Raw image format

A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image scanner, or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are named so because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor. Normally, the image is processed by a raw converter in a wide-gamut internal colorspace where precise adjustments can be made before conversion to a "positive" file format such as TIFF or JPEG for storage, printing, or further manipulation, which often encodes the image in a device-dependent colorspace. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of raw formats in use by different models of digital equipment (like cameras or film scanners).

Rationale

Raw image files are sometimes called digital negatives, as they fulfill the same role as negatives in film photography: that is, the negative is not directly usable as an image, but has all of the information needed to create an image. Likewise, the process of converting a raw image file into a viewable format is sometimes called developing a raw image, by analogy with the film development process used to convert photographic film into viewable prints. The selection of the final choice of image rendering is part of the process of white balancing and color grading.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, as he is known in Europe (October 22, 1783 – September 18, 1840), was a nineteenth-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ultimately settling in Ohio in 1815, where he made notable contributions to botany, zoology, and the study of prehistoric earthworks in North America. He also contributed to the study of ancient Mesoamerican linguistics, in addition to work he had already completed in Europe.

Rafinesque was eccentric, and is often portrayed as an "erratic genius". He was an autodidact who excelled in various fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer and polyglot. He wrote prolifically on such diverse topics as anthropology, biology, geology, and linguistics, but was honored in none of these fields during his lifetime. Today, scholars agree that he was far ahead of his time in many areas. Among his theories was that ancestors of Native Americans had migrated by the Bering Sea from Asia to North America.

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's aerial warfare force. Formed toward the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world. Following victory over the Central Powers in 1918 the RAF emerged as, at the time, the largest air force in the world. Since its formation, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history, in particular, playing a large part in the Second World War where it fought its most famous campaign, the Battle of Britain.

The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), which are to "provide the capabilities needed: to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism; to support the Government’s foreign policy objectives particularly in promoting international peace and security." The RAF describe its mission statement as "... [to provide] An agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, and that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission." The mission statement is supported by the RAF's definition of air power, which guides its strategy. Air power is defined as: "The ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events."

Java Platform, Micro Edition

Java Platform, Micro Edition, or Java ME, is a Java platform designed for embedded systems (mobile devices are one kind of such systems). Target devices range from industrial controls to mobile phones (especially feature phones) and set-top boxes. Java ME was formerly known as Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME).

Java ME was designed by Sun Microsystems, acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2010; the platform replaced a similar technology, PersonalJava. Originally developed under the Java Community Process as JSR 68, the different flavors of Java ME have evolved in separate JSRs. Sun provides a reference implementation of the specification, but has tended not to provide free binary implementations of its Java ME runtime environment for mobile devices, rather relying on third parties to provide their own.

As of 22 December 2006, the Java ME source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License, and is released under the project name phoneME.

As of 2008, all Java ME platforms are currently restricted to JRE 1.3 features and use that version of the class file format (internally known as version 47.0). Should Oracle ever declare a new round of Java ME configuration versions that support the later class file formats and language features, such as those corresponding to JRE 1.5 or 1.6 (notably, generics), it will entail extra work on the part of all platform vendors to update their JREs.