Google/Gmail can now store voicemail messages

GOOGLE IS seeking to blur the line between the telephone and the computer even further with the introduction of Google Voice.

The new service weaves traditional phone features with Google’s Gmail product, allowing a person to store transcripts of voicemail phone messages in their e-mail inbox and to find a specific nugget of information within a phone message as if trawling through a sea of e-mails.

The move demonstrates the company’s ability to fuse various technologies into new products, even as the economic recession puts the future of certain Google projects in question.

Google Voice is based on the technology of Grand Central Communications, a company that Google acquired in July 2007. Google Voice represents the first major update to Grand Central since the acquisition.

Like the original Grand Central product, Google Voice offers consumers a single phone number that can route incoming calls to home, office and mobile phones.

The new version uses speech-recognition technology that Google developed for its Goog-411 telephone directory service, automatically transcribing voicemails into text. The transcribed messages can be forwarded as an e-mail or SMS text message to a person’s e-mail inbox.

It is unclear how Google Voice will fit into Google’s business model, which relies on advertisers to provide 97 per cent of revenue.

The company has also ventured into the mobile software market, launching last year the Android operating system.