What is "ultra"

Ultra \Ul"tra\, n. One who advocates extreme measures; an ultraist; an extremist; a radical.
--Brougham.

Ultra \Ul"tra\, a. [See Ultra-.] Going beyond others, or beyond due limit; extreme; fanatical; uncompromising; as, an ultra reformer; ultra measures.

a. extreme; far beyond the norm; fanatical; uncompromising. n. 1 An ultraroyalist in France. 2 An extremist. 3 (context usually capitalised English) code name used by British codebreakers during World War 2 for decrypted information gained from the enemy.

adj. (used of opinions and actions) far beyond the norm; "extremist political views"; "radical opinions on education"; "an ultra conservative" [syn: extremist, radical]

Ultra was the designation adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. Ultra eventually became the standard designation among the western Allies for all such intelligence. The name arose because the intelligence thus obtained was considered more important than that designated by the highest British security classification then used (Most Secret) and so was regarded as being Ultra secret. Several other cryptonyms had been used for such intelligence. British intelligence first designated it Boniface—presumably to imply that it was the result of human intelligence. The U.S. used the codename Magic for its decrypts from Japanese sources.

Much of the German cipher traffic was encrypted on the Enigma machine. Used properly, the German military Enigma would have been virtually unbreakable; in practice, shortcomings in operation allowed it to be broken. The term "Ultra" has often been used almost synonymously with " Enigma decrypts". However, Ultra also encompassed decrypts of the German Lorenz SZ 40/42 machines that were used by the German High Command, and the Hagelin machine

Many observers, at the time and later, regarded Ultra as immensely valuable to the Allies. Winston Churchill was reported to have told King George VI, when presenting to him Stewart Menzies (head of the Secret Intelligence Service and the person who controlled distribution of Ultra decrypts to the government): "It is thanks to the secret weapon of General Menzies, put into use on all the fronts, that we won the war!" F. W. Winterbotham quoted the western Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, at war's end describing Ultra as having been "decisive" to Allied victory. Sir Harry Hinsley, Bletchley Park veteran and official historian of British Intelligence in World War II, made a similar assessment about Ultra, saying that it shortened the war "by not less than two years and probably by four years"; and that, in the absence of Ultra, it is uncertain how the war would have ended.

Since Ultra was revealed in the middle 1970s, historians have altered the historiography of World War II. For example, Andrew Roberts, writing in the 21st century, states, "Because he had the invaluable advantage of being able to read Rommel's Enigma communications, Montgomery knew how short the Germans were of men, ammunition, food and above all fuel. When he put Rommel's picture up in his caravan he wanted to be seen to be almost reading his opponent's mind. In fact he was reading his mail".

Ultra is the codename for cryptographic intelligence obtained from German signal traffic in World War II.

Ultra may also refer to:

Ultra is the ninth studio album by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 14 April 1997 by Mute Records. The album was the band's first since the departure of Alan Wilder, who had left the band in 1995 having become disillusioned with life in Depeche Mode. Wilder's departure and lead singer Dave Gahan's drug problems, which culminated in a near-fatal overdose, had caused many people to speculate that the band was finished. This is their first album as a trio since 1982's A Broken Frame, along with it being their first album where the band themselves were not involved with production.

Ultra debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and at number five on the Billboard 200. By April 2006, the album had sold 584,000 copies in the United States. The project was initially conceived as an EP.

In 1999, Ned Raggett ranked the album at number 50 on his list of "The Top 136 or so Albums of the Nineties". That same year, the annual Ultra Music Festival in Miami was named after the album by its co-founder Russell Faibisch, and acknowledging its influence on the Polish rock scene, Tylko Rock ranked it at number 71 in its list of "100 Albums That Shook Polish Rock."

Ultra (also recording as Rider) was an English male pop band, which was most successful in the late 1990s. The original line-up consisted of James Hearn (born 19 June 1976) ( vocals), Michael Harwood (born 12 December 1975) ( guitar), Jon O'Mahony (born 10 August 1973) ( drums) and Nick Keynes (born 3 May 1972) ( bass).

During the 1960s in Malaysia and Singapore, some racial extremists were referred to as "ultras". The phrase was most commonly used by the first Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, and other leaders of his political party, the People's Action Party (PAP), to refer to Malay extremists. However, it was also used by some members of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) — the leader of the Alliance coalition governing Malaysia — to refer to Lee instead, as Lee was perceived to be a Chinese chauvinist himself.

Ultra is an eight-issue comic book limited series created by the Luna Brothers, Jonathan (art and plot) and Joshua (script), and published by Image Comics in 2004 and 2005.

The series' central character is Pearl Penalosa, who is also a superheroine called Ultra. The story deals only peripherally with traditional superhero comics themes, like fighting supervillains, but concentrates mainly on how being a superhero affects Pearl's personal life. Hilary Goldstein at IGN described the series as " Sex and the City in tights". The trade paperback (TPB) is peppered with magazine articles from the world of the comic. These help flesh out the back stories of the three main heroines, and are reminiscent of the “documents” in Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Like the aforementioned predecessor and Rick Veitch's comics, faux articles, ads, covers, and table of contents provide an element of realism.

ULTra (Urban Light Transit) is a personal rapid transit,PODCAR system developed by the British engineering company ULTra Global PRT (formerly Advanced Transport Systems).

The first public system opened at London's Heathrow Airport in May 2011. It consists of 21 vehicles operating on a route connecting Terminal 5 to its business passenger car park, just north of the airport. ULTra is in contention to develop an urban system in Amritsar, India projected to carry up to 100,000 passengers per day using 200 vehicles.

To reduce fabrication costs, ULTra uses largely off-the-shelf technologies, such as rubber tyres running on an open guideway. This approach has resulted in a system that ULTra believes to be economical; the company reports that the total cost (vehicles, infrastructure and control systems) is between £3 million and £5 million per kilometre of guideway.

ULTRA, the Unrelated Live Transplant Regulatory Authority, was a British agency that regulated organ transplants. According to the official website:

In September 2006, ULTRA disbanded. Its functions were transferred to the Human Tissue Authority, a Non-departmental public body of the Department of Health.

Ultra is the debut studio album from the English pop band Ultra, released in February 1999 by East West Records ( Warner Music Group).

The album reached No. 37 in the UK albums chart and spawned several hit singles in the UK and Europe. It was mainly performed and co-written by James Hearn; vocals and piano, Michael Harwood; vocals and guitar, Nick Keynes; bass, and Jon O'Mahony; drums and percussion. It was produced by ex Tears for Fears member, Ian Stanley.

Ultra was a Dutch post-punk movement of the early 1980s.

In contrast to other countries' post-punk movements, the Dutch version experimented with, among other things, toy instruments, chainsaws and de-tuned guitars. The movement's name comes from a series of concerts held under that name between September 1980 and March 1981 in Octopus, a youth club on an Amsterdam canal.

The events were organized by Wally van Middendorp (from the band Minny Pops and the Plurex record label), Rob Scholte (from the band The Young Lions) and Harold Schellinx (from the band The Young Lions, and editor of the music magazine Vinyl) .

The movement had an explicitly artsy aesthetic, and many of its participants were educated in art schools. Ultra was somewhat allied with the "modern music magazine" Vinyl, which not only acted as a voice for the movement, but also released the music of various Ultra bands on flexidisc, with every issue of the magazine accompanied by a free record.

The Ultra movement was primarily centred on Amsterdam bands, although its influence was felt in the whole of the country; affiliated bands from the 'provinces' (outside of Amsterdam) included Mekanik Kommando (Nijmegen) and Nasmak (Eindhoven). The music was mostly recorded on compact cassettes, but also on vinyl. The most representative compilation of the Ultra movement was the C-90 cassette "Ultra", released in 1981 on the Amsterdam label "Lebel PERIOD".

Ultra is a 1991 Italian drama film directed by Ricky Tognazzi. It was entered into the 41st Berlin International Film Festival where Tognazzi won the Silver Bear for Best Director.

Ultra is the second studio album by Estonian singer Laura Põldvere. The album was physically released on December 8, 2009 in Estonia by Moonwalk studios. The first single off the album, "Destiny", took part in the Estonian contest Eesti Laul 2010 where it reached third place.

Ultra TV is a Serbian TV channel, which started broadcasting on January 28, 2008 at 8 A.M. It airs a diverse amount of TV programs for children and teenagers. It is also broadcast in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

ULTRA is a machine translation system created for five languages (Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, English, and German) in the Computing Research Laboratory in 1991.

ULTRA (Universal Language Translator), is a machine translationu system developed at the Computing Research Laboratory, which can translate between five languages (Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, English and German). It uses Artificial intelligence as well as linguistic and logic programming methods. The main goal of the system is to be robust, to cover general language and to be simple to use. It uses bidirectional parsers/generators.

The system has a language-independent system of intermediate representation, which means that it takes into account needs for expression (expression is one of the main elements of language) and it uses relaxation techniques to provide the best translation. It used an Xwindows user interface.