Music Technology & Sports Junction

ADAM CRAIG GILCHRIST,  (born 14 November 1971), nicknamed "Gilly" or "Churchy" is a former Australian cricketer who has captained Kings XI Punjab and Middlesex. He is an attacking left-handed batsman and record-breaking wicket-keeper, who redefined the role for the Australian national team through his aggressive batting. He is considered to be one of the greatest wicket-keeper–batsmen in the history of the game. He holds the world record for the most dismissals by a wicket keeper in One Day International(ODI) cricket and the most by an Australian in Test cricket. His strike rate is amongst the highest in the history of both ODI and Test cricket; his century against England at Perth in December 2006 is the second-fastest century in all Test cricket. He is the only player to have hit 100 sixes in Test cricket. His 17 Test and 16 ODI centuries are the most by a wicket-keeper. He holds the unique record of scoring at least 50 runs in successive World Cup finals (in 1999, 2003 and 2007) and is one of only three players to have won three titles.

Gilchrist is renowned for walking when he considers himself to be out, sometimes contrary to the decision of the umpire. He made his first-class debut in 1992, his first One-Day International appearance in 1996 in India and his Test debut in 1999. During his career, he played for Australia in 96 Test matches and over 270 One-day internationals. He was Australia's vice-captain in both forms of the game, captaining the team when regular captains Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting were unavailable. He retired from international cricket in March 2008.

In March 2013, he announced that he would join the Caribbean Premier League, a Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies in July along with teammate Ricky Ponting.

Adam Gilchrist was born in 1971 at Bellingen Hospital, in Bellingen, New South Wales, the youngest of four children. He and his family lived in Dorrigo, Junee and then Deniliquin where, playing for his school, Deniliquin South Public School, he won the Brian Taber Shield (named after New South Wales cricketer Brian Taber). At the age of 13, his parents, Stan and June, moved the family to Lismore where Gilchrist captained the Kadina High School cricket team. Gilchrist was selected for the state under-17 team, and in 1989 he was offered a scholarship by London-based Richmond Cricket Club, a scheme he now supports himself. During his year at Richmond, he also played junior cricket for Old Actonians Cricket Club's under 17 team, with whom he won the Middlesex League and Cup double. He moved to Sydney and joined the Gordon Club in Sydney Grade Cricket, later moving to Northern Districts.

Gilchrist is married to his high school sweetheart Melinda (Mel) Gilchrist (née Sharpe), a dietitian, and they have three sons, Harrison, Archie and Ted, and a daughter, Annie Jean. His family came under the spotlight in the months leading up to the 2007 Cricket World Cup as Archie's impending birth threatened his presence in the squad; Archie was born in February and Gilchrist was able to take part in the tournament.

Gilchrist's attacking batting has been a key part of Australia's one-day success, as he usually opens the batting. He was a part of the successful1999, 2003 and 2007 Cricket World Cup campaigns. Gilchrist's Test batting average in the upper 40s is unusually high for a wicket-keeper. He is currently 45th on the all–time list of highest batting averages. He maintains a Test strike-rate of 82 runs per hundred balls, the highest since balls were recorded in full. His combination of attack and consistency create one of the most dynamic world cricketers ever,playing shots to all areas of the field with uncommon timing. Gilchrist's skills as a wicket-keeper are sometimes questioned; some people would claim that he is the best keeper in Australia while Victorian wicket-keeper Darren Berry was regarded by many as the best Australian wicket-keeper of the 1990s and early 2000s.

In this role, Gilchrist is perhaps disadvantaged by his relatively tall stature for a pure wicket-keeper. However, while perhaps not as elegant as some, he has successfully kept wicket for spin bowler Shane Warne and fast bowlers Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee for most of his international career. His partnerships with McGrath and Lee are second and fourth respectively in both test and ODI history for the number of wickets taken. With Alec Stewart and Mark Boucher, he shares the record for most catches (6) by a wicketkeeper in a ODI match, however he has now achieved this feat five times, the most recent versus India in 2008 CB Series. The match in 2007 was also the second time he took six dismissals and scored a half century in the same ODI; he remains the only player to do so even once. At Old Trafford in August 2005, he passed Alec Stewart's world record of 4,540 runs as a Test wicketkeeper. Statistically, he is currently the most successful ODI wicket-keeper in history; with 417 catches and 55 stumpings, a total of 472 dismissals, his closest rival, Mark Boucher, is more than 80 dismissals behind.

SERENA JAMEKA WILLIAMS (born September 26, 1981) is an American professional tennis player who is currently ranked No. 1 in women's singles tennis. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked her World No. 1 in singles on six separate occasions. She became the World No. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002, and regained this ranking for the sixth time on February 18, 2013, becoming the oldest world no. 1 player in WTA's history. She is the only female player to have won over $50 million in prize money. Williams is the reigning French Open, US Open, WTA Tour Championships and Olympic ladies singles champion.

Williams holds the most Major singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles combined amongst active players, male or female. Her record of 32 Major titles puts her seventh on the all-time list: 17 in singles, 13 in women's doubles, and 2 in mixed doubles. She is the most recent player, male or female, to have held all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously ('02–'03) and only the fifth woman ever to do so. Her total of 17 Grand Slam singles titles is sixth on the all-time list, and fourth in the Open Era, behind Steffi Graf (22 titles) and Chris Evertand Martina Navratilova (18 titles each). She has won 13 Grand Slam doubles titles with her sister Venus Williams and the pair are unbeaten in Grand Slam finals. Serena Williams is also a four-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships. Williams is only one of five tennis players all-time to win a multiple slam set in two disciplines, matching Margaret Court, Roy Emerson, Martina Navratilova and Frank Sedgman. The arrival of Venus and Serena Williams has been credited with launching a new era of power and athleticism in women's tennis.

Williams has won four Olympic gold medals, one in women's singles and three in women's doubles, an all-time record shared with her sister Venus.

KAPIL DEV RAMLAL NIKHANJ (born 6 January 1959), better known as Kapil Dev, is a former Indian cricketer. He captained the Indian cricket team which won the 1983 Cricket World Cup. Named by Wisden as the Indian Cricketer of the Century in 2002, Kapil Dev was one of the greatest all-rounders of all time. He was also India's national cricket coach for 10 months between October 1999 and August 2000.

Kapil was a right-arm pace bowler noted for his graceful action and potent outswinger, and was India's main strike bowler for most of his career. He also developed a fine inswinging yorker during the 1980s, which he used very effectively against tail-enders. As a batsman, he was a natural striker of the ball who could hook and drive effectively. A naturally aggressive player, he often helped India in difficult situations by taking the attack to the opposition. Nicknamed The Haryana Hurricane, he represented the Haryana cricket team in domestic cricket. He retired in 1994, holding the world record for the most number of wickets taken in Test cricket, a record subsequently broken by Courtney Walsh in 2000. At the time, he was also India's highest wicket taker in both major forms of cricket, Tests and ODIs. He is the only player in the history of cricket to have taken more than 400 wickets (434 wickets) and scored more than 5,000 runs in Tests, making him one of the greatest all-rounders to have played the game. On 8 March 2010, Kapil Dev was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame

Kapil continued as India's lead pace bowler under a succession of captains in the early 1990s. He was involved in a notable incident during the Lord's Test Match of 1990, when he hit off-spinner Eddie Hemmings for four sixes in succession to take India past the follow-on target. This match also featured the highest test score by an Englishman against India, 333 by Graham Gooch. He was also cited by umpire Dickie Bird as being one of the greatest all-rounders of all-time.

He also became a valuable batsman in the ODI version of the game, being used as a pinch-hitter to accelerate the run-scoring rate, usually in the final ten overs, and relied upon to stabilise the innings in the event of a collapse. He played in the 1992 Cricket World Cup, which was his last, under the captaincy of Mohammad Azharuddin. He led the bowling attack with younger talents like Javagal Srinath and Manoj Prabhakar, who would eventually succeed him as India's leading pace bowlers. He retired in 1994, after breaking Richard Hadlee's then standing record for the most Test wickets taken.

Need for Speed (NFS) is a series of racing video games published by Electronic Arts (EA) and developed by several studios including the Canadian company EA Black Box and the British company Criterion Games.

The series released its first title, The Need for Speed in 1994. Initially, it was designed exclusively for use on fifth generation video game consoles, but later on was reworked to be able to be used on all seventh generation consoles by 2008. All members of the series consist of racing cars on various tracks, with some titles including police pursuits in races. Since Need for Speed: Underground, the series has integrated car body customization into gameplay.

Need for Speed is the most successful racing video game series in the world, and one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. As of October 2009, over 140 million copies of games in the series have been sold.

In June 2012, following Black Box's restructuring, British developer Criterion Games announced that it was in full control of the Need for Speed franchise. However, in August 2013, Swedish and British developers Ghost Games, Ghost Games UK and Criterion Gamesjoined forces for the foreseeable future of the Need for Speed series. At the time, Ghost Games UK staff consisted of 80% of former Criterion Games employees

All the games in the Need For Speed (NFS) series employ the same fundamental rules and similar mechanics: the player controls a race car in a variety of races, the goal being to win the race. In the tournament/career mode, the player must win a series of races in order to unlock vehicles and tracks. Before each race, the player chooses a vehicle, and has the option of selecting either an automatic or manual transmission. All games in the series have some form of multiplayer mode allowing players to race one another via a split screen, a LAN or the Internet.

Although the games share the same name, their tone and focus can vary significantly. For example, in some games the cars can suffer mechanical and visual damage, while in other games the cars cannot be damaged at all; in some games the software simulates real-car behavior (physics), while in others there are more forgiving physics.

With the release of Need for Speed: Underground, the series shifted from racing sports cars on scenic point-to-point tracks, to an import/tuner subculture, and street racing in an urban setting. To date, this theme has remained prevalent in most of the following games.

Need for Speed: Shift and its sequel took a simulator approach to racing, featuring closed-circuit racing on real tracks like the Nürburgring and the Laguna Seca, and fictional street circuits in cities like London and Chicago. The car lists include a combination of exotics, sports cars, and tuners in addition to special race cars.

Most of the games in the franchise include police pursuits in some form or other. In some of the games featuring police pursuit, the player can play as either the felon or the cop. The concepts of drifting and dragging were introduced in Need for Speed: Underground. These new mechanics are included in the tournament/career mode aside from the regular street races. In drift races, the player must defeat other racers by totaling the most points, earned by the length and timing of the drift made by the player's vehicle. In drag races, the player must finish first to win the race, though if the player crashes into an obstacle, the race ends.

The concept of car tuning evolved with each new game, from focusing mainly on the mechanics of the car to including how the car looks. Each game has car tuning which can set options for items like ABS, traction control), or down force, or for upgrading parts like the engine or gearbox. Visual tuning of the player's car becomes important in tournament/career mode after the release of Need for Speed: Underground 2, when the appearance is rated from zero to ten points. When a car attains a high enough visual rating, the vehicle is eligible to be on the cover of a fictional magazine.

Like all racing games, the Need for Speed series features an list of cars, modeled and named after actual cars. Cars in the franchise are divided into four categories: exotic cars, muscle cars, tuners, and special vehicles. Exotic cars feature high performance, expensive cars like the Lamborghini Murciélago, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford GT; muscle cars refer to the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger and the Chevrolet Camaro; while tuner cars are cars like the Nissan Skyline and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. The special vehicles are civilian and police cars that are available for use in some games, such as the Ford Crown Victoria in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010 video game) and garbage trucks, fire engines and taxis in Need for Speed: Carbon.

Originally the series took place in international settings, such as race tracks in Australia, Europe, and Africa. Beginning with Underground, the series has taken place in fictional metropolitan cities. The first game featured traffic on "head to head" mode, while later games traffic can be toggled on and off, and starting with Underground, traffic is a fixed obstacle.

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California,United States. It provides hardware, software and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors.

The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by William "Bill" Redington Hewlett and Dave Packard. HP is the world's leading PC manufacturer and has been since 2007, fending off a challenge by Chinese manufacturer Lenovo, according to Gartner. It specializes in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. Major product lines include personal computing devices, enterprise and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software and a diverse range of printers and other imaging products. HP markets its products to households, small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprises directly as well as via online distribution, consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers, software partners and major technology vendors. HP also has strong services and consulting business around its products and partner products. In 2012 it was the world's largest PC vendor by unit sales.

Bill Hewlett  and Dave Packard graduated with degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1935. The company originated in agarage in nearby Palo Alto during a fellowship they had with a past professor, Frederick Terman at Stanford during the Great Depression. Terman was considered a mentor to them in forming Hewlett-Packard. In 1939, Packard and Hewlett established Hewlett-Packard (HP) in Packard's garage with an initial capital investment of US$538. Hewlett and Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett. HP incorporated on August 18, 1947, and went public on November 6, 1957.

Of the many projects they worked on, their very first financially successful product was a precision audio oscillator, the Model HP200A. Their innovation was the use of a small incandescent light bulb (known as a "pilot light") as a temperature dependent resistor in a critical portion of the circuit, the negative feedback loop which stabilized the amplitude of the output sinusoidal waveform. This allowed them to sell the Model 200A for $54.40 when competitors were selling less stable oscillators for over $200. The Model 200 series of generators continued until at least 1972 as the 200AB, still tube-based but improved in design through the years.

One of the company's earliest customers was Walt Disney Productions which bought eight Model 200B oscillators for use in certifying the Fantasound surround sound systems installed in theaters for the movie Fantasia.

LG Corp. founder Koo In-Hwoi established Lak-Hui Chemical Industrial Corp. in 1947. In 1952, Lak-Hui (pronounced "Lucky", currently LG Chem) became the first Korean company to enter the plastic industry. As the company expanded its plastic business, it established GoldStarCo. Ltd. (currently LG Electronics Inc.) in 1958. Both companies Lucky and GoldStar merged and formed Lucky Goldstar.

GoldStar produced South Korea's first radio. Many consumer electronics were sold under the brand name GoldStar, while some other household products (not available outside South Korea) were sold under the brand name of Lucky. The Lucky brand was famous for hygiene products such as soaps and HiTi laundry detergents, but the brand was mostly associated with its Lucky and Perioe toothpaste. Even today, LG continues to manufacture some of these products for the South Korean market, such as laundry detergent.

In 1995, to compete better in the Western market, the Lucky-Goldstar Corporation was renamed "LG". The company also associates the letters LG with the company's tagline "Life's Good", which is actually a backronym. Since 2009, LG has owned the domain name LG.com.

KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V. (Royal Philips, commonly known as Philips) is a Dutch diversified technology company headquartered inAmsterdam with primary divisions focused in the areas of Healthcare, Consumer Lifestyle and Lighting. It was founded in Eindhoven in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik. It is one of the largest electronics companies in the world and employs around 122,000 people across more than 60 countries.

Philips is organized into three main divisions: Philips Consumer Lifestyle (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Philips Healthcare (formerly Philips Medical Systems) and Philips Lighting. As of 2012 Philips was the largest manufacturer of lighting in the world measured by applicable revenues. In 2013, the company sold the bulk of its remaining consumer electronics operations to Funai Electric Co. On 25 October 2013, the deal to Funai Electric Co was broken off and the consumer electronics operations remain under Philips.

Philips has a primary listing on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange and is a constituent of the AEX index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Micromax is an Indian consumer electronics company located in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is in the business of manufacturing of Mobile Telephones, Tablet Computers, 3G Datacards and LED Televisions. It has 23 offices in India and an international office in Hong Kong.

Micromax started as an IT software company in the year 2000 working on embedded platforms.It entered mobile handset business and by 2010 it became one of the largest Indian domestic mobile handsets company operating in low cost feature phone segments. The company has a 22% market share in the smartphone segment in India. As per IDC  for Q2 2013. The company's product portfolio has more than 60 models ranging from feature rich, dual SIM phones, 3G Android Smartphones, TabletsPC's, LED Televisions and 3G data cards. The company claims it has many firsts to its credit in the Mobile handset market – including the 30-day battery backup, dual SIM, QWERTY Keypad, Universal Remote Control Mobile Phone,first dual-boot Android and Windows 8 tablet, etc.

Micromax has presence in more than 560 districts through 125,000 retail outlets in India. The company has sales presence spread acrossBangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and was once present in UAE and Brasil. On 24 January 2014, Micromax became the first Indian mobile company to start sales in Russia.

APPLE INC. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California, that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software and personal computers. Its best-known hardware products are the Mac line of computers, the iPod media player, the iPhone smartphone, and the iPad tablet computer. Its consumer software includes the OS X and iOS operating systems, theiTunes media browser, the Safari web browser, and the iLife and iWork creativity and productivity suites.

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne on April 1, 1976 to develop and sell personal computers. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977, and was renamed as Apple Inc. on January 9, 2007 to reflect its shifted focus towards consumer electronics.

Apple is the world's second-largest information technology company by revenue after Samsung Electronics, and the world's third-largest mobile phone maker after Samsung and Nokia. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012. On September 30, 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands" report. However, the company has received criticism for its contractors' labor practices, and for Apple's own environmental and business practices.

Nokia is a Finnish communications and information technology multinational corporation that is headquartered in Espoo, Finland. Its Nokia Solutions and Networks company provides telecommunications network equipment and services, while Internet services, including applications, games, music, media andmessaging, and free-of-charge digital map information and navigation services, are delivered through its wholly owned subsidiary Navteq.

As of 2012, Nokia employs 101,982 people across 120 countries, conducts sales in more than 150 countries, and reports annual revenues of around €30 billion. By the fourth quarter of 2012, it was the world's second-largest mobile phone maker in terms of unit sales (after Samsung), with a global market share of 18.0%. Now, Nokia only has a 3.2% market share in smartphones. They lost 40% of their revenue in mobile phones in Q2 2013. Nokia is a public limited-liability company listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange. It is the world's 274th-largest company measured by 2013 revenues according to the Fortune Global 500.

Nokia was the world's largest vendor of mobile phones from 1998 to 2012. However, the company's market share has declined since 2007 as a result of the growing use of touchscreen smartphones from other vendors—principally the iPhone, by Apple, and devices running onAndroid, an operating system created by Google. The corporation's share price fell from a high of US$40 in late 2007 to under US$2 in mid-2012. In a bid to recover, Nokia announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft in February 2011, leading to the replacement of Symbian with Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system in all Nokia smartphones. Following the replacement of the Symbian system, Nokia's smartphone sales figures, which had previously increased, collapsed dramatically. From the beginning of 2011 until 2013, Nokia fell from its position as the world's largest smartphone vendor to assume the status of tenth largest.

On 2 September 2013, Microsoft announced its intent to purchase Nokia's mobile phone business unit as part of an overall deal totaling €5.44 billion (US$7.17 billion). Stephen Elop, Nokia's former CEO, and several other executives will join Microsoft as part of the deal.

Nokia unveiled its' third range on 24 February 2014, the Nokia X family, which run a modified version of the Android operating system. The range includes three mid-tier devices; Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL.

The technologies that preceded modern cellular mobile telephony systems were the various "0G" pre-cellular mobile radio telephony standards. Nokia had been producing commercial and some military mobile radio communications technology since the 1960s, although this part of the company was sold some time before the later company rationalization. Since 1964, Nokia had developed VHF radio simultaneously with Salora Oy. In 1966, Nokia and Salora started developing the ARP standard (which stands for Autoradiopuhelin, or car radio phone in English), a car-based mobile radio telephony system and the first commercially operated public mobile phone network in Finland. It went online in 1971 and offered 100% coverage in 1978.

In 1979, the merger of Nokia and Salora resulted in the establishment of Mobira Oy. Mobira began developing mobile phones for the NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony) network standard, the first-generation, first fully automatic cellular phone system that went online in 1981. In 1982, Mobira introduced its first car phone, the Mobira Senator for NMT-450 networks.

Nokia bought Salora Oy in 1984 and now owning 100% of the company, changed the company's telecommunications branch name to Nokia-Mobira Oy. The Mobira Talkman, launched in 1984, was one of the world's first transportable phones. In 1987, Nokia introduced one of the world's first handheld phones, the Mobira Cityman 900 for NMT-900 networks (which, compared to NMT-450, offered a better signal, yet a shorter roam). While the Mobira Senator of 1982 had weighed 9.8 kg (22 lb) and the Talkman just under 5 kg (11 lb), the Mobira Cityman weighed only 800 g (28 oz) with the battery and had a price tag of 24,000 Finnish marks (approximately €4,560). Despite the high price, the first phones were almost snatched from the sales assistants' hands. Initially, the mobile phone was a "yuppie" product and a status symbol.

Nokia's mobile phones got a big publicity boost in 1987, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was pictured using a Mobira Cityman to make a call fromHelsinki to his communications minister in Moscow. This led to the phone's nickname of the "Gorba".

In 1988, Jorma Nieminen, resigning from the post of CEO of the mobile phone unit, along with two other employees from the unit, started a notable mobile phone company of their own, Benefon Oy (since renamed to GeoSentric). One year later, Nokia-Mobira Oy became Nokia Mobile Phones.

Symbian was the main operating system of Nokia smartphones by 2012, Nokia 808 PureView, launched in February 2012 was the last Symbian smartphone.

In Q4 2004, Nokia released its first touch screen phone, the Nokia 7710.

In September 2006, Nokia announced the Nokia N95, a Symbian-powered slider smartphone. It was released in February 2007 as the first phone with a 5-megapixel camera. It became hugely popular. An 8 GB variant was released in October 2007.

In November 2007, Nokia announced and released the Nokia N82, its first Nseries phone with Xenon flash. At the Nokia World conference in December 2007, Nokia announced their "Comes With Music" program: Nokia device buyers are to receive a year of complimentary access to music downloads. The service became commercially available in the second half of 2008.

The first Nseries device, the N90, utilised the older Symbian OS 8.1 mobile operating system, as did the N70. Subsequently Nokia switched to using SymbianOS 9 for all later Nseries devices (except the N72, which was based on the N70). Newer Nseries devices incorporate newer revisions of SymbianOS 9 that include Feature Packs. The N800, N810, N900, N9 andN950 are as of April 2012 the only Nseries devices (therefore excluding Lumia devices) to not use Symbian OS. They use the Linux-based Maemo, except the N9(50), which uses MeeGo.

In 2008, Nokia released the Nokia E71 which was marketed to directly compete with the other BlackBerry-type devices offering a full "qwerty" keyboard and cheaper prices.

The Nokia N8, from September 2010, is the first device to function on the Symbian^3 mobile operating system. Nokia revealed that the N8 will be the last device in its flagship N-series devices to ship with Symbian OS.

The Nokia 808 PureView has a 41-megapixel camera, more than any other smartphone on the market. It was released in February 2012 and contains a 1.3 GHz processor. On 25 January 2013, Nokia announced this was the last Symbian smartphone the company would make.