Morning, everyone! I'm laid out at home with a wrenched back, but I'm still basking in the sweet holiday after-glow! Did you pop out to get the Wal-Mart iPhone yesterday? Send me a line and let me know that and you most geektastic holiday gift! Now, on to the headlines...

According to a new report, there are roughly 4 billion mobile connections in the world, which, after our friends at Digital Trends applied some basic logic, equates to about 60% of all the people on the planet. Can you believe that? Of course, it's not exactly true -- the logic doesn't take into account the crazies of the world who operate more than one mobile device.

Amazon.com is reporting it had its best holiday shopping season ever -- but hasn't released sales figured to back it up quite yet. According to a spokesman, the site sold 6.3 M items on Dec. 15, or 73 items per second. That's a lot of goods -- made especially impressive since Amazon also claims more than 99% of items arrived in time for Christmas.

Check out this Forbes list of the most stolen electronics. It's kind-of vague, but the stats are interesting.

Congrats to this college student who kept his wits about him after realizing that his Xbox 360 was stolen out of his dorm room -- he used the left-behind controller to locate the console (still in the dorm) and used it to prove the pilfered Xbox was his. Kudos to him for knowing how things work!

** Have a great week, everyone! I'm off from now until Friday, so stay safe and have a wonderful new year's celebration! On a personal note, thank you for making Byte-Sized such a grand success in its first 6 months. I enjoy keeping each and every one of you up to date and informed on the biggest tech stories of the day, and I sincerely hope you all tune in for a fab 2009!

Coming up in the next few weeks: We are placing a roving reporter on the floor of CES to blog on the hottest trends at the show, plus we'll have a Valentine's Day guide to impressing your geeky sweetie!