner of the games heads-up display. When the shield is depleted, the player is highly vulnerable. When this health meter reaches zero, the dies and the game reloads from a saved checkpoint. Halos arsenal consists of weapons from science fiction, the game has been praised for giving each weapon a unique purpose, thus making each useful in different scenarios. In contrast to the large inventories of contemporary FPS games. All weapons may be used to bludgeon enemies, which allows Master Chief to silently kill opponents without alerting other nearby enemies, the Chief can also carry up to eight grenades at a time, up to four fragmentation and four plasma grenades each. The games main enemy force is the Covenant, a group of alien species allied by belief in a common religion, a secondary enemy is the Flood, a parasitic alien life form that appears in three main variants
30.
Minecraft
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Minecraft is a sandbox video game originally created and designed by Swedish game designer Markus Notch Persson, and later fully developed and published by Mojang. The creative and building aspects of Minecraft enable players to build out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. Other activities in the game include exploration, resource gathering, crafting, the PC version of the game is noted for its modding scene, where a dedicated community creates new gameplay mechanics, items, and assets for the game. Minecraft received praise from critics, and won awards and accolades. As of February 2017, over 121 million copies have been sold across all platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time, only behind the various releases of Tetris. In September 2014, Microsoft announced a deal to buy Mojang, Minecraft is a three-dimensional sandbox game that has no specific goals for the player to accomplish, allowing players a great amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. However, there is an achievement system, gameplay by default is first person, but players have the option to play in third person mode. The core gameplay revolves around breaking and placing blocks, the game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes—arranged in a fixed grid pattern and representing different materials, such as dirt, stone, various ores, water, lava, tree trunks, etc. While players can move freely across the world, objects can only be placed at fixed locations on the grid, players can gather these material blocks and place them elsewhere, thus allowing for various constructions. At the start of the game, the player is placed on the surface of a procedurally generated, the world is divided into biomes ranging from deserts to jungles to snowfields. Players can walk across the terrain consisting of plains, mountains, forests, caves, the in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting 20 real-time minutes. Throughout the course of the game, players encounter various non-player characters known as mobs, including animals, villagers, non-hostile animals—such as cows, pigs, and chickens—can be hunted for food and crafting materials, and spawn in the daytime. By contrast, hostile mobs—such as large spiders, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places, such as caves. The game world is generated as players explore it, using a map seed which is obtained from the system clock at the time of world creation unless manually specified by the player. The game achieves this by splitting the world data into smaller sections called chunks. The games physics system has often described by commentators as unrealistic. Most solid blocks are not affected by gravity, liquids flow from a source block, which can be removed by placing a solid block in its place, or by scooping it into a bucket. Complex systems can be built using mechanical devices, electrical circuits
31.
World of Warcraft
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World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2,2001, the game was released on November 23,2004, on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise. The first expansion set of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16,2007, the second expansion set, Wrath of the Lich King, was released on November 13,2008. The third expansion set, Cataclysm, was released on December 7,2010, the fourth expansion set, Mists of Pandaria, was released on September 25,2012. The fifth expansion set, Warlords of Draenor, was released on November 13,2014, the sixth expansion set, Legion, was released on August 30,2016. In January 2014, Blizzard announced that more than 100 million accounts had been created over the games lifetime, players may instead use a trial account that lets the player character reach level 20 for free but has many features locked. To enter the game, the player must select a server, each realm acts as an individual copy of the game world and falls into one of four categories. RP – a variant of PvE, where players roleplay in-character, rP-PvP – roleplay-PvP – a variant of PvP, where players are in-character and cross-faction combat is assumed. Realms are also categorized by language, with support in the language available. Players can make new characters on all realms within the region, to create a new character, in keeping with the storyline of previous Warcraft games, players must choose between the opposing factions of the Alliance or the Horde. Characters from the factions can perform rudimentary communication, but only members of the same faction can speak, mail, group. The player selects the new race, such as orcs or trolls for the Horde. Players must select the class for the character, with such as mages, warriors. Most classes are limited to particular races, as characters become more developed, they gain various talents and skills, requiring the player to further define the abilities of that character. Characters can choose two primary professions that can focus on producing items, such as tailoring, blacksmithing or jewelcrafting or on gathering from resource nodes, characters can learn all four secondary skills, archeology, cooking, fishing and first aid. Much of World of Warcraft play involves the completion of quests and these quests are usually available from NPCs. Quests usually reward the player with some combination of points, items
32.
Plug-in (computing)
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In computing, a plug-in is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. When a program supports plug-ins, it enables customization, the common examples are the plug-ins used in web browsers to add new features such as search-engines, virus scanners, or the ability to use a new file type such as a new video format. Applications support plug-ins for many reasons, types of applications and why they use plug-ins, Audio editors use plug-ins to generate, process or analyse sound. Ardour and Audacity are examples of such editors, email clients use plug-ins to decrypt and encrypt email. Pretty Good Privacy is an example of such plug-ins, graphics software use plug-ins to support file formats and process images. Media players use plug-ins to support file formats and apply filters, foobar2000, GStreamer, Quintessential, VST, Winamp, XMMS are examples of such media players. Packet sniffers use plug-ins to decode packet formats, omniPeek is an example of such packet sniffers. Remote sensing applications use plug-ins to process data from different sensor types, Visual Studio itself can be plugged into other applications via Visual Studio Tools for Office and Visual Studio Tools for Applications. Web browsers use browser extensions to expand their functionality, examples include Adobe Flash Player, Java SE, QuickTime, Microsoft Silverlight and Unity. The host application provides services which the plug-in can use, including a way for plug-ins to register themselves with the host application, plug-ins depend on the services provided by the host application and do not usually work by themselves. Programmers typically implement plug-in functionality using shared libraries installed in a place prescribed by the host application, HyperCard supported a similar facility, but more commonly included the plug-in code in the HyperCard documents themselves. Thus the HyperCard stack became a self-contained application in its own right, programs may also implement plugins by loading a directory of simple script files written in a scripting language like Python or Lua. In Mozilla Foundation definitions, the words add-on, extension and plug-in are not synonyms, add-on can refer to anything that extends the functions of a Mozilla application. Extensions comprise a subtype, albeit the most common and the most powerful one, Mozilla applications come with integrated add-on managers that, similar to package managers, install, update and manage extensions. The term, Plug-in, however, strictly refers to NPAPI-based web content renderers, the plug-in program could make calls to the editor to have it perform text-editing services upon the buffer that the editor shared with the plug-in. The Waterloo Fortran compiler used this feature to allow interactive compilation of Fortran programs edited by EDT, very early PC software applications to incorporate plug-in functionality included HyperCard and QuarkXPress on the Macintosh, both released in 1987. In 1988, Silicon Beach Software included plug-in functionality in Digital Darkroom and SuperPaint, and Ed Bomke coined the term plug-in
33.
Wikipedia
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Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that aims to allow anyone to edit articles. Wikipedia is the largest and most popular reference work on the Internet and is ranked among the ten most popular websites. Wikipedia is owned by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia was launched on January 15,2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Sanger coined its name, a portmanteau of wiki and encyclopedia, There was only the English language version initially, but it quickly developed similar versions in other languages, which differ in content and in editing practices. With 5,377,348 articles, the English Wikipedia is the largest of the more than 290 Wikipedia encyclopedias, in 2005, Nature published a peer review comparing 42 science articles from Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia, and found that Wikipedias level of accuracy approached Encyclopædia Britannicas. Other collaborative online encyclopedias were attempted before Wikipedia, but none were so successful, Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. Nupedia was founded on March 9,2000, under the ownership of Bomis and its main figures were Jimmy Wales, the CEO of Bomis, and Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Nupedia was licensed initially under its own Nupedia Open Content License, while Wales is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopedia, Sanger is credited with the strategy of using a wiki to reach that goal. On January 10,2001, Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a project for Nupedia. Wikipedia was launched on January 15,2001, as a single English-language edition at www. wikipedia. com, Wikipedias policy of neutral point-of-view was codified in its first months. Otherwise, there were few rules initially and Wikipedia operated independently of Nupedia. Originally, Bomis intended to make Wikipedia a business for profit, Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and web search engine indexing. By August 8,2001, Wikipedia had over 8,000 articles, on September 25,2001, Wikipedia had over 13,000 articles. By the end of 2001, it had grown to approximately 20,000 articles and 18 language editions and it had reached 26 language editions by late 2002,46 by the end of 2003, and 161 by the final days of 2004. Nupedia and Wikipedia coexisted until the servers were taken down permanently in 2003. Citing fears of commercial advertising and lack of control in Wikipedia and these moves encouraged Wales to announce that Wikipedia would not display advertisements, and to change Wikipedias domain from wikipedia. com to wikipedia. org. Around 1,800 articles were added daily to the encyclopedia in 2006, a team at the Palo Alto Research Center attributed this slowing of growth to the projects increasing exclusivity and resistance to change. Others suggest that the growth is flattening naturally because articles that could be called low-hanging fruit—topics that clearly merit an article—have already been created, the Wall Street Journal cited the array of rules applied to editing and disputes related to such content among the reasons for this trend
34.
Jamendo
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Jamendo is a music website and an open community of independent artists and music lovers. It bills itself as the worlds largest digital service for free music, Jamendo was originally introduced as a service for releasing music under the Creative Commons licenses. As of October,2015, Jamendo no longer advertises its music as Creative Commons, the goal of Jamendo is to connect musicians and music lovers from all over the world, and to bring together a worldwide community of independent music, creating experience and value around it. Based in Luxembourg, the website has a community of 3 million members, at the end of 2013, the catalog offered over 400,000 tracks by 30,000 artists from 150 countries. As of January 2015, the Jamendo homepage shows a count of 460,000 tracks available, as of December 2016,40,000 artists from 150 countries trust Jamendo, sharing more than half a million songs to be streamed and downloaded for free. Jamendo S. A. originally created under the name Peermajor SARL in 2004, was launched in January 2005 and it was funded in June 2007 by Mangrove Capital Partners, Skypes investors. Starting in January 2007, Jamendo tested an advertising revenue sharing program which was later dropped, in December 2007, the second version of the website was launched, offering a new design and new functionalities. On June 18,2008 the platform passed the 10,000 albums milestone, June 2009 saw the release of Jamendos first mobile applications for Android and iOS. That same month, Jamendos co-founder and CTO Sylvain Zimmer received the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in Luxembourg, in December 2009, a partnership was made with Deezer, giving Jamendo artists the opportunity to release their music on Deezer as well. Jamendo faced financial difficulties in early 2010 and started looking for investors, stability returned when MusicMatic, a Brussels-based company specialized in music solutions for businesses and public places, entered Jamendos capital. In August 2011, Jamendo obtained the PUR label from French authority HADOPI, on April 24,2012, the third version of the website was launched. It offered a new design, new functionalities allowing for more promotion, ten new genre-specific radio channels. On December 8,2014, Jamendo PRO turned into Jamendo Licensing, showing an entirely reshaped version of their commercial service, as of October 2015, Jamendo officialy became Jamendo Music, showing its will to clearly differentiate the two parts of the company. Jamendo offers artists the opportunity to publish their music for free under Creative Commons licenses, artists joining Jamendo cannot be registered to any collecting rights society, such as GEMA in Germany or SGAE in Spain, as such organizations are often holding exclusive rights on artists works. More flexibility is observed in other collecting societies, recognizing music under Creative Commons licenses as long as commercial use is excluded and this is notably the case for SACEM in France. In the United States, ASCAP and BMI even recognize the use of Jamendo by their registered artists, each artist has a profile displaying uploaded albums and singles, along with artist information. These profiles are managed by the artist, with access to features and tools like stats, notifications about interaction with the music, fan messaging. Users can listen to MP3 encoded audio files and download in MP3, listening and downloading is free, unlimited and without any advertisements
35.
Absolute Radio
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Absolute Radio is one of the UKs three Independent National Radio stations. The station rebranded to its current name at 7,45 am on 29 September 2008, the station is based in London and plays popular rock music. It currently broadcasts on medium wave and DAB across the UK, on 105.8 FM in London and 105.2 FM in the West Midlands, Sky, Virgin Media, Freeview and Freesat. It is also available in parts of the world via satellite, cable. As of 31 December 2013, international streaming via the internet has been discontinued, Absolute Radio is a patron of The Radio Academy. Absolute Radio is owned and operated by Bauer Radio of Hamburg based Bauer Media Group, the 1990 Broadcasting Act allowed for the launch of independent national radio stations in the United Kingdom. The Radio Authority was mandated to award three INR licences, one of which had to be for a station, and one of which had to be for a predominantly speech-based service. The remaining licence was to be open to all-comers, the licences were to be awarded to the highest cash bidder, providing that the applicant met criteria set down in the Broadcasting Act. The second national licence, INR2, would take over the 1197 kHz and 1215 kHz frequencies, later that year, TV-am lost its ITV license and its stake in the radio station was sold in March 1993 to Apax Partners, JP Morgan Investment Corporation and Sir David Frost. The station launched as Virgin 1215 at 12.15 pm on 30 April 1993, the original line-up of DJs included Richard Skinner, Russ Williams, Jono Coleman, Mitch Johnson, Graham Dene, Nick Abbot, Wendy Lloyd, Tommy Rivers, Emperor Rosko and Dave Fanning. Chris Evans was also hired to present a Saturday morning show, the Show, The Big Red Mug Show was sponsored by Nescafe. The first song was a version of the Steppenwolf song Born to be Wild. Richard Branson was the first voice to be heard, live from the Virgin Megastore in Manchester, Skinner was also Programme Director, a role he shared with John Revell. John Pearson, formerly Sales Director of LBC was launch Sales Director, andy Mollett was launch Finance Director. David Campbell, previously managing director of one of Virgins post-production television companies, was the executive at launch. From before its launch on AM, Virgin Radio was campaigning for a national FM network, Virgin Radio launched on 105.8 MHz FM in London on 10 April 1995 beginning with a message from broadcaster David Frost at 6 am followed by the Russ n’ Jono breakfast show. Part of the requirements for the London service meant that a daily London opt-out was broadcast on FM. Within a year, Virgin Group was considering the next steps for the station, including the option of a flotation or buying back the shares of JP Morgan, Apax
36.
NPR
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NPR produces and distributes news and cultural programming. Individual public radio stations are not required to broadcast all NPR programs that are produced and its content is also available on-demand via the web, mobile, and podcasts. The organizations legal name is National Public Radio and its brand is NPR. Is NPR has been used by its hosts for many years. However, National Public Radio remains the name of the group. National Public Radio replaced the National Educational Radio Network on February 26,1970 and this act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which created the Public Broadcasting Service in addition to NPR. A CPB organizing committee under John Witherspoon first created a Board of Directors chaired by Bernard Mayes, the board then hired Donald Quayle to be the first president of NPR with 30 employees and 90 charter member stations, and studios in Washington, D. C. NPR aired its first broadcast in April 1971, covering United States Senate hearings on the Vietnam War, a month later, the afternoon drive-time newscast All Things Considered began, on May 3,1971, first hosted by Robert Conley. NPR was primarily a production and distribution organization until 1977, when it merged with the Association of Public Radio Stations, NPR suffered an almost fatal setback in 1983 when efforts to expand services created a deficit of nearly US$7 million. After a congressional investigation and the resignation of NPRs president, Frank Mankiewicz, NPR also agreed to turn its satellite service into a cooperative venture, making it possible for non-NPR shows to get national distribution. It took NPR approximately three years to pay off the debt, delano Lewis, the president of C&P Telephone, left that position to become NPRs CEO and president in January 1994. In November 1998, NPRs board of directors hired Kevin Klose, NPR spent nearly $13 million to acquire and equip a West Coast 25, 000-square-foot production facility, NPR West, which opened in Culver City, Los Angeles County, California, in November 2002. C. In November 2003, NPR received US$235 million from the estate of the late Joan B, Kroc, the widow of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonalds Corporation. This was the largest monetary gift ever to a cultural institution, in 2004 NPRs budget increased by over 50% to US$153 million due to the Kroc gift. US$34 million of the money was deposited in its endowment, the endowment fund before the gift totaled $35 million. NPR will use the interest from the bequest to expand its news staff, the 2005 budget was about US$120 million. In August 2005, NPR entered podcasting with a directory of over 170 programs created by NPR, by November of that year, users downloaded NPR and other public radio podcasts 5 million times
