Technology jargon busters

Viewing Angle - LCD screens have a generic problem of viewing angles. When the screen is viewed from an angle, the contrast disappears and the image looks washed out. Manufacturers are continually increasing viewing angles for LCDs, and in recent times they have become as high as 176 degrees. Plasma screens have the best viewing angles, but LED TVs are also catching up.

Viewfinder - The viewfinder is the "window" of a camera that allows you to look through it and preview what a picture would look like before you click it. The optical path of the viewfinder always runs parallel to the lens, so that you can see exactly how much of the scene you can capture in a still.

Vignetting - Another form of distortion found in Zoom lenses, Vignetting occurs when the barrel of the camera becomes visible in the corners of images.

Skype uses VOIP for voice and video calling

VOIP - Voice over Internet Protocol, in the simplest sense, implies the ability to make voice calls over the internet. In a mobile phone it would mean the ability to make a call using Wi-Fi, EDGE or any other internet service the handset permits. 

WAP - Wireless Application Protocol is simply the system used by a mobile handset to connect to the internet but it's a little more ‘strictly’ basic when compared to GPRS or EDGE. 

W-CDMA - Wideband Code Division Multiple Access is another type of 3G network.

Wi-Fi - is a mode of wireless connectivity but with a stricter sense. It allows for mobile handsets to connect to Wi-Fi routers in a certain area for quick and high speed internet connectivity.

Wi-Fi Direct - This is similar to DLNA, and is basically is a certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance that allows Wi-Fi devices to talk to each other. So if you have a Wi-Fi Direct certified Blu-ray player, you could simply stream media from your networked PC or media centre. This, of course, has serious repercussions for Bluetooth, which is what a lot of home entertainment systems currently use.

WiMAX - Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is a wireless digital communications system intended for much larger areas as compared to Wi-Fi. It can provide broadband wireless up to 50 km for fixed stations, and 5 - 15 km for mobile stations. 

White Balance - Not all light sources that we perceive as 'white' are pure, since they have a certain color temperature that adds a yellow or blue tint to it. The human eye usually compensates for these color variations automatically, but digital cameras don't. In digital cameras, the white balance picks a shade in the image that's closest to white (indiscriminate of what tint it has) and balances the color palette of the image accordingly. So if the light source in the image has a slightly yellow, blue or any other tint, it might disrupt the entire color palette making it look warmer (more yellow-ish), cooler (more blue-ish), dull or more saturated than the actual scene.

Zip - A zipped file consists of compressed data that helps save up on space. It also helps merge different types of data into one single file, making transfer and portability  easy for the user.  

In case there are any more abbreviations that you want covered, do let us know in the comments section below and we’ll add them to this list.