Productopia | Breaking News

This holiday season, Google is giving the travelers the gift of free Wi-Fi at 47 airports nationwide. The promotion began on November 10 and will run until January 15. You can view a full list of participating airports at Google's free holiday Wi-Fi site. According to Engadget.com, this arrangement is "expected to cover about 35% of all US travelers."

It's not yet official, but the news has been leaked to New York's Daily News and was on CBS News this morning. Maclaren, in cooperation with the Consumer Products Safety Commission, is poised to recall every umbrella stroller it's made since 1999 -- more than a million models -- including several of the strollers recommended in our reports on umbrella strollers and double strollers.

According to the Daily News, 12 children allegedly suffered amputated fingertips when their fingers were caught in one of the stroller's hinges. Maclaren will send consumers guards for the hinges, which should correct the danger.

Mint users rejoice! We reported in September that competitor Intuit (maker of Quicken Online) had acquired Mint and we were worried that Mint as we knew it would cease to exist. But, now that the deal has been finalized, Mint CEO turned Intuit VP Aaron Patzer says Quicken Online will be phased out and current accounts will be migrated to Mint.com over the next 6-9 months.

Our report on personal finance sites gave the edge to Mint over Quicken Online, but the latter service has a few features that Mint doesn't. Patzer acknowledged this in a interview with Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch, revealing one Quicken Online feature in particular that Mint should have. That is "the ability to manually enter cash transactions or record checks which have not yet cleared." Patzer also talked about integrating Mint with other Intuit products such as TurboTax.

Read our full report on personal finance sites, for more on Mint and other services.

Between now and November 8, if you have an old drill -- even one that's not working -- you can bring it to your local Home Depot and trade it in for a 15-percent discount on a new lithium-ion cordless drill. The promotion is part of Home Depot's "Eco Options" drive, which is focused on getting customers to use more energy-efficient tools, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  We're kicking ourselves because we recently tossed a couple of old drills that hadn't worked in years during a recent garage clean-up. If your current drill is old and busted, don't make the same mistake we did. This might a good time to upgrade.

The results of ConsumerReports.org's eagerly-anticipated annual auto reliability survey are in, and once again, Japanese and Korean manufacturers lead the way in terms of the number of cars displaying above-average reliability. Many of the survey's granular details are still tucked behind CR's pay wall and available only to subscribers, but Consumer Reports has made the overview summary open to all, and added a fully-accessible blog post with an interesting rundown of the most and least reliable vehicles by automaker. Additionally, Autoblog.com has posted ConsumerReports.org's official press release, along with an image gallery of charts that will likely appear in the print magazine, and are probably included in the content that would otherwise be limited to the subscribers. All told, if you want a good general rundown, you can see a lot of useful information for free. 

Consumers and reviewers alike have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Droid, Verizon's first Google Android phone. Verizon faked out reviewers by sending them the wrong Droid earlier this month, but yesterday real review units were sent to a number of sources. So what does everyone think?

We looked at initial reviews from CNET, Engadget, PCMag.com, PhoneScoop.com and TwinCities.com. For the most part, reviewers agree on the Droid's pros and cons, which we outline below.

The Droid is available for pre-order starting today at Best Buy, and will hit shelves on November 6.

All aboard the Straight Talk Express! No, we're not talking about John McCain's campaign slogan, we're talking prepaid phones. In partnership with Straight Talk, a Tracfone property, Wal-mart is expanding its prepaid-wireless offerings in stores and online. Walmart already offers prepaid phones for AT&T, Alltel, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Virgin Mobile and Tracfone. It also sells the Apple iPhone 3GS and a few BlackBerry smartphones, but you need a contract for those.

Early next month, Chrysler will formally unveil its future product strategy to the media at an all-day event staged at the automaker's Auburn Hills headquarters. However, The Wall Street Journal has apparently gotten early word from inside sources on what to expect -- and the changes Chrysler is set to implement (under the guidance of post-bankruptcy stakeholder, Italian automaker Fiat) are sweeping in nature. Several models will be phased out as Chrysler takes the steps necessary to reinvent itself, and a couple of brands we haven't seen in the U.S. for years will make a return.

She's come a long way from The Brady Bunch. Florence Henderson, a.k.a. Mrs. Brady, is taking on a new challenge -- tech support. Only recently did Henderson start using computers, cell phones and other gadgets. She recently told the New York Times' Jenna Wortham, "I didn't grow up with this technology. It's like learning a new language." With that in mind, Henderson has launched The FLoH Club, which offers specialized technical support for seniors.

In partnership with Support.com, The FLoH Club offers technical support by phone seven days a week, from 8 am to 2 am Eastern standard time. The call centers are based in the U.S. and Canada and staffed with employees who have advanced technical knowledge, but are specially-trained to work patiently with customers who have little or no tech savvy. "Our standards are higher than average," Leona Laurie of The FLoH Club told me. When you call, there's no voice menu to navigate through - you're connected directly to a live person.

You've probably used Google Street View at some point to scope out a neighborhood or business before you actually go there (or to see what your boss's house looks like), but how exactly is Google getting those 360-degree images? Sure, it's a camera on a car, which works great for city streets. Now Google Street View is expanding to places no VW Beetle has gone before: theme parks, zoos, sports arenas, college campuses and historic sites. How? Behold the new Google Street View Trike.