Cloud was a very funny marketing buzzword that started with a real meaning and then devolved into “connects to the Internet.” Cloud based things didn’t even have to do anything with the Internet for marketing wonks to pretend like being connected to the cloud meant something. Great innovation folks just throw a wifi receiver in it and call it “The Cloud” we did it wow such innovation.
AI is rapidly descending into the same thing. There was a time when “AI” was being used to refer to actual machine learning algorithms that were good enough to fool the layperson into thinking they were smart. Nowadays the word AI just means “can compute something.” Does it accept an input and make a decision on that input? Call it AI! My calculator is an AI! An ebook is AI enabled because it automatically changes the page based on how long I spent on the last page! My fridge has AI because it tells me when I accidentally left it open! Wow we just put extremely basic algorithms into everything and now it’s AI! We did it we revolutionized technology forever!
Anyway now it’s time for the prolific posters of Hexbear to flex your Nostradamus muscles. What’s the next Big Dumb Tech Marketing Buzzword going to be and why? Lay it on us.
I think this is what home NAS systems evolved into already. It’s not a network storage anymore, it’s a server that has a bunch of available apps, both proprietary and free. And many of these little boxes have enough resources to actually run a few typical “home server” services for a family and maybe some friends. They are often even marketed as a “personal cloud” or something like that.