There’s a lot of buzz being generated about the MagicJack home cell tower gadget (femtocell) being demoed at CES. There’s also a lot of misinformation and confusion about the device. This post clears up some of the misinformation and confusion. Ultimately, it appears that many of the advantages of the MagicJack femtocell are overstated.
This evening Google announced that users who signed up for Google Voice “lite” (keep your existing number) can now upgrade to the full service… a Google Voice number of their choosing. I strongly recommended picking a number upon signup because you can always forward your unanswered calls to your Google Voice voicemail and receive transcriptions, thus simulating the “lite” service. If you missed my advice or did not follow it, you’re now in luck.
Google is asking Google Voice users to opt-in and donate their voicemails to improve the transcription service. Donated voicemails may be listened to by humans and manually transcribed to improve the transcription service. If you’re so inclined to donate voicemails, I recommend donating the really juicy ones to spice up the job of listening to them.
On a more serious note, this shows Google’s dedication to improving the quality of the transcriptions which I believe is the stepping stone for the Google Translation service for Android.
[via Official Google Voice Blog]
Google Wave just put out a survey about the Google Wave Preview on Twitter this evening. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/u1N61 . If you are participating in the Google Wave Preview, I encourage you to complete the survey. It is very long but covers almost every aspect of Google Wave, including its current deficiencies. Specifically, I would like to see improved scrolling and a mobile version of Google Wave. Check. That is covered in their survey. They now know that. Kudos to the Google Wave team for putting out the survey and checking with the users. I betcha that some of this feedback is acted upon quickly.
Earlier this week Google entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Gizmo5 for $30m. The Gimzo5’s VOIP services will be integrated with the Google Voice services.
This acquisition will add another critical piece to the Google Voice service which will make it more competitive with traditional telephone service providers. According to a post on the official Google blog, “while we don’t have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5’s engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience.”
Google Voice recently unveiled the new “lite” version of its phone service. It was warmly received but it is nothing new at all. In fact, it existed even when Grand Central operated the service prior to Google acquiring it back in July 2007. The “lite” version is touted as a keep-your-existing-phone-number variant of the service and it is somewhat confusing to some. You could always use your existing phone number and forward your unanswered calls to Google Voice. If you sign up for “lite,” you end up with a phone number arbitrarily assigned from Google’s portfolio of phone numbers — in any area code. You are simply instructed to forward your unanswered calls to the new number and it becomes a voicemail-only service. Instead, I recommend signing up for the full service because you can choose your area code and even search through the portfolio for numbers you like.
