2011 is already shaping up to be an interesting year for tech.

The long-awaited Chrome OS will say hello and many of the tablets we were promised in 2010 will actually turn up; smartphones will get smarter and Facebook and Google will no doubt do something sinister or annoying.

But what are the key trends to watch in 2011? The following 10 trends, we think, will be a really big deal.

 

Oh, 2010. It was glorious, but thank the almighty prancing unicorn in the sky that it’s over. It was the year of the iPad, really. Steve Jobs took to the stage of Moscone Center, sat down, and proceeded to show the world how he wanted us to interact with the Internet — several million consumers followed suit immediately. But there was so much more, too! Of course, not everyone had as good year as Apple. Or Roku. Or Amazon. Some companies and products didn’t fare so well and they’re probably looking to the riches that will (hopefully) be made in 2011.

Look at Android tablets, netbooks, cable companies and even Windows Home server, Google TV, and the TV show Lost. All losers in the game of Life, 2010 Edition. But no worries. 2011 is tomorrow and the Internet is a kind soul who’s quick to forget past blunders as long as future ventures result positively. It’s just too bad that what happened in 2010 will likely happen in 2011. It’s going to be more of the same. Sorry if I’m the one to tell you this; that’s the way it works ’round here.
Winners: Apple launched the iPad and weathered Antennagate while retooling nearly their entire line. Impressive. An updated MacBook Air that’s lighter, thin and cheaper? Alright, fine. A new Apple TV that brings content from iOS devices into the living room without centralized storage. Sounds good. 12-Core Mac Pros? 10 hour battery life on MacBook Pros? An iPod that can double as a wrist watch? Beatles in iTunes? Yeah, Apple had a good year and it’s just not the products that demonstrate that. The bean counters are mighty happy, too.

 NVIDIA announced today the immediate availability of the NVIDIA NVS 300 Business Graphics Solution, a graphics processor designed for the enterprise that delivers exceptional visual fidelity across up to eight displays while consuming minimal power. With nearly 25 percent more efficient power utilization, the NVS 300 graphics processor is designed for mission-critical applications ranging from command and control centers, to securities trading floors, to digital signage installations.

 No, it's not a mini-disc music player, it's not a powder compact either, but a new wireless mouse by ASUS, which intends to take on Apple's Magic Mouse, which gives users a touch surface apart from being a pointing device. ASUS' WD-XL, as it's called, sports a perfectly round shape, with a slight tilt when placed on its tracking surface. One of its lead designers is Danish design house David Lewis, which also worked on ASUS' NX90 designer notebook.

Need a new tower for your desktop or workspace? Lenovo has a new one to consider. The ThinkCentre M75e Small Form Factor and ThinkCentre M75e Tower have just been announced, both of which are generally aimed at enterprise customers but could definitely work in just about any place of business, including your home office.

 With NVIDIA 3DTV Play software, any compatible NVIDIA GeForce® GPU-powered system can be connected to a HDMI 1.4 3D HDTV.  The combination enables users to view 3D photos and videos, and play nearly 500 games in breathtaking 3D environments, including StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Mafia II, and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

 Asus is the netbook king. Does anyone deny it? The company's Eee PC line has been around for as long as the term "netbook" has been around, and while computer fads come and go, the Eee PC line keeps right on growing. The "Seashell" group has been joined by another member today, with Asus introducing the Eee PC 1015PN as their latest miniature notebook.

THE SUPER HIGH-END motherboard market doesn't seem to have an upper limit when it comes to slots, features and gimmicks, and MSI's latest model, the Big Bang XPower is no exception to that rule. Some of you might be disappointed to know that it doesn't feature Lucid's Hydra chip, but on the other hand, it doesn't have an nForce 200 chip either, yet it has no less than six PCI Express x16 slots.

Chinese graphics card manufacturer ColorFire designed a new non-reference design AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics card that that uses a stronger VRM and a Zalman VF-3000 GPU cooler. The PCB sets the red color-scheme, and the cooler keeps up with it, using a hot rod looking shroud. The card uses a 7+1 phase VRM that draws power from two 6-pin power connectors, facilitating high clock speeds. The PCB also holds two CFBI fingers, indicating the card to support 3-way and 4-way CrossFireX. Low-latency (0.5 ns) GDDR5 memory chips by Hynix are used.

Break out your party hats and spike the punch, we're throwing a 'Welcome Back' party. The guest of honor is Dell's XPS brand, whose return is marked by a new family of laptops built around Intel's Calpella platform and featuring Nvidia's Optimus technology. At this point you're probably scratching your head and wondering if we've been drinking too much punch ourselves, because the XPS brand never went anywhere, right? That's both true and false. The XPS moniker never died off completely, but it was relegated to Dell's Studio line and XPS One all-in-one (AIO) desktops for a time.