PHILADELPHIA — If you’re a Netflix subscriber who planned to watch some movies on Christmas Eve or as you opened presents this morning, there was no Elf or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation for you.

The online service suffered an outage of 20 hours.  And it was the worst time for a blank screen, with many new TVs and streaming devices being unwrapped on Christmas morning.

Netflix has apologized for the issue, which affected a swath of subscribers across North and South America starting about 4pm ET on Christmas Eve.  Many took to Twitter to complain.

Service was restored about noontime on Christmas Day.   Netflix tweeted its thanks to “awesome members” for being patient.  Full Article

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When Amazon.com Inc CEO Jeff Bezos got word of a project at Google Inc to scan and digitize product catalogs a decade ago, the seeds of a burgeoning rivalry were planted.

The news was a “wake-up” call to Bezos, an early investor in Google. He saw it as a warning that the Web search engine could encroach upon his online retail empire, according to a former Amazon executive.

“He realized that scanning catalogs was interesting for Google, but the real win for Google would be to get all the books scanned and digitized” and then sell electronic editions, the former executive said.   Full Article

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Apple’s long-delayed 27-inch iMac is now scheduled to ship to US customers sometime next month, according to an updated page on the company’s stateside online store.

The UK store, on the other hand, still lists the “Dispatched” date as being in three to four weeks – which would likely land the ship date in early January, although that three-to-four-week projection has remained the same for some time now.  Full Article

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and European officials seized 132 websites on Monday for allegedly selling counterfeit merchandise in a coordinated crackdown timed to coincide with the holiday shopping season.

It is the third straight year that the government has seized websites on “Cyber Monday” — the marketing term for the Monday after Thanksgiving, when many online retailers offer steep discounts and promotions.

ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit coordinated with officials from Belgium, Denmark, France, Romania, the United Kingdom and the European Police Office to take down the sites.  Full Article

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Nearly 3 out of 4 smartphones in the world are now running on Google’s Android operating system, according to a report on third quarter sales released Wednesday.

Android now accounts for 72.4% of the market for smartphone operating systems, up from 52.5% in the period a year earlier. A big chunk of that gain was attributed to Samsung, which sold 55 million smartphones. The bulk of Samsung’s smartphones run on Android.

Meanwhile, Apple, whose devices run on iOS operating system, sold more than 23.5 million phones during the same period, up from 17.3 million a year ago. Apple’s operating system market share slipped from 15% in 2011 down to 13.9%.

Gartner Inc. says that could be because users around the world may have held off on buying a new phone as they waited for the iPhone 5 to arrive in their countries. The research firm says it expects the Cupertino company to have a strong fourth quarter as it usually does and regain market share.  Full Article

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CAR TALK: Toyota Motor Corp. is testing car safety systems that allow vehicles to communicate with each other and with the roads they are on in a just completed facility in Japan.

AUTO PILOT: cars at the Intelligent Transport System site receive information from sensors and transmitters installed on streets to minimize the risk of accidents from missing a red light, blind spots and pedestrians crossing the street.

DOWN THE ROAD: Toyota officials said the smart-car technology will be tested on some Japanese roads starting in 2014. Similar tests are planned for the U.S.  Full Article

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