yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”
The magazine The World of Chinese recently posted on its website the article “Words to Sum Up 2021”. One of the words it listed was “yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云)”, which can mean “cloud” literally, or “cloud” meaning “online”:
As the pandemic rages on, “cloud” services have become increasingly popular, including 云课堂 (yún kètáng, online classes), 云问诊 (yún wènzhěn, online diagnosis), and 云旅游 (yún lǚyóu, “traveling” by watching livestreams of scenic spots).
Where “Clouds” Came From
This use of “yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云)” to effectively mean “online” almost certainly came from the English use of “cloud” to mean “online”, since using those fluffy masses of condensed watery vapour in the sky to represent network-connected computer system resources evidently originated in the English-speaking world. As Wikipedia summarizes:
References to the phrase “cloud computing” appeared as early as 1996, with the first known mention in a Compaq internal document.[source]
The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1977,[source] and the CSNET by 1981[source]—both predecessors to the Internet itself. The word cloud was used as a metaphor for the Internet and a standardized cloud-like shape was used to denote a network on telephony schematics. With this simplification, the implication is that the specifics of how the endpoints of a network are connected are not relevant to understanding the diagram.[source]
The term cloud was used to refer to platforms for distributed computing as early as 1993, when Apple spin-off General Magic and AT&T used it in describing their (paired) Telescript and PersonaLink technologies.[source]