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Google Voice allows porting number option then takes it down

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by Jesse Bauer on
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g-voice-porting

Today users of Google Voice had seen an option that many have been waiting for, Google Voice had added the option to port your mobile number. As you can see in the pic above, the option was there, along with a friendly reminder that once you do this, your carrier may be so upset at you for leaving them that they charge you early termination fees, and we know how much that can add up to on a newly signed contract.

Unfortunately before long, the option was mentioned by Google to be the result of “testing” being done, and may not appear for all Google Voice account holders. Then, shortly after that…the greatest trick Google ever pulled was convincing us the porting option didn’t exist…it got yanked down. It may be back, sooner than we think as Google had this to say;

We’re continually testing new features to enhance the user experience. For a limited amount of time, we’re making the Google Voice number porting process available to users. We don’t have any additional details to share at this time, but plan to offer this feature to all users in the near future.”

We’ll keep our eyes peeled for this option again. Let us know, how happy would you be to use Google Voice on your Android phone rather than your carriers phone service plan?

[via Engadget, Google Voice]

TalkAndroid.com’s Top Five Free Android Christmas Apps

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by Tyler Cunningham on
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Tis the season, everyone! For those of our readers who are celebrating the holidays we hope you are having a great time thus far, and with Christmas now literally just around the corner, we wanted to share with you some of our favorite free Christmas apps. So, without further delay, I present to you our top five free Android Christmas apps. Continue reading after the break for the full list.

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Google Voice, YouTube, and Voice Search all receive updates

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by Tyler Cunningham on
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If you don’t have automatic updates, you may want to crack open the ol’ Android Market and check for updates for Google Voice, YouTube, and Voice Search. The updates aren’t terribly significant, but it does appear that YouTube had commenting enabled, as well as subscription viewing. Voice Search and Google Voice both had minor updates, but still, why procrastinating on updating? So, hit up your “Downloads” tab [Menu > Downloads] and enjoy!

[via Phandroid]

Google Voice Suffers Outage – Again!

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by Jesse Bauer on
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It looks as though Google Voice suffered another outage earlier today for approximately 45 minutes. Many Google Voice users as a result were unable to make calls, send or receive texts, or check their accounts online. Attempts to access the Google Voice accounts page via web showed a “502” error preventing access as well as issues connecting from desktop clients.

Google Voice is working now, but there hasn’t been any real statement from Google explaining what the issue was to begin with. We hope that Google can issue something, as we don’t know which mobile networks were affected, or if it was a total GV outage.

We’ll let you know here, as soon as we get word!

[via BGR]

25% of Android searches are by voice, Google launches new YT channel

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by Chris Moor on
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While I can’t say that I frequently use the voice search feature of Android, apparently there are a lot of people that do. According to the latest post in the Google Mobile blog, one of every four searches from an Android phone is by voice. (In case you flunked math 1/4 = 25%)

That’s a pretty large number and I personally would’ve never guessed it to be that high. Google realizes this and has launched a new youtube channel almost dedicated to new uses for voice search. Check out the video and link to their channel after the break. But before the break, did you know TalkAndroid has a YouTube channel?: youtube.com/talkandroid (and Facebook and Twitter)

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Google Voice App gets updated with new Widgets!

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by Steve Ginter on
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If you are a fan of Google Voice, you are gonna love this little addition.  Google just updated it’s Voice app with 2 new widgets to make call and voicemail message managing a little easier.

One is the Inbox widget which gives you a quick view to your recent voicemail messages and text messages.  Click on the message and it will bring you to your voicemail box.

The other one is a Settings widget.  It adds 4 quick hotkeys – one acts a quick link to open up the Google Voice app, the next one allows you to quickly compose free text messages, after that is a quick toggle to change which calls go through Google Voice, and the last, and probably the most useful, allows you to set DND so that calls to your Google number go straight to your Google voicemail.

[via googlemobile]

Report: Google eyes set on Unified Communications and Collaboration market

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by Tyler Cunningham on
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Frost & Sullivan

A new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan suggests that the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) market is very much on Google’s radar. UCC is a guideline, of sorts, which seeks to develop customer relationships, drive innovation, improve operations, and build partner connections through the integration of real-time communication services.  In layman’s terms: Google products like Google Voice, Buzz, mobile services through Android, as well as technologies gained through various acquisitions, all come together under the umbrella of this concept of Unified Communications.

Be sure to continue reading below for the full press release:

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Google Voice announces faster dialing for Android and Blackberry

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by Dustin Karnes on
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Google Voice

According to the Google Voice Blog, there has been a major update to the way Android and Blackberry users make calls from their mobile devices. Here’s how it works, taken from the official post:

Until today, the Google Voice app had to make a request to the Google Voice server every time you wanted to make a call to send us the phone number you wanted to dial. Then the call would be connected via a Google Voice access number. With direct access numbers, we assign a unique phone number to every person you call. This means that we no longer need to use your data network to access the server each time you make a call, so calls will be placed much faster.

Anyone who has ever placed a call through Google Voice on these platforms know what they’re talking about. This is great, and truly innovative. I know that it used to be that I would have to wait upwards of 5 seconds to place a call through Google Voice, while my phone connected to data, sent the info to Google’s servers, let the servers translate the number being dialed into the Google Voice equivalent, shoot the information back and place the call. Now, I can make the call in (what seems to be) less than a second.

It should also be mentioned that this is built into the native Google Voice app for Android, while Blackberry users will need to go to m.google.com/voice from their device.

Don’t have a Google Voice account to try this out on? It’s simple (For US users)… simply go to google.com/voice and set up an account. If you get a chance to try it out, let us know what you think in the comments below.

[via Google Voice Blog]

A fifth of Android apps malware? Not quite…

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by Chris Moor on
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Recently, CNET reported on a study that was done by security-firm SMobile Systems involving Android apps, purporting that a full 20% of Android apps have access to personal information. According to the article, “…dozens of apps were found to have the same type of access to sensitive information as known spyware does, including access to the content of e-mails and text messages, phone call information, and device location, said Dan Hoffman, chief technology officer at SMobile Systems.”

Now before we start going into full-on panic mode, let’s think about this. The way that security-firm SMobile Systems went about their study was by looking at the permissions that the apps in question used. There’s a definite problem with this method. As an example, let’s take one of the apps in the app store and look at its permissions. For our purposes, we’re going to use Google’s own Voice app. Google Voice is a phone/SMS app that uses Google’s own services to make and receive calls and text messages, as well as giving access to visual voicemail that offers several caveats (such as voice-to-text transcriptions) that other visual voicemail setups don’t.

Google Voice has access to the following information:

  1. Your personal information
  2. Services that cost you money
  3. Your messages
  4. Network communication
  5. Your accounts P
  6. hone calls
  7. Hardware controls and finally
  8. System tools.

According to the criteria that SMobile Systems used, Google Voice would be considered malware. Now let’s take a quick look at why that information is needed:

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