Appolicious - The Kindle Fire really stands out as a consumer favorite this season, exceeding sales expectations even in its first few weeks on the market. But every new device has its kinks to work out, and the Kindle Fire received its first major update to address early bugs. LG also released an LTE version of the Optimus for Japan, while Brainlink looks to turn any device into an Android device with a new “connector” geared for the hacker crowd.

Mashable - The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Each weekend, Mashable selects startups we think are building interesting, unique or niche products.

Mashable - A new year is just around the corner, which means one thing -- a new batch of vacation days! But where will you go? And, more importantly, where will you stay? Lucky for you, savvy traveler, the infographic below can help you figure that out. There are deals to be had, upgrades to be enjoyed and virtual tours to be taken, should you capitalize on the resources available on social media sites. See what the biggest names in hospitality are doing on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and YouTube -- and who's dominating on each platform. Based on their activity on social channels, it looks like Wyndham, Marriott, Hyatt and Starwood have come out on top, but they have some competition, which we expect to increase as social travel really takes off. Have a gander, take your pick and then hop on over to our list of top travel tools to help plan your entire vacation.

Yahoo! News - As scientists at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland continue their search for the elusive Higgs boson "God particle," one physicist has built a tribute to their work entirely out of Lego bricks. Sascha Mehlhase, a researcher at the Niels Bohr …

Yahoo! News - To be reminded of robots whenever the Asus Transformer tablets are mentioned is inevitable. After all, Hasbro's line of Transformers toy bots has enjoyed tremendous popularity in recent years, thanks to Michael Bay's film trilogy. The toy company thinks that the …

Digital Trends - Bad news—if you’re one of the 10 million or so people that owns a Samsung Galaxy S phone, you won’t be partaking in the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update that the other Galaxy smartphones will be getting next year.

Reuters - Research In Motion, still smarting over having to change the name of its yet-to-come operating system, faces a similar trademark challenge to its popular instant-messaging service BlackBerry Messenger.

Appolicious - Want to talk about some crazy numbers? Google says that it’s approaching a total of 250 million activated Android devices worldwide. That’s getting close to the entire population of the United States, represented in Android users.

Mashable - 2011 will go down as a landmark year for space exploration, for a multitude of reasons. From end-of-an-era missions to incredible milestones to breathtaking discoveries, human civilization is reaching out further and more often than ever before from our pale blue dot in the universe. The vast interstellar distances suddenly looked a lot smaller this year as we were captivated with discovery after discovery of planets in other solar systems, while man-made vehicles took their first steps exiting ours. We took a moment to celebrate a half-century of manned space flight just as its torch was being passed from public to private enterprise here in the States. Through it all, NASA and others cleverly used the Web and social media to keep is informed -- and enthralled.

Yahoo! News - Welcome to Just Show Me on Tecca TV, where we show you tips and tricks for getting the most out of the gadgets in your life. In today's episode we'll show you how to enable instant upload on Google+. If you take …

Yahoo! News - A seasoned identity thief in Los Angeles was brought to justice with the help of social networking and the United States Postal Service. 40-year-old Robert Delgado was on parole for a previous identity theft case when investigators began tracking his …

NewsFactor - IBM has unveiled new software to bring the power of "big data" analytics to health care, marketing and other business apps. The company presented the new offerings earlier this week at the 2011 Business Analytics Forum in Las Vegas.

The Cutline - The violence that erupted during the Occupy Oakland protest on Tuesday night, like most events in the social media age, was captured on digital video cameras by protesters and news reporters. Footage of the confrontation between police officers and protestors has been uploaded and distributed online--via Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and blogs--in near-real-time. Like several other [...]

NewsFactor - Research In Motion is not having a good autumn. On the heels of a messaging outage that beset millions of BlackBerry smartphone users, the company says it will delay the updated version of its PlayBook tablet until next year.

Digital Trends - Today, Nokia unveiled its first Windows Phone 7.5 handsets: the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710. They look fantastic, and Nokia has a consistent marketing and advertising plan, but there’s one problem: Neither of them will be coming to the United States this year. They’re launching all over Europe and Asia, but not here.  The reason boils down to how much control wireless carriers exert in the U.S., but no matter the politics of it, Nokia’s failure to secure placement spells out the future of Windows Phone in holiday 2011: not good.

AP - Research In Motion said it is delaying the launch of an upgraded operating system for its struggling PlayBook computer tablet until February 2012, yet another setback for a tarnished company struggling to compete with Apple.

NewsFactor - In a changing of the guard at IBM, Virginia Rometty is taking the CEO reins from Samuel Palmisano on Jan. 1. Rometty is certainly qualified for the role and few were surprised by the appointment of Big Blue's first female CEO.

AP - Steve Jobs told Walter Isaacson he wanted him to write his biography because he's good at getting people to talk. Jobs, it turns out, didn't need much prodding, secretive as he was about both his private life and the company he founded.