A scant five days ago, Google confirmed that number porting was being tested as a feature of Google Voice after some users spotted the feature and alerted tech blogs to its presence.

As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared for some users and remained an option to just a few. But Google announced the official introduction of the service today on their blog, and porting is available to existing users immediately. (If you’re thinking of signing up for Google Voice to take advantage of this feature, you’ve got to cool your heels for a few weeks.) Porting takes a day to go through, and the post links through to a some additional steps required to make the move from a standard carrier to Google complete.

As has been mentioned numerous times, you’ll be subject to early termination fees from your carrier if you’re under contract. Landline number porting isn’t available yet, either. Have you started to work Google Voice into your phone-using habits yet? Do you plan to eventually port your number to Google?

That was quick- now everyone can port numbers to Google Voice is a post from: The Inquisitr

From last night until early this morning, a number porting option was available for Google Voice – and the feature remains available to some users.

Google Voice is one of those services people seem to either love or mostly ignore, and the addition of porting existing numbers would likely have landline and mobile companies wetting their pants a little. The cost of the service is $20, and if it becomes available to you, might cause your current carrier to smack you in the face with an early termination fee.

Google confirmed the small-scale existence of the feature:

“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.”

Are you one of the lucky few whose Google Voice account allows for number porting? Is this a service you’re interested in, or do you feel that new numbers are part and parcel of a competitive market and you can just create a new Facebook group when you change it rather than spending $20?

Google Voice adds number porting for some users, are you one of the lucky ones? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Move over, Skype, you fat ass.

Google’s taken its already largely superior email service and added one more pretty amazing feature that is likely to piss off some pay to play companies. As of today, you can now make phone calls straight from an open GMail window, and they’re free within the US and Canada at least until the end of 2010. (That particular caveat is curiosity-piquing, because paying for domestic calls is likely to be at least on the table if they thought to say so.)

I’ve always found Skype to be a pain in the ass at the best of times- it was so resource draining it refused to run on my old Dell laptop (a pretty powerful if sucky machine) and the sound quality has always struck me as so-so. The interface is also not very intuitive, versus the GMail phone call interface, which appears to just be a giant pop-up keypad. If you’ve got a Google Voice account, that number will be displayed when you make outgoing calls, and you can receive calls to that number in GMail.

If you haven’t gotten an option to use it yet, GMail says it’s coming:

We’re rolling out this feature to U.S. based Gmail users over the next few days, so you’ll be ready to get started once “Call Phones” shows up in your chat list (you will need to install the voice and video plug-in if you haven’t already). If you’re using Google Apps for your school or business, then you won’t see it quite yet. We’re working on making this available more broadly – so stay tuned!

I haven’t gotten mine yet, but I’ll be keeping an eye out- if anything, I won’t have to walk across the room to get my phone anymore, or out to the car if I’ve left it there. Are you excited about this feature? Think it will replace some or all of your phone service?

GMail puts a phone in your email is a post from: The Inquisitr

Google Voice is no longer available by invite only. Google today announced that Google Voice is now available to all U.S. customers. The service gives customers a virtual phone number which they can then link to their own home, cell and internet phones.

Google voice also allows SMS messages to be sent to the users account, provides voicemail services free of charge and even allows for a speech-to-text transcription service to be utilized with no cost. Users can also take advantage of very cheap international calling through money they can load onto their account.

Google Voice is even available as an application on various mobile phones, unfortunately Apple only allows an HTML5 app to be used due to their own restrictions placed on the app which stops incoming calls to be made in the background…sigh.

Head over to Google.com/voice to get started.

Google Voice Leaves Testing, Available To All Of The U.S. is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you’re one of those people that picks up on stuff early, you might have used Google Voice way back when it was GrandCentral, before Google bought it up and closed it for two years.

But today is the day that everyone and their brother gets to play with the service, as Google has opened Google Voice to the general public after re-opening as an invite only beta in March of last year. The new for-everyone service is open to US residents only, and it offers one phone number to manage all your other phone numbers. Google Voice also does voicemail transcription, which is hopefully another step on the road to eliminate voicemail altogether.

Google sums up the changes since the beta opened up last year in a post today on their blog:

Over the past year, we’ve introduced a mobile web app, an integrated voicemail player in Gmail, the ability to use Google Voice with your existing number and more. Over a million of you are now actively using Google Voice, and many of the features released over the past year (like SMS to email and our Chrome extension) came as a result of your suggestions, so thanks!

Not everyone is pleased about the advances Google has made in reducing telecommunications-related bills- Frontier Communications is suing the company for patent infringement:

“Google’s deliberate infringement of the patent has greatly and irreparably damaged Frontier,” the plaintiff’s lawyers said in court papers seeking unspecified damages and an injunction to stop the use of the technology.

Although I got an invite sometime last year, I have to admit to not using the service at all yet. Have you integrated Google Voice into your phone call management? Has it changed your life? What are noobs without invites missing?

Google Voice throws open its doors… to the US is a post from: The Inquisitr

How comfortable are you entrusting your personal deets to Google?

That’s the question a lot of Google Voice early adopters are asking themselves after a technology blog found a whole bunch of transcribed voicemails, some seemingly private, floating around in Google search results. Some are clearly tests, most appear innocuous, but there appear to be data tidbits like phone numbers and scheduling details in the mix as well.

After a few blogs picked up the quirk, Google stepped in to explain:

“Since the initial idea behind posting a voicemail, was precisely to share it with others, we did not restrict crawling of those messages that users post on the web, but we can certainly understand that users would want to make them public on their sites but not necessarily searchable directly outside of their own website. We made a change to prevent those to be crawled so only the site owner can decide to index them.”

So it appears the crawling was a bad idea and they’re not doing it anymore. Still, kind of worrisome.

[Via Engadget]

Google Voice users may find transcribed voicemails floating freely in the cloud is a post from: The Inquisitr

The idea that AT&T would file a complaint with the FCC over Google Voice, Google’s service that let’s users unify all their phone numbers under one common number, almost seems like a case of the kettle calling the pot black.

However AT&T’s argument is that because Google is in violation of telecommunication rules because Google Voice is blocking some calls to rural areas to cut down on network access expenses. This goes against the laws that require phone operators to offer unrestricted access says AT&T.

Google argues that Google Voice isn’t a traditional phone service and therefore the FCC shouldn’t be treating it as such. The FCC says they have received the letter and are reviewing it.

Interestingly enough AT&T says that even if the FCC takes Google’s side in the matter the search giant would be breaching the FCC’s own net neutrality rules as they stand today.

AT&T said in the letter that even if the FCC agreed with Google and defined Google Voice as a Internet service, the search giant’s practices would be a breach of net-neutrality principles already in effect at the agency and a violation of broader net-neutrality rules proposed Monday by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. AT&T has said it does not support the adoption of additional net-neutrality rules, which Google has backed.

"By openly flouting the call blocking prohibition that applies to its competitors, Google is acting in a manner inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the FCC’s fourth principle contained in its Internet Policy Statement," Quinn said. "Ironically, Google is also flouting the so-called ‘fifth principle of non-discrimination’ for which Google has so fervently advocated."

Source: Washington Post – AT&T Accuses Google of Violating Telecom Laws

AT&T getting snarky with Google – file complaint with FCC is a post from: The Inquisitr

Google Voice services are still only being offered by invite only. I personally requested an invite and it took nearly 3 weeks for my profile to be accepted by Google. Now the Mountain View, California company is approving military personnel profiles at a much faster and guaranteed rate.

According to the Google Voice Military Services page, Military personnel will receive acceptance into the program within one to two days. Here’s there only requirment:

Please leave your .mil email address (so we know you are in the military), and we’ll send you a Google Voice invite within a day or two.

Google also promises not to use any gathered information for marketing purposes. Considering it’s the military their dealing with I would consider this a wise policy to uphold.

Google Announces Open Invite To Google Voice For All Military Personnel is a post from: The Inquisitr

This story just doesn’t want to end as well it shouldn’t I guess but the saga of Riverturn, Google Voice, and Apple takes a new twist today with word that Apple says it is up to the developer of VoiceCentral, a Google Voice iPhone app, to refund those users who bought the app before Apple pulled it from the store.

At the same time as customers are asking Riverturn if they will continue to support the app or if at some point it will magically be deleted from their iPhones there are also some looking to get a refund for what is basically a dead in the water app.

“Apple made it impossible for our customers to receive the fixes, updates, and support by pulling the app. We were fulfilling our end of the bargain. Why should those refunds come out of our pocket?” says Duerr. “The refund issue and lack of respect for our mutual customers has further soured us on the belief that Apple cares at all about their developers … other than the dollars they bring in.”

Riverturn, which develops apps to sell as well as apps for its customers to distribute, has now put all iPhone development on hold until they see how the situation pans out. 

“We are interested in both the Android and WebOS (Pre) platforms. But at this moment, we have not made any final decisions at all, other than that it would be really hard to continue to invest our own dollars in the iPhone development program for our own apps. We think that we will continue to develop apps for our clients but will strongly caution them that they too could lose their investment if Apple ever decides to pull their app.”

Source: MacLife :: VoiceCentral Developer Talks About Being Pulled from App Store and Apple’s Lack of Communication

Add to this the news that the FCC has decided that all the companies involved need to start answering some serious question over this fiasco the next month or so could be pretty interesting on the Apple front.

Apple pulls app, says developer is responsible for refunds is a post from: The Inquisitr

Lifehacker is reporting that long-awaited Google Voice invites have finally been sent.

For the uninitiated, Google Voice was spawned from what used to be Grand Central. Google snatched up the “one ring to rule them all” service a few years back, and let everyone think they forgot about it. The service stayed closed to all but existing Grand Central users. All the while, Google elves have been toiling away tirelessly, adding to the already feature rich list of perks.

In March, Google Voice emerged from the years-long private beta of Grand Central, but remained closed to new registrations. Google recently piqued everyone’s curiousity and sparked imminent launch rumors by purchasing a million phone numbers from Level 3 Communications, but stayed frustratingly mum on when the service would be available to new users, tweeting coyly as recently as the 22nd:

Lots of rumors, coverage, etc., about when Google Voice opens again. Trust me we’re cranking away at it 24/7. Nothing to report yet…

Now it appears that the service will finally be available shortly for everyone who didn’t get in on it way back in 2007. Wikipedia lists some of the cool features offered by Grand Central/Google Voice:

• A single Google number for all user’s phones.
• Free calls and SMS in the contiguous US.
• Calling International phone numbers for as low as 0.02 USD per minute.
• Call screening.
• Listen in on someone recording a voicemail before taking a call.
• Block calls.
• Send, receive, and store SMS online.
• Answer an incoming call on any of your phones.
• Phone routing. Particular phones can ring based on who calls.
• Voicemail transcripts. Read voicemails online.
• Listen to voicemail online or from a phone.
• Receive notifications of voicemails via email or SMS.
• The ability to forward or download voicemails.
• Conference calling.
• Record calls and store them online.
• Switch phones during a call.

Google Voice invites sent! is a post from: The Inquisitr