Hot Tech Terms For 2020

There used to be a time when this number sign “#” was mainly used when making phone calls. Now the term “hashtag” is part of our lexicon and refers to the keyword used after that symbol on platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

As our world evolves to include more technology, cloud services, and IT management in our daily lives, our language also evolves to include a growing number of tech-related terms. Just a few of the tech terms added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2018 included:

• Airplane mode
• Predictive text
• Haptics
• Fintech (combination of “financial” and “technology”)
• Instagram (as a verb)

If you get caught without knowing the newest technology lingo it can mean you’re left behind when it comes to transformative processes that can have a significant impact on your business. On the other hand, take the time to learn what new tech terms will be hot in 2020, and you can get a leg up on your competition.

Technology Terms to Know if You Want to Stay Tech Savvy

Beyond just being trending terms in 2020, the technologies these words refer to are going to be transforming the way we live and work in this decade and beyond.

With that in mind, here are the hot tech terms to add to your vocabulary this year.

8K Displays

We just got used to 4K and ultra HD resolution, but the march for the perfect and most realistic picture and display quality goes on, and 8K is going to be a hot topic this year.

While 4K has a resolution of 3840 x 2160, 8K takes that to a whole other level with 7680 x 4320. This means an even sharper and clearer image.

With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on the way this year, look for brands like Samsung to push the ultimate in “just like being there” through an 8K display.

Edge Computing

94 percent of companies use at least one cloud service, and most businesses are headed toward a completely cloud based workflow.

That reliance on data and applications that can be housed on servers anywhere in the world has given rise to the term edge computing, which describes the distribution paradigm of putting computation and data storage closer to the location it’s needed.

This would mean that a service like Office 365 may choose the closest virtual cloud server for hosting your files, while a company across the country might have theirs hosted on a server that’s physically closer to them.

Edge computing has a goal to reduce response times and save on bandwidth.

Hand Tracking

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are still in fairly early stages of development, but technology makers are working hard to evolve their platforms.

For example, the Oculus Quest headset launched a new feature recently called hand tracking. What this does is allow your hands and fingers to become controllers for the VR/AR games and apps being run.

In order for this new “controller-less” technology to work, the platform needs to track the movements of hands and fingers and assign them actions within the application or game, hence the term hand tracking.

Mini LED

When it comes to display screens in tablets like the iPad and laptops like the MacBook, you’re going to be hearing of new feature called mini LED technology. This is a smaller version of LED, which brings the features of this type of technology to smaller screens.

The benefits include better control of light and dark parts of an image displayed on a screen, which makes darks darker and whites brighter. It also expands the color range.

So, if you’re choosing a new tablet, monitor, or notebook computer and see the mini LED feature advertised, it’s going to mean a crisper image with more color definition.

5G mmWave

The term 5G itself isn’t brand new, but now that the standard is being rolled out by multiple mobile carriers, the differences in the 5G bandwidth standards is going to matter. If you don’t know the difference between a 5G mmWave and 5G that’s below 6GHz, you could end up getting the slower of the two connection speeds.

5G can be separated into two different frequency ranges. One is faster than the other. These are:

• Low and mid-band: This is below 6GHz and is the slower of the two.
• mmWave: This is between 24GHz and 100GHz and is extremely fast.

Computer Vision

Computer vision sounds like a term out of a sci-fi movie and what it means doesn’t change that at all. Computer vision is about a computer or device being able to extract detailed information from the visual images that it “sees.”

An example of this would be when uploading a photo to Facebook, the interface recognizes human faces and puts a little box over them in case you want to “tag” a person.

This technology is going to be coming on strong in 2020 and will involve the ability for computers to identify items, places, objects, and individual facial traits via sensors or images. The uses for security, retail traffic optimization, and more are nearly endless.

Does Your Business Need an IT Boost?

Are you ready to take advantage of the newest technology advances in 2020 and beyond? Cleartech Group can help your business stay competitive, while finding you the right cost-effective tech solutions.

Contact us today to schedule an IT Coffee Chat! Call us at 978-466-1938 or reach out online.