Google Voice and Its Improved Mobile App

Today, Google is unveiling an improved Google Voice mobile app. Unfortunately for many of us, it's only available for BlackBerrys and Android phones.

Here are a few highlights:

1) In the previous version of the mobile app, users had to type in numbers they wanted to call, rather than accessing them directly from their address books. But now, users can make calls directly from their phones.

2) Recipients of the Google Voice mobile calls or text messages will see the user’s Google Voice number, instead of his/her mobile phone number.

3) Cheap international calls. Rates start at $0.02/minute. Watch out Skype!

For those of you not familiar with Google Voice, it gives you one phone number for all your phones, voicemail as easy as email, and many calling features for free.

If you're interested in giving it a try, you will have to sign up to receive a Google invitation for your number.

World's First Consumer 3-D Digicam

Courtesy of Peter Parks / AFP / Getty Images

Fujifilm, the company that brought you the first fully digital still camera, is once again, bringing excitement to the snapshot business.

The FinePix Real 3D System (its tentative name) is a 10-megapixel cam that utilizes two lenses, spaced about the same distance apart as human eyes, which allow for the taking of simultaneous photos of the same scene from different angles. When the two images are presented slightly to the right and left eyes of a viewer, that person's brain combines them into a single image, resulting in the illusion of depth.

The camera offers two viewing options: your picture can pop off the screen or print. In other words, one of the options is a 3-D LCD eight-inch picture frame and the other option is 3-D prints, which are made with a clear plastic overlay that acts as a kind of 3-D lens. In addition, Fujifilm plans to launch an online service that will make 3-D prints for consumers.

The camera is expected to debut in Japan this summer and in the U.S. and Europe in September. It will cost around $600, the picture frame will cost several hundred dollars, and the price of the 3-D prints is uncertain. And in case you're wondering, the camera is not much bigger or heavier than some conventional digicams.

Although the 3-D pictures may not be a big competition for the "plain'" pictures as we know them, the 3-D capability undoubtedly brings a new fun element to picture taking. Personally, I'm sufficiently entertained by iPhoto '09. But who knows, I might consider making the purchase when comes down in a couple of years.


Source: Time.com