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The start to any new year is always slow, and 2014 is no different. As the tech world struggled to shake off its New Year hangover, it was a pretty quiet week. The pace should start to pick up again, though, as CES is just around the corner!

The New Year wasn't the only cause for celebration; it was also Linus Torvalds' 44th birthday. Tablet makers were popping the champagne corks as it was revealed that such devices were among the most popular Christmas presents. Microsoft was also celebrating Windows 8 gaining a 10 percent market share, but Windows 7 also continues to grow in popularity.

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Music is my favorite hobby. Actually, calling it a "hobby" is probably a gross understatement. Whenever possible, I listen to music; before bed, while I write, in the car -- everywhere. When I think back to how much money I spent on music over the last few decades, it is actually depressing. Surely, I could have started an IRA instead and been on my way to retirement; no, I wouldn't trade my memories of listening to and buying music in record stores for anything.

However, the state of buying music has had its ups and downs over the last decade and a half. File-sharing services like Napster and BitTorrent sites have made music piracy easy. Ultimately, the music industry paid the price with a decline in CD sales. Many people blame the industry for its own woes, due to obscenely high CD prices in the late 90's and early 00's. However, all has not been lost -- there has been a digital-download purchase renaissance happening since the launch of Apple's iTunes in 2003. Year after year, sales of downloadable online music has increased -- until now. In 2013, online music sales have decreased for the first time ever. Oh noes!

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It's becoming quite a trend with Google. Buy up an interesting company or service, sit on it for a little while… and then shut it down. The latest victims of Google's seemingly never-ending cull are Flock and Bump. Bump was only acquired back in September, but it is already on the kill list. At the time of the acquisition, there was debate about whether the service might be rebranded, but as of the end of January it will be no more.

Bump was, in its day, quite an innovative tool, seen by many as the precursor to NFC. It enabled files to be quickly transferred between devices by bumping them together. Flock was a similar tool, but concerned solely with photo sharing. However as of 31 January, both apps will disappear from view, as announced in a blog post by CEO and co-founder of Bump, David Lieb:

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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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Unchecky, the clever tool which adjusts setup programs so they don’t install adware by default, has been upgraded to version 0.2.

Core improvements start with support for many more installers. There have also been more than 20 issues resolved, some significant, which means this release is far more stable.

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Snapchat has received quite a bit of publicity after allegedly turning down buyout offers of billions of dollars from Facebook and Google. Now, the service is in the spotlight once again following a leak which exposed 4.6 million phone numbers and usernames.

Snapchat has responded to the leak in a blog post, which explains that the culprit is actually an abuse of the Find Friends feature. According to the service, "it was possible for an attacker to use the functionality of Find Friends to upload a large number of random phone numbers and match them with Snapchat usernames. On New Years Eve [sic], an attacker released a database of partially redacted phone numbers and usernames. No other information, including Snaps, was leaked or accessed in these attacks".

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Consumer Electronics Show 2014 starts next week, and that means tech companies tripping over one another to get the goods front and center early. No one really waits for Day One anymore, and Acer picks Day -4 to announce another touchscreen Chromebook -- this one in Moonstone White. Moonstone? Does it light up the Google cloud at night?

The white C720P joins the darker sibling launched in late November. Touch is the C720P's defining characteristic for the price. Google is the only other company selling a touchscreen Chromebook, and it starts much higher -- $1,299. Anyone looking for the feature on a budget laptop running Chrome OS, Acer C720P is it.

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When Apple released the iPad, it was a game-changer. The 9.7-inch form factor became the effective and default industry tablet size. In other words, a tablet was that size because the iPad was, and it wasn't challenged. However, Google disrupted this thinking and released the Nexus 7 in 2012. Not only did the 7-inch tablet become wildly popular, but it created the belief that a small tablet was usable and desired. Heck, even Apple jumped on the smaller-tablet bandwagon with iPad Mini.

Sadly, the small Android tablet market that was carved out by the Nexus 7 has become littered with trash. You see, many manufacturers have made the small tablet form factor synonymous with both low cost and low-quality. Today, Acer announces two small tablets that are inexpensive, but definitely not trash -- the Iconia A1 and B1.

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As mobile operators across the globe continue to roll out 4G LTE networks, more consumers will be able to take advantage of faster data speeds. By 2017, market research firm Strategy Analytics predicts that the technology will reach 1 billion connections. The main requirement, on the user side, is a compatible, 4G LTE device.

Nowadays, 4G LTE smartphones are increasing in number and availability, but without mobile operator subsidies consumers may still be put off by the cost. Luckily for price-conscious buyers, more vendors are lowering the admission bar by offering even more affordable 4G LTE phones. French consumer electronics company Archos just revealed that one of its latest such devices can be had under the magical €200 mark.

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I have previously explained the concept of tablet market tiers and the pattern of upmarket competition among Android vendors as they continue to fight for reasonable hardware margins.

Recent tablet install base data from ABI research seems to support this hypothesis and describes the same pattern we saw in the smartphone market. This also helps explains why Apple needs an iPad Pro.

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Last November we took a look at Sound Valley, a fun program which plays the sounds of nature -- birdsong, rain, wind in the trees and more -- in the background, while you just sit back and relax.

We suggested at the time that it really needed a way to customize the existing scenes, perhaps create new ones, and it appears that the developer was listening: an update has just appeared with the beta of a new Scene Composer tool.

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Computers are constantly being upgraded at a furious pace. It seems like as soon as you buy one, a new model is ready to make your purchase obsolete. Quite frankly, you may almost prefer not to know about the new models and upgrades -- in other words, ignorance is bliss.

If only there was a company that would upgrade its product, but not tell anyone, then no one would get that bad feeling. Guess what? That company is Microsoft, the time is now and the product is the Surface Pro 2.

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I'm not big on making year-ahead predictions -- common as the stories are at the turn of the year. But it's a slow news week, with the holiday and Consumer Electronics Show still ahead, so I thought: "Why not look into the crystal ball?"

If any of these come to be, something is seriously wrong with the space-time continuum.

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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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Since the release of the first iPad, consumers have been trying to use tablets as PC replacements. They retrofit them with keyboards trying to make them laptop-like. It's hard to blame them -- after all, the battery life of most tablets is very attractive.

Sadly, most tablets have proven to be companion devices to the PC, rather than a replacement. Luckily, Microsoft released the Surface line of tablets, which melds fun and productivity into a true PC replacement. This is because, well...it sort of is a PC. Today, the 32GB RT variant is being sold for a super-low $299 -- will you buy it?

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