January is a time to reflect on the past year, as well as a time to set goals and make predictions for the new year. Seeing as Stafflink is a technology staffing company, I highlighted the top three tech trends that I am seeing pop up lately as hot trends to watch for in 2012.
The Rise of Mobile
According to Polar Mobile’s, Kunal Gupta, 2012 will mark the year where mobile advertising will hit the “tipping point.” According to Gupta, “Ad agencies and media planners are now including a mobile component in almost every campaign and the size of the mobile spend will increase significantly this year. The winners will be those brands with consistent traffic and the most compelling ad experience.”
Gupta also predicts that this will be the year mobile traffic surpasses the desktop, stating, “Traffic from mobile and tablet devices, whether it be from Apps or the browser, will approach or pass traffic from the desktop. Mobile will be the starting point (over the desktop) for many use cases for consumers hungry for media, including weather, sports scores, breaking news and social channels.”
For more of Kunal’s tech predictions for 2012, have a look at his blog, Tip of the Iceberg.
The Rise of Ultrabooks
Both Mashable and Wired have listed Ultrabooks as a tech trend to keep an eye out for in 2012. A term coined by Intel, Ultrabooks are a thin, lightweight, and powerful laptop. While a bit heavier than an iPad, and no touch screen, it has a full-sized keyboard for full typing functionality.
To qualify as an ultrabook, a notebook must:
- Weigh 3.1 lbs or less
- Be 0.71 inches thick or less
- Provide five-plus hours of battery life
- Feature flash-based storage
- Incorporate Intel’s Rapid Start Technology
There are currently five Ultrabooks available to choose from including MacBook Air, Aspire S3, IdeaPad U300s, to name a few, with more to come in 2012, if all the buzz is any indication.
The Rise of Smart Homes
International Business Times reports new gadgets will introduce enhanced energy management systems in your home in 2012. Such gadgets include thermostats that can be controlled remotely via browsers and smartphones.
In a blog post last week, we did a write up on Nest Labs, a company in Silicon valley that is revolutionizing the thermostat and leading the way in the rise of smart homes. Within a week of it’s launch, nest.com had sold out of it’s learning thermostats and had to shut down it’s online store in the meantime. This is pretty convincing evidence the smart home trend is definitely one to watch, if you ask me.
As another offshoot of the smart homes trend, broadband companies such as Rogers are selling smart home monitoring. If this tech trend continues, it seems like it might not be too far into the future that our homes start looking like a scene out of the Jetsons.
What are your technology predictions for 2012?
