USB

USB, short for Universal Serial Bus, is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and communications protocols used in a bus for connection, communication, and power supply between computers and electronic devices. It is currently developed by the USB Implementers Forum.

USB was designed to standardize the connection of computer peripherals (including keyboards, pointing devices, digital cameras, printers, portable media players, disk drives and network adapters) to personal computers, both to communicate and to supply electric power. It has become commonplace on other devices, such as smartphones, PDAs and video game consoles. USB has effectively replaced a variety of earlier interfaces, such as serial and parallel ports, as well as separate power chargers for portable devices.

Overview

In general, there are three basic kinds or sizes related to the USB connectors and types of established connection: the older "standard" size, in its USB 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 variants (for example, on USB flash drives), the "mini" size (primarily for the B connector end, such as on many cameras), and the "micro" size, in its USB 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 variants (for example, on most modern mobile phones).

The Late Show

The Late Show may refer to:

Future Past

Future Past is the debut and only solo studio album to be released by former Blue singer, Duncan James.

Background

James' solo career began in October 2004, when he collaborated with singer-songwriter Keedie on the single "I Believe My Heart", which was a number-two hit on the UK Singles Chart. Shortly after, James began recording a solo album, with the help of producer Stephen Lipson, who had collaborated with the likes of Boyzone, Ronan Keating, Daniel Bedingfield and Will Young. The album was released on 12 June 2006, a week after the release of the lead single, "Sooner or Later", which only peaked at #35 on the UK Singles Chart. Upon the week of release, the album only peaked at #55 on the UK Albums Chart. In an attempt to boost sales, "Can't Stop A River" was released as the album's second single on 21 August 2006 but this charted even lower than "Sooner or Later", only peaking at #59 on the UK Singles Chart.

It was heavily speculated at the time that James would be dropped from the label, until January 2007, when the music video for the album's third single, "Amazed", premiered on music channels throughout Europe. However, once again, the single's release failed to gain interest from the media and fans alike, and the single's release was cancelled in the United Kingdom, becoming a German-only release. Overall, the album sold less than 15,000 copies in the United Kingdom, and less than 150,000 copies worldwide. However, it found success in Italy, peaking at #2 on the Italian Albums Chart, for sales of more than 80,000 copies.

Linux Mint

Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Debian and Ubuntu that strives to be a "modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use." Linux Mint provides full out-of-the-box multimedia support by including some proprietary software and comes bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. Its motto is "from freedom came elegance."

The project was conceived by Clement Lefebvre and is being actively developed by the Linux Mint Team and community.

History

Linux Mint started in 2006 with a beta release of Linux Mint 1.0, code-named "Ada", based on Kubuntu. Following its release, Linux Mint 2.0 "Barbara" was the first version to use Ubuntu as its codebase. Linux Mint had few users from these early versions until the release of Linux Mint 3.0, "Cassandra."

Linux Mint 2.0 was based on Ubuntu 6.10, using its package repositories and using it as a codebase. From there, Linux Mint followed its own codebase, building each release from its previous one, but continued to use the package repositories from the latest Ubuntu release. This resulted in making the base between the two systems almost identical, guaranteeing full compatibility between the two distributions rather than having Mint become a fork.

Futures studies

Futures studies (also called futurology) is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and parallel to the field of history. History studies the past, futures studies considers the future. Futures studies (colloquially called "futures" by many of the field's practitioners) seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to determine the likelihood of future events and trends. Unlike the physical sciences where a narrower, more specified system is studied, futures studies concerns a much bigger and more complex world system. The methodology and knowledge are much less proven as compared to natural science or even social science like sociology, economics, and political science.