Tech Trends for 2012

As 2011 winds down it is time to look ahead to 2012, and as usual the year will start off with a bang – if a week later than usual – at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. ; just from the pitches, rumors and all the “stuff I can’t really talk about yet,” I can say 2012 will be a big year and so much more.

Microsoft Bows Out of CES

Among the big news is that Microsoft has announced that 2012 will be the last time someone from the Redmond software giant will offer a keynote speech. In a blog post this week Frank X. Shaw, Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications noted:

“After thinking about questions like these, we have decided that this coming January will be our last keynote presentation and booth at CES. We’ll continue to participate in CES as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries, but we won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing.”

This won’t be the end of Microsoft at CES, but it does shake things up a bit and suggests that the relevance of the show is waning. After attending the show for more than a decade I personally can state that it isn’t something I really look forward to, nor does it make for a relaxing holiday season – knowing the storm is just around the corner. Often times the Christmas tree is barely on the curb and the New Year has just been rung in, and there is this rush to talk about the tech for the full year.

But the consumer electronics industry needs this event. It is part hype, part buzz but really is there to convince everyone that those shiny new products that were unwrapped only weeks earlier are already showing their age.

So with this in mind, in a few week we’ll hear about thinner TVs, what’s happening with 3D TV (and we’ll see if anyone is excited by it as they were two years ago), and if you believe it something called 4K TV, which is essentially super-high definition TV. As if that thin TV on everyone’s wall was the final word.

Hot Trends for 2012

Technology, especially consumer technology doesn’t stop moving forward as we learn each January.

Neither however does business technology. So what should you watch for in 2012? Here are just a few things that likely will be old news by next Christmas:

• Touch Screens – Windows 8 and Mac OS X Lion are designed with touch screen interfaces. No the mouse isn’t going anywhere and even Apple’s Lion won’t scare it off the desk, but touch will come to desktop computers. It could take a while to catch on, but it will change the interface in a big way.
• Mobile payments – Just as a touch screen isn’t going to kill the mouse, NFC chips aren’t going to kill the plastic credit card. But just as phones can let you board a plane, they’re going to become more common place as a digital currency.
• Voice control – Apple’s Siri lets you speak your mind, as does Microsoft’s Kinect for its Xbox 360 game console. This will no doubt trickle down to other devices.
• HTML5 – Adobe blinked and killed off Flash for mobile devices. This is bad news because Flash remains the most common method for serving videos and other applications on mobile devices, but fortunately HTML5 is in the wings. This will mean don’t get too comfortable with those older browsers.
• No more netbooks – Dell announced this month that it was discontinuing its Inspiron Mini line of netbooks, but will instead push harder with thin and powerful notebooks. Thus anyone who says tablets will reign supreme should note that the tablets did kill the netbooks, but time will tell if notebooks don’t push back.
• Chrome will shine – Chrome already took the top browser worldwide usage spot away from Internet Explorer 8 according to Ireland-based StatCounter, as reported by PC World. Domestic usage still puts IE8 on top, but Chrome’s luster will likely continue to shine in 2012. If you’re not developing for Chrome, the question would be why not? And for those who aren’t keen on multiple browsers, know that the browser wars are far from over.

All this makes it an exciting time to be following these big trends, and since CES is still weeks away chances are the really big stories are yet to be told.