Today is Christmas Eve, and the online Santa Trackers are live and plotting the big, red elf’s every move.

Google’s tool is our favorite, and longtime Santa-stalkers will notice some upgrades to the interface. You can see how many presents he has delivered, how much distance he’s traveled, a constantly changing roster of locations and destinations, and even status updates.

All that data is on the dashboard; it also has a super-cute map view, complete with Santa-in-his-sleigh animations. Anytime you click on one of the present-shaped map pinpoints, you can see photos and a Wikipedia entry on that part of the world — just in case your sugar-high-peaking little ones have the requisite focus to do a bit of learning on Christmas Eve.

And if learning is out of the question, you can check out Santa’s Village for freebies and games, including perennial favorite Santa Phone Calls.

“We’ve received this special preview from one of Santa’s many developer elves, who are hard at work in the North Pole helping Santa prepare for his big day,” says Google of the shiny new toy.

“Santa’s dashboard — featuring the latest and greatest in Google Maps technology and sleigh engineering — will allow you to follow his progress around the world, and also learn a little about some of his stops along the way.”

Forget light-up balls and electronic doggie doors. Here’s some dog-related technology that’s actually cool. These toys range from totally useful to cute and slightly absurd, but we promise your dog (or your dog-loving friends and family) will love them.

Best of all, most of these gadgets won’t break the bank and will add something significant to the recipient dog’s health, well being, and peace of mind.

DogTV

OK, OK. Buying a subscription TV channel for your dog sounds a bit … much. But DogTV is the kind of programming your dog wants to watch; it’ll keep her engaged and curious while you’re at the store or at work. And an engaged dog is a dog that isn’t eating your furniture or “crying” loudly enough that the neighbors write you nasty email.

DogTV is available from some cable providers and as a Roku channel.

About: “DOGTV’s 24/7 programming helps stimulate, entertain, relax, and habituate dogs with shows that expose them to various movements, sounds, objects, experiences and behavior patterns, all from a dog’s point of view.”

Perfect for: The dog who loves puppy videos on YouTube.

Price: $10 a month

Doggie DNA Kit

For the curious or scientifically minded pet owner, check out these Wisdom Panel DNA kits. With a simple cheek swab, you can find out what breeds went into making your lovable mutt the gorgeous creature she is — or you can certify your high-dollar designer dog as the bona fide offspring of two purebreed parents.

About: “Where does Buddy get his curly tail from? Why does he love digging holes in the backyard? Could I be doing more to make him happier and healthier? Your dog may not be able to tell you the answers — but his DNA can. … When you understand your dog’s natural tendencies, you can tailor a training, exercise and nutrition program to his needs.”

Perfect for: Mixed-breed dogs and their owners, especially for newer pets.

Price: $75 for mixed-breed reports

A Laser Tower

Dogs don’t have thumbs, so remote-control toys are right out, but this laser tower from Sharper Image is the next-best thing. It shoots the (harmless, we’re told) laser in 16 pattern, with a 360-degree scope for maximum play benefits.

About: “Safe, automatic rotating laser provides hours of active fun for dogs and cats. It projects a safe laser dot across the floor in unpredictable patterns that oscillate, stop, and change directions. It’s been proven to tempt even the laziest ‘couch pet-tato’ to hunt, play, chase, and pounce.”

Perfect for: The dog who’s already obsessed with laser pointers — or the dog who has to spend a fair amount of time alone at home.

Price: $30

Dog Pedometer & Cloud Health System from Fujitsu

So, you know Fitbit and Nike’s Fuelband, right? Well, Wandant is basically like that but for dogs. Fujitsu’s latest gadget is a tag and collar that track your dog’s every move, including footsteps, shivering, and even temperature changes. All this info uploads to a cloud-based health diary; all you do is hold the tag near a computer or smartphone. In the service, you can also input details on diet, exercise, and “dog business,” aka bowel movements. The link above will get you to Amazon’s Japanese site, where you can buy the device now; Fujitsu hasn’t yet said when Wandant will wag its way to other markets.

About: “The Wandant tag uses a three-axis accelerometer and automated inference technology to count steps based on detected foreleg movements, the speed of foreleg movements, and leg length, resulting in the pet care industry’s first automatic pedometer fully adapted for dogs. This results in highly accurate pace counts, measured automatically.”

Perfect for: The health nut and his or her companion animal.

Price: ~$120 plus $5/month for the cloud service

Tagg, the Pet Tracker

What’s sadder than a lost dog? Let’s not even dwell on it; the holidays are not the time to ponder such depressing hypotheticals. Instead, let’s all buy one another Taggs for our roaming-prone pets. This device takes some of the pain and stress out of one of the scariest parts of pet ownership: despite your best efforts, the dog has wandered too far out of sight during off-leash playtime or has somehow escaped through an unseen hole in the fence. Tagg clips onto a collar and provides GPS tracking for your pet. It also monitors your dog’s exercise levels.

About: “Tagg, the Pet Tracker, is a purpose-built pet tracking device that uses advanced GPS and wireless technology to track your pet’s location and activity from your computer or mobile device, 24 hours a day. If your pet strays from your Tagg zone, the Tagg system alerts you by email or text message, so you can find him on a map and bring him home.”

Perfect for: Anxious pet parents or wandering dogs

Price: $100 and $8/month

Puppy Tweets

Puppy Tweets is a weird novelty, but it’ll be the all-time perfect gift for that person who lives in the overlap of the Venn diagram of “social media whore” and “totally devoted dog owner.” Basically, it’s a clip-on device for your dog’s collar that tracks their activity — sounds, movement, eating, playtime — and posts to Twitter on their behalf.

The sad part: It looks like the maker is slowly going bye-bye. Grab the last few units on Amazon and eBay and set up your account while you still can!

About: “If your dog is barking, you might get a Tweet like ‘Bark … and the whole neighborhood barks with you!’ When she’s sleeping, look out for ‘Had a wonderful dream about you. You were bringing me snacks!’ And at lunch your puppy might say ‘You at lunch? Remember the two most beautiful words in the English language: DOGGIE BAG!’”

Perfect for: See above: “Social media whore” + “devoted dog owner”

Price: Check eBay and Amazon for listings.

Images courtesy of Jolie O’Dell, DogTV.com, Petsmart.com, Sharper Image, Fujitsu, PetLoveShack, and Puppy Tweets

Just in time for the gift-giving season, Facebook is rolling out its Gifts product to all U.S. Facebook users. Gifts was recently in a walled-garden beta; with the new rollout, all us American types will be able to shoot presents back and forth with a few simple mouse clicks.

Gifts is a really fun new feature for the social network. It lets you choose and send a real or digital gift to any f your friends, no address needed and no credit card required for checkout.

On the company blog, we read that Facebook is adding a new gift category, wine, and is also adding a new charitable cause to its lineup: Hurricane Sandy donations via the Robin Hood Foundation.

Facebook launched Gifts back in September 2012. From the outset, we realized it wasn’t just convenient; it was also darn good medicine for the company’s financials, since Facebook gets to keep a cut of the revenue in most non-charitable cases.

Here’s what Facebook Gifts looks like:

All the gifts you’ll see are hand-curated, making the app perfect for finding last-minute gifts for hard-to-buy-for friends. Gifts are sorted by category, such as gifts for kids, culinary gifts, household items, and wine. You can als buy virtual/digital goods such as iTunes gift cards.

Other gift options include donations to Blue Star Families, Girls Inc., Donor’s Choose, and now the Robin Hood Foundation’s Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

Facebook Gifts is the reborn version of Karma, a startup that launched back in February 2012 and was quickly acquired by Facebook. As Karma founder and current Facebook Gifts lead Lee Linden told VentureBeat in a recent visit at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, “We think gifting is really a form of communication,” Linden said. “We think people want to give gifts the moment they think of someone … and it may not always be convenient to pull our your purse or wallet and find your credit card right now.”

Image courtesy of jocic, Shutterstock

Need gift ideas in a hurry? 99problemsbutagiftaintone.com is your holiday 2012 solution.

Note-keeping app Springpad is taking advantage of your holiday indecision with this novelty site, which scrambles gift recipients (mailman, dance partner, midwife, sister, etc.) with gift suggestions. The hand-picked gift ideas range from outlandish to ingenious, and the gift-to-recipient matchups can yield some pretty hilarious results.

We present the following suggestions without comment:

Naturally, the app keeps you clicking for the lulz, but not infrequently, you’ll see a gift idea you might actually want to use. Then the novelty site goes from lulz to brilliant PR; you click through to the item’s listing on Springpad, when you can find out who spotted it, where to buy it, and how to share it.

The app serves as a silly but effective holiday-themed intro to Springpad’s “smart notebooks” product, and casual browsers might be tempted to use the product for shopping lists and wish lists. Or they might just share the oddball recommendations and browse on.

Either way, Springpad is definitely tapping into the whole curated e-commerce trend. The company has been making big upgrades all year; its major facelift yielded a result that we said looked like Evernote and Pinterest had a baby. The product also made good on Facebook likes in some interesting ways. Altogether, we ended up naming Springpad one of the five best cyberhoarding apps out there.

eBay, that megalith of online shopping and auctions, has made a bid to amp up holiday sales with series of unique partnerships. Called the “Want List,” the new feature will highlight top picks from influential folks and micro-celebs.

The personal holiday wish lists and gift lists will appear until December 17, with five lists from five guest curators appearing each week. On Monday, December 10, eBay will feature the Internet’s own Robert Scoble and a top-five list of the gifts he plans to give this December.

An eBay rep told VentureBeat via email that Want Lists are “exclusively available via the core mobile app” on tablets and smartphones and that the lists were created to “help inspire shoppers looking for great gift ideas wherever they are.” eBay’s focus on mobile right now makes sense, given that the site is seeing enormous year-over-year jumps in mobile commerce; making a mobile-only special feature is likely to keep those numbers growing.

Also, the whole idea of celebrity-inspired lists is part of a larger trend we’re seeing in holiday e-commerce: curation, curation, curation. By throwing a spotlight on hand-picked, high-quality items, online retailers can help to reduce the number of choices available. Rather than turning customers off, this limited-selection approach can actually lead to higher sales by reducing or eliminating the “analysis paralysis” that sets in when you give a less-confident shopper too many options.

(Yes, we’ve been thinking about this topic an awful lot lately. We even made a whole shopping meta-list of the best sites for quickly picking high-quality, hand-curated items; check it out if shopping drives you nuts.)

So, what’s on webhound Scoble’s list, you wonder? eBay gave us a sneak peek, and as you’d expect, it’s gadget heavy. The veteran blogger’s top pick is the iPad mini 64GB with LTE, followed by the GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition camcorder and the Mophie PowerStation. Still a boy who likes toys, Scoble also tapped a remote control truck; he also pointed out a lovely necklace of silver and larimar, a rare blue variety of pectolite, for his wife.

Online wunderstore Fab.com says it racked up million-dollar daily sales during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday rush that kicked off holiday shopping.

Between November 23 and yesterday, November 29, Fab.com moved a total of $6.5 million in design-forward products. On Monday, November 26 — Cyber Monday, if you will — the site hit an all-time record with $1.3 million in sales, and the daily average for sales was $933,500 during that entire week-long period.

And as for every retail outlet, late November is just the beginning — the beginning of a four-week period that yields some of the highest volumes they’ll see all year.

“This coming Monday December 3, 2012 is the official Cyber Monday in the United Kingdom,” said Fab CEO Jason Goldberg in a post on the flash sales site’s flashy stats. Fab recently launched via acquisition in the UK, so Goldberg et al. are expecting big numbers from Europe, as well.

In preparation for a blockbuster holiday, the startup launched a new lineup of mobile apps back in October. One offshoot of that effort, Goldberg noted, was that a full third of the company’s sales came from mobile devices.

The company also launched holiday shops to eliminate analysis paralysis and increase sales, and it also introduced free shipping for all orders — a sweet bennie that won’t go away when the holidays end.

Holiday shopping is so awful, it’s no wonder so many of us suck at it.

It’s not just the crowds and the cold-weather germs and the screaming toddlers in all the stores. It’s the endless consternation and analysis paralysis that comes with all holiday gift-giving, whether brick-and-mortar or click-based. With all that pressure, how can anyone blame you for sending out a cheese grater and a pair of socks to your 9-year-old niece?

Lucky for you, we’ve got your back. Here’s the easy, painless way out: online stores that offer a limited, hand-picked selection of the best gifts for everyone on your list. No Amazonian breadth of options to confuse you; no SkyMall-esque tackiness; no toddlers; no pressure.

Pick a site or two, settle in with your credit card, and you’ll be done with all your holiday shopping in an hour. Our list isn’t in any particular order, so just pick the sites that appeal to you most.

Wantful

Wantful is the best. It completely takes away all the pressure of choosing the perfect gift by letting your recipients choose the specific item themselves.

The Wantful product is a pretty, beautifully printed booklet containing 12 gift choices. You enter a price range and answer a couple simple questions about your loved one’s personality and interests; Wantful generates a list of great products for him or her. You choose the 12 you like best, and your work is done. It’s more personal (and better-looking) than a gift card, and it’s almost guaranteed to leave your loved ones smiling.

Etsy

Etsy ain’t just for humorous taxidermy and upcycled motor parts, folks. The handmade-and-vintage-focused online retailer is a village of micro-boutiques, and some will surface truly delightful, one-of-a-kind finds. You’ll find the expected assortment of rustic, retro, artsy tchotchkes, but you can also find beautifully designed iPad mini cases, hip laptop bags, and other thoroughly modern stuff.

The site’s holiday section is especially great if you’re looking for ornaments or kids’ toys to send as gifts.

Fab

We love us some Fab.com around here, and the e-tailer’s holiday shops leave nothing to be desired. Here, you’ll find discounted, unique gifts sorted by type of recipient — a shop for moms, a shop for pet lovers, etc.

Most important, the focus is on design with a capital D. Each collection is meticulously curated by robot elves with impeccable taste. We’ve been doing shopping on Fab for a while now, and we’ve yet to find anything but the most modern, elegant, and delightful items in its inventory. But shop fast; popular finds sell out fast.

Facebook Gifts

Facebook Gifts is pretty new and pretty dang convenient. The social network launched Gifts just a few weeks ago, and it’s been adding products and partners ever since. Here’s what we love about Gifts: 1) You can choose unique and elegant items tailored to your friends’ and family members’ tastes; 2) you don’t have to know their addresses or screw around with shipping details. Facebook takes care of the dirty work for you.

Just go to the profile page of the intended gift recipient, and above the box where you’d normally enter a message, click the Gift button. You’ll get a few gift recommendations off the bat, and in our experience, they’re usually spot-on.

ThinkGeek

If you have a nerd, scientist, graduate student, or die-hard Trekkie on your list, look no further than ThinkGeek. There’s a special menu (on the left-side column) for gifts sorted by price and gender, or you can look farther down the menu to explore gifts by interest.

You got a Mincraft fan on your list? They’ve got Minecraft foam swords. Lego freak? Check out their grown-up-enough Lego-shaped storage cubes. Star Wars guy? He’d get a kick out of the Han Solo Carbonite ice cube tray. It’s so nerdy, it’s delightfully embarrassing — or embarrassingly delightful, depending on your perspective.

Threadless

No one doesn’t wear T-shirts, right? But the Threadless holiday shop is ever so much more than just T shirts. You can find backpacks, stationery, gadget accessories, kitchen towels, and even pet gear in popular Threadless designs.

Of course, you’ll also find Threadless’ famous stash of funny, interesting, gorgeous, thought-provoking, and terribly cute T shirts to suit an infinite range of sizes and personal styles.

Svpply

Svpply is something different. It’s not a marketplace per se; rather, it’s a gorgeous gallery of collections, again curated by high-taste-profile robot elves, with items from a variety of online stores, for a variety of recipient types. Think of it as a Pinterest just for great products, but run by design Nazis rather than bored women in their mid-30s.

You can shop by type of person, type of object, or by keyword, or — cooler still, especially if you’re pressed for time — you can check out Svpply’s recommended local stores, sorted by city and even by neighborhood and selected based on the quality of products you’ll find inside.

Best Made Co.

Best Made Co. doesn’t have something for everyone on your list. What it does have is the sturdiest, simplest, and, well, best-made items for the butch and/or outdoorsy types in your life — your camping/hiking enthusiast parents, your back-to-nature sister-in-law, your would-be lumberjack best friend, or any other Ron Swanson you might know.

Best Made Co. is perhaps most famous for its iconic axes, but you can also find more practical items in its online store. The quality of workmanship is superb; each tumbler, map, and rucksack seems destined to last for roughly 900 years of adventure. And the brand’s simple, iconic logos and typefaces are a surefire hit with designers; check out the Best Made line of journals, pencils, and journal cases, or even its rustic Best Made Soap.

Gilt Gifts

If your intended gift recipient is more into conspicuous consumption, hey, we ain’t here to judge. Just head on over to Gilt Gifts, the home of all things super-luxe, for a look at the site’s holiday gift shop. You’ll find discounted items sorted by type and by price, each hand-picked from top-shelf brands in every shade, texture, and flavor of indulgence. There’s an entire section just for cashmere. Think about that.

Also, if you get stymied, you can check out the Gilt Live ticker to see what other savvy shoppers are picking out.

Donors Choose & Heifer International

For that super-rich retiree on your list who really does have everything (love you, Dad!), sometimes the best gift you can give is a heartwarming donation to a cause he or she really cares about.

Personal story time: My husband and I just got married, and since we’re both in our 30s and already have every imaginable household decor item and kitchen utensil imaginable, we asked our guests to make a donation and tell us about it as their gift to us. Reading those cards was amazing — our grandparents made a donation to an Alzheimer’s research foundation; a couple we love gave money to a first-responder organization for abused children. Knowing that our wedding itself had a positive impact on our community was the best collection of gifts we ever could have gotten.

Donors Choose and Heifer International are two safe choices. The former lets you choose an amount, then your recipient gets to pick a real classroom in need and donate toward a special project or item the kids need. Who doesn’t love supporting kids and education? Heifer is all about creating sustainable animal husbandry in the developing world. E.g., you buy a flock of chicks for a family, and the family then passes on some of the chicks to another family in need, creating a positive chain reaction in the community.

We’ve got a whole ‘nother list of great charities for holiday gift-giving, so check that out if you’d like more options.

Top image courtesy of Miriam Doerr, Shutterstock. All other images from the e-commerce websites mentioned in the article.

Instead of buying your kid or young-at-heart loved ones a battery-operated gadget for the holidays, why not give them a kit that challenges them to make gadgets of their own?

LittleBits, a delightfully named startup, has just unveiled its 2012 holiday kit, a $50 package of wires, switches, LEDs, motors, and an instruction sheet to get makers started.

The startup’s founder, Ayah Bdeir, makes these lovely little toys not just as unique gifts, but also as a quiet protest against consumer culture.

“Often, marketing departments in large companies decide on the hot new holiday gadgets, and we engage in prescribed interactions that they design,” Bdeir said in a statement on the news.

“littleBits turns this trend on its head. The product is no longer the goal — littleBits is a platform that enables people to bring their creativity to life.”

Here’s a sneak peek at the new kit and its gorgeous gift wrapping:

The Bits of littleBits’ kit are part Lego, part circuit board, and each one has a distinct function, such as flashing lights, sounding beeps, or sending a pulse of electrical current through a circuit. The bits feature magnetic snaps and can be combined to make larger projects.

The Bits in the holiday kit include some new hardware — the Light Wire and the Bright LED — and the kit includes instructions for building a Christmas tree ornament (sorry, Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus celebrants), a dancing ice skater, and a New Year’s Eve party hat.

The company is also challenging the tinkerers of the world to show off what they’re making for the holidays. The contest, the company says, is intended to be “a call to inventors of all ages to submit sketches of their dream littleBits projects. The littleBits design team will pick the three most imaginative ideas and the winners will receive all the Bits to turn dreams into reality!”

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