Legal battles, multi-million takeovers, boardroom shuffles, and of course a raft of new gadgets, 2011 has been a big year for the world of tech. As we prepare to wave goodbye to 2011 and embrace 2012, T3 looks back at the headline-grabbing stories that shaped the past twelve months.

Can you remember when we first saw the Samsung Galaxy S2 or when Angry Birds was knocked off its perch? Jog your memory with T3's tech year in review. It was nice knowing you 2011...

2011 Tech year in review: January

6-9
CES 2012: the annual Vegas tech-fest sees the BlackBerry PlayBook and Motorola Xoom vie for title of best tablet, while Samsung’s Smart TV offering is the pick of the 3D tellies

6
Apple launches the Mac App Store. One million bits of code rushed to Mac owners’ desktops in the ensuing 24 hours

15
Online encyclopedia Wikipedia celebrates its ninth birthday. Edited for accuracy: tenth birthday

16
Two months after finally landing on iTunes, loveable mop-top beat combo “The Beatles” top five million downloads

17
Steve Jobs takes a medical leave of absence from Apple

21
Larry Page replaces his replacement, Eric Schmidt, as Google CEO

27
Sony announces the PlayStation NGP, which then becomes the Sony PS Vita. UK release: space year 2012