Credit: Apple Inc.
Have you been "scrubbing" all this time without knowing it?
While it may sound like something you’d do to get your floors clean or to make your teeth glisten, in tech terms, scrubbing is when you skip ahead or rewind in, say, a song on your mobile phone. If you’ve ever skipped ahead to get to the chorus of Katy Perry’s “Roar” or dragged your finger across the screen to replay a scene while watching Netflix on tablet, you were definitely scrubbing.
"Scrubbing" is not new; the word has been around since the reel-to-reel audio days at least. It's also not to be confused with "scrobbling," which is when audio software makes a note of what you're listening to and adds it to your online profile. It was a popular concept on the site Last.fm and lives on in applications such as Spotify and Apple Music.
In this space every week, we’ll define a tech term, offer a timely tip or answer questions about technology from readers. Email ogallaga@statesman.com.
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