Wayne Williams

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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http://youtu.be/T8nJKWJTsUg

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.

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Bing is a decent search engine, and the daily images that adorn its homepage are always worth a look. Late last week the Bing team announced the ten most popular homepage images for 2013, which includes an aerial view of Gardens by the Bay and the Super Trees in Singapore City, a night shot of Mount Shasta in California, a mangrove seen from underwater in the Seychelles, and Lulworth Cove along the Jurassic Coast, in England. As well as showing off the pictures, the Bing team provides a link so you can download them for use as desktop wallpaper.

If you’d prefer to have the images cycling in a screensaver, the Bing team has now made that possible too, in the form of a new 13MB "Wallpaper & Screensaver" Pack.

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It’s been a long time coming, but finally Apple announces it has entered into a multi-year agreement to bring the iPhone to China Mobile, the world's largest mobile network.

As part of the agreement, the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will be available from China Mobile's extensive network of retail stores, as well as Apple’s own retail locations across mainland China, beginning on Friday, January 17, 2014. Pre-registration to get a handset will begin 25 December.

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Christmas is nearly here, and Santa is getting ready for his yearly round of toy deliveries. Of course the days of making wooden soldiers and spinning tops are long gone -- kids today want more hi-tech gear, and Saint Nicholas has had to move with the times.

He no longer has to rely entirely on hand delivering everything in a reindeer powered sleigh either, thanks to advances in parcel delivery like the Hyperloop inspired YuleTube or the Amazon Drone-style Gift-o-Copters, and optical camouflage technology ensures Santa will remain virtually invisible while making deliveries (and enjoying furtive kisses with mommy underneath the mistletoe).

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Privacy has been a hot topic throughout 2013 and it’s always worth taking a little time to make sure you’re not accidentally sharing more information with the world than you might want to. Microsoft’s tiled operating system comes with some handy privacy controls baked in that you should definitely take a look at if you haven’t already.

This feature won’t stop the NSA spying on you, but it can prevent apps from accessing personal details like your name, photo, location and account info, and prevent them from using your PC or tablet's camera and microphone without your knowledge.

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It’s probably no surprise to hear that the newly released PlayStation 4 and Xbox One both consume a lot of power, despite touting a number of new energy-saving features. According to the NRDC’s (Natural Resources Defense Council) Center for Energy Efficiency, the higher performance and always-on features result in the consoles using up to three times as much energy per year as their predecessors.

Video game consoles in the United States are projected to use more electricity annually than all the households in Houston, America’s fourth-largest city, but it’s not just playing games, or watching movies that’s using power (and draining your bank account in the process). Much of the Xbox One's operating costs come from the console waiting for you to speak to it.

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The finished version of Windows 8.1 has been out for a couple of months now, but if you’re still using the free preview build, time is running out. Windows 8.1 Preview and Windows RT 8.1 Preview are both set to expire on January 15.

Upgrading from the preview to the final GA release is very easy, and there are a couple of ways of doing it.

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Christmas has come early for anyone looking to buy Apple’s all-new Mac Pro as the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant announces its striking desktop system will be available to order beginning Thursday, December 19. Act fast, and you could take one home tomorrow.

The new Mac Pro features the latest Intel Xeon processors, dual workstation-class GPUs, PCIe-based flash storage and ultra-fast ECC memory, and is available in two configurations, with prices starting from $2,999.

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So Windows 8.1 is finally here and although it is a massive improvement over its predecessor (I recently had to install Windows 8 on a laptop and couldn’t believe how bad it is in comparison), Microsoft’s new Start button really isn’t what a lot of people were hoping for.

If you want to enjoy the benefits of the new operating system without being bothered by the Modern UI there are lots of alternative third-party options available. And when I say lots, I mean it. Some cost money, others are free. I’ll list my favorite three and then suggest some others to try if those don’t appeal.

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What do you get the person who has everything (except good taste) for Christmas? How about an Xbox One plated in real gold?

Yes, forget your gold iPhone, with its fake, not actually gold coloring, London department store Harrods is selling a special luxury edition of Microsoft's latest games console plated in 24-karat yellow metal, buffed to a high shine.

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I know what you’re thinking -- BetaNews doesn’t need yet another Start button/menu story surely! But actually, I think we do, so bear with me. My colleague Brian Fagioli believes that Microsoft most definitely shouldn’t restore the Start menu in a future version of Windows, and in fact wants the OS to run "legacy" (aka desktop) software full screen like a Modern app. Mark Wilson on the other hand, thinks Microsoft should re-introduce the menu and leave the Modern UI to tablets.

Both are interesting viewpoints, and the comments accompanying the articles show that there’s a firm split in opinion among Windows users. But the Start button and menu isn’t a magic bullet. Adding it to Windows 8.2, aka "Threshold", or even bringing it back to Windows 8.1 as a mini update, as some tech watchers have suggested could happen, won’t save the day. There’s too much negativity surrounding the tiled OS -- and that’s what Microsoft really needs to work to fix.

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If you’ve been putting off buying Microsoft’s slate until the price dropped a little, now’s your chance to pick up a bargain. As part of a holiday deal at the Microsoft Store, the devices and services giant has slashed $200 off the price of the 64GB version of the first-generation Surface Pro, and $220 off the 128GB model.

This brings the price of the 64GB slate down to $599 from $799. The larger capacity model is now $679, as opposed to $899. The price of the Touch Cover has been reduced to $49.99 also, so you may want to pick one of those up at the same time. The price includes free shipping and free returns.

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According to Microsoft watcher Paul Thurrott, Windows 8.2, or "Threshold" as it’s apparently being referred to internally at Microsoft, could see the return of the Start menu for desktop users. "After bringing back the Start button in Windows 8.1, Microsoft will take the next logical step in the next Windows version and make the Start menu available as an option. It's possible this will appear only on those product versions that support the desktop", claims Thurrott. He also suggests Threshold will allow users to run some Modern UI apps on the desktop, as you can using ModernMix.

The absence of a real Start button and menu is seen by many as one of the main reasons why Windows 8.x is doing so badly. The Start button and Apps screen in Windows 8.1 is -- for me -- a great compromise, but it seems many consumers would rather just have things back how they were, and if Thurrott is right those disgruntled users might finally get their wish when Threshold arrives sometime in 2015. Don’t want to wait that long to get a proper Start menu in Windows 8.x? The good news is there are plenty of quality third-party options available now.

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