Top 10 Technology Trends for 2012

2010 and 2011 were known as the years of the tablets and smartphones. What will be next year’s hottest technology trends? Things are changing so fast, so with the year drawing to a close, the question on everyone's mind is, that define technology trends in 2012? 

Here are some top technology trends for 2012.

1. Voice Command

Voice Command

The success of Siri is clearly driving a lot of people to create similar offerings. It is expected that this type of technology to make it over to other handset makers and into tablets next year.

Apple changed the game when it comes to voice commands, with its emphasis on merging the iPhone with voice-controlled assistant services. This has spurred others like Microsoft and Google to make their own voice services better, which may take some time.

2. Email Decline

Email Decline

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over. In its place, a new generation of services are starting to take hold, services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others social networking services has taken to the new world of communication. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate in ways we can only begin to imagine.

We all still use email, of course. But now we are always connected wherever we go, sitting at a office desk, at home or on a mobile phone. This has created new ways to communicate that are much faster than email with more fun.

3. Hosted Services

Hosted Services

Google started the ball rolling with apps and OnLive, which replaced traditional cable box. As we move into 2012, more and more of what we access will be hosted. Already, movies are streamed rather than downloaded, and it will not be long until most of our applications exist on the Internet and do not run locally. Expect a big push in this direction in 2012.

The cable box will increasingly be replaced by game consoles and smart TVs next year. This has been going on in Europe for some time, with systems like the Xbox, and Verizon just started a similar effort with that product here for FiOS customers.

4. App Stores

App Stores

The app era has dawned reducing the need for physical production of software, shipment of products, and retail relationships for ensuring shelf space. This makes apps cheaper and more accessible.

This trend continues and accelerates into 2012 with the launch of Microsoft's app store and the expected death of packaged software products. As for the software you run locally, you will increasingly buy it from a trusted app store, though that store may be offered by Amazon, Android market or Apples iTune store.

5. Windows 8 Touch

Windows 8 Touch

Windows 8 touch is a trend in itself, and it represents the biggest bet that Steve Ballmer's Microsoft has ever made. For the past 15 years, the Microsoft Windows operating system has maintained a consistent user experience and interface paradigm that helped bring personal computers to the mainstream consumer market.

Windows 8 has been optimized to understand touch interaction like no operating system before, including its predecessor, Windows 7. And of course, this automatically implies that there is a great opportunity for Windows 8 developers to put together natural user interface (NUI) applications for the next iteration of the Windows client.

6. Thin Is In

This Is In

Driven largely by tablets, mostly iPads and ultrabooks including the MacBook Air, next year will be the year when thin moves across the mainstream of notebook computers.

Tablets including Apple’s iPad are going to overtake netbooks by market share within two years, and will by 2015 constitute the second largest product category after notebooks. But this will not be just thin products it will continue to be driven in smartphones, tablets, and TVs as well. Vendors will continue to compete to be the thinnest in every category.

7. Tablet in Stuff

Tablet in Stuff

Samsung has already bought out a refrigerator with a built in tablet computer and others are likely to follow their example.

Cars will be shown with tablet-like features built into their dash, and this iPad effect will likely extend to things like home automation and high-end home alarm systems as well. And yes, you will be likely able to install apps on many of them.

8. Peer-to-Peer Gaming

Peer-to-Peer Gaming

Qualcomm will be pushing peer-to-peer gaming into smartphones next year, and this could spell the end for most standalone gaming systems. While multi-player online games are very successful, their fast deployment suffers from their server-based architecture. Indeed, servers both limit the scalability of the games and increase deployment costs. However, they make it easier to control the game because Peer-to-peer transfer of the game functions on each player’s machine is an attractive communication model for online gaming.

This will allow people to engage others in games without running up data charges, since the phones talk directly to each other, and gaming may be faster as well, because there is no network latency.

9. Cores Are Us

Core Are us

Tablets will move from two cores to up to five cores for Nvidia's  Tegra 3 offering. These multi-core offerings should allow the next generation of tablets. Already Asus Transformer 2 is upgraded with core processor and started for shipping. To approach the low end of PC performance and they will be ideal candidates for the ARM version of Windows 8.

This will also define what likely will be the major battle in 2012 between the high end of this new ARM class and Intel, and it likely will be a battle for the ages.

10. Privacy/Security

Privacy / Security

With the concerns over the Carrier IQ rootkit going vertical so you can find out how to remove it from your smartphone here it is expected to be extremely focused on privacy. Going into an election year in the U.S. it just seems likely that someone in politics will be hacked, embarrassed, and will go on the warpath on privacy regulation as a result.

That has a nationwide unfriendly attack and a terrible report from McAfee that showcases Android as excessively unsafe. Android is currently the most successful product on smartphones.