Of the 1,000 included in the study, 52% of adult cell phone users said that they used their phone while inside of a brick-and-mortar store to help with their purchasing decisions. Of those adults, one third of them used their phone to look up information about a product online, either to check out reviews or to compare prices. 38% of those adults went for a more personal touch, though, and called a friend to ask for advice.

Regardless of how the cell phone was used, one fact is becoming very salient in our culture: we can’t buy stuff without consulting some kind of third party via the use of our cell phone. In fact, the mere presence of a cell phone in a purse or pocket seems to be affecting the way people decide on their purchases:

Aaron W. Smith, Senior Research Specialist with Pew, said, “These findings show that the growing availability of smartphones and other mobile devices has dramatically changed the shopping experience.” He continued, “Consumers are frequently using their phones to make sure they get the most highly-rated product at the best price, and in many cases they are willing to go elsewhere or delay their purchase until they find the right combination of value and quality.”

Indeed, one in five “mobile price matchers,” as Pew has labelled these cell phoned sales hounds, ultimately opted not to make their purchase at a brick-and-mortar store and instead chose to buy the product from an online store. More, 5% of of all cell phone owners actually looked up a product while inside the physical and then chose to purchase it online. Makes you wonder how much incentive apps like Amazon’s Price Check app really did influence shoppers this past Christmas. The app likely wasn’t creating a new shopping strategy in potential consumers but, rather, simply made it whole lot easier to compare prices and look up reviews while you’re standing in a store.

Still, when only 1 in 10 cell owners who searched for the price of a product while inside a physical store still chose to make their purchase at the store, that’s not good news for brick-and-mortar stores. Did any of you out there resort to such scrutinizing shopping practices this past holiday season? Share your thoughts or experiences below.

The original Angry Birds hit the Apple App Store for $.99 in December 2009. It quickly gained a reputation as one of the most addictive and entertaining games available. An iPad version was available as soon as the device launched in early 2010. Angry Birds Seasons, which updates with new levels around major holidays followed later that year. Angry Birds Rio was released this summer, to coincide with the movie release of Rio, an animated film from 20th Century Fox.

This news follows an announcement from Rovio in early November that Angry Birds had passed the 500 million download mark.

Were you one of the 6.5 million Christmas Day downloads? Or have you been an Angry Birds addict from the beginning? Sound off in the comments.

[Source: All Things D]

Jimmy Kimmel tapped into this with a challenge to parents to give their kids a terrible present for Christmas, which a lot of parents were more than happy to respond. Even without Kimmel, there have been plenty of videos submitted of parents pranking their kids with an awful present.

One such video is picking up steam on YouTube, and has by far been my favorite of all the submissions. Being a White Sox fan, I absolutely understand this girl’s reaction to receiving a Chicago Cubs pillow pet for Christmas. My response would have been more smarmy than hers, and would have just bragged about winning a World Series in the past 10 years. Not sure she was alive in 2005 though.

Here’s the rest of the submissions, enjoy, and have a Happy New Year!

One thing that hasn’t made sense until now is why exactly this year set stage for a year of pocket-burning sales records. People have always purchased more whenever there are sales, free shipping is nothing new, and honestly that Amazon Price Check app just streamlined what people were already doing on their own. So what was different about this year, especially since the United States is supposedly still recessed/depressed, that made people spend more money than ever before?

The answer is two-fold. First, more and more people are using the Internet for fun. Buying things – whether for yourself or as gifts for other people – is fun. Fun Internets + fun shopping = good times. And when people are having good times, they’re probably more likely to worry less about spending a little extra money. Plus, shopping online is so ridiculously easy that there should be an equivalent to Google Mail Googles sometimes just to double-check some of those questionable purchases people may be making.

The second part regards the amount of leisure and free time that online shopping offers consumers. It obviates so much of the stress incurred from shopping for Christmas gifts that the practice of online shopping might as well be a yoga monastery when compared to the infernal struggles of shopping in box stores during the holidays. In other words, it’s nice to have some free time and peace of mind. Some people, as you can imagine, may even be given to taking advantage of this newfound free time by enjoying some festive spirits. In fact, that’s exactly what happens. And as inhibitions are bound to ebb and vanish when one enjoys a strong drink, so go the inhibitions that say, “Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t buy that just yet.” Just as good times make it a little easier to justify added expenses, so then does a mind choose to ignore those same expense once it is dampened with alcohol. In fact, people can’t race to the bottom of a glass and then click the check-out button fast enough. Online shopping is already tempting enough when a person is completely in charge of their mental faculties, so dousing that decision-making lobe of your brain with a steady splash of alcohol can only increase the ease of buying things from websites. The New York Times picked up the scent of these boozy shoppers:

“Post-bar, inhibitions can be impacted, and that can cause shopping, and hopefully healthy impulse buying,” said Andy Page, the president of Gilt Groupe, an online retailer that is adding more sales starting at 9 p.m. to respond to high traffic then — perhaps some of it by shoppers under the influence.

And in case you winced when you read that certain online retailers are catering (i.e., taking advantage) of inebriated online shoppers, you shouldn’t. These retailers know exactly what they’re doing.

On eBay, the busiest time of day is from 6:30 to 10:30 in each time zone. Asked if drinking might be a factor, Steve Yankovich, vice president for mobile for eBay, said, “Absolutely.” He added: “I mean, if you think about what most people do when they get home from work in the evening, it’s decompression time. The consumer’s in a good mood.”

It feels predatory that online retailers would customize their sales to entrap drunk potential shoppers but, at the same time, not surprising at all. I’m just glad that most of my purchases made from within a cloud of alcohol haziness are usually pizzas and then other pizzas. Do you think online retailers should be tailoring some sales to target people who might be potentially shopping while under the influence? Or is it kind of a sleazy practice (really, though, what isn’t these days)? Let us know in your comments below.

That’s pretty impressive. It would be interesting to know how many were tablets (and which tablets for that matter).

I also have to wonder how many activations there were the day after Christmas, when all the stores opened back up.

Rubin’s update follows a report from Flurry Analytics indicating that there were 6.8 million iOS and Android devices activated on Christmas day (compared to 1.5 million from December 1 – 20 combined).

Rubin reported earlier this month that Android was seeing over 700,000 activations each day. Shortly after he posted that, he clarified that by activations:

…and 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.

Clearly, not only have the holidays been good to Android, but 2011 has been good to Android. It was just in June when Google reported it was activating 500,000 devices per day.

While using computer hardware and/or accessories to make music is not a new concept, this might be the first well-known Christmas song that I’ve seen recreated with such an “instrument.”

YouTube user bd594 (the guy who brought us the wonderful tech-cover of Bohemian Rhapsody) has done it again. This new viral Christmas vid shows a duo of a robot snare drummer and an HP scanner playing the classic tune.

Check it out below:

Here’s what the creator has to say about the project:

This project was really difficult, it was 70% timing and 30% execution. There are alot of YouTube videos with floppies and stepper motors playing songs. These motors have a quick response time because they are not under a heavy load. The problem with a flatbed scanner is moving the large carriage head. It was not designed to move quickly and when it is playing music you will notice the head changes directions. This is to prevent the carriage from smashing into the chassis.

As the notes are playing the carriage head has to periodically change direction and this can add many seconds to a 3 or 4 minute song. This takes extra programming to compensate for these delays. As for the drums they are just a couple of solenoids connected to a pulley system in order to ampilfy the movement. The solenoids are used and have very slow response time, you may notice a few beats are missed during the drum rolls. Believe me when I say I have a new respect for drummers.

I’m patiently awaiting “Carol of the Bells” on 80′s IBM printer.

Anyway, YouTube user coasterbp has melded Christmas and video games in a pretty awesome way – with the now-popular light show/music sync performance. But instead of using a popular Christmas tune as the musical accompaniment or even a top 40 radio hit, coasterbp used the theme song from one of the year’s most popular games.

I present the Battlefield 3 theme song light show:

Doesn’t that put you in the holiday spirit?

If you need another light show fix, may I suggest you check out the equally amazing Nightmare Before Christmas-themed video that essentially works for both Halloween and Christmas.

This year’s versions of various Christmas greetings do not disappoint, either. We have some offerings from the world of college basketball, the EPL, and some students/fans of college basketball as well. If these don’t get you in the Christmas spirit, check your heart for coal deposits.

First off, we have the lovely ladies from the Gonzaga basketball team. I hope you guys shoot better than you sing (we kid because we care):

Next up we have fans from Abilene Christian University taking the basketball floor to bring us some wobbling Christmas joy:

Next up, is an amazing video from the Arsenal soccer club. If only all Christmas videos could be this awesomely awkward:

This next video features the head basketball coach of the Providence Friars, Ed Cooley, playing the role of Father Christmas. It’s sweet, innocent and does a great job of relaying the appropriate cheer:

Here’s some more college basketball Christmas cheer, featuring the Illinois Fighting Illini and the Cal Bears:

Hat-tips to the official LSU athletics site for the lead image, to With Leather for the Arsenal find, and The Dagger for the college basketball videos.

Take Google Maps, for example. Because of the street view feature, you can get a ground floor, rotational view of giant Santas in various areas. On the Google Sightseeing blog, a number of these were documented, but Google took it one step farther, offering a KML file that can be installed on your copy of Google Earth, giving you access to various giant Santas in an assortment of locations.

Apparently, the Google Sightseeing blog documented many, if not all of the giant Santa locations, which Google then converted to an add-on file, simplifying the location process an exponential amount. Whatever the case, it’s for a good cause, because who doesn’t enjoy looking at the various versions of giant Santa Claus statues in the United States? If you’re one of the folks who wouldn’t, try enjoying yourself a little more.

It should be noted that Google Sightseeing’s giant Santa findings were not only located in the United States. There’s also mention of a giant Santa in Norway, complete with coordinate links.

As for Google, they also mention a few other sites that incorporate the Christmas theme with Google Maps. There’s one service that allows you to create a custom Christmas message, using a snow-covered image of your house and/or current location. It’s an awesome feature that allows you to send personalized messages using the data from Google Maps, and some snow added in for good measure.

The resulting animation offers a link which takes the receiver to the personalized message. Be sure you have a WebGL-capable browser before you try to view it. Here’s one from us at WebProNews to you, our readers:

Merry Christmas from WebProNews, thanks to Google Maps and It’sAMessage.com.

I contacted Newmark about some of the details of this donation drive and why he feels its an important cause (other than the obvious reasons). As for his primary motivator for the #perfectgift campaign, Newmark explained, “People everywhere need a hand and I want to help. One great way to do that is to support very effective, boots-on-the-ground groups like the Red Cross.” The cause couldn’t have a more noble mission as the money will go towards purchasing comfort kits for members of the military.

The fundraiser runs throughout the month of December, but as of the middle of this month Newmark says they’ve tracked 1,741 tweets and 200 Facebook comments so far about the #perfectgift. Roughly equating $2K raised so far, that’s not a bad sum at all.

To help get out the word about the campaign and to explain a little more about the donations, Newmark headed over to the American Red Cross to chat with Gail McGovern, president and CEO of American Red Cross, about #perfectgift:

As I said, the campaign is active throughout the rest of the month so there is still time to contribute to #perfectgift on Twitter and Facebook. Seriously, it couldn’t be easier: just tweet or comment what you think the perfect gift is, tag it with #perfectgift, and another dollar goes to the American Red Cross.