Gadgetory

and most of these videos I stand up here and reel off five products that are great for some reason or another but this week we're going to step back and look at the big picture products come and go but if you really want to know is going on in the tech world it's all about spotting the trends so here's a look back at what I personally think were the big tech trends that define 2012 starting off at number five Virtual Assistants Syria made his debut on the iPhone in October of 2011 the 2012 was the year when all the competitors struck back Google now Samsung S boys vlingo Robin we're actually having conversations with our gadgets now and it's kind of freaking me out that this isn't freaking me out anymore at number 4 convertible laptops and hybrid tablets with the rollout of Windows 8 we're seeing a whole new crop of laptops that flip around into tablets and tablets that have snap on keyboards I can't tell this is the evolution of the laptop or just an awkward identity crisis but the idea of a laptop without a touch screen now is starting to feel a little old-school coming in at number 3 4g now 4G has been with us for a while but 2012 was a year where it really went mainstream you almost couldn't buy a smartphone in 2012 that wasn't 4G compatible especially after the iphone got onboard 4g is finally becoming the norm we've got a nice little window here before everyone starts talking about 5g at number two phablets more than a phone less than a tablet and the best indicator of an inferiority complex is the invention of truck nuts Samsung introduced the 5.3 inch Galaxy Note in February and then a 5.5 inch Galaxy Note 2 in October we laughed at first but this is a thing now your smartphone can be as big as your face and people will just think you're cutting edge now before we get to number 1 i'd like to point out a trend that everyone predicted with dominate 2012 but didn't the cloud everything was supposed to be sucked up into the cloud like some kind of tech rapture but nothing much changed to be fair an invisible cloud of data is kind of a hard thing to notice so maybe we're in the cloud right now kind of feels like a cloud and finally the number one tech trend of 2012 was 7-inch tablets now this one was pretty easy to spot from 2011 when Amazon had their Kindle Fire and it became an instant holiday hit and then Google hit back with the Nexus 7 and then amazon came back with four other kindle fires and then Barnes & Noble stuffed up with the nook and then of course the ipad mini not only did the 7-inch tablet blossom in 2012 but there's a good reason to believe that this might be the dominant tablet size from here on out so there you go the five tech trends that I personally think that the most of shape 2012 but that's just scratching the surface for an exhaustive list of the year's most important developments in tech take a look at the cnet 100 it's a collaboration from all of cnet's editors more top fives like this head over to top 5 cnet com you can also follow me on Twitter I'm Donal Bell thanks for watching