According to a recent study by Freewheel, the xBox gaming console is the most popular non-computer device to watch streaming video, edging out the Apple iPad by 28.2% to 27.1%. According to Peter Kafka, this is a 'sneaky success' because more people watch web video on a Microsoft machine than on an Apple iPad, iPhone or any android machine. “And when it comes to home viewing, competitors like Apple TV, Google TV and Roku are so far behind they’re not even competitors,” said Kafka. 

Al Jazeera is launching a new iPhone app for its English news service, that will feature breaking news, opinion, features, as well as live streaming capabilities for 24 hour news broadcasts. The free app will also feature easy uploading tools that will allow citizen reporters to instantaneously submit and share content.

According to Web measurement firm Net Applications, Apple’s mobile Safari browser and iOS operating system account for the majority of Web access from mobile devices. For the month of December, Net Applications saw 53% of mobile and tablet access to the Web coming from the Apple Safari browser, 21.66% from the Opera Mini browser, 15.87% from Android, 3.33% from Symbian and 3.05% from BlackBerry. Meanwhile, the iPhone and iPad accounted for 25% each of Web access from mobile/tablet sources, with Java ME devices 21% and Android totaling about 14%.

According to a study by Fiksu Indexes, iPhone app downloads are at an all-time high, as 5.65 million free iPhone apps are being downloaded every day.  The free iphone app record was broken in November, when the number of daily downloads available for Apple handsets surpassed 5 million. This november record is 15% higher than October.

According to Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis, 300 million people were accessing Facebook via smartphone applications in December. Facebook had previously declared that more than 350 million of its 800 million users were connecting to the service over mobile handsets. However, facebook did not specify how many users were using the application, as oppossed to accessing facebook through a mobile web browser.

Google has released its annual Zeitgeist List that features the search engine's fastest-rising search terms. Teenage YouTube sensation Rebecca Black topped this year's list, as the search for her name increased by 10,000%. Google's own Google+ social network came in second. Apple had an imprssive year, as the iPhone came in sixth on the list, while Steve Jobs and the iPad 2 were ninth and tenth.