Technology to Watch in 2011

With the Consumer Electronics Show over and 2011 in full swing, it's time to take a look ahead at some of the new tech we will be able to get our grubby-little-hands on this year:

Long Term Evolution (LTE)
Virtually every telecommunications company is now touting their super-speed 4G network. The truth is there are many different technologies being dubbed "4G," with many of them not meeting the true 4G specifications. When the dust settles, LTE will be the clear 4G champ. LTE is currently only available in the U.S. from Verizon, but AT&T will be launching their LTE network near the end of 2011.

Electric Cars
Although the so-called energy crisis is nothing new, oil's popularity is near an all-time low while consumption is at an all time high. The past decade saw many electric/gasoline hybrids rise in popularity, but now comes the first wave of all electric vehicles. Many of the big car manufacturers will be bringing electric vehicles to market in 2011, including the Nissan LEAF, Chevy Volt, and Ford Focus Electric. Although these cars still have drawbacks like limited range and battery charge time, continuous improvements over the next few years will give consumers more reasons to go electric.

Intel Second Generation Core
Intel's Second Generation Core CPUs, also known as Sandy Bridge, were just launched this month at CES. Early benchmarks show a 50% performance increase from earlier Core CPUs, and Intel has said that these new chips will account for 75% of desktop PCs sold by the end of 2011. I've already helped my friend spec -out a high-end gaming system and have been waiting for these chips to replace my 4-year old PC.

Tablets
The success of Apple's iPad will see a tidal wave of new tablets come to market in 2011, with many manufacturers shifting their netbook offerings to tablets. More than 80 new tablets were shown at CES running Windows 7, Android, or other operating systems. Apple is readying the iPad 2 for an early spring release. Rumors say the flash storage might be replaced with an SSD drive, helping to turn the iPad into more of a full-featured computer, as many of the other tablet manufacturers have already done.

Nintendo 3DS
I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about 3D by now, but the Nintendo 3DS might be the first real breakout hit for 3D electronics. Using a lenticular lens, Nintendo's new portable video game system will display 3D graphics without requiring glasses. Due to the screen's small size and the direct viewing angle by the user, glasses-less 3D technology becomes much easier to implement while maintaining its impressive display. Those who have been lucky enough to get their hands on a test device have sung high praise for the forthcoming portable console.

Chrome OS
When Google first started to get into operating system development, many people thought they were too far behind other OS developers who have been at it for years. Google proved everyone wrong with the success of Android and they are set to do it again in 2011 with Chrome OS. Chrome might already be familiar to some of you, as Google's web browser is almost ready for primetime as an entire PC software platform. The first Chrome OS laptop, called CR-48,was given away free to beta testers at the end of 2010 and you can bet on seeing more show up during 2011.

Chrome OS is a Linux operating system based on Ubuntu that only runs web applications. Some of the advantages of web apps include not needing to have software installed on each machine, lower PC spec requirements, easy integration into other systems and cross-platform compatibility.

What technology are you looking forward to during the coming year?