"From the continuing rise of tablet devices to the daily-deals craze and the return of the Internet IPO, 2011 has been a transformative year for technology.
The pace of change has become blisteringly fast, with traditional industries -- bookstores, video-rental chains, newspapers -- crumbling more quickly than we could have imagined.
Predicting what will happen in 2012, therefore, is a shot in the dark: A year is virtually a lifetime in the digital era. And yet we can at least make a guess at what will happen in the early part of next year simply by looking at the trends that are shaping the latter half of this year".
The Top 10 tech trends for 2012 - CNN.com