Test Your Nerd Knowledge — April 12, 2022
Here’s a review of this week’s questions:
- In what year was the first iPad introduced?
- What software application is described as “a free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project”?
- What is the name of the graphics chip company founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem?
And here are the answers:
- 2010. “iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” is how Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s newest product in 2010. The tablet, which sold for $499 upon its first release, aimed to fill a gap between smartphones and laptop computers, offering another mobile device option for consumers. Building on similar technologies utilized in iPod and iPhone before it, the iPad emerged in the marketplace in March of 2011 and was an instant success.
- VLC Media Player. Originally known as VideoLAN Client when it was introduced in 1996, VLC Media Player is now one of the most popular downloads in the world. Originating as an academic project by students at École Centrale Paris, VLC includes many free decoding and encoding libraries, avoiding the need for finding/calibrating proprietary plugins. Its popularity is based on its compatibility with a multitude of files of all origins, as well as its ease of use in Mac, Windows and iOS devices.
- NVIDIA. Focusing their efforts on the gaming industry, NVIDIA became a global corporation and manufacturer of graphics processors by 1997. Aside from products developed for gaming technology, NVIDIA’s developments have included the Quadro series of video cards for professional graphics, the nForce series for multimedia functions, and the Tesla series for high-end business and scientific-research computers. It is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and currently employs over 20,000 people.