Sex , Bombs and Burgers authorPeter Nowakexplains howGoogle Voice in Gmailhas nothing to do with give you free telephone calls . It ’s actually here to help Google perfect the next generation of lookup .
https://gizmodo.com/make-free-calls-in-gmail-with-google-voice-5621741
Yesterday ’s most exciting news program was Google ’s introduction of loose voice call to Gmail . In a nutshell , if you have a Gmail explanation , you could now make gratis claim from your data processor to literal landlines and cellphones in North America . you could also call the relaxation of the earth for peanuts , with many country cost only 2 cent a minute .
The declaration is meaning for a telephone number of reasons . For one , it ’s direct competition for Skype , which was already pretty direct competition to landline and cellphone companies . Skype has made calling virtually free – I currently pay about $ 35 a year for unlimited calls within North America through its SkypeOut serving , which is evidently a fraction of what phone company charge .
In the U.S. , the computer - based Gmail Robert William Service influence nicely with Google Voice , which is another spare calling service that lets smartphone proprietor expend their information plan rather than their phonation architectural plan to make calls . In other wrangle , you do n’t actually require a voice program to make phone calls with Google Voice ; just the datum connection will do . And while the Gmail service of process is presently shackled to the information processing system , there ’s no realistic reason why it ’ll stay that mode .
Here ’s why Google will beat Skype and every other phone society : to those other company , it ’s still about phone calls and figuring out how to make money from them . But , because the actual cost of piss a call over the internet is almost zero , Google can afford to swallow this rather incidental cost as a next investment toward its real business : hunt .
InSex , Bombs and Burgers , I talk to Franz Och , the valet behind Google Translate . The party ’s prize - winning and pretty exact service uses statistical machine version , an algorithm that studies convention in unlike pen languages and then predicts the results in another speech . The organisation ’s truth is predicated entirely on the bit of documents it has to work with ; the heavy the comparability database , the more exact the translation .
In 2007 , the search company launched Google 411 , a service that you could call and take questions , such as the address of a business sector . The divine service would send you the requested information back in a textbook message . The purpose of 411 was n’t so much for Google to provide you with a rather tangled information livery system , but more for the company to accumulate interpreter samples to employ in building a better part search organization , in the same way that document were used to establish Translate ’s database .
Och , in building his original translation scheme , used United Nations document because there were millions of them , and they were all already translated into the U.N. ’s six official languages . It was a gem trove of information . Google 411 was a alike former endeavour at building a database and the effort bore yield with the launch of voice - activated search on the iPhone in 2008 , but it was n’t exactly the same jackpot as the U.N. documents largely because it was n’t that useful to consumers .
Google Voice , include Gmail calling , is the next step in that physical process . Google will expend the zillions of calls that go over its Voice divine service to work up up its database , which will countenance it to ameliorate the accuracy of its voice hunt . As the Google Voice privateness policy state :
Google ’s computer process the entropy in your messages for various role , including arrange and displaying the information to you , playing you your messages , backing up your message , and other function relate to offering you Google Voice .
That “ various purpose ” clause is moderately nebulose and can sure as shooting include research and maturation of search algorithmic program .
In other words , gratis phone calls are the kitty that Google has been take care for . While Skype and sound company continue to try and find a way to compress pennies out of phone calls , for Google it ’s super worthful to give them away for nothing because it will help the companionship originate the next generation of lookup . After all , typing our lookup into a web web web browser is far from the most effective way of finding information . Saying what we want is much better , and it ’s how we ’ll mainly be explore in the not - so - distant future .
Peter Nowakis the senior science and technology reporter at CBC.ca . His bookSex , Bombs and Burgers : How War , Porn and Technology Created Technology As We eff Itis on sale now in Canada , Australia and New Zealand , in the U.K. on Nov. 1 , and in the U.S. in fall 2011 .
Update : Google got back to us and are denying this theory whole . Here ’s their argument :
Actually , it is about free birdsong . We ’re not using call phones in Gmail to improve our articulation search feature of speech . The receipts from international calling will cover the costs of free call , and we ’d encourage you to give your friends oversea a closed chain !
DataGmailGoogleGoogle Voicesoftwareweb apps
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