DVR, 802.11a/b, IEEE 1394, RSS, USB 2.0, GPRS...WTF?

Folks out there are getting more and more confused about technology terms. It's as if marketers in technology companies sit around and think of ways to confuse folks. "Hey Bob, check this out, it's like fast transfer for video"..."Okay, let's call it IEEE 1394" "Cool, perfect". Once and awhile companies will come along and brand something in a smart way...FireWire, Google...etc... But for the most part, it's just getting more confusing out there for the buying public.

AdAge has a pretty good overview of the disaster...

For example, 71% of respondents said they could explain what a digital video recorder is to a friend. But only 36%
said they could explain to a friend what TiVo was, even though TiVo is the Xerox of DVRs — a brand name used to refer
to a category generically despite its several competitors.

Consumers "are having trouble navigating the waters with all these digital terms," said Dominic Ainscough, a senior
analyst at the Yankee Group.

When asked about Wi-Fi, 74% said they'd never heard of it. But 34% said "wireless networking" was an important
criteria for their next computer purchase. And while 16% of survey respondents — which a Yankee Group analyst said
was weighted to reflect dead-center American demographics — believe they own a DVR, 4% actually do.

We're looking forward to products like the PMC (Portable Media Center) but we know a lot of people have no idea what a Media Center PC is, or why they'd want one. Same goes for new handsets, it's hard to sell a 3 MP GPRS phone to 
a technophobe public. The only solution— no more acronyms or 5 word product names (you know who are out there).