Carambola

Carambola, also known as starfruit, is the fruit of Averrhoa carambola, a species of tree native to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The fruit is popular throughout Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Micronesia, and parts of East Asia. The tree is also cultivated throughout non-indigenous tropical areas, such as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the southern United States.

The fruit has distinctive ridges running down its sides (usually five but can sometimes vary); in cross-section, it resembles a star, hence its name. The entire fruit is edible and is usually eaten out of hand. They may also be used in cooking and can be made into relishes, preserves, and juice drinks.

Origins and distribution

The original range of Averrhoa carambola is unknown today. It is believed that it may have originated from Sri Lanka or Moluccas, Indonesia, but has been cultivated in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia for hundreds of years. They remain a local favorite in those areas but have also recently gained popularity in parts of East Asia and Queensland, Australia; as well as in the Pacific Islands, particularly Tahiti, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, and Guam. They are cultivated commercially in India, Southeast Asia, southern China, Taiwan, and Florida. They are also grown in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru, Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Mexico, Guyana and parts of Africa. In other areas they are usually grown as ornamentals, rather than for consumption.

Carambola (Company)

Carambola is an online advertising company specializing in site monetization through content enrichment. Carambola offers publishers several products through originally created content across all lifestyle verticals, enabling websites to enrich their videos, images and articles. In its inception, Carambola partnered with AOL to launch their In-Video product in the U.S. in 2013, introducing, what AOL called, "the world's first automated video enrichment platform." Since, the company has partnered with more and more US publishers.

Product

Using patent-pending technology (a combination of Natural language processing, Image Recognition and Speech-to-Text), Carambola recognizes and analyzes the images, videos and articles its layer has opened upon. The layer will then display contextually relevant content from selected sources around the web, as well as from their own original content library. Premium advertisers also have the option of sponsoring such content. The unit is intended to create a new revenue stream for publishers that still keeps its users happy, thanks to the enriched content.

Carambola (disambiguation)

Carambola may refer to:

Fruit

Company

Sports