2011 sure was a blast for all the technology enthusiasts all over. But what’s going to be in store for us this year? Well, we’ll see many improvements and innovations across the spectrum, with some interesting new products and lower prices.
Already having made quite a splash with the Second Generation Core processors (aka Sandy Bridge) Intel plans to expand its hold of the market with the 22nm Ivy Bridge processors launching in April, which improve both processing and graphics performance over current processors, while simultaneously reducing power consumption. Accompanying these processors will be the next-gen motherboards with next-gen interfaces. This is really good news for both the desktop and laptop users.
AMD’s set to launch its new Radeon 7000 series graphics cards around the 9th of January, while Nvidia’s 600 series cards follow in the second quarter of the year.
On the storage front, I have mixed news to deliver. Hard drive prices may stabilise and eventually fall, but it’ll take quite some time for that. Meanwhile, Seagate and Western Digital are cutting down on the warranty period for all drives shipped after January 2. Hitachi, though, thinks it’s a great time to introduce a $400 4TB drive. Blazingly fast solid state drives (SSD) should continue to see improved performance and lower costs. We should also see more manufacturers launching these drives in India.
However, all this hardware must be put to good use by software, and with Microsoft releasing the Windows 8 beta for public use in February, we also expect to see the next version of Windows on phones and tablets and even on the PC by fall 2012.
Windows 8 and high-end hardware will eventually combine to form Intel’s “ultra”-book laptop form factor, which apparently will feature swivelling touch-screen displays and over 8 hours of battery life. AMD will also be pushing ultra-thin notebooks using its own processors.
Undeniably, most hardware and software companies are increasing their focus on the mobile and tablet market. AMD and Intel are likely to compete with ARM and Nvidia, while Windows Phone 7.5 Mango (and probably even version 8) will look to give competition to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and iOS 5. Microsoft will also launch its own app store, and is reportedly releasing a portable version of Office.
Apple will go ahead with the release of the iPad 3, and will reportedly offer the iPad 2 as a lower-end option to compete with the Kindle Fire. Some other manufacturers have expressed their desire to pull out from the tablet market; however Acer reportedly will continue to launch new products.
Google and Apple may launch TV sets with integrated operating systems, while LG and Intel plan to launch TVs supporting integrated support for HD video streaming over Wi-Fi, the technology is called as WiDi.
So let’s see what new year brings!