Enjoy Google offers free voice calls via Gmail

Google offers free voice calls via Gmail

Google's Craig Walker said the product promotes "cheap easy communication"
Google is taking on internet telephone companies like Skype by allowing users to call from its free web-based email service.

The service allows users to make calls to landlines and mobiles from inside their Gmail account.

Phoning anywhere in the US and Canada will be free until the end of the year, while calls to the UK, France, China and Germany will cost 2 cents a minute.

Until now Google offered computer-to-computer voice and video chat services.

"This is a real big deal because now hundreds of millions of Gmail users can make phone calls right from their Gmail page," Craig Walker, product manager for real-time communications told BBC News.

"They don't need to download an additional application or anything to start making really high-quality low-cost calls. For the user it means much more efficient and low-cost communications."

The product will initially be rolled out in the US, the firm said, although some users in other countries have already reported that they can use the feature.

The product link will appear on the left hand of the Gmail page within the "chat" window. A "call phone" option will pop up along with a number pad to let you dial the number of the person you want to talk to.

Google said money raised from international calls will pay for the free US and Canadian calls.

"What surprised me was that they actually said they hope to make money off the calls," said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of technology blog SearchEngineLand.

"Normally Google is like 'We don't know how we are going to make the money' or 'We will make money down the way, don't worry about it' and this stands out as a big benefit that they get actual revenue early on."
coppied by http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11092212

commited this Jimmy Carter Tries to Free American in North Korea

Jimmy Carter Tries to Free American in North Korea


A child greeted former President Jimmy Carter as he arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Wednesday.
SEOUL, South Korea — Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in North Korea on Wednesday to seek the release of an American held by the North, its state-run media reported.
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Kim Jong-il Reported to Be in China (August 26, 2010)
Analysts in Seoul said Mr. Carter, who helped defuse a Korean nuclear crisis more than 16 years ago, could also try to help end the two countries’ impasse.

The man Mr. Carter is seeking to free is Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a 30-year-old Christian from Boston who was arrested in January for crossing into North Korea and sentenced in April to eight years of hard labor and fined $700,000. Last month, North Korea said he tried to kill himself out of “frustration with the U.S. government’s failure to free him.”

The visit by Mr. Carter, an evangelical Christian, is the second to North Korea by a former American president in a year on what the United States described as a private humanitarian missions. Last August, Bill Clinton flew there and met with the reclusive North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, to secure the release of two American journalists held for five months for illegal entry.

The Obama administration kept its distance, emphasizing that Mr. Carter not an envoy. “I’ll just say that President Carter is on a private humanitarian mission and I’m not going to comment more beyond that,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.

But as with Mr. Clinton’s visit, Mr. Carter’s has deeper diplomatic undercurrents. The North Koreans have used the captive Americans as bargaining chips, promising to release them in exchange for visits from specific high-profile Americans. North Korea can portray the meetings domestically as evidence of its international importance, while the United States has a high-level direct encounter that it cannot officially engage in.

But Mr. Carter has a long history as an independent agent, and some administration officials worried that he might undercut their policy in some way and make it harder to keep up the pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program.

It was not immediately clear who among the North Koreans would meet with Mr. Carter. The North Korean media reports said that he was greeted at the airport in Pyongyang, the capital, by Kim Kye-gwan, a senior diplomat who has been the North’s main envoy to the six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program. The talks have been stalled for more than two years, but the North recently said it was willing to return to the discussions.

Higher-level meetings would appear to be likely, since Mr. Carter’s visit comes at a fraught time for North Korea. Its economy remains deeply troubled, and its ravaged agricultural sector has been further damaged by recent flooding. A March torpedo attack that sank one of the South’s warships, killing 46 sailors, drove inter-Korean relations to their lowest point in years and added to tensions with the United States. In addition, there may be a struggle over succession within the government of Kim Jong-il, who has had serious health problems.

The case of Mr. Gomes also touches on efforts of Christians in South Korea and the United States on behalf of North Koreans. His illegal entry was made in support of Robert Park, a fellow Christian from the United States who crossed from China in December to call attention to the dismal conditions in the North’s prison camps. Mr. Park was expelled after about 40 days.
Coppied by http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/world/asia/26korea.html

Alex Jones - Breaking news - Google Plans to control and kill off the open free Internet!

Watch Alex Jones - Breaking news - Google Plans to control and kill off the open free Internet!



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