High Tech
Top 10 Most Confusing (yet widely used) High Tech Buzzwords for 2007
iPod, Flash, Cookie, Nano and Kernel lead list; SOA most confusing acronym
San Diego, Calif. and Henderson, NV October 16, 2007. In a worldwide internet and media analysis, The Global Language Monitor (www.LanguageMonitor.com) has found the most confusing yet frequently cited high tech buzzwords in 2007 to be iPOD, Flash, Cookie, Nano and Kernel followed by Megahertz, Cell (cell as in cell phone), Plasma, De-duplication, and Blu-Ray.
To see the Video Announcement, Click on Herr (mega)Hertz..
The study was released earlier today, on the 13th anniversary of the ‘cookie,’ the invention that made the World Wide Web practical for widespread surfing, communication, and e-commerce.
Paul JJ Payack, President of the Global Language Monitor, said “Educational metrics such as the Flesch Test would place a typical paragraph using these words at the Third-grade reading-level. At the same time, most college graduates, even from the most prestigious engineering schools such as MIT, Stanford, and CalTech would be challenged to precisely define all ten. Once again, the High Tech industry has failed its basic language proficiency test.”
The analysis was completed using GLM’s Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI), the proprietary algorithm that tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet. The words are tracked in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets. This analysis was performed in earlier this month.
The Most Confusing Yet Frequently Cited High Tech Words of 2007 with Commentary follow:
1. iPOD: We all know the brand, but what exactly is a ‘pod’? A gathering of marine mammals? The encasement for peas? The evacuation module from 2001: A Space Odyssey?
2. Flash: As in Flash Memory. Given it is easier to say than “ I brought the report on my EEPROM chip with a thin oxide layer separating a floating gate and control gate utilizing Fowler-Nordheim electron tunneling”.
3. Nano: Widely used to describe any small as in nanotechnology. Like the word ‘mini’ which originally referred to the red hues in Italian miniature paintings, the word nano- is ultimately derived from the ancient Greek word for dwarf.
4. Cookie: Without cookies with their ‘persistent state’ management mechanism the web as we know it, would cease to exist.
5. Kernel: The core layer of a computer operating system serving as a connection to the underlying hardware. Ultimately derives from the Old English cyrnel, for corn.
6. Megahertz MHz): Named after German physicist Heinrich Hertz, signifying a million cycles per second in computer processor (and not clock) speed. Next up: GigaHertz (GHz) and TeraHertz (THz), one billion and one trillion cycles.
7. Cell (as in Cell Phone): Operating on the principle of cells, where communicate through low-power transceiver to cellular ‘towers’ up to 6 miles away (which is why you can connect to ground stations from airplanes at 35,000 feet). The phone connects to the strongest signal which are then passed from tower to tower.
8. Plasma (as in Plasma Television): A top word in the last survey still confusing large-screen TV buyers.
9. De-duplication: One of the newer buzzwords meaning removing duplicated data from a storage device, as in ‘we’re in the process of de-duping the silo’. Ouch!
10. Blu-Ray (vs. HD DVD). New technology for high capacity DVDs reminiscent of the VHS/Beta wars of the 1980s.
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Now you can watch Global Language Monitor on YouTube.
Global Study: Top 10 Most Confusing (yet widely used) High Tech Buzzwords:
HTTP, Megapixel, Plasma, WORM and Emoticon Among Leaders
Danville, Calif. March 24, 2005. In a worldwide internet and media analysis, The Global Language Monitor found the most confusing yet frequently cited high tech buzzwords to be HTTP, Voice Over IP (VoIP), and Megapixel. Closely following were Plasma, Robust, WORM and Emoticon. The study was released earlier today. “The high tech realm remains an incubator of great ideas and, at the same time, mass confusion. The industry, with rare exception, has never mastered the basics of translating new products and services into everyday language: It is obvious that the High Tech industry has failed in its basic language proficiency test.”
The Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) is a proprietary algorithm that trackswords and phrases in the media and on the Internet. The words are tracked in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets. This analysis was performed in early March of 2005.
The Most Confusing Yet Frequently Cited High Tech Words with Commentary follow:
1. HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol is used for HTML (HyperText Markup Language) files. Not to be confused with text on too much Starbucks. More than 1 billion references to HTTP on the web alone.
2. Voice Over IP VoIP, (pronounced voip rhyming with Detroit). Voice over Internet Protocol. Simply put: web telephony.
3. Megapixel A really big pixel. No, one million pixels (thats a lotta pixels) OK, whats a pixel? Computer-ese for picture element.
4. Plasma As in Plasma TV. Are we talking Red Cross Drives here? Rather, a flat, lightweight surface covered with millions of tiny glass bubbles with a digitally controlled electric current flowing through it that causes the plasma inside the tiny bubbles to glow.
5. Robust No one quite knows what this means, but its good for your product to demonstrate robustness.
6. WORM A virus, right? No, a Write Once, Read Many file system used for optical disk technology.
7. Emoticon A smiley with an emotional component (from emotional icon). Now, whats a smiley?
8. Best of breed Not to be confused with the Westminster Dog Show. A personalized solution made of components from various manufacturers; a sort of high tech mix-and-match.
9. Viral marketing Marketing that Freezes your computer? Actually, a high tech marketing fad that theoretically results in a geometric progression of ones marketing message. Sometimes stealth. Always irritating.
10. Data migration Nothing to do with pre-historic mastodons or, even, global warming. Its where the data in your present software programs can move to newer (or older) versions of the programs or, better yet, into competitive solutions without causing much of a fuss. A highly unlikely result.
Other terms being tracked included client/server, solution, Paradigm, hypertext, backward compatible, best of breed, and the STUN protocol.
Read: Buzzwords alienate a low-tech public (Knight-Ridder)
Read: Top 10 Confusing Tech Buzzwords (Network World)
Read: Nerdspeak Mostly Bafflegab (Toronto Globe and Mail)
The Infinity Symbol (the lemniscate)
Mathematical Symbols and Notation: Earliest Use
Read The WordMan on “How the Zero Was Discovered”
The Great Math Problems of the 20th Century
The Dustbin of History, or How the Infinity Symbol Came into Existence
By Paul JJ Payack
John Wallis (1616-1703) possessed no knowledge of the mathematical arts at the age of fifteen, yet he later went on to become the Savilian professor of Geometry at Oxford, the friend and teacher of Isaac Newton (he was the first to charge that Leibnitz had stolen his ideas for the calculus), and a charter member of the Royal Society. Yet his place in the history of mathematical thought is, perhaps not unjustly, obscure (and oftentimes, simply, ignored). A list of his major formulations would serve, merely, as an esoteric series of footnotes to the said compilation, which would interest, it should be stated, rather few.
For example, Wallis discovered that, in all such operations, it was mass times velocity (mv) that was conserved and not, as it was widely held, merely velocity (v). However, he fell short of unsecreting the laws of motion (which Newton would later publish). He also, at one time, theorized “that for the purposes of calculation, the earth and moon can be treated as a single body, concentrated at their center of gravity …” but stopped short far short of formulating the basis for the Laws of Universal Gravitation.
It can also be noted that Newton borrowed his system of fluxional notation (in which the fluent of was represented by , and the fluent by and so on) yet this, too, was swept into the dustbin of history when it was later replaced by that system developed by Leibnitz. His significant work still owed a heavy debt to the Greeks and the most notable of these was Arithmatica Infinitorum sive Nova Methodus Inquirendi in Curvilineorum Quadraturam aliague difficilora Matheseosos Problemata (1673), which is more often recalled for its title rather than for the fact that it introduced to mathematics the idea of ‘limit’.
It is often opined that a man might fulfill the secret purpose of his existence in the doing of a seemingly trivial deed such as a word said in passing or, perhaps, an action not acted upon (the significance of which, more often than not, is forever hidden from the doer). In the case of John Wallis it can be said that he, quite possibly, achieved his destiny with the few simple strokes of his quill with which he, in 1656, modified a Roman variation for 1000. This was to serve him simply as the notation for a very small quantity, but, in centuries to come, was to serve the world as the symbol (and signature) of INFINITY.
The Quant on Presidential Arbitrage and the 2004 Election
Danville, California (November 1, 2004) The inventors of the statistical algorithms behind the PQ index have uncovered a risk free pre-election profit opportunity they coined Presidential Arbitrage.
In recent months, several online idea futures exchanges and sports betting venues have been quoting odds to the 2004 Presidential elections. Participants in one exchange are often unaware that the a very similar product is traded in another exchange. And while these real-life derivatives products exhibit a strong mathematical relationships, this is often overlooked by the exchange participants because the products are named differently or exhibit slightly different payout structures.
In some cases, it is even possible to derive profits within a single exchange. Case in point is http://www.InTrade.com– a U.K.-based online exchange. InTrade offers both a Bush contract and a Kerry contract. Each contract pays 100.0 points ($10.0) if the respective candidate wins and 0.0 if the candidate loses the election.
Of course, the probability P(K) of Kerry winning the election is 1-P(B), that is to say, one minus the probability of Bush winning the election (of course, assuming these are the only two candidates who can actually win). Therefore, these contracts are actually equivalent and the quotes should reflect this fact.
However, earlier this week, the Bush contract was quoted at 52.1 - 52.2, whereas the Kerry contract was quoted at 45.0 - 46.0. This means exchange participants could have bought one Bush contract and one Kerry contract for a total of 52.2 + 46.0 = 98.2, knowing that this portfolio would be worth 100.0 one week later, regardless of who wins the election, that is, risk free.
While this doesn’t sound like much of a profit, it represents an annualized return that significantly exceeds that of any popular financial index.
However, before you mortgage your house in an attempt to profit from these inefficiencies it should be pointed out that the liquidity in these online exchanges is miniscule. Therefore, while profits can be derived from Presidential Arbitrage, casting your vote will likely have a bigger impact on your family’s economic future.
About The Quant
The Quant is a contributing author of GLM and a co-inventor of The Global Language Monitors statistical algorithms powering the PQ Index. You can reach The Quant at TheQuant@GlobalLanguageMonitor.com .
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