Technology Trends Explained: A YouTube Playlist

Everybody, these days, is looking to understand the fascinating trends in technology that are disrupting societies and changing the way in which we live.

Technology in general is a fascinating field. And, as a technology-focused freelance writer, I make a living — in part — by explaining tech to end-users (the other part of my writing is thought leadership, which often involves explaining advanced technology to other technologists).

YouTube has a wealth of excellent ‘explainer’ videos which explain technology — in detail and at a 10,000 foot level. Feel free to check out the playlists I put together for myself and for others’ interested. Or watch some of the videos embedded below. I have organized these by subject.

General Topics

The following videos are good introductions to some commonly encountered terminologies in technology. These fit into a ‘miscellaneous’ bucket.

Encryption

Encryption is a vital part of modern cybersecurity approaches and is essentially how VPNs keep internet traffic and DNS queries invisible from ISPs and government agencies (in theory, at least). These videos break down some introductory topics for those interested in learning more.

Data and Big Data

A lot of breakthrough use-cases in technology are being realized through mining large sets of data. These videos provide a good introduction to many recurring terms and topics within the data world.

Some database fundamentals are also useful to know:

Cloud

More and more computing is moving from the edge and the premises to the cloud. *-as-a-service is disrupting how all manner of technologies are hosted and provisioned. If the cloud is a topic that you are interested in learning more about, then the following videos drill down into core concepts and architectures.

(These videos are a little more in-depth than high level)

High level overviews:

Augmented Reality (AR)

Getting humans to perform workloads is so passé. Augmented reality (AR) and machine learning (ML) are also helping to realize a lot of amazing emerging use-cases that leverage cutting edge technology. These videos provide some basic terminology and concepts.

Cybersecurity

With the continued growth of the IoT, network attack surfaces are widening — and no longer consist of solely human-operated network interfaces. Cybercriminals are exploiting a widening variety of payloads and attack methodologies to wreak havoc upon both businesses and technology end-users. As a result, cybersecurity continues to be a field that is attracting a lot of interest and innovation.

DevOps and CI/CD + Docker and Containerization

DevOps has led to operations and development resources working together in harmony — realizing faster code deployment and more harmonious workflows than ever before. The result (for consumers) software that is less buggy and more quickly and frequently updated. Docker and containerization has also disrupted things in the world of software development. Both concepts are worth exploring.

Serverless and Kubernetes

Serverless doesn’t mean the end of servers. It just means that those in charge of rolling out software don’t need to worry as much about where and how to provision infrastructure. This is due to a variety of cool innovations including serverless and Kubernetes.

Blockchain

Blockchain is best known for its adoption as the core technology behind cryptocurrencies — but it’s changing more than how people manage currencies: it changes the whole model of how centralized resources are typically managed. Here are some resources to get up to speed on the technology and what it can do.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The internet is still in the process of going to places where it hasn’t gone before. That massive disruption — which is affecting both the consumer and industrial spheres — is know as the internet of things (IoT). Here are some introductions.

Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR)

One of the technology niches I’m most passionate about is backup and disaster recovery (DR). Yes, relative to the above it’s not particularly newfangled or — in many technologists’ eyes — all that exciting. But there are innovations happening within the backup and DR space and it’s a field that almost everybody ultimately needs.

If you’d like to know what’s up in backup, then here are some good videos worth checking out.