9 Ways to connect with Santa Claus on the Web (Mashable) (Yahoo!)

You don't have to head to the North Pole to connect with Santa this year. There is a sackful of online options that will help your toddler to connect with Christmas in the comfort of your home.

If you want to write to Santa Claus online, receive calls and personalized video messages or to prove that man in red is real, we found that new sites and services for you help.

So if you have children or you're just a big child yourself, get in the spirit of Christmas and have a read below to find the sites that are sorting your father online must this holiday season.

Is an excellent service online, you get immediate results that anyone who is eager for toddlers know can be a good thing. Complete letter "Dear father," draft standard, and moments later, you'll have one custom of the great man himself reading on screen or print.

After a relatively quick Q & A session requesting the name, age, choice of gift (with some response options fun in drop-down menus), this service-backed Google will generate sound quality "call" to the rugrat (s) in your life. In its reply, they can leave a message for Santa via a toll-free number.

You do not subscribe to this service to Disney, but it is worth only, or when you see the look on the faces of children as show them the names and photos up to on Santa's monitor because it checks to see if they are on the nice list. They are, of course.

"Dear father," download the Smilebox makes your young star of the show. You can customize the clip with personal info, and then add your child beautifully charming film lisping by his own Christmas wish list. Sharing options make it easy to send to the worship of the grandparents, aunts and uncles too video.

It is in the spotlight the Elves take children from 12 questions to verify whether they were good enough to get a nice list here. Service is the password you will need to submit your email to get a "key", but once you do you can check new anytime to make sure that your child is always on the nice list.

Another custom video message from Santa, PNP offering takes you through a few global issues for clip full features adapted for toddlers and older children and, Yes, even grown ups too. Santa Claus is beautiful with a rather splendid beard and authentic required manner. Recommended.

Ideal for rainy day (or snow!) activities during the school holiday period, this site is full of Santa Elf, Rennes, interactive stories on the theme of the North Pole and educational games for fun online. Recipes, crafts and printed matter for vacation offline activities ideas amuse children too.

Thanks to the NORAD and Google, you can track Santa's journey around the world on Christmas Eve, something guarantee get very excited children. This long tradition has been given a new lease on life life last years with the participation of Google, add a little magic positional millions of Christmas Eves throughout the world.

If you need a "proof" that Santa Claus exists (and do not have the skills of Photoshop to create your own), then fee, you can download your own photos and paste on a father Santa Caught Christmas of I. It'll cost you a penny under $10 via the site or from $0.99 via iPhone app - 9 Tools Web to keep your business running smoothly for the Holidays
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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ilona75

Objective of Word: Where augmented reality translation and meeting (Mashable)

We have seen a number of translation for iOS devices, but Word Lens it seems that the most innovative and cool all.

The application allows you to translate the phrases written simply pointing your iPhone on camera. OCR application technology recognizes the text, which is then translated and appears on the screen of your iPhone instead of the original text.

With today's technology, it is not difficult to imagine an application like Word goal, but it is quite surprising if you remember that ten years ago it was in the field of science fiction.

The text is translated word for Word, which makes it quite limited application in the sense that you bring a book with it, but it is very well when you need to decrypt a sign or a restaurant menu in a foreign language.

The application itself is free, but you have to pay for individual language packs. Currently, only English Spanish, translation, and vice versa is available and package costs $4.99. You can install the application here.

YouTube launches page popular videos highlighting trends (Mashable)

With YouTube see now 35 hours of video uploaded every minute, it can be difficult to go to the good things. Fortunately, YouTubeYouTube has launched a "Trends" page that shows the headings being shared on the site and the most popular videos and offshore.

Trends in YouTube is basically a hub analysis for video-sharing site featuring feeds showing trends in videos (videos that are popular on YouTube and embedded on several other sites) and the tendency of subjects (generated by common metadata); a feature called "4? to present four sounded on vids twice daily, a blog Meme-esque to analyze same vids knowledge and a scorecard which distributes popular videos in demography 4 (location, age, gender, etc.)."

We believe that this site will be a boon for journalists and marketing specialists, it will provide an interesting view of current cultural ethos.

Users are already able to check the popular videos on a daily basis via the site itself, but this page should make it much easier to navigate to the masses of content.

Check out the video above, intro featuring the actualitésarchivestéléchargements auto-Tune Gregory brothers fame.

Justin Bieber Most "Failiest" personality of the year (Mashable)

FAIL Blog comes just with its annual list of top failure, moments and videos/photos, all voted on by the community. The culmination of the list? Justin Bieber all "Failiest" honour with 44% of the vote.

Yes, it can have the most popular YouTube video of all time (and her own perfume), but Bieber is obviously persona non grata with the FAIL Blog community. Other winners include Snooki (with 10% of votes), Tiger Woods (8%), Mel Gibson (7%), Lindsay Lohan (5%), Bristol Palin (5%), Mike Sorrentino (aka "the situation") (4%), Kardashians (4%), Brett Favre (4%) and Miley Cyrus (3%).

Spill of BP Oil - improved popular parody Twitter account @ BPGlobalPR - complacency number one spot for "Moments to fail" with 34% of the vote, followed by father of slaughter (8%), Jessi rapist "Intruder bed" Lincoln Park renamed (8%), Farmville Murderess (7%), n ° snow games winter 2010 (5%), iPhone Hates Left Handed people (5%), video is prohibited Katy Perry on Sesame Street (5%), line sex box cereals of OchoCinco (4%), Jay Leno/Conan o Brien NBC Debacle (4%) and Meg Whitman tries to FAIL Blog (4%).

As for video, well, my teacher of English always told me to show rather than tell. Discover the largest video fail below (it took 33% of the votes) and the head more than FAIL Blog to see the rest.

Mashable Ben Parr Gawker Hack on "Attack of the show G4" negotiations [video] (Mashable)

Our own Ben Parr made an appearance on the attack to see today to talk about security recently experienced by several sites belonging to Gawker Media issues.

He speaks with Kevin Pereira questions at your fingertips: personal password and the user for a number of sites hosted by Gawker were compromised, and since many users use the same password for all their activities online, their other accounts - Twitter to PayPal and beyond - were also at risk.

Watch the clip to get the complete history as well as advice from Ben to keep yourself and your online accounts safe - and Yes, there are ways to easier to do than keep random 20-character passwords stored in your brain-box already overclocked, we promise.

This Android Smartphones Outrank at the top of the page 30 Mobile Devices list (Mashable)

The saga of Android vs. iPhone is likely to be underway for some time to come; However, whenever we get a look at the statistics of the mobile OS, we see Android pulling ahead a little more.

A recent list of mobile devices top 30 shows all peripherals iOS still more many all Android devices by a thin margin, when you just compare smartphones and put aside the tablets and the readers MP3, Android has clearly a greater share of this list.

The data collected by the mobile workshop ad Millennial Media also show iOS and Android devices related to the total number of impressions in November, each operating system catching exactly 38% mobile impressions of the month.

However, when considering a breakdown of mobile devices top 30, including smartphones, feature phones and connected devices, non-phone, a different picture emerges.

At the beginning, when devices are classified into categories based on the OS only, Apple has the advantage. But when you take iPads and iPod touch devices of the image and you only consider smartphones market share, the Android devices seem to come out on top.

It is important to mention that none of the relatively new Android tablets have snowman scales of mass adoption or even moderate popularity to our knowledge. Models such as Dell Streak and Samsung tab were not even in the top devices mentioned here. Apple iPad, however, was the seventh position on the list.

The diversity of material Android currently available was probably a boon to the vitality of the operating system. Top mobile devices thirteen top 30 such as measured by Millennial were powered by Android. Samsung and Motorola, two companies that have invested large amounts of time and effort, not to mention the $ marketing platform Android, were the two top producers page behind Apple. Original items was the stand-out hit among all Android smartphones in the top 30 mobile devices:

At the end of the day, there are areas where iOS devices Apple showed a distinct advantage in numbers; Similarly, there are areas where the Android devices begin to pull ahead. But the mobile market as complex as is the case, hardly a sum game zero. Companies can (Apple and Google) and won in the Department of mobile OS. What remains to be seen, it will continue to innovate and to continue to earn billions of dollars and the United States global consumers.

Roku XR is upgraded free of charge to 1080p (Mashable)

Roku XR owners can now increase resolution of 720 p HD 1080p with a fast, free download area.

The update does that with the cheapest second Roku ($80) box to display the same resolution as most expensive, brother $100 XD|S. Unfortunately for Roku SD and HD owners, their boxes will not this unexpected holiday gift recipient.

Not only this update improves the video resolution of the XR Roku. He also made his HuluHulu videos start more quickly, and its navigation controls work faster, too. Even better, the owners do not have to do something to get this update - it improve you itself automatically in the next few days.

Users who can not wait can download the update manually by Roku Rx menu settings go, select "Player Info", then "Check for Updates," and the download and installation will begin.

Suddenly, the $80 Roku XR seeks as might be a gift even more attractive for that kid vid on your list.

Google test new program marketing focused on leasing in Portland (Mashable)

Google is deploying a new advertising and marketing platform for local businesses, and this time, it is all starting at Portland.

You will recall that this month, Google has launched a social service, resembling consumers Yelp. Dubbed muffled, service was based on data from Google sites, but it introduces an entirely new engine, user-friendly interface and recommendation.

At that time, we found that Google had beaten Facebook to the punch by launching recommendations based on location. We wondered what company would be more aggressive marketing oriented sites.

While Google dipped its toes in location in Google Maps and search ads (and with special programmes such as the boost, stifled marketing is something totally new.)

Here is the original stifled interface.

Just as Yelp, Google will send business window decals and kits. According to Bernardo Hernandez, Director of Google emerging marketing, "" these kits are a multi-flavored marketing can help businesses get more exposure for their rating and review online sampler and get more customers through their door." Samplers will include maps database and stickers as well as "high-tech, Google-isée goodies.".

Portland business owners can request a Kit if they have linked to their company to a sites page.

The most important of the kit, according to Google, is part of window "Recommended on Google" sticker pictured above. Sticker built Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, so many smartphone users will be able to touch their phones to the thumbnail and receive instantly more information about the company.

"Suddenly stickers are cool new!", writes Hernandez.

While we believe that stickers are and will be perpetually cool, we believe the twisting of NFC technology is a pure trick. In addition to stickers, Google also tests some community events and competitions around stifled.

We look forward to see the results of marketing dulled - and then we would like to see numbers on stifled, himself. You and your friends and neighbors use dulled yet?