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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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South Korean maker LG has announced a new Android phablet, called Gx, which is part of the company's G premium lineup. The device will go toe to toe against the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, sporting similar hardware specifications and dimensions.

The Gx comes with a 5.5-inch IPS display, with a now flagship-standard resolution of 1080 by 1920. LG has opted for a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, instead of the more powerful Snapdragon 800 which is found in devices like the G2 and Galaxy Note 3, with 2 GB of RAM. The handset is powered by a 3,140 mAh battery.

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I try to keep my cards close to the chest, but I fear I have left little doubt of my NFL allegiance. I have been a Miami Dolphins fan since I was a small child, but that has absolutely nothing do with my "other life" in the technology world. Needless to say, today's win over the feared New England Patriots was a landmark moment, sealed by an end-zone interception of Tom Brady by an unknown and undrafted rookie.

What does this have to do with tech you ask? Well, the game had nothing to do with it, unless you take into account that Surface is "the official tablet of the NFL". However, in looking through the post-game news, I ran across something rather interesting.

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Anyone who fancies the idea of building their own gaming box can head over to the Valve website can grab themselves a beta copy of SteamOS. The Linux-based operating system is available for anyone to download free of charge and coincides with the shipping of 300 prototypes of Valve's Steam Machine devices to specially selected testers. The OS and boxes have both been designed with pure gaming in mind -- but the system requirements are quite specific.

The download weighs in at 960MB, and there are reports that the servers are struggling as legions of eager gamers hit the link. But before you rush over to the site and start the download for yourself, take a moment to check whether your rig is up to the task. You'll need a 64-bit processor, but both Intel and AMD will do the job equally well, and 4GB of RAM is also required.

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Things are starting to get festive, and that means there's also a lot going on. This past week has been quite a busy one! It might not come as a surprise, but the figures are in -- Windows 8.1 is not performing anywhere near as well as Windows 7 in terms of sales. Part of the reason for the slower adoption could be the Start screen and the absence of the Start menu. There has been some debate here at BetaNews about the possibility that the Start menu could make a return. Brian is very much opposed to the idea, I think it's probably a good idea, particularly for business users, while Wayne showed us how to get the Start menu back right now.

The backlash against NSA surveillance continues, and now Microsoft, Apple, Google and a number of other big names have joined forces and written to President Obama asking for reform. Joe was not impressed. To help protect user accounts, Microsoft beefed up security.

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An old friend has been telling me for months that the future of personal computing was coming with new Windows tablets using the Bay Trail system-on-chip architecture built with Intel Silvermont cores. Silvermont is the first major Atom revision in years and is designed to be much faster. Bay Trail would lead to $199 8-inch Windows tablets while also fixing the limitations of Intel’s previous Clover Trail. Well Bay Trail units are finally shipping but my techie friend is sorely disappointed with his.

The lure of this platform for Intel is great. Manufacturers could use the same chassis and chipsets for everything except gaming boxes and servers. Eight inch tablets, ChromeBooks, Ultrabooks, 10-inch tablets, and netbooks, all one chassis with up to 4GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. One size fits all for home, car, travel, and work.

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Bartels Media has announced the availability of PhraseExpress 10, its powerful text expansion and auto completion tool. The company describes the release as a "cornerstone", and that’s not an overstatement: it’s absolutely packed with major new features.

These start with the ability to search within a popup for whatever phrase you need. Forget shortcuts and hotkeys, they’re no longer necessary; just trigger a popup, type a few characters, and matching phrases appear right away. Even if they’re in a subfolder.

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Amazon has made a lot of news recently, which probably shouldn't be a surprise, given this is the shopping season and it's one of the most prominent retailers. Much of that buzz has surrounded the latest refresh of the company's line of Android tablets -- the Kindle Fires -- with Cyber Monday deals, and then another one-day sale. But now Amazon is looking to hook up those who can't afford to shell out that full price all at once.

The retail giant has quietly rolled out an installment plan to help you get that tablet. Both the 7-inch and 8.9-inch versions of the Kindle Fire HDX are included in the deal. At checkout, you will need to pony up 25-percent of the retail price, plus any taxes and shipping charges. But, after that, you will just be billed one time every 90 days (three times total) in equal amounts to cover the balance owed.

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While the Surface line of Windows tablets are well-built and functional, they have not exactly set the world on fire. Consumers are still mostly opting for iPads and Android tablets. It's hard to blame them -- the app selections on these competitor platforms are more bountiful and robust. Not to mention, Surface gets more press over price reductions and billion-dollar write-offs than anything else.

However, there is one place where Microsoft's tablet is poised to make an impact -- the classroom. A Surface tablet with the type-keyboard attachment is a wonderful tool for both students and educators alike.

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Christmas is coming. And soon! Okay, we don’t have time to prepare just yet, either, but there are quick and easy ways to get into the holiday mood. Just giving your PC a little desktop decoration can make a real difference, and there are plenty of fun options around.

Microsoft’s Snowy Night theme is a great place to start, thanks to 13 beautiful winter photos from around the world. (The theme only works on Windows 7/ 8, but 7-Zip will extract the wallpapers so that you can use them anywhere.)

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Czech security developer AVG has launched AVG AntiVirus for Mac Free Edition 14.0, its first major foray into the increasingly crowded Mac anti-malware market. The new release comes with the promise of "triple protection" against not just Mac malware, but Windows and Android malware too.

The release is a no-frills affair, with real-time protection, a simple on-demand file scanner and automatic updates the sum of the application’s whole.

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A number of YouTube users who post game walkthroughs and feature footage from games in other ways are finding that their content is being flagged for copyright violation. It seems that uploaders are falling victim to YouTube's automated ContentID system which is responsible for weeding out all manner of copyrighted material. What is interesting is that videos are not being removed from YouTube, but are unable to earn money from advertisements, leading to a loss in revenue for a lot of people.

Uploaders are warned that their videos are still viewable but told that the flagged video's copyright is owned by someone else. What is confusing is the fact that the companies named in relation to the warnings do not actually seem to be the copyright holder. For example, VentureBeat cites the case of warnings being handed out for videos featuring footage from the game Metro: Last Light.

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Security software testing lab AV Comparatives has released its August-November 2013 "real-world" protection report, which assesses the accuracy of leading antivirus tools when confronted by a range of malicious files and websites.

Topping the tables this time was Kaspersky Internet Security 2014, with the package achieving a detection rate of 99.9 percent without blocking a single legitimate domain or file.

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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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Let me get this out of the way first -- the "12 Days of Red Stripe" has absolutely nothing to do with Jamaican beer. Instead, it's Microsoft's latest holiday push (named after the Windows Phone weekly deal), going with the 12 Days of Geekmas and the 12 Days of Deals previously announced. This latest campaign is designed for Windows Phone customers.

"The Windows Phone Store just kicked off a big holiday sale on twelve apps, indie games, and Xbox titles", announces Microsoft's Michael Stroh.

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