10 Tech Terms Everyone Should Know by 2014

Get ready now for 2014.  Our language is changing so fast due to technology. We thought it only made sense to call out the 10 Tech Terms Everyone Should Know by 2014.

1. Augmented Reality: are applications that can display information related to areal-life situation in real time. For example, retailers are currently experimenting with augmented reality to get more customers into the stores by allowing shoppers to ‘see’ the clothes on themselves without having to actually try them on.  While some of these apps are a bit gimmicky now, they have the potential to change how we shop, train for new skills, game, build, and make other important decisions.
2.  Selfie: is a new term that seemed to pop into everyone’s imagination around the same time as Twerk. It’s a type of self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.  If you haven’t posted a selfie – maybe you aren’t on Facebook or any dating sites
3.  3G / 4G LTE / 5G: The G stands for Generation, (no, this does NOT refer to Pepsi’s generation) thus typically the speed of data transmission over wireless networks increases with each generation. U.S. wireless providers are far into the process of converting their networks from 3G to 4G, as are the handset makers. For many reasons, LTE (long-term evolution) won out over WiMAX for North American cellular phone markets in 2012, thus moving all of us closer to a common broadband platform for the world. Faster data mobile speeds mean greater utility for all. Expect superfast 5G to roll out within the decade.
4. Cloud Storage: Banks don’t have a lock on our most valuable resource (after money) which is information. Data needs to be as ubiquitous as the greenback. Hosted by a third party, data presumably is secure and accessible anywhere you have an Internet connection. The concept of a ‘cloud’ means many different resources are connected together to act as one, thereby increasing redundancy (and conceivably reliability) by creating many copies of data and storing it in many places. You thought TV networks were competitive? Just wait till next year when the fight for Cloud supremacy rages between Amazon, Dropbox, Google Drive and iCloud, among others are gearing for a battle royale!
5.  Industrial Internet also called The Internet of Things: is the emerging communication infrastructure that connects people, data, and machines to enable access and control of mechanical devices in unprecedented ways. This stuff tends to leverage the power of Cloud Storage and computing to connect machines embedded with sensors and sophisticated software to other machines (and end users) so we can extract data, make sense of it, and find meaning where it did not exist before. This of course begs the question will God be using the Industrial Internet to stay connected to his flock?.
6.  Big Data: is the massive amounts of data collected over time that are hard to analyze and handle using conventional database management tools. (Excel just won’t cut it!) Big Data analytics operate upon a wide range of datasets, from organized to seemingly random, like business transactions, e-mail messages, photos, surveillance videos, and cyber incident activity logs as well as content and activities on the web, such as social media. Who knows what about you? Blame it on Big Data.
7.  Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): is the future of how we learn.  These web-based classes are aimed at large-scale global participation and open access via the Internet. MOOCs have been dubbed a potentially disruptive technology trend that poses many challenges for traditional higher education.  What’s the difference between an MIT degree and MOOC classes produced by MIT?  About $50,000 a year – just so you can earn the college credit. MOOC’s are still working on how much to charge to get college credit.   Expect MOOC’s to do for the cost of higher education what iTunes did to album sales.
8.   Twerk: (or Twerking) Forgive us. This word is so “of the moment” We put this word in this list as our little “Easter Egg,” if you will. If it wasn’t here, would we appear cool and hip and current? If you don’t know this word by now, and what it means – you probably have never been online or watched TV in the last six months.  Being that this is a family-focused newsletter I just can’t explain it fully. You probably think Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke both suffer from Growing Pains. Yuk yuk. And if you want to see the worst Twerk EVER – watch this:
9. Cybersecurity:  protects information and machines connected via the internet to networks from being compromised or attacked. As we migrate more of our personal and business data to cloud storage—and as cyber-physical systems connected via the Industrial Internet and next-generation wireless networks become more integrated and essential to our health, economy, society, and homeland defense—we need better methods and tools for identifying and neutralizing potential cyber threats, such as viruses and other malicious code, as well as human vulnerabilities, such as insider threats.
10. Bitcoin – Forget dollars – they are so passé – our biggest challenge is to decide if we are planning on accepting client payments in bitcoins in 2014 because virtual currency is the next best thing to having currency, right? Bitcoins can be transferred through a computer or smartphone without an intermediate financial institution. The concept was introduced in a 2008 paper by a pseudonymous developer known only as “Satoshi Nakamoto”, who called it a peer-to-peer, electronic online hard money lending system. The Winklevoss twins (famous for their Facebook lawsuits) are doing their best to capture the market in this new currency. Although bitcoin is promoted as a digital currency, many have criticized bitcoin’s volatile exchange rate, relatively inflexible supply, high risk of loss, and minimal use in trade. Go figure.  Either way – bitcoins are not going away.