Tech to drive 2011 business trends

Tablets and augmented reality are in, laptops and software giants are out. That's part of the scenario that German business information technology experts SAP envision for 2011, says the Vancouver Sun.

Aggregating predictions and observations from a variety of IT market researchers, they're listing nine trends to emerge this year - beginning with an accelerating mania for smartphones and tablet-type computers that will grab as much as a third of the global market for personal computers by 2013.

Europe will have 82 million mobile Internet users by the end of this year, and by 2013, there will be more people around the world accessing the Internet by smartphones than by PCs.

Between the global economic downturn and stubborn unemployment, the past few years have not been kind to the workforce but now a new menace looms, writes Business Week.

At just five feet tall and 86 pounds, the HRP-4 may be the office grunt of tomorrow. The humanoid robot, developed by Tokyo-based Kawada Industries and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciences and Technology, is programmed to deliver mail, pour coffee, and recognise its co-workers' faces.

On 28 January, Kawada will begin selling it to research institutions and universities around the world for about $350 000. While that price may seem steep, consider that the HRP-4 doesn't goof around on Facebook, spend hours tweaking its fantasy football roster, or require a lunch break. Noriyuki Kanehira, the robotic systems manager at Kawada, believes the HRP-4 could easily take on a "secretarial role...in the near future." Sooner or later, he says, "humanoid robots can move [into] the office field."

Mere days after thousands flocked to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, a considerably smaller and more subdued tech crowd convened in Washington, according to the Washington Post.

The annual Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee technology exhibition brought out about two dozen companies to highlight emerging technologies that have government applications or personify policy debates that Congress is likely to tackle.

Research In Motion was on hand with its BlackBerry PlayBook, a tablet device that should appear on shelves early this year. The company's federal government director, Larry Silver, called Washington a ripe market; the town is dominated by BlackBerry smartphones, particularly on Capitol Hill. Silver said he's already in talks with several agencies, though he would not disclose them.