A B-tree index is a balanced, sorted tree of disk pages that lets a database find rows by key, range or order…
B2B e-commerce is the online sale of goods and services between businesses, built around negotiated prices, account roles, approvals and invoicing.
Back-button focus moves autofocus activation from the shutter button to a rear camera button, separating focusing from taking the picture.
Back light is a light source placed behind the subject and aimed toward the camera, used in photography to outline edges and…
The backend is the server-side part of a web application that handles business logic, data storage, authentication and the APIs the frontend…
A backlink in SEO is a link from another website to your page, which search engines read as a signal of discovery,…
Backports in Linux package management are newer software versions or fixes rebuilt for an older stable release, so it gains features or…
Backpressure is a flow-control mechanism in streaming data systems that slows producers when consumers cannot keep up, preventing overload and data loss.
Backpropagation is the algorithm that computes how much each weight in a neural network contributed to the error, so gradient descent can…
Balance in design is the distribution of visual weight across a composition so that no area feels heavier, louder or more unstable…
Banding in video quality is the visible stepping of smooth gradients into distinct bands, caused by too few tonal levels or heavy…
A bar chart is a data visualization that compares values across categories using rectangular bars whose length is proportional to each value.
Bare metal is a physical server whose hardware runs one operating system directly, without a virtualization layer, giving full and predictable performance.
The baseline in typography is the invisible line on which most letters sit, used to align text, measure leading and build vertical…
A baseline grid in layout and grids is a set of evenly spaced horizontal lines on which text baselines sit, creating consistent…
Bash is the GNU Bourne-Again Shell, the command interpreter and scripting language that reads, expands and runs commands on most Linux systems.
A batch job is a unit of non-interactive work that processes a set of data in one run, usually started by a…
Batch processing runs data jobs over a bounded collection of records at scheduled intervals, favoring throughput and repeatability over low latency.
Battery health is the measure of how much charge a mobile device battery can still hold, and how well it delivers power,…
Battery optimization covers the OS mechanisms and app engineering practices that reduce energy use on mobile devices while keeping apps responsive.
A battery pack is the complete traction battery assembly of an electric vehicle: cells, modules, cooling, electronics and housing integrated as one…
A battle pass is a time-limited tiered reward track in a game, bought once per season and unlocked through play, that monetizes…
A BEV, or battery electric vehicle, is driven only by electric motors powered by a rechargeable traction battery charged from the grid,…
BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is the path-vector routing protocol that exchanges reachability between autonomous systems and holds the Internet together.
Big O is the notation that describes an upper bound on how an algorithm's running time or memory use grows as the…
BigCommerce is a hosted SaaS e-commerce platform for running online stores, known for its open APIs, built-in features and headless and B2B…
The binary log is the MySQL and MariaDB record of every committed data change, used for replication and for point-in-time recovery after…
Binary search finds a value in a sorted collection by repeatedly halving the search interval, needing about log2(n) comparisons for n elements.
Binaural audio is two-channel sound that reproduces the cues of both ears, letting headphone listeners hear sources around, above and behind them.
BIOS is the motherboard firmware that tests hardware at power-on, initializes components and hands control to the operating system loader.
Bit depth in digital audio is the number of bits used to store each sample, which sets the noise floor and the…
Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency, a digital asset with a fixed 21 million supply that is transferred and secured on a…
BitLocker is the full-volume encryption feature in Windows security that protects data on lost or stolen drives using the TPM, a PIN…
A blade server is a thin, modular server that slides into a shared chassis supplying power, cooling, networking and management to many…
A block explorer is a search tool that indexes a blockchain and shows its blocks, transactions, addresses and fees in a readable,…
Block storage presents server storage as raw fixed-size blocks on a volume that the operating system formats and manages, as with disks,…
A blockchain is a shared ledger of transactions grouped into hash-linked blocks, kept in agreement by many nodes without a central operator.
Blocking artifacts are visible square edges in compressed video, caused when a codec quantizes each block too coarsely at low bitrates.
Blue-green deployment releases software by running two identical environments and switching all traffic from the old one to the new one in…
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless standard in the 2.4 GHz band that links headphones, keyboards, phones and sensors without cables.
Bokeh in photography is the aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas, shaped by lens design, aperture, distance and optical aberrations.
Boot Camp is the Apple utility that lets Intel-based Macs install and natively boot Microsoft Windows on a separate disk partition.
Boot order is the firmware's prioritized list of devices and boot entries it tries, in sequence, to find and start an operating…
A bootloader is the small program that firmware starts after power-on to locate, load and launch the operating system kernel from a…
A botnet is a network of malware-infected computers or devices that an attacker controls remotely for DDoS attacks, spam, fraud and other…
Bottom navigation is a mobile UX pattern that places three to five top-level destinations in a persistent bar at the bottom of…
Bounce tracking routes a user through a tracker's domain during navigation so the tracker can set and read first-party cookies and follow…
Brand awareness in branding is the degree to which buyers recognize or recall a brand and link it to a category when…
Brand equity is the extra value a brand name adds to a product, shown in price premiums, loyalty and preference beyond its…
Brand guidelines are the documented rules for applying a brand's logo, color, typography, imagery and voice consistently across every touchpoint.