Talk Googly To Me.

Sweet! Looks like Google is finally ready to transition Grand Central into a grown-up Google app. Its gonna be called Google Voice and is open to everyone who already has a grand central account. What? You didn't sign up when I told you to? Oh, well then you'll just have to wait like a sucker till it gets rolled out to the plebes. I guess you can take a look to see what you're missing.

• Google Voice-Features

So, most excitingly, there's a voice mail transcripts feature. Which I assume will just plunk peoples' VM into your gmail inbox with all the other messages you care about. Which seems pretty cool and even more exciting when you imagine the kind of Android implementation this service will get. So it looks like someone's realized that messaging is messaging, and I don't care what medium is used. The less places I have to check for new communications the better. Throw them all in the same inbox and use filters to sort if necessary.

It'll also be nice when they integrate my gmail contacts list with the Grand Central list that I never maintained all that well. Google, keeping your informations sorted and updated and happy.

• Official Google Blog: Here comes Google Voice

P.S. What's up with the sample video? "I left the secret plans on your desk?" Sounds a little shady... Are they finally ready to launch that space laser?

P.P.S. Still waiting on my upgrade link in Grand Central, apparently it could take days for the roll-out to finish. Why did I get so excited this morning?

• google voice blog

Touch Me Twice.

I could see Apple being the type of company that restricts users and intellectual "property" to keep them tethered to its own devices. Which is what most lends credence to this rumor of Apple asking Google to remove multi-touch from its Android OS. And that's what it looks like happened, the feature was implemented and then commented out of the release. Although its not that big a deal if you really care about it. Android is open source, just uncomment the feature and run your own build. The real question is whether Android developers will anticipate an audience of "hacked" multi-touch users and include functions to take advantage.

Some people raise flags that Apple could seemingly command partner Google, and rather than risk the fickle reprisals in which Apple is known to engage. Yeah, that's kinda silly, but I'd rather keep my Google brand iPod apps and the G1 not be tied up in litigation, so I'm fine with Google's decision. I think the real problem is that Apple thinks it owns multi-touch to begin with. Folks have been working on multi-touch since 1982, and sure, Apple brought a device to maket with the technology after buying up a company that made then since 1999. But come on, using more than one finger to interact with a device? How in the hell is that not obvious? Hmmm... I've made a touch screen that responds when I touch it with my finger... I have ten fingers... I guess I'm all done here.

And even if you are an Apple fanboy, this shouldn't seem cool because now instead of dreaming up that next great feature, Apple can sit around on the multi-touch hill, making sure no one else tries to climb it.

• Did Google Leave Multi-Touch Out Of Android At Apple's Behest? | Techdirt

Oh Billy!

Brace yourself to be overwhelmed by a flood of communications. (Actually just me cause you losers don't have Helios. I'm just bragging.) When I first got my Ocean it had POP email access to my gmail account. Then Google added in IMAP support so that my inbox online was synced with the inbox in my pocket. Pretty sweet, but it wasn't push. That is, I had to check for new mail by hand. Like a barbarian. Well those days are spent cause Helio just rolled out push email to all its devices. I'm not really sure how that works (isn't it gmail that pushes to Helio?) but I'm not gonna start rocking the boat. My gmails and jmails show up on the alerts menu like SMSes, missed calls and voicemails. Of course anyone who reads this will be all over those "oh, I haven't checked my email" excuses like rasberry jam on a hot, buttered english muffin. Crannies, nooks, whatever. So bring on the information glut in full 3G fashion. I hope I don't drown.

• Heliocity: Gmail gets Push

Oh, and check out this video about SMSing. Its got an amusing main character who you might recognize from the pictures above.
Heliocity: texting your way to love

Got Buddy?

This is kinda sweet for me. One of the features on Helio is the buddy beacon. Its a service that uses the GPS receiver in the phone to push your location onto your friends' maps. Kinda a neat idea, but the big downside is that your friends have to have Helios to use the service. And since I can't convince any of you chumps to throw down, my map only has a marker for where I am making it sad and not very useful.

On to the sweet part. Helio sold the Buddy Beacon trademark to a company called uLocate a while ago, and they've just released a 2.0 version of the software. There are various changes but most importantly users of other services can use Buddy beacon on their phones too! Right now the site lists: Alltel, Helio, metroPCS, Sprint, and iPhone. On some phones this just involves pointing to a web page instead of installing the new app like on my phone. Which is why I assume they list iPhone as supported, but not At&t. You just need a good enough web browser to run the mobile page.

On the downside the buddy location symbols seem to be MIA in favor of a buddy circle. So you'll know which block your bud is on, not what part of the bar. I assume this is because most devices (*cough* iPhone) can't locate themselves that accurately and rather than list specious information, they just generalize it all. I think I'd like the option to display my little Helio icon on the map like I used to, and other people would have big ass circles. But maybe they're trying to keep everyone from knowing what kinda cocked-up device other people rock.

Obfustication aside, this is an exciting update that makes this service actually useful. Oh, and there's a Facebook app you can add too that I haven't checked out. But I assume it'll let you find friends that also have the service.

• Buddy Beacon <-> Home

• Heliocity - The Unofficial Helio Community » Buddy Beacon 2.0 Launched by uLocate