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Switched On: Tablets offer a new choice for voice

Ross Rubin — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:30:00 -0400

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

The term "phablet" has always been, at best, a relative descriptor. It kicked in with the release of the original Galaxy Note even though the voice-enabled Dell Streak had beaten that product to market. And while the portmanteau raises the question of whether there is any meaningful difference between a phone and tablet other than size, all it means is "a big phone."

Up until recently, and barring the use of Bluetooth headsets, the constraints defining the upper practical limit of a phone included the ability to fit into a pocket and be held against the side of an (adult) head to facilitate a voice call. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, two companies smashed through at least the first of those criteria. Twisting the name of the PadFone, which extended the screen of a handset to that of a 10-inch tablet by use of a touchscreen shell enclosure, ASUS introduced the FonePad.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Samsung, Google, Amazon

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Google brings free voice calls to Hangouts, really wants you to hang out

Amar Toor — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:46:00 -0500

Google's Hangout feature has just become a little more Hangout-y, now that the folks in Mountain View have integrated free voice calls within Google+. Available to users within the US and Canada, this new "extra" feature allows social networkers to place calls directly from a Hangout, allowing the recipient to remotely join in on the conversation at hand. To set it up, all you have to do is start a Hangout, hit the "Invite" button, and dial up your friend's number. Users can also use the feature to place individual calls without setting up a Google Voice account, though they'll need one if they wanna talk to someone overseas.

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Sprint network is down in some areas, SMS and voice call services affected (updated)

Richard Lai — Tue, 17 May 2011 22:36:00 -0400

Uh oh, according to the handful of tips we've received, it appears that Sprint is currently having some technical problems on its cellular network in some states. Specifically, customers aren't having much luck with sending text messages, while some are also not able to make voice calls. But don't worry, the carrier's certainly aware of this issue and is already working on a fix, so hang tight and let your fingers take a break -- we'll let you know when things are up and running again.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Here's a statement we got from Sprint:

"We did have some disruption to Sprint SMS traffic earlier tonight, but it wasn't a complete disruption -- we lost partial capacity for about an hour. Engineers immediately began rerouting traffic and after about an hour things went back to normal.

There is no significant voice disruption anywhere in the US except for a small part of our Sprint network in the Washington, DC area. That has since been resolved and had no relation to the SMS disruption."

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VoxOx Call for iPhone handles your virtual numbers, SMS, and faxes on the cheap

Richard Lai — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:01:00 -0400

We're actually surprised that Telcentris' VoxOx virtual number service has never had a mobile app until now, but hey, better late than never, right? Hot out of the oven is the appropriately named VoxOx Call app for iPhone, which claims to match rival Google Voice's mobile offering but packs some extra goodies. For instance, this app syncs nicely with the VoxOx desktop client, so that you can handle your calls, text messages, voicemails, and faxes on both platforms with ease. And as before, there's no limit on how many virtual numbers you buy and add here, whereas with Google Voice you're stuck with one per account. Hit the demo video after the break to check out the full package.

Filed under: Mobile

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Orange begins HD Voice trial in Southern England, leaves out Buckingham Palace

Richard Lai — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:42:00 -0400

Remember the good news that Orange brought to the UK on our alcohol-fueled New Year's Eve? We thought so. Anyway, it looks like said fruit company's still on course to "a new era for UK mobile communications" as it launches HD Voice trial in England today. Lucky participants across Bristol, Reading and Southampton will benefit from "crystal clear" voice calls, courtesy of the wider speech bandwidth -- 50-7000 Hz as opposed to the current 300-3400 Hz. Sadly, Orange isn't keen on dishing out deets about the special hardware, but our friends over at What Mobile had the chance to play with a modified Nokia X6 from yesterday's demo -- "It was like listening to AM radio and then switching over to listen to a CD." If all goes well, we'll meet the rest of the gang when HD Voice is rolled out "before the end of the summer." Press release after the break.

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iPad won't handle GSM voice calls -- or will it?

Chris Ziegler — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 03:46:00 -0500

Like the camera references, this could just be another case of vestigial SDK weirdness -- but for whatever reason, devs have noticed (and we've been able to reproduce) a "Touch to return to call" bar in the iPad emulator just like you'd expect to find on an iPhone during a traditional GSM call. It certainly seems like Steve would've bothered to mention during today's festivities if you could do something crazy like pair up a Bluetooth headset and go to town (and you'd need a voice plan on top of that $29.99 data anyway), so who knows: either Apple's just made every UI element as adaptable as possible regardless of whether it's applicable to a particular device, they're planning a higher-res iPhone down the road, or they're integrating the bar into some VoIP action. Or... you know, none of the above.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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