We'll probably never forget it - late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on stage on March 2, 2011, proclaiming that 2011 will be the "Year of iPad 2." And arguably, 2011 was the year of the iPad 2 - or at least tablets in general. Apple sold millions and millions of units of the iPad 2, while competitors such as Research in Motion and HP, simply put, failed at their tablet devices.

With a little less than 24 hours left in 2011, it's time to think about 2012. Putting all of the "oh no! The world's going to end on December 21, 2012" rumors aside, what will 2012 be the year of (in terms of technology)? We've seen the rise of the Internet, the rise of the PC, the rise of the smartphone and most recently, the tablet. What's left?

First off, Facebook will reach one billion members in 2012. While that's a huge milestone right there, alongside Twitter and Google+ gaining millions of users, we're seeing the end of the initial social networking "boom." There are only so many people who want to be on social networks, and chances are, those people already are. With that being said, we're just entering the time of social networking - advancements in how we interact with friends and family online are only beginning.

Will 2012 be the year of the Ultrabook? There's no doubt that desktop PCs weren't big sellers this holiday season - their time has come and gone. Laptops were likely slightly better, but people still want the newest and greatest "thing" (whatever that is). When describing what an ultrabook is, it's best to just say "MacBook Air." It's a light, extremely portable computer that still packs a lot of power for end-users. And truly, Apple seems to be one of the few companies that have the ultrabook down right. 2012 may see a lot of new companies, such as HP, Acer, Asus, etc., building light, extremely portable machines for consumers.

Will 2012 be the year of the cloud? Over the past couple of years, you've probably heard the term "cloud" more than once. It's a word that can mean a lot of things (and often used incorrectly), but the general idea is the ability to build a platform that can be easily scaled on demand. We've seen the cloud integrated into services such as iCloud, and even web hosting with Amazon Elastic Cloud services. Despite the fact that cloud computing has been around for a couple of years now, 2012 may just be the beginning of the next-generation of the cloud - the ability to take everything that you own (files, emails, etc.) on any device and just go. We've already seen this with iCloud, but it could be integrated into a much larger scale as well.

Will 2012 be the year of Windows 8? Microsoft will be releasing its next desktop operating system, Windows 8, sometime in 2012, and boy is it a big change! Windows 8 brings unification between the tablet and the desktop, a concept that we haven't really seen (at least implemented) since now. It takes the Metro user interface that Microsoft seems to absolutely love and brings it to the desktop, replacing the entire way we use Windows. Due to the fact that a majority of users still haven't played around with Windows 8 (or even heard about it), it's going to be interesting to see how people react to the big change.

Will 2012 be the year of 3D TV? Over the past year, several tech giants have been taking a shot at 3D television and while nearly each has succeeded, not many have done well in terms of sales. While you shouldn't expect a huge drop in prices of 3D TVs just yet, you should expect a huge advancement in the technology of them (maybe so you don't have to wear those funky glasses?) and maybe even see some in everyday households. But for now, the world is still trying to adopt OLED (organic LED displays) and those seem to be at least a year away.

Will 2012 be the year of the copyright? Hear us out on this one - copyrights have been out for ages now, but keeping in mind everything with the recent "Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)," things may be changing, changing fast and drastically. SOPA aims to end online piracy and while its intentions are certainly good-hearted, this isn't the way to end piracy on the Internet. It would give corporate entities too much power, and even partially go against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But if this passes (and even if it doesn't), Internet users can expect to see a lot of changes with how intellectual property is shard online. We're slowly passing the time of being able to illegally download nearly everything you need off of the Internet and companies are beginning to punish those who do. You can read more about SOPA here.

What do you think 2012 be the year of? Let us know in the comments below!