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.
Read MoreGoogle 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.
Send Free Text Worldwide. Free SMS for life
Posted by BA on Mar 13, 2010 in Uncategorized | 1 comment
This sounds too good to be true but things are moving in that direction. To promote the use of text messages on cell phones in my country, I remember cell phone operators were giving free SMS to subscriber around a decade ago. Once they started using it, it has never been free.
Today I will tell you a very simple method of sending free text messages to any phone, anywhere in the world. There’s no restriction how many messages you send but I recommend you use this service wisely and don’t lose the duck that lays golden eggs.
This is not going be surprise for some that this free world-wide sms service is being given by nobody else but Google. Free text messages is one of the feature of Google Voice that has not been talked about much. If you succeed in getting a Google Voice account, you can send out international text to your friends and family. Following are the steps that allow you to send free SMS to any number in the world.
Free SMS for Life
Step 1: Google Voice is still invite only. Goto http://www.google.com/voice and request an invite.
Step 2: You will have to wait for some time till you get the invite email, but it’s worth the wait. Once you have the invite email, sign-up for the service immediately. 
Step 3: Log-on to the service and send free SMS. This apparently is your free outgoing text message account for life.
If you are outside US or Canada
Google Voice is available for US and Canada users only for now. If you are living outside US/Canada, you can read this tutorial to figure out how you can sign-up for Google Voice outside US/Canada.
What is Google Voice?
Posted by BA on Mar 5, 2010 in Uncategorized | 2 comments
After my last article on Google Voice and accessing it from outside US, I got several emails asking me more about Google Voice. Come on guys, you could google that, couldn’t you?
And then I saw Google’s post on their own good blog that explains it. So watch this video if you are still not clear about what is Google Wave:
And here are some more video links related to Google Voice features.
- Voicemail transcription
- One number
- Personalized greetings
- International calling
- SMS to email
- Share voicemails
- Block callers
- Screen callers
- Mobile app
- Conference calls
Voice recognition put to the right use – Youtube updates
Posted by BA on Nov 21, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments
Google announces two new features of its already popular YouTube service. The new features are:
- Auto Caption: If your video has English conversation or commentary, YouTube will attempt to make subtitles out of it and show at the bottom of the screen.
- Auto timing: In case you want to upload your own captions in text, you don’t have to worry about the timings. Which sentence from your text file was spoken at what time, YouTube will attempt to pick it up itself.
Both these features is a good news for hearing impaired users of YouTube in particular and everybody else in general. You can watch this video to get the overview of the service.
Read More