Archive for the ‘Google Voice’ Category

Google acquires start-up SayNow for its social voice platform

Google Voice is already a pretty popular service and now Google has snapped up a California-based start-up, SayNow, for an undisclosed sum. SayNow’s platform offers voice messaging between individuals or groups and the company already offers access to its services via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Android and the iPhone. The company claims to have over 15 million users on its apps and services, such as SayNow Phone, SayNow Broadcast, Big Call and Chit Chat. It isn’t clear what Google is planning to do with the platform at the moment, but it’s expected that it will eventually be integrated into Google Voice.

Google acquires start-up SayNow for its social voice platform, By Ubergizmo, 26 Jan 2011. Top Stories : EVO Shift Review, iPhone 4 Review,

This Is How Google Voice Will Ruin Your Relationships [Google]

Long ago, someone wrote about how Google is out to control your dog and marry your wife. I don’t know how right he was about all that, but I certainly know that Google Voice is out to ruin relationships.

You see, reader Pascal wrote us about a recent experience he had with Google Voice’s transcription feature:

I recently set up Google Voice on my wife’s new Nexus One, and today I was leaving work late and left her a voice mail whilst there was some background noise in the rain admittedly.

My message was supposed to be something like ” Hey babe, I’ve just left work, its about 7:15. I’ll see you at home. Bye. “

Pictured above is what his wife saw as a result of a voice transcription mangling. It reads like a dirty confession about Pascal’s upbringing, drinking habits, and age.

Of course I’m exaggerating about something like this ruining a relationship, but it could certainly create some temporary confusion. Especially if you call your girl to tell her about the “trucking stunt” you saw earlier in the day. [Thanks, Pascal!]

Google Voice can now manage your cellphone’s voicemail (video)

You read that headline correctly, Google Voice now works with your existing mobile phone number — no need to choose a new Google number that must be communicated to friends, family, and co-workers. This “lighter” version of Google Voice then lets you hand-over voicemail responsibility (and your data) to Google’s authority where you can listen to (or read via automatic voice to text conversion) your voicemail on a computer (in any order you like), read them as text messages on your phone, and choose personalized greetings by caller. A side-by-side feature table that compares Google Voice when choosing a Google number versus your existing cellphone number can be found after the break. We’ve also dropped in a cutsie video overview of the change — surely a company that produced it can’t be evil, can it?

Continue reading Google Voice can now manage your cellphone’s voicemail (video)

Filed under: Cellphones

Google Voice can now manage your cellphone’s voicemail (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Voice voicemails appearing in public search results

We’re not exactly sure what’s going on here, but it certainly seems like at least some Google Voice voicemails are being indexed and made publicly available somehow. If you punch in “site:https://www.google.com/voice/fm/*” as a search string you get a few pages of what appear to be test messages, with a couple eye-opening obvious non-tests scattered in there as well. Dates on these messages range from a couple months ago all the way until yesterday, so this is clearly an ongoing issue — hopefully Google patches this up awful fast.

P.S. – Google Voice transcription accuracy really falls off a cliff when it’s listening to muffled audio, doesn’t it?

Update: Google says it’s changed how shared messages are indexed and made available to public searches, so we’re hoping this was just a one-time thing.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Google Voice voicemails appearing in public search results originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T: Google Is So Evil, They Even Block Calls to Nuns [Google Voice]

The AT&T vs. Google Voice debate has gotten much more interesting/entertaining, thanks to a letter from AT&T to the FCC, loudly trashing Google—and even the FCC themselves, for allowing Google to run rampant. There’s some serious animosity here.

In the letter, AT&T outlines a lot of their specific problems not just with Google Voice but with what they see as lack of regulation of Google as a whole. Their first main point is that Google Voice isn’t merely software (which wouldn’t be regulated by the FCC), but seeing as how it connects calls between users, it should be seen (and regulated) in the same way as typical wireless carriers. They’ve asked for an FCC investigation of GV before, but now we’re getting some more in-depth reasoning and, even better, some smack talk. The salient paragraph:

But Google Voice is far more than just a software application. Rather, Google Voice uses telecommunications (supplied by its wholesale partner Bandwidth.com) to transmit voice calls between end users and it thus unquestionably constitutes “interstate and foreign communications by wire or radio” under the Communications Act, placing it squarely within the Commission’s jurisdiction. Indeed, Google Voice appears to be a telecommunications service insofar as it transmits ordinary telephone calls between customers using the public switched telephone network.

AT&T further contends that if Google is not regulated, they could easily use their position as de facto “gatekeeper” of the internet to block access or visibility to cloud software or sites which they see as competition to their own services:

Indeed, if the Commission cannot stop Google from blocking disfavored telephone calls as Google contends, then how could the Commission ever stop Google from also blocking disfavored websites from appearing in the results of its search engine; or prohibit Google from blocking access to applications that compete with its own email, text messaging, cloud computing and other services; or otherwise prevent Google from abusing the gatekeeper control it wields over the Internet?

In terms of call blocking, Google does admit to blocking certain numbers, which they claim as sex lines (which have a high cost to connect). But AT&T found that they block more than just sex lines, which if true would make Google’s position as a proponent of net neutrality less tenable:

In fact, Google is blocking calls to, among others, an ambulance service, church, bank, law firm, automobile dealer, day spa, orchard, health clinic, tax preparation service, community center, eye doctor, tribal community college, school, residential consumers, a convent of Benedictine nuns, and the campaign office of a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

AT&T has some smack-down words reserved for the FCC, too. In AT&T’s view, it is the Commission’s duty to hold Google to the same standard to which they believe everyone else has to conform.

And as an agency committed to “preserving a free and open Internet,” the Commission should show no hesitation in ensuring its Internet principles are applied evenhandedly to the “network providers, application and service providers, and content providers—including Google—who are expressly subject to them today.

That’s kind of formal language, but the message is clear: Oh, snap! FCC and Google, you done got served: How dare you show such favoritism! On the other hand, as TechCrunch points out, AT&T ends the letter by saying they don’t agree that the FCC should expand its position on net neutrality:

AT&T once again emphasizes that the principles in the existing Internet Policy Statement are serving customers well in their current form and there is no sound reason to radically expand and codify those principles.

Basically, AT&T is saying that they don’t want the FCC to pursue changes in policy, but if they must, Google better be regulated as much as anyone else.

The whole letter reads like whoever wrote it is modulated but really angry about how everyone’s on Google’s side. It doesn’t look like AT&T is about to give in and support Google Voice anytime soon, that’s for sure. [TechCrunch]

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