Joe Wilcox

This holiday, Google has delighted searchers with Easter Egg "let it snow", which spread virally across blogs and social networks over the weekend. Type "let it snow" into a Google search box and watch the flakes fall. It's a wonderful HTML5 demo.

Snow ball fight! Microsoft couldn't let Google's demo go unanswered, offering its own, which is best for the minority of people running Windows 8 Developer Preview on a PC with touchscreen display. Rob Mauceri, Internet Explorer group product manager explains in post "Let it snow.. faster!" Say, Google, are you going to let Microsoft throw more snow?

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So-o-o-o-o, I'm trying to get into the holiday spirit here at BetaNews, which explains posting the Team CoCo video mocking Amazon Kindle Fire. That's one for all you iPad lovers and Apple fans. Retrevo has redone two classic Christmas carols, and, it only seems fair after giving iPad idolaters a present the Android army should get one, too.

Sing along for Android "our newfound king". Given Android's recent market share rise against iOS, that's no idle claim.

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If you ever wondered what tablet comedian Conan O'Brien uses, perhaps this video about Amazon Kindle Fire will tell you. One commenter to the comedic segment asked: "I wonder how much Apple paid TBS for this one?" I wouldn't go that far.

You will laugh. Surely iPad fans will chuckle most.

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That's 700,000 a day, 21 million a month or 63 million per quarter. What about iOS? Apple won't likely reveal numbers until January, when announcing holiday quarter results. Don't expect them to be anywhere near as high, but not trailing way far behind, either. Android activations are lopsided, mostly from smartphones, while iOS sees traction on handsets and media tablets.

Android head honcho Andy Rubin revealed the activations last night in a Google+ post: "There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day". He later qualified, and this is important: "For those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and 'activations' means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service".

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In August, I called Apple a "patent bully". Whoa, was I wrong. Apple is a patent troll of the worst kind, if reports from Australia are true. Apple is filing a claim alleging that Samsung violates 10 patents for smartphone and tablet cases. Right, not legal cases but the skins you wrap your devices in.

Have you seen Samsung's device cases? It's one thing to assert Galaxy Tab looks like iPad 2, but Samsung device cases are petty generic, and I've got pictures to prove it. Wow, what amazing innovations are Apple trying to protect? Has Apple invented some new stitching technique? Developed leather that won't offend vegans? Wrapped iPhone in Bumpers that diminish an antenna design flaw? (It's yes to the last one.)

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Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has told an Italian newspaper that the company would release a Nexus tablet within six months. Google's sudden turnabout on releasing a signature Android tablet may reflect his confidence that regulators will approve the Motorola acquisition and concern about Amazon coming to dominate the Android tablet market.

Six months is way late in a market overrun by tablets -- more than 100 -- but with just a handful pulling meaningful sales. Apple's iPad 2 is the market leader by huge margin, according to IDC. In second quarter, iPad media tablet share, based on shipments, was 61.5 percent. Second-ranked Samsung: 5.6 percent. There's no question Google should have released a tablet -- that's past tense -- as in six months ago instead of six months from now. Year ago would have been even better.

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Unsurprisingly, they promote smartphones -- iPhone 4S and Google Nexus.

Yeah, I know, this is a bit fluffy stuff, but I'm flu-stricken today and barely able to sit up to type. Besides, these are both really great ads that stand out for creativity and how well they demonstrate product benefits. Good marketing is often about great storytelling and, with smartphones like these, communicating a single benefit watchers will remember. You'll remember both these commercials, surely.

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This is the droid you've been looking for.

There's saying "three times is a charm" and proven axiom about one of Google's biggest rivals: Microsoft gets products right the third time. Galaxy Nexus, running Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich), is the third Google phone, following the Nexus One (January 2010) and Nexus S (December 2010). If you're an Android user looking for something much better or iOS user/wannabe disappointed there is no iPhone 5 LTE, Galaxy Nexus is for you. Verizon released the long-anticipated US 4G LTE model on December 15. Galaxy Nexus is fast, furious and fun. If not for the 5-megapixel camera, which delivers better photos than I expected, the Android smartphone would be perfect, and it's certainly leaps and bounds above every other handset currently available in the United States.

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Media tablet shipments missed IDC's third-quarter shipment projections. Meanwhile iPad lost market share; IDC forecasts greater declines for Q4. The culprit: Amazon Kindle Fire (with a little help from Barnes & Noble Nook). In the battle of price, and vertically-integrated content platforms, Amazon is ready to take a bite out of Apple. That brings me to the question of the day: Did you or do you plan to buy Kindle Fire, or even Nook, when previously considering iPad 2 this holiday? Please answer in comments as well as taking our buying poll.

Kindle Fire's big advantage is price -- $300 less than the cheapest iPad 2, at $199. Amazon and Apple compete head-to-head in ebooks, music and movies and curated applications stores. Both command hugely popular brands. Kindle Fire is smaller and doesn't pack a camera, but less also means lower price -- and single one at that. iPads range from $499 to $829.

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I offer a hat tip to Gizmodo, which has put together a list of smartphones that have Carrier IQ. The company disclosed the information as part of a US Senate inquiry. Sprint subscribers are the most likely to have the spyware installed -- 26 million, or nearly half of them. Verizon: None. The information is also available in a statement from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), just not as quickly scannable.

But not all phones where Carrier IQ is installed have it active. Android developer Trevor Eckhart uncovered Carrier IQ last month, offering detailed explanation how the rootkit-like software works. I followed his instructions to see if the software was active on my Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, and it appeared not to be. Days later I installed Carrier IQ detectors from BitDefender and LookOut Labs, which found the software but didn't indicate its status. Apparently, Skyrocket is one of the phones where Carrier IQ is installed but not active. Same is true of HTC Vivid, AT&T's other LTE phone.

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A month ago today at Midnight, we ended our Windows Phone contest. Finally, after too many delays, it's time to announce the lucky winner. Why did we take so long? The entries were just too good. We argued like X-Factor judges about how best to choose the winner. In the end, we left it to chance among the top contenders.

We requested: "Please tell us why glance and go appeals to you and how you would benefit from it". "Glance and go" is Microsoft's design and marketing philosophy for Windows Phone. Conceptually, Windows Phone enables people to live better rather than spend their lives tap, tap, tapping on the touchscreen. That concept, and the task-oriented user interface behind it, makes Windows Phone remarkably different from either Android or iOS.

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It's the question I'm asking myself, so I pose it you. After countless launch day rumors, Verizon Wireless is finally offering the Google-branded Galaxy Nexus, the first Ice Cream Sandwich Android, to us poor dodos here in the United States. Seemingly everybody else in the world got it first, like Samsung Galaxy S II before it.

Related is another question: Will you pay more now or pay less and wait? Verizon has Galaxy Nexus available right now for $299.99 -- a penny more than the comparable iPhone 4S, which is HSPA and not 4G LTE; you can walk into a store and get Galaxy Nexus into your greedy grubby hands right away. Fry's Electonics will sell you the smartphone for $219.99 online, with a 2-to-3 day wait, which just might make Christmas; I assume it's in stores today, for West Coasters seeking immediate gratification. AmazonWireless has the best price I've seen so far, $199 -- and that's with no tax. I went through the ordering process, but didn't buy, and got December 29 delivery date -- that's no Christmas for you, bud. Better pricing means waiting longer, and Verizon made you wait so long already.

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Microsoft has long looked lovingly at identity, and providing the "one" that binds consumers and businesses to Windows. Users benefit by being freed from managing multiple identities and passwords across the web and, presumably, by improved privacy and security as a result. Microsoft gains by controlling a master identity system that keeps some of its core technologies relevant.

But Microsoft couldn't bring a single-identity system to market during the last decade. Privacy groups filed complaints about Passport, leading to a Federal Trade Commission investigation and later a settlement. Soon after, Microsoft settled its US antitrust case, agreeing to five years government oversight that instead went on for nearly 10. But Federal and state watchdogs left in September, and as I explained then Microsoft is freer to integrate stuff into Windows. Today, Dustin Ingalls, Windows Security & Identity, explains exactly how Windows 8 will tackle the identity problem.

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Verizon Wireless says that network expansion planned for tomorrow will bring 4G LTE to 200 million Americans. That's not the news we were waiting for. Google-branded, Samsung-manufactured Galaxy Nexus, a LTE phone, is rumored to be launching tomorrow. How about a peep or two about that, Verizon? Wassup with these delays?

On December 15, Verizon will flip the LTE switch in Dover, Del.; Lafayette, Ind.; Fitchburg/Leominster, Mass.; Duluth, Rochester area and St. Cloud, Minn.; Manchester/Nashua, NH; Poughkeepsie, NY; Findlay/Tiffin and Youngstown/Warren, Ohio; and Indiana, Pa. Coverage will expand here on the West Coast in San Diego and San Francisco and Eastward in Savannah, Ga.; Chicagoland, Ill.; Baltimore and Hagerstown, Md.; and Washington, DC.

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The shoe is on the other foot. I hope Apple wears it well, because I expect it's a tight fit.

Samsung is doing to Apple what the "Get a Mac" marketing campaign did to Windows a half-decade ago: Change perceptions, for the negative. Apple's ad campaign is one of the best conceived for tech products, using two actors to represent a Mac and Windows PC and convey simply complex concepts about why one is better than the other. That campaign crushed the Windows brand at a time when Microsoft delayed Windows XP's successor, which thumped on the market in late 2006 like someone flying fast and far from a trampoline. Samsung's "The Next Big Thing is Here" campaign -- squarely slamming iPhone and its idolaters -- similarly succeeds.

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