[Android General] Diablo67:
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Digitizer: Device for converting analogue signals into digital signals

YAFFS:Yaffs1 is the first version of this file system and works on NAND chips that have 512 byte pages + 16 byte spare (OOB;Out-Of-Band) areas.[clarification needed] These older chips also generally allow 2 or 3 write cycles per page,which YAFFS takes advantage of - i.e. dirty pages are marked by writing to a specific spare area byte.

Newer NAND flash chips have larger pages, 2048 bytes + 64 bytes spare areas, and stricter write requirements.Each page within an erase block (128 kilobytes) must be written to in sequential order, and each page must be written only once.YAFFS2 was designed to accommodate these newer chips.YAFFS2 is based on the YAFFS1 source code,with the major difference being that internal structures are not fixed to assume 512 byte sizing,and a block sequence number is placed on each written page. In this way older pages can be logically overwritten without violating the "write once" rule.[clarification needed]

YAFFS is a robust log-structured file system that holds data integrity as a high priority.A secondary YAFFS goal is high performance.YAFFS will typically outperform most alternatives.It is also designed to be portable and has been used on Linux, WinCE, pSOS, eCos,ThreadX and various special-purpose OSes.A variant 'YAFFS/Direct' is used in situations where there is no OS, embedded OSes and bootloaders: it has the same core filesystem but simpler interfacing to the OS and NAND flash hardware.

Zipalign: An archive alignment tool introduced first time with 1.6 Android SDK (software development kit). It optimizes the way an Android application package (APK) is packaged. Doing so enables the Android operating system to interact with the application more efficiently, and hence has the potential to make the application and overall the whole system much faster. Execution time is minimized for zipaligned applications, resulting is lesser amount of RAM consumption when running the APK.

.apk: The file extension of an Android application.

Apps2SD: An unique method of storing applications on the device's microSD partition(EXT.). An official method was included in Android 2.2, mostly making this moot.

Bloat(ware): Applications/widgets -- usually unwanted -- that are preloaded onto a device.

CDMA: Short for Code-Division Multiple Access, a digital cellular technology that uses spread-spectrum techniques.

DLNA: Dynamic Living Network Alliance. A method for wirelessly streaming photos and videos from your smartphone to your TV.

GPS: Stands for Global Positioning System. Uses a constellation of satellites in space to find your location on the ground.

GSM: (Global System for Mobile Communications, originally Groupe Spécial Mobile), is a standard set developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe protocols for second generation (2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile phones.

IMEI: Stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity. Basically a unique identification number assigned to every phone.

Launcher: Collectively, the part of the Android user interface on home screens that lets you launch apps, make phone calls, etc.

LTE: Stands for "Long-Term Evolution." Is considered to be one of the "true" methods of 4G data (even if it technically isn't). First rolled out by Verizon in late 2010, and then by AT&T in late 2011, and Sprint will begin using it in mid-2012.

MTP: Stands for Media Transfer Protocol. Designed by Microsoft, and used by devices that have a single, unpartitioned storage structure to transfer files to and from a computer.

NFC: Near-field communication. Short-range communication between your phone and something else -- another phone, a cash register, etc. Used by some credit cards as a method of quick payment.

OEM: Stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. Usually a company that produces a component or entire device for another company.

Open GL: An open source 3D graphics library used in many devices, including Android devices.

Open Source: Software which is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code.

OTA: Stands for Over the Air. The act of moving data to your phone -- downloading, really -- without having to plug it in. Most Android system updates are OTA, as are application downloads.

Pixel: An individual dot on the display. Also a way to measure the resolution of a camera (usually in millions of pixels). Pixels usually are made up of sub-pixels. The arrangement of those sub-pixels affects the way you see images and text.

PPI: Pixels per inch. How we determine a display's "pixel density." The more pixels in a display, the better graphics and text look.

PRL: The Preferred Roaming List, basically a way of telling your phone which towers to connect to first.

Project Butter: Software enhancements introduced in Android 4.1 to improve the smoothness of on-screen transitions and animations. Project Butter uses software tricks like vertical sync (vsync) and triple-buffering to display a smooth, consistent frame rate throughout the UI.

SDK: Stands for Software Development Kit. Generally, a set of tools used to create software for a certain platform following guidelines provided in the kit. For Android, the SDK provides tools to create applications that run on Android devices.

Sideload: The act of installing an app outside of the Android Market.Installing 3rd party application,using your external sd card or a type of cloud storage.

Soft Reset: A "soft" reset is by far the most common type of reset any PDA user will come across, and is often useful in solving minor problems and strange behaviour. When you perform a soft reset of a PDA, you are essentially causing the device to stop everything it is running, and restart - much like rebooting a PC.

Hard Reset: Sometimes also referred to as a "factory reset", a hard reset is an extremely serious process, because performing a hard reset will always wipe all the data from your PDA and return it to the settings it originally had when purchased.

Tethering: The act of using your smartphone's data to provide Internet access to another device, such as a laptop. Can be done wirelessly, or via a USB cable.

USB: Stands for Universal Serial Bus. Is a method of connecting devices to a computer. Most smartphones now use microUSB cables to charge and sync.

UMS: Stands for USB Mass Storage. Devices with SD cards or partitioned internal storage mount that storage as UMS when connecting to a computer. Files can then be moved to and from the device.

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