A quick look at the Windows Phone market portrays an interesting picture, a landscape that is dominated by a single maker, Nokia. Competition is practically non-existent, as the Finnish company takes the lion's share for both sales and usage. How can other vendors challenge it?

Nokia's market share for Windows Phone usage exceeds 90 percent and dwarfs that of HTC, Samsung and Huawei which struggle to overcome their near-anonymity on the platform. Sales reveal a similar tale. And, as soon as Microsoft takes control of Nokia's phone-making arm, this problem will grow even larger. Consumers will suffer and so will Microsoft, which will find itself in a very difficult spot trying to convince manufacturers that it's OK to play and, despite its role as the sole developer and main vendor, there will be no backfire. That is a tough sell. So what can be done?

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Motorola's New Year's resolution gives notice to Apple and other Android phone manufacturers: We don't need stinking subsidies. Today, the Google subsidiary cut Moto X's off-contract to $399, even personalized, on all carriers. The permanent discount is $50 more than Motorola's glitchy Black Friday sale.

Google has a long history of selling unlocked, off-contract phones, starting with Nexus One four years ago. But in 2012, Nexus 4 brought the price down to something mere mortals could afford: $299. The Android's successor costs more, starting at $349.

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I frequently make resolutions throughout the year, ranging from being more patient to losing some weight. However, I give technology little to no attention in this respect, which may seem a bit unusual coming from someone who writes about it for a living. But, lately, I have been thinking about making some changes, and what I could do more in regards to tech.

I do have realistic expectations, as I am in no way trying to convince myself that I will actually work on every item from this list, starting January 1. It's a fool's errand as far as I'm concerned. Instead, these are the things I would like to build towards this following year, with the end goal of steadily improving myself throughout 2014.

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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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When Oppo unveiled the CyanogenMod version of its N1 phablet, the Chinese company did not provide any details as to whether the new model would receive Google's stamp of approval and, therefore, official access to the Play store. I was very skeptical that this would happen, seeing as CyanogenMod has never been certified for prime time use.

As some of you may know, in order for a device to officially receive Google Play access, it has to be certified by Google. This is one of the reasons why there are so many Android smartphones and tablets (mostly inexpensive ones) out in the wild that ship without any Google-branded apps and services. As it turns out, the N1 will not be part of the said bunch.

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Christmas comes early this year for Moto G users. Motorola has announced that Android 4.4.2 KitKat is now rolling out for its entry-level smartphone, in less than two months after parent company Google launched the latest version of the popular mobile operating system.

The Android 4.4.2 KitKat update is rolling out to Moto G smartphones that were purchased in the US, from Amazon and Motorola's online shop. It is expected to arrive in other markets, and at mobile operator versions, "soon".

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It's that time of year once again. Approaching the end of another 365 and a quarter days cycle puts us all in a reflective mood. It's not uncommon to look back at what has happened in the previous 12 months and pick out the highlights of the year. It's also quite common to look forward in anticipation of what the coming year might have to offer. But how about something a little different, something a little more downbeat? What have been your lowlights and disappointments? There's no need to end the year on a high, after all!

I am one of those people still devastated at the loss of Google Reader. Both as a journalist and as someone who simply devours news from all manner of sources, this was my go-to service for getting my daily -- well, hourly… oh, OK, five minutely -- fix of headlines from hundreds of websites. Double disappointment came when I thought an ideal solution was to be found in Feedly, but slow updates and a pricing structure I found objectionable meant that this soon fell by the wayside. Disappointment number two. Still, it helped me to discover InoReader -- every cloud, and all that.

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Nowadays, cloud services like Pandora and Spotify allow us to listen to our favorite tunes no matter where we are, without having to actually own a single song. But what happens to our music collections, which we have built up over the years? Some of us have thousands of tracks, stored locally on devices like PCs. Should we just abandon our beloved content and embrace alternative ways of enjoying it?

Luckily, answering this question does not involve making a compromise. Cloud service Style Jukebox aims for the middle road, by providing a convenient solution that allows users to upload the music they own to the cloud and play it on PCs, smartphones and tablets. It is designed to work both with and without an Internet connection (the content can also be downloaded for offline playback), which makes it a good fit for those who use devices which are not always connected to the cloud. As Style Jukebox's motto says, "Your music, anywhere, on all your devices".

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Call me old-fashioned, but I dislike people who actively use their phone when they are hanging out with friends and family. It is both disrespectful and a clear sign that they do not want to be there, as far as I am concerned. Smartphones only make this problem worse, as addictive apps and games keep the user hooked even longer.

But if you see someone clinging to their iPhone 5s during the holidays Apple suggests that you should not be quick to judge, and perhaps label such behavior as anti-social, because those people are doing it for the sake of making everyone else happy. In other words, they are "Misunderstood". Or, at least this is one of the messages that Apple's new ad tries to convey.

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I've worked my way through a fair share of tablets over the years. An iPad 2 with its 9.7 inch screen, a Sony Tablet S with a slightly smaller 9.4 inch display, followed by a series of 7-inchers -- the Nexus 7, Tesco's Hudl and  the GOCLEVER Aries 7o. Oh, and the Surface Pro; I have a tendency to forget this is a 10.6 inch tablet as I use it in laptop mode.

All of my tablets have been used for much the same things: checking email, writing the odd document, viewing photos, watching videos, updating Facebook and Twitter, browsing the web and playing a few games. Taking the Surface Pro out of the equation, I've always found the circa 10-inch tablets too big. I thought I was settled on 7 inches as offering the best dimensions. It seems I might have been wrong.

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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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Google has released new factory images based on Android 4.4.2 KitKat, for the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10. This comes a couple of days after the search giant rolled out the latest update for its mobile operating system.

The Android 4.4.2 factory images allow users of said Nexus devices to install, and upgrade to, the latest KitKat version without waiting for the OTA update to arrive. They also come in handy for installing individual bits, like the radio, kernel or recovery, alongside third-party distributions.

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The main reason why 64-bit processors are needed is to utilize hardware configurations with more than 4 GB of RAM. To make this possible, the operating system also has to support the architecture, and apps have to be properly designed as well. This is the case with PCs which top the mentioned memory capacity and have the right software for it, but when it comes to mobile devices the advantages are mostly limited to bragging rights at the moment, with a few exceptions (like Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 -- it runs the 64-bit Windows 8.1 Pro and can be had with 8 GB of RAM).

Apple's iPhone 5s is the best example of why having a 64-bit processor offers no real benefits (other than allowing developers to adjust to the change): iOS 7 and the apps may support the architecture, but the smartphone ships with just 1 GB of RAM. This means that at no point is 64-bit needed, because the memory capacity does not warrant it. Former Qualcomm chief marketing officer Anand Chandrasekher was among the first to point this out, but here we are today with the US company also revealing its own 64-bit processor, dubbed Snapdragon 410.

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Google Street View is a great way to explore the world around you without having to move from the comfort of your armchair. Not that we're lazy here at BetaNews, you understand! In fact, sometimes we like to get out and about. Like us, there are probably places you go to time and time again -- a favorite park, a trek up a hill, a stroll on the beach -- that are so breath-taking that you'd like everyone to experience them. Well, today Google makes that dream possible by letting anyone put together their very own Street Views.

In a post on the Google Maps blog, Product Manager for Google Maps and Photo Sphere, Evan Rapoport, explains that it is now possible to create a series of Photos Spheres, link them together and then share them on Google Maps. Unlike Google, there's no need to drive around in a special car kitted out with high tech camera equipment -- all you need is a DSLR or an Android phone.

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Mere days after Android 4.4.1 was released, Google is rolling out Android 4.4.2 for compatible Nexus devices. The latest version is more of a modest upgrade, compared to its predecessor which delivered noteworthy improvements to the Nexus 5 camera, as it mostly squashes a few bugs.

Android 4.4.2 fixes issues with clearing and delivery of the VM Indicator, according to US mobile operator Sprint, and other bits of the mobile operating system. There are also security enhancements introduced in the latest version of KitKat.

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