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Speaker 1: tech Stuff. Hello to everybody, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: My name is Chris Poulette, and I'm one of the
Speaker 1: editors here at how stuff works dot Com. Sitting next
Speaker 1: to me, as always, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there,
Speaker 1: all right, So, uh, I like your voice. You seem
Speaker 1: to be in good voice today. Are you coming onto me? No? Alright? Good? Um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: my voice is all right today. And uh and your
Speaker 1: your voice is always is smooth and enjoyable like my coffee?
Speaker 1: Are you coming on to me a little bit? So, anyway,
Speaker 1: we thought with this wonderful segue, we just go right
Speaker 1: into talking about a fairly new product, at least you know,
Speaker 1: new to us, Google Voice. Yeah, it's a it's not
Speaker 1: really new, no, because it's it's actually an evolution of
Speaker 1: an older product, which I guess we can start with yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we should because I have to freely admit
Speaker 1: my embarrassment. See a few years ago, UM, there was
Speaker 1: this company called grand Central, and UH it was. It
Speaker 1: was a really cool new idea for basically routing all
Speaker 1: of your calls UH through one number to multiple numbers,
Speaker 1: so your home phone, your cell phone, your work phone,
Speaker 1: all through one UH phone number. And I actually got
Speaker 1: an invitation to this closed beta and never acted on it.
Speaker 1: And then then Google decides to acquire this property. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, the way Google does with everything, it kind
Speaker 1: of sits on it closes it off to everyone else
Speaker 1: while it starts to fiddle with it. And until recently,
Speaker 1: that was the way things were. If if you were
Speaker 1: an existing Grand Central customer, you could continue to use it,
Speaker 1: but if you weren't, then you had to just sit
Speaker 1: around and wait and hope that Google would open it
Speaker 1: up again. And that's kind of where we are now.
Speaker 1: Google has started to open it up. It's still not
Speaker 1: wide open for the general public as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast at any rate. You have to have
Speaker 1: an invite to get into it, but you can just
Speaker 1: request and invite and eventually they'll get around to you.
Speaker 1: Both Chris and yours. Truly, we've we've requested and invite
Speaker 1: and and we have it. So we've been playing with
Speaker 1: it for a little while. Yeah, they didn't even send
Speaker 1: me a snarky note like, well, you didn't use the
Speaker 1: last and we gave you, so what makes you think
Speaker 1: you're gonna use this one? So thanks Google for not
Speaker 1: rubbing it in that nice Yeah. So, the idea here
Speaker 1: is that instead of a phone number going to a
Speaker 1: specific phone or specific device, the phone number goes to
Speaker 1: a specific person, so you can port that number wherever
Speaker 1: you may go from now until you shuffle off. The
Speaker 1: mortal co will essentially. Uh. The idea here being that
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about giving out someone your
Speaker 1: work number and your mobile phone number and your home number,
Speaker 1: and say, hey, if you can't reach me here, try
Speaker 1: this one. If you can't, if I'm not there, try
Speaker 1: this one. You give them this one number, and then
Speaker 1: you have the control to say which phones ring at
Speaker 1: what times and for which people. Yep, and uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's got some really nifty applications to whereas you know
Speaker 1: some of the things you can do with it. It's
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. The let's Let's let's kind of give
Speaker 1: an example to sort of break into it. So let's
Speaker 1: say that you have three phones. You put your home phone,
Speaker 1: your mobile phone, and your work phone right all right. Now,
Speaker 1: what you would do is, once you receive the invite
Speaker 1: to join Google Voice, you would go in and you
Speaker 1: would first put in your area code and try and
Speaker 1: find a phone number for you. That would be your
Speaker 1: Google Voice number, And this is the number you would
Speaker 1: give out to other people. The one number you would
Speaker 1: give out. You wouldn't have to give out any other
Speaker 1: phone numbers to anyone else period. So you you put
Speaker 1: in your area code, you choose whatever phone number you
Speaker 1: you know is up there. You can try different combinations.
Speaker 1: You could even see if you can find a combination
Speaker 1: that corresponds to a word. Yeah. You can search by word,
Speaker 1: which is really nice. Yeah. So you know, if you
Speaker 1: always want to, you know, your your phone number to
Speaker 1: spell something out, you can see if that was available. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, it's not going to be available everywhere. Not
Speaker 1: every word is going to be available, and of course
Speaker 1: they have to have the right number of letters or
Speaker 1: else it doesn't work. But uh, once you get that,
Speaker 1: then what Google will do is it'll it'll call you
Speaker 1: and ask you to put in a confirmation code, a
Speaker 1: two digit confirmation code two say yes, this is in
Speaker 1: fact my phone, this is my account. Once you do that,
Speaker 1: you're set. You're ready to go. You can start setting
Speaker 1: things up and telling it which phone numbers, UM correspond
Speaker 1: with your Google Voice account. Yeah, one of the other
Speaker 1: other things. Before we get too much further, UM, just
Speaker 1: like to point out that you can also choose area codes.
Speaker 1: So if you want to be someplace across the country, me,
Speaker 1: you can put in a Californian code and go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm in l am working on my next movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can totally do that as long as the
Speaker 1: numbers available, right, Yeah, that is true. You don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to choose an area code that does correspond with
Speaker 1: your specific location. If you want to be one of
Speaker 1: those people who you know, let's call long distance, right
Speaker 1: or yeah you know, or or you or you are,
Speaker 1: say an aspiring screenwriter, and you don't want people to
Speaker 1: know you're not actually in l A. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: reasons I can think of why you would want to
Speaker 1: mask your zip zip code, your area code. And uh,
Speaker 1: so let's say you've got these three phone numbers that
Speaker 1: you've entered into your account. Now, just if you just
Speaker 1: had it where it would ring for all three when
Speaker 1: everyone called you, That's exactly what would happen. Someone would
Speaker 1: call your phone number, your Google Voice phone number, and
Speaker 1: all three of those phones would start to ring, and
Speaker 1: then whichever phone you picked up first, that's the that's
Speaker 1: where the call would be rounded through. Oh, I was
Speaker 1: just going to say that. One of the cool things
Speaker 1: about this is say you've answered the call on your
Speaker 1: home phone and you realize that you, uh, we're gonna
Speaker 1: head out for an errand, and you went, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I had answered my cell phone and said
Speaker 1: you can actually transfer the call. That's true while you're
Speaker 1: in the middle of it between different different lines, which
Speaker 1: I think is pretty awesome. You just hit the star
Speaker 1: button and Google Voice will call you on your other phones. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the phone at your desk is ringing at work, and uh,
Speaker 1: you pick up your cell phone extension and there's your conversation.
Speaker 1: You can hang up your your home phone right and
Speaker 1: just walk out the door, no interruption whatsoever. That is
Speaker 1: a really cool feature. The other cool one is that,
Speaker 1: or actually there's several, but another cool one is that
Speaker 1: you can tell your through your Google account. You can
Speaker 1: tell it which phones you want to ring for specific callers.
Speaker 1: So let's say it's your family and you wanted to
Speaker 1: reach you, no matter what, you can tell him, all right,
Speaker 1: make all three phones ring. But let's say that it's
Speaker 1: someone at your job and you don't want to necessarily
Speaker 1: I have your cell phone or your home phone ringing
Speaker 1: every single time this person calls you. You can designate
Speaker 1: so it only rings on your office phone, yep. And
Speaker 1: you can also block calls from certain people if you
Speaker 1: want to. It's very easy to do that. You can
Speaker 1: either send it well really, you just send it straight
Speaker 1: to boysmail, so you know, you never have to deal
Speaker 1: with that annoying uncle who calls you in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night to ask what was the name of
Speaker 1: that movie that you know he really wanted on DVD
Speaker 1: for Christmas but you forgot. I'm just speaking from personal experience,
Speaker 1: all right. So look, look, look, some of us just
Speaker 1: can't bring ourselves to purchase Uncle Buck. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So moving on the but yeah, and you can also
Speaker 1: say it for for certain times, like saying, you know,
Speaker 1: between the hours of nine am and five pm, my
Speaker 1: office phone will ring, but my home phone own and
Speaker 1: cell phone won't. That's a very nice feature, right, Uh.
Speaker 1: And then after five pm, just my cell phone and
Speaker 1: home phone, and maybe after you know, ten pm, none
Speaker 1: of my phones will ring. Yeah, you can said do
Speaker 1: not disturb, so that you're all the all the calls
Speaker 1: go straight to voicemail and you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about it waking you up in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: And uh, which is nice, you know. Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I was going to talk about. Another cool feature regard
Speaker 1: to voicemail is that you can actually listen into voicemail messages,
Speaker 1: a feature which I have not successfully gotten to work,
Speaker 1: but I've been playing with it for a few days. Um.
Speaker 1: But you should be able to press three and um
Speaker 1: after a call has gone to voicemail and listen in
Speaker 1: and you go, oh wait, I need to take this call.
Speaker 1: You can answer the phone. You can actually pick it
Speaker 1: up like you would if you were listening on your
Speaker 1: old style answering machine. And this person I'm okay with, yes, yes, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You might. You might see that a call is coming
Speaker 1: in from someone you thinking, well, I don't know that
Speaker 1: I could really take this call right now, you let
Speaker 1: it go to voicemail, you use the listening feature, which
Speaker 1: I believe is actually trademarked. Uh. You use the listening
Speaker 1: feature and you realize, wait, this is a really important call.
Speaker 1: I do need to take this. You press the star button.
Speaker 1: There you go. Um. Or you can just let it
Speaker 1: go to voicemail and you hang up and you say,
Speaker 1: I'll deal with that later. It's not important right now. Um.
Speaker 1: It really gives you a lot of control. The thing
Speaker 1: that I like about Google Voice when I first started
Speaker 1: using it is that it's, uh, the layout on the
Speaker 1: website is a lot like Gmail almost. Yeah. In fact,
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised if we see Google Voice
Speaker 1: in Gmail integration in the foreseeable future. And I can
Speaker 1: think of some reasons why, but we'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a minute, right, But at any rate, So, the
Speaker 1: nice thing is it's familiar for anyone who's used Gmail
Speaker 1: or any of really any of the Google apps, because
Speaker 1: Google Docs does have a kind of similar look as well.
Speaker 1: Um exactly. So it's it's not a brand new interface.
Speaker 1: It's going to take you a while too, uh to learn.
Speaker 1: It's actually very intuitive. And here's another cool feature. There's
Speaker 1: an automatic transcription feature. That's one of the things that
Speaker 1: I think would help it integrate with Gmail. Yes easily. Yes,
Speaker 1: So someone calls you, they leave a voicemail if they
Speaker 1: if they're calling through your Google Voice number, it's going
Speaker 1: to your Google Voice voicemail and Google Voice will try
Speaker 1: to transcribe this message and you'll be able to read
Speaker 1: it through your Google Voice account. You won't have to
Speaker 1: listen to it, which can be very helpful. But there
Speaker 1: are a couple of caveats. Yes, the voice recognition software
Speaker 1: is not perfect. Right if someone is not speaking clearly,
Speaker 1: if they have a very heavy accent, if they're not
Speaker 1: speaking English, if there's a lot of noise in the background,
Speaker 1: it may not be able to transcribe the speech accurately.
Speaker 1: And if it detects that there's enough of a inner
Speaker 1: parence there, if it can't easily transcribe the the voice
Speaker 1: to text, it will actually send you a message saying
Speaker 1: that it was unable to transcribe. You'll still have the recording,
Speaker 1: you just won't have the transcription. Um And I've heard
Speaker 1: of people having difficulties with certain words. Uh I used
Speaker 1: her as an example all the time on here. I
Speaker 1: was listening to episodes recently, and I realized how often
Speaker 1: I've mentioned her, But it's because I know a lot
Speaker 1: about the kind of issue she's had with this. But
Speaker 1: Natalie del Conti of sen It, No, she has never
Speaker 1: seen a successful transcription of her name. It comes across
Speaker 1: as Daddy or Maddie or Madeleine or you know, but
Speaker 1: not Natalie, which is not an uncommon name. But so yeah,
Speaker 1: you have certain words and and certain dialects may give
Speaker 1: the transcription software a little bit of a problem. I
Speaker 1: actually tried the transcription UH featured by accidents sort of.
Speaker 1: I was trying to call actually I was trying to
Speaker 1: get the listen into work, and UH. As I was
Speaker 1: doing that, I was leaving myself a voicemail message, and
Speaker 1: when I hung up, suddenly I got a text message
Speaker 1: from from Google Voice with the transcription of my call,
Speaker 1: which was basically, I wonder if I can't get this
Speaker 1: thing to work, And it was verbatim exactly what I
Speaker 1: had said, or at least what I remember I had said.
Speaker 1: And then I checked my Gmail and there was another
Speaker 1: transcription of it there, So there you go. I guess
Speaker 1: the nice thing is it's automatic, so you're not thinking, Wow,
Speaker 1: some human being somewhere had to listen to this incredibly
Speaker 1: inane thing I just said and then write it down
Speaker 1: and then email me with it. That's a job that
Speaker 1: you don't stay in very long. So I jeez, here's
Speaker 1: another one of those. Get the milk and the bread,
Speaker 1: you idiot, got it. I'm actually glad that I can't
Speaker 1: hear my own voicemails that I've sent to other people,
Speaker 1: because by the time I hang up, I realized, you know,
Speaker 1: I could have left that same message and in half
Speaker 1: the number of sentences, at at the most half than
Speaker 1: the ones I actually used. And then I feel like
Speaker 1: a complete idiot. Yeah, you should hear the podcast before
Speaker 1: they're edited down. Yeah, they are like four and a
Speaker 1: half hours long. Peter Jackson is an executive producer of
Speaker 1: our podcasts. By the way, that is not true, so
Speaker 1: Mr Jackson, please don't come after me. Another cool feature though,
Speaker 1: Uh we're talking about transcriptions and we're talking about the voicemail.
Speaker 1: You can record phone calls. Yes, you have a voice,
Speaker 1: so if something. But here's the trick. You can only
Speaker 1: you can only record incoming phone calls. You can't call
Speaker 1: out and then record using Google Voice. They the person
Speaker 1: has to call you on your Google Voice number and
Speaker 1: then you can activate the the record call function. And
Speaker 1: because recording calls is kind of a sticky issue legal
Speaker 1: issue in several states and countries, Google Voice has an
Speaker 1: automatic uh audio clue that the call is now being recorded,
Speaker 1: and I think it actually says the call is now
Speaker 1: being recorded, so that way the person on the other
Speaker 1: end of the phone doesn't, you know, say something incredibly
Speaker 1: incriminating and then it's recorded for all time. I assume
Speaker 1: it transcribes the recordings as well, though I haven't. You
Speaker 1: haven't checked that yet. It would be incredibly useful for
Speaker 1: people such as journalists because occasionally we have to call
Speaker 1: and and do a phone interview and uh we often
Speaker 1: you know, of course, we have to record those so
Speaker 1: that we have a copy of it, and then we
Speaker 1: have to transcribe it, and the whole process can be
Speaker 1: very time consuming. To boil that down into a program
Speaker 1: where it will record it and transcribe it all automatically,
Speaker 1: is uh, that's just very enticing to me. You can
Speaker 1: even download the voice recording, yes, so that if you
Speaker 1: were a journalist, uh and needed to save a copy
Speaker 1: for archival purposes. You could you know, conduct your phone
Speaker 1: interview and then download a copy and you know, put
Speaker 1: it place, or you know, you could leave it on
Speaker 1: Google because you probably have a you know, pet a
Speaker 1: bite now of storage servers already, So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I I did send a message because there's one of
Speaker 1: the neat things about Google Voice right now in the
Speaker 1: early stages is, uh, if you if you really hunt
Speaker 1: around at the different features, it'll tell you what's supported
Speaker 1: and what isn't and if it's not supported. It gives
Speaker 1: you a little button where you can say, hey, send
Speaker 1: us feedback if you want this option, let us know.
Speaker 1: And if enough people say, hey, we really could use
Speaker 1: this option, that will will prioritize that we'll try and
Speaker 1: implement it. So of course I did that for the
Speaker 1: outgoing calls. If you were to make a call from
Speaker 1: Google Voice, and you might wonder, well, how do how
Speaker 1: do you make a call from Google Voice if it's
Speaker 1: not tied to a device, Chris could tell you because
Speaker 1: he's done it. Yeah, actually, um there is a button
Speaker 1: on the main Google Voice page and it says you
Speaker 1: know that you can make a call, and you go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. I can use v I P
Speaker 1: to make a phone call. Well no, not exactly. What
Speaker 1: you need is one of your Google Voice phones. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then you can initiate the call from the website.
Speaker 1: And basically it's Uh, it's kind of weird because what
Speaker 1: it does is it dials both the recipients phone and
Speaker 1: your Google Voice enabled phone at the same time. And
Speaker 1: then when the two of you pick up, you're on
Speaker 1: the phone call, but the computer. You're not actually talking
Speaker 1: through the computer. No, it's kind of like an operator
Speaker 1: the operator. First, first, the operator dials you, your phone
Speaker 1: starts to ring, you pick it up immediately. Then the
Speaker 1: the it starts to dial whoever you were trying to call,
Speaker 1: and then they pick up, and now you're connected through
Speaker 1: Google Voice. And the person who receives the call should
Speaker 1: see the your Google Voice number on their color I
Speaker 1: D as opposed to your cell phone's number or your
Speaker 1: office phone number. That's what they should see. Well yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's the point of doing this. The reason why
Speaker 1: you would want to initiate the call from your computer
Speaker 1: rather than from your phone is because it actually uses
Speaker 1: the on the caller idea. It actually uses your Google
Speaker 1: Voice phone number. If you call from your regular phone.
Speaker 1: Suddenly your recipient may be surprised to go, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: that's not the number I have for them. Um. And
Speaker 1: you can actually do that yourself on the Google phone.
Speaker 1: Say you're out, uh, not your Google phone, your Google
Speaker 1: Voice enabled phone. Two entirely different well, not always two,
Speaker 1: usually entirely different things. Exactly. If you happen to be
Speaker 1: out and about and want to make a call on
Speaker 1: your cell phone and want it to appear with your
Speaker 1: Google Voice number, you dial your own Google Voice number
Speaker 1: and it recognizes you as you you know, you have
Speaker 1: to put in your pin and then when you do that,
Speaker 1: then you um, you know, it says basically, who do
Speaker 1: you want to call? And it uses that to transcribe
Speaker 1: the number through the Google Voice system, and you know,
Speaker 1: when you call already shows up, it will be from
Speaker 1: Google Voice and not from your cell phone number or
Speaker 1: your work phone or your home phone or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: So that that's how that works, And that's kind of
Speaker 1: important to know, because otherwise people are gonna say, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got sixteen different numbers for you, which one of
Speaker 1: them are supposed to be using, which defeats the point.
Speaker 1: SMS is kind of the same way. You can send
Speaker 1: an SMS message from Google Voice and uh, basically it's
Speaker 1: going to put your your Google Voice number on it.
Speaker 1: But when a return message comes back, if the the
Speaker 1: recipient replies, it's going to have a weird Google Voice
Speaker 1: ish phone number attached to it, a strange number that
Speaker 1: you've never seen, even though this may be somebody you know,
Speaker 1: for example, spouse speaking from personal experience, you know, and
Speaker 1: wait a minute, that's not her number. Well, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, you need to add that number to your uh,
Speaker 1: to your contacts information for that person, and then it
Speaker 1: will show up as the right person. But that's another
Speaker 1: weird transcription thing. And I actually got that from life Hacker,
Speaker 1: which has a totally um, a very a good uh
Speaker 1: introduction to how to use Google Voice, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: written in the life Hacker style, which like, if you
Speaker 1: really are going to use this service, you need to
Speaker 1: tell people call you with this number, don't give them
Speaker 1: any other numbers. You know, you've got to You've got
Speaker 1: to embrace it or it's not gonna work. Create business
Speaker 1: cards and this is the only number on it. Exactly
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah, if you were to call someone
Speaker 1: with Google Voice the first time you call them you've
Speaker 1: never called them before on this number, assuming they have
Speaker 1: the option turned on, because they can turn it off.
Speaker 1: You will encounter the call screening process and it asks
Speaker 1: you for your name, and if you you say your name,
Speaker 1: and that way the person receiving the call when when
Speaker 1: you call, they'll when you first start to try and
Speaker 1: pick up a Google voice call, you actually have to
Speaker 1: go through a series of pressing buttons to do it right.
Speaker 1: It's not just pick up the phone, so it'll say,
Speaker 1: it'll actually give the voice that you use. He'll say,
Speaker 1: if I were to call, you say phone call from
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, unless of course I wasn't paying attention, in
Speaker 1: which case I'll be starting my message. I'm like, hey, there,
Speaker 1: how's it going. Listen? I wanted to bleep, and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's an idiot Jonathan Strickland and uh, but that's how
Speaker 1: it identifies the call, and from there on out, that's
Speaker 1: the recording that's going to use to identify that person,
Speaker 1: unless you can change it down the line. If you're
Speaker 1: tired of hearing everyone start a voicemail message instead of
Speaker 1: saying their name, which is apparently that happens a lot
Speaker 1: because we're all kind of trained. We hear that beap,
Speaker 1: we just go into message mode. We don't necessarily think, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: I was just supposed to say my name. Um, I
Speaker 1: had that problem with bells. You ring a bell and
Speaker 1: I salivate, Yeah, alright, Pavlov. So the that's the that
Speaker 1: will happen the first time anyone tries to call that
Speaker 1: number if they're not in your context list already, and
Speaker 1: then um, that can kind of throw you off a
Speaker 1: little bit. I think I know that there are some
Speaker 1: people who use Google Voice who talk about how that
Speaker 1: no one has ever just said their name. In my defense,
Speaker 1: the one time I did it, I was on a
Speaker 1: very noisy showroom floor at E three, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: hear what the recording was asking me to do, so
Speaker 1: I thought I was leaving a voicemail message. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: tech savvy guy who who um, golly, what else can
Speaker 1: we say about Google Voice. I think it's gonna just
Speaker 1: get further tight into other Google apps. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: gonna see things like this kind of loop into the
Speaker 1: Google Chrome operating system that was announced not too long ago.
Speaker 1: It's already got Google for one one in it yep.
Speaker 1: So I mean it's it's pretty much going to Uh
Speaker 1: it's just another step of Google trying to take over
Speaker 1: the entire world. Yep. And uh, if you think that
Speaker 1: it's completely unique, you'd be wrong. They actually have some competitors,
Speaker 1: the biggest one that I've seen being tell Centrists. It
Speaker 1: has a an act called vox ox Um, which now
Speaker 1: is vox ox too. They have a brand new version
Speaker 1: out or coming out um, and it offers many the
Speaker 1: same services, except it's got a few more that I
Speaker 1: specifically searched for and got that box that you were
Speaker 1: talking about if peopould like to see this functionality added
Speaker 1: for Google Voice. So in some ways voxox has some
Speaker 1: of the other stuff going on that you might not see.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's already got you know, the voice number, um,
Speaker 1: you know, text messaging, I am. It's also got video conferencing,
Speaker 1: the ability to facts, uh, file sharing, and social network integration.
Speaker 1: So I would not be a bit surprised to see
Speaker 1: Google Voice adding a lot of new features, probably over
Speaker 1: the next twelve to eighteen months, and you know, opening
Speaker 1: up to more and more and more people. You know,
Speaker 1: and since you've already got a Google account, maybe even
Speaker 1: seven of them. Uh, you you probably, I mean, all
Speaker 1: you'll have to do is basically tell it. Let you know,
Speaker 1: log in your account, say yeah, I'd like to be
Speaker 1: notified when this is available, and they'll just add you
Speaker 1: right in and it integrates with everything else. I can
Speaker 1: think of one other feature that I wanted to mention
Speaker 1: before we sign off on this. Okay, the widgets. The widgets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can actually add a Google Voice widget to a website.
Speaker 1: So let's say you're building a website and you want
Speaker 1: people to be able to contact you. Uh, you can
Speaker 1: set you can create a widget on your website a
Speaker 1: little bit the icon. People click on it and they
Speaker 1: can call you using that widget and send you messages
Speaker 1: through Google Voice. I can't imagine setting that up because
Speaker 1: I don't like the idea of slogging through page after
Speaker 1: page after page of voicemails. But then I think you
Speaker 1: and I have a slightly higher visibility than the average
Speaker 1: Google Voice user. That's probably true that you know. Then again,
Speaker 1: once you're compared to other people, but you well, even so,
Speaker 1: I mean, it all depends on how many people go
Speaker 1: to that website. Lots of people go to our website.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you know, this is just off
Speaker 1: the cuff here, but you could theoretically set up a
Speaker 1: Google Voice number just leave it on do not disturb,
Speaker 1: and let people leave you voice messages, you know, rather
Speaker 1: than using a telephone number, and then you could just
Speaker 1: check it. Just check the transcriptions. You don't even have
Speaker 1: to listen to them, yeah, unless they have a very
Speaker 1: strong accent. I think I think we've got a way
Speaker 1: of putting in song requests, not that we can play them,
Speaker 1: but you make the request. So and so is requested
Speaker 1: that we play such and such. Well, just I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you what I tell everybody. We can't afford the rights.
Speaker 1: Moving on. Yeah, great, well that's uh, that's all the
Speaker 1: Google Voice stuff I have right now. Remember if you don't,
Speaker 1: if you go to Google Voice and it says that
Speaker 1: you need an invite, you just click on that little
Speaker 1: button and put in your email address and you will
Speaker 1: receive an invite Eventually. We both put in the request,
Speaker 1: not that long ago, or I think you put it
Speaker 1: in before I did it, but we both got the
Speaker 1: the invitation pretty much the same day. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: there have been reports that Google was reserving large blocks
Speaker 1: of phone numbers, which makes sense because that's what they
Speaker 1: would need to do. Just you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: handy thing. This is one of those things that stuff
Speaker 1: like Gmail makes possible. Switching carriers. It's gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot easier to because I've I've had services where I
Speaker 1: wanted to change, you know, Oh, well that v O
Speaker 1: I P services you know, thirty dollars a month cheaper
Speaker 1: than what I'm paying now. Like, oh, we can port
Speaker 1: your phone number, but it's gonna take you know, eight
Speaker 1: to four fifty three weeks, right, Well, I really want
Speaker 1: you know, when we can set you up with a
Speaker 1: brand new phone number. Well, Google Voice, you could just
Speaker 1: add that new phone number and say who cares? Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you or if you just move, like exactly for
Speaker 1: those of us who still have a landline, that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be me. Yeah, I just have a cell phone and
Speaker 1: my work phone. But if I were to still have
Speaker 1: a home phone, you know, tethered to my house, and
Speaker 1: then I were to move, well I wouldn't necessarily be
Speaker 1: able to keep that phone number, depending on how far
Speaker 1: away I moved. That's true. In some places they restrict
Speaker 1: you to the to the prefix the first three digits
Speaker 1: so if you were even moving in the same metropolitan area,
Speaker 1: they may say, well, you can't keep your phone number
Speaker 1: because you know you're moving two blocks away. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: in that case, a Google Voice number will be very
Speaker 1: handy because you wouldn't have to let everyone know, Hey,
Speaker 1: now you have to change all your address books because
Speaker 1: my new phone number is blah blah blah. Um. If
Speaker 1: your Google Voice number would stay yours until you know,
Speaker 1: essentially until I guess forever, until Google folds, or until
Speaker 1: maybe maybe they'll wait two d years and say, all right,
Speaker 1: he's probably dead by now, let's go ahead and give
Speaker 1: that number to someone else. Um. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's all I've got to all right, are you all
Speaker 1: all googled out? Well, that brings us to a time
Speaker 1: I like to call. Let's thank our sponsor. Oh yes,
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Speaker 1: have over sixty titles in audio now. And it's not
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Speaker 1: and if you register through the website, we'll be giving
Speaker 1: you in in a second you can get your first download
Speaker 1: for free. That sounds awesome. Yeah, so what's your suggestion? Well,
Speaker 1: I I picked two. Um. I think maybe an appropriate
Speaker 1: one for this podcast would be What Would Google Do?
Speaker 1: By Jarvis Um. Yeah, and that is another one of
Speaker 1: the books that is actually read by the author himself.
Speaker 1: So excellent, awesome, all about Google? So that did you
Speaker 1: say you had to? I do have too, But you
Speaker 1: know that was just in case you went first and
Speaker 1: you picked mine. Oh no, mine has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with Google. Really, Yeah, okay, mine has to do with
Speaker 1: a book I read on the flight home yesterday series
Speaker 1: back to Atlanta yesterday, And uh, I read a very
Speaker 1: simple book. But I've already seen the movie and I
Speaker 1: definitely wanted to read the book. Neil Gaiman's Coraline may
Speaker 1: have two different versions of it up on audible dot Com,
Speaker 1: including the one that Gaman himself narrated. Awesome, So that's
Speaker 1: my recommendation. It is different from the movie. So if
Speaker 1: you saw the movie and you thought, well, I've already
Speaker 1: seen that story, the book version is different. So there
Speaker 1: you go. Excellent. So what's your second one? I'm curious
Speaker 1: to hear now. I was actually going to use a
Speaker 1: planet Google, which is a subtitle is one Company's audacious
Speaker 1: plan to organize everything we know by Randall Strauss. Does
Speaker 1: sound audacious depending on how you pronounce it. So if
Speaker 1: any of those three books as your first free download,
Speaker 1: you can go to www Dot audible podcast dot com
Speaker 1: slash tech stuff. That's www. Dot audible podcast dot com
Speaker 1: slash tech Stuff first downloads free. Thank you audible dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, And that brings us around to
Speaker 1: our favorite segment of all time. Yes, yes, listener mail ah,
Speaker 1: yess I didn't yell at at this time, I did,
Speaker 1: thank you. This comes from Matthew from Seattle. In your
Speaker 1: Computers of the Future podcast, you mentioned the quantum physics
Speaker 1: principle that when you observe something, you change its behavior.
Speaker 1: You didn't mention, however, that that principle has a name.
Speaker 1: The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is named after Werner Heisenberg, who
Speaker 1: won the nineteen thirty two Nobel Prize in physics for
Speaker 1: the creation of quantum mechanics. The principle basically states that
Speaker 1: a particle's position and velocity cannot be measured simultaneously with
Speaker 1: any degree of accuracy, and that the more precisely measure one,
Speaker 1: the less precisely you can measure the other one. Also,
Speaker 1: I wanted to say that your description of quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: was extremely good, in that I believe that anyone could
Speaker 1: understand it as far as you describe, because we only
Speaker 1: describe the very beginning. I agree with you both that
Speaker 1: the finer points of quantum theory are complicated and brain busting.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your informative podcast. When I began listening,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure whether I would enjoy it because I
Speaker 1: am not well versed in technology jargon. However, I have
Speaker 1: found that it is incredibly easy to listen and learn
Speaker 1: from you guys. I really appreciate all the sci fi references.
Speaker 1: You guys have the best jokes, no matter what the
Speaker 1: other podcasters say about your punts and stick it in
Speaker 1: your face. That was that was from us, not from
Speaker 1: Matthew in your face. And Atthew is far more polite. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: you know actually had to tell you the truth before
Speaker 1: we did any research on that. I thought quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: were very tiny people who worked on your car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it turns out not so much. I was very disappointed
Speaker 1: because I think my car has y know, coorns in it,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how to get rid of them.
Speaker 1: It runs on magic, it does. If any of you
Speaker 1: have anything you'd like to say to us, you can
Speaker 1: email us. Because we don't have a Google Voice widget yet,
Speaker 1: email us at tech stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about Google and the
Speaker 1: ways it's going to organize your life for you, you
Speaker 1: can check that out at how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: and Chris and I will talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: For moralness and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com and be sure to check out the
Speaker 1: new tech stuff blog now on the house stuff Works homepage,
Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you