• Google Voice Number-Porting is Now Live

    // Gradly // blog, google, News, Rants & Raves 1 Response

    Google Voice users are now free to turn their current cellphone number into their main Google Voice number, the company announced Tuesday, bringing the much-requested feature to all users after a short, but very public, testing period.

    For many porting will bring joy. For others, expect hours of pain — on hold with your mobile carrier.

    Porting, which costs $20, allows users to turn their mobile number into a Google Voice number, obviating the need to try to spread a new number to your contacts.

    For those not clear on how Google Voice works, the company issues you a new phone number — your Google Voice number. It becomes your master number and when someone calls it, it rings some or all of your other phones and your Gmail/Google Talk account.

    This can include your mobile phone, your home phone, your work phone and your computer, if you have Gmail open. Additionally, Google lets you screen callers and set rules per caller — even blocking and diverting individual numbers to voicemail, which no wireless carrier does.

    Google Voice also transcribes your voicemail and sends your the transcript to your e-mail address. You can make and receive calls from your GV number from your computer, without affecting your mobile-phone minutes. From your computer, domestic calls are free, and internationals are cheap.

    Which all sounds great. And for new users, being able to port your existing mobile-phone number makes switching to Google Voice very easy, since all the people that know your cell number won’t even notice a change. Current users have had to get a new number and then publicize it, and spend months trying to wean people off the old number.

  • Apple to Add NFC Payments to iPad 2 and iPhone 5?

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, iPhone, News, Rants & Raves No Responses

    Bloomberg claims that Apple will be incorporating NFC (Near Field Communication) hardware in the next iPhone and iPad. This feature would allow customers to use the iPhone and iPad to make purchases:

    The services are based on “Near-Field Communication,” a technology that can beam and receive information at a distance of up to 4 inches, due to be embedded in the next iteration of the iPhone for AT&T Inc. and the iPad 2, Doherty said. Both products are likely to be introduced this year, he said, citing engineers who are working on hardware for the Apple project.
    Apple could potentially tie this payment system into people’s existing iTunes accounts. It’s described to allow customers to walk into a store and make payments directly from their iOS device. Apple may also incorporate loyalty rewards and credit system in iTunes as well. Other possibilities include using location based transactions to improve iAd targeting.

    According to this source, Apple has already made prototype payment terminals intended for small businesses to scan NFC-enabled iPhones and iPads. These terminals could be subsidized or even given away to encourage adoption.

    Apple has been hiring NFC experts as well as applied for several patents on the technology. A couple of previous reports have also pegged the next generation iPhone as having NFC technology built in.

  • Kodak fails in case against Apple

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, News, Rants & Raves 1 Response

    Eastman Kodak Company has lost a critical part of its ITC case against Apple and RIM, in which the company which claims invention of the first ever digital camera back in 1975 has been trying to win royalty payments on a common image-preview feature used in phones.

    U.S. International Trade Commission Judge Paul Luckern said Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry don’t violate Kodak’s patent. These findings are subject to a six person review board for final approval, but it isn’t looking so great for Kodak right now.

    Kodak is trying to raise royalties from its pool of over 1,000 digital-imaging patents as it attempts to finance new modern digital photography product development.

    In response, Apple has filed its own patent-infringement complaint at the ITC against Kodak, trial begins Jan. 31.

  • Are You Ready For Two More ‘Matrix’ Movies?!

    // Gradly // blog, Gossips, Movies, News No Responses

    Do you have the appetite for two more Matrix films? For me the answer to that question would hinge on whether the new movies were more like the first film or the latter two. Regardless, there’s some vague chance we might see more movies in the series. While appearing at the London School of the Performing Arts, Keanu Reeves said he recently met with the Wachowskis, who have written a treatment for two more Matrix movies.

    Before we get into the Matrix news, Keanu Reeves also said that the Robin Hood re-telling Hood was still in the works from the Wachowskis and that Will Smith had agreed to star, as per previous reports. And he says that Bill and Ted 3 is actively moving along and that he’s committed to it. Now for the Matrix.

    Here’s what the actor said in London, via an email sent to AICN:

    Says he met the Wachowski’s (no emphasis on the word brothers), for lunch over Christmas and stated that they had completed work on a two picture script treatment that would see him return to the world of the matrix as Neo. Says the brothers have met with Jim Cameron to discuss the pro’s and con’s of 3D and are looking to deliver something which has never been seen again. keanu stated that he still has an obligation to the fans to deliver a movie worthy of the title “The Matrix” and he swears this time that the treatment will truly revolutionise the action genre like the first movie. Wachowski’s are working on a movie called “Cloud Atlas” at the moment, once that concludes they will talk again.