API
Computer terminology has been part of our vocabulary for years but many of those words and acronyms can still trip us over. Here’s a glossary compiled by Ajay Sukumaran
API
An Application Programming Interface allows applications to communicate with each other. The often-used analogy is that of a waiter at a restaurant, the intermediary between diner and kitchen. These interfaces allow apps to access data—like your phone giving a weather update sourced from a data provider via an API.
Blockchain
A digital ledger. Blockchains are the tech behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Briefly: A transaction is recorded. Many such records make up a block. Each block has a unique line of code, or hash, essentially containing a timestamp. Using these hash codes, many blocks are linked together in a specific order into a chain.
Cloud elasticity
The ability to automatically adapt computer processing, memory and storage resources to changing workloads.
Dark Web
All the websites whose IP addresses are hidden, using software tools. While anyone can visit these sites (because they are visible), it’s difficult to track them. Dark web is known more for the illegal stuff (buying and selling drugs or stolen data). Whistle-blowing figures as a use-case too.
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Edge Computing
Bringing the cloud servers closer to a mobile device. Often, by offloading compute-intensive operations at very low latency. Think of the to-and-fro involved in everyday uses—a multi-player video game, for instance. Cloudlets come in here—these are ‘data centers in a box’ sitting at the edge of the cloud and connecting to phones, devices, driverless cars or whatever.
File extension
The suffixes we’ve dealt with for years—these tell us what type of file we are dealing with. JPG, docx, txt, mp3, html and so on.
GNU/Linux
The free software system that stands for ‘GNU’s Not Unix’. Free meaning freedom of the user to run the program as they wish or to copy and change it—by having full access to source code. The GNU Project was started by Richard Stallman in the 1980s. It developed into a complete operating system when paired with a kernel called Linux developed in the early 1990s by Linus Torvalds. Only a tiny percentage of PCs use Linux, but it’s the leading operating system (OS) on servers and the only OS used on supercomputers.
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Haptic
Meaning the sense of touch...in thin air, that is. Video games were among the early users of tactile feedback before the touchscreen era took it further afield. Touchable holograms were the buzz a few years ago, now there’s haptic tech to read Braille in midair (via ultrasound waves) without touching a surface.
IoT
The world of devices that are connected via the internet. In 2020, for the first time, there were more Internet of Things (IoT) connections—such as smart home devices, connected cars, connected industrial equipment—than there are non-IoT connections like smartphones, and computers, according to market insights firm IoT Analytics. By 2025, it estimates 30 billion IoT connections.
Java
This programming language is now 25 years old and still used widely. The TIOBE Index, a monthly tracker of the popularity of programming languages, shows C and Java have taken turns to occupy the top two positions for nearly 15 years. In November 2020, Python surpassed Java for the first time to reach No. 2, according to the index.
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Kernel Panic
A system crash. It’s a safety measure taken by a computer’s operating system upon encountering an error. Kernel Panic is the term used for Unix and Unix-like systems such as Linux. For Windows systems, the term is ‘Stop Error’ or more familiarly, the dreaded ‘Blue Screen of Death’.
Machine learning
Machine learning is training a computer to learn patterns automatically—unlike the classical approach of programming systems which is to set a rule and make the machine follow it. Here, you feed data to a neural network and it learns over time. It’s a segment of artificial intelligence. The humble spam filter for emails uses ML. Or the product suggestions you get while shopping online.
New computer hardware designs try to mimic the way the brain processes information by assembling artificial neurons. “At the very basic level,” according to Mike Davies of Intel’s Neuromorphic Computing lab, which is working on neuromorphic chips, “it is throwing out everything we think we know about computers and processors and computing in general and looking at how biological brains compute.”
OLED
Organic light-emitting diodes used in television, smartphone and computer screens. These diodes do not need backlights since they have a film of organic compound which allows them to glow when there is an electrical charge. Hence, colours are richer. Their flexibility makes curved screens possible—that’s also where their utility in wearable devices comes in.
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Plug in
A plug-in, or an add-on, is a piece of software that adds functionality to a programme. Browser plug-ins, for example, can help play some multimedia files on the browser.
Quantum Computing
This could sound like sci-fi. It involves a rethink of the way computers work—so far they encoded information in bits of 0 or 1. Quantum computing is based on quantum physics and the realm of sub-atomic particles. A quantum bit (quibit) is non-binary and fluid, existing as a combination of 0 or 1. Potential applications range from encryption to drug discovery to teleportation of information.
RFID
Radio-Frequency Identification tags work through an electromagnetic field. These are being used in a variety of applications—the FAStag electronic toll collection system, for example, which senses the tag on a vehicle passing through and bills it automatically.
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SaaS
Software-as-a-Service delivers applications from the cloud—a subscription model that spares users (read enterprises) the hassle and costs of installing and managing their software on local servers. For examples of SaaS providers, think Salesforce and Zoom. The SaaS industry globally was $100 billion last year. India’s SaaS revenue reached $3.5 billion in FY2020, with 75 per cent of it coming from global sales and the Indian software trade body Nasscom says there’s a huge opportunity waiting to be tapped.
Trojan Horse
The malicious codes that have been around for as long as we know, disguised as legit software but waiting to steal, disrupt or take control of computers. There were 9.9 billion malware attacks in 2019 alone, according to statista.com. Trojan horses, it said, are the most common methods of infection.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator is the address of a resource on the internet. The URL is made up of: a scheme indicating the protocol—http or https (the latter has encryption, hence more secure); a host name; and a path.
Virtual Machine
A virtual duplicate: a computer system that emulates another. Virtualisation software helps create virtual machines on a host computer—useful when testing new apps without affecting the host.
WAN
A Wide-Area Network is a network of local telecommunications networks spread over a large geographic area. The internet is the world’s largest WAN.
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a document formatting language first published in 1998. It is the default for many office-productivity tools like word processors. XML is used to transport data, while Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is used to display data (for example, web pages).
Y2K
Twenty years ago, the computer-meltdown fear that gripped the world because the format of calendar dates in software programs needed to be upgraded in order for them to be able to recognise the turn of the century.
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