Hasta La Gadget!

Google’s always ready to celebrate the holidays, and St. Patrick’s Day is no exception. Google has updated it’s search engine page with a new Google Doodle. The Doodle shows six children, each wearing a letter of Google’s name on their clothes, performing the traditional Irish stepdance. Google has had St. Patrick’s Day Doodles since the year 2000, but this is the first time in its history to have an animated St. Patrick’s Day Doodle.

Google Doodles are always a fun surprise during the holidays, or other celebratory events. The idea of Google Doodles existed even before Google went corporate. The first Google Doodle was unveiled in the year 2000 for Bastille Day by Dennis Hwang, an intern at Google. The doodle was so well received that Hwang was promoted to “Chief Doodler” (not kidding). Doodles has gone a long way since then, and there is now a whole team behind the division. The team has already created over 1000 doodles.

St. Patrick’s Day comes around every March 17th. It originated back in the early 17th century as an official Christian Feast Day. It celebrates St. Patrick and him bringing Christianity to Ireland. He’s said to have established around 300-350 churches in Ireland. However, St. Patrick’s Day isn’t strictly a religious holiday (as well all know), but also a celebration of the Irish culture.

People all around the world celebrate by wearing green and drinking as much as their wallets (or their alcohol tolerance) allow. Drinking starts in the early afternoon until late night, and there are usually parades and festivals happening all around the world. If you’re going to go out drinking today (on a Sunday no less), make sure to stay safe and never drive drunk. Spending $10-$20 on a taxi is much better than getting yourself a DUI.

Google’s St. Patrick’s Day doodle features the Irish stepdance is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Still looking for the perfect gift for your favorite geek? We can help,
just remember, if you want something on this list, you’d better order express shipping and then put off your romantic
night until Friday so you can enjoy a longer night together.

Christmas is always a big day for the smartphone and tablet space, but this year, Christmas was bigger than ever. That’s according to analytics firm Flurry, which tracked activation data for the first 20 days in December and then compared it to the data it received for December 25. It probably won’t come as a shock to most to hear that the data Flurry has for Christmas Day shows a huge number of activations for both tablets and smartphones.

According to Flurry’s data, about 4 million iOS and Android devices were activated per day between December 1 and December 20. That formed the baseline for activations in December, and it was one that the data for December 25 shattered. Activations on Christmas Day skyrocketed to 17.4 million, climbing 332% over the December 2012 baseline of 4 million and topping the previous single day record set on Christmas Day 2011, which was a mere 6.8 million activations.

Of course, with the surge in device activations also comes a surge in app downloads. The baseline for app downloads in December came in at 155 million per day, which was again determined by watching downloads over the period spanning December 1 to December 20. On Christmas day, app downloads jumped to 328 million, doubling the baseline and once again breaking records set by any previous day.

Interestingly, a surprising number of people received tablets on Christmas day. Flurry’s data shows that smartphones accounted for 80% of the activations between December 1 and 20, but on Christmas day, only 49% percent of the devices activated were smartphones. Be sure to take a few minutes to check out through Flurry’s full report, because it proves to be a very interesting read!

Smartphone and tablet Christmas day activations break records is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Christmas with Chinese characteristics? Yule betcha! It’s Christmas in China, where werewolves are chowing down on beef chow mein at Lee Ho Ho Ho Fooks and even the most exhausted elves don’t envy their iPhone-making counterparts over at Foxconn.

Whoever made that awesome Portal Christmas tree should get these officially licensed Companion Cube string lights. Hopefully they won’t short and burn your house down. Because I’m sure they remember what you did.

The 10′ cord comes with 10 Companion Cube lights. You can buy multiple strings to make a longer chain of loving inanimate objects.

You can order the Portal Companion Cube String Lights from ThinkGeek for $25 (USD). Tiny test subjects may or may not be included.

[via Nerd Approved]