To round up the rest of the end of the year lists and continuing from last year’s theme of Tech predictions, I thought I’d throw in my two cents about my top predictions for the industry in the year 2011.

Year of the Tablet, Netbooks to be victim

With the arrival of the iPad in 2010, tablets exploded onto the scene with just about every manufacturer deciding they wanted a slice of the tablet pie. The problem was that up until the Samsung Galaxy Tab, there wasn’t a tablet that rivalled the iPad in terms of it’s style or indeed it’s user interface. Now it seems that Android has got it’s act together on the tablet front, expect a lot of very good tablets to come out and give the iPad a run for it’s money. It also looks like the iPad 2 will be announced in Q1 of 2011 so it’ll be intersting to see just what Apple have in store for it’s mega money maker.

Wii MUST go HD

The Wii has not had any upgrades to it’s graphical performance since it first launched in 2006 nearly five years ago. Last year Sony brought out it’s Move and Microsoft similarly with it’s Kinect. Both of these motion controlled consoles bring far superior graphics and it’s only time before developers jump on the opportunity of creating great titles for the two platforms. Third party titles for the Wii will continue to flop if they don’t get their act together on a new Wii but Nintendo’s own titles will still ship like hotcakes. That said, the Wii can no longer sit on it’s laurels and must bring out it’s next version of it’s popular console.

PSP will lose badly against the DS

With the imminent arrival of the 3DS sometime in 2011, the PSP will lose most of it’s foothold in the market. Hammered by 3DS sales on one side and the continued rise of mobile gaming on smartphones, I think it’ll quickly be on a hard downfall. Despite what is technically superior hardware compared to the standard DS, consumers picked casual gaming over hard core games and I think this trend will continue in 2011. There is one caveat in that the PSP-phone could change everything. If the rumors are true and indeed a fully fledged PSP is built into an Android phone, we could see one of the best gaming/mobile device mergers in years. Yes, even better than the Nokia N-Gage. Shocking, I know.

Chrome OS dies off – Android to be Universal

With regards to the much hyped Chrome OS, I think it’ll fizzle out quietly as the year goes on. Instead Google should follow suit with Apple and introduce Android universally across devices big and small. Chrome OS, although very much anticipated as was evident with the excitement of the CR-48, will ultimately not be as popular as Google will have hoped. Internet access just isn’t as universal as is necessary for a net-only notebook to be usable. If entire cities were blanketed in internet access then perhaps it would be a viable market for Google but it simply just isn’t for now. Just as the Android OS has taken off on tablets, perhaps we’ll get a merger of netbooks and tablets to form some kind of hybrid device. Touchscreen netbooks or tablets with a proper keyboard perhaps?

Flexible LED Screens flex their way in

During CES ’10 Samsung showed off some proof of concepts demonstrating the flexible LEd screens they’d been designing. This won’t hit the mainstream this year but don’t be surprised if we started to see the technology being demonstrated in TV’s and other smaller devices like consumer watches on a usable scale. Whilst Super AMOLED screens and the retina display seems to have hit the peak of mobile displays in terms of clarity, the next step forward in mobile displays will most likely be in energy efficiency. As many of you will know, one of the largest features on a smartphone that drains your battery is the screen so maybe changes in the display technology can solve this problem. By the end of the year, I’d expect to see some flexible LED screens used in commercial advertising but not quite hitting the mainstream consumer … yet.

NFC to be the next “in-thing”

In 2010 everyone was ranting and raving about the tablet and 3D making it’s come back. A bit of a wildcard of a guess but Near Field Communications could take the mobile market by storm this year. Quietly making it’s entrance onto the newer Android phones, NFC could transform the way we use smartphones with our environment. As clichéd as that might sound, we could be seeing the smart phone really being the one device for everything if it’s able to pay for your goods, working at airport terminals, acting as a ticket into sporting venues etc. We could even see advertising become personalised and directed towards the individual user if implemented everywhere.

SSD to become Solid in 2011

As new technologies grow and evolve, they become cheaper and more accessible. Just look at the standard hard drives that we have now and the pace at which capacities have increased and prices have fallen. A 1tb hard drive costs now what a 80 gb hard drive costs just a few years back. With that in mind, SSD will be the newest in thing making it’s way from netbooks over to larger notebooks in larger capacities and for a lower cost. We may even see SSD start to become the standard towards the end of the year just like how 320gb and 500gb hard drives became standard for most laptops this year.

3DTVs to become standard but no big deal

The 3D revolution really kicked off in 2010. There was 3D here, 3D there, 3D in movies which we really didn’t want to be in 3D. It was also the year where 3D TVs didn’t take off despite the marketing push and I think that comes down to cost and incentive. The technology is not quite there and although I think it’ll get better in 2011, I don’t think it’ll be enough to wow us. Secondly the price was just too high for something that was more a gimmick than a serious entertainment option. I think in the coming year, 3D TVs won’t be the main stand out for TVs but rather be built in as an added feature just as HD TV was advertised. So don’t be surprised if the wording all of a sudden changed to “3D Ready TV” and then a bunch of other marketing malarky added on the side.

Cyber Warefare to make big impact

With WikiLeaks being the biggest story at the tail end of 2010, it gives 2011 an interesting twist that not many people will have anticipated. WikiLeaks will continue to rumble on and so will Julian Assange, however with the initial impact over, it won’t be as high key as before. There’ll be a springing of other WikiLeaks-like website and although they’ll claim big, they’ll ultimately fizzle into mediocrity. Instead I think it’s time for Cyber Warfare to hit the mainstream in a big way. The DDoS attacks on corporations of last year will continue but at some point this year, there will be a massive attack on some government that will catch them totally unawares springing outcry from mainstream non-tech savvy press about the digital revolution and our impending doom. The gun has been there for a while and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone pulled the trigger.

Google gets Social

Google Buzz was quite the flop this year as it struggled to emulate the model that Twitter had set upon the world. It’s previous social product, Google Wave, also didn’t fare well as it died in 2010 with a small fizzle. So what makes me think that Google will go back to Social? Well they sort of have to. Where else was the traffic last year but at Facebook and Twitter? I think these two companies will continue to get stronger and Google will have to implement social networking into  their business somehow. Personally I think it’ll come through Android, as so many devices will be powered on Android next year, maybe we’ll get a social network of just Android users?

So that’s the end of the predictions this year. Ten predictions which may or may not come true but whatever happens, here’s to hoping that 2011 is a fantastic year for not just the tech industry but for all.