Chris Horn: Infinidash highlights lunacy of ‘must have’ technobabble

Joe Nash, a software developer in the Netherlands, took the global software community by storm a fortnight ago.

He was reacting to an announcement of yet another alleged breakthrough technology to practitioners worldwide. Such prognostications stream through the software sector almost on a weekly basis, from various companies all vying for attention.

As Nash said, it seems as if software developers are on a hamster-wheel of “must-know” technologies of the moment.

Technology companies sometimes launch their new self-assessed “breakthrough” products through “fear of missing out” campaigns.

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Vaguely named products are announced, available only to a limited number of people who highly enthusiastically promote the advantages, with everyone else invited to join the back of a lengthy waiting list for access.

For practitioners, students and instructors of software, the pressure can be relentless. Innovations are so rapid that competence needs to be refreshed each year. Undergraduates may fear that by the time they graduate, their training may already be outdated.

Academics naturally try to distil the fundamentals of the sector rather than a focus on any single technology of the moment, but even these can shift: the current move towards machine learning from prescriptive programming is but one example.

Infinidash

On June 30th, Nash tweeted that he was convinced that a small dedicated group of developers could together tweet about a new “hot” but entirely fictitious technology – he suggested a moniker “Infinidash” – and that within a week job advertisements would appear seeking developers deeply competent in that technology.

Within just three hours, excitement and gossip about Infinidash, a new "hyber-bus macro-container" available on Amazon's Web Services cloud infrastructure, was viral.

Amazon's chief technology officer, Werner Vogels, posted on Twitter about his excitement for a forthcoming Infinidash event. Training courses and books on the topic were announced.

Job adverts duly appeared: the messaging app company Signal tweeted its search for Infinidash developers. Microsoft actively sought engineers with no less than a minimum of five years of experience of Infinidash.

There was also a rumour that Amazon’s corporate lawyers had become concerned that some of its engineers had leaked company confidential information, before they realised the entire Twitter meme was a deliberate joke.

The software developer community braces itself for technology announcements each year on April 1st. One of the most renowned is Google's announcement back in 2013, of its new "Gmail Tap" product. The launch video (on YouTube) noted how awkward and clumsy keyboards can be, especially for mobile phones. Gmail Tap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzuK1mxVH7cThe new Gmail Tap technology therefore replaces a full keyboard with just two keys: the video challenges "what could be simpler than that?" Users are then expected to learn and use Morse code to enter text as dots and dashes: as the video notes, "A classic technology. Reinvented."

Trends

Investors and venture capitalists can struggle to evaluate the latest technology trends and ideas. One of the most famous joke pitches for investment was the presentation (available on YouTube), by actress Rachel Cherones at the 2012 VC Fundraising Club in Silicon Valley.

Given just two hours' preparation time by one of the organisers, she makes a charming pitch for a $500,000 investment for her start-up, ShareTheAir108.com. She proposes to use the investment to send a team of specialists worldwide to capture air samples. Her start-up will then sell bottled air, priced from $100 to $10,000 dependent on vintage and potency, from various exotic locations around the world, allowing you to experience travel without having to leave home.

Watching the audience react, it is by no means certain that everyone realises or appreciates the joke; you can judge for yourself. Share The Air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyrFWbGiGOc

Engineering terminology is frequently techno-babble to those mere mortals outside the clique, as if a dictionary had been struck by lightning.

Returning to Infinidash, developer Ellen Korbes tweeted her short YouTube video which explains to the uninitiated exactly what Infinidash actually is, and why it is such a tremendous breakthrough. Her quick tutorial may appear convincing but it is, of course, irresistible gibberish. Ellen Korbes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ16_xhZ-JA

Arguably, the first joke technospeak was written by postgraduate student John Quick way back in 1944 which he published in the student quarterly journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. In it, Quick gives a technical description of the "turbo-encabulator" , an entirely fictional device.

In May 1946, Time magazine featured the machine and reproduced his description, but had to reassure its extensive readership subsequently that it had not been taken in by the gag.

In 1997 Bud Haggart, an actor employed by car manufacturers in Detroit, complained that he frequently did not understand the scripts he was being asked to voice-over for corporate training videos. He persuaded his director and film crew to stay on after a commissioned shoot to record him presenting the turbo-encabulator. His presentation (on YouTube) is a historic tribute to engineering esotericism. Turbo-Encabulator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7G7xOG2Ag

So the next time a technology specialist pitches you a presentation, or seeks your investment, or tries to persuade you to purchase the latest must-have gadget, watch carefully to see whether they are managing to keep a straight-face. You may be surprised.