As technology users welcome 2012 everywhere, it’s clear the year that had just passed was filled with no little controversy and memorable incidents.

From Steve Jobs’ death to the delay of the much-awaited iPhone 5, from the rise of Android devices to Nokia’s return with its Windows Phone devices, and finally, with the potent mix of mobile devices and social media that  helped ignite protests in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, but also encouraged the thuggery of the London riots, 2011 was a big year in technology.

The next 12 months look to be just as interesting, as existing technologies mature and grow, while other new trends emerge. Here are five things to look out for in 2012: …

Couch potatoes in Singapore will find it easier to switch pay-TV operators come March 2012, when new rules unveiled today kick in to prevent operators from locking in users with long-term or punitive subscription plans.

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Walk into a Japanese phone store just a few years ago and you’d likely see lots of “locally-made” models by manufacturers like NEC, Fujitsu, Sharp and Panasonic. Branded as phones by NTT DoCoMo or other telcos in the land, these phones often sported the familiar clamshell design with an ultra-thin frame.

Turn up in Japan now, years after the Apple iPhone first made it as a successful “foreign-made” device, and you’ll easily spot a Samsung Galaxy SII and Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Arc among the most popular of all smartphones.

While the clamshell smartphone still has its place in a corner of the store, the obvious hot choice for many Japanese consumers now is big-screen touch-based models. Not surprising, considering that there are more phone users than PC users in the country and many use the phone to surf the Net instead of the PC.

Here’s a look at some of the interesting models Techgoondu saw on a recent trip to an NTT DoCoMo shop in Tokyo. Unfortunately, many of them are either not here yet in Singapore, or likely won’t make it here. …

The digital war room at Encompass Singapore at Loyang Cresent

You shoot a video on site in Los Angeles during the day.

By evening, the unedited footage is sent to a backend processing center in Asia, where they proceed to work on it till the wee hours of the morning.

By morning, the video is ready to be distributed all around the world.

This is the promise of what an interconnected world can do. Similar to the outsourcing of call centres to India, the media industry is shifting work — like backend content formatting and distribution – to Asia.

And this digital media industry is booming.

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Driving a bulldozer over a bunch of illegal set-top boxes seems to be part of the job of an assistant vice-president in StarHub these days, a photo that we just received from the company appears to suggest.

We’re told later that AVP for pay-TV services, Andrea Tay, didn’t really operate the bulldozer – because you need a licence for that – but instead she was posing as part of a StarHub campaign to show how it is dealing with the persistent threat of pirated pay-TV boxes.

At a Kranji recycling company this morning, the company destroyed about 3oo set-top boxes bound for Singapore homes. According to a StarHub spokesman, they were intercepted at various customs checkpoints on separate occasions and rounded up for destruction today, though she declined to say when these boxes were picked up.  …

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Have the past 12 months just zoomed by?

Unfortunately, they have passed before we had a chance to look back in wonder. If there’s something last minute that you haven’t done in 2010, there are less than 24 hours left today to get it done.

One thing that Techgoondu will be doing is to move to a new server host, which will offer faster access to readers who come to this site for news, commentary and insights into the latest tech happenings. …

After years of talking about it, Singapore’s number three telco finally joined the market for pay-TV services on Thursday with a relatively safe and small lineup of TV programmes, along with a slate of casual games for the family.

While M1′s service does not have the stellar A-list of football or movie content, its success or failure in pay-TV could be a test of how competitive Singapore’s new telecom landscape will be, after being reshaped with new next-gen broadband services and changes to exclusive pay-TV content deals this year. …

Singapore will be running a S$5 million, year-long trial of 3D TV from today, just months after the first 3D TVs started going on sale here at retail stores.

The trial will be run by broadcasters SingTel, StarHub and Mediacorp, said Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Lui Tuck Yew, at the opening of the CommunicAsia show this morning. …

No, it is not SingTel and StarHub you should be angry with. Nor should you fret that the S$66 package – at about S$1-a-match – to watch the World Cup on the telly is four times more than what you had paid in 2006.

Rather, the best reason to switch off from next month’s football extravaganza is because you, the Singapore football fan, have been taken for a ride.

And unless you vote with your remote, prices for sports programming and other pay-TV offerings in future will go further north, after these World Cup deals announced last Friday. …

Singapore football fans are finally getting all the live matches for World Cup 2010, after the country almost ended up as one of a handful that could not reach a deal with FIFA to broadcast the world’s biggest football show.

In the end, StarHub and StarHub are said to have ironed out a deal that will cost them about US$15 million (S$21 million), which is half the S$40 million asking price that had been reported earlier. …