Zanac

 is an arcade-style shoot 'em up video game designed by Compile and published in Japan by Pony Canyon and in North America by FCI.
It was released for the MSX computer, the Family Computer Disk System, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and for the Virtual Console. It was reworked for the MSX2 computer as Zanac EX and for the PlayStation as Zanac X Zanac. Players fly a lone starfighter, dubbed the "AFX-6502 Zanac", through twelve levels; their goal is to destroy the "System"—a part-organic, part-mechanical entity bent on destroying mankind.
"Zanac" was developed by main core developers of Compile, including Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani, Koji "Janus" Teramoto, and Takayuki "Jemini" Hirono. All of these developers went on to make other popular similarly-based games such as "The Guardian Legend", "Blazing Lazers", and the "Puyo Puyo" series. The game is known for its intense and fast-paced gameplay, level of difficulty, and music which seems to match the pace of the game. It has been praised for its unique adaptive artificial intelligence, in which the game automatically adjusts the difficulty level according to the player's skill level, rate of fire and the ship's current defensive status/capability.
Gameplay.
In "Zanac", the player controls the spaceship "AFX-6502 Zanac" as it flies through various planets, space stations, and outer space and through an armada of enemies comprising the defenses of the game's main antagonist—the "System". The player must fight through twelve levels and destroy the System and its defenses. The objective is to shoot down enemies and projectiles and accumulate points. Players start with three lives, and they lose a life if they get hit by an enemy or projectile. After losing a life, gameplay continues with the player reappearing on the screen and losing all previously accumulated power-ups; the player remains temporarily invincible for a moment upon reappearing on the screen. The game ends when all the player's lives have been lost or after completing the twelfth and final area. However, the player can earn 1-ups (extra lives) throughout the game by accumulating high point scores. "Zanac" has a continue option which allows players to restart the game from the level in which they lost all their lives.
The player operates a rapid-fire main cannon, which can be upgraded by collecting power-ups found in blue boxes that periodically descend from the top of the screen. As the main cannon's power level is upgraded, the number of bullets fired from the ship as well as their speed increases. In addition, the player operates a specialty weapon that is separate from the main cannon. There are eight different specialty weapons, each represented by differently-numbered power-ups. The player can change the type of specialty weapon equipped by collecting a differently-numbered power-up or can upgrade their current specialty weapon by collecting a numbered power-up that matches their current weapon. These weapons range from directional bullets to shields to indestructible projectiles. Players lose all accumulated power-ups if they lose a life.
Enemies in "Zanac" include meteors, various bullet-shooting enemy aircraft, bullet-resistant disks, ground turrets, and reconnaissance planes. The bosses consist of stationary fortresses consisting entirely of ground turrets. The player must destroy all these turrets within a specified time limit to score bonus points. Every stage has one or more of these stationary fortresses. In addition, large enemy ships acting as "mini-bosses" appear throughout the game. These ships are more resistant to the player's weaponry; all bullets inflict minor damage and are repelled off the mini-bosses, which change color as they become more damaged.
The distinguishing aspect of "Zanac"'s gameplay is its unique enemy artificial intelligence, called the "Automatic Level of Difficulty Control" or ALC. The ALC measures the System's aggressiveness and the game's difficulty depending on the actions of the player, such as attack pattern and skill level. The ALC increases for experts but decreases for inexperienced players. For instance, shooting the main cannon frequently, collecting power-ups, and failing to destroy bosses within the specified time limit increases the ALC, resulting in a greater number of tougher enemies appearing on-screen. However, actions such as losing lives, starting a new level, or destroying reconnaissance planes reduces the ALC, resulting in fewer on-screen enemies.
Plot.
The plot of "Zanac" revolves around the "System"—a device figuratively similar to Pandora's box. The System was created millennia ago by an unknown alien race. It contains boundless wisdom and knowledge, as well as vast destructive potential. If properly opened it would grant access to untold wisdom and technology, but if improperly accessed it would unleash almost unlimited destruction. Mankind attempted to access the System and failed, causing the System to spread throughout space and to exert mass destruction on all forms of life, including the human race. Mankind then discovered how to properly access the knowledge and technology within the System, but could not shut its destructive expansion down because of its vast tactical systems.
Moreover, the defenses of the System are designed around destroying and overcoming entire fleets. Mankind hopes that a lone starfighter may be able to slip through and penetrate the defenses of the System, allowing such a ship to fight its way into the heart of the System and destroy it. The "AFX-6502 Zanac", the most advanced starfighter ever produced, is launched on a desperate mission to fight its way to the heart of the System and shut it down.
Release history.
"Zanac" was initially released in 1986 for the MSX computer by the Japanese video game company Compile—the same company responsible for other games such as "Blazing Lazers", "Devil's Crush", and the "Puyo Puyo" series. Compile then re-released the game for the MSX2 computer later that same year as "Zanac Ex", which featured improved graphics (with smooth scrolling) and extended music over the original MSX version. "Zanac" was then ported and heavily reworked again for release on the Family Computer Disk System in Japan on , and then in North America for the NES in October 1987. The NES version was later re-released for Wii's Virtual Console service on and published by D4 Enterprise. This version is identical to the NES version released in 1987.
Compile released a compilation titled "Zanac X Zanac" for Sony's PlayStation console in Japan on to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the original. This compilation features an updated version of "Zanac"—titled "Zanac Neo"—and three versions of the NES version of the game, including a version featuring enhanced graphics and sound. The game features two-player cooperative gameplay as well as a remix of the game's soundtrack.
Reception and legacy.
"Zanac", in retrospect, has been considered a unique shoot 'em up game, combining gameplay elements from games such as Xevious, especially with the extensive power-up system and vertical-scrolling gameplay that features both air and ground targets. Brett Alan Weiss of Allgame praised "Zanac", calling it an extremely fast-paced shooter in which the player is almost completely surrounded by enemy ships and bullets. He praises the game for its music which seems to flow along with the action of the game; he calls the music "at least as close as you can get to a Zen moment while playing a shooting game on the NES". Frank Provo of GameSpot lauded "Zanac" for its difficulty level, its ability to handle many sprites on the screen without slowdown or other glitches, and its unique AI, which placed this game in a subgenre of its own. However, criticisms include mediocre and primitive music and sound, a steep learning curve in gameplay and difficulty level, and poor translation in the game itself and in the game's instruction manual. In addition, Weiss says that enemies in "Zanac", while fearsome, "don't have much personality".


Voyage of the Valkyrie

Voyage of the Valkyrie is a video game for the TRS-80 and Apple II published in 1981 by Advanced Operating Systems. It was written by Leo Christopherson.
Gameplay.
"Voyage of the Valkyrie" is a game in which players pilot the ship "Valkyrie" on its mission to subdue the ten castles of the island Fugloy.
Reception.
Forrest Johnson reviewed "Voyage of the Valkyrie" in "The Space Gamer" No. 48. Johnson commented that ""Voyage of the Valkyrie" is a novel arcade game, more valuable to TRS-80 users than those who game on the Apple."


Apple III

The Apple III (styled as apple ///) is a business-oriented personal computer produced by Apple Computer and released in 1980. Running the Apple SOS operating system, it was intended as the successor to the Apple II series, but was largely considered a failure in the market. It was designed to provide key features business users wanted in a personal computer: a true typewriter-style upper/lowercase keyboard (the Apple II only supported uppercase) and an 80-column display.
Work on the Apple III started in late 1978 under the guidance of Dr. Wendell Sander. It had the internal code name of "Sara", named after Sander's daughter. The system was announced on May 19, 1980 and released in late November that year. Serious stability issues required a design overhaul and a recall of the first 14,000 machines produced. The Apple III was formally reintroduced on November 9, 1981.
Damage to the computer's reputation had already been done and it failed to do well commercially. Development stopped and the Apple III was discontinued on April 24, 1984, and its last successor, the III Plus, was dropped from the Apple product line in September 1985.
An estimated 65,000–75,000 Apple III computers were sold. The Apple III Plus brought this up to approximately 120,000. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak stated that the primary reason for the Apple III's failure was that the system was designed by Apple's marketing department, unlike Apple's previous engineering-driven projects. The Apple III's failure led Apple to reevaluate its plan to phase out the Apple II, prompting the eventual continuation of development of the older machine. As a result, later Apple II models incorporated some hardware and software technologies of the Apple III, such as the thermal Apple Scribe printer.
Overview.
Design.
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs expected hobbyists to purchase the Apple II, but because of VisiCalc and Disk II, small businesses purchased 90% of the computers. The Apple III was designed to be a business computer and successor. Though the Apple II contributed to the inspirations of several important business products, such as VisiCalc, Multiplan, and Apple Writer, the computer's hardware architecture, operating system, and developer environment are limited. Apple management intended to clearly establish market segmentation by designing the Apple III to appeal to the 90% business market, leaving the Apple II to home and education users. Management believed that "once the Apple III was out, the Apple II would stop selling in six months", Wozniak said.
The Apple III is powered by a 1.8-megahertz Synertek 6502A or B 8-bit CPU and, like some of the later machines in the Apple II family, uses bank switching techniques to address memory beyond the 6502's traditional 64 kB limit, up to 256 kB in the III's case. Third-party vendors produced memory upgrade kits that allow the Apple III to reach up to 512 kB of random-access memory (RAM). Other Apple III built-in features include an 80-column, 24-line display with upper and lowercase characters, a numeric keypad, dual-speed (pressure-sensitive) cursor control keys, 6-bit (DAC) audio, and a built-in 140-kilobyte 5.25-inch floppy disk drive. Graphics modes include 560x192 in black and white, and 280x192 with 16 colors or shades of gray. Unlike the Apple II, the Disk III controller is part of the logic board.
The Apple III is the first Apple product to allow the user to choose both a screen font and a keyboard layout: either QWERTY or Dvorak. These choices cannot be changed while programs were running, unlike the Apple IIc, which has a keyboard switch directly above the keyboard, allowing the user to switch on the fly.
Software.
The Apple III introduced an advanced operating system called Apple SOS, pronounced "apple sauce". Its ability to address resources by name allows the Apple III to be more scalable than the Apple II's addressing by physical location such as codice_1. Apple SOS allows the full capacity of a storage device to be used as a single volume, such as the Apple ProFile hard disk drive, and it supports a hierarchical file system. Some of the features and code base of Apple SOS were later adopted into the Apple II's ProDOS and GS/OS operating systems, as well as Lisa 7/7 and Macintosh system software.
With a starting price between $4,340 to $7,800, the Apple III was more expensive than many of the CP/M-based business computers that were available at the time. Few software applications other than VisiCalc are available for the computer; according to a presentation at KansasFest 2012, fewer than 50 Apple III-specific software packages were ever published, most shipping when the III Plus was released. Because Apple did not view the Apple III as suitable for hobbyists, it did not provide much of the technical software information that accompanies the Apple II. Originally intended as a direct replacement to the Apple II series, it was designed to be backward compatible with Apple II software. However, since Apple did not want to encourage continued development of the II platform, Apple II compatibility exists only in a special Apple II Mode which is limited in its capabilities to the emulation of a basic Apple II Plus configuration with 48 kB of RAM. Special chips were intentionally added to prevent access from Apple II Mode to the III's advanced features such as its larger amount of memory.
Peripherals.
The Apple III has four expansion slots, a number that "inCider" in 1986 called "miserly". Apple II cards are compatible but risk violating government RFI regulations, and require Apple III-specific device drivers; "BYTE" stated that "Apple provides virtually no information on how to write them". As with software, Apple provided little hardware technical information with the computer but Apple III-specific products became available, such as one that made the computer compatible with the Apple IIe. Several new Apple-produced peripherals were developed for the Apple III. The original Apple III has a built-in real-time clock, which is recognized by Apple SOS. The clock was later removed from the "revised" model, and was instead made available as an add-on.
Along with the built-in floppy drive, the Apple III can also handle up to three additional external Disk III floppy disk drives. The Disk III is only officially compatible with the Apple III. The Apple III Plus requires an adaptor from Apple to use the Disk III with its DB-25 disk port.
With the introduction of the revised Apple III a year after launch, Apple began offering the ProFile external hard disk system. Priced at $3,499 for 5 MB of storage, it also required a peripheral slot for its controller card.
Backward compatibility.
The Apple III has the built-in hardware capability to run Apple II software. In order to do so, an emulation boot disk is required that functionally turns the machine into a standard 48-kilobyte Apple II Plus, until it is powered off. The keyboard, internal floppy drive (and one external Disk III), display (color is provided through the 'B/W video' port) and speaker all act as Apple II peripherals. The paddle and serial ports can also function in Apple II mode, however with some limitations and compatibility issues.
Apple engineers added specialized circuity with the sole purpose of blocking access to its advanced features when running in Apple II emulation mode. This was done primarily to discourage further development and interest in the Apple II line, and to push the Apple III as its successor. For example, no more than of RAM can be accessed, even if the machine has of RAM or higher present. Many Apple II programs require a minimum of of RAM, making them impossible to run on the Apple III. Similarly, access to lowercase support, 80 columns text, or its more advanced graphics and sound are blocked by this hardware circuitry, making it impossible for even skilled software programmers to bypass Apple's lockout. A third-party company, Titan Technologies, sold an expansion board called the III Plus II that allows Apple II mode to access more memory, a standard game port, and with a later released companion card, even emulate the Apple IIe.
Certain Apple II slot cards can be installed in the Apple III and used in native III-mode with custom written SOS device drivers, including Grappler Plus and Liron 3.5 Controller.
Revisions.
After overheating issues were attributed to serious design flaws, a redesigned logic board was introduced – which included a lower power supply requirement, wider circuit traces and better-designed chip sockets. The $3,495 revised model also includes 256 kB of RAM as the standard configuration. The 14,000 units of the original Apple III sold were returned and replaced with the entirely new revised model.
Apple III Plus.
Apple discontinued the III in October 1983 because it violated FCC regulations, and the FCC required the company to change the redesigned computer's name. It introduced the Apple III Plus in December 1983 at a price of US$2,995. This newer version includes a built-in clock, video interlacing, standardized rear port connectors, 55-watt power supply, 256 kB of RAM as standard, and a redesigned, Apple IIe-like keyboard.
Owners of the Apple III could purchase individual III Plus upgrades, like the clock and interlacing feature, and obtain the newer logic board as a service replacement. A keyboard upgrade kit, dubbed "Apple III Plus upgrade kit" was also made available – which included the keyboard, cover, keyboard encoder ROM, and logo replacements. This upgrade had to be installed by an authorized service technician.
Design flaws.
According to Wozniak, the Apple III "had 100 percent hardware failures". Former Apple executive Taylor Pohlman stated that:
Steve Jobs insisted on the idea of having no fan or air vents, in order to make the computer run quietly. Jobs would later push this same ideology onto almost all Apple models he had control of, from the Apple Lisa and Macintosh 128K to the iMac. To allow the computer to dissipate heat, the base of the Apple III was made of heavy cast aluminum, which supposedly acts as a heat sink. One advantage to the aluminum case was a reduction in RFI (Radio Frequency Interference), a problem which had plagued the Apple II series throughout its history. Unlike the Apple II series, the power supply was mounted – without its own shell – in a compartment separate from the logic board. The decision to use an aluminum shell ultimately led to engineering issues which resulted in the Apple III's reliability problems. The lead time for manufacturing the shells was high, and this had to be done before the motherboard was finalized. Later, it was realized that there was not enough room on the motherboard for all of the components unless narrow traces were used.
Many Apple IIIs were thought to have failed due to their inability to properly dissipate heat. "inCider" stated in 1986 that "Heat has always been a formidable enemy of the Apple ///", and some users reported that their Apple IIIs became so hot that the chips started dislodging from the board, causing the screen to display garbled data or their disk to come out of the slot "melted". "BYTE" wrote, "the integrated circuits tended to wander out of their sockets". It is has been rumored Apple advised customers to tilt the front of the Apple III six inches above the desk and then drop it to reseat the chips as a temporary solution. Other analyses blame a faulty automatic chip insertion process, not heat.
Case designer Jerry Manock denied the design flaw charges, insisting that tests proved that the unit adequately dissipated the internal heat. The primary cause, he claimed, was a major logic board design problem. The logic board used "fineline" technology that was not fully mature at the time, with narrow, closely spaced traces. When chips were "stuffed" into the board and wave-soldered, solder bridges would form between traces that were not supposed to be connected. This caused numerous short circuits, which required hours of costly diagnosis and hand rework to fix. Apple designed a new circuit board with more layers and normal-width traces. The new logic board was laid out by one designer on a huge drafting board, rather than using the costly CAD-CAM system used for the previous board, and the new design worked.
Earlier Apple III units came with a built-in real time clock. The hardware, however, would fail after prolonged use. Assuming that National Semiconductor would test all parts before shipping them, Apple did not perform this level of testing. Apple was soldering chips directly to boards and could not easily replace a bad chip if one was found. Eventually, Apple solved this problem by removing the real-time clock from the Apple III's specification rather than shipping the Apple III with the clock pre-installed, and then sold the peripheral as a level 1 technician add-on.
BASIC.
Microsoft and Apple each developed their own versions of BASIC for the Apple III. Apple III Microsoft BASIC was designed to run on the CP/M platform available for the Apple III. Apple Business BASIC shipped with the Apple III. Donn Denman ported Applesoft BASIC to SOS and reworked it to take advantage of the extended memory of the Apple III.
Both languages introduced a number of new or improved features over Applesoft BASIC. Both languages replaced Applesoft's single-precision floating-point variables using 5-byte storage with the somewhat-reduced-precision 4-byte variables, while also adding a larger numerical format. Apple III Microsoft BASIC provides double-precision floating-point variables, taking 8 bytes of storage, while Apple Business BASIC offers an extra-long integer type, also taking 8 bytes for storage. Both languages also retain 2-byte integers, and maximum 255-character strings.
Other new features common to both languages include:
Some features work differently in each language:
Microsoft BASIC additional features.
There is no support for graphics provided within the language, nor for reading analog controls or buttons; nor is there a means of defining the active window of the text screen.
Business BASIC additional features.
Apple Business BASIC eliminates all references to absolute memory addresses. Thus, the POKE command and PEEK() function were not included in the language, and new features replaced the CALL statement and USR() function. Functionality of certain features in Applesoft that had been achieved with various PEEK and POKE locations is now provided by:
External binary subroutines and functions are loaded into memory by a single INVOKE disk-command that loads separately-assembled code modules. A PERFORM statement is then used to call an INVOKEd procedure by name, with an argument-list. INVOKEd functions would be referenced in expressions by EXFN. (floating-point) or EXFN%. (integer), with the function name appended, plus the argument-list for the function.
Graphics are supported with an INVOKEd module, with features including displaying text within graphics in various fonts, within four different graphics modes available on the Apple III.
Reception.
Despite devoting the majority of its R&D to the Apple III and so ignoring the II that for a while dealers had difficulty in obtaining the latter, the III's technical problems made marketing the computer difficult. Ed Smith, who after designing the APF Imagination Machine worked as a distributor's representative, described the III as "a complete disaster". He recalled that he "was responsible for going to every dealership, setting up the Apple III in their showroom, and then explaining to them the functions of the Apple III, which in many cases didn’t really work".
Sales.
Pohlman reported that Apple was only selling 500 units a month by late 1981, mostly as replacements. The company was able to eventually raise monthly sales to 5,000, but the IBM PC's successful launch had encouraged software companies to develop for it instead, prompting Apple to shift focus to the Lisa and Macintosh. The PC almost ended sales of the Apple III, the most closely comparable Apple computer model. By early 1984, sales were primarily to existing III owners, Apple itself—its 4500 employees were equipped with some 3000-4500 units—and some small businesses. Apple finally discontinued the Apple III series on April 24, 1984, four months after introducing the III Plus, after selling only 65,000-75,000 units and replacing 14,000 defective units.
Jobs said that the company lost "infinite, incalculable amounts" of money on the Apple III. Wozniak estimated that Apple had spent $100 million on the III, instead of improving the II and better competing against IBM. Pohlman claimed that there was a "stigma" at Apple associated with having contributed to the computer. Most employees who worked on the III reportedly left Apple.
Legacy.
The file system and some design ideas from Apple SOS, the Apple III's operating system, were part of Apple ProDOS and Apple GS/OS, the major operating systems for the Apple II series following the demise of the Apple III, as well as the Apple Lisa, which was the de facto business-oriented successor to the Apple III. The hierarchical file system influenced the evolution of the Macintosh: while the original Macintosh File System (MFS) was a flat file system designed for a floppy disk without subdirectories, subsequent file systems were hierarchical. By comparison, the IBM PC's first file system (again designed for floppy disks) was also flat and later versions (designed for hard disks) were hierarchical.
In popular culture.
At the start of the Walt Disney Pictures film "TRON", lead character Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) is seen hacking into the ENCOM mainframe using an Apple III.


Sumer (video game)

Sumer is a 1981 video game published by Crystal Computer for Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore PET, and TRS-80.
Contents.
"Sumer" is a game in which the object is to establish a kingdom of immortal size and fame.
Reception.
Jon Mishcon reviewed "Sumer" in "The Space Gamer" No. 40. Mishcon commented that "If you enjoy multiparameter city-state type games then I recommend you "avoid" this. Buy "Santa Paravia" instead."


Surface 3

Surface 3 is a 2-in-1 detachable from the Microsoft Surface series, unveiled by Microsoft on 31 March 2015 and released on 5 May 2015. Unlike its predecessor, the Surface 2, Surface 3 utilizes an x86 Intel Atom system-on-chip architecture, or SoC, rather than a processor with ARM architecture such as the Nvidia Tegra that powered the Surface 2, and runs Windows 10.
History.
The older, original Surface (also known as Surface RT) and Surface 2, with their ARM-based processors and Windows RT operating system, are pitched against the iPad and other tablets. The first Surface was criticized for performance issues though this was rectified in the succeeding Surface 2. The biggest problem was that these ARM-powered devices were incompatible with the vast number of programs written for x86 personal computers, while suffering from the limitations of the Windows RT operating system and its sparse application ecosystem.
Released prior to Surface 3, the Surface Pro 3 (featuring a more powerful Intel Core processor) became a profitable business for Microsoft in late 2014. It had a starting price of $799, features a high-resolution ClearType display and competes with high-end ultraportable laptops like other Ultrabooks.
With the introduction of the Surface 3, Microsoft aims to make the Surface more affordable for those who don't need the power of the Surface Pro 3, at the expense of some performance. Surface 3 can be considered a closer competitor to traditional tablets like Apple iPad, with Surface 3 offering full desktop OS capabilities instead of a tablet's mobile OS.
Features.
Hardware.
The Surface 3 share a similar design to the Surface Pro 3 with a body made of magnesium alloy giving a matte gray finish to the back of the device. It features a kickstand that can be set to three different angles: 22, 44, and 60 degrees. The Surface 3 does not have a fan, therefore lacking the ventilation holes seen on Surface Pro line. The Surface 3 weighs 620 grams features a diagonal multi-touch display with a 3:2 aspect ratio. For a charger Surface 3 uses a standard Micro-USB, giving users a wider variety of charging options, including charging the device with a mobile phone charger.
Surface 3 has the 14 nm quad-core Intel Atom x7-Z8700 SoC. The Atom x7-Z8700 is able to drive up to three external displays over Mini DisplayPort and support a resolution of up to 4K with a single external display. The 2-in-1's own display has a resolution of 1920x1280. The device ships with either a 64 or 128 GB solid-state drive and 2 or 4 GB of system memory. The device's storage capacity can be increased by installing a microSD memory card of up to 1 TB.
Software.
Unlike its predecessors, the Surface 3 is the first device in the non-Pro line to feature the full Windows desktop OS as opposed to Windows RT. This therefore puts the device into the category of 2-in-1 PC, which cannot be said for its predecessors, the original Surface and Surface 2, due to their use of ARM processors.
Surface 3s purchased before 29 July 2015 come with Windows 8.1 but are upgradeable to Windows 10 for free from that date onwards. Since the Windows 10 release, consumer models of the Surface 3 now ship with Windows 10 Home, unlike the devices of the Surface Pro line, which ship with Windows 10 Pro. Business models of the Surface 3, however, now ship with Windows 10 Pro.
Accessories.
The Surface 3, as with its predecessors and Surface devices of a Pro line, features an optional Type Cover accessory—an attachable keyboard, which is also a protective cover for the screen, with an announced price of 129 USD.
The Surface 3 is the first non-Pro Surface to feature a pen digitizer and hence supports the Surface Pen. Unlike Surface Pro 3, however, it is not included in the box, but is available for purchase separately.
Various aftermarket USB or Bluetooth peripheral devices, such as keyboards and mice can be connected to the Surface 3.
Reception.
Surface 3 received generally positive reviews from computer critics. They praised Microsoft's shift from ARM architecture toward x86, and therefore from Windows RT to a regular Windows OS. Most noted a well designed chassis and accessories produced of quality materials, and overall premium feeling of use. While less powerful, the Surface 3 was a lighter and cheaper alternative to the Surface Pro 3. More importantly, the Surface 3 could compete at the high-end of Android and iPad tablets, with the advantage of being a device running a full desktop OS instead of a mobile OS for a similar price. Reviewers also note that 37 GB of the total storage space in the low-end Surface 3 is available to the user, while its close competitor, the low-end iPad Air 2, has only 12.5 GB of user-available storage space for the same price.
The most common downsides are relatively low battery life, slower performance compared to devices with Intel Core processors and a high price since accessories like Surface Pen and Type Cover are not included.


ICL ME29


Alien Legacy

Alien Legacy is a sci-fi strategy game developed by Ybarra Productions and published by Sierra On-Line in 1994 for MS-DOS.
Gameplay.
The game includes elements of city construction, research, resource management, industrial production and combat. Players must colonize a star system light-years from Earth by building planetary cities and Space Stations. Several advisors guide the player through the plot and a PDA reminds the player of important tasks as objectives, revealed as the scenario progresses. Given sufficient player immersion, the game atmosphere may add to the experience of ensuring the survival of mankind. The game progresses in real-time but the game speed can be adjusted.
Some tasks must be done before a set time limit or else the game will end prematurely. For example, at the beginning of the game, if the player fails to form a self-sufficient colony on Gaea, (a colony with at least one habitat, power plant and factory) the science advisor (also the mission's executive officer) will kill the player for incompetence and take over the command.
Story.
Plot.
The game takes place after the arrival of the UNS "Calypso" in the Beta Caeli star system. You take the role as captain of the "Calypso". The "Calypso" has been sent from Earth to colonize the system. The UNS "Tantalus" was sent to the same star system after you, but because it makes use of a better engine, arrives in Beta Caeli before you do. The "Calypso", "Tantalus", and similar ships were sent to colonize other star systems due to the threat of humanity's extinction on Earth as a result of an interstellar war. The story involves the "Calypso"'s attempts to find out what happened to the "Tantalus" and its colonies which have gone missing, as well as other mysteries involving relics of previous non-human inhabitants of the system.
Planetary systems.
The Beta Caeli system is similar to our real-life solar system, with a barren, rocky inner planet, terrestrial planets in the habitable zone of the inner system, followed by gas giants in the outer system that first increase and then decrease in size, and a tiny rock outermost.
The naming of the Caelian planets closely matches that of naming planets in our solar system. But while our system uses the names of Roman deities (except for Uranus), Caeli has Greek ones; Gaea is the Greek goddess of the Earth, and Rhea is her daughter. In addition, as Beta Caeli is brighter and hotter than the Sun, the Caelian planets are more distant from their sun than their Solar System analogs are. In reality, Beta Caeli may be too bright and young to host life, a fact noted in the game itself where they noted that the system is 2.5 billion years old but an F0 star lasts for about 5 billion years, yet both Earth-like planets have advanced life forms.
Reception.
Game journalist Niko Nirvi awarded "Alien Legacy" a score of 82% in "Pelit" magazine. The game's plot carried the game for Nirvi, keeping him interested throughout ("after the plot finally started.") He found the plot to be quite linear, and while events may happen differently on replay, felt no need to return to the game after completing it. Conversely, he found the strategy side lacking: the advisors "warmly hold the player's hand as they guide him through "Alien Legacy", leaving the player balancing the colonies instead of using wits. He summed up the game as "a nice enough snack, no more, no less" that friends of "Star Control" should inspect.
Nirvi deemed the game's graphics pleasant, its interface generally well-working, and its sounds nondescript.


Adaptive architecture

Adaptive architecture is a system which changes its structure, behaviour or resources according to demand. The adaptation made is usually [always?] to non-functional characteristics rather than functional ones.
Something of a misnomer, because the thing that adapts is the working system, rather than the (more abstract) architecture which defines the adaptability that is required of that system.
Adaptive software architecture: Used by programmers in relation to a program. An adaptive algorithm "is an algorithm which changes its behavior based on the resources available. For example… in the C++ Standard Library, the stable partition [program] acquires as much memory as it can get (up to what it would need at most) and applies the algorithm using that available memory."
Adaptive infrastructure architecture: Used by infrastructure engineers in relation to the configuration of processors. The computing resources used by applications (the partition size, or the number of servers in a cluster, or the share of a processor, or the number of processes) are configured so that they shrink or grow with demand.
Adaptive business architecture: Could also be used (for example) in connection with a workflow system that assigns human resources to a task or service to match the demand for that task or service. Or an organisation structure that flexes in response to business changes.


Amiga 3000UX

The Commodore Amiga 3000UX is a model of the Amiga computer family that was released with Amiga Unix, a full port of AT&T Unix System V Release 4 (SVR4), installed along with AmigaOS. The system is otherwise equivalent to the standard A3000, once a right-click initiates a boot to Kickstart (Amiga's kernel).
At one point, Sun Microsystems approached Commodore-Amiga, Inc. with the offer to produce the A3000UX under license as a low- to mid-range alternative to their high-end Sun workstations. That this offer was declined was one of the many management decisions that led to the popular belief that the Amiga platform would have been a real success story but for Commodore management.
It is possible that Commodore (or a third party) repurposed A3000UX machines for standard AmigaOS, as some standard A3000 models have been found with labeling suggesting they were originally to be sold as A3000UX machines.


FastEcho

FastEcho is a message processing package for FTN (FidoNet Technology Network) mail systems. It was written and released as shareware by Tobias Burchhardt in 1991. The final version was 1.46.1 which was released in 1997. FastEcho was one of the fastest FTN mail processing packages available for FTN style messages. Running on MS-DOS, DPMI and native OS/2 32bit, it offered numerous features that were desirable for leafnode systems as well as highend FTN mail distribution hubs.
System requirements.
FastEcho's minimum system requirements were very easy to meet. It ran on IBM PCs, XTs, ATs or compatibles with optimized routines for 386, 486, and Pentium based and compatible machines. DOS v3.xx or IBM's OS/2 v2.x or v3.0 were the minimum required operating system platforms.
An archiver package was also needed to be able to open and seal the mail bundles. The list of supported archiver packages was PKZIP/PKUNZIP 1.10/2.04g, ARJ 2.30/2.41a, LHARC 1.13c/LHa 2.13, PKPAK/PKUNPAK 3.61, ARC 6.02, ZOO 2.10, PAK 2.51, SQZ 1.08, RAR 1.5x, and UC2 2.00. Optionally, an extractor program that automatically coped with the different decompression programs could be used. The two supported ones were General Unpack Shell (GUS) 1.90 or later and PolyXarc 2.1a or later.
Supported software.
Numerous FTN mailers like FrontDoor, D'Bridge, and BinkleyTerm were supported. Also supported were various Bulletin Board System packages like RemoteAccess, Maximus, QuickBBS, and T.A.G. Almost any BBS package could be used as long as it supported one of the three supported message base formats. They were the FTN MSG format, the HMB designed by Adam Hudson, and the JAM format. BBS users handling mail offline could also use FastEcho, as QWK and Blue Wave users did. This method was a bit more complicated but allowed the BBS user to operate much like any other FTN mail system and reap its benefits.
Features.
FastEcho had numerous features that were desirable on many systems. Mail distribution hubs looked for the ability to handle many downlinks as well as large numbers of message areas. FastEcho could handle up to 1024 downlinks and up to 3072 message areas. Other features:
The DOS version (including DPMI) has a limit of 64 KiB per message, cutting any larger message down to that size. Worse, the default setting is 32 KiB. In OS/2 version, the maximum size is 512 KiB.
Since the release, many free alternatives emerged, but FastEcho was considered by some one of the most versatile tossers.
Availability.
The latest version of FastEcho, although proprietary and not improvable, is still downloadable from an official site today.
Online support for FastEcho is also available at the North American FastEcho Support (NAFES) forum. - No longer active. Dead link.
Registration keys are available without charge on request from the author.


Sony Alpha 350

The Sony α 350 (DSLR-A350) is a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) marketed by Sony, being replaced from 2009 by the similarly specified Sony α 380. It features live view and body-integrated image stabilization.
Details.
The Sony α 350 was introduced in Japan in March 2008. It has a 14.2 megapixel CCD sensor, the second highest pixel count for an APS-C format DSLR at the time of its launch, marginally exceeded by the Pentax K20D CMOS sensor.
The Live View is provided by a secondary low resolution video sensor placed in the mirror-prism housing to provide a view of the focusing screen, which allows retention of phase contrast autofocus. Live View is mechanically switched via a moving mirror surface. When Live View is active, the normal exposure metering is replaced by metering from the LV image itself offering many more zones or points, along with more accurate white balance. This system is shared with the Sony Alpha 300, a 10.2 megapixel variant.


Lastlog

lastlog is a program available on most Linux distributions. It formats and prints the contents of the last login log file, codice_1 (which is a usually a very sparse file), including the login name, port, and last login date and time. It is similar in functionality to the BSD program last, also included in linux distributions; however, last parses a different binary database file (codice_2 and codice_3).
Usage.
Lastlog prints its output in column format with login-name, port, and last-login-time of each and every user on the system mentioned in that order. The users are sorted by default according to the order in codice_4 However, it can also be used to modify the records kept in codice_1.
$ lastlog
Username Port From Latest
root **Never logged in**
user tty3 Sun Jan 14 16:29:24 +0130 2019


Twitter usage

Since the launch of Twitter on July 15, 2006, there have been many notable uses for the service, in a variety of environments.
In law enforcement.
Many police officers use Twitter to provide details on their daily routine and appeals for information regarding crimes they or their organisation are investigating in an attempt to widen the number of people being reached by these appeals. Twitter itself has been viewed as the modern-day wanted poster.
In May 2011, the innovative website "tweetathief" was launched, which uses numerous social networks alongside a Twitter app to allow people to post lost, missing, found, and stolen pets, people, and items. The site also allows police or other organisations to register and broadcast appeals for information to these social networks.
In legal proceedings.
The first criminal prosecution arising from Twitter posts was started in April 2009. FBI agents arrested Daniel Knight Hayden, who was accused of sending threatening tweets in connection with his plan to attend a Tea Party protest in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
In July 2009, Horizon Realty Group, a Chicago real estate management company, sued a former tenant, Amanda Bonnen, for libel based on a Twitter message she sent to friends. Horizon contended that Bonnen defamed Horizon by posting a tweet to her friends that said, "You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's ok." Horizon asked for at least $50,000 for the alleged libel. The lawsuit prompted widespread comment from journalists, bloggers, and legal experts. In January 2010, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane J. Larsen granted Bonnen's motion to dismiss, stating that the statement was "too vague" to amount to defamation.
In October 2010, PhoneDog unsuccessfully sued employee Noah Kravitz in "PhoneDog v. Kravitz" for misusing trade secrets after he quit his job and began using his PhoneDog Twitter account to post Tweets for a competitor.
In February 2012, Hamza Kashgari, a Saudi poet and a former columnist for the Saudi daily newspaper "Al-Bilad", became the subject of a religious and legal controversy after being accused of insulting the prophet Mohammad in three tweets published on Twitter. Kashgari risks the death penalty for his three tweets. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia ordered that Kashgari be arrested "for crossing red lines and denigrating religious beliefs in God and His Prophet." Kashgari left Saudi Arabia, trying to seek political asylum in New Zealand. He was deported from Kuala Lumpur back to Saudi Arabia on February 12, about three and a half hours before a Malaysian High Court injunction against the deportation was issued.
In November 2013, Agence France-Presse and Getty Images were ordered to pay $1.2 million compensation to freelance photojournalist Daniel Morel for using his images posted on Twitter related to the 2010 Haiti earthquake without his permission, in violation of copyright and Twitter's terms of service.
In education.
Research on using Twitter in education has been conducted by Dr. Reynol Junco and his colleagues. Using a controlled experimental design with random assignment, they found that classroom use of Twitter in specific ways such as continuing course discussions outside of class led to significant increases in student engagement and grades for all of their courses. Junco and his colleagues have also found that these benefits only apply when professors interact with students on Twitter, when they require Twitter use as part of a course, and when Twitter is integrated into the curriculum in ways that make sense for that particular course. This data shows the benefits of Twitter as compared to other static educational technology tools such as blogs, wikis, and learning management systems.
The Distance College of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, used Twitter with native Chinese students to train communicative and cultural competence. Students had to post a number of English tweets and react to the tweets of their fellow students. Twitter was viewed as a supplement to practice different aspects of the target language in authentic environment.
Mia Moody states that Twitter can be used to teach students. They will be more involved in lectures and lessons if they have a chance to use social media throughout the course. Social media has changed the way people live, connect, and do business. She also explains how it is a good way to improve student participation. Shy students are more likely to open up behind a computer screen or the screen of their smartphone.
The University of Vienna, Austria, used Twitter as an evaluation platform for student ratings. Every student had to send a tweet after each course unit with feedback to the teacher. Twitter's simplicity and electronic data handling required small administrative effort and turned out to be "a useful tool for evaluating a course formatively."
At the University of Texas at Dallas, Twitter has been incorporated into the classroom setting of History courses with large groups of students. This allows more students to express their views in the class discussions and forces them to focus on the central point due to the character limit.
According to "The Daily Telegraph", Twitter is put on the new primary school curriculum. Children should be able to "organise and adjust" speaking and writing skills depending on the technology being used, including using "emails, messaging, wikis and twitters." During the primary years, children should also be taught to speak, write and broadcast using "blogs, podcasts, websites, email [and] video."
In 2009, higher education faculty began using Twitter to help establish social presence and just-in-time interaction with students who are not bound by a learning management system.
Educational organizations in Spain and other countries also use Twitter in the virtual classrooms. Such is the cause of Universidad Oberta de Catalunya, Postgraduate School. Students utilize Twitter to summarize courses learning outcomes.
An example of an educational Twitter account is @RealTimeWWII, which tweets the events of World War II on a daily basis from 2011 until 2017.
In health and medicine.
There have been many applications of social media within health contexts, ranging from the World Health Organization using Twitter during the H1N1 pandemic, with more than 11,700 followers, to medical practices and health professionals obtaining information to inform their clinical practice.
The use of web 2.0 tools and especially Twitter is in full expansion. Twitter has jumped from the personal field to the professional with great success, joining as a means of regular dissemination in scientific congresses. Although initially the tweeted community was small and a few were responsible for a majority of tweets, the progressive growth and penetration of Twitter has made that in recent congresses, these influencers and institutional accounts are no longer the main driver of the use of Twitter in the congresses. Given the global trend, it is expected that tools such as Twitter play an increasingly important role in the management and transmission of knowledge, as well as in the creation of collaborative networks between professionals.
In emergencies.
Research reported in "New Scientist" in May 2008 found that blogs, maps, photo sites and instant messaging systems like Twitter did a better job of getting information out during emergencies than either the traditional news media or government emergency services. The study also found that those using Twitter during the fires in California in October 2007 kept their followers (who were often friends and neighbors) informed of their whereabouts and of the location of various fires minute by minute. Relief effort organizations are also using Twitter. The American Red Cross started using Twitter to exchange minute-by-minute information about local disasters including statistics and directions.
During the 2008 Mumbai attacks, eyewitnesses sent an estimated 16 tweets every second. Twitter users on the ground helped compile a list of the dead and injured. In addition, users sent out vital information such as emergency phone numbers and the location of hospitals needing blood donations. CNN called this "the day that social media appeared to come of age" since many different groups made significant use of Twitter to gather news and coordinate responses.
In January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 experienced multiple bird strikes and had to land in water in the Hudson River. Janis Krums, a passenger on one of the ferries that rushed to help, took a picture of the downed plane as passengers were still evacuating and sent it to Twitpic before any other media arrived at the scene. For this he won the Shorty Award for Real-Time Photo of the Year.
The Victorian Country Fire Authority in Australia used Twitter to send out regular alerts and updates regarding the February 2009 bushfires. The then Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd used his Twitter account to send out information on the fires, how to donate money and blood, and where to seek emergency help.
In April 2009, public health departments used Twitter to provide updates on H1N1 cases.
Twitter was also massively used in 2014 Balkan floods. Its efficiency and speed was considered to be "very useful" in exchanging information about flood victims and missing persons.
For public opinion and trends.
During the "CBC News" television coverage of the Canadian federal election on October 14, 2008, the CBC cited tweets regarding Elizabeth May and Stéphane Dion along with a graph of items mentioned on Twitter as evidence that people were calling for Dion to step down in response to the election results.
As of April 26, 2010, the Australian television program "Q&A" began showing selected tweets on screen during the live broadcast, which carried the hashtag "#qanda".
"The ratio".
"The ratio" is a tongue-in-cheek rule-of-thumb method of judging how popular a Twitter post is, by comparing the number of replies to likes. A comment that has many replies but few likes is judged likely to be unpopular and the replies are assumed to be complaints about it.
Social trends.
Analyzing frequency, content and other metrics of how users interact with Twitter can uncover social trends and social networks. "As users interact via social media spaces, like Twitter, they form connections that emerge into complex social network structures. These connections are indicators of content sharing, and network structures reflect patterns of information flow."
Politics and protests.
Twitter has been instrumental in politics and protests. One of Twitter's mission statements is, “At Twitter, we believe that the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact.” People around the world have taken this idea, using the 140-character tweet to spark an interest or gain attention for a cause or issue. but on November 7, 2017, the limit was doubled to 280 characters,
Politicians have used it in attempts to influence their followers and persuade their opponents.
Campaigning.
Twitter was used by candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign throughout the race. Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama used it for publicity. The Nader–Gonzalez campaign updated its ballot access teams in real time with Twitter and Google Maps. Twitter use increased by 43% on the day of the United States 2008 election.
In 2009, the Republican Party in Connecticut set up 33 fake Twitter accounts in the names of the Democratic Party members of the state legislature. The Republicans used the accounts to send out tweets in the names of the Democrats. When Twitter discovered the scheme, it shut down the fake accounts, quoting the applicable company policy. "The Hartford Courant" editorialized: "Republicans get an A for innovation, but a D for ethics."
During the 2010 federal election campaign in Australia, the New South Wales Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell publicly tweeted comments about the Liberal party's readiness for the election, thinking he was sending a private message to a journalist.
Examples of impact.
During the 13th Federal Assembly in May 2009, two members of the German Bundestag leaked the result of the German presidential election via Twitter before the President of the Bundestag officially announced Horst Köhler as the winner. In June 2009, following the allegations of fraud in the Iranian presidential election, protesters used Twitter as a rallying tool and method of communication with the outside world after the government blocked several other modes of communication.
On June 15, 2009, Twitter rescheduled a planned 90-minute maintenance outage after a number of Twitter users and the US State Department asked Twitter executives to delay the shutdown because of concerns about the service's role as a primary communication medium by the protesters in Iran. CNN's coverage of the conflict was criticized in tweets with the hashtag "#CNNfail". Twitter was also used to organize DDoS attacks against Iranian government websites.
In August 2009, when American opponents of President Barack Obama's health insurance reform proposals attacked the British National Health Service, thousands of NHS users took part in a Twitter campaign expressing their support for the NHS with use of the "#welovetheNHS" hashtag. The hashtag was initiated by Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, who said he wanted to use a Twitter campaign "as a counterweight against the lies of the American right". The campaign also received the support of several politicians including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
New York City activist Elliott Madison used Twitter to message an order to disperse from the Pittsburgh police during the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh protests. Police raided Madison's hotel room, and one week later Madison's New York home was raided by FBI agents, who conducted a sixteen-hour search. Police claim Madison and a co-defendant used computers and a radio scanner to track police movements and then passed on that information to protesters using cell phones and Twitter. Madison is being charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility, and possession of instruments of crime. The FBI collected miscellany such as refrigerator magnets, and a Curious George stuffed animal, despite that the warrant issued asked for evidence that indicated potential violations of federal rioting laws. In light of the United States Department of State's recent public support of Twitter use in the politics of Iran, Moldova, and Honduras, it is asked whether the State Department supports free speech in the United States.
In October 2009, after "The Guardian" newspaper was served with an injunction banning it from reporting on a parliamentary matter, it published a cryptic article with the few details it was allowed to report. The paper claimed that this case appears "to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights". The paper's editor Alan Rusbridger credited Twitter users with taking the initiative to provide details that the press was not allowed to print, namely, that the injunction was taken out by the London solicitor Carter-Ruck on behalf of commodities trader Trafigura, who did not want public discussion of the 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump scandal and the resulting Minton Report (available on WikiLeaks). The reporting injunction was withdrawn by Carter-Ruck the next day before "The Guardian" could challenge it in the High Court. Rusbridger credited the rapid back-down of Carter-Ruck to Twitter, as did a BBC article.
Twitter came to the attention of the House of Commons of Canada in October 2009 when Member of Parliament Ujjal Dosanjh apologized on the floor for improperly "tweeting about matters that ought not to have been tweeted about" during "in camera" proceedings of a parliamentary committee.
In October 2009, Twitter once again came to the attention of the Canadian public when Vancouver Councilor Andrea Reimer tweeted regarding the British Columbia Minister of Housing and Social Development Rich Coleman's weight in response to provincial legislation proposed by Coleman to bring homeless people to shelters during extreme weather. Reimer posted that instead of police bringing homeless people to shelters during extreme weather that she was thinking of introducing legislation to have the police bring Coleman to Jenny Craig, an international weight loss company, on his next visit to Vancouver. Coleman responded by calling the comment amateurish and from a Councilor that "doesn't know any better." Reimer later apologized for the posting.
In December 2009, the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil became the first court in the world to display items on the day planner of the ministers, to inform the actions that arrive daily to the Court, and the most important decisions made by them on Twitter.
In late December 2009, the Ukrainian non-profit organization Internet-Ukraine launched a project aimed at monitoring the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election based on Twitter.
On April 22, 2010, during the 2010 United Kingdom general election, several right-wing British newspapers including the "Daily Telegraph", the "Daily Express", and "The Sun" reported several news stories regarding the leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg, including political donations made to his private bank account. This was seen by users on Twitter as a personal attack on Clegg on the day that the second Prime Ministerial television debate was to take place after he performed well in the first. In response to the articles, Twitter users set up the hashtag "#nickcleggsfault", in which people made ironic comments claiming that Clegg was to blame for everything wrong in the world. A "Daily Mail" article claiming Clegg had made a Nazi slur was criticised for being based on an article that Clegg wrote in November 2002 in which, "he criticises attitudes to Germany which seem stuck in the 1950s — and fail to recognise how it has reinvented itself since", and made references to the "Daily Mail's" support for Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. By midday on 22 April, the "#nickcleggsfault" was the second-most tweeted hashtag on Twitter globally, second to Earth Day, and the most tweeted hashtag in the United Kingdom.
Twitter was used during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011; it was used as a tool to disseminate information and coordinate participants in the uprising, although Twitter was blocked by Egyptian mobile phone operators for a period of time. After the Egyptian Revolution, the most important people, ministries and the president started to have account on Twitter and share information with people.
Since September 21, 2011, Twitter has had a way for politicians to advertise via the site, through "politically flavored" promoted tweets; they are marked with a purple icon. Candidates and political committees are also able to pay Twitter for Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends. As of September 2011, “About 85 U.S. Senators use Twitter, and 360 members of the House of Representatives also have accounts. The vast majority of state governors—42 of 50—are on Twitter, too. And of course, all the current major presidential contenders are using the microblogging service.”
In the 2012 Presidential election after news agencies declared that Ohio had been won by Barack Obama giving him enough electoral votes to win, the first statement of his reaction was released on Twitter, "We're all in this together. That's how we campaigned, and that's who we are. Thank you. -bo" A second Tweet with a picture of Obama hugging his wife with the caption "four more years" became the most re-tweeted tweet in Twitter history, and the election became the most tweeted political event in history.
In December 2012, Green MP Russel Norman tabled a tweet during New Zealand parliament's question time, a first for the country.
The @feministhulk Twitter account drew attention to funding problems for WIC food and nutrition programs during the 2013 US government shutdown, and its owner set up a directory for women in need to find food banks and infant formula.
In public relations.
In Britain the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills released a Twitter strategy document written for other departments. The strategy advised the departments on why Twitter was used by the Government and how they could tweet and promote their doing so effectively. The ICAEW suggested that the document could also be useful to the private sector or as a general introduction to Twitter.
In the United States a number of environment agencies and NGOs are using Twitter. At the local level, police and fire departments are beginning to use Twitter to keep the public informed of incidents. Some of these departments, such as the Los Angeles Fire Department, issue up to 10 tweets per day.
In October 2008, a draft U.S. Army intelligence report identified Twitter as a "potential terrorist tool". The report said it "is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives."
David Saranga of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on December 30, 2008, that Israel would be the first government to hold a worldwide press conference via Twitter to take questions from the public about the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Doctors Chao Guo and Gregory D. Saxton have conducted a study of how nonprofit organizations use Twitter in their public relations campaigns. “Tweeting Social Change: How Social Media Are Changing Nonprofit Advocacy (2014)” has supported earlier studies that tweets sent out by nonprofit organizations fall into three categories of information, community, and action. Their sample included 188 “Civil Rights and Advocacy” organizations, and they used both quantitative and qualitative research in their study at the organizational and message levels. They found that information messages were the most frequent with an emphasis on public education, followed by community messages, and then action messages. Guo and Saxton also discuss how nonprofit organizations use certain aspects of Twitter such as direct messages, retweets, and hashtags (#) in building their campaigns.
Image repair.
Many studies have documented the use of social media platforms for image repair. Mia Moody-Ramirez and Hazel Cole (2018) explored the use of Twitter to repair the image of Yahoo Finance in January 2017, when the online publication misspelled bigger with an “n,” in a Twitter link to a story on President-elect Donald Trump's plans to enlarge America's navy. The tweet containing the n-word gained more than 1,000 retweets before Yahoo Finance deleted it, almost one hour after it was shared (Mezzofiore, 2017). Yahoo Finance published an apology shortly after, saying it was a “mistake.” While Yahoo Finance demonstrated mortification by apologizing for the tweet containing the N-word, much of its image repair occurred after Twitter users began to share memes addressing the incident. Light-hearted humor shared on what is known collectively as Black Twitter provided comic relief for an otherwise stressful situation.
Study findings indicate humorous tweets offer an effective strategy to repair one's image. Twitter users discussed Yahoo Finance's error, used humor to handle it, then moved on. On the anniversary of the crisis, Twitter users continued to frame the incident as one of the all-time funniest moments on "Black Twitter." Social media can be a two-edged sword—creating the need to repair a tarnished image while also providing the platform to do so. Study findings have implications for incidents in which individuals and corporations use the N-word. Because of the mortification stance Yahoo Finance took immediately following the incident, the company managed to keep the crisis confined to the social media platform, Twitter. Yahoo Finance removed the tweet right away and apologized, which limited negative media coverage of the mishap.
In reporting dissent.
On April 10, 2008, James Buck, a graduate journalism student at University of California, Berkeley, and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested in Egypt for photographing a protest against the Egyptian authority's detention of protestors. On his way to the police station Buck used his mobile phone to send the message "Arrested" to his 48 Twitter followers. Those followers contacted U.C. Berkeley, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and a number of press organizations on his behalf. Buck was able to send updates about his condition to his followers while being detained. He was released the next day from the Mahalla jail after the college hired a lawyer for him.
On April 7, 2009, thousands of students stormed the presidency and the parliament building in Chişinău, the capital of Moldova, accusing the government of electoral fraud. Information about these events was disseminated through Twitter using hashtag "#pman", from the name of the central square in Chişinău: "Piaţa Marii Adunări Naţionale". Twitter was also used to mobilize the protests.
In the science community.
Space mission news.
In February 2009, NASA won a Shorty Award for its near real-time status updates in 2008 of the unmanned Mars Phoenix Lander mission.
In May 2009, astronaut Mike Massimino used Twitter to send updates during the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission (STS-125), the first time Twitter was used by an astronaut in space. The STS-125 mission marked another NASA/Twitter first — a post-mission tweetup held July 21, 2009, at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., attended by about 200 members of the general public. The crew of STS-125 was on hand to answer questions.
On October 21, 2009, Nicole Stott and her Expedition 21 crewmate Jeff Williams participated in the first tweetup from the International Space Station with about 35 members of the public at NASA headquarters. This involved the first "live" Twitter connection for the astronauts. Previously, astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle or ISS had sent the messages to Mission Control which then posted the messages via the Internet to Twitter.
In November 2009, the launch of STS-129 marked NASA's fifth tweetup, and its first such event ever held during a Shuttle launch at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. One hundred members of the general public, representing Morocco, New Zealand, and 21 U.S. states, in addition to the District of Columbia, attended the two-day event and, for a time, the "#nasatweetup" hashtag reached #3 on Twitter's Trending Topics.
In May 2010, NASA organized a tweetup for the STS-132 Space Shuttle Atlantis mission to the International Space Station.
In robotics.
Given its IM-like functionality, Twitter provides a unique platform to communicate real-time information from robotic machines to human managers, engineers and/or other interested parties. Numerous examples exist of robots whose sensor data is interpreted offline and tweeted by human operators. For example, NASA's humanoid-robot "Robonaut" has a Twitter feed with tweets posted by human operators. However, relatively few projects involve robots that post their own tweets without human intervention. The Japanese counterpart to Robonaut, Astrobot is expected to monitor health parameters of crew members and tweet photos back to Earth automatically, when it launches in 2013. Engineers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst developed the MARC 5.0 robot with RFID tracking to inventory laboratory assets and identify nearby personnel. It automatically tweets when personnel with proper identification badges come within close proximity of its location in an assigned room. For environmental monitoring applications in harsh environments, researchers at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science deploy a Solar-powered Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (SAUV) to tweet water-quality data from its on-board sensors via long-range radio communications. Its Twitter feed is interspersed with periodic interjections by a human operator.
In business.
Twitter is increasingly being used as a business promotional tool. Twitter encourages this through "Twitter 101", a web-based tutorial aimed at business users. For example, one of the notable business Twitter users is Dell, which reported $9m of its 2009 sales coming directly through Twitter and Facebook combined. It has been argued that smaller businesses also benefit from using Twitter, since they can compete on equal terms with larger businesses within the Twitter platform. In the UK, a survey indicated that 17% of small British businesses were using Twitter, mainly to attract new customers.
Small businesses can employ evangelists using a variety of techniques to reach more followers, and sometimes produce industry leaders. Ford has elevated their global head of social media, Scott Monty, into the public spotlight as an evangelist of the use of technology in the automotive industry. Robert Scoble has kept his own company, Rackspace in the public eye and maintained his own publicity primarily through Twitter.
However, increased use of social networking sites has provoked concern about privacy in the workplace, and the protection of company data. A survey of 1,400 chief information officers also revealed concerns about the potential for employee distraction, if they were given unlimited access to social networking sites such as Twitter.
Twitter started showing advertising to users on April 13, 2010 in the company's first significant attempt to turn its microblogging service into a profitable business.
In terror recruiting.
In a 2015 European Foundation for Democracy-European Policy Centre policy dialogue panel in Brussels, Mark Wallace, CEO of the "Counter Extremism Project" and former U.S ambassador to the United Nations, said: “Twitter is currently the 'gateway drug' for those seeking to recruit fighters for Islamic terrorism and this must be stopped.”
In fundraising.
Fundraising campaigns have been held on Twitter, where users are encouraged to tweet about and donate to a particular cause for a specified period of time. This is sometimes known as a "Tweet-a-thon", which is a portmanteau of the words "tweet" and "marathon".
Scott Stratten, author of "UnMarketing: Stop Marketing, Start Engaging", started the 12for12K tweet-a-thon along with Danny Brown, founder of the 12for12K organization. 12for12K is an organization that combines social media and raising funds to impact and change the lives of millions worldwide. It first began in 2009 and uses social media platforms to run events for different charity each month to meet their goal of $12,000 within a twelve-hour time frame. In order to participate, one follows the #12for12K hashtag and re-tweets about the tweet-a-thon. For every twelve dollars donated, one is entered into a raffle with varying prizes. One hundred percent of the donation is given to the specified charity. In result, Stratten started a tweet-a-thon for the charity Share Our Strength. He was able to raise $12,000 within five and half hours of the twelve-hour period. In the end of the twelve-hour period he was able to raise $15,500. During the tweet-a-thon, traffic for 12for12K.org increased by 4000%. On the website a Twitter avatar frame helped bring in 3,600 followers. In 2009, 12for12K.org raised $91,275 for Share Our Strength and several other charities.
The UK non-profit sector used Twitter to update supporters and potential donors when user BigDaveSB used hashtag "#charitytuesday", for which he later shared in a Justgiving Award 2010 for innovative fundraising, using Twitter to keep supporters up to date with regard to progress in a charity jailbreak.
Sue Black and others have used Twitter and other social media to raise the profile and funding for Bletchley Park.
In June 2010, Onlineshoes.com and Saucony collaborated to raise awareness and funds for childhood obesity through a tweet-a-thon. For every tweet, Onlineshoes.com donated a dollar to Saucony's "Run for Good" program, a grant program for encouraging active and healthy lifestyles for children.
In journalism.
Reporting of current events.
In September 2010, Twitter was a key stream of communication by the media inside a Connecticut courtroom during the Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders trial.
While video cameras were not allowed, Connecticut State Supreme Court Judge Jon C. Blue allowed electronic devices for text transmission during the Stephen Hayes trial. Hayes was convicted of the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Hayley and Michaela and sentenced to death. His alleged accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, is scheduled to stand trial for the murders in February 2011.
While a few news organizations in other parts of the country have live blogged for years, this was the first high-profile case in Connecticut in which Twitter played an important role in keeping those interested in the court proceedings updated with information from the courtroom with the use of Twitter.
A second notable example was news organisations - including ABC News, CNN, BBC, ITV, and BSkyB - using Twitter during the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in April 2011. ABC News’ Tweet tracker was shown on screen, with total Tweets about the royal wedding as well as Tweets per minute.
A Pew Research study indicated, however, that the vast majority of news outlets (93%) use Twitter as a means of promoting their sites vs sharing other relevant news and stories.
In April 2013 the Associated Press' Twitter account was briefly hacked into, sending out a message that US president Barack Obama had been injured in an attack on the White House. Stocks lost $134 billion in value almost instantly, before recovering in value when it was discovered the report was false.
Reporting of entertainment news.
Twitter is also used by many celebrities and others in the entertainment industry (news magazines, journalists, entertainment news shows, etc...) as a way to personally connect with fans, promote projects, and break news. Celebrity tweets are often subjects of headline news and sometimes used by the mainstream media and several news outlets as a primary source for confirming information pertaining to a particular story about a celebrity. CNN Breaking News, E! Online, Perez Hilton, and People Magazine are a few entertainment news outlets that have millions of Twitter followers. In June 2010, 24-year-old actress Amanda Bynes shocked the entertainment industry by announcing her retirement via Twitter. She tweeted "I don't love acting anymore so I've stopped doing it." However, a month later, Bynes announced to her followers that she had "unretired." Various news sources reported on this story, breaking the news directly from the actress's Twitter page. During the 83rd Academy Awards there were 1,269,970 tweets related to the event.
Conducting interviews.
Twitter can be used to host interviews, referred to as a Twitterview. It is a type of interview for which the medium restricts the interviewer and interviewee to short-form responses. The concise style of this form of interview encourages participants to be more direct with their statements. Unlike traditional interviews, a Twitterview allows the public to join in on the conversation and become participants themselves. It is typically conducted with a reliance on hashtags, marking the subject, so that online browsers may collectively search, view and track the ongoing dialogue.
Although some sources say ABC News Correspondent George Stephanopoulos is credited with conducting the first official Twitterview in March 2009, when he spoke with Senator John McCain, the truth is there had been twitterviews with such name before. One of the first was conducted in English and later translated to Spanish by Alain Ochoa at "Diariomedico.com"—a Spanish healthcare news site—when he spoke to blogger Bertalan Meskó on December 10, 2008. Another earlier Twitterview was hosted by a blogger named Carl Ocab interviewing John Chow.
Music blogger Derek Michael Sheldon from "The World As I Der See It"! created the first pictorial transformation of the twitterview in an article with music artist Jann Arden. Sheldon transformed the interview platform to an easy to read visual presentation utilizing images of the actual Twitter timeline feed. He continues to be the leading blogger to use the Twitterview format with musicians.
In entertainment.
Sports.
Sportspeople, teams, promoters and sponsors have used Twitter to communicate with fans. Twitter allows to direct communication, letting sportspeople themselves reply to comments by fans and show them their everyday life. Some team mascots even have accounts: Butler Blue, the mascot of Butler University, and Pork Chop, the old Dallara chassis that IndyCar driver Simona de Silvestro used in 2011.
In 2009, IndyCar Series team Vision Racing began using a Twitter account to post reports throughout race weekends. That year, teams, track owners and fans started to organize tweetups. By 2010, most IndyCar drivers and teams had their own Twitter account.
At the 2012 Daytona 500 NASCAR Cup Series race, Brad Keselowski tweeted while driving behind the pace car, posting a picture of a jet dryer truck burning after being hit by another car. The driver tripled his Twitter followers from 60,000 to 200,000 in a few days after the race.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has used Twitter to criticize National Basketball Association officiating; he was fined $50,000 by the league in January 2013 after tweeting "I've tried for 13 years to fix the officiating in this league and I have failed miserably."
Television.
Twitter is used by TV operators and broadcasters to try to encourage viewers to get involved. This can take the form of on-screen hashtags, having celebrities tweet while a show airs, or contests around a TV show. Notable examples include Comedy Central using Twitter hashtags during the Comedy Awards and BBC QuestionTime encouraging political debate. the During the 2011 Oscars, there were over 10,000 tweets per minute- with the event racking up 1.8 million tweets overall. During the 2011 Super Bowl, tweets peaked at 4,000 per second. In the UK, daily television shows also receive attention on Twitter, although the levels of activity is lower than a major TV event like the Oscars.
However, it is unclear if integrating Twitter-based strategies into broadcasting impacts TV ratings.
Pranks.
American Duke basketball player Jon Scheyer played a prank after his team won the 2010 NCAA basketball championship in April 2010. He tweeted his more than 6,700 Twitter followers to call him on a fake phone number, which belonged to his former high school teammate Zach Kelly. For example, "Sports Illustrated" was taken in by the ruse. After Kelly had received more than 2,000 text messages and several hundred calls, Scheyer tweeted his fans to stop texting and calling his friend.
In 2010, a rumor spread via Twitter that teen celebrity Justin Bieber had died. Hashtag "#JustinBieber" remained a Trending Topic for many months until Twitter changed their formula to show newer topics more prominently; however this resulted in fans creating new hashtags to get around the solution.
In art.
British artist James Robert Ford started a Twitter-specific art project in 2009 entitled "A Tweet a Day". He tweets one word a day from Tove Jansson's "The Moomin Who Believed in Disasters" via Twitter user account @JamesRFord. The story recital is expected to finish in 2021. According to Ford, retelling of a child's short story through the microblogging service Twitter emphasises the distribution and delocation of experience.
Oldest user.
At the age of 104, Ivy Bean of Bradford, England was the oldest user of the website. She quickly became more widely known, and several fan pages were made in her honour. At the time of her death, she had 4,962 friends on Facebook and more than 56,000 followers on Twitter. Her death was widely reported in the media and she received tributes from several notable media personalities.
Increasing global usage.
In 2019, as Twitter’s user numbers plateaued in the West, CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted
from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia stating, “Africa will define
the future.” Emerging markets including Africa as potential Twitter users display the
possibility of immense global social connection and impact. With an approximate
800 million new potential customers when Africa’s online population follows the
rest of the globe, Twitter’s users will increase along with its social impact.


SuperCPU

The SuperCPU is a processor upgrade for the and personal computer platforms. The SuperCPU uses the W65C816S microprocessor.
History.
It was developed by Creative Micro Designs, Inc and released on May 4, 1997.
It used a device called the RamCard to increase its capabilities. The card is no longer sold by Creative Micro Designs as of 2001; the distribution was taken over from 2001 to 2009 by the U.S. company Click Here Software Co., but it is unclear if any were manufactured after 2001.
Technical description.
The unit can have up to installed. The unit supported a "Turbo" switch which, when enabled, clocked a or up to The unit plugs into the expansion port of the computer. The unit uses (400mA) and shadow ROM in of RAM. Internal ROM was . Using the RamCard (SuperCard), fast page mode (FPM) not EDO memory modules with PS/2-SIMM socket can be used in the capacities of 1, 4, 8 or 16 MB.


Sol-Feace

 is a 1990 horizontal-scrolling shooter video game developed by Wolf Team and published by Telenet Japan for the Sharp X68000 computer. Versions for the Sega CD and Sega Genesis were released later on, the latter renaming the game "Sol-Deace". The player takes control of the titular starship as it must prevent a malfunctioning supercomputer from enslaving all of mankind. Gameplay involves shooting down enemies and avoiding projectiles, while collecting power capsules to increase the Sol-Feace's abilities. The Sol-Feace also has dual cannons that can fire shots diagonally.
The game's soundtrack was composed by Motoi Sakuraba, who would later work on the "Tales" series for Namco. Alongside Micronet's "Heavy Nova", it was also one of the first launch titles for Sega CD in Japan, and was made as the console pack-in game in North America. "Sol-Feace" was met with mixed reviews from critics, who praised its fast-paced action, graphics and soundtrack but criticized its lack of originality and subpar quality compared to other similar games on the market. Sunsoft owns the rights to "Sol-Feace" after their acquisition of Telenet Japan's intellectual properties in 2009.
Gameplay.
"Sol-Feace" is a horizontal-scrolling shooter. Controlling the titular starship, the player is tasked with preventing a malfunctioning supercomputer before it enslaves all of mankind. The objective of each stage is to destroy incoming enemies and avoiding their projectiles. The Sol-Feace has a pair of dual cannons that can be modified to either point forwards, backwards or diagonally, and can be arranged parallel to each other. Shooting small capsules will leave behind power-up items that upgrade the Sol-Feace's abilities when collected — these include homing missiles, a piercing laser, and a wide shot.
The game is composed of six stages, including mechanical bases, destroyed star vessels and the planet Jupiter — each of these end with a boss fight that must be defeated in order to progress, which have a weak point that must be shot at to inflict damage. The final stage has the player fighting against the supercomputer antagonist. Between stages are animated cutscenes that help explain the game's plot, with the Sega CD release giving these full voice acting.
Development and release.
"Sol-Feace" was originally released for the Sharp X68000 home computer on November 22, 1990. It was developed by Japanese studio Wolf Team and published by their parent company, Telenet Japan. Music for the game was composed by Motoi Sakuraba, who later helped work on the "Tales" series for Namco. It was ported to the Sega CD in 1991 as one of the console's first launch titles in Japan, alongside Micronet's "Heavy Nova", and was made the pack-in game for the North American release — the latter version was published internationally by Sega. A Sega Genesis cartridge version was released in 1992 and published by Renovation Products, renaming the game to "Sol-Deace". The rights to "Sol-Feace" are owned by Sunsoft, following their acquisition of Telenet Japan's intellectual properties in 2009.
Reception.
"Sol-Feace" was met with mixed reviews from critics; while some praised the game's visuals, fast-paced gameplay and soundtrack, others criticized its lack of originality and for being subpar compared to other shoot'em up titles available.
"Computer and Video Games" magazine criticized the gameplay for lacking originality, unfavorably comparing it to games such as "Hellfire" and "Gynoug", adding that much of the game's mechanics and features were done better on other Sega Genesis games beforehand. "Wizard" stated it offered nothing new to the shoot 'em up genre, while "Retro Gamer" said it was a "below par" launch game for the console, saying it was simply the Genesis version with a new CD soundtrack "tacked-on". "GamePro" wrote for the Sega Genesis release that the power-up items weren't as impressive as those in titles such as "Thunder Force III", while also disliking the game's short length. In a retrospective review, "AllGame" disliked the sound effects for being mediocre and its music for being average.
In a more positive light, "Electronic Games" called the Sega CD conversion a "solid side-scrolling shooter" for its sound effects, graphics and fast action-based gameplay, adding that Sega should be commended for making the game a pack-in for the peripheral. "GamePro" liked the Sega Genesis version's detailed visuals and pumping soundtrack, as well as its stage designs. They also wrote that the game could be a contender for a "shoot'em up award" had it existed in the magazine. "Computer and Video Games" stated that the Sega CD version was not a "total waste of money", complementing its sound effects, fast speed, music and cutscenes, while "AllGame" thought the version's dual-cannon mechanic was an interesting gameplay concept. "AllGame" also praised its frantic gameplay and colorful visuals, concluding that it was worth trying out at the very least.


Spectral (computer)


TouchFLO

TouchFLO is a user-interface designed by HTC. It is used by dragging a finger up the screen and moving a finger left and right to access common tasks. TouchFLO was used in the HTC Touch Family of Pocket PCs and was succeeded by TouchFLO 3D, which in turn was succeeded by HTC Sense. TouchFLO can be found on these phones:
The HTC Touch Viva and HTC Touch 3G have a version of TouchFLO 3D that lacks the 3D visual effects found on other devices with TouchFLO 3D. HTC is also calling this significantly different user interface TouchFLO.
Today Screen plugin.
The Today Screen plugin consists of 3 or 4 tabs which provide quick access to key functionality. The tabs contain:
3D Touch Cube.
The 3D Touch Cube is accessed by dragging your finger up the screen and different sides of the cube are switched between by swiping your finger left or right. The cube has 3 sides:


Fon (company)

Fon Wireless Ltd. is a company incorporated and registered in the United Kingdom that provides wireless services. Fon was founded in Madrid, Spain, in 2006, by Martín Varsavsky where it headquarters most of its operations.
Fon started out by building its Wi-Fi network through devices called "foneras". Members, whom the company called "Foneros", agreed to share a part of their bandwidth as a Wi-Fi signal, so that they could connect to other members' hotspots.
As the company evolved, it shifted its focus to working with mobile operators and telecommunication providers, and expanded from deploying residential Wi-Fi to providing access and technology to carriers and services providers.
Fon claims to operate a network of over 20,000,000 WiFi hotspots.
Company.
Fon Wireless Ltd. is a for-profit company incorporated and registered in the United Kingdom. It was created in Madrid, Spain, by Martín Varsavsky where it headquarters most of its operations. Fon also has subsidiaries and branch offices in the United States, UK, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. Its investors include Atomico Ventures, Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Skype.
Early years.
The original idea of Fon was to create a network for Wi-Fi access wherever customers went. To become a Fon member, users had to buy a special router called a “Fonera”. With this router, they agreed to share a part of their bandwidth as a second Wi-Fi signal, in exchange for the right to use other members' Fon hotspots. To achieve this, Fon operated a system of dual access wireless networks. In 2007, Fon’s development model shifted to encompass ISPs and it began to work on creating Wifi community networks with British Telecom (BT) and SFR. In November 2007, Fon deployed its first wifi rollout, and continued using this foundation with more telco partners in the years to come.
Middle years.
Since its initial involvement with ISPs, Fon continued to expand its network through partnerships with local Internet service providers in countries such as Germany, Greece, Japan, and Brazil among others. At the same time the company has continued to expand its product portfolio as technology developed.
2016.
In 2016 the company evolved to include premium networks such as airports, hotels, convention centers, public spaces, etc. in addition to residential networks. Fon also has a technology portfolio called to allow service providers to deliver services to their own customers.
Hardware and firmware.
Originally Fon began with a software download for compatible routers, in particular, Linksys routers. This is custom firmware based on OpenWrt.
Fon started using the OpenWrt base as firmware base for Fon branded routers. The firmware has been customised specifically for use in the Fon Community, allowing consumers to share their broadband connection and to connect to other Fon Spots around the world.
Fon firmware creates two different Wi-Fi signals: one private and one public.
The new 2014 Fonera SIMPL, introduced in February 2014, includes Facebook integration. The owner of the Fonera SIMPL may register their own Facebook account with the device. Once this is done, any user that is a 'Facebook Friend' of the owner is granted access to that Fonera (only).
The 'Fonera Business' takes Facebook integration further by offering free WiFi to customers of a business who are asked to 'Like' the Facebook page for the business in order to gain free WiFi access.
In early 2018, the Online-Shop closed: "manufacture and sale of Foneras has been discontinued".
Partnerships & Collaborations.
Fon claims to have the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, with over 20 million hotspots as at June 2016.
BT (UK).
BT Group (formerly known as British Telecom) and Fon formed a partnership on 4 October 2007. They jointly created the BT-Fon Community by flashing Fon's software on all BT Total Broadband WiFi routers in the UK. This allowed BT Total Broadband customers to participate in the Fon community without buying a Fonera router and in some cases without sharing their own WiFi.
In June 2020 Fon's access to the BT WiFi network ended. No notification was given by either Fon nor BT (other than BT mentioning beforehand, the SSID "BT WiFi with Fon" would be changing to "BTwifi", but without informing the date of the change not that it would end access). On the day of the change all access points from BT disappeared from the map on the Fon app.
SFR (France).
In 2007 Fon and SFR launched Fon on WiFi routers throughout France. SFR subscribers can opt into Fon to share and receive WiFi services.
NOS (Portugal).
In 2008, ZON (now NOS) announced a partnership with Fon to create the largest WiFi network in Portugal. Fon technology is built into NOS WiFi routers so its subscribers become part of the Fon community automatically.
SoftBank (Japan).
SoftBank is Fon's first collaboration with a mobile line operator wanting to offload data traffic to WiFi. Since 2010, SoftBank bundles a Fonera with every iPhone they sell.
Oi (Brazil).
On 31 October 2011 Oi announced its partnership with Fon, granting global WiFi access to its broadband customers.
Proximus (Belgium).
Discontinued; From November 2011 through 2018, Belgacom (now Proximus) was part the Fon network. Proximus added Fon's WiFi-sharing technology to its BBox2 modem earlier in 2011, making it possible to broadcast two WiFi signals from a broadband internet source. Fon Membership was automatically activated (opt-out).
Netia (Poland).
Discontinued; From 28 February 2012 through 2018 Fon was added Poland to its network, deploying over 100,000 hotspots in the first few months.
KPN (the Netherlands).
Discontinued; KPN, a large telecommunications company in the Netherlands, and Fon formed a partnership to publicly launch the Fon network on KPN modems. As of 1 August 2020 this partnership is discontinued.
Deutsche Telekom (Germany).
In March 2013, a partnership with Deutsche Telekom in Germany was announced. Since Year 2020 no active marketing any-more. The Partnership estimated discontinue through 2021.
Four other Telekom branches have joined the Fon network:
HT (Croatia).
In Spring 2013, HT and Fon announced the addition of their new partnership in Croatia.
Cosmote (Greece).
In February 2014, Cosmote (then OTE), became the second DT company to join the Fon network.
Telekom Romania (Romania).
2 July 2014 marked Fon’s expansion into Romania with another DT company, Telekom Romania.
Magyar Telekom (Hungary).
On 5 April 2016 Hungary became the 17th country to join the Fon network, and the 5th DT subsidiary to become a partner.
MWEB ADSL (South Africa).
In February 2014, MWEB joined the Fon network. MWEB customers that have a Fon enabled router can share their WiFi Bandwidth and also use those of other Fon users in the countries and locations that Fon have partners.
Telstra (Australia).
On 20 May 2014 Telstra announced its collaboration with Fon. On 30 June 2015 Telstra Air was launched, granting home broadband users access to the Fon network.
Vodafone (Spain).
On 22 April 2015 Vodafone Spain entered into a partnership with Fon at the same time Vodafone Italy announced their collaboration.
Vodafone (Italy).
On 22 April 2015 Vodafone Italy entered into a partnership with Fon at the same time Vodafone Spain announced their collaboration.
Investors and awards.
Fon has received support from multiple investors in addition to various industry awards and recognition.


Smart wearable system

A smart wearable system (SWS) is an end-to-end integrated and connected system that has the following features:
Sensor nodes can monitor a.o. body location, motion & posture, body vital signs and local context. Actuator nodes can influence properties of the worn items, e.g. in order to protect the wearer from risks, or provide wearer with feedback/recommendations.
The concept of SWS can be seen as an extension and integration of the wearable electronics (wearable computers) and intelligent textiles concepts (e-textiles) from isolated to fully (web) connected systems thus enabling provision of a new category of products, services and solutions.
Examples of SWS application categories can be active safety, risks prevention, coaching, performance improvements, entertainment. For instance e.g. supervised continuous remote monitoring/co-ordination of workers exposed to specific risks, soldiers on the field, people with chronic cardiac diseases or e.g. fitness coach systems where assessment of fitness level as well feedback and improvement recommendations based on deviations from training plans are provided during or after the activity.
SWS applications are emerging a.o. in the sport, entertainment, healthcare, military domains.
The term Smart Wearable Systems has been referenced a.o. by the following authors (sorted, most recent first):


Phillips Hydraulic Computer