This past year has been incredibly busy, and a huge amount of hardware has passed through my hands. Some of it has impressed, a lot has disappointed, but a handful was great enough to make it to my list of favorites for the year.

While I've tried out a great deal of software, this has been a year in which it has been hardware that has caught my eye. So here it is: my favorite tech from 2013.

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This hass been a much quieter week than usual with Christmas meaning that many companies have been on a virtual shutdown. But there has still been a bit of activity over the past seven days. We've reached the end of the year and the BetaNews team finds itself in a reflective mood. Mihaita was the first to pick his favourite tech products of the years, and Wayne wasn't far behind. Brian also got in on the action and Ian shared his thoughts as well. Bing also took a look back at the year, putting together a list of the top ten homepage images of 2013.

A delay at UPS meant that the delivery of many Christmas presents was held up, but if the delivery man did manage to make his way to your door in time to bring you a Surface 2, Brian has a guide to getting started. Alan was also on hand to help anyone who was the lucky recipient of a Kindle Fire HDX or a Google TV. Many people will have received, or bought themselves, a Windows 8.1 PC: Wayne had the info you need to get started.

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Despite its success in the music streaming business, Rdio has learned that video is a different ball game when it comes to providing service. The subsidiary was launched back in April of this year, making a stab at competing with big name players like Netflix, Amazon and Redbox.

It was a tough sell, and today the company posted a brief, but to the point, message on the site -- "despite our efforts, we were not able to deliver the differentiated customer experience we had hoped for. We want to thank all customers who have tried our service".

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At this time of year in the UK it is traditional for the Queen to record a message to the nation. Broadcast on TV at 3pm just as everyone is recovering from Christmas lunch, she looks back over the year in a speech which usually has a reflective tone. In recent years there have been numerous alternatives to the Queen's speech, with broadcaster Channel 4 giving a platform to the funny, the controversial, the meaningful and the strange. Whilst not necessarily anti-monarchy, it is a broadcast that is certainly non-monarchist, and frequently of a more left-wing bent. This year, Edward Snowden used it as a mouthpiece.

The 30-year-old former NSA worker who blew the cover off the secret surveillance that is being carried out on web users all over the world. He is currently living in Russia where he sought asylum having fled from the US earlier in the year after threats of espionage charges. The two minute long address makes reference to the book 1984, with Snowden saying that George Orwell had forewarned us of such dangers but said that the spying techniques described in the classic work were nothing compared to what actually exists now.

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The holiday has arrived and you've likely ripped the wrappings off your gifts. There was no doubt a tech item or two under that tree, providing your family knows you as well as we do. Now the real fun begins -- playing with that new toy and discovering all there is you can do with it.

Did you happen to receive a Google TV? There are a number of nice models on the market right now and you’ll likely be quite happy no matter which you got. The little box runs a version of Android and is compatible with the Google Play store, allowing for apps and media.

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Just last month Google and Microsoft came together in an unlikely pairing. This was not a software venture, but a bid to help tackle the problem of child porn online. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said on numerous occasions that ISPs needed to do more to not only block access to torrent sites -- despite the fact they can be used for perfectly legal downloads -- but also to make it more difficult for children to access pornography. Four major ISPs either already have porn filters in place, or have plans to roll them out.

TalkTalk's filters have been in place for a few years now, Sky's were recently launched and Virgin is piloting a scheme due for full scale roll out at some point in 2014. In the past few days, BT switched on its filters, falling in line with government requests for access to legal porn to be made opt-in -- i.e. blocked by default. So is this having the desired effect? Well, it's very early days, but there are a few observations to be made already.

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Regardless of your beliefs, it's rather difficult to resist a good Christmas movie. There is something soothing about gathering the family around the TV to watch that annual classic, be it Miracle on 34th Street or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Neither is new, but neither ever seems to get old.

Elf is also no longer particularly new, having been released back in 2003 when we all ran Windows XP, and Google hadn't yet thought about Android or the Play market.

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You've known for a month, providing you cared enough to notice the news. AOL announced that its once prominent media player, Winamp, would cease to exist on December 20, 2013. But before the obituary can even be written, music streaming service Spotify has stepped in with its own tribute.

Today the company announces Spotiamp -- "to honour the engineering skill and passion that goes into building wonderful software that millions of people enjoy we would like to share a small tribute to honor the great legacy of Winamp".

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Television used to be simple. When you only had a few channels delivered via an aerial or a cable, deciding what to watch and where to watch it was easy. But with multi-channel digital services, the ability to watch on mobile devices, catch up with programs you’ve missed and more, it’s now a whole lot more complicated.

Little wonder then that apps which help you work out what to watch are proving popular. YO.TV, the UK's most used TV guide with five million customers, now plans to expand to 50 countries in 14 languages. Available on Google Play and the App Store, YO.TV lets users see listings for all their favorite channels across broadcast providers. Its Now and Next options streamline the scanning process, giving a cross section view of the full channel listings for any given time block. Personalized features let users set themselves reminders on their personal calendars so they don’t miss a favorite show or share their tastes in TV via social media.

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It seems as if we should have reached this moment long ago -- like, perhaps, when the Roku debuted? The little, inexpensive set-top box seems capable of doing most anything, with the obvious exception of acting as your DVR. But, until today, it was incapable of playing content from the most popular streaming video service on the internet.

There are some stipulations with this release -- well, one major one, at least. That is the simple fact that the brand new YouTube app appears only on the Roku 3. "We’re bringing you the YouTube app (or 'channel' in Roku-speak) today on the Roku 3 in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Republic of Ireland", announces YouTube's Sarah Ali.

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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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It's not all that long ago that the idea of posting news, thoughts and ideas on a social network (or "micro-blogging service" as it is infuriatingly referred to) that imposed a limit of 140 characters on posts seemed absurd. Now Twitter is so commonplace that any company, or even TV show, worth its salt has its own account. The word hashtag entered the technical lexicon a little while ago, but such is Twitter's dominance that it is now spoken aloud: hashtag yousoundstupid.

2013 has been a big year for Twitter, perhaps most notably due to it starting to trade on the NYSE. But there have also be great strides made in how Twitter is used. Of course it is still home to vainglorious, the trolls and celebrities, but 2013 is also the year in which Twitter proved itself to be genuinely useful.

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Roku is one of the leaders in an ever-more competitive set-top box market that includes heavy-hitters like Apple and Google, Despite that, the company has carved out a niche for itself through a combination of functionality and pricing. Now, to celebrate both the holidays and its good fortune, Roku is holding a sweepstakes.

Here's how it works -- Roku is giving away a number of items everyday between now and December 22nd. The list of products remains the same each day, but you'll have to enter daily for a chance to win. Head to the Stuff Your Stocking Sweepstakes website and pick the item you desire. Each day the company will give each item away to a lucky winner.

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With just 15 days until it’s pulled from the web, the future is increasingly looking bleak for popular media player Winamp. Now is the time to download the latest version while you still can before backing it up in triplicate.

With its end fast approaching, rival media players are looking to bite into the Winamp market share. One such tool is Freemake Music Box 1.0, with its makers keen to point out you can easily import your existing Winamp music playlists into Freemake Music Box.

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It's fairly safe to assume that there are few people left who don't have a high-definition TV, and those who do not are the ones who aren't interested in modern set-top boxes like Google TV and Roku. Unlike the early days of Plasma and LCD, now the content is there to support the TV and prices have dropped to reasonable levels.

Now PlayOn, and its PlayLater DVR service, are joining the HD revolution. "PlayOn users can now stream up to 720p HD resolution content from many of PlayOn’s 60-plus channels, including Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO and ABC, to their TVs with only a broadband-enabled PC, PlayOn software and a DLNA-compatible device. Also, PlayLater users can record movies and shows in HD and watch them on mobile devices, whenever and wherever, with no Internet connection needed", the company announces.

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