News

There are many ways to look at Google Voice, which will not yet be available to the public for several weeks yet.

Right now, you can sign up to be notified when it is available. Go to Google Voice and follow the directions for notification that the service is available.

The way TPR readers can look at it is far removed from the hype about tech or potential revenues, which is where the spotlight has been.

Google Voice will offer sanity for patients, physicians and those who are calling physicians for patients. Telephone tag is a technological curse of illness. If you never have had an urgent need to reach a doctor, only to miss the call, you cannot know how much stress reduction this feature alone can bring to those dealing with illness.

Google Voice will be a help for patients who have for members of patients’ families, who may be all over the U.S. or, for that matter, the globe. The ability to conference in all those who need to know easily will made communications work more smoothly when the patient’s problem is serious.

Faster, Google, faster.

New York Times

…”Google Voice is an expanded version of a service previously known as GrandCentral, a start-up that Google acquired 20 months ago. It is intended to simplify the way people handle phone calls, voice mail and text messages. The service will initially be made available only to existing GrandCentral subscribers; Google says the general public will be able to use it in the coming weeks.

“Google Voice allows users to route all their calls through a single number that can ring their home, work and mobile phones simultaneously. It also gives users a single and easy-to-manage voice mail system for multiple phone lines. And it lets users make calls, routed via the Internet, free in the United States and for a small fee internationally. (Emphasis added)”

Source: New York Times, March 12, 2009

Source: Google Voice Information List, March 12, 2009