Posted on 08/27/2010 12:44:14 PM PDT by epithermal
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc. is adding a free e-mail feature that may persuade more people to cut the cords on their landline phones.
The service unveiled Wednesday enables U.S. users of Google's Gmail service to make calls from microphone-equipped computers to telephones virtually anywhere in the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at komonews.com ...
AVOID GOOGLE.
That is why when they offered it to me, I declined. I was watching TV late one night and saw this movie called The President’s Analyst. It was pretty old, but nicely paranoid, and at the end it turned out that AT&T had a tiny phone (we would call it a chip now) implanted in everyone’s head. I am beginning to think Google is the AT&T of our day.
Could be...ATT is to inept to do anything
This movie was back when AT&T was the only phone company.
Google Voice is a telecommunications service by Google[1] launched on March 11, 2009. The service provides a US phone number, chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account. Inbound calls to this number are forwarded to other phone numbers of the subscriber. Outbound calls may be placed to domestic and international destinations by dialing the Google Voice number or from a web-based application.[2] Inbound and outbound calls to US (including Alaska and Hawaii)[3] and Canada[4] are free of charge. International calls are billed according to a schedule posted on the Google Voice website.[5]
Google Voice is awesome. Especially the international dialing. It seems to be at least a minimum of half as cheap as calling through my carrier, but I can still do it through my phone.
Getting email notifications of emails is handy too. Although the transcriptions can be pretty hilarious.
Wow.
Skype allows you to do this, but for a fee. If google is doing it for free, it will be the beginning of the end for not only land line phones, but cell phones as well.
Instead of phones, you’ll have a device. It might be a mobile device like an android phone, ipad, laptop, destop computer, or even an internet connected TV. It doesn’t matter what the device is. If you want to talk to someone, you can start a connection on your device, and they will complete the connection using their device.
“Although the transcriptions can be pretty hilarious.”
I have a few I wish I would have saved.
A few times I’ve clicked a phone number on a web site and had it call my phone, when I pick up it calls that number.
Yes, it’s lazy as hell but it’s there. I use it.
Some people get Google Voice and add the assigned Voice phone number to their Friends & Family plan. Then make all calls through Voice and it’s unlimited in minutes for the cell phone. Can text through it too.
Paranoids think there’s a government conspiracy but I’m yet to see the proof. Anything I put through Google is assumed filtered and data-mined for advertising.
Great! Send me online discount codes!
I say MidwayUSA.com a lot.
Still waiting to see the evidence that Google and DHS or NSA is stalking me......
PING
Shouldn’t that be ‘RING’?
:)
I would like to drop AT&T. The only reason I keep it is for a fax machine that doesn’t get much use any more. To me it is worth trotting down to the UPS store every so often and pay a few bucks. My wife wants to keep it though.
A land line will supposedly work when the electricity goes out.
“A land line will supposedly work when the electricity goes out.”
It often will, but not always. If a local power transformer blows, the phone line will be unaffected. During Hurricane Ike, the phone lines in Houston were dead and the cell phone service was partly dead (only texting worked).
“A land line will supposedly work when the electricity goes out.”
It will until the battery backup dies. When I was a kid, my uncle rigged up a little lantern light that would run off the phone line when the power was out.
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