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Google got into the Holiday spirit several weeks early. The search giant didn’t want to just give boring old toys or gadgets, though. No, when Google does something, it does it on a wide scale. Perhaps that’s why they gave holiday travelers the gift of free Wi-Fi in 47 U.S. airports and free Wi-Fi on Virgin America flights . The technology behemoth made clear today that it’s not done giving, though. Google has just added an additional seven airports in its free Wi-Fi program. They are: Washington-Dulles, Washington-Reagan National, Phoenix, Columbus (Ohio), Albany, Boise, and Asheville (North Carolina). Don’t forget: in addition to free Wi-Fi, Google is also matching donations made in these airports to Engineers Without…

Cisco has recently confirmed a tech rumor that their Flip video cams will have some significant new features. There isn’t word when the Flip will have them, but it promises a large screen that reveals the record and menu buttons underneath. By the way, there is also plans to have Wi-Fi. Does

Here’s a nice holiday gift from Google (which may point to a service further ahead): the company will provide free Wi-Fi on airports across USA from now through January 15, 2010. Google has worked with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and other companies to provide this free service. It is currently available at 47 airports, including Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte. It gets even better for residents of Seattle and Burbank, where airports will now offer airport-wide free Wi-Fi indefinitely. It’s a cool gift, but Google also gives you the option to make someone else happy, too; once you log in to…

Topics: Wireless , Odds and ends , Apple If there’s one thing that I’ve wanted to be able to do for years, it’s to set up a direct Wi-Fi connection to another device without having to actually be near a Wi-Fi base station, or going to the trouble of getting an ad-hoc network set up on both devices. This type of peer-to-peer networking is nothing new; back in the Newton MessagePad days we could beam address cards and data between devices through an IrDA connection. Now the Wi-Fi Alliance has announced that this will be possible next year through the use of Wi-Fi Direct . Wi-Fi Direct will come built into many new devices and can be implemented in existing devices through software…

Topics: Wireless , Snow Leopard It’s been a stealth feature of modern Macs for years: the ability of a sleeping machine to respond to a ‘magic packet’ delivered over Ethernet and wake up on command, either triggered by a specialized app or by Apple Remote Desktop. Handy, especially for administrators who might need to access remote and sleeping workstations, but as the world has moved more toward wireless networking the Wake-On-LAN capability became gradually less relevant. Now, as Macworld explains , the ability to wake sleeping Macs remotely has been extended in two vital ways with Snow Leopard as a new feature called Wake on Demand. First, the new OS allows sleeping machines to hand off Bonjour broadcast tasks (advertising services like printer sharing, web sharing, iPhoto…

Google’s Mountain View, Calif., Wi-Fi network was supposed to mark the search giant’s evolution into an ISP when it was unveiled three years ago, delivering free Internet access to people as a way of getting more of them to see its ads. Instead it’s stayed confined to Mountain View. And when I spoke with Karl Garcia, the current head of the project, he was pretty ambivalent about both its impact and its future; there was no talk of expansion or any of the usual Google enthusiasm for taking this model and using it to change the world. The contract with the city isn’t up for another two years, but Garcia didn’t disclose when negotiations for furthering the project or…

Topics: Apple , iPhone Two reports from Friday indicate that the iPhone will soon make it to market in China, although the Communist government wants to make sure that users aren’t free to use their newly-acquired Apple goodness to criticize official policies. Gizmodo published an unconfirmed report that China Unicom may have a deal with Apple to sell iPhones with Wi-Fi blocked. Some of our readers might comment that China Unicom could just sell customers devices that have been upgraded to iPhone OS 3.0, since Wi-Fi doesn’t appear to be working properly on many of those iPhones , but the Chinese …

The Gadget: Today Eye-Fi Wi-Fi-enabled SD cards have been upgraded with a 4GB Pro version with new features like support for RAW files, selective uploading and the ability to send files straight to your computer with via an ad-hoc network. The Price: $150 The Verdict: The best keeps getting better. We already knew that Eye-Fi cards were great at their main task of delivering photos wirelessly to both your computer and photo sharing sites like Flickr and Facebook, but a steady stream of upgrades has vastly improved the card’s capabilities. In addition to the new Pro features announced today, previous cards have added larger capacities, video support , geotagging and hotspot access. …

Better coverage and smaller devices mean more of us can take our computing on the go. Phones increasingly come equipped with Wi-Fi, while ISPs like Cablevision  and AT&T are deploying Wi-Fi networks for their subscribers. Meanwhile, data cards are becoming more common outside of the business world. Mobile connectivity through wireless broadband is important, but it can be hard to figure out how much a consumer really needs. As budget-conscious consumers ponder the need to pay for pricey data card connections, I figured we’d lay out the differences among a variety of wireless broadband options. Who knows, maybe it&#…

Say what you will about Bose, but more than once, we’ve found their low-end docking products to be alright . And besides, this concept is perfect for a company focused on ease of use. Designed by a Bose intern back in 2007, these modular Bluetooth speakers offer omnidirectional sound that can be enhanced by simply adding more speaker modules. Sure, Wi-Fi connectivity might work better for networked audio (especially when it’s being operated from an iPhone), and we’ve seen somewhat similar products from Sonos and Griffin. But the premise of Bose lithium ion powered spheres (with and optional plugin) emanating wireless music around one’s home, all controlled by a simple but sweet little iPhone app? I like it. And it’s not too…