Smartphones, tablets and other gadgets get updated incredibly fast these days. If you want to stay on the cutting edge, and be assured of always having the latest features, and fastest technology, you need to keep upgrading, which leaves the question of what to do with your old tech.

Sell it on eBay, is a fairly obvious solution and now the auction site has officially opened a new service which will make it even easier to do exactly that. eBay My Gadgets is currently only available on the US version of eBay, but will hopefully be made available internationally soon.

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I’m not the sort of person who gets excited about monitors. It’s what’s on the screen that matters after all. However, I have to say Acer’s new line up of LED display models has me salivating. In fact I had to turn down the offer of a review unit because I knew I wouldn’t want to give it back afterwards.

The three models boast up to an ultra-high 2560 by 1440 WQHD resolution and offer large 27 and 29 inch screens for multitasking, and viewing two images at once -- so they can be used to replace a multi-monitor set-up if you desire.

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The PC as we know it is dying, and tablets are unquestionably where the sales are right now. As a result, vendors and retailers are clamoring to pull in the consumers by ramping up their advertising spend and exposure.

In Q2 2013, according to data gathered by analyst firm gap intelligence, vendors and retailers placed a total of 771 tablet ads in print media in the US, up 266 from the same quarter last year, and while 83 percent of the adverts were for Android tablets, Windows devices made a big splash, accounting for 12 percent of all ads. When new products launch, or sales aren't great -- both true in this case -- it's quite typical to see an increase in ad spending in order to reach as many consumers as possible.

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Worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 435 million units in the second quarter of 2013, according to Gartner, notching up a moderate 3.6 percent increase over the 420 million units sold in the same period last year.

The big news however, is smartphone sales finally exceeded those of feature phones, with the former selling 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from the 153 million sold in the second quarter of 2012, and the latter managing just 210 million units for a 21 percent drop year-over-year.

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Like many British people, I grew up with Doctor Who. Looking back, some of the episodes of my youth that had me hiding behind the settee in fear were laughable rather than scary, but back then we didn’t know any better. Doctor Who these days though is a much more polished affair, with better effects, more convincing aliens and improved storytelling.

If you’re a fan of the Doctor and have always dreamed of going on adventures in his TARDIS but have never been lucky enough to have the iconic blue police box materialise in front of you, now is your chance thanks to Google and a hidden Street View Easter egg.

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Microsoft is facing a class action suit brought by law firm Robbins Geller on behalf of purchasers of Microsoft Corporation common stock during the period between April 18, 2013 and July 18, 2013 (the "Class Period").

According to the suit, during the stated period, Microsoft "issued materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company’s financial performance and its tablet computer, the Surface RT" -- or to put it in laymen's terms, the company lied about the poor demand and sales of Surface RT, and about the earnings related to the tablet.

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Windows 8.1 will likely hit the RTM milestone in the next couple of weeks but a new version of the forthcoming operating system -- build 9471 -- has leaked onto the internet, revealing a few interesting changes and additions to the official Windows 8.1 Preview released two months ago.

Don’t expect a genuine Start button, or a raft of exciting new apps -- Microsoft isn’t about to reinvent the wheel this close to RTM. However, the software giant has introduced one big new addition which might appeal to anyone thinking of migrating to the tiled OS, as well as a selection of smaller changes.

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This week Microsoft rolled out two new video adverts -- one pitting Surface RT against the iPad, and the other putting the Acer Iconia W3 next to the iPad mini. The adverts follow the same format as previously with a side by side look at the features on offer.

Of course the comparisons aren’t fair. Microsoft picks areas where its tablet/operating system is strongest, and avoids the areas where it’s weakest -- apps and popularity, for example. It’s a lot like comparing apples with oranges (or, yes, lemons in the case of poorly selling Windows devices) and then pointing out that it’s easy to peel an orange, but you need to buy a separate peeler to accomplish the same task on an apple.

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The worldwide PC market continues to experience few signs of growth, with a healthy increase in global tablet shipments merely helping to offset the continuing descent of traditional desktop and notebook systems, according to independent analyst firm Canalys.

While tablet shipments saw a 42.9 percent increase compared with this time last year, desktop and notebook shipments fell 7.4 percent and 13.9 percent respectively. Total shipments for PCs (Canalys lumps desktops, notebooks and tablets together) delivered a 0.3 percent growth for the year.

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LG is set to launch the G2, its new flagship smartphone, in New York later today. The usual raft of pre-launch leaks means we know the device will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, sport a 5.2-inch 1080p display and come with a 13-megapixel camera.

Other details will be revealed by the South Korean electronics giant during the launch event, but if you’re not in New York, or haven’t received an invite to the unveiling, don’t worry -- BetaNews has saved you the best seat in the house.

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When a company wants to reinvent itself, portray a different direction or show a modernization, the change is usually accompanied by the arrival of a new logo. Microsoft, for example, last year changed its decades old design to reflect its transition into a devices and services company.

Now Yahoo, which under Marissa Mayer is attempting to modernize its image and become more relevant after years of neglect, is planning to change its logo too. No, it’s not going to be swapping the exclamation point for a question mark or anything as interesting as that, but it is going to try on various logo styles.

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It feels like repeatedly kicking someone when they’re down, but there’s really no other way to describe Windows tablet sales -- both RT and Windows 8 Pro -- other than pathetic and embarrassing for Microsoft. Which is a shame. Surface is a great tablet, Windows 8 on Surface is a good operating system, but people just aren’t buying the device in any great numbers. Well, pre-fire sale at least.

According to a new report from IDC, just 200,000 Windows RT tablets shipped in Q2 2013 (even the ailing BlackBerry PlayBook managed 100,000), and there’s no good news for other Windows tablets either as IDC reports just 1.8 million devices shipped with that OS onboard. Apple, by comparison, shipped 14.6 million iPads in the same quarter.

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Nokia has released a new video comparing the quality of the Lumia 925’s camera with that of the Apple iPhone 5. You don’t need to be a genius to guess which device comes out the clear winner.

Headed "Better Photos Every Day" the video might seem more than a little familiar on first viewing as it parodies Apple's iPhone 5 commercial and starts with a voiceover informing viewers that "every day more photos are taken on the iPhone than any other phone" before stating "at Nokia we prefer to build for quality not just quantity".

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Internet Explorer might no longer hold 96 percent of the browser market like it did back in 2002, but Microsoft’s browser still remains hugely popular. Firefox and Chrome took large bites out of IE’s dominance, but they have yet to topple it, and don’t look set to do so any time soon.

According to new figures from Net Applications, Internet Explorer 8 is the most popular browser on the desktop with 23.52 percent global market share. And it’s not the only incarnation of IE in the top five either.

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I use Soluto to manage my PCs and iOS devices, as well as hardware belonging to a select group of less technically literate friends and family. It’s a handy service that makes it easy to view hardware details of the devices you’re monitoring, as well as cut boot times, manage and update apps, remove unwanted browser extensions, and more.

The firm has just introduced a new feature called Soluto for Servers which adds Windows servers to the list of devices available to manage. You just need to download an installer and run it on each of your servers.

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