Posted 11/19/09 at 08:56:35 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Google is striving to make YouTube friendlier for deaf and hard of hearing people. It today announced the launch of machine-generated automatic captions. But it has chosen to limit the technology to a few YouTube channels for now.

The auto-cap feature has been built on top of the YouTube caption system, and uses the same speech-to-text technology as Google Voice. Though the auto-cap feature is only meant to work with English-language speech, it is possible to automatically translate these automatically-generated captions to 51 different languages.

Another new feature has been added to YouTube in the form of "automatic caption timing." Captions are created using the transcript (text file) uploaded by the user. Google's automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology helps ensure that each word hits precisely the right mark on the timeline, making it easier for users to manually create captions.

"Each of these features has had great personal significance to me, not only because I helped to design them, but also because I'm deaf. Today, I'm in Washington, D.C. to announce what I consider the most important and exciting milestone yet: machine-generated automatic captions," Google engineer Ken Harrenstien wrote in a post on the Official Google Blog.

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Posted 11/03/09 at 02:55:02 PM by Bart Salisbury

It didn’t take long for the other technological shoe to drop. Ribbit has hopped out a beta for Ribbit Mobile, a direct VoIP challenge to Google Voice. And one, by the looks of it, that just might fuel a VoIP arms race.

Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based VoIP telephony service. Much the same as Google Voice, you get a phone number to which you can route your phones capable of conditional call-forwarding. Once there Ribbit Mobile can do everything Google Voice does with a call. But it doesn’t stop there. Ribbit Mobile also offers a nifty feature set not yet available in Google Voice. For example, Ribbit Mobile can route your call to any or all other phones you choose, or to Skype, MSN Messenger, or Google Talk. Ribbit Mobile can also alert you to missed calls via email, Skype, Google Talk, or SMS. And Ribbit Mobile has widgets which allow you to connect with iGoogle, Facebook, and MySpace. Best of all you can place calls directly from your browser.

Ribbit Mobile will be offered in two levels. One will be free, with services like voicemail transcription automated. The other, a professional level, will be fee-based, and will come with additional support. Currently, both levels are in beta. Sign-up for the beta is on-going.

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Posted 10/29/09 at 03:09:40 PM by Bart Salisbury

It seemed liked a good idea at the time, Google’s got to be thinking right about now. The good idea is Google Voice, which allows users a whole lot of nifty features for making and managing phone calls. For some, such as AT&T, however, Google Voice is a bad idea because Google Voice gets to play by a different set of rules which allow it to invade AT&T’s turf, and undercut its revenue stream.

One of the headaches Google Voice has generated for its parent company is the result of blocking calls to certain numbers. It costs to make calls, and the costs are greater to rural carriers, conference call services, and adult-themed entertainment. The rules for telephone company’s say all call get to pass through. Google Voice counters it is not a telephone company so doesn’t have to play by those rules.

In defending Google Voice’s decision to block calls, Richard Whitt, Google’s telecom and media counsel, tells us: “Earlier this year, we noticed an extremely high number of calls were being made to an extremely small number of destinations. In fact, the top 10 telephone prefixes--the area code plus the first three digits of a seven digit number, e.g., 555-555-XXXX--generated more than 160 times the expected traffic volumes, and accounted for a whopping 26 percent of our monthly connection costs.” Google, one can appreciate, doesn’t see a particular need to subsidize the fantasies of middle-aged single men still living in their mothers’ basements.

Google is promising to implement blocking schemes that are more particular--targeting particular numbers rather than a whole exchange. And, in fact, feels it should be congratulated for exposing “traffic pumping schemes” that drive up the cost of ordinary phone service. I’m guessing AT&T won’t be the first to send flowers.

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Posted 10/27/09 at 04:47:50 PM by Bart Salisbury

No matter how innovative the big boys are, the minions lurking about in the ‘tubes’ keep on beating them to the punch on new, innovative features. In this case the big boy is Google Voice, which offers you a phone number along with a bag stuffed with nifty features like voicemail, voicemail transcription, custom greetings, free text-messaging, blocking unwanted callers, and call screening. The only drawback is you have to use Google Voice’s assigned number, which is a problem for us who have our identity intimately tied to an existing mobile number.

The hackers on the net didn’t let this slow them down, however, and a workaround came about pretty quickly. Keep your existing mobile number, just forward your unanswered calls to your Google Voice number. The process is pretty simple, in fact. You can find it explained in posts at TechnologyCrowd and Lifehacker.

Well hack no more. Google Voice has taken the hint and now offers a ‘lite’ version with this feature. According to The Official Google Blog if you sign up with your existing number you’ll get access Google Voice’s voicemail features. If you already have a Google Voice account the process of forwarding your voicemail from your mobile numbers has been simplified.

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Posted 10/09/09 at 08:01:46 AM by Paul Lilly

Google's Voice service is causing quite a stir in Congress, as both Republicans and Democrats have called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate Google's ability to block calls to rural telephone exchanges. But it's the dispute between Google and Apple where things get interesting.

Prompting the probe, Google's Voice app is not available on the iPhone, which led AT&T to argue that Google would have an unfair advantage if not held to the same rules and regulations as telcos. Now here's the kicker - Google Voice would be available on the iPhone, had Apple not rejected it. Apple said it was still looking into how the app works and doesn't feel comfortable with it altering the iPhone's telephone functionality and user interface.

That doesn't necessarily mean AT&T doesn't have a legitimate complaint. The telco points out that Google Voice blocks calls in certain rural areas to cut back costs, something which the phone companies aren't allowed to do. But at least one attorney says the complaint is hypocritical of AT&T.

"The only difference between Google's alleged call blocking and AT&T's refusal to pay terminating access charges for conference and chat-line calls is that the (local carriers) are forced to incur the costs of terminating AT&T's customers' traffic," attorney Ross Buntrock wrote in a letter to the FCC.

So what does Google say about all this? The search giant's stance is that Google Voice isn't a traditional phone service since it uses a Web software tool, and therefor isn't subject to the same rules and regulations as telephone companies.

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Posted 10/05/09 at 09:30:52 PM by Ryan Whitwam

The ongoing and confusing saga of the iPhone App store continues. This time Apple has approved an official Vonage app with some very familiar features. The Vonage app does standard VoIP via Wi-Fi, as one would expect. However, it also works over the cellular network.

Vonage has clarified that it doesn’t use cellular data, but rather cellular voice. Calls are routed through a special Vonage number allowing very cheap international calls. Sound like anything you know of? Maybe like a little service that starts 'G', and ends with 'oogle Voice'?

Michael Tempora, senior VP of products at Vonage, said that the Vonage app does indeed work in a similar way to Google Voice when used over the cellular network. He went on to say that he saw no reason for Apple to pull the app. “We built the application in complete accordance with Apple’s rules,” he said.
 
This leaves only a few reasons Apple might have used to reject Google Voice while keeping Vonage. Maybe it was the address book syncing, maybe the free text messaging, or maybe just because it was from Google. Where do you stand? Will Apple yank the Vonage app? Or are they leaving it in to yank Google’s chain?

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Posted 09/25/09 at 08:03:25 PM by Ryan Whitwam

AT&T has sent a rather pointed letter to the FCC accusing Google of violating Network Neutrality standards. No, that isn’t a typo. AT&T’s beef is that Google Voice will not connect calls to some numbers that traditional telecoms are required to connect. This is because of so-called “common carrier” laws.

Some rural local telephone carriers charge long distance companies extremely high fees to connect calls to certain numbers on their networks. These are usually numbers for conference call centers, adult chat lines, or party lines. Sneakily, revenues from these connections are shared with the owners of the lines. Google Voice does not connect these calls, and AT&T thinks that isn’t fair.

It is interesting that Google, a company that strongly supports Net Neutrality, is taking this course of action. AT&T seems to want them to be treated like any other telecom, but in Google’s response, they lay out their rationale for why AT&T should shut it.

Google says that first and foremost, Google Voice is a free service. To make it workable, they simply cannot spend money to connect those calls. They also say that Google Voice is software, and software isn’t covered by common carriers rules. Finally, they claim that since Google Voice is an invite-only beta service, it doesn’t need to comply with all regulations.

So, is this just AT&T trying to distract the FCC, or is Google really in the wrong here?

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Posted 09/18/09 at 09:15:04 PM by Ryan Whitwam

More details of Apple’s rejection of Google Voice for the iPhone have come to light. When Google, Apple, and AT&T submitted their letters to the FCC back in August, a large portion of Google’s was redacted. Speculation was that the section (which dealt with what Apple actually told Google) contained descriptions of sensitive correspondence between the two companies.

Today Google allowed the FCC to post the full text. Sure enough, the previously redacted section detailed the contact Apple had with Google. This culminated with none other than Apple Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, calling Google on July 7 to say the Google Voice app was rejected. This seems to directly contradict Apple’s assertion to the FCC that they hadn’t rejected Google Voice, but were still studying it.

Now the plot thickens even more, as Apple put out a statement saying, "We do not agree with all of the statements made by Google in their FCC letter. Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application and we continue to discuss it with Google." Rejected or not, it still means iPhone users don’t have a Google Voice app. Is Apple arguing semantics here, or just straight-up lying?

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