Google Voice: the future of phone calls

Today I finally received my invitation to Google Voice, which promises to make handling phone calls much easier.

If the smartphone is the future of mobile devices, Google Voice is the future of voice management systems

Google Voice gives you a single number that can be used to reach you at several other numbers that you choose. It also allows you to screen calls, listen in on voicemail, and even send unwanted phone calls straight to voicemail (or even block callers outright).

Even better, it allows you to send and receive SMS's for free to any US number.

Want more? It also functions as a cheap international calling card, allowing you to call your Google Voice number and then place calls to anywhere in the world for very low rates (to most countries, only a few cents per minute).

Other than the international call option, everything is completely free.

You can even call me from right here, go ahead, click it:

DOMA will create problem for conservatives

The Defense of Marriage Act is under attack by Massachusetts. I'm glad, because this is exactly the kind of law that we should NOT have. It discriminates against same sex couples, and discrimination should not be codified law in the United States.

It is also unconstitutional per the 10th amendment. And this is where it gets tricky. Marriage is a states' rights issue, it always has been, and the federal government has no place regulating it. It will be interesting to see how a conservative who is against the "overreaching" federal government could justify a law that makes the federal government more overreaching. But I'm sure they will try, since many conservatives in congress are complete bigots against gay people.

Chrome OS announced, who should be scared?

Today Google announced that it is developing an operating system called Chrome, the same name as its excellent browser, which I am using now and prefer to Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari.

This operating system will supposedly be very light weight, free, and open source. So who has the most to lose? Let's work in decending order:

3. Apple - I think that Apple will be the least affected. Some Apple OS will run on all of its devices for the forseeable future. People buy Apple's to stand out, not necessarily because they are the best at doing anything. It is hip to have an Apple now. If this changes, it won't be due to the OS. However, I think the cost factor may come into play, if the Chrome enabled netbook revolution is able to poach Apple's customers, especially poor college students.

2. Microsoft - Microsoft is launching its own web-enhanced OS, Windows 7, later this year. It was moved up due to the awful press Vista has received. I think that Chrome will compete somewhat with Windows 7, since both are designed to be deployable to netbooks and other less powerful clients. Furthermore, Google owns the web in ways Microsoft only dreams, so people may flock to something that they know will seamlessly work with their Google services, such as Gmail. Additionally, Windows 7 will not be free.

1. Ubuntu - I think that Ubuntu will be blown out of the water by Chrome. It is already known that Ubuntu is the consumer version of Linux. It is not as serious as Fedora or others. Many people like Ubuntu because it is something they can run for free on older computers (this is how I use it), or it is something interesting to play around with, since it is Linux. Chrome will bring both a Linux based OS, that is open source and free, plus the backing of a major corporation. The first to go will be Ubuntu's developers, and next you'll find consumers flocking to it as well.

Pandora lives

Pandora, my favorite online radio station, among others are probably happy now that they've worked out a deal with the labels to stream music online. Many thought that online radio would be dead, facing a 19 cent per track fee in royalties.

The fee isn't quite that high, but it is now high enough that Pandora will limit free usage to 40 hours per month. I would expect others, such as last.fm to follow suit.

Anything over that will cost an additional 99 cents for the rest of the month, which is basically nothing. But as Chris Anderson says in Free, there are really only two prices: Free and everything else. So I am not quite sure how Pandora will fair. They claim that this will impact only 10% of their users.

On the eve of MJ's funeral, take a trip back in time

On the eve of Michael Jackson's funeral, I read some of the old reviews of Thriller, before anyone knew it would be the number one selling album of all-time. Rolling Stone said that Thriller "may not be Michael Jackson's 1999, but it's a gorgeous, snappy step in the right direction."

Another review really stuck out: the New York Times' review of Thriller. This review, which was written just shortly after my birth, I felt as though I was teleported to an entirely different era, which it was. The reviewer seems amused that "white" radio stations play this music. In closing, we are left with...

"Best of all, with a pervasive confidence infusing the album as a whole, ''Thriller'' suggests that Mr. Jackson's evolution as an artist is far from finished. He is, after all, only 24 years old."

Hacking your social security number

Carnegie Mellon University, my alma mater, has just published a study detailing just how easy it is to hack someone's Social Security number from publicly available data.

Of course, the Social Security administration is basically saying what they've always said: that businesses and other organizations should not use the SSN as an identifier, because it is not protected. And masking all but the last 4 digits? Possibly even worse, since those are the numbers most unique to you.

The good news for some, like me, is that my SSN does not correlate directly with my birthday, because my parents didn't get mine at birth. But for many this is no longer true, since the IRS now requires a SSN to claim a child (this was not true before the mid-1980s).

My home state of Virginia has removed SSN's from driver's licenses, and cannot collect the SSN under any circumstance. The same is not necessarily true for private organizations, but what we can do as consumers is make our voices heard, and telling companies that we don't want them using our SSN's to identify us.

Immigration = Lower crime rates

Another reason for us to welcome immigrants: lower crime rates.

 

Whether it is El Paso, Texas or Dearborn, Michigan, communities with a high foreign born population tend to be lower in crime than cities with similar characteristics who have a higher native born population.

 

Bill O'Reilly and others of his ilk have always used scare tactics to tell people that immigrants commit mass crimes, but as many have found, this is the exception, and you are probably more likely to be victimized by a non foreign born citizen.

 

http://www.reason.com/news/show/134579.html

Israel-Saudi defense pact?

Not many are surprised by this (including me) but Israel and Saudi Arabia seem to have developed a mutual understanding. If Israel wants to conduct any raids on Iran, Saudi airspace will likely be open for their use.

Rove on Palin

Even Karl Rove has no idea what the hell Palin is doing. Is this going to be like when John McCain "suspended" his campaign? Or worse?

Steve McNair is dead

Another day, another famous person dies. So it seems. Today marked the passing of Steve McNair, QB of the Tenessee Titans and more recently the Baltimore Ravens. He will be remembered most for engineering a plan in a superbowl vs. the Rams where his receive came oh-so-close to scoring but wasn't quite there.

Palin quits

Sarah Palin is resigning as governor. The thought is that she's planning to run for president in 2012. I can't think of any easier way of assuring an Obama landslide.

Healthcare details get better

This just in. A new plan being floated in congress significantly reduces the cost of universal coverage, by providing a public plan and penalizing employers who do not offer their employees insurance.

Both of these provisions are very good.

First, a public plan is needed to assist those who work but are not insured and ineligible for medicaid. Republicans absolutely hate this idea, but have never come up with a better plan. They say that this creates bureaucracy, but that is not true. HMOs are just as bureaucratic, this just reduces the cost by eliminating the overhead (read: profit taking) that comes from the insurers, which does add significant costs.

Second, employers who have more than 25 people working for them will have to pay $750 a year for full time and $375 for part time workers who are not offered health insurance. This will provide billions in funding to the plan.

Smart GPS is coming, in some cases it is already here

Starting in the late 90's people started having access to navigation systems in their vehicles, which allowed them to plot out a route and ditch the map for good. The problem with these early systems is that they relied on fixed data, generally DVD's. The DVD's are now gone in favor of hard drives that can be updated, but most of the information still lags reality.

Smart GPS is now here. The easiest way to get it for most is to just use your cell phone, provided that your carrier offers GPS. For example, my carrier Sprint offers free GPS to anyone on an unlimited data plan. Smart GPS tells you when the HOV lane is open or closed, and whether there's a traffic jam up ahead. It automatically reroutes you if there is construction, and knows about new roads as soon as they are built.

FDA Warns on Acetaminophen

The FDA is moving to ban vicodin and percocet, drugs that mix narcotics with acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol which is the active ingredient in Tylenol. While one of the most commonly used over the counter medicines in the United States. it is also one of the most deadly.

I do not have any Tylenol (or generic equivalents) in my house for good reason: it is very easy to accidentally overdose on it. Even taking the recommended dosage can lead someone to have liver problems, especially if mixed with even a drop of alcohol, even if the alcohol was consumed a day before. Aspirin and Ibuprofen are safer in regards to the liver.

Madoff gets 150 years

Bernie Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison. I am a bit shocked by this sentence, and am probably in the minority in stating that I think it is much too harsh.

Madoff is in his 70s. A sentence of 20 years would basically amount to a death sentence, so why lay on the time? Likely to send a message, but I think when you sentence anyone this old to prison for more than a handful of years, the system is doing just that.

However, we need to take this into context. He did not kill anyone, he merely scammed people out of around $15B. Horrible? Yes, but not as bad as taking a life, and murders routinely get 20 years or less in prison.

So why would a sentence of 20 years be better? He would not be in a medium-maximum security but a low-minimum security if his sentence was less. That reduces the chances of him being assaulted in jail, which is virtually assured in a medium-maximum security facility. I'm not saying this guy deserves to be on a country club, but certainly don't want to see a 70 year old man suffer.