Ho, ho, ho: The Santa Tracker is live and cooler than ever

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 …

Kayak unwraps the best and worst times to travel this holiday season [infographic]

What are the best days to book flights? What are the hottest holiday destinations? How much can you save by traveling on Christmas? All this and more in an exclusive infographic.

For the makers on your list, littleBits launches holiday electronics kits

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?

Fab goes to free shipping. Permanently.

We can't bear to say it, but the holidays are sort of upon us, and design-centric flash sales site Fab.com is getting into the swing of things early with free shipping.

What recession? Holiday shopping online finishes at a record $35.3B

Online holiday shopping for 2011 finished at an all-time high of $35.3 billion, up 15 percent from last year’s sales figures.

According to comScore, which tracked online consumer spending between November 1 and the week beginning December 25, year-over-year sales …

First Round Capital rings in the holidays with “Friday” spoof

First Round Capital is famous in these parts for its irreverent, awkward and often hilarious holiday e-greetings.

This year, the team and its family of startups pitched in to create an elaborate send-up of Rebecca Black’s soulless mistake of a …

VBWeekly: Everything you need to know about Black Friday (video)

It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and the VentureBeat offices are deserted. Where is everyone? Out shopping for insane Black Friday deals, apparently.

VentureBeat chief technical officer and resident videographer Christopher Peri spends some quality time with his camera, talking about …

Mapping Black Friday insanity on Twitter (infographic)

Now that the majority of you have stuffed your bellies with multiple helpings of a delicious Thanksgiving meal, it’s inevitably time to start scoping out deals for Black Friday.

Of course there are plenty of people who don’t care much …

Activision says Call of Duty Elite service will be stable for Thanksgiving users

Gamer social network Call of Duty Elite will be stable this Thanksgiving and for the subsequent holiday weekend, Activision Blizzard said today.

When the service debuted on Nov. 8 it had a number of issues that made it tough for …