A music lover claiming to suffer from an “iPod ear” has sued Apply Computers, on behalf of all iPod users, stating that iPods damage hearing. It’s amazing. Till little over a year ago, most of us had not even heard of iPods.Podcasting was something that the techies did. As the podcasting phenomenon caught on and everything downloadable became podcastable podcast found an entry in dictionaries. Podcast has been defined as “as a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar programme, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.”The word podcast and its many derivatives became such a rage in 2005 that it got voted as the Word of the Year. The New Oxford American Dictionary will include podcast as the Word of the Year in its dictionary due early this year. Podcast beat birdflu a fatal flu virus of birds a hot contender for the top slot.Popular acronyms in the running were: ICE emergency contact information stored in one's cell phone; IDP an internally displaced person; and IED improvised explosive device. Lifehack a more efficient way of completing an everyday task; persistent vegetative state a condition in which a patient recovering from a coma retains reflex responses; reggaeton a Latin American dance with elements of reggae music, hip-hop and rap were also on the top ten list.Other words which caught the fancy of many in 2005: Rootkit software installed on a computer by someone other than the owner; squick causing immediate and thorough revulsion; sudoku a logic-based puzzle consisting of squares that form grids within a grid; and trans fat fat containing trans-fatty acids, considered unhealthier than other dietary fats.
