Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Thursday, December 27th, 2018.

I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Amazon has a record-breaking holiday season,

surprising absolutely no one another

Instagram holiday crackdown a look at Austin as a tech hub and why mobile alerts are the

Frankenstein monster that is increasingly out of control. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

It would really only be news if it were otherwise, but as it has done, I'm pretty sure every holiday season since its founding,

Amazon announced yesterday a record-breaking holiday season.

Amazon said that worldwide its customers ordered more items

than ever in the US alone. More than 1 billion items were ordered via its

Amazon Prime free delivery program and third-party retail partners on Amazon's platform

accounted for more than half of all items shipped. Quoting from Fortune

Amazon said the L-O-L-O-Lise Surprise was its most popular toy this year, followed by the

NERF and Strike Elite Strong Arm Blaster.

On the electronic side, the Bo's Quiet Comfort 35 Series 2 wireless headphones were

tops, followed by Samsung's 65-inch 4K UHD 8 series TV.

Apple's 32 gigabyte Wi-Fi only iPad was the third most popular electronics sold on Amazon during

the period.

Moving to fashion, Amazon said that car-heart clothing for men and women tallied more than 1 million orders."

But the headline news was that the number of items ordered verbally over Amazon's

ALEXA voice activated shopping platform tripled year over year.

That was probably to be expected as well, of course, but Amazon didn't provide any absolute numbers

as they are wont to do, so we can't exactly compare apples

...