The decision by British Telecom to buy internet telephony service Ribbit for $105m in 2008 drew out plenty of questions. Three years later the criticisms have come full circle, with news that the most visible part of the business is being shut down. Read More »
Tech
There may be many questions about Microsoft’s decision to buy Skype, but one thing is for sure: It can take video conferencing video calling to a whole different level, thanks to Kinect. If you watch these videos, you can easily imagine the future of video … Read More »
Google Voice has been a great tool for people to manage their communications. But it did not allow porting of existing mobile numbers, which limited its adoption. Now, Google has quietly enabled number porting for Google Voice though it comes with some hurdles. Read More »
If you are one of Skype’s many users who use the service to make a living or talking to your remote users, then you are straight out of luck. The service this morning is down and the outage is impacting millions of users. Read More »
Today, Fortune writer Seth Weintraub saw that his Google Voice account linked to his Apps account and surmised the service would soon be available to all, turning Google Voice into corporate VoIP. But there’s a problem. Corporate voicemails may soon be lost in transcription. Read More »
Apple iPhone users are still waiting for an official Google Voice app, but they don’t have to wait for transcribed voicemails because Yap does that today. The free application makes it easy to read voicemails and respond to them by return call, email or text message. Read More »
After over a year in limbo, Apple has reportedly approved Google’s Voice application for the iTunes App Store, indicating that the iPhone may finally see the software. Sure you iPhone owners have lived without it forever, but Google Voice is a masterful method to manage communications. Read More »
Craig Walker — co-founder of GrandCentral, the San Francisco-based startup that eventually became the underpinning of Google Voice — is leaving the company. Vincent Paquet, the other GrandCentral co-founder, will take over from Walker, who’s joining Google Ventures as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Read More »
Google today launched a new feature that allows Gmail users to use the Google Voice service. With IM, Chat, SMS and now Voice, Google is turning Gmail into a collaboration hub. And that is only the start for Gmail as a platform. Read More »
Combine App Engine with Google Voice and you’d have a powerful — and extensible — communication platform that supports both a basic set of features for ordinary users, plus the ability to build custom softswitch applications using App Engine to control them. Read More »
Twilio, a San Francisco-based startup that offers a platform and services to marry voice to the web world is launching OpenVBX, an open source web application that is in essence a roll-your-own Google Voice. With the app you can route calls to existing phones. Read More »
Big consumer issues such as the availability of internet apps on mobile devices and metered broadband are outside FCC authority said Kevin Martin, the former FCC chairman speaking today in Seattle. He also expressed doubt that adding spectrum alone would solve the mobile bandwidth crunch. Read More »