Wayne Williams

A couple of days ago, Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Marketing, Strategy and Business, Xbox, announced that Microsoft had sold over three million Xbox One consoles to date, across 13 countries. "It’s been incredible to see Xbox One selling at a record-setting pace for Xbox, and we were honored to see Xbox One become the fastest-selling console in the US during our launch month in November", he said. A million consoles were purchased on 22 November -- launch day -- and the second million was racked up 18 days later.

However, while Microsoft still has plenty to celebrate, Sony’s just dropped a rather large bombshell at CES. Its rival console is not only selling slightly better -- it’s selling an awful lot better.

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While the rest of the tech world is announcing hot new products at CES, Apple has chosen this time to reveal some app sales figures in the hope of generating a little press of its own. As you’d expect the numbers it’s offering today are pretty spectacular.

In December iOS users downloaded almost three billion apps, which Apple says makes it the most successful month in the history of the App Store.

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There are some near console-quality games available on the iPad, so it makes sense to have a console grade controller to play them with. Gaming peripherals and accessories maker SteelSeries today introduces the Stratus, a wireless gaming controller specifically designed for devices running iOS 7.

The controller, which claims 10+ hours of battery-life (and takes two hours to charge), connects to your iPhone or iPad using Bluetooth, freeing up Wi-Fi so you can play the games on the big screen via AppleTV using AirPlay Mirroring.

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Lenovo is making lots of announcements today, chief among them being the new ThinkPad X1 Carbon 14-inch Ultrabook. Designed using carbon fiber (which is lighter than magnesium and aluminum but stronger than both), the X1 Carbon weighs just 2.8 lbs, making it the lightest 14-inch Ultrabook in the world.

The X1 Carbon features the Adaptive Keyboard, which dynamically adjusts based on the software or application being used, and also integrates voice and gesture control. The PC comes with an improved ColorBurst Display which, according to Lenovo, "provides sharper, brighter images at higher resolutions with better viewing angles for a superior visual experience".

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First in a series. Every week thousands of great new iOS apps arrive in the App Store. These range from big name games to tiny gems hoping to build up a following by word of mouth. A trip into the app store can be a world of discovery, but it’s an area we’ve somewhat neglected in the past here at BetaNews.

Well that’s set to change. Every Friday I’ll highlight the best new apps of the week -- both free and paid -- for iPhone and iPad. I’ll cover the biggest releases, naturally, but also endeavor to pull out some new or recently updated apps that you likely won’t be aware of.

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Three days ago I wrote about Flurry’s findings regarding tablet activations on Christmas day. As was expected, Amazon enjoyed a massive 24x bump, and Apple and Samsung activations, while far less spectacular, both doubled. Flurry only covered those three firms and Acer, so there was no way of knowing how well other manufacturers had fared.

Today online advertising network Chitika releases its report, the result of examining post-Christmas changes in North American web traffic share, and this shows usage gains from Amazon, a minor drop from Apple, and -- perhaps most surprisingly -- strong gains for Microsoft’s Surface range.

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Winamp was a massively popular media player in the nineties, but it withered under AOL’s ownership, and failed to move with the times. Few people were surprised when a month ago AOL finally decided to cut its losses, announcing that, starting December 20 2013, the site and associated cloud services, including Shoutcast, would no longer be available to the public.

A petition to save the media player garnered close to 50,000 signatures, and Spotify created a fun tribute called Spotiamp, but the writing looked to be firmly on the wall for Winamp, despite rumors that Microsoft was interested in saving the service. Today it appears that Winamp has indeed found a savior, but it’s not one that anyone was expecting.

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Great news for fans of Windows 8 and 8.1, Microsoft’s divisive operating system has finally claimed 10 percent of the desktop market. According to NetMarketShare, which monitors such things, in December Windows 8 lost 0.01 percent share, but Windows 8.1 grew by 0.86 percent. Windows 8 now has 6.65 percent of the market and Windows 8.1 is sitting on 3.5 percent, bringing the OS’s combined share to 10.15 percent. Great job Windows 8.x.

However, as seems to regularly be the case, the new operating system’s gain was dwarfed by that of its elder sibling. Windows 7 put on a growth spurt that’s nothing short of stunning.

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As you’ll have noticed by now, the BetaNews writers have been making tech-based resolutions for the New Year. This is something I did last year, and revisiting my post for the first time since I originally wrote it, I discovered what I suspected would be the case -- I failed miserably across the board.

I said I would embrace Google+, but I haven’t. I’ve followed some people, and used Google’s social network slightly more, but embraced it? Nope. I said I’d change my passwords. I changed maybe two. I claimed I’d sort out my inbox. It was 79 percent full (8GB) then. It’s 74 percent full (11.19GB) now, so that’s a big fat fail. I said I’d learn to love Windows 8. I never did. I do really like Windows 8.1 though, so I'll claim that as a win. I stated I’d move my data to the cloud, and learn to program. I think you can guess how well those panned out. While a lot of my files are stored in the cloud, I still have multiple local copies of everything, and I haven’t programmed so much as a single line of code. So for this year’s list, I’m going to choose resolutions I believe I can actually achieve.

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Unsurprisingly tablets proved to be a very popular gift this Christmas. According to mobile measurement firm Flurry, device activations were up by 63 percent on Christmas day, compared to any other average day in December.

Flurry’s activation figures cover Amazon, Apple, Acer, and Samsung and reveal an interesting trend. While all four tech firms enjoyed a major bump on the day, activations were much lower this year than in the previous two years.

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The Internet Archive has launched a new section on its website dedicated to the games consoles of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Called The Console Living Room, it provides information on many of the systems you might have owned in the past including the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, ColecoVision, Magnavox Odyssey (or Philips Videopac G700, if you live in Europe) and the Astrocade.

It’s a fascinating trip down memory lane, but that’s not the best part. You can also play the majority of the big games from those consoles in your browser -- for free!

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Windows 8.1 is a great operating system. So if you received it for Christmas, either as a boxed copy, or installed on a new PC or tablet, the first thing to do is not -- as some people will say -- swap it for Windows 7.

If you are going to be running the new OS on a tablet, or on a system with a touch screen, then it’s fine to use pretty much as is. If you’re using it on a desktop, or non-touch laptop however, there are some customizations worth performing to make it more suited to your needs.

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Yesterday my colleague Mihaita Bamburic presented his list of the year’s top tech products, which included some obvious big choices, most notably Windows 8.1, iPad Air, Surface 2 and the Xbox One.

My list could easily be a carbon copy of his, after all the biggest tech products are hits for a reason, and despite not being a fan of Windows 8, I really like its successor, and would happily own both the iPad Air and Surface 2 if funds allowed. But I wanted to approach my selection slightly differently by avoiding products which featured on Mihaita’s list, and focusing on items I’ve bought (or been sent) and have used extensively. These are the tech products I’ve really appreciated the most this year.

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The PC market might still be in the doldrums, but there’s good news in the screen department at least. After three quarters of solid decline, the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker finally reports some growth.

Although year-over-year growth was down -8.6 percent in 3Q13, due to the ongoing decline in PC sales, monitor shipments topped more than 35 million units, 1.2 million over the forecast, and showed an increase of 4.5 percent compared to the previous quarter.

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Good commercials can do several things. They can entertain you, endear you to the brand, and make you covet the product they are trying to sell. The new Samsung Galaxy Gear video does none of those things.

My colleague Alan Buckingham watched the video and declared Samsung Galaxy Gear wants to improve your social life. My impression is slightly different. The guy wearing the watch is a major creep with stalker tendencies. He gets the girl at the end of the video, sure, but to be honest, I fear for her safety. Here’s how the sinister events unfold.

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