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Flurry: Santa crammed more tablets than smartphones into Christmas stockings
Assuming you were a non-naughty-lister who didn't get the proverbial coal lump, it looks like that gift under the tree was more likely a tablet than a phone this Noël, according to Flurry. The analytics outfit said that just over half of December 25th activations were slates, and we can't imagine too many gift-getters letting their new devices simlessly fester in a box over the big day. Overall activations more than doubled from last Christmas, and were up 332 percent on that single day from the first 20 days of December, combined. As might be expected, Apple came up big with iPad sales, but Flurry said that Amazon was also a winner with its 7-inch Kindle Fire HD tab, showing a "several thousand percent" increase over baseline activations. None of this likely comes as a huge shock to our readers, who rather overwhelmingly said that they'd rather have a Nexus 7 tablet than a pricier RAZR M as a gift if they toiled at Google.
ESPN 3D schedules three more NBA games, including one on Christmas Day
ESPN 3D will broadcast its first NBA game this Friday night with Heat/Knicks, but it's already adding three new dates to the previously announced 14 game schedule. One is a Bulls/Knicks matchup on Christmas day, while the suns get two Friday night games in January against New York and Portland. Jon Barry and Mark Jones will have the call on the 17th, with Jones scheduled to do play-by-play for ESPN3D all season, so if you're unwrapping a new set and glasses, just make sure you've got everything plugged in by noon so you can catch the game.
Gorillaz iPad album coming for free on Christmas
If you were excited to hear that Gorillaz and Blur frontman Damon Albarn has made an album completely on the iPad, get ready to have a very merry Christmas: it's coming out on December 25th, Christmas Day, and Albarn is giving it away for completely free. On Christmas Eve, the band will release a new video for one of the songs, and then on the holiday itself, fans will be able to get the whole album for free. And why is Albarn releasing it right away on Christmas Day? "If I left it until the New Year to release it," he tells the media, "then the cynics out there would say, 'Oh well, it's been tampered with.' But if I put it out now, they'd know that I haven't done anything because I've been on tour ever since." In other words, he wants to make sure that when people hear this album, they really do believe it was made completely on an iPad. That's pretty awesome. Can't wait to hear the album -- apparently it'll be part of the Advent Calendar running on the website right now, so go sign up there if you want to be ready.
