title: Audio engineer

text: There are four distinct steps to commercial production of a recording: recording, editing, mixing, and mastering. Typically, each is performed by a sound engineer who specializes only in that part of production.


title: Audio engineer

text: An audio engineer is proficient with different types of recording media, such as analog tape, digital multi-track recorders and workstations, plug-ins and computer knowledge. With the advent of the digital age, it is increasingly important for the audio engineer to understand software and hardware integration, from synchronization to analog to digital transfers. In their daily work, audio engineers use many tools, including:


title: Fluorouracil

text: Fluorouracil (5-FU), sold under the brand name Adrucil among others, is a cytotoxic chemotherapy medication used to treat cancer. By intravenous injection it is used for treatment of colorectal cancer, oesophageal cancer, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, and cervical cancer. As a cream it is used for actinic keratosis, basal cell carcinoma, and skin warts.


title: Fluorouracil

text: Side effects of use by injection are common. They may include inflammation of the mouth, loss of appetite, low blood cell counts, hair loss, and inflammation of the skin. When used as a cream, irritation at the site of application usually occurs. Use of either form in pregnancy may harm the baby. Fluorouracil is in the antimetabolite and pyrimidine analog families of medications. How it works is not entirely clear, but it is believed to involve blocking the action of thymidylate synthase and thus stopping the production of DNA.


title: Fluorouracil

text: Fluorouracil was patented in 1956 and came into medical use in 1962. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.


title: Fluorouracil

text: Fluorouracil has been given systemically for anal, breast, colorectal, oesophageal, stomach, pancreatic and skin cancers (especially head and neck cancers). It has also been given topically (on the skin) for actinic keratoses, skin cancers and Bowen's disease and as eye drops for treatment of ocular surface squamous neoplasia. Other uses include ocular injections into a previously created trabeculectomy bleb to inhibit healing and cause scarring of tissue, thus allowing adequate aqueous humor flow to reduce intraocular pressure.


title: Fluorouracil

text: Fluorouracil is contraindicated in patients who are severely debilitated and in patients with bone marrow suppression due to either radiotherapy or chemotherapy. It is likewise contraindicated in pregnant or breastfeeding women. Non-topical use, i.e. administration by injection, should be avoided in patients who do not have malignant illnesses.


title: Fluorouracil

text: Diarrhea is severe and may be dose-limiting and is exacerbated by co-treatment with calcium folinate. Neutropenia tends to peak about 9–14 days after beginning treatment. Thrombocytopenia tends to peak about 7–17 days after the beginning of treatment and tends to recover about 10 days after its peak. Cardiotoxicity is a fairly common side effect, usually manifesting as angina or symptoms associated with coronary artery spasm, but about 0.55% of those receiving the drug will develop life-threatening cardiotoxicity. Life-threatening cardiotoxicity includes: arrhythmias, ventricular tachycardia and cardiac arrest, secondary to transmural ischaemia.


title: Fluorouracil

text: The United States package insert warns that acute cerebellar syndrome has been observed following injection of fluorouracil and may persist after cessation of treatment. Symptoms include ataxia, nystagmus, and dysmetria.


title: Fluorouracil

text: There is very little difference between the minimum effective dose and maximum tolerated dose of 5-FU, and the drug exhibits marked individual pharmacokinetic variability. Therefore, an identical dose of 5-FU may result in a therapeutic response with acceptable toxicity in some patients and unacceptable and possibly life-threatening toxicity in others. Both overdosing and underdosing are of concern with 5-FU, although several studies have shown that the majority of colorectal cancer patients treated with 5-FU are underdosed based on today's dosing standard, body surface area (BSA). The limitations of BSA-based dosing prevent oncologists from being able to accurately titer the dosage of 5-FU for the majority of individual patients, which results in sub-optimal treatment efficacy or excessive toxicity.


title: Fluorouracil

text: Numerous studies have found significant relationships between concentrations of 5-FU in blood plasma and both desirable or undesirable effects on patients. Studies have also shown that dosing based on the concentration of 5-FU in plasma can greatly increase desirable outcomes while minimizing negative side effects of 5-FU therapy. One such test that has been shown to successfully monitor 5-FU plasma levels and which "may contribute to improved efficacy and safety of commonly used 5-FU-based chemotherapies" is the My5-FU test.


title: Fluorouracil

text: Its use should be avoided in patients receiving drugs known to modulate dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (such as the antiviral drug sorivudine). It may also increase the INR and prothrombin times in patients on warfarin. Fluorouracil's efficacy is decreased when used alongside allopurinol, which can be used to decrease fluorouracil induced stomatitis through use of allopurinol mouthwash.


title: Fluorouracil

text: The dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) enzyme is responsible for the detoxifying metabolism of fluoropyrimidines, a class of drugs that includes 5-fluorouracil, capecitabine, and tegafur. Genetic variations within the DPD gene ("DPYD") can lead to reduced or absent DPD activity, and individuals who are heterozygous or homozygous for these variations may have partial or complete DPD deficiency; an estimated 0.2% of individuals have complete DPD deficiency. Those with partial or complete DPD deficiency have a significantly increased risk of severe or even fatal drug toxicities when treated with fluoropyrimidines; examples of toxicities include myelosuppression, neurotoxicity and hand-foot syndrome.


title: Fluorouracil

text: 5-FU acts in several ways, but principally as a thymidylate synthase (TS) inhibitor. Interrupting the action of this enzyme blocks synthesis of the pyrimidine thymidylate (dTMP), which is a nucleotide required for DNA replication. Thymidylate synthase methylates deoxyuridine monophosphate (dUMP) to form thymidine monophosphate (dTMP). Administration of 5-FU causes a scarcity in dTMP, so rapidly dividing cancerous cells undergo cell death via thymineless death. Calcium folinate provides an exogenous source of reduced folinates and hence stabilises the 5-FU-TS complex, hence enhancing 5-FU's cytotoxicity.


title: Fluorouracil

text: In 1954, Abraham Cantarow and Karl Paschkis found liver tumors absorbed radioactive uracil more readily than did normal liver cells. Charles Heidelberger, who had earlier found that fluorine in fluoroacetic acid inhibited a vital enzyme, asked Robert Duschinsky and Robert Schnitzer at Hoffmann-La Roche to synthesize fluorouracil. Some credit Heidelberger and Duschinsky with the discovery that 5-fluorouracil markedly inhibited tumors in mice. The original 1957 report in "Nature" has Heidelberger as lead author, along with N. K. Chaudhuri, Peter Danneberg, Dorothy Mooren, Louis Griesbach, Robert Duschinsky, R. J. Schnitzer, E. Pleven, and J. Scheiner.


title: Fluorouracil

text: In 1958, Anthony R. Curreri, Fred J. Ansfield, Forde A. McIver, Harry A. Waisman, and Charles Heidelberger reported the first clinical findings of 5-FU's activity in cancer in humans.


title: Fluorouracil

text: In 2003, scientists isolated 5-fluorouracil derivatives, closely related compounds, from the marine sponge, "Phakellia fusca" collected around the "Yongxing Island" of the "Xisha Islands" in the "South China Sea". This is significant because fluorine-containing organic compounds are rare in nature, and also because manmade anticancer drugs are not frequently found to have analogues in nature.


title: Fluorouracil

text: The name "fluorouracil" is the INN, USAN, USP name, and BAN. The form "5-fluorouracil" is often used; it shows that there is a fluorine atom on the 5th carbon of a uracil ring.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Singam 3 (Shortened as Si3 or S3) is a 2017 Indian Tamil-language action film written and directed by Hari. A sequel to "Singam II" (2013) and the third film in the "Singam film series", it stars Suriya and Anushka Shetty, where Anushka Shetty plays an important extended Cameo role as main lead (both of whom reprised their roles in the first two films), while Hansika Motwani (who previously played a lead role), plays a cameo role in this series along with Shruti Hassan and Thakur Anoop Singh. It is the fifth collaboration of Suriya and Hari. The film occurs a few months after "Singam 2" and focuses on DCP Duraisingam, attempting to solve the murder case of Vizag City Police Commissioner, Ramakrishna.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Principal photography commenced in January 2016 in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The film was released worldwide on 9 February 2017.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Upon release, it received mixed reviews from the critics, who criticized the writing, direction, runtime, humour, and similarities with the previous entries of the series. However, the performances of the cast (especially Suriya's final performance as Duraisingam), action sequences, and Harris Jayaraj' music received praise. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the film grossed around ₹110 crore worldwide, and emerged as an average grosser.


title: Si3 (film)

text: A tough debate occurs within an Andhra Pradesh state assembly about the long pending murder case of Visakhapatnam City Police Commissioner Ramakrishna. The Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh proposes recruiting Singam from Tamil Nadu to Vizag as the new DCP, by order under the CBI. As Singam arrives in Vizag station, he fends off an attack from goon Gun Ravi, who works for Vizag's most influential and powerful don Madhusudhana Reddy. Singam starts to behave as a corrupt cop and secretly investigates the murder of commissioner.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Singam is followed by Vidya, a journalist in guise of a student hoping to write a story on Singam. Singam had previously covered his relationship with his wife Kavya Mahalingam to keep her away from enemies, and after curiosity from Constable Veeram, he closes it as a divorce, revealing it only to Inspector Subba Rao. After briefly confronting Bheemli Selvam, Reddy's man who ordered the attack at the train station, Singam finds that a constable at the station has gotten sick from consuming an expired medicine tablet. With help from a paroled hacker named Murali, Singam tracks Mallaiya who drove Ramakrishna to Vizag harbour on the night of the murder.


title: Si3 (film)

text: A local schoolteacher informs Singam that a toxic smoke attack from the nearby dump killed his 32 students, including his grandchildren. Singam realizes that Ramakrishna intended to expose illegal dumping of mediwaste and electronic waste, which included recycled tablets being sold to the public and the smoke attack on the school. The garbage is being imported by Vizag Scraps owner Rajeev Krishna in exchange for free metal scrap delivery to steel companies in Australia. Mallaiya confirms that Reddy, who authorizes this business in India killed Ramakrishna to prevent him from thwarting his operation.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Reddy and Rajeev's activities are supervised by wealthy, powerful and corrupt current Commercial Minister of Australia and Businessman, Vittal Prasad, who receives full support from his father, Union Minister Ram Prasad. In the meantime, Vidya writes an article on Singam claiming that he exported Reddy for personal gain and that he is corrupt, putting Singam's reputation at edge. As a result, he has Vidya arrested and fined for discrediting him. Singam begins to eliminate and arrest criminals all over the city, including Selvam whom he guns down. Later, Singam heads to Vizag harbour to obtain evidence from Reddy's containers but is attacked by his men while Ravi murders the school teacher.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Vittal calls Singam anonymously and threatens to use his influence to kill Singam's family if he doesn't stand down. The next day, Singam chases down Ravi and arrests Reddy. He pays a personal visit to Vittal in Australia from looking into Reddy's contacts, and confirms that he is the one behind the illegal dumping. He narrowly escapes Vittal and returns to India, where he finds that Reddy has been bailed by three criminals, who framed the Commissioner for supposed assault on one of their wives, and justify the murder as vengeance. Singam is also fired from the CBI for speaking out of turn, but has the home minister transfer him as a Andhra pradesh cop in Vizag to continue pursuing Reddy's men.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Singam exposes the garbage containers to the public, forcing Vittal to come to Vizag. When Vittal warns him again to stay out of his way, Singam responds by having Subbu Rao kill Reddy, whom previously killed his nine-year-old son in a city riot to defend Ram Prasad's position. Singam brings Vittal to his station and gives him another chance to repent for whom he's hurt. Singam and Kavya later visit Thoothukudi to attend Kavya's grandma's funeral. They are followed by Rajeev, who is arrested. When Vidya attempts to interview Vittal, she is captured and drugged. With help from Murali, Singam rescues Vidya but is targeted by Vittal's men who bombs the police station.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Singam decides to finish this once and for all and gets an arrest warrant for Vittal using computer evidence of agreements signed with medical companies, hacked by Murali. The next day, Singam pursues Vittal all the way to Hyderabad Airport in Telangana and has him arrested. Vittal escapes custody into a nearby forest, where Singam catches him and after a long fight, Vittal dies there. Singam regains his post and respect while Ram Prasad is removed from cabinet position for assisting his son. Kavya is revealed to be 6 months pregnant and Vidya severs contact with Singam after getting engaged to a good prospect. Singam receives a call from Home Minister Ramanathan, who calls him for another mission.


title: Si3 (film)

text: Following the commercial success of "Singam 2", Hari was keen to collaborate with Suriya for another action film with a fresh script away from the "Singam" franchise, and agreed terms in principle with the actor in October 2014. Hari revealed that as a result of pressure from those around him, he later developed the one-line story from the film into a script for a third part of "Singam". While the first film was primarily shot within Tamil Nadu and the second featured a few scenes in South Africa, Hari stated that the third part would be more "international" and would be set in three countries as the protagonist tackles a global issue.


title: Si3 (film)

text: While most of the cast was retained from the earlier films, Initially Akshara Hasan was considered for the second female lead but she opted out the film then Shruti Haasan was added to the team in July 2015 to portray another leading female role, while Anirudh Ravichander was signed as the music composer replacing Devi Sri Prasad. Anirudh later opted out of the project citing scheduling issues and Harris Jayaraj was brought in to compose the film's music. Vivek, who portrayed the police officer Erimalai in the first two films, declined to reprise his role in this film as he felt he "did not have a meaty role in it". New actors to the series including Raadhika, Soori, Robo Shankar, Krish and Nithin Sathya were added to the cast, while Thakur Anoop Singh was signed on to portray the lead antagonist. In preparation for his role, Suriya bulked up his physique by spending more hours in the gym and by adopting a strict oil-free diet.


title: Si3 (film)

text: The start of the film's shoot, initially scheduled for December 2015, was delayed as a result of the 2015 South Indian floods. Production began in Visakhapatnam during January 2015 with scenes featuring Shruti Haasan as a journalist being shot. Following a series of action sequences shot in the city, the team moved to film song sequences in Romania with Anushka joining the team. After a production break, the team restarted the shoot in Visakhapatnam, before moving to the Talakona Forest region and then on the AVM Studios in Chennai during mid-2016. The team moved to Malaysia to finish filming the climax in October 2016, before a further song was shot in Georgia with Suriya and Shruti Haasan. In January 2017, the film was re-titled from "S3" to "Si3" (spelt சி3 in Tamil) to exploit the Tamil Nadu Government's rule of entertainment tax exemption for films titled in Tamil.


title: Si3 (film)

text: "Singam 3" went through several changes of release date, before being released on 9 February 2017 coinciding with Thaipusam festival. The film was completed in mid-2016 and the team completed post-production work aiming to have a theatrical release in October to coincide either with the Ayudha Puja or Diwali season, but the release was postponed to avoid a box office clash with Suriya's brother, Karthi's film, "Kaashmora". The film was then scheduled to release on 16 December. However, due to a request from the makers of "Dhruva", the film release date was pushed even later on 23 December to make most of the Christmas holiday season, but was delayed after the team chose to allow the public of Tamil Nadu more time to recuperate from the aftermath of Cyclone Vardah, the death of Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and the demonetisation problems. Prior to the film's revised release date of 26 January, PETA India had remarked that Suriya was trying to garner publicity for "Si3" by speaking out against the organisation at the 2017 pro-jallikattu protests. Suriya subsequently filed a legal notice against PETA for the defamatory allegations. The film was pushed back even further following riots in Chennai at the end of the protest, with the producers finalising a worldwide theatrical release date of 9 February. In Malaysia, this movie was available in Astro First channel 481 in early April 2017. Viewers need to pay RM15.00 to watch the movie for two days. The first premiere of this movie was in Astro Vinmeen Channel 231(HD) during the festive weekend of Hari Raya Haji and further premiered in Astro Vellithirai Channel 202 on Diwali 2017.The satellite rights of Si3 were sold to Sun TV.Amazon has acquired the digital rights of Si3.


title: Si3 (film)

text: "Times of India" stated that the delayed release " did not seem to deter Duraisingam from roaring loud, making swift actions, bashing up the baddies uncompromisingly and winning applause from his colleagues as well as the audience", while also lauding Suriya and Hari's contribution to the film. The critic rated 3 out of 5 and wrote "Suriya, who carries the entire film on his shoulders, is in full form — Duraisingam looks as intense, brave and energetic as he appeared more than six years ago", and "director Hari's consistency in handling cop stories convincingly and entertainingly needs to be commended as he has been proving his expertise repeatedly". "The New Indian Express" also gave 3 out of 5 for the film and gave positive review, stating "In "Si3", Suriya proves with the third film of the franchise that no one can play Durai Singam better than him", while analysing that "Hari maintains a sense of urgency in his films from the beginning to end, but, as a commercial film director, his storytelling methods also suffer from following a set of rules, which include frequent yawn-inducing songs", though added that "he makes up for that formulaic approach with fast-paced narration in the scenes that follows". Behindwoods rated the film 2.75 out of 5 and stated that "Durai Singam strikes again! Suriya and Hari don't disappoint you in this "Singam" franchise". In contrast, the critic from The Hindu gave 2 out of 5 and stated that the film was "loud, fast, and without a single memorable moment". Likewise, "Sify" called the film "a cocktail of harebrained predictable plot, exhausting action scenes and slapstick comedy", while concluding it was "loud and exhausting".


title: Si3 (film)

text: "Si3" collected in domestic box office on its opening day and in 5 days of release. The film collected at the worldwide box office in its opening four-day weekend. The film collected worldwide in 6 days.


title: Si3 (film)

text: The film's soundtrack is scored by Harris Jayaraj, who replaced Devi Sri Prasad as the composer of the film series. Taking a break after various schedules of shooting, director Hari and Harris Jayaraj completed the song composing in Bangkok, Thailand. The audio rights of the film was acquired by Eros Music and the complete album was released on 27 November 2016. Reviewing the album, Srivatsan of India Today stated ""S3" might not be Harris' best work, but definitely not bad either. Having said that, it's a "pucca" ( really) commercial album from the composer. Be it the songs or the theme music, the album has enough scope to pander to the B and C centers".


title: Si3 (film)

text: The film is set to be remade in Hindi with Thakur Anoop Singh, who played the antagonist in the original, playing the lead role essayed by Suriya. The remake will be directed by Guddu Dhanoa and produced by Jayantilal Gada of Pen India Limited.


title: Thigh

text: In human anatomy, the thigh is the area between the hip (pelvis) and the knee. Anatomically, it is part of the lower limb.


title: Thigh

text: The single bone in the thigh is called the femur. This bone is very thick and strong (due to the high proportion of bone tissue), and forms a ball and socket joint at the hip, and a modified hinge joint at the knee.


title: Thigh

text: The femur is the only bone in the thigh and serves as an attachment site for all muscles in the thigh. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates with the tibia and patella forming the knee. By most measures, the femur is the strongest bone in the body. The femur is also the longest bone in the body.


title: Thigh

text: The femur is categorised as a long bone and comprises a diaphysis, the shaft (or body) and two epiphysis or extremities that articulate with adjacent bones in the hip and knee.


title: Thigh

text: In cross-section, the thigh is divided up into three separate compartments, divided by fascia, each containing muscles. These compartments use the femur as an axis and are separated by tough connective tissue membranes (or septa). Each of these compartments has its own blood and nerve supply, and contains a different group of muscles.


title: Thigh

text: Anterior compartment muscles of the thigh include sartorius, and the four muscles that comprise the quadriceps muscles- rectus femoris, vastus medialis, vastus intermedius and vastus lateralis.


title: Thigh

text: Posterior compartment muscles of the thigh are the hamstring muscles, which include semimembranosus, semitendinosus, and biceps femoris.


title: Thigh

text: Medial compartment muscles are pectineus, adductor magnus, adductor longus and adductor brevis, and also gracilis.


title: Thigh

text: Because the major muscles of the thigh are the largest muscles of the body, resistance exercises (strength training) of them stimulate blood flow more than any other localized activity.


title: Thigh

text: The arterial supply is by the femoral artery and the obturator artery. The lymphatic drainage closely follows the arterial supply and drains to the lumbar lymphatic trunks on the corresponding side, which in turn drains to the cisterna chyli.


title: Thigh

text: The deep venous system of the thigh consists of the femoral vein, the proximal part of the popliteal vein, and various smaller vessels; these are the site of proximal deep venous thrombosis. The "venae perfortantes" connect the deep and the superficial system, which consists of the saphenous veins (the site of varicose veins).


title: Thigh

text: Regarding Sports injury, whether acute or from overuse, a thigh injury can mean significant incapacity to perform. Soft tissue injury can encompass sprains, strains, bruising and tendinitis.


title: Thigh

text: Runner's knee (Patellofemoral pain): is a direct consequence of the kneecap rubbing against the end of the thigh bone (”femur”). Tight hamstrings and weak thigh muscles, required to stabilize the knee, risk development of runner's knee.


title: Thigh

text: The thigh meat of some animals such as chicken and cow is consumed as food in many parts of the world.


title: Thigh

text: Western societies generally tolerate clothing that displays thighs, such as short shorts and miniskirts. Beachwear and many athleisure styles often display thighs as well. Professional dress codes may require covering up bare thighs.


title: Thigh

text: Strategic covering or display of thighs is used in popular fashion around the world, such as thigh-high boots and "zettai ryoiki".


title: Davie504

text: Davide Biale (born 5 April 1994), better known by his online alias Davie504, is an Italian musician and YouTuber. He is best known for playing bass guitar, primarily with a slapping technique, and creating several covers and viral videos.


title: Davie504

text: Biale began playing bass in high school after being influenced by Kiss bassist Gene Simmons. In 2011, he created a channel named Davie504, and began to upload unconventional cover performances of songs in 2012. Examples of these videos include him using M&M's to cover songs by Eminem, a Korn medley played with corn cobs, and a Red Hot Chili Peppers medley played with actual chili peppers. He also performs musical challenges, which are often suggested to him by comments on his videos, such as playing an uninterrupted slap bass solo for 5 hours, and playing a bassline which Deadmau5 claimed to be "technically impossible".


title: Davie504

text: Biale is also known for uploading meme-related videos and covers. Most notably, he contributed to the PewDiePie vs T-Series competition, where he played a bass cover of "Bitch Lasagna" outside of the T-Series headquarters as well as a video series where he reacts to posts made on his subreddit page. He also participated in a competition with Jared Dines and Steve Terreberry to play the guitar with the most strings.


title: Davie504

text: In 2017, Chowny Bass released the Davie504 signature bass guitar. In May 2019, Biale was listed as number two on MusicRadar's list of "the 20 hottest bassists in the world today". He received his Youtube Gold Play Button later that year, which he turned into a custom bass alongside Amnesia Guitars.


title: Davie504

text: Biale grew up in Albisola Superiore. He attended a university in Genoa before dropping out to focus on his YouTube career. He later studied music production at a college in London. He moved to Brighton in 2017.


title: Davie504

text: Biale's wife is indigenous Taiwanese, and she also plays bass. They were married in October 2022. He has spent time living in Taiwan.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung () is a book of statements from speeches and writings by Mao Zedong (formerly romanized as Mao Tse-tung), the former Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, published from 1964 to about 1976 and widely distributed during the Cultural Revolution.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: The most popular versions were printed in small sizes that could be easily carried and were bound in bright red covers, thus commonly becoming known internationally as the "Little Red Book".


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung" was originally compiled by an office of the "PLA Daily" ("People's Liberation Army Daily") as an inspirational political and military document. The initial publication covered 23 topics with 200 selected quotations by the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, and was entitled "200 Quotations from Chairman Mao". It was first given to delegates of a conference on 5 January 1964 who were asked to comment on it. In response to the views of the deputies and compilers of the book, the work was expanded to address 25 topics with 267 quotations, and the title was changed simply to "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung".


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: On 10 January, the work was re-issued to the delegates and sent to select units of the People's Liberation Army who received their advance copies for educating troops as well as for their comments. In May 1964, the PLA General Political Department, the chief political organ under Central Military Commission, revised "Quotations", adding a half title page with the slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" () in bold red letters, and endorsement leaves written by Lin Biao, Mao's chosen successor, that included three lines from the diary of revolutionary soldier Lei Feng who is considered a hero in China. This version was issued "for internal use" to the military leaders. Following discussions that expanded the book twice more—finally closing on 33 topics and 427 quotations by Mao—the commission began publishing the definitive version in May 1965.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: At the end of 1965, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party officially approved the book for publication by the People's Publishing House and for distribution within China by the Xinhua Bookstore.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: The Ministry of Culture held special study meetings to develop a production and distribution plan. It sought assurances that the book would receive publishing priority and that there would be sufficient paper, ink, and printing presses available. The goal was for "ninety-nine percent (of the population of China to) read Chairman Mao's book", according to a catalogue of publication records of the People's Publishing House. Provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across China were ordered to build hundreds of new printing houses to publish the "Quotations" during the second half of 1966 which pushed the limits of the Chinese printing industry.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: This disrupted plans for publishing any new volumes of "The Complete Works of Marx and Engels" that was already in progress. It also halted distribution of other ideological works. As late as 1970, more than 8 million copies of the 4-volume set of "Selected Works of Marx and Engels" that had already been printed (both in cloth hardcover and paperback) remained undistributed in storage warehouses on the grounds that other works "should not interfere with learning "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung"".


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: On the other hand, several other works by Mao had very large printings during the same period, even though these editions were not produced in the huge numbers of "Quotations from Chairman Mao". These include "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" (in four volumes, 2.875 million copies in 14 languages), "Selected Articles of Mao Zedong" (various editions totalling 252 million copies), single article books, and works of poetry.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: In 1966, the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party approved "Quotations from Chairman Mao" for export. To meet overseas requirements, the editors of the Chinese Foreign Languages Press made revisions necessitated by the situation. They added a "second edition preface" endorsement by Lin Biao, dated 16 December 1966 (which was torn out following Lin Biao's death and public disgrace in September 1971). On the last page, they listed the names of the publisher (PLA General Political Department) without an ISBN, the printer and distributor (both Xinhua Bookstore), and the publication year.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: By May 1967, bookstores in 117 countries and territories around the world – including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Japan, the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, Nepal, Indonesia, Philippines, Burma, Iran, various Arab and African nations and others – were distributing Mao's "Quotations". Foreign presses operating in 20 countries contributed to the publication of 20 translations in 35 versions.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: The "Little Red Book" has produced a wide array of sales and distribution figures. Some sources claim that over 6.5 billion printed volumes have been distributed in total, others contend that the distribution ran into the "billions", and others cite "over a billion" official volumes between 1966 and 1969 alone as well as "untold numbers of unofficial local reprints and unofficial translations."


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: The book's popularity may be because it was essentially an unofficial requirement for every Chinese citizen to own, to read, and to carry it at all times during the latter half of Mao's rule, especially during the Cultural Revolution.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: The most widely produced editions of the "Quotations of Chairman Mao" were published with a printed red vinyl cover wrapper over cardboard with pages bound in 64 folios that included photos of Mao. Other editions of the book were covered in cloth, silk, leather, paper, and other materials.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: Most editions were produced in a functional, compact size that fit into a pocket, were easy to carry, and could be taken out at any time "for practice, learning, application." It was published in 32 other common sizes, allegedly the largest format printed on only 4 pages as large as the newspaper "Reference News", and the smallest format the size of a matchbox.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: Today in China, the book is a symbol of Mao Zedong Thought. In certain situations, the "Quotations" is given as a gift, for example, when public funds are involved, or when personal events arise, such as congratulating newlyweds, and so on.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: Foreign press report called the work "The Little Red Book", reflecting its common small size and bright cover. After the Cultural Revolution ended, some Chinese people also adopted the nickname (back-translated into Chinese as "The Treasured Red Book") .


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: During the 1960s, the book was the single most visible icon in mainland China, even more visible than the image of the Chairman himself. In posters and pictures created by CCP's propaganda artists, nearly every painted character, whether smiling or looking determined, was seen with a copy of the book in his or her hand. After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and the rise of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, the importance of the book waned considerably, and the glorification of Mao's quotations was considered to be left deviationism and a cult of personality.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: Today in China, the book "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung" is mostly seen by the Chinese people as a piece of nostalgia. Various editions are popular with some collectors, and rare and unusual printings command extremely high prices. It may be purchased at shops in Beijing, Shanghai, other major cities in China, as well as at some tourist attractions. The edition currently (2012) available (photo above) has a publication date of 1966. It has about thirty colour photographs at the front. There are then another 378 pages with Traditional Chinese on the left pages and the English translation on the right pages. The English language edition has many spelling mistakes as well as other typographical errors on almost every page. Only the first 22 chapters are in this edition compared with 33 in the first Chinese and English editions. There is no Lin Biao page.


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung" consists of 427 quotations, organized thematically into 33 chapters. It is also called "Thoughts of Chairman Mao" by many Chinese people. The quotations range in length from a sentence to a few short paragraphs, and borrow heavily from a group of about two dozen documents in the four volumes of Mao's "Selected Works".


title: Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

text: Usually the quotations are arranged logically, to deal with one to three themes in the development of a chapter. The table below summarizes the book.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Spoken English shows great variation across regions where it is the predominant language. For example, the United Kingdom has the largest variation of accents of any country in the world, and therefore no single "British accent" exists. This article provides an overview of the numerous identifiable variations in pronunciation; such distinctions usually derive from the phonetic inventory of local dialects, as well as from broader differences in the Standard English of different primary-speaking populations.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Accent is the part of dialect concerning local pronunciation. Vocabulary and grammar are described elsewhere; see the list of dialects of the English language. Secondary English speakers tend to carry over the intonation and phonetics of their mother tongue in English speech. For more details on this, see non-native pronunciations of English.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Primary English speakers show great variability in terms of regional accents. Examples such as Pennsylvania Dutch English are easily identified by key characteristics, but others are more obscure or easily confused. Broad regions can possess subforms; for instance, towns located less than from the city of Manchester (such as Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale, and Salford) each have distinct accents, all of which are grouped together under the broader Lancashire accent. These sub-dialects are very similar to each other, but non-local listeners can identify firm differences. On the other side of the spectrum, Australia has a General Australian accent which remains almost unchanged over thousands of miles.


title: Regional accents of English

text: English accents can differ enough to create room for misunderstandings. For example, the pronunciation of "pearl" in some variants of Scottish English can sound like the entirely unrelated word "petal" to an American. For a summary of the differences between accents, see the International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects.


title: Regional accents of English

text: English dialects differ greatly in their pronunciation of open vowels. In Received Pronunciation, there are four open back vowels, , but in General American there are only three, , and in most dialects of Canadian English only two, . In addition, which words have which vowel varies between dialects. Words like "bath" and "cloth" have the vowels in Received Pronunciation, but in General American. The table above shows some of these dialectal differences.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Accents and dialects vary widely across Great Britain, Ireland and nearby smaller islands. The UK has the most local accents of any English speaking country. As such, a single "British accent" does not exist. However, someone could be said to have an English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish accent, although these all have many different sub-types.


title: Regional accents of English

text: There are considerable variations within the accents of English across England, one of the most obvious being the trap–bath split of the southern half of the country.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Two main sets of accents are spoken in the West Country, namely Cornish and West Country spoken primarily in the counties of Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Bristol, Dorset (not as common in Dorset), and Wiltshire (again, less common in eastern Wiltshire). However, a range of variations can be heard within different parts of the West Country: the Bristolian dialect is distinctive from the accent heard in Gloucestershire (especially south of Cheltenham), for example.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The Cornwall accent has an east–west variation with the East of the county having influences from West country English and the West of the county having direct influences from the Cornish language.


title: Regional accents of English

text: There is also great variation within Greater London, with various accents such as Cockney, Estuary English, Multicultural London English and Received Pronunciation being found all throughout the region and the Home Counties.


title: Regional accents of English

text: On 20 February 2019, the New York Times published a quiz that maps the geographical differences between British and Irish dialects.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Cumbria has regional variants in Western Cumbria (Workington), Southern Cumbria (Barrow-in-Furness) and Carlisle.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Modern Northumbrian has local variants in Northern Northumberland (Berwick-upon-Tweed), Eastern Northumberland (Ashington) and Newcastle, Sunderland and Mid-County Durham and Southern County Durham. A specialist dialect called Pitmatic is within this group, found across the region, it includes terms specific to coal mining.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Yorkshire is also distinctive, having regional variants around Leeds, Bradford, Hull, Middlesbrough, Sheffield, and York. Although many Yorkshire accents sound similar, accents in areas around Hull and Middlesbrough are markedly different. Due to this, the Middlesbrough accent is sometimes grouped with Modern Northumbrian accents being a mid-way between the two regions.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The Hull accent's rhythm is more like that of northern Lincolnshire than that of the rural East Riding, perhaps due to migration from Lincolnshire to the city during its industrial growth. One feature that it does share with the surrounding rural area is that an /aɪ/ sound in the middle of a word often becomes an /ɑː/: for example, "five" may sound like "fahve", "time" like "tahme".


title: Regional accents of English

text: Historic Lancashire, with regional variants in Bolton, Burnley, Blackburn, Manchester, Preston, Blackpool, Liverpool and Wigan. Many of the Lancashire accents may sound similar to outsiders, with the exception of Manchester and Wigan, where an older dialect has been maintained.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The Liverpool accent, known as Scouse, is an exception to the Lancashire regional variant of English; it has also spread to some of the surrounding towns. Before the 1840s, Liverpool's accent was similar to others in Lancashire, though with some distinct features due to the city's proximity to Wales. However, the city's population of around 60,000 was swelled in the 1840s by the arrival of around 300,000 Irish refugees escaping the Great Famine, as Liverpool was England's main Atlantic port and a popular departure point for people leaving for a new life in the United States. While many of the Irish refugees moved away, a vast amount remained in Liverpool and permanently influenced the local accent.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The regional accents of Scottish English generally draw on the phoneme inventory of the dialects of Modern Scots, a language spoken by around 30% of the Scottish population with characteristic vowel realisations due to the Scottish vowel length rule.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Highland English accents are more strongly influenced by Scottish Gaelic than other forms of Scottish English.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The accents of English in Wales are strongly influenced by the phonology of the Welsh language, which more than 20% of the population of Wales speak as their first or second language. The North Wales accent is distinct from South Wales; North East Wales is influenced by Scouse and Cheshire accents; while South East Wales accents are influenced by West Country accents. The Wenglish of the South Wales Valleys shows a deep cross-fertilisation between the two.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The Cardiff dialect and accent is also quite distinctive from that of the South Wales Valleys, primarily:


title: Regional accents of English

text: Manx English has its own distinctive accent, influenced to some extent by the Lancashire dialect and to a lesser extent by some variant of Irish English.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Ireland has several main groups of accents, including (1) the accents of Ulster, with a strong influence from Scotland as well as the underlying Gaelic linguistic stratum, which in that province approaches the Gaelic of Scotland, (2) those of Dublin and surrounding areas on the east coast where English has been spoken since the earliest period of colonisation from Britain, and (3) the various accents of west, midlands and south.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The Ulster accent has two main sub accents, namely Mid Ulster English and Ulster Scots. The language is spoken throughout the nine counties of Ulster, and in some northern areas of bordering counties such as Louth and Leitrim. It bears many similarities to Scottish English through influence from the Ulster varieties of Scots.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The accent of these three provinces fluctuates greatly from the flat tone of the midlands counties of Laois, Kildare, and Offaly, the perceived sing-song of Cork and Kerry, to the soft accents of Mayo and Galway.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Historically the Dublin City and county area, parts of Wicklow and Louth, came under heavy exclusive influence from the first English settlements (known as "The Pale"). It remained until Independence from Britain as the biggest concentration of English influence in the whole island.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Some Cork accents have a unique lyrical intonation. Every sentence typically ends in the trademark elongated tail-off on the last word. In Cork heavier emphasis yet is put on the brrr sound to the letter R. This is usually the dialect in northern parts of Cork City.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Similar to the Cork accent but without the same intonation, Kerry puts even heavier emphasis on the brrr sound to the letter R. For example: the word Forty. Throughout the south this word is pronounced whereby the r exhibits the typified Irish brrr. In Kerry however (especially in rural areas) the roll on the r is enforced with vibrations from the tongue (not unlike Scottish here). "Are you?" becomes a co-joined "A-rrou?" single tongue flutter (esp. in rural areas). This extra emphasis on R is also seen in varying measures through parts of West Limerick and West Cork in closer proximity to Kerry.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Another feature in the Kerry accent is the S before the consonant. True to its Gaelic origins in a manner similar to parts of Connacht "s" maintains the shh sound as in shop or sheep. The word Start becomes "Shtart". Stop becomes Shtop.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Irish Travellers have a very distinct accent closely related to a rural Hiberno-English, particularly the English of south-eastern Ireland. Many Irish Travellers who were born in parts of Dublin or Britain have the accent in spite of it being strikingly different from the local accents in those regions. They also have their own language, Shelta, which strongly links in with their dialect/accent of English.


title: Regional accents of English

text: "North American English" is a collective term for the dialects of the United States and Canada; it does not include the varieties of Caribbean English spoken in the West Indies.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The United States does not have a concrete 'standard' accent in the same way that Britain has Received Pronunciation. Nonetheless, a form of speech known to linguists as General American is perceived by many Americans to be "accent-less", meaning a person who speaks in such a manner does not appear to be "from" anywhere in particular. The region of the United States that most resembles this is the central Midwest, specifically eastern Nebraska (including Omaha and Lincoln), southern and central Iowa (including Des Moines), parts of Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and western Illinois (including Peoria and the Quad Cities, but not the Chicago area).


title: Regional accents of English

text: Three major dialect areas can be found in Canada: Western/Central Canada, the Maritimes, and Newfoundland.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The phonology of West/Central Canadian English, also called "General Canadian", is broadly similar to that of the Western US, except for the following features:


title: Regional accents of English

text: The pronunciation of certain words shows a British influence. For instance, "shone" is ; "been" is often ; "lieutenant" is ; "process" can be ; etc.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Words like "drama", "pajamas/pyjamas", "pasta" tend to have rather than ~. Words like "sorrow", "Florida", "orange" have rather than ; therefore, "sorry" rhymes with "story" rather than with "starry".


title: Regional accents of English

text: Australian English is relatively homogeneous when compared to British and American English. There is however some regional variation between the states, particularly in regard to South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Three main varieties of Australian English are spoken according to linguists: "Broad Australian", "General Australian" and "Cultivated Australian". They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They can, but do not always reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of the speaker.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The New Zealand accent is most similar to Australian accents (particularly those of Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia) but is distinguished from these accents by the presence of three "clipped" vowels, slightly resembling South African English. Phonetically, these are centralised or raised versions of the short "i", "e" and "a" vowels, which in New Zealand are close to , and respectively rather than , and . New Zealand pronunciations are often popularly represented outside New Zealand by writing "fish and chips" as "fush and chups", "yes" as "yiss", "sixty-six" as "suxty-sux". Scottish English influence is most evident in the southern regions of New Zealand, notably Dunedin. Another difference between New Zealand and Australian English is the length of the vowel in words such as "dog", and "job" which are longer than in Australian English which shares the short and staccato pronunciation shared with British English. There is also a tendency in New Zealand English, also found in some but not all Australian English, to add a schwa between some grouped consonants in words, such that — for example — "shown" and "thrown" may be pronounced "showun" and "throwun".


title: Regional accents of English

text: Geographical variations appear slight, and mainly confined to individual special local words. One group of speakers, however, hold a recognised place as "talking differently": the regions of Otago and especially Southland, both in the south of the South Island, harbour a "Celtic fringe" of people speaking with what is known as the "Southland burr" in which R is pronounced with a soft burr, particularly in words that rhyme with 'nurse'. The area formed a traditional repository of immigration from Scotland. Some sections of the main urban areas of Auckland and Wellington also show a stronger influence of Pacific island (e.g., Samoan) pronunciations than most of the country.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The trilled 'r' is also used by some Māori, who may also pronounce 't' and 'k' sounds without aspiration, striking other English speakers as similar to 'd' and 'g'. This is also encountered in South African English, especially among Afrikaans speakers.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The English spoken in the isolated Pacific islands of Norfolk and Pitcairn shows evidence of the islands' long isolation from the world. In the case of Pitcairn, the local creole (Pitkern) shows strong evidence of its rural English 19th century origins, with an accent which has traces of both the English southwest and Geordie. The Norfolk Island equivalent, Norfuk, was greatly influenced in its development by Pitkern. The accents heard in the islands when English is used are similarly influenced but in a much milder way. In the case of Norfolk Island, Australian English is the primary influence, producing an accent which is like a softened version of an Australian accent. The Pitcairn accent is for the most part largely indistinguishable from the New Zealand accent.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The Falkland Islands have a large non-native born population, mainly from Britain, but also from Saint Helena. In rural areas, the Falkland accent tends to be stronger. The accent has resemblances to both Australia-NZ English, and that of Norfolk in England, and contains a number of Spanish loanwords.


title: Regional accents of English

text: "Saints", as Saint Helenan islanders are called, have a variety of different influences on their accent. To outsiders, the accent has resemblances to the accents of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.


title: Regional accents of English

text: "Saint" is not just a different pronunciation of English, it also has its own distinct words. So 'bite' means spicy, as in full of chillies; 'us' is used instead of 'we' ('us has been shopping'); and 'done' is used to generate a past tense, hence 'I done gorn fishing' ('I have been fishing').


title: Regional accents of English

text: Television is a reasonably recent arrival there, and is only just beginning to have an effect. American terms are becoming more common, e.g. 'chips' for crisps.


title: Regional accents of English

text: South Africa has 11 official languages, one of which is English. Accents vary significantly between ethnic and language groups. Home-language English speakers (Black, White, Indian and Coloured) in South Africa have an accent that generally resembles British Received Pronunciation (modified with varying degrees of Germanic inflection due to Afrikaans).


title: Regional accents of English

text: The Coloured community is generally bilingual; however, English accents are strongly influenced by primary mother-tongue (Afrikaans or English). A range of accents can be seen, with the majority of Coloureds showing a strong Afrikaans inflection. Similarly, Afrikaners (and Cape Coloureds), both descendant of mainly Dutch settlers, tend to pronounce English phonemes with a strong Afrikaans inflection. The English accents of both related groups are significantly different and easily distinguishable (primarily because of prevalent code-switching among the majority of Coloured English speakers, particularly in the Western Cape of South Africa). The range of accents found among English-speaking Coloureds (from the distinctive "Cape Flats or Coloured English" to the standard "colloquial" South African English accent) are of special interest. Geography and education levels play major roles therein.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Black Africans generally speak English as a second language, and accent is strongly influenced by mother-tongue (particularly Bantu languages). However, urban middle-class black Africans have developed an English accent, with similar inflection as first-language English speakers. Within this ethnic group variations exist: most Nguni (Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi and Ndebele) speakers have a distinct accent, with the pronunciation of words like 'the' and 'that' as would 'devil' and 'dust', respectively; and words like 'rice' as 'lice'. This may be as a result of the inadequacy of 'r' in the languages. Sotho (Tswana, Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho) speakers have a similar accent, with slight variations. Tsonga and Venda speakers have very similar accents with far less intonation than Ngunis and Sothos. Some Black speakers have no distinction between the 'i' in determine and the one in decline, pronouncing it similarly to the one in 'mine'.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Black, Indian and Coloured students educated in former Model C schools or at formerly white tertiary institutions will generally adopt a similar accent to their white English-home-language speaking classmates. Code-switching and the "Cape Flats" accent are becoming popular among white learners in public schools within Cape Town.


title: Regional accents of English

text: South African accents also vary between major cities (particularly Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg) and provinces (regions). Accent variation is also observed within respective citiesfor instance, Johannesburg, where the northern suburbs (Parkview, Parkwood, Parktown North, Saxonwold, etc.) tend to be less strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are more affluent and populated by individuals with tertiary education and higher incomes. The accents of native English speakers from the southern suburbs (Rosettenville, Turffontein, etc.) tend to be more strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are populated by tradesmen and factory workers, with lower incomes. The extent of Afrikaans influence is explained by the fact that Afrikaans urbanisation would historically have been from failed marginal farms or failing economies in rural towns, into the southern and western suburbs of Johannesburg. The western suburbs of Johannesburg (Newlands, Triomf, which has now reverted to its old name Sophiatown, Westdene, etc.) are predominantly Afrikaans speaking. In a similar fashion, people from predominantly or traditionally Jewish areas in the Johannesburg area (such as Sandton, Linksfield or Victory Park) may have accents influenced by Yiddish or Hebrew ancestry.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Additional samples of South African accents and dialects can be found at http://web.ku.edu/~idea/africa/southafrica/southafrica.htm


title: Regional accents of English

text: Regardless of regional and ethnic differences (in accents), South African English accent is sometimes confused with Australian (or New Zealand) English by British and American English speakers.


title: Regional accents of English

text: In Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, native English speakers (mainly the white and Coloured minority) have a similar speech pattern to that of South Africa. Hence those with high degrees of Germanic inflection would pronounce 'Zimbabwe' as "zim-bah-bwi", as opposed to the African pronunciation "zeem-bah-bweh". Zimbwabwean accents also vastly vary, with some Black Africans sounding British while others will have a much stronger accent influenced by their mother tongues, usually this distinction is brought about by where speakers grew up and the school attended. For example, most people that grew up in and around Harare have a British sounding accent while those in the rural areas have a more "pidgin-english" sort of accent


title: Regional accents of English

text: Namibian English tends to be strongly influenced by South African English. Most Namibians that grew up in and around the capital city (Windhoek) have developed an English accent while those in the rural areas have an accent strongly influenced by their mother tongue particularly Bantu languages.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Nigerian English varies by constituent units. The accents are influenced by the various mother tongues of the Nigerian constituent units.


title: Regional accents of English

text: A number of distinct dialects of English are spoken in South Asia. There are many languages spoken in South Asia like Nepali, Hindi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Marathi, Odia, Maithili, Malayalam, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, Tulu, Urdu and many more, creating a variety of accents of English. Accents originating in this part of the world tend to display several distinctive features, including:


title: Regional accents of English

text: Philippine English employs a rhotic accent that originated from the time when it was first introduced by the Americans during the colonization period in the attempt to replace Spanish as the dominant political language. As there are no /f/ or /v/ sounds in most native languages in the Philippines, [p] is used as alternative to /f/ as [b] is to /v/. Thus, the words "fifty" and "five" are often pronounced and “pibe” by many Filipinos. Similarly, /θ/ is more often changed to [t] as /ð/ is to [d]. Hence, "three" becomes /tri/ while "that" becomes /dat/. This feature is consistent with many Malayo-Polynesian languages.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Apart from the frequent inability to pronounce certain fricatives (e.g., [f], [v], [θ], [ð]), in reality, there is no single Philippine English accent. This is because native languages influence spoken English in different ways throughout the archipelago. For instance, those from Visayas usually interchange sounds /e/ and /i/ as well as /o/ and /u/ because the distinction is not very pronounced in native Visayan languages.


title: Regional accents of English

text: People from the northern Philippines may pronounce /r/ with a strong trill instead of a flap as it is one feature of the Ilokano language. Ilokano people also generally pronounce the schwa sound /ə/ better because they use a similar sound in their language.


title: Regional accents of English

text: The accent of English spoken in Hong Kong follows mainly British, with rather strong influence from Cantonese on the pronunciations of a few consonants and vowels, and sentence grammar and structure.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Malay is the lingua franca of Malaysia, a federation of former British colonies and similar dependencies. English is a foreign language with no official status, but it is commonly learnt as a second or third language.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Many Malaysians adopt different accents and usages depending on the situation; for example, an office worker may speak with less colloquialism and with a more British accent on the job than with friends or while out shopping.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Singapore is effectively a multi-lingual nation. The Singapore government recognises four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Students in primary and secondary schools learning English as the language of instruction also learn a second language called their "Mother Tongue" by the Ministry of Education, where they are taught Mandarin Chinese, Malay or Tamil. A main point to note is while "Mother Tongue" generally refers to the first language (L1) overseas, in Singapore, it is used by the Ministry of Education to denote the traditional language of one's ethnic group, which sometimes can be their second language (L2).


title: Regional accents of English

text: There are two main types of English spoken in Singapore – Standard Singapore English and Singlish. Singlish is more widely spoken than standard English. It has a very distinctive tone and sentence structure which are both strongly influenced by Malay and the many varieties of Chinese spoken in the city.


title: Regional accents of English

text: There are many foreigners working in Singapore. 36% of the population in Singapore are foreigners and foreigners make up 50% of the service sector. Therefore, it is very common to encounter service staff who are not fluent in English. Most of these staff speak Mandarin Chinese. Those who do not speak Mandarin Chinese tend to speak either broken English or Singlish, which they have learnt from the locals.


title: Regional accents of English

text: Phonetic change in the English spoken at a base in Antarctica has also been registered. This has been referred to as the start of a new accent.


title: EFI system partition

text: The EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) system partition or ESP is a partition on a data storage device (usually a hard disk drive or solid-state drive) that is used by computers having the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). When a computer is booted, UEFI firmware loads files stored on the ESP to start installing operating systems and various utilities.


title: EFI system partition

text: An ESP contains the boot loaders or kernel images for all installed operating systems (which are contained in other partitions), device driver files for hardware devices present in a computer and used by the firmware at boot time, system utility programs that are intended to be run before an operating system is booted, and data files such as error logs.


title: EFI system partition

text: The EFI system partition is formatted with a file system whose specification is based on the FAT file system and maintained as part of the UEFI specification; therefore, the file system specification is independent from the original FAT specification. The actual extent of divergence is unknown: Apple maintains a separate tool that should be used, while other systems use FAT utilities just fine. The globally unique identifier (GUID) for the EFI system partition in the GUID Partition Table (GPT) scheme is , while its ID in the master boot record (MBR) partition-table scheme is . Both GPT- and MBR-partitioned disks can contain an EFI system partition, as UEFI firmware is required to support both partitioning schemes. Also, El Torito bootable format for CD-ROMs and DVDs is supported.


title: EFI system partition

text: UEFI provides backward compatibility with legacy systems by reserving the first block (sector) of the partition for compatibility code, effectively creating a legacy boot sector. On legacy BIOS-based systems, the first sector of a partition is loaded into memory, and execution is transferred to this code. UEFI firmware does not execute the code in the MBR, except when booting in legacy BIOS mode through the Compatibility Support Module (CSM).


title: EFI system partition

text: The UEFI specification requires MBR partition tables to be fully supported. However, some UEFI implementations immediately switch to the BIOS-based CSM booting upon detecting certain types of partition table on the boot disk, effectively preventing UEFI booting to be performed from EFI system partitions contained on MBR-partitioned disks.


title: EFI system partition

text: UEFI firmware supports booting from removable storage devices such as USB flash drives. For that purpose, a removable device is formatted with a FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32 file system, while a boot loader needs to be stored according to the standard ESP file hierarchy, or by providing a complete path of a boot loader to the system's boot manager. On the other hand, FAT32 is always expected on fixed drives.


title: EFI system partition

text: GRUB 2 and elilo serve as conventional, full-fledged standalone UEFI boot loaders for Linux. Once loaded by a UEFI firmware, they both can access and boot kernel images from all devices, partitions and file systems they support, without being limited to the EFI system partition.


title: EFI system partition

text: "EFI Boot Stub" makes it possible to boot a Linux kernel image without the use of a conventional UEFI boot loader. By masquerading as a PE/COFF image and appearing to the firmware as a UEFI application, an x86 kernel image with EFI Boot Stub enabled can be directly loaded and executed by a UEFI firmware. Such kernel images can still be loaded and run by BIOS-based boot loaders; thus, EFI Boot Stub allows a single kernel image to work in any boot environment.


title: EFI system partition

text: Linux kernel's support for the EFI Boot Stub is enabled by turning on option codice_1 (EFI stub support) during the kernel configuration. It was merged into version 3.3 of the Linux kernel mainline, released on March 18, 2012.


title: EFI system partition

text: Gummiboot (a.k.a. systemd-boot) is a simple UEFI boot manager that loads and runs configured UEFI images, accessing only the EFI system partition. Configuration file fragments, kernel images and initrd images are required to reside on the EFI system partition, as Gummiboot does not provide support for accessing files on other partitions or file systems. Linux kernels need to be built with codice_1 enabled so they can be directly executed as UEFI images.


title: EFI system partition

text: The mount point for the EFI system partition is usually codice_3, where its content is accessible after Linux is booted.


title: EFI system partition

text: On macOS computers based on the x64 hardware architecture, the EFI system partition is initially left blank and unused for booting. However, the EFI system partition is used as a staging area for firmware updates. The logic usually goes as follows: the EFI first looks for a bootloader in ESP, and if there is none it will continue to the macOS file system.


title: EFI system partition

text: The pre-UEFI Apple–Intel architecture (mactel) EFI subsystem used to require the EFI system partition to be formatted in HFS+. Any third-party bootloader also needs to be "blessed" by a special ioctl command before becoming bootable by the firmware, a relic of the system folder blessing from classic Mac OS. There is otherwise no limitations to what kinds of EFI operating system or bootloader a mactel machine can run.


title: EFI system partition

text: On Windows XP 64-Bit Edition and later, access to the EFI system partition is obtained by running the command.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975, by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Its current best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system; Microsoft Office, a suite of productivity software; Xbox, a line of entertainment of games, music, and video; Bing, a line of search engines; and Microsoft Azure, a cloud services platform.


title: History of Microsoft

text: In 1980, Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM to bundle Microsoft's operating system with IBM computers; with that deal, IBM paid Microsoft a royalty for every sale. In 1985, IBM requested Microsoft to develop a new operating system for their computers called OS/2. Microsoft produced that operating system, but also continued to sell their own alternative, which proved to be in direct competition with OS/2. Microsoft Windows eventually overshadowed OS/2 in terms of sales. When Microsoft launched several versions of Microsoft Windows in the 1990s, they had captured over 90% market share of the world's personal computers.


title: History of Microsoft

text: As of June 30, 2015, Microsoft has a global annual revenue of US$86.83 Billion and 128,076 employees worldwide. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices.


title: History of Microsoft

text: In late 1974, Paul Allen, a programmer at Honeywell, was walking through Harvard Square when he saw the cover of the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" that demonstrated the Altair 8800, the first microcomputer. Allen bought the magazine and rushed to Currier House at Harvard College, where he showed it to high school friend Bill Gates. They saw potential to develop an implementation of BASIC for the system.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Gates called Altair manufacturer Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), offering to demonstrate the implementation. Allen and Gates had neither an interpreter nor an Altair system, yet in the eight weeks before the demo, they developed an interpreter with the help of Monte Davidoff. When Allen flew to Albuquerque to meet with MITS, the interpreter worked and MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC. Allen moved to Albuquerque, Gates soon quit Harvard to join him, and they co-founded Microsoft there. Revenues of the company totalled $16,005 by the end of 1976.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Allen came up with the original name of "Micro-Soft", a portmanteau of microcomputer and software. Hyphenated in its early incarnations, on November 26, 1976, the company was registered under that name with the Secretary of State of New Mexico. The company's first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, entitled "ASCII Microsoft" (now called "Microsoft Japan"), and on November 29, 1979, the term, "Microsoft" was first used by Bill Gates. On January 1, 1979, the company moved from Albuquerque to a new home in Bellevue, Washington, since it was hard to recruit top programmers to Albuquerque. Shortly before the move, 11 of the then-13 employees posed for the staff photo on the right.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Steve Ballmer joined the company on June 11, 1980, and would later succeed Bill Gates as CEO from January 2000 until February 2014. The company restructured on June 25, 1981, to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington (with a further change of its name to "Microsoft Corporation, Inc."). As part of the restructuring, Bill Gates became president of the company and chairman of the board, and Paul Allen became executive vice president. In 1983, Allen left the company after receiving a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, though he remained on the board as vice-chairman.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Microsoft's early products were different variants of Microsoft BASIC which was the dominant programming language in late 1970s and early 1980s home computers such as Apple II (Applesoft BASIC) and Commodore 64 (Commodore BASIC), and were also provided with early versions of the IBM PC as the IBM Cassette BASIC.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Microsoft also marketed through an Apple dealer in West Palm Beach, Florida two products for the Radio-Shack TRS-80. One was "Typing Tutor" which led the user through learning to use a keyboard. The other was authored by a professor at the University of Hawaii called "MuMATH" and had the ability to do mathematics in long integer math to avoid floating point numbers.


title: History of Microsoft

text: The first hardware product was the Z-80 SoftCard which enabled the Apple II to run the CP/M operating system, at the time an industry-standard operating system for running business software and many compilers and interpreters for several high-level languages on microcomputers. The SoftCard was first demonstrated publicly at the West Coast Computer Faire in March 1980. It was an immediate success; 5,000 cards, a large number given the microcomputer market at the time, were purchased in the initial three months at $349 each and it was Microsoft's number one revenue source in 1980.


title: History of Microsoft

text: The first operating system publicly released by the company was a variant of Unix announced on August 25, 1980. Acquired from AT&T through a distribution license, Microsoft dubbed it Xenix, and hired Santa Cruz Operation in order to port/adapt the operating system to several platforms. This Unix variant would become home to the first version of Microsoft's word processor, Microsoft Word. Originally titled "Multi-Tool Word", Microsoft Word became notable for its use of "What You See Is What You Get", or WYSIWYG pioneered by the Xerox Alto and the Bravo text editor in the 1970s.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Word was first released in the spring of 1983, and free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World, making it one of the first programs to be distributed on-disk with a magazine. (Earlier magazine on-disk distributions included Robert Uiterwyk's BASIC in the May 1977 issue of Information Age.) However, Xenix was never sold to end users directly although it was licensed to many software OEMs for resale. It grew to become the most popular version of Unix, measured by the number of machines running it (note that Unix is a multi-user operating system, allowing simultaneous access to a machine by several users). By the mid-1980s Microsoft had gotten out of the Unix business, except for its ownership stake in SCO.


title: History of Microsoft

text: IBM first approached Microsoft about its upcoming IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) in July 1980, shortly after Gates's mother began working on United Way's executive board with IBM CEO John Opel. On August 12, 1981, after negotiations with Digital Research failed, IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft to provide a version of the CP/M operating system, which was set to be used in the IBM PC. For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products for less than US$100,000, which IBM renamed to IBM PC DOS. The original CP/M was made by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Due to potential copyright infringement problems with CP/M, IBM marketed both CP/M and PC DOS for US$240 and US$40, respectively, with PC DOS eventually becoming the standard because of its lower price. Thirty-five of the company's 100 employees worked on the IBM project for more than a year. When the IBM PC debuted, Microsoft was the only company that offered operating system, programming language, and application software for the new computer. The IBM PC DOS is also known as MS-DOS.


title: History of Microsoft

text: In 1983, in collaboration with numerous companies, Microsoft created a home computer system, MSX, which contained its own version of the DOS operating system, called MSX-DOS; this became relatively popular in Japan, Europe and South America. Later, the market saw a flood of IBM PC clones after Columbia Data Products successfully cloned the IBM BIOS, quickly followed by Eagle Computer and Compaq. The deal with IBM allowed Microsoft to have control of its own QDOS derivative, MS-DOS, and through aggressive marketing of the operating system to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones Microsoft rose from a small player to one of the major software vendors in the home computer industry. With the release of the "Microsoft Mouse" on May 2, 1983, Microsoft continued to expand its product line in other markets. This expansion included Microsoft Press, a book publishing division, on July 11 the same year, which debuted with two titles: "Exploring the IBM PCjr Home Computer" by Peter Norton, and "The Apple Macintosh Book" by Cary Lu.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Ireland became home to one of Microsoft's international production facilities in 1985, and on November 20 Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows (Windows 1.0), originally a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system. In August, Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a different operating system called OS/2. OS/2 was marketed in connection with a new hardware design proprietary to IBM, the PS/2. On February 16, 1986, Microsoft relocated their headquarters to a corporate office campus in Redmond, Washington. Around one month later, on March 13, the company went public with an IPO, raising US$61 million at US$21.00 per share. By the end of the trading day, the price had risen to US$28.00. In 1987, Microsoft eventually released their first version of OS/2 to OEMs. By then the company was the world's largest producer of software for personal computers—ahead of former leader Lotus Development—and published the three most-popular Macintosh business applications. That year the company purchased Forethought, the developer of PowerPoint and Microsoft's first major software acquisition on the 30th July 1987.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Meanwhile, Microsoft began introducing its most prominent office products. Microsoft Works, an integrated office program which combined features typically found in a word processor, spreadsheet, database and other office applications, saw its first release as an application for the Apple Macintosh towards the end of 1986. Microsoft Works would later be sold with other Microsoft products including Microsoft Word and Microsoft Bookshelf, a reference collection introduced in 1987 that was the company's first CD-ROM product. Later, on August 8, 1989, Microsoft introduced its most successful office product, Microsoft Office. Unlike the model of Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office was a bundle of separate office productivity applications, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and so forth. While Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office were mostly developed internally, Microsoft also continued its trend of rebranding products from other companies, such as Microsoft SQL Server on January 13, 1988, a relational database management system for companies that was based on technology licensed from Sybase.


title: History of Microsoft

text: On May 22, 1990, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0. The new version of Microsoft's operating system boasted new features such as streamlined graphic user interface GUI and improved protected mode ability for the Intel 386 processor; it sold over 100,000 copies in two weeks. Windows at the time generated more revenue for Microsoft than OS/2, and the company decided to move more resources from OS/2 to Windows.<ref name="OS/2history"></ref> In an internal memo to Microsoft employees on May 16, 1991, Bill Gates announced that the OS/2 partnership was over, and that Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the Windows NT kernel. Some people, especially developers who had ignored Windows and committed most of their resources to OS/2, were taken by surprise, and accused Microsoft of deception. This changeover from OS/2 was frequently referred to in the industry as "the head-fake". In the recent years, the popularity of OS/2 declined, and Windows quickly became the favored PC platform. 1991 also marked the founding of Microsoft Research, an organization in Microsoft for researching computer science subjects, and Microsoft Visual Basic, a popular development product for companies and individuals.


title: History of Microsoft

text: During the transition from MS-DOS to Windows, the success of Microsoft's product Microsoft Office allowed the company to gain ground on application-software competitors, such as WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. Novell, an owner of WordPerfect for a time, alleged that Microsoft used its inside knowledge of the DOS and Windows kernels and of undocumented Application Programming Interface features to make Office perform better than its competitors. Eventually, Microsoft Office became the dominant business suite, with a market share far exceeding that of its competitors. In March 1992, Microsoft released Windows 3.1 along with its first promotional campaign on TV; the software sold over three million copies in its first two months on the market. In October, Windows for Workgroups 3.1 was released with integrated networking abilities such as peer-to-peer file and printing sharing. In November, Microsoft released the first version of their popular database software Microsoft Access.


title: History of Microsoft

text: By 1993, Windows had become the most widely used GUI operating system in the world. "Fortune Magazine" named Microsoft as the "1993 Most Innovative Company Operating in the U.S." The year also marked the end of a five-year copyright infringement legal case brought by Apple Computer, dubbed Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., in which the ruling was in Microsoft's favor. Microsoft also released Windows for Workgroups 3.11, a new version of the consumer line of Windows, and Windows NT 3.1, a server-based operating system with a similar user interface to consumer versions of the operating system, but with an entirely different kernel. As part of its strategy to broaden its business, Microsoft released Microsoft Encarta on March 22, 1993, the first encyclopedia designed to run on a computer. Soon after, the Microsoft Home brand was introduced – encompassing Microsoft's new multimedia applications for Windows 3.x., Microsoft changed its slogan to ""Where do you want to go today?"" in 1994 as part of an attempt to appeal to nontechnical audiences in a US$100 million advertising campaign.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Microsoft continued to make strategic decisions directed at consumers. The company released Microsoft Bob, a graphical user interface designed for novice computer users, in March 1995. The interface was discontinued in 1996 due to poor sales; Bill Gates later attributed its failure to hardware requirements that were too high for typical computers, and is widely regarded as one of Microsoft's most unsuccessful products. DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft formed a new company, DreamWorks Interactive (in 2000 acquired by Electronic Arts which named it EA Los Angeles), to produce interactive and multimedia entertainment properties. On August 24, 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, a new version of the company's flagship operating system which featured a completely new user interface, including a novel start button; more than a million copies were sold in the first four days after its release.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Windows 95 was released without a web browser as Microsoft had not yet developed one. The success of the web caught them by surprise and they subsequently approached Spyglass to license their browser as Internet Explorer. Spyglass went on to later dispute the terms of the agreement, as Microsoft was to pay a royalty for every copy sold. However, Microsoft sold no copies of Internet Explorer, choosing instead to bundle it for free with the operating system.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Internet Explorer was first included in the Windows 95 Plus! Pack that was released in August 1995. In September, the Chinese government chose Windows to be the operating system of choice in that country, and entered into an agreement with the company to standardize a Chinese version of the operating system. Microsoft also released the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick in an attempt to further expand its profile in the computer hardware market.


title: History of Microsoft

text: On May 26, 1995, Bill Gates sent the "Internet Tidal Wave" memorandum to Microsoft executives. The memo described Netscape with their Netscape Navigator as a "new competitor 'born' on the Internet". The memo outlines Microsoft's failure to grasp the Internet's importance, and in it Gates assigned "the Internet the highest level of importance" from then on. Microsoft began to expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web. On August 24, 1995, it launched a major online service, MSN (Microsoft Network), as a direct competitor to AOL. MSN became an umbrella service for Microsoft's online services, using Microsoft Passport (now called a Microsoft account) as a universal login system for all of its web sites. The company continued to branch out into new markets in 1996, starting with a joint venture with NBC to create a new 24-hour cable news television station, MSNBC. The station was launched on July 15, 1996, to compete with similar news outlets such as CNN. Microsoft also launched Slate, an online magazine edited by Michael Kinsley, which offered political and social commentary along with the cartoon Doonesbury. In an attempt to extend its reach in the consumer market, the company acquired WebTV, which enabled consumers to access the Web from their televisions. Microsoft entered the personal digital assistant (PDA) market in November with Windows CE 1.0, a new built-from-scratch version of their flagship operating system, designed to run on low-memory, low-performance machines, such as handhelds and other small computers. 1996 saw the release of Windows NT 4.0, which brought the Windows 95 GUI and Windows NT kernel together.


title: History of Microsoft

text: While Microsoft largely failed to participate in the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, some of the key technologies in which the company had invested to enter the Internet market started to pay off by the mid-90s. One of the most prominent of these was ActiveX, an application programming interface built on the Microsoft Component Object Model (COM); this enabled Microsoft and others to embed controls in many programming languages, including the company's own scripting languages, such as JScript and VBScript. ActiveX included frameworks for documents and server solutions. The company also released the Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, which had built-in support for internet applications. In November 1996, Microsoft Office 97 was released, which is the first version to include Office Assistant. In 1997, Internet Explorer 4.0 was released, marking the beginning of the takeover of the browser market from rival Netscape, and by agreement with Apple Computer, Internet Explorer was bundled with the Apple Macintosh operating system as well as with Windows. Windows CE 2.0, the handheld version of Windows, was released this year, including a host of bug fixes and new features designed to make it more appealing to corporate customers. In October, the Justice Department filed a motion in the federal district court in which they stated that Microsoft had violated an agreement signed in 1994, and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.


title: History of Microsoft

text: The year 1998 was significant in Microsoft's history, with Bill Gates appointing Steve Ballmer as president of Microsoft but remaining as Chair and CEO himself. The company released an update to the consumer version of Windows, Windows 98. Windows 98 came with Internet Explorer 4.0 SP1 (which had Windows Desktop Update bundled), and included new features from Windows 95 OSR 2.x including the FAT32 file system, and new features designed for Windows 98, such as support for multiple displays. Microsoft launched its Indian headquarters as well, which would eventually become the company's second largest after its U.S. headquarters. Finally, a great deal of controversy took place when a set of internal memos from the company were leaked on the Internet. These documents, colloquially referred to as "The Halloween Documents", were widely reported by the media and went into detail of the threats that free software / open source software poses to Microsoft's own software, previously voiced mainly by analysts and advocates of open source software. The documents also alluded to legal and other actions against Linux as well as other open source software. While Microsoft acknowledged the documents, it claimed that they are merely engineering studies. Despite this, some believe that these studies were used in the real strategies of the company.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Microsoft, in 2000, released new products for all three lines of the company's flagship operating system, and saw the beginning of the end of one of its most prominent legal cases. On February 17, Microsoft released an update to its business line of software in Windows 2000. It provided a high level of stability similar to that of its Unix counterparts due to its usage of the Windows NT kernel, and matching features found in the consumer line of the Windows operating system including a DOS emulator that could run many legacy DOS applications.


title: History of Microsoft

text: On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of "United States v. Microsoft Corp.", calling the company an "abusive monopoly" and forcing the company to split into two separate units. Part of this ruling was later overturned by a federal appeals court, and eventually settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2001. On June 15, 2000, the company released a new version of its hand-held operating system, Windows CE 3.0. The main change was the new programming APIs of the software. Previous versions of Windows CE supported only a small subset of the WinAPI, the main development library for Windows, and with Version 3 of Windows CE, the operating system now supported nearly all of the core functionality of the WinAPI. The next update to the consumer line, Windows ME (or Windows Millennium Edition), was released on September 14, 2000. It sported several new features such as enhanced multimedia abilities and consumer-oriented PC maintenance options, but is often regarded as one of the worst versions of Windows due to stability problems, restricted real mode DOS support and other issues.


title: History of Microsoft

text: Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP in 2001, a version that aimed to encompass the features of both its business and home product lines. The release included an updated version of the Windows 2000 kernel, enhanced DOS emulation abilities, and many of the home-user features found in previous consumer versions. XP introduced a new graphical user interface, the first such change since Windows 95. The operating system was the first to require Microsoft Product Activation, an anti-piracy mechanism that requires users to activate the software with Microsoft within 30 days. Later, Microsoft would enter the multibillion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo, with the release of the Xbox. The Xbox finished behind the dominant PlayStation 2 selling 24 million units compared to 155 million overall; however they managed to outsell the GameCube which sold 21 million units. Microsoft launched their second console, the Xbox 360, in 2005 – which was more successful than the original. By 2017 the Xbox 360 had sold 84 million units but failed to outsell its main rival the PlayStation 3 which sold 87 million units when discontinued. The console was also outsold by the Wii which introduced gesture control and opened up a new market for video games. Microsoft later used their popular controller-free Kinect peripheral to increase the popularity of the Xbox. This was very successful. Kinect was the fastest selling consumer electronics product in history. It sold 8 million units from November 4, 2010, to January 3, 2011, (its first 60 days). It averaged 133,333 units per day, outselling the iPhone and iPad over equivalent post-launch periods.


title: History of Microsoft

text: In 2002, Microsoft launched the .NET initiative, along with new versions of some of its development products, such as Microsoft Visual Studio. The initiative has been an entirely new development API for Windows programming, and included a new programming language, C#. Windows Server 2003 was launched, featuring enhanced administration abilities, such as new user interfaces to server tools. In 2004, the company released Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, a version of Windows XP designed for multimedia abilities, and Windows XP Starter Edition, a version of Windows XP with a smaller feature set designed for entry-level consumers. However, Microsoft encountered more turmoil in March 2004 when antitrust legal action would be brought against it by the European Union for allegedly abusing its market dominance (see "Microsoft Corp v Commission"). Eventually Microsoft was fined €497 million (US$613 million), ordered to divulge certain protocols to competitors, and to produce a new version of its Windows XP platform—called Windows XP Home Edition N—that did not include its Windows Media Player. Microsoft was also ordered to produce separate packages of Windows after South Korea also landed a settlement against the company in 2005. It had to pay out US$32 million and produce more than one version of Windows for the country in the same vein as the European Union-one with Windows Media Player and Windows Messenger and one without the two programs.


title: History of Microsoft

text: In guise of competing with other Internet Companies such as the search service Google, in 2005 Microsoft announced a new version of its MSN search service. Later, in 2006, the company launched Microsoft adCenter, a service that offers pay per click advertisements, in an effort to further develop their search marketing revenue. Soon afterward, Microsoft created the CodePlex collaborative development site for hosting open source projects. Activity grew quickly as developers from around the world began to participate, and by early 2007 commercial open source companies, such as Aras Corp. began to offer enterprise open source software exclusively on the Microsoft platform.


title: History of Microsoft

text: On June 15, 2006, Bill Gates announced his plans for a two-year transition period out of a day-to-day role with Microsoft until July 31, 2008. After that date, Gates will continue in his role as the company's chairman, head of the board of directors and act as an adviser on key projects. His role as Chief Software Architect will be filled immediately by Ray Ozzie, the Chief Technical Officer of the company as of June 15, 2006. Bill Gates stated "My announcement is not a retirement – it's a reordering of my priorities."


title: History of Microsoft

text: Formerly codenamed "Longhorn" in the early development stages, Windows Vista was released to consumers on January 30, 2007. Microsoft also released a new version of its Office suite, called Microsoft Office 2007, alongside Windows Vista. Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, the next versions of the company's server operating system and development suite, respectively, were released on February 27, 2008. Windows Vista was criticized for being heavy and needing large amounts of power to run the desktop widgets and the Aero theme. Many people continued to use Windows XP for many years after, due to its stability and low processing needs.


title: History of Microsoft

text: On December 19, 2007, Microsoft signed a five-year, $500 million contract with Viacom that included content sharing and advertisements. The deal allowed Microsoft to license many shows from Viacom owned cable television and film studios for use on Xbox Live and MSN. The deal also made Viacom a preferred publisher partner for casual game development and distribution through MSN and Windows. On the advertisement side of the deal, Microsoft's Atlas ad-serving division became the exclusive provider of previously unsold advertising inventory on Viacom owned web sites. Microsoft also purchased a large amount of advertising on Viacom owned broadcasts and online networks, and collaborated on promotions and sponsorships for MTV and BET award shows, two Viacom owned cable networks.