Free WiFi -- it's the gift that just keeps on giving, which partly explains why so many online companies are giving it to consumers this holiday season. This fall, both Google and Microsoft announced free WiFi promotions. As of today, Google is providing free WiFi on every Virgin America flight throughout the holiday season. (Google is also giving away free Wi-Fi in 47 airports across the U.S., including hubs such as Miami, Seattle, Houston and San Jose, Calif. The promotions will last through Jan. 15, 2010.) Microsoft is teaming up with mobile ad network JiWire to provide …

More than any Web browser, Mozilla's Firefox is the most vulnerable to digital attack, according to a new report from application security vendor Cenzic. According to Cenzic, Firefox accounted for 44% of all browser "vulnerabilities" reported in the first half of 2009. In contrast, Apple's Safari had 35% of all reported browser vulnerability, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was third at 15%, and Opera had just 6% share. Why is Firefox so susceptible to attack? "They've gotten more traction as a browser, which is good for them and the more you get used the more exposure you have," Cenzic's chief …

Google has quietly acquired VoIP startup Gizmo5 for about $30 million in cash, reports TechCrunch, citing multiple sources with knowledge of the deal. Just last month, Skype was in talks with the startup, which was widely interpreted as a backup plan in case its IP litigation didn't work out, asGizmo5's SIP infrastructure could theoretically replace Skype's proprietary P2P back end. Gizmo5 is apparently a good fit with a number of Google products. Google Talk, for one, allows voice calls between users but has no PSTN link to allow incoming or outbound calls to real phones. Gizmo5 does this …

Further validating casual gaming -- as an industry, if not a pastime -- Electronic Arts has acquired Facebook gamemaker Playfish for nearly $400 million. Reportedly the second-most popular gamemaker on Facebook after Zynga, Playfish's revenues were on target to reach $75 million this year. (Industry leader Zynga's revenues are expected to reach $250 million this year.) Its games include Country Story, Pet Society, and Restaurant City. Playfish makes its money building addictive games for Facebook users, who willingly fork over small amounts of money to progress more rapidly in the games. Playfish also makes money from traditional advertising …

Really, Rupert? Really? As part of his broader paid content strategy, News Corp.'s head is toying with the notion of making the company's content unfindable via Google. Sure, Murdoch and his minions have criticized search engines for taking a free ride on its content -- and even argue that readers who randomly reach a page via search have little value to advertisers -- but the move still seems almost childishly rash. Doing his best Rupert impression, Marketing Pilgrim blogger Andy Beal mocks: "I've decided that I really don't need as many of you coming to …

Brushing aside the hype, Fast Company takes a sober look at Augmented Reality technology -- which superimposes content, data, and demarcations onto our everyday lives -- and asks whether consumers are destined to embrace it. Not that we haven't already. The yellow first-down line superimposed on televised football games is a basic example of augmented reality. But a new breed of smartphones -- which can determine location through GPS and internal compasses, download data through mobile broadband connections, and process advanced graphics -- has serious implications for the future of AR. Yet, its success as an industry, according …

Even before Google's acquisition of AdMob was revealed, The Guardian (UK) reported that mobile advertising is on the rise. MediaCom -- which is thought to spend more on mobile than any other agency in the UK -- expects 100% year-on-year growth in its mobile marketing operation. Meanwhile, according to a survey of media buyers carried out by the Internet Advertising Bureau, understanding of mobile advertising in the industry has dramatically increased year-over-year, with the number of people saying they had a handle on the medium rising from 24% of respondents in 2008 to 42% this year. That said, …

It might not rival the throngs of Apple fans who camped out for first dibs on the iPhone, but consumers are still queuing up for the Verizon Wireless-supported Motorola Droid. More than a hundred people were lined up at midnight Thursday outside one Verizon Wireless store in midtown Manhattan, while about 65 eager beavers lined the south side of West 34th Street across from Macy's in Manhattan at 11:30 p.m. Thursday. They crowds weren't there to spend the night, however. Verizon opened the store from midnight to 2 a.m. to give New Yorkers early access to the phones. One Verizon …

EBay has officially settled the litigation around its sale of Skype. The founders of the online calling service say they'll drop their lawsuits against the company and a consortium of buyers whose bid to purchase 65% of Skype was announced last month. Per the agreement, the founders will own a 14% stake in the new Skype and receive two seats on the board. EBay's share of the new Skype will now be a more modest 30%, while the buyers consortium will now own a 56% majority stake. The founders will also transfer the disputed intellectual property owned by their company …

Twitter is doing it best to clean up its "trending topics" feature by returning more relevant results when uses look up popular keywords that other users are tweeting about. The company adopted trending topics after acquiring search engine Summize last year. As a result, it can pick up popular keywords or phrases that the community is buzzing about, which has been a useful way to find out about news of various sorts. As Twitter has grown in size, however, its topics have been more and more mainstream, while spammers have been exploiting the service by including the words in their …