Definition: Hot topics and trends

Following is a brief summary of the hot topics in the computer and consumer electronics industries. See buzzword.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is the hot buzzword of the mid 2020s, and every product under the sun is infused with it, whether truly using AI technology or not. In January 2024 at the huge Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, AI dominated with everything offered as an AI product, including lamps, pillows and dog collars.

Starting in the 2030s, AI is expected to be much more advanced than today. If the forecasts come true, by 2050, routine life in the developed world will not resemble the 2020s. However, if today's buzz is more hype than substance, AI may not be the salvation to, or the destruction of, mankind as so many predict. Nevertheless, enormous advances in medicine and science are expected. See AI in a nutshell, AGI, GPT, ChatGPT and virtual assistant.

Crypto, Blockchains and Web3
Crypto was super hot in the early 2020s, spawning thousands of cryptocurrencies few people ever understood. The blockchain is the network architecture and Web3 refers to individual empowerment, which is the theme of non-centralized, blockchain-based currencies (see Cirus platform). Although it has died down somewhat, there is still a huge amount of interest as well as hype over cryptocurrencies. See cryptocurrency, blockchain, Web3, Bitcoin vs. Ethereum and crypto glossary.

The Chip
In the 2020s, the world finally woke up to the fact that a chip is required to run nearly everything. The actual working area of the smallest chip is no larger than the head of a pin, and the largest chip is the size of a postage stamp. Their operation borders on sheer magic (see active area).

After American chip companies offshored a huge amount of their manufacturing in the 1980s and 1990s to make more profit, America is rushing like mad to get it back with huge investments in semiconductor plants in Arizona, New York and other U.S. states (see Chips and Science Act). See chip, processor and chip manufacturing.

The Metaverse
Goggles-based virtual reality brought gaming to its most realistic dimension ever because it is total immersion, and the metaverse was touted as some 3D interconnected future for virtual worlds. It was a hot buzzword in the early 2020s but has almost dropped into obscurity. See metaverse, virtual reality and augmented reality.

Big Data
Big data makes sense out of the huge amount of data companies generate. Finding patterns in that data that lead to streamlining inventory, manufacturing, sales and marketing is a huge analytical chore for organizations. However, big data has evolved to fuel AI systems. The massive amount of content that traverses the Internet is used to train AI systems to become more "intelligent" (see AI and GPT). See big data.

Social Media
Facebook, X/Twitter and other social media sites changed the world of human interaction, allowing everyone to stay in touch as well as publish to the world at large. In addition, many websites and software applications have a social component that lets people share what they see, hear or watch.

Unfortunately, the buzz about social media in the 2020s is too often the downside. Feelings, images and videos posted on the Internet might remain online forever. Teenagers live on their phones and can be subjected to humiliation by their peers. Psychologists blame social media as the number one cause for the rise of teen depression and suicides in the U.S.

In addition, social sites, along with search engines, know more about you than you may wish. They use your information to target ads, spot trends and, most importantly, to earn billions in revenue. Social sites such as Omlet buck the trend and allow users to retain control over what they post. Snapchat makes images disappear on the recipient's device after a short time to keep information private. See Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Omlet.

Smartphones - Truly Personal
One year after the introduction of the iPhone, Apple's App Store revolutionized the smartphone industry and people's lives forever. No device has become more useful or more personal than the smartphone with its overabundance of software applications.

Google followed with its Android platform. Due to Android's embrace of multiple carriers and hardware vendors (iPhone was only AT&T at the onset) and ever increasing screen sizes, Android became the #1 smartphone vendor worldwide by a huge margin. Windows-based phones made a small dent but were abandoned, and although BlackBerrys were the first smartphones, new models failed to keep people in the fold (see BlackBerry 10). See iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and smartphone.

Web 2.0
Since the turn of the century, the Web has become a global platform for publishing information. "User-generated content" is a major feature of Web 2.0, whereby anyone can publish anything on a blog, social network or wiki. In addition, applications running in a Web browser increasingly have the performance, look and feel of traditional apps that previously had to be installed in the user's computer. See Web 2.0, user-generated content and social media.

Cloud Computing
Cloud computing refers to renting servers and applications over the Internet instead of installing them locally. Cloud computing is a huge business in the 21st century. It feeds the Web browser, which today is often the only application a user ever needs. A very hot topic at the turn of the century, it is only hot today because cloud computing is used by everyone everywhere whether they know it or not. See cloud computing.

Wireless
For better or worse, we are immersed in wireless communications. AM, FM, TV, satellite, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular radiate everywhere. With a home router and Wi-Fi, music and video signals are bouncing all over the house at ever-increasing frequencies. Unfortunately, some people are very sensitive to the radiation (see electromagnetic hypersensitivity). See wireless LAN, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth, cellular generations and wireless glossary.

The Internet and Web
Nothing in the computer/communications industries ever came onto the scene with more momentum than the Internet and World Wide Web. The Web's hyperlink, an address that points to another Web page on the same server or on any server in the world, interlinked planet earth like nothing before it.

As the Web embraced e-commerce, every company rethought its strategies for sales and customer relations. Practically every software product was affected, and every application was reworked to deal with the Web in some manner. Now that the Internet is available on billions of smartphones and tablets, access to Web-based content is even more ubiquitous. With video streaming, video calling and voice over IP (VoIP), the Internet has become the global communications backbone. Myriad opportunities arise from the fact that one can look at as well as operate "anything from anywhere." See Internet, intranet, World Wide Web, cable Internet and IP on Everything.

Client and Server
The trend in the late 1980s and early 1990s was to migrate information systems from terminals connected to centralized (mostly IBM) mainframes to a client/server architecture. The clients are generally Windows-based PCs, and the servers run Windows, Unix or Linux. A major incentive for the change was the huge amount of applications and sources for PC hardware.

Along came the Web, and the client part of client/server became the Web browser, which provides a platform-independent, universal interface for accessing data and running applications. As mobile devices became ubiquitous, the smartphone and tablet became clients. No matter the devices used, there is always a client and server relationship. See client/server, client and server.

Networking
Networking is the lifeblood of an organization's high-tech infrastructure. Local applications combined with Internet applications and services increasingly place heavy demands on the network. In addition, tying networks together when companies expand or merge is a huge task for network administrators. Starting in the mid-1990s, three trends took place: #1 - Ethernet switches replaced Ethernet hubs, #2 - network backbones were upgraded to Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and #3 - the network protocol migrated to TCP/IP, the standard of the Internet and today the global standard. See enterprise networking, Ethernet switch, Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and TCP/IP.

Workplace Collaboration
In the early 1990s, the pioneering collaboration applications under the "groupware" moniker were Lotus Notes, GroupWise and Microsoft Exchange, which included email, document sharing and group calendaring and scheduling.

Today, a collaboration component is available in many applications, which enable two or more people to write, draw and comment together in real time on a project. Applications such as Slack and Cliq are designed specifically for project collaboration, offering text, audio and video chat and document storage. See collaborative browsing, groupware, Slack and Cliq.

Hardware Costs
The price of hardware continues to plummet. Each year, we get more computer per dollar than we did the year before. A full-blown Windows PC can be purchased for under $1,000 and entry-level machines for under $400. Hardware seems cheap, but this is misleading, because software is not always a bargain.

Although there is a vast amount of off-the-shelf software packages for myriad requirements, even the smallest organizations have special needs. Custom programming ranges from $75 to $150 an hour, and consultants charge $150 to $300 an hour. Add up a few weeks of third-party people time, and the cost of hardware looks like chump change.

Half the Equation

This adage has been used in the computer field for decades but is only a partial truth. Hardware may be cheap but software and systems development are not.

To explore the variety of topics in this reference, see What's in this encyclopedia.