Silicon
Valley has long been
notorious for churning out jargon along with its electronics, and it
isn't
showing any signs of slowing. With the rise of each new trend, more tech
terms
find their way into our day-to-day vocabulary. Right now, social media
is the
chief jargon offender. Tomorrow—who knows? One thing is for certain:Our
dictionary has plain-English definitions that will keep you up to
speed.
augmented reality • Yet another example of the
real world catching up with science fiction, augmented reality describes technology
that provides up-to-date information about the world around you. An augmented
reality app on your smartphone, for example, may display information about a
monument when you aim the phone's camera at the monument.
WorkSnug
smartphone app (free; worksnug.com)
cloud • The definitions for
"cloud" and "cloud computing" are still evolving and
subject to debate, but you'll find that many people are referring to online services
when they say something is "in the cloud." Such services include
online photo-editing services. Web-based email services, online storage
services, and more. Businesses often think of cloud computing in terms of scalability;
Internet-based services that can scale to meet the changing usage needs of a growing
business. SaaS (Software as a Service), for example, is software that is hosted
online (instead of being installed on your computers). It can be scaled for use
by your growing company.
fan grille • Wherever you find a fan
on your computer case, you are also likely to find a fan grille (sometimes
referred to as a fan grill). Not to be mistaken for a fan filter (which blocks
dust from being sucked into your system), a fan grille prevents curious
children and pets from touching the rotating fan blade. Business PCs typically have
nondescript grilles, while gaming PCs often have grilles in eye-catching
shapes.
iPhone • Launched in 2007, the Apple
iPhone is a wildly popular smartphone that runs Apple's iOS operating system.
Features that have helped shape its success include the touch screen, the sleek
design, its processing power, its music playing capabilities, and its App
Store. The store is arguably one of the most important features of the phone; It
lets users find and download free and paid mini-applications that add functionality
to the iPhone by letting users play games, edit photos, shop, track information,
and more. iPhones are in wide use by consumers and businesses.
ODF (Open Document Format) • For as long as we've had
office software, sharing digital document files (among users who have different
types of office software) has been problematic. If a colleague creates a
document with one brand of office software, you might find that important
formatting is lost when you open it in your (different) office software. In
fact, it might not open at all. To improve widespread (and long-term support)
for digital documents, the Open Document Format Alliance created an open-source
document standard. The format is supported by many popular office suites,
including modern versions of Corel WordPerfect Office, Google Docs, OpenOffice.org,
and Microsoft Office. To save a document as an ODF document, click Save As and
look for the ODT (text), ODS (spreadsheet), or related extension.
