These are the 5 tech terms you won’t be able to ignore in 2020

As we enter a new year and a new decade, it’s important to be ready for all the new tech lingo you’ll see in the coming months. 2020 is sure to pack in plenty of tech advancements and with that comes buzzwords or phrases we all have to learn.

It’s a pain, sure, but it’s necessary. Once upon a time, “WiFi” was just another silly tech term you had to know before it became a daily necessity. Will the 2020 tech terms on this list ever rise to that same level of importance? We don’t know, but it can’t hurt to learn them now just in case they get to that point.

To that end, we here at Mashable have assembled a quick guide to a handful of terms you might want to know by the end of 2020. None of these are new necessarily, but we expect them to at least show up in many a headline or news story about products from Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others. So if you read up on them now, you likely won’t have to Google them when that happens.

You can thank us later.

Mini LED

Thanks to a recent investor note from Apple prophet Ming-Chi Kuo, mini LED is having a bit of a moment to close out 2019. When Apple refreshes its iPad and MacBook lines next year, it will supposedly bring mini LED technology into the fold for the first time. 

LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, are small light sources that play a big part in making sure TVs and other displays can actually show images. Light is an important part of the process, after all. Mini LEDs are just smaller versions of the same thing.

Why does this matter? When there is a greater amount of smaller lights that can still output at similar levels to their bigger brethren, it’s easier to darken parts of the image while preserving brightness in other areas. This is called local dimming and mini LED is theoretically a little better at it than regular LED.

TCL started selling mini-LED TVs this year, so the tech has already made its way into some people’s homes. Apple could put it in a lot more homes next year, too, if it actually does embrace the tech for upcoming iPads and MacBooks.

5G standards

2019 saw the creation and rapid expansion of mobile 5G networks from Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T, but it hasn’t exactly become the standard for mobile internet yet. After all, when only a few expensive phones can even use 5G, most people can’t be expected to have real experience with it.

That could change in 2020, with Apple reportedly planning on putting 5G functionality into its newest iPhones. The latest rumor points to four new iPhones next year, with two of them supporting low- and mid-band 5G, while the other two support up to millimeter wave, or mmWave, 5G.

What? Yeah, we know. Put simply, 5G can be split into two categories based on the frequencies with which data is transmitted: Low- and mid-band 5G are below 6GHz, while mmWave goes above 6GHz. 

Sub-6GHz 5G is a little slower, but can work with existing cell sites to bring 5G to rural and suburban areas with greater range. On the other hand, mmWave delivers blazing speeds to smaller coverage areas, but doesn’t play too nicely with physical obstacles, like buildings or trees. It also requires the construction of additional cell sites.

We have a more detailed breakdown here, but this is something that might matter more to early adopters in urban areas than the general public. In a few years, every 5G-ready smartphone could seamlessly switch between the two types of 5G when needed, instead of locking the fastest networks behind more expensive hardware. 

Game streaming

Game streaming is one of the oldest terms on this list, as some of us remember when OnLive spectacularly failed almost a decade ago. But with the launch of Google Stadia and the eventual rollout of Project xCloud in 2020, it’s time for everyone to get educated on the next, big trend in gaming.

Typically, when you play a video game on a console or PC, most of the processing magic to deliver gorgeous visuals happens right there in the hardware. Game streaming is a way to take the burden off of local hardware and consumers’ wallets by rendering the game in a data center and streaming a video of what’s being played to a smartphone, web browser, or TV.

This streaming setup can create higher latency between a player pressing a button and something happening onscreen, as well as visual problems if there is any internet signal interruption. But Google was confident enough in its streaming tech to launch a whole platform based around it in November, while Microsoft is planning to do something similar with xCloud next year.

It’s way too early to tell if game streaming will ever be anyone’s primary method of playing games, but get ready to hear about it quite a bit in 2020.

8K

If you’ve bought a new TV at any point in the last two years or so, chances are it’s 4K … or you at least saw plenty of 4K TVs while you were searching for a good bargain. Though 4K definitely still counts as “the new hotness,” the buzz around 8K displays is likely only going to intensify in the new year.

For the uninitiated, these terms refer specifically to the maximum resolution, or number of pixels, on TVs. 1080p means a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels; 4K generally means 3,840 x 2,160; and 8K goes all the way up to 7,680 x 4,320. Higher resolution means a sharper, clearer image, so 8K displays are going to look way better than what’s in your home now.

Some big brands like Samsung already sell 8K TVs that can cost several thousand dollars, though they aren’t exactly the standard yet. And aside from a few things like the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, most content isn’t available in 8K yet. It’s going to be at least a few years before that happens, but you can be ahead of the curve in 2020 by at least knowing what it means and planning for the future. 

Hand tracking

Consumer-grade VR is a few years old at this point, but one could argue it still hasn’t come anywhere close to its full potential. Aside from being expensive and requiring space consumers might not have for the higher-end experiences, it isn’t always as immersive as it could be.

That all might change in 2020. 

The wireless Oculus Quest already impressed us greatly when it launched this past summer, but the relatively affordable VR headset is poised to get even better with a killer new feature: hand tracking. That VR input solution turns your hands and fingers into controllers themselves and will, hopefully, remove the need for other physical controllers in the games and apps that support it.

Leap Motion is also selling similar technology. Existing VR motion controllers work well enough, but VR could be made significantly more immersive and accessible with quality hand tracking.

Of course, none of these terms are as exciting as the new, made-up tech jargon we’ll get in the coming year. But until we have some fun new ones to toss around, why not brush up on these since your 2020 is sure to be full of them.