Done with the Google account dilemma

Posted by BA on May 15, 2011 in Gmail, Google, Google Apps, Google Maps, Google Voice | 0 comments

I’m sure there are many of you out there who have gone through the Google Account dilemma when using a Google Apps account. Google Apps is a service that allows you to use many of Google’s main services with your own domain or with your company domain. I use it with basitali.com as well. My email @basitali.com essentially was a GMail like address that could sign for Google Talk, Google Maps and many other services.

Apparently, Google had not decided what to do with such Google Apps account with many of these services. So, when signing up for Picasa for example, you can use a)  A Gmail account, b) A Google account with google apps email address, c) Any other email address.

Now, I was having conflicting accounts as Google defines and finally the day has come. From 16th May, all your services that you are using with  your Google Apps email address which may be considered as a Google Apps account or considered as a non Google email address, both will be merged.

Google has planned to make the transition as smooth as possible, but there are still some rough areas. I’ll be blogging more about them as the things happen.

So far I have moved all my services to the Google Apps account email address and the services are no more available with a non Google Apps address now. Transition which did not work or was not allowed were:

* Now Google Voice automatic transition available yet

* No Gmail transition possibilities yet

I’ll keep updating this post as I get to see more problems or issues regarding this service. You can read more about this transition here: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=183605

Google 411 No More

Posted by BA on Nov 14, 2010 in Android, Google, Google Voice | 0 comments

Google 411 was a local service in US to search local businesses and places by just dialing 1800-Goog411. Google has recently pulled the plug on the service and it is not available for the users anymore. Quite interestingly it has been the tool not only to provide free POI, people and telephone number searching for general public, but it has also been a great way of training Google’s voice recognition engine.

I believe not many people are using this tool now as everyone is now moving on to the smarter phones like iPhone, Android, BlackBerries or Windows 7 phones. Google has also found better ways of training it’s voice engine to further perfection.

Google Voice transcribes users’ calls that end up in the voice mail and sends it as emails etc. Android phones are also doing lots of searching and other commands based voice commands and all these tools are helping Google’s engine to learn how it can take voice recognition to the next level.

As a result, Google Mobile has announced support for African languages like Zulu and Afrikaans. They will also support voice recognition for South African accented English language as well. Read more about it here.

Google Voice – No more free internationl SMS

Posted by BA on Jun 25, 2010 in Google, Google Voice, Telecommunication | 1 comment

I covered it earlier that Google Voice offers unlimited SMS worldwide. I think somebody in Google read our post and took the action. International SMS are not going out anymore. Google Voice is officially available in US only and you can sign up for an account only if you are  in US and you register at least one of  your existing US phone number with it. You can still send SMS / Text messages within US from your Google Voice account.