Glossary

Wide area network

Technologies or computers integrated into articles of clothing or accessories. The most prominent example, the Apple watch. Wearable technology, like the Jawbone Up and Fitbit activity trackers are the main focus areas of the IoT. Devices like these often work by gamifying real-life tasks, bringing people into the device’s ecosystem, and generating data that can be analyzed to improve products and lifestyles.

A loop that keeps executing as long as some condition is true.

Wireless fidelity: a technology which certifies interoperability of wireless devices according to IEEE 802.11

The logical connectors between nodes. Conceptually, messages “travel” between nodes. In reality, they don’t, data is simply passed by reference (except for the edge cases where a message copy is forced).

The transfer of information over a distance without the use of enhanced electrical conductors or ‘wires’. The distances involved may be short (a few meters as in television remote control) or long (thousands or millions of kilometers for radio communications). When the context is clear, the term is often shortened to ‘wireless’. Wireless communication is generally considered to be a branch of telecommunications.

A unit of data that consists of 16 bits.

The Workspace is the main area where flows are developed by dragging nodes from the palette and wiring them together.

Wi-Fi protected access: wireless security technology that utilizes dynamic key exchange