This year, that tower of babble is higher than ever, as new terms have come into being, and old ones have come to the fore. So, here’s a quick glossary of some of the current techno terms you may encounter when shopping for a computer, television, digital camera or cellphone this holiday season.

Aero: This is the graphical user interface that’s a key part of Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system, due out around Jan. 30. If you want to get the full benefit of Vista, make sure any Windows PC you buy this season is capable of running Aero. Many are not.

Antiblur: Also known as antishake or image stabilization, this is a crucial feature of digital cameras today. Because few cameras have optical viewfinders, users tend to hold them at arm’s length to frame the shot on the LCD screen. This increases the likelihood of shaking the camera. An anti-blur feature can correct that. The best antiblur technology is optical. Digital versions are less effective.

Draft N: This is a new, faster, longer-range version of the popular Wi-Fi wireless networking system, and many new Wi-Fi products are built to comply with it. It succeeds the common “G” flavor of Wi-Fi. But, there’s a catch. As the name implies, this technology is based on a draft of the forthcoming new Wi-Fi standard, to be called “N.” And the final standard could be different enough to make Draft N gear outdated in 12 to 18 months.

Dual Boot: A computer that is configured to boot, or to start up, in two different operating systems, depending on which the user chooses at any one time. The most important example of this currently is on Apple’s Macintosh computers, which now can be set up to run either the Mac operating system or Microsoft Windows using Apple’s free dual-boot software, called Boot Camp.

Dual Core: A type of microprocessor — the brain that runs a computer — which packs the equivalent of two processors into a single chip. The best known dual-core processors in consumer computers are Intel’s Core 2 Duo and Core Duo, but rival AMD also makes them. They are a good bet for most people.

Flash Player: A small-capacity digital music player, like Apple’s iPod Nano and Shuffle. These players use flash memory, a type of memory chip that behaves like a small hard disk to store music, photos and videos. Larger players, such as the full-size iPod and the new Microsoft Zune, use actual hard disks, like the ones in computers. Flash memory is also what’s inside the small memory cards used in digital cameras.

HDMI: This acronym, for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, describes a new kind of cable for hooking high-definition TVs to things like cable boxes and DVD players. It provides a high-quality digital feed, and combines both audio and video signals via a single connection. When shopping for an HDTV, make sure it has HDMI connectors on the back.

HSDPA: An awkward name for a new high-speed cellphone network being deployed in the U.S. by Cingular Wireless. Its full name is High Speed Downlink Packet Access, and it’s intended to compete with successful high-speed networks from Verizon and Sprint called EVDO, or Evolution Data Only. All of these new networks allow Internet access at about the speed of a slow home DSL line, which is a big boost for cellphones. If you care about email and Internet access on a phone, and you are using Cingular, get a phone that can handle HSDPA.

Quad Band: A cellphone that handles all four bands, or frequencies, used in various countries by wireless phone companies adhering to a world-wide standard called GSM. Examples are Cingular and T-Mobile in the U.S., and Vodafone and Orange in Europe. A quad-band phone can be used on any GSM network anywhere, so if you travel overseas a lot, you may want one.

RAW: A file format for digital photographs that is uncompressed and largely unmodified by the camera’s chips, and therefore includes every detail of the color and image. It is prized by professional photographers and serious amateurs, who look for cameras and photo software that can handle the RAW format. But it produces enormous files, so most users should ignore it and stick with the very good, very common compressed photo format, called JPEG or JPG.

Shared Memory: A computer configuration in which the video circuitry lacks its own dedicated memory and must share, or drain off, a portion of the computer’s main memory. This is common in lower-price computers. It’s fine, but it reduces the amount of memory available to the nonvideo functions of the computer, so you may want to add extra memory to a PC of this type.

WAN: Any wide-area network, such as a cellphone network, that can be used to send and receive data. It is distinguished from a LAN, or local area network, such as the wired and wireless networks deployed inside a business or home. Some computer makers use the term for the built-in cellphone modems in their laptops.

Good luck with your gift shopping. Don’t get trapped in the tower of babble.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

Lots of new technologies claim to be transformative, productivity-enhancing and liberating. But only a few really live up to those claims. One of them is Wi-Fi, the wireless networking technology that has truly revolutionized the way people use the Internet.

With Wi-Fi, you can get online in any room of a home or office — not just the room where your wired Internet connection lives. And you can use the Internet in airports, coffee shops, hotel lobbies and lots of other places where it wasn’t possible before.

But like a lot of technologies, Wi-Fi has been changing so fast that confusion has crept in. A new version of Wi-Fi, generally known as draft-N, promises greater speed, greater range and standardization, but may not deliver any of those things. I’ve been testing some of this latest Wi-Fi gear, with mixed results.

Linksys draft-N router

Also like some other technologies, Wi-Fi adheres to standards set by a private engineering organization called the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), in which representatives of interested companies participate.

The current version of Wi-Fi blessed by the IEEE is called G and has a maximum speed of 54 megabits per second. This G version of Wi-Fi, known to techies as 802.11g, is built into most wireless routers (which transmit and receive Wi-Fi signals) and most laptops.

Now, the IEEE is working on a new, faster standard called N. It promises much greater speeds, measured in the hundreds of megabits per second, and much better range. But certifying this N standard is taking forever, partly because of factionalism within the IEEE.

In the meantime, the marketplace has moved on. Last year, major makers of Wi-Fi routers, like Linksys and Belkin, brought out routers that used a major advance, called MIMO, expected to be in the eventual N standard. This technology uses multiple antennas to send and combine multiple data streams into one faster, longer-range signal.

Last year, I endorsed one of these MIMO products, Belkin’s Pre-N router, which was the only Wi-Fi router I ever tested that covered every corner of my home at decent speeds, even when I used laptops with only the older G technology built in.

Now, the Wi-Fi market has moved again. The major makers have all brought out what they call draft-N routers and cards for laptops that adhere to a draft of the coming N standard that the IEEE has passed. It’s probable, but not certain, that the final N standard likely to emerge next year will comply with this draft. Similar draft-N gear will be built into new laptops later this year.

The makers are claiming that the draft-N routers will have up to 12 times the speed and four times the range of G equipment when used with compatible laptop cards. Even if you are just using a laptop with a G receiver built in, the new routers can also improve speed and range, though more modestly.

Speed is nice, but even current G maximum speeds far exceed the speed of most home DSL or cable modem connections. What’s more important to most consumers is range, or more accurately, decent speed at longer ranges. The biggest Wi-Fi problem people face is dead spots or very slow connections in parts of their homes.

I tested the new Belkin draft-N router, called the Belkin N1, in my house and compared it with the Belkin Pre-N router I bought last year and have used ever since. The new router, which I placed in exactly the same spot as the old one, was easy to set up. It has lovely, large icons on the front that tell you if everything on your network is connected and working.

But the N1 didn’t perform any better, and in some cases did worse, than the old Belkin. This was true whether I was testing it on a Windows laptop or a Mac laptop, and whether I was using the Belkin N1 laptop card or just the built-in G radios in my test laptops. The new model covered my whole house, but so did the old one.

I also tried the Linksys draft-N router, called the WRT300N, which has an antenna array that makes it look like a radar station or a submarine conning tower. The company had to help me set it up, because I use a very fast Internet service called Verizon FIOS, which the router’s program doesn’t recognize. The Linksys proved much slower than the Belkin, though this may be because of a mismatch between its settings and my Verizon service, which is used by only a few hundred thousand homes in the U.S.

My unimpressive draft-N experience is confirmed by several, more extensive tests done by some magazines and Web sites, which showed the draft-N gear to be no big deal.

There are two other problems with the draft-N systems. The manufacturers aren’t promising to upgrade them to the final N standard when it emerges. And buying them will get more complicated in the coming months, because they will be offered in a range of speeds and even in two different frequencies.

I can’t recommend the draft-N equipment over the previous round of MIMO-equipped routers. They will likely be better than your G equipment, but so were last year’s models.

• Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

Corrections & Amplifications:

A new, faster standard for Wi-Fi wireless network connections promises speeds measured in the hundreds of megabits per second. This column incorrectly says the new speeds would be in the hundreds of megabytes per second.