Technology definitions

Fundamental Technology Concepts¶

Technology - The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry.
Information Technology (IT) - The use of systems (especially computers and telecommunications) for storing, retrieving, and sending information.
Computer Science - The study of algorithmic processes, computational machines, and computation itself.
Software - A set of instructions, data, or programs used to operate computers and execute specific tasks.
Hardware - The collection of physical parts of a computer system.
Network - A group of two or more computer systems linked together.
Database - An organized collection of data, generally stored and accessed electronically from a computer system.
Cloud Computing - The on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user.
Algorithm - A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) - The simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions.

Computing and Processing¶

Central Processing Unit (CPU) - The primary component of a computer that performs most of the processing inside.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) - A specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device.
Quantum Computing - A type of computing that uses quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data.
Parallel Computing - A type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously.
Microprocessor - A computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits.

Networking and Internet¶

Internet - The global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices.
Local Area Network (LAN) - A network that connects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, or office building.
Wide Area Network (WAN) - A telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area for the primary purpose of computer networking.
Internet of Things (IoT) - The network of physical objects—“things”—that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet.
Protocol - A set of rules governing the exchange or transmission of data between devices.

Software Development¶

Programming Language - A formal language comprising a set of instructions that produce various kinds of output.
Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) - A programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code: data in the form of fields (often known as attributes), and code, in the form of procedures (often known as methods).
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - A process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system.
Agile Development - A set of practices for software development with requirements and solutions evolving through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams.
DevOps - A set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) aimed at shortening the systems development life cycle and providing continuous delivery with high software quality.

Data Management and Big Data¶

Big Data - Extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions.
Data Science - A multi-disciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms, and systems to extract knowledge and insights from structured and unstructured data.
Machine Learning - A type of artificial intelligence (AI) that allows software applications to become more accurate at predicting outcomes without being explicitly programmed to do so.
Data Mining - The process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems.
Data Warehouse - A system used for reporting and data analysis, and is considered a core component of business intelligence.

Continuing our comprehensive glossary of the top 100 technology definitions, we'll delve into more advanced topics, emerging technologies, cybersecurity, and specific applications of technology in various industries:

Cybersecurity and Safety¶

Cybersecurity - The protection of computer systems and networks from information disclosure, theft of or damage to their hardware, software, or electronic data.
Encryption - The process of encoding messages or information in such a way that only authorized parties can access it.
Firewall - A network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules.
Malware - Any software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, client, or computer network.
Phishing - The fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Emerging Technologies¶

Blockchain - A system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system.
Virtual Reality (VR) - A simulated experience that can be similar to or completely different from the real world.
Augmented Reality (AR) - An interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information.
5G Technology - The fifth generation technology standard for cellular networks, which cellular phone companies began deploying worldwide in 2019.
Internet of Behavior (IoB) - An extension of IoT, a technology that captures, analyzes, understands, and responds to human behaviors through data collection from various sources.

Software and Applications¶

Application Programming Interface (API) - A set of functions and procedures allowing the creation of applications that access the features or data of an operating system, application, or other service.
Content Management System (CMS) - A software application or set of related programs that are used to create and manage digital content.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - A technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - A type of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management and compliance, and supply chain operations.
Software as a Service (SaaS) - A software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.

Data Technologies¶

Cloud Storage - A model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud".
Data Analytics - The science of analyzing raw data to make conclusions about that information.
Business Intelligence (BI) - Technologies, applications, strategies, and practices used to collect, analyze, integrate, and present pertinent business information.
Data Visualization - The graphic representation of data. It involves producing images that communicate relationships among the represented data to viewers.
Neural Networks - A series of algorithms that endeavor to recognize underlying relationships in a set of data through a process that mimics the way the human brain operates.

Infrastructure and Architecture¶

Microservices - A style of architecture where complex applications are composed of small, independent processes communicating with each other using language-agnostic APIs.
Virtualization - The process of creating a software-based, or virtual, representation of something, such as virtual applications, servers, storage, and networks.
Containerization - An OS-level virtualization method used to deploy and run distributed applications without launching an entire virtual machine for each app.
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) - An approach to network management that enables dynamic, programmatically efficient network configuration to improve network performance and monitoring.
Internet Protocol (IP) - The principal communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries.

Human-Computer Interaction and AI¶

Natural Language Processing (NLP) - A branch of artificial intelligence that helps computers understand, interpret, and manipulate human language.
Robotics - The branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, and use of robots.
Gesture Recognition - The mathematical interpretation of a human motion by a computing device.
Chatbots - Software applications that are capable of conducting a conversation via auditory or textual methods.
Autonomous Vehicles - Vehicles capable of sensing their environment and moving safely with little or no human input.

Specialized Computing Concepts¶

Edge Computing - A distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, to improve response times and save bandwidth.
Fog Computing - An architecture that uses edge devices to carry out a substantial amount of computation, storage, and communication locally and routed over the internet backbone.
Quantum Cryptography - The use of quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks or to break cryptographic systems.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) - A digital system for recording the transaction of assets in which the transactions and their details are recorded in multiple places at the same time.
Digital Twin - A digital replica of a living or non-living physical entity. By bridging the physical and the virtual world, data is transmitted seamlessly allowing the virtual entity to exist simultaneously with the physical entity.

Advanced Networking and Communications¶

Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) - A specific application of software-defined networking (SDN) technology applied to WAN connections, which are used to connect enterprise networks over large geographic distances.
Mesh Network - A network topology in which each node relays data for the network. All nodes cooperate in the distribution of data in the network.
IPv6 - The most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet.
Zigbee - A high-level communication protocol used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios.
Li-Fi - A wireless communication technology which utilizes light to transmit data and position between devices.

Software Technologies and Frameworks¶

React - A declarative, efficient, and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
Node.js - An open-source, cross-platform, back-end JavaScript runtime environment that runs on the V8 engine and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser.
Docker - A set of platform as a service products that use OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers.
Kubernetes - An open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
TensorFlow - An open-source framework developed by Google to provide a flexible and comprehensive toolkit for developing and training machine learning models.

Cybersecurity and Privacy¶

Zero Trust Security Model - A security concept centered on the belief that organizations should not automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeters and instead must verify anything and everything trying to connect to its systems before granting access.
Ransomware - A type of malicious software from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's data or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid.
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) - Regulations designed to protect the privacy and protection of all personal data collected for or about citizens of the EU, especially as it relates to processing, using, or exchanging such data.
SOC 2 Compliance - A component of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA)'s Service Organization Control reporting platform. Its criteria cover the security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy of customer data.
Penetration Testing - A method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack from malicious outsiders (who do not have authorized access to the organization's systems) and malicious insiders (who have some level of authorized access).

Emerging and Future Technologies¶

Synthetic Biology - A field of science that involves redesigning organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities.
Neuromorphic Computing - A type of computing hardware that mimics the neurological structure of the nervous system.
Smart Cities - An urban area that uses different types of electronic Internet of things (IoT) sensors to collect data and then use insights gained from that data to manage assets, resources, and services efficiently.
Bioinformatics - An interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, particularly when the data sets are large and complex.
Blockchain for Supply Chain - Enhances the transparency and traceability of supply chains, reducing the likelihood of disputes and identifying inefficiencies.

Technology Standards and Regulation¶

ISO/IEC Standards - Internationally recognized standards that ensure materials, products, processes, and services are fit for their purpose.
Net Neutrality - The principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally by Internet Service Providers.
ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) - A set of detailed practices for IT service management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business.
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) - Information security standards for organizations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes.
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) - United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information.

Advanced Data Technologies¶

Predictive Analytics - The use of data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes based on historical data.
Data Lakes - A storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its native format until it is needed.
Real-time Data Processing - The continuous input, processing, and output of data so users can access or deliver data immediately or within a short period of time.
Data Governance - The overall management of the availability, usability, integrity, and security of the data employed in an enterprise.
Edge AI - Artificial intelligence algorithms that are processed locally on a hardware device using data generated from the device.

Modern Software and System Architectures¶

Serverless Computing - A cloud-computing execution model in which the cloud provider runs the server, and dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) - A type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript intended to work on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser.
Microfrontends - An architectural style where independently deliverable frontend applications are composed into a greater whole.
Blockchain in Healthcare - Use of blockchain technology to secure, share, and streamline patient data in healthcare, enhancing privacy, interoperability, and trust between entities.
Quantum Internet - A theoretical system of interconnected quantum computers that uses quantum signals to send information rather than traditional internet protocols. This network would leverage quantum entanglement and superposition to transmit data with a higher degree of security and computational power.