---
slug: "5-tech-icons-and-their-meaning"
title: "5 Tech Icons And Their Meaning"
subtitle: "The meaning behind these technology icons"
date: "Dec 9, 2024"
minutes: 5
category: Technology
---

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An icon is a small image or symbol used to represent a concept, idea, or, in this case, a function or a technological indication. And digital icons are found everywhere, especially on software and website designs. Thanks to online resources like Material Fonts, Flaticon, Font Awesome, and many more.

The design of these icons was carefully considered, aiming for simplicity, recognizability, and a timeless quality. Most of the time, it’s clear why the icons look that way; for example, a battery icon represents usage of a battery — straightforward enough, right? And a trash icon means a place for discarded files, and so on.

But there are few icons that have ambiguous designs. Although they are highly recognizable and widely known. The reasoning behind the choice of that icon may leave some puzzled. These are the power icon, USB icon, Bluetooth icon, save icon, and lastly, the RSS icon (which is not to be confused with Wi-Fi).

## Power Icon

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An incomplete circle with a small line interfering with its arc — that’s an odd representation for a power button, isn’t it?. However, there’s actually a meaning behind it that ties closely to how electronic machines work.

Every machine that operates on electricity understands just two digits: 1 and 0. In simple terms, this translates to the presence of electricity (1) and the absence of electricity (0), or on and off, if you prefer. Going back to the icon, if you look closely, you’ll see that it is just a smooth collaboration between 1 and 0.

## Bluetooth Icon

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Unlike the other entries on this list, this icon has nothing to do with technology but rather with history. Have you wondered where the name “Bluetooth” came from and why a name like that was chosen for a technology that had nothing to do with dental or even colors?

To explain the icon, we need to go back to the years between 958 and 986, during which a Viking king known as King Harald Gormsson, also referred to as Harald Bluetooth, was in power.

Why him? Why would a viking’s name get adapted for a technology used for wireless connections?

If he were to have a resume, it might include “Uniting Denmark and Norway” in the achievements section, along with “Connecting warring tribes peacefully.” It’s like connecting conflicting devices together and having them unite to share a common function. For example, a speaker and a phone connect to play music seamlessly.

The icon consists of two letters: the initial of his first name “H,” represented in Old Norse as (ᚼ), and the initial of his nickname “B,” depicted as (ᛒ).

## Save Icon

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When you save a file on your computer or device, the data is sent straight to your storage. Regardless of whether it is an HDD or SSD, it will securely store the file’s data. It would be logical for the icon representing file saving to be depicted as a hard drive. However, oddly, that wasn’t the case. That leads to the question, why the icon designers went with that one?

The icon was designed to represent a floppy disk, the original portable storage before flash drives, memory cards, and optical discs.

And they looked like this:

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## RSS Icon

RSS is a method for staying updated on news and content from different websites. Consider it a notification email that keeps you informed whenever a site publishes new content. But to set it up, you’ll need an RSS reader, and the site should provide an RSS feeder.

For example: https://medium.com/@patalcala/feed

Now, for the icon. A dot that represents the source, with two concentric arcs that represent radio waves. RSS is used for giving out news publicly, and, back in the day, people used to receive news only from radios. In short, the icon is a tribute to the old days of receiving news.

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Thank you for reading.