Bob Brodersen of the University of California, in Berkeley, has calculated that moving an application from a general-purpose software implementation to a specialised chip can improve efficiency by a factor of 10, 000 (the efficiency metric being millions of calculations per milliwatt of power consumed).

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

This contrasts with taking a general purpose solution and trying to to it to a very high performance application.

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He also mentioned that the application should be optimized for the device through which it will be utilized and that the application should also be optimized to function very well for its intended purpose.

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Airtime is a 'social discovery' application for helping people make new friends online, not necessarily for the purpose of dating.

CNN: John D. Sutter,

If, as expected, European leaders do press ahead with Turkey's application, their decision will reflect a profound reappraisal by leading politicians of the very purpose of their Union.

ECONOMIST: Why Europe became serious about Turkey