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The mobile world moves at a breakneck pace, and it's difficult to keep up--even without the technical jargon most industry insiders throw around. And they do love to toss those terms about.

This week, I explain what a geo-fence is, why a feature phone is really just a dumb phone with a niftier marketing title, and why companies love rebates.

So for some light reading, here are a few terms (and definitions) commonly used by telecommunications experts who assume everyone understands them.

Alignment: Look, it's another code word for layoffs. While not exactly the best example of telecom jargon, it's a relevant term given Nokia's decision to "align" its workforce, which means shedding 3,500 jobs on top of a prior plan to cut thousands of other jobs. It's in the same vein as synergy and redundancy, fancy words that mask the ugly truth that a lot of people are getting canned.

Feature phone: This is the industry's term for any phone that isn't a smartphone, which runs on a more complex operating system that can run applications. You have to admire the marketing spin on what is essentially a dumb phone.

I, for one, hate using the term, and have largely stuck to calling them basic phones.

Feature phones are in a phase of gradual decline as people jump to smartphones, which are getting more affordable. Leap Wireless CEO Doug Hutcheson said he expects smartphones to cost $100 or less without a contract by the holidays, just slightly more expensive than a feature phone.

HTC's global marketing chief, Jason MacKenzie, boldly said he sees his Rhyme smartphone as a better upgrade for feature phone users than the iPhone.

Geo-fence: It's a virtual perimeter you can set up anywhere to ensure your child or pet stays in a certain zone. If they leave the designated area, an alert is sent to your phone. … Read more

In just a few short years, Pandora's apps for iOS and Android have become an ever-present part of the smartphone experience. But as the company's growth in mobile exploded, its Web-based player was stuck in the past with a design that no longer matched the look of its apps or standalone Pandora One desktop software.

Today, Pandora unveiled a dramatically overhauled site design. Beyond a welcome new look, the code behind the site now uses HTML5 in favor of Adobe Flash. In its own press release, Pandora credits the switch to HTML5 for opening up creative new cross-platform … Read more

Long gone are the days when Adobe Systems could take its Flash Player's position on the Web for granted.

But Adobe, to counter a strong combination of opposition and alternatives to the browser plug-in, plans to ship Flash Player 11 in two weeks. The debut at its Max developer conference early next month is geared to send a message to programmers: Flash is still relevant, and Adobe is still investing in it.

Flash 11's highlight, an interface called Molehill for hardware-accelerated 3D and 2D graphics, won't change the minds of those who would like to see Flash … Read more

Two browser experts have pared back Acid3, a test that browser standards fans held up to spotlight Internet Explorer's shortcomings, so the test won't hold back development of those standards.

Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML specification, and Håkon Wium Lie, chief technology officer of browser maker Opera, decided to make the change, and Hickson announced it on Google+ on Saturday.

"Håkon Wium Lie and I are announcing that we have updated the Acid3 test by commenting out the parts of the test that might get changed in the specs," Hickson said. &… Read more

A small piece of the next-generation Google Chrome guts called Native Client arrives in Chrome stable about a month after it landed on the beta channel, as new audio technology also gains a footing. Google Chrome 14 stable for Windows (download), Mac (download), and Linux (download), also makes a spate of security fixes for all platforms, and some useful changes to the Mac version.

Chrome 14 is the first version of the browser to support Native Client (NaCl), an open-source technology that allows C and C++ code to be securely run in the browser. It basically lets software run within … Read more

Microsoft just declared that browser plug-ins' best days are behind them, but Adobe is working hard to disprove the notion with its Flash Player.

Flash, the most widely used browser plug-in, will be barred from the new "Metro" version of Internet Explorer 10 that will ship with Windows 8, IE team leader Dean Hachamovitch announced last night during the company's Build conference. In response, Adobe pointed out that Flash will still work with the more traditional "desktop" interface--but also that the company has other plans for staying relevant.

"If you look a year out, … Read more

IE9 left no doubt that Microsoft understood the importance of supporting modern Web standards. But IE10, updated yesterday with the third platform preview, is the vehicle delivering much of that support.

Microsoft fleshed out IE10's impressive list of new technologies at Microsoft's Build conference for developers. New items on the list such as Web Workers, Web Sockets, 3D Transforms, Application Cache, and IndexedDB are music to the ears of many Web developers who want to make rich, interactive Web sites.

But it's important for a much larger developer group, too: IE10 also is a key foundation for Windows 8 applications. … Read more

The mass adoption of HTML5 as a way to create applications may be coming sooner than you think.

At least, that's what Rob Chandhok, president of Qualcomm's Internet services division, thinks. He recently sat down with CNET to talk about where apps are headed. And the direction solidly points to HTML5.

"We see HTML5 and Web-based mobile applications as the way it will end up," Chandhok said.

Companies such as Pandora and LinkedIn already use HTML 5 as the basis for their applications. He said in the next 18 to 24 months, the standard will reach … Read more

A new feature in Apple's forthcoming iOS 5 update, Find My Friends, will help users see where their contacts are. Think GPS tracking for your social life, included in iOS.

According to sources reporting to 9to5Mac a few months ago, Apple had been working on the Find My Friends feature for quite some time, though the project was on and off several times.

Now, after new HTML code in the MobileMe/iCloud Web site has been found, it appears that Find My Friends is back. And it could signal one of the most significant entries into the social networking … Read more