Top 10 most read: iPad Air vs Nexus 10, Twitter and Facebook logins exposed, cloud spending to hit $100bn

What was hot with V3 readers last week

Most popular with readers last week was our comparison of Apple's new slimmed down iPad Air with the Google's full-size Nexus 10 tablet. With Christmas fast approaching, we took a look to see whether the new iPad is enough to help Apple retain the tablet crown for another year.

Twitter was also a hot topic this week, first as part of the government's attempts to tackle issues raised by members of the public using the site to comment on legal cases and revealing names of suspects. And there was further negative news for social networks, as two million login credentials for sites such as Facebook, Google and Twitter were found online by security researchers after using the source code of a botnet controller called Pony.

The new year looks set for a continued focus on cloud computing among firms, with big data also set for additional interest and investment, as Gartner predicted that $100bn and $14bn will be spent on these technologies respectively. Good news for Microsoft, which last week was showing off its plans to build a new data centre focused on cloud computing in Dublin.

iPad Air vs Nexus 10 head-to-head review
We see how Apple's smaller and lighter tablet compares with the Android competition

Government to issue Twitter and Facebook legal warningsAttorney general claims messages are not a form of censorship

Government commits £270m to quantum technology research
Driverless cars and particle physics also given funding boost

Two million stolen passwords for Facebook, Google and Twitter found online
Classic 123456 combo found to be most widely used login

V3 announces winners of Technology Awards 2013
Google sweeps the board with six gongs

Governments preparing Stuxnet 2.0 malware for nuclear strike
Israeli and Saudi Arabian governments working on more destructive variant, claim local sources

HTC Desire 500 review
An affordable quad-core Android phone let down by poor timing

Windows XP still holds third of OS market as support deadline looms
Windows 7 continues to make gains while Windows 8 scrapes less than 10 percent share

Big data and cloud computing boom will contribute to $2tn IT spend in 2014
Google faces challenge in gaining business share against Amazon

Microsoft expands European cloud computing presence with €170m investment in Dublin
Firm builds on existing site to meet growing demands