Adobe Atmosphere

Adobe Atmosphere (informally abbreviated Atmo) was a software platform for interacting with 3D computer graphics. 3D models created with the commercial program could be explored socially using a browser plugin available free of charge. Atmosphere was originally developed by Attitude Software as 3D Anarchy and was later bought by Adobe Systems. The product spent the majority of its lifetime in beta testing. Adobe released the last version of Atmosphere, version 1.0 build 216, in February 2004, then discontinued the software in December that year.

Features

Atmosphere focused on explorable "worlds" (later officially called "environments"), which were linked together by "portals", analogous to the World Wide Web's hyperlinks. These portals were represented as spinning squares of red, green, and blue that revolved around each other and floated above the ground. Portals were indicative of the Atmosphere team's desire to mirror the functionality of Web pages. Although the world itself was described in the .aer (or .atmo) file, images and sounds were kept separately, usually in the GIF, WAV or MP3 format. Objects in worlds were scriptable using a specialized dialect of JavaScript, allowing a more immersive environment, and worlds could be generated dynamically using PHP. Using JavaScript, a world author could link an object to a Web page, so that a user could, for example, launch a Web page by clicking on a billboard advertisement (Ctrl+Shift+Click in earlier versions). By version 1.0, Atmosphere also boasted support for using Macromedia Flash animations and Windows Media Video as textures.

Official

An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either his own or that of his superior and/or employer, public or legally private).

A government official or functionary is an official who is involved in public administration or government, through either election, appointment, selection, or employment. A bureaucrat or civil servant is a member of the bureaucracy. An elected official is a person who is an official by virtue of an election. Officials may also be appointed ex officio (by virtue of another office, often in a specified capacity, such as presiding, advisory, secretary). Some official positions may be inherited. A person who currently holds an office is referred to as an incumbent.

The word official as a noun has been recorded since the Middle English period, first seen in 1314. It comes from the Old French official (12th century), from the Latin officialis ("attendant to a magistrate, public official"), the noun use of the original adjective officialis ("of or belonging to duty, service, or office") from officium ("office"). The meaning "person in charge of some public work or duty" was first recorded in 1555. The adjective is first attested in English in 1533, via the Old French oficial.

Video

Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media.

Video systems vary greatly in the resolution of the display, how they are refreshed, and the rate of refreshed, and 3D video systems exist. They can also be carried on a variety of media, including radio broadcast, tapes, DVDs, computer files etc.

History

Video technology was first developed for Mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode ray tube (CRT) television systems, but several new technologies for video display devices have since been invented. Charles Ginsburg led an Ampex research team developing one of the first practical video tape recorder (VTR). In 1951 the first video tape recorder captured live images from television cameras by converting the camera's electrical impulses and saving the information onto magnetic video tape.

Video recorders were sold for $50,000 in 1956, and videotapes cost $300 per one-hour reel. However, prices gradually dropped over the years; in 1971, Sony began selling videocassette recorder (VCR) decks and tapes to the public.