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Xiph.Org Foundation
The Xiph.Org Foundation is a nonprofit organization that produces free multimedia formats and software tools. It focuses on the Ogg family of formats, the most successful of which has been Vorbis, an open and freely licensed audio format and codec designed to compete with the patented WMA, MP3 and AAC. As of 2013, development work was focused on Daala, an open and patent-free video format and codec designed to compete with VP9 and the patented High Efficiency Video Coding. In addition to its in-house development work, the foundation has also brought several already-existing but complementary free software projects under its aegis, most of which have a separate, active group of developers. These include Speex, an audio codec designed for speech, and FLAC, a lossless audio codec. The Xiph.Org Foundation has criticized Microsoft and the RIAA for their lack of openness. They state that if companies like Microsoft had owned patents on the Internet, then other companies would ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Montgomery
Christopher "Monty" Montgomery (born June 6, 1972) is an American programmer and engineer. He is the original creator of the Ogg Free Software container format and the Vorbis audio codec and others, and the founder of Xiph.Org Foundation, The Xiph.Org Foundation, which promotes public domain multimedia codecs. He uses ''xiphmont'' as an online pseudonym. He holds a Bachelor of Science, B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Engineering, M.Eng. degree in computer engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. A multimedia programmer, free software advocate and musician, Monty resides in the Boston area. He previously worked for Red Hat on improving the quality of the Ogg Theora format and decoders. In October 2013, he announced his almost immediate switch to Mozilla Foundation, Mozilla. Work on Daala will be an important part of his work there. Montgomery was the evening keynote at the Ohio LinuxFe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advanced Audio Coding
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. It was developed by Dolby, AT&T, Fraunhofer and Sony, originally as part of the MPEG-2 specification but later improved under MPEG-4.ISO (2006ISO/IEC 13818-7:2006 – Information technology — Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information — Part 7: Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Retrieved on 2009-08-06ISO (2006, Retrieved on 2009-08-06 AAC was designed to be the successor of the MP3 format (MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) and generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 at the same bit rate. AAC encoded audio files are typically packaged in an MP4 container most commonly using the filename extension .m4a. The basic profile of AAC (both MPEG-4 and MPEG-2) is called AAC-LC (''Low Complexity''). It is widely supported in the industry and has been adopted as the default or standard audio format on products including Apple's iTunes Store, Nintendo's Wii, DSi and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Container Format
A container format (informally, sometimes called a wrapper) or metafile is a file format that allows multiple data streams to be embedded into a single file, usually along with metadata for identifying and further detailing those streams. Notable examples of container formats include archive files (such as the ZIP format) and formats used for multimedia playback (such as Matroska, MP4, and AVI). Among the earliest cross-platform container formats were Distinguished Encoding Rules and the 1985 Interchange File Format. Design Although containers may identify how data or metadata is encoded, they do not actually provide instructions about how to decode that data. A program that can open a container must also use an appropriate codec to decode its contents. If the program doesn't have the required algorithm, it can't use the contained data. In these cases, programs usually emit an error message that complains of a missing codec, which users may be able to acquire. Container ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax law. It is an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury, Department of the Treasury and led by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed to a five-year term by the President of the United States. The duties of the IRS include providing tax assistance to taxpayers; pursuing and resolving instances of erroneous or fraudulent tax filings; and overseeing various benefits programs, including the Affordable Care Act. The IRS originates from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a federal office created in 1862 to assess the nation's first income tax to fund the American Civil War. The temporary measure funded over a fifth of the Union's war expens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OpenCorporates
OpenCorporates is a website that shares data on corporations under the copyleft Open Database Licence, Open Database License. The company, OpenCorporates Ltd, was incorporated on 18 December 2010 by Chris Taggart and Rob McKinnon, and the website was officially launched on 20th. Data is sourced from national business registries in 140 jurisdictions, and presented in a standardised form. Collected data comprises the name of the entity, date of incorporation, registered addresses, and the names of directors. Some data, such as the ownership structure, is contributed by users. Recognition In 2011, the site won third place in the Open Data Challenge. Vice President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes said the site "is the kind of resource the (Digital) Single Market needs and it is encouraging to see that it is being built." The project was represented on the European Union's Core Vocabularies Working Group's Core Business Task Force. In early 2012, the project was appointe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Swordtail
The green swordtail (''Xiphophorus hellerii'') is a species of freshwater/brackish fish in family Poeciliidae of order Cyprinodontiformes. A live-bearer, it is closely related to the southern platyfish or 'platy' (''X. maculatus'') and can crossbreed with it. It is native to an area of North and Central America stretching from Veracruz, Mexico, to northwestern Honduras. Description The male green swordtail grows to a maximum overall length of and the female to . The name 'swordtail' is derived from the elongated lower lobe of the male's caudal fin (tailfin). Sexual dimorphism is moderate, with the female being larger than the male, but lacking the 'sword'. The wild form is olive green in color, with a red or brown lateral stripe and speckles on the dorsal and, sometimes, caudal fins. The male's 'sword' is yellow, edged in black below. Captive breeding has produced many color varieties, including black, red, and many patterns thereof, for the aquarium hobby. All varietie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Priority Free Software Projects
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("share alike") terms, such as with its own GNU General Public License. The FSF was incorporated in Boston where it is also based. From its founding until the mid-1990s, FSF's funds were mostly used to employ software developers to write free software for the GNU Project and its employees and volunteers have mostly worked on legal and structural issues for the free software movement and the free software community. Consistent with its goals, the FSF aims to use only free software on its own computers. The FSF holds the copyrights on many pieces of the GNU system, such as GNU Compiler Collection. As the holder of these copyrights, it has authority to enforce the copyleft requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL) w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft ("share alike") terms, such as with its own GNU General Public License. The FSF was incorporated in Boston where it is also based. From its founding until the mid-1990s, FSF's funds were mostly used to employ software developers to write free software for the GNU Project and its employees and volunteers have mostly worked on legal and structural issues for the free software movement and the free software community. Consistent with its goals, the FSF aims to use only free software on its own computers. The FSF holds the copyrights on many pieces of the GNU system, such as GNU Compiler Collection. As the holder of these copyrights, it has authority to enforce the copyleft requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secure Digital Music Initiative
Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) was a forum formed in late 1998Leonardo ChiariglioneRiding the Media Bits. Opening content protection chiariglione.org, 2003 ostensibly with the purpose of developing technology and rights management systems specifications that will protect once developed and installed, the playing, storing, distributing and performing of digital music. It was composed of more than 200 IT, consumer electronics, security technology, ISP and recording industry companies, as well as authors, composers and publishing rightsholders (represented by CISAC and BIEM representatives, mainly from SGAE/SDAE (Gonzalo Mora Velarde and José Manuel Macarro), GEMA (Alexander Wolf und Thomas Kummer-Hardt), SACEM/SDRM (Aline Jelen, Catherine Champarnaud, Laurent Lemasson), MCPS/PRS (Mark Isherwood), ASCAP, BMI (Edward Oshanani), and SODRAC), Specifically, the goals of the SDMI were to provide consumers with convenient access to music online and in new digital distribution sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Patent
A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, library, user interface, or algorithm. The validity of these patents can be difficult to evaluate, as software is often at once a product of engineering, something typically eligible for patents, and an abstract concept, which is typically not. This gray area, along with the difficulty of patent evaluation for intangible, technical works such as libraries and algorithms, makes software patents a frequent subject of controversy and litigation. Different jurisdictions have radically different policies concerning software patents, including a blanket ban, no restrictions, or attempts to distinguish between purely mathematical constructs and "embodiments" of these constructs. For example, an algorithm itself may be judged unpatentable, but its use in software judged patentable. Background A patent is a set of exclusionary rights granted by a state to a patent holder for a limited period of time, usual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recording Industry Association Of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legally sold recorded music in the United States". RIAA is headquartered in Washington, D.C. RIAA was formed in 1952. Its original mission was to administer recording copyright fees and problems, work with trade unions, and do research relating to the record industry and government regulations. Early RIAA standards included the RIAA equalization curve, the format of the stereophonic record groove and the dimensions of 33 1/3, 45, and 78 rpm records. RIAA says its current mission includes: #to protect intellectual property rights and the First Amendment rights of artists #to perform research about the music industry #to monitor and review relevant laws, regulations, and policies Between 2001 and 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The early 1980s and home computers, rise of personal computers through software like Windows, and the company has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing, video gaming and other fields. Microsoft is the List of the largest software companies, largest software maker, one of the Trillion-dollar company, most valuable public U.S. companies, and one of the List of most valuable brands, most valuable brands globally. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Windows. During the 41 years from 1980 to 2021 Microsoft released 9 versions of MS-DOS with a median frequen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
