Yahoo spokesperson Dana Lengkeek suggested this morning that her company's reported week-long shutdown won't affect advertisers. "Essential functions will be working, including consumer and B2B customer support," she said. "We aren't providing specific numbers about who is working, but again, essential functions are operating." When asked,

by Claudine Zap The Obama family faces yet another first this holiday season: their first Christmas in the White House. The people want to know what they'll do and where they'll be. One-day searches on Yahoo! show that lookups on " obama christmas " grew 100% in the last day. Queries on " obama christmas card " and " obama christmas eve " were also popular. Here, a rundown of what to expect from the first family. Tradition: He said,

The mobile version of Firefox - also known as Fennec - is almost ready to launch. Indeed, a Mozilla exec was recently quoted as saying that a release could be "days away," so it's possible that the new mobile browser will appear in time for some tech-inclined individuals to play with it on New Year's Eve or even Christmas. Word of this short-term goal comes via the BBC from Jay Sullivan, who's Mozilla's vice president of mobile.

"I mean, what are they gonna say about him, when he's gone, huh? What are they gonna say? Are they gonna say "he was a kind man"? "He was a wise man"? "He had plans"; "He had wisdom"? Bullsh**, man! What are they gonna do when he's gone? ' Am I gonna set them straight, NO'" Dennis Hopper, Apocalypse Now I first heard about the really sad news concerning Chris Henry from Twitter and like a billion other people,

To say that 2009 has been the year of Google Wave might be a stretch. It was introduced this year, and invites have been sent out to quite a few people now. It has been the subject of a fair amount of discussion, but it hasn't reached the mainstream yet. That said, 2009 was the year Google Wave was unleashed upon the world in its most primitive state. There is certainly a lot of potential for Wave,

As people return home this holiday season, there will be all sorts of hugs and "have you had enough to eat"s. Then they'll be pressed into service, lifting heavy stuff or perhaps climbing ladders. And Google would very much appreciate it if visitors install the company's software, too. A new post on the Official Google Blog about "unofficial tech support" isn't blatantly self-promotional at first. Jeffrey Chang of the Google Chrome Team wrote,

Holiday season is in full swing. And what a great time of year it is - the snow is flying, people are heading out on vacation to spend time with family and friends, and everyones got some last minute things to do. At Bing, our goal is to make your life a little easier no matter what the task or decision, and we recently launched some new richer, enhanced search results that can help you do just that. In fact,

Investment whiz James Altucher has penned a list of predictions for the new year, published today in the Wall Street Journal . Most of his guesses have to do with the national economic picture (unemployment falls to 8 percent), but buried in the list is one striking forecast about the digital media landscape. Altucher believes Microsoft is likely to swoop in and buy AOL in a bid to compete directly with Yahoo for online audience and display ad share.

Microsoft has lost an appeal in a patent case over Microsoft Word. A U.S. court of appeals upheld a jury verdict against the company for infringing on a patent held by Toronto's i4i. Microsoft lost the case to a tune of $290 million. Reuters reports : The court also affirmed an injunction that prevents Microsoft from selling versions of its Word program which contain the offending software, set to take effect January 11, 2010. Older versions of Word are not affected.

by Claudine Zap Christmas Eve is a busy day for one Santa Claus of the North Pole. But just leaving out cookies and milk and hoping that St. Nick will make it to your house is so last century. This year, with the help of social-networking tools and GPS, you can track Santa's movements throughout the night, from your mobile phone, your computer, or your car. Normally, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is the U.S.