Kairo

Kairo may refer to:

See also

Pulse (2001 film)

Pulse, known in Japan as Kairo (回路), is a 2001 Japanese horror film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The film is based on his novel of the same name. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. The movie was well-received critically and has a cult following. An American remake, also titled Pulse, debuted in 2006 and spawned two sequels.

Plot

The plot centers on ghosts invading the world of the living via the Internet. It features two parallel story lines.

First Story

The first story involves a young woman named Kudo Michi (Kumiko Aso) who works at a plant sales company. She has recently moved to the city and her main friends are her three colleagues, Sasano Junko, Toshio Yabe and Taguchi. At the start of the film, it appears Taguchi has been missing for some days working on a computer disk. Michi goes to visit his apartment and finds him distracted and aloof; in the middle of their conversation, he casually makes a noose, leaves and hangs himself. Michi and her colleagues inspect the computer disk he left behind and discover it contains an image of Taguchi staring at his own computer monitor, which is displaying an image of Taguchi staring at his computer monitor, creating an endless series of images. In the other monitor on his desk, Michi and her friends discover a ghostly face staring out into Taguchi's room.

Kairo (video game)

Kairo is an indie adventure game, developed and published by Locked Door Puzzle, Richard Perrin's independent studio. Kairo is set in world of minimalist abstract architecture which the player must explore to solve the puzzle contained within.

Gameplay

Kairo is played from first person perspective and has no additional controls beyond the ability to look around and navigate the environment. Interaction comes in the form of pushing objects, standing on switches or the environment reacting to player movement.

Story

There is no dialogue and very little text in the game. The narrative comes entirely through environmental storytelling as the world is filled with clues and hints towards the player's purpose.

Reception

Kairo has received a positive reaction from critics. Eurogamer described the game as "mysterious and elegant and powerfully distinct" and toucharcade said "The world of Kairo is like a playable, explorable tone poem."

Kairo has been selected for exhibition at events including Develop Conference, Notgames Festival, Eurogamer Expo and Penny Arcade Expo.

Locos

Locos: A Comedy of Gestures is the first novel of Spanish-born American writer Felipe Alfau (1902–1999), written in 1928 published in 1936. The metafictional novel remained out of print until the 1988 when it was reprinted by Dalkey Archive Press; its positive reception then led to the publication of Alfau's second novel Chromos in 1990, which he had written in 1948.

Background

Felipe Alfau was born and grew up in Spain. In 1916, the 14-year-old Alfau moved with his family to New York. He had ambitions to become a music conductor and wrote music criticism for El Diario La Prensa. By the late 1920s he had a wife and daughter and hoped to support them with his writing; he wrote Locos about 1928, and in 1929 he had a children's book Old Tales from Spain published. He had considerable difficulty finding a publisher for Locos.

Publication, reception, and legacy

Farrar & Rinehart first published the book in 1936; Alfau received $250 for the manuscript. The edition was priced $2.50 and was the first in an intended series of signed editions sold by subscription. The book had a positive critical reception, including a review by writer Mary McCarthy, and quickly disappeared. The book then stayed out of print until Dalkey Archive Press reprinted it in 1988.

LOCOS

LOCOS, short for LOCal Oxidation of Silicon, is a microfabrication process where silicon dioxide is formed in selected areas on a silicon wafer having the Si-SiO₂ interface at a lower point than the rest of the silicon surface.

This technology was developed to insulate MOS transistors from each other. The main goal is to create a silicon oxide insulating structure that penetrates under the surface of the wafer, so that the Si-SiO₂ interface occurs at a lower point than the rest of the silicon surface. This cannot be easily achieved by etching field oxide. Thermal oxidation of selected regions surrounding transistors is used instead. The oxygen penetrates in depth of the wafer, reacts with silicon and transforms it into silicon oxide. In this way, an immersed structure is formed.

The immersed insulating barrier limits the transistor cross-talk.

Process

Typical process steps are the following:

I. Preparation of silicon substrate (layer 1)
II. CVD of SiO₂, pad/buffer oxide (layer 2)
III. CVD of Si₃N₄, nitride mask (layer 3)
IV. Etching of nitride layer (layer 3) and silicon oxide layer (layer 2)
V. Thermal growth of silicon oxide (structure 4)
VI. Further growth of thermal silicon oxide (structure 4)
VII. Removal of nitride mask (layer 3)

LoCos (language)

LoCos is a pictorial developed by Yukio Ota of Japan in 1964. It was meant as communication for the deaf and mute as well as for the illiterate. It is a universal and simple language, and as Mr.Ota put it, "It should emphasize the importance of communication among all the people of all the countries of the world."

Symbols

There are 8 major symbols in LoCos. There is the Sun or day, represented by a circle. There is man, represented by a ring shape. There is a thing, represented by a square. There is thought, represented by a triangle with a slightly cut off top. There is feeling, represented by a heart. There is land or place, represented by a low straight line. There the question indicator, a question mark. There is, lastly, a point or existence, represented by a single point.

Words

Words are made by combining different symbols in different ways. For example if you put a dot inside a circle it will represent today, or if you put a fish in a ring shape it will be a fisherman. There an around 80 words that are official according to Yukio Ota. Words can be created as long as they follow the basic word syntax.