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GrandCentral Reborn As Google Voice

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the probably-should-try-that-out-again dept.

Some anonymous person wrote in to say that Google has relaunched and rebranded GrandCentral as "Google Voice." The article says it will "revolutionize telephones. It unifies your phone numbers, transcribes your voice mail, blocks telemarketers and elevates text messages to first-class communication citizens." Sadly, the voicemail didn't integrate very nicely w/ my phone back in the day, so I guess I should give it a shot.

8 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Can't wait by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Informative

    I signed up to be notified when it's available to new users.

    https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    1. Re:Can't wait by SputnikPanic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I don't know, I'm becoming more and more wary about all the personal information Google is acquiring, and this is another area where Google is able to collect and store such information. Gmail, Calendar, Blogger, Desktop and now essentially, Phone Manager. The way things are going, soon Google will will be able to set your alarm clock for you without your direct input. They'll just know what time you need to wake up and voila.

  2. Voicemail... by D-Cypell · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Im sorry, I can't take your call right now, but if you leave your name, phone number and message, I will get back to you as soon as I am out of Beta...."

    1. Re:Voicemail... by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Thank you for leaving your message. Our content parsing algorithm has found that you were calling about 'were you Thursday night I saw you with her!' Would you like to hear some targeted advertisments for singles websites? We've automatically updated the contextual advertising database to reflect on the recipient's possible need for STD testing."

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      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
  3. Free features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Last I heard all their features were free, but I kinda felt bad because I knew the ones I liked could disappear at any time because that was what they said the plan was after they left beta.
    All features would be free during the beta, and then they said the "core" ones would be free after that with the rest being paid.

  4. Where does the paycheck come from? by Contusion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How does google plan to make money off of this? TFA mentions that they'll be transcribing voicemail to text in near real-time. Will they also be sifting those voicemails for marketing keywords? If my buddy calls to brag about his new car, will I be seeing BMW ads next time I log into gmail?

    *Pulling the tinfoil hat even lower over the brow now* Will Google Talk also have the ability to monitor calls made through their service for marketing info?
    Yeah, it sounds like a great service, but what's the cost in privacy?

  5. Re:Wish they would use ANI instead of CID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ANI and VOIP don't play well together because the ANI (which is accurate) will point to the POP where the VOIP system connects to the POTS.... which may be very far from the VOIP user.

    But that ANI (is* accurate, in that it will lead you to the actual VOIP company that delivered the call to the POTS. From there, they have records that identify the actual source.

    So while ANI+VOIP isn't good for E911, it does work well for identifying telemarketers and suing their ass.

  6. Re:Wish they would use ANI instead of CID by lefiz · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'm not quite sure why this is modded as funny, since CallerID and ANI ("Automatic Number Identification") are actually two separate elements of a call as noted above. ANI is a built in signaling component of SS7 that generally cannot be modified by the calling party. See definition here.

    Still, although ANI may not be "spoofable," it can be manipulated or uninformative. For example, any call placed from any phone in my office carries a general company ANI even though the call could be originated from any of hundreds of phone numbers owned by the firm. We also have off-premise extensions (OPXs) that connect to the office PBX via SIP. Calls placed from those OPXs have the same ANI as calls made from the physical office, which would be deleterious if a call was placed to 911 from one of these phone. (We have implemented a safety workaround for this, but the point still stands.)