As technology evolves, so does our collective vocabulary.
Even if you’re a luddite who doesn’t want to keep up with every new tech trend, chances are you’re going to know about them anyway. that’s why I’m here. Just like the previous years, 2023 is sure to feature a lot of tech buzzwords that you haven’t heard of yet. That, or existing terms will take on a whole new meaning.
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Either way, you need to know about it. You are hungry for knowledge, I can feel it. Without wasting any more time, let’s get down to the technical terms you really should learn before switching calendars.
extended reality
credit: Weiken Lin / Getty Images
First is Extended Reality, commonly abbreviated as XR. It’s not a new term by any means, but it’s a term you may hear going forward as companies like Meta are furthering their approach. metaverse in our life.
Thankfully, XR is very easy to understand. It’s an umbrella term for virtual reality, augmented reality, and everything in between. As I’m sure you know, VR is when you put on a headset meta quest 2 And completely goofy in the virtual world. AR involves digitally placing virtual objects in the real world, such as a snap filter, When the two come together, we call that Mixed Reality, which also fits under the XR umbrella.
with advancing meta quest pro mixed reality headset Apple is ready to launch one of its ownXR is predicted to have a moment in 2023.
Avatar
Credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto / Getty Images
no it doesn’t refer to Proud Na’vi People of Pandora, or bald children with arrows on their heads. The technical definition of “avatar” is unfortunately a lot less cool.
At least it’s simple though. An avatar is simply a digital representation of oneself, whether in a video game, in the metaverse, or wherever it may be applicable. It might look like you or it might look like Spongebob Squarepants with an hourglass or something. That’s the beauty of the digital world vrchat,
Get creative, or don’t. Doesn’t really matter to me. But just know that you’ll probably need to create an avatar at some point if you haven’t already.
steady spread
credit: Steady Diffusion Web
The technical details behind the static spread are too high level for me and probably for you too. there is middle position(opens in a new tab) This explains it if you’re interested, but it’s more important to understand what the constant spread is does rather than how it works.
Simply put, static diffusion is a specific type of AI text-to-image generation that will emerge in 2022. unlike competitors such as Dal-eStable diffusion can work directly from your computer’s GPU (by contrast, DALL-E is cloud-only) and the code behind it is open-source, so people can do whatever they want with it.
At the end of the day, though, it’s just another way generate images(opens in a new tab) Peter Griffin dunks a basketball over Sonic the Hedgehog. just… be aware that you might accidentally burglary(opens in a new tab) From real, human artists in the process.
oh
Credit: Andreas Solaro / AFP via Getty Images
artificial intelligence (or AI) is clearly a decade old term. You probably have some idea of what that means: the ability of machines to see and work with information. That said, AI is going to be coming a lot in 2023, so it’s worth paying attention to at least some of the popular applications for it.
We’ve already covered AI image generation, courtesy of Steady Diffusion and DALL-E. Another example is that AI is also a general term for how phones like google pixel 7 Can automatically fix photos you’ve taken or provide you with a graphical UI for automated phone call menus. There’s Even a New Chatbot chatgpt It takes any prompt you give it and spits out, well, something. It often goes wildly wrong, but hey, at least it tries.
Case
Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Smart home lovers should probably pay extra attention to this. You know how Google, Amazon, and Apple all have their own lines of smart-home products? And you know how to maximize their potential, you should buy products all from the same brand so they interact with each other? If Case(opens in a new tab) goes away, it will be a thing of the past.
Matter is a new standard for smart home products Apple homepod The aim is to allow products from different brands to work together within a single home ecosystem. ledge(opens in a new tab) Matter is a great explainer for how this will work once the device hits the market, but in short, you need a device in your home to act as a “controller”. This can be anything from Amazon Echo to Apple TV 4K.
With the Matter controller, you can connect to and use other Matter-enabled devices nearby. While the Matter devices aren’t going to be widely available until 2023, once they are, you’ll be able to literally issue commands to Google Nest devices using Siri. It’s so funny.
Fast
Credits: Roku
Something That Matters Less Than It’s Currently Happening Like Streaming Services hbo max, as shows done by is being taken out of service, leaving fans to wonder where they’ll be able to watch it going forward. Meet free ad supported TV, or Fast(opens in a new tab),
FAST is a new trend in streaming that offers exactly what the name implies: a free selection of streaming content with the caveat that it will have ads all over it. Fast services include roku tv And Amazon’s freebies, for example. You don’t pay a dime to watch anything on a faster service, but the content available probably won’t match that of a premium service, and again, you’ll have to sit through commercials.
Together rumors are circling(opens in a new tab) He done by Soon FAST may end up in scope, you might want to familiarize yourself with the concept.
dlss
Credit: Nielsen Barnard / Getty Images
2023 will surely bring plenty of new gaming buzzwords, but the current one to keep your eye on is Deep Learning Supersampling, or DLSS. This is something Nvidia developed for their high-end PC graphics cards, but there have also been persistent rumors(opens in a new tab) It’s been a few years that Nintendo plans to use it for whatever the next Switch console turns out to be. then what is it?
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In somewhat closer to layman’s terms, DLSS uses AI (there’s that word again) to upscale images to something higher beyond their native resolution. Something that’s running at 720p or 1080p could, in theory, use DLSS to create the illusion that it’s running at 1440p or 4K resolution. AI simply creates a higher-quality image than what actually exists, and it can even make the game look better.
due to the weakness of the switch and steam deck While stealing people’s hearts, DLSS could (again, purely theoretically) be a way for Nintendo to catch up a bit in the hardware arms race.
