It’s been an appy year for fashion-lovers, with some of the biggest digital hits of recent years – Tinder, Shazam, Pinterest, and so on – turned into tools to help us hunt out the best frocks and keep one eye on the sales. This was the year that we were finally spared the embarrassment of chasing…

2014 really seems to have been the year that it’s become not just socially acceptable but actually mainstream to date online, thus making the cliched profile tagline ‘If anyone asks, we met in prison’ completely defunct. So many dating apps have sprung up, including Happn, Hinge and the newest one Antidate, to name but a…

2014 is likely to be remembered as the year that wearables went from gadgets for geeks to the kind of thing everyone has. And they're going to get even more covetable next year. The catalyst for huge growth is likely to be when the Apple Watch goes head to head with the Samsung Gear S for…

Great technology doesn’t have to be in your face. It doesn’t have to be a bold, brash phablet, a brightly coloured smartwatch or a state-of-the-art speaker system. Sometimes, it's something very subtle that quietly changes the world. If the first wave of consumer tech was all about gadgets and the second all about software and apps, then…

Another year, another 200 billion tweets. How's a girl to sort the wheat from the chaff? For everything mildly amusing that happens in the world – no matter how minor – someone, somewhere, is tweeting about it. Nothing is too ridiculous: copyright issues over a selfie - taken by a monkey? Tick. Patronising woman on television…

For the last few months, we've been extra-busy testing gadgets, trying apps and evaluating accessories, all in the name of the ShinyShiny Awards 2014. We want to find the best and most useful bits of tech, so we can help you make choices you'll love. But we need your help. As well as the categories…