Google announced today that they are rolling out voice and video chat capability in Gmail chat - expected to be fully functional within the next day or so, it could end up being direct competition for Skype. ollaborating across continents and timezones is a fact of life for us, and it sure is easier (and greener) to click "Start video chat" than to get on a plane."
At the end of October, Google announced that they would soon be offering SMS functionality in Gmail chat (though it hasn't yet happened). Users send messages either via chat or via SMS, and replies sent by SMS appear in the chat window. The plug was promptly pulled after the initial announcement for technical reasons; the Google blog claims that "we found a glitch. When you'd try to turn it on, it wouldn't fully enable. We thought about keeping it out there -- bugs and all -- but the experience wasn't that great." The service should be up and running soon. It looks like Google will be delivering the messages through the carriers rather than using an email gateway.
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a first step to fulfilling that mission,... [more]
Karilyn Kempton
Karilyn is a tech writer, a nerd and a ski bum. She is particularly interested in mobile innovations, and always has her hands in a few projects at a time. She will be living in Revelstoke, BC for the winter, splitting her time between skiing and writing.
Send her an email at karilyn.kempton [at] gmail.com, check out her blog at...[more]
