CES 2012 Buzzwords: 5 Tech Terms You Won't Be Able To Avoid

The tech world's buzzwords, jargon and lingo could fill a dictionary.

Sometimes, as with terms like "tablet" or "smartphone," techie buzzwords become so integrated into the vernacular you can't imagine what words you used to use in their place.

Other times, even when heavily advertised, these terms just don't catch on. This can be due to the failure of the gadget they describe -- remember the Squircle -- or because the device became obsolete, as with the PDA. It could also be a word like "clicktivism" that no one is ever going to say it with a straight face.

With the Consumer Electronics Show, the Super Bowl of tech, right around the corner, we're about to be bombarded by a plethora of the "next big things" in the gadget world.

We've compiled the five terms that, according to the chatter in the blogosphere, you are going to be hearing a lot more about in the coming year. Check out our slideshow below to prep for your CES-related cocktail chatter, then follow our full coverage of CES 2012 here.

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Comments

[MichaelMcKLA]

05:41 PM on 01/09/2012

The parade of Apple wannabes. Yawn.

[Derpwood]

03:41 PM on 01/09/2012

Here's this year's tech buzzword . . "FAIL" . .

Or maybe "Bankruptcy" ?

[ProCynic]

11:27 AM on 01/09/2012

NFC will be a household term this time next year when thousands of unsuspecting consumers are hacked.

[Soft Robot]

10:53 AM on 01/09/2012

Batteries can't cope with the specs for Ultrabooks. Not even Sandy Bridge Ultrabooks.
Smartphones are as large as they can get and still be practical. A tablet that's a phone is silly.
Superphone is nonsense It's MS Marketspeak.
NFC is bogus unless you like having your identity stolen.
OLED TV's in the 50" range are $8,000. Give it 4 years.

[overkill]

08:23 AM on 01/09/2012

Virtually all the technologies presented here are nothing more than incremental improvements over existing ones.

The only exception is NFC. This could truly be a game changer, both in terms of opening a wide range of applications and creating a whole host of new problems, most of them cybercrime and privacy related. While the second part might sound a tad worrying, it's actually quite normal. It is basically a litmus test for disruptive technologies.

[David Vynerib]

08:20 AM on 01/09/2012

Google Wallet - great idea. Starbucks - pay with your phone - great idea. Boarding passes for airports - great idea. I was telling my wife all about it with my kids in the car and my 10 year old said - "what happens if your phone dies?" - Great question - has anyone heard of a potential solution? (Stores have power chords for you? However, with the iPhone it takes a minute or two (at least) to power up when you have no "juice") David Vynerib

[Rafal UIUC]

11:05 AM on 01/09/2012

A perfect solution would be wireless charging provided by these locations. Of course it will not be available any time soon, but that seems like a viable idea.

[French Toast]

02:16 AM on 01/09/2012

Anyone who says Phablet or Superphone to me IRL gets punched in the grill. Fair warning.

[BryanTheRegOps]

10:25 AM on 01/09/2012

Phablet

[ResearchtheFacts]

01:02 AM on 01/09/2012

I don't like the really thin laptops because of them not being able to handle a load and possible overheating. There is a wild video on youtube of a guy with a sony vaio taking out the drive to spray underneath it to keep it cool. He said in the video he had to do that on a regular basis.

[Jill Kennedy]

12:41 AM on 01/09/2012

CES is pretty worthless. I wonder how many people would actually go to this thing if it were held in Fresno or Akron. It's all about Vegas and pretending to care about electronics. Very few of the products announced actually mean anything to anybody and hardly ever succeed. Here is a great keynote address from last year's CES by Khan Manka, Jr. in which he basically slams the conference and the people who attend it.

http://mankabros.com/blogs/chairman/2011/01/06/the-future-is-last-year-ces-2011-keynote-khan-manka-jr/

[TheNewShadeofBlue]

12:30 AM on 01/09/2012

I am confident I will be able to avoid 4 out of the 5.

[Brian Hudson]

11:42 PM on 01/08/2012

I swear will unfriend anyone who actually uses the word "phablet" in conversation. Really? That sounds like the worst made-up marketing slang, ever.

[Rafal UIUC]

11:03 AM on 01/09/2012

x2. I saw it the first time here and I already hate it.

[MB1East]

10:05 PM on 01/08/2012

I thought phablets were what gay dads called their adopted kids. Oh wait, those are fablets.

[Michael Johnson 1]

07:04 PM on 01/08/2012

People were making smaller notebooks before Apple even came out with the Macbook Air. Even then, I hate the name "ultrabook".

[Max Black]

06:54 PM on 01/08/2012

I can clue you in on the next one, probably CES2013 or so. "NUI" will be replacing the "GUI". The "Natural User Interface" will incorporate gestures and possibly voice.

[Eduardo Bautista]

02:24 AM on 01/10/2012

So the UI won't use graphics anymore?

[Max Black]

10:19 PM on 01/11/2012

The change could be construed as a little misleading, since graphics will still play a large part. The difference will be in how you interact. Apple started it with things like the pinch/zoom gesture, flicks, etc. More and more gestures will be defined either thru standards or adoption. We're moving from mouse to touch, soon we'll add "touchless gestures" (which sort of amounts to waving your hands in the air), voice and possibly even facial gesture recognition.

[JasonMcl]

06:21 PM on 01/08/2012

As far as the "Phone Tablets" go, the first one was the Dell Streak, but it had very low resolution and didn't make the extra screen size worth it.

The Galaxy Note is a far better implementation. It has the high resolution screen to match the size, it has an amazing processor, it has busted the benchmarks into pieces and the stylus actually works like a stylus should.

When it hits the US you will see for yourself just how good it works.