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Gizmo5 shutting down on April 3rd, credits can be transferred to Google Voice
Google may not have offered too many details when it acquired VoIP outfit Gizmo5 back in November of 2009, but it's not like any of that matters now. Gizmo5 customers around the globe are receiving an email today notifying them of the service's impending closure, with April 3rd pegged as the final day that calls can be made. After March 11th, you'll no longer be able to add credit to your account, but you can request a refund or have your remaining credits transferred to Google Voice (if you're in the US). Head on past the break for the full message, and feel free to pour one out. Or, you know, just wipe that FOF off of your face by watching this. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Google makes Gizmo5 acquisition official, offers few details
This one wasn't exactly the best kept secret of the week, but Google has now come out and officially announced that it has acquired VoIP company Gizmo5, and that Gizmo5's engineers will expectedly be joining the Google Voice team. This being Google, however, it isn't saying much more than that it's looking forward to "working together to bringing more useful features to Google Voice," although that's no doubt more than enough to make the folks at Skype have a slightly less relaxing weekend. Current Gizmo5 users can also expect their service to continue as normal, but Google has suspended new signups "for the time being," and existing users can no longer sign up for a call in number.
Google to acquire Gizmo5, swing at Skype with VoIP-enabled Google Voice?
There's no official word on this yet, but the inimitable Michael Arrington says that Google's up and purchased VoIP company Gizmo5 for "around $30 million in cash." You know, pocket change for the crew in Mountain View. The deal would presumably bring Gizmo's SIP-based VoIP talents to Google Voice, taking it from quirky phone-management service to complete end-to-end calling solution, and instantly catapulting it into direct competition with Skype. Heavy stuff -- we'll see if Google or Gizmo5 confirms Mssr. Arrington's report sometime soon.
Talkcast reminder: 10pm ET this evening with special guest Alykhan Jetha of Marketcircle
Our weekly interactive podcast goes live on the air tonight at 10pm Eastern time over on the Talkshoe page, so if you're around and ready to talk some Unofficial Apple Weblog news with us, please come by and join in. I'll be hosting this evening, and Dave Caolo will be along for the ride with us, as well as a slew of other familiar names and voices from TUAW and our community. And we'll be welcoming Alykhan "AJ" Jetha as our special guest for the evening -- he's the CEO of Marketcircle, makers of Daylite and Daylite Touch, business productivity management apps for the desktop and the iPhone. Our own Stephen Sande reviewed their products here on TUAW earlier this week.Also tonight on the show, we'll talk about all of the new iPhone hardware rumors floating around, and try to separate the wheat from the chaff there. There's also rumors of an OS update that we'll try shaking down, and the iPhone 3.0 beta has hit a new milestone, so we'll look that over as well. iTunes prices are up, and sales are down, so we'll try to figure out why. And since this is the eve of the release of Tweetie for Mac, we'll talk about which clients we've used for Twitter on the desktop before and if Tweetie will be everything that everyone else is saying it is. Should be a lot of fun -- tune in promptly at 10 Eastern to give us a listen. To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only interface, or you can stick with the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in so we can hear your dulcet tones. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VOIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. SIP or Gizmo users can connect directly to Talkshoe by following the instructions here. Talk with you then! Recording support for the talkcast is provided by Call Recorder from ecamm networks.
Gizmo bot is here to help
With a cute name like that you wouldn't expect this Gizmo robot to be so bent on risky reconnaissance missions, but that's what creator Javier Rodriguez Molina has in mind for his modular progeny. Gizmo is designed to gather information at disaster sites and relay it to whoever however, be that over wireless internet, cellular, Bluetooth or other means. Multiple bots can network together to collaborate, but while the current version of the bot is mostly a glorified remote control rover, future versions will carry all sorts of sensors and come in all sorts of form factors. Research is ongoing at San Diego's "Calit2," and the hope is for the final bot to come in under the $1,000 price point to make it easy for police, fire departments and other rescue organizations to buy the bots off the shelf.
Nokia launches business-minded E51 handset
While Nokia didn't exactly choose the quietest day to launch its latest handset, the E51 is getting official, regardless. This candybar-styled device was designed with the suits in mind, as Nokia even touts its ability to "integrate tightly with corporate telephony systems (PBX) through Nokia Mobile Unified Communications solutions." Specs wise, you'll find a two-inch 320 x 240 resolution screen, two-megapixel camera, video streaming / playback with support for H.264 and Real codecs, video calling capability, integrated 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, FM tuner, miniUSB, IrDA, GPRS / EGPRS and HSDPA compatibility, up to 130MB of memory, a microSD expansion slot, quad-band GSM and WCDMA 850/2100 support, and up to 4.4-hours of talk time (or 13 days in standby). The E51 is slated to ship globally in Q4 for €350 ($485) sans a contract, and if you're craving more pics, just hit up the gallery below.[Thanks, Nokie and James B.]%Gallery-7549%
TUAW Talkcast #4: Best of the week, more reader questions - available for download
The 4th edition of our new TUAW Talkcast went pretty well last night. We had a good turnout of readers joining in on the fun, and we all had a good time discussing things like imaginary iPhone feature updates, that quirky new Apple Keyboard and how well one can type on a glass display without buttons. We also fielded more questions from show participants such as Windows gaming on a Mac mini and how to truly delete images from iPhoto, and I must say: that question & answer segment is becoming one of my favorite parts of the show.We did have a few issues with audio quality, as I think Gizmo was misbehaving a little, but I tried cleaning up as best I could. There's only so much magic software can work on quirky audio, even in Mac OS X. Since we are still navigating the TalkShoe waters however, we appreciate your patience while trying to iron out the kinks, and we'll gladly accept any advice on how to improve audio quality (though we're aware of the basics, such as using a headset instead of built-in MacBook mics, etc.). We're also kicking around some ideas for a different day and time for the show in an effort to make it easier for more of you to join us. If you would prefer something other than 9:30 pm ET on Thursday nights, be sure to sound off in the comments.For now though, TUAW Talkcast #4 is available for download. It clocks in at just under 37 minutes and 33.7 MB. You can pick up the 'cast from our RSS & iTunes feeds, via direct download here, or via download and streaming over at Talkshoe.
Gizmo Call brings VoIP to the browser
If downloading a whole entire app for making VoIP calls is just too much commitment, or perhaps you'd like to get in a few free phone calls on some random PC you don't quite have that kind of privilege with, SIPphone has quite a dealio for you. The builders of Gizmo Project have just unveiled Gizmo Call, which allows you to make phone calls from your browser, using a Flash-based mini-app. You get five minutes a day of free calls to any phone line, along with unlimited free calls to users of Google Talk, Windows Live, Gizmo Project and any other SIP service. There are fancy little "Call Me" links you can hand out to your friends, along with the ability to customize your CallerID to make your call look like it's coming from your mobile or landline. The service is live now, so start pranking your friends before they catch on!
Audio Hijack Pro 2.7
Rogue Amoeba released Audio Hijack Pro 2.7 today making it a podcaster's dream. This already indispensable application has just gotten better with the addition of the 'MegaMix.' This feature (enabled by default if you are recording an iChat conversation) records incoming and outgoing audio from an application thereby making it very easy to record everyone in on an iChat conference call with one app (this also works in Skype and Gizmo).Read all about the changes here, and take a visual tour at Rogue Amoeba's blog.Audio Hijack Pro costs $32.
Gizmo Project makes all VoIP to landline calls free. Forever.
Skype ruffled some feathers in the internet telephony world earlier this year when they announced they'd be offering free SkypeOut calls to the US and Canada for the rest of 2006. We weren't too interested since it came off as little more than a promotion, and we typically skip over promos (for obvious reason). But we're kind of left wondering how Skype -- deep eBay pockets and all -- intends to compete with archrival Gizmo Project's latest tactic: free Gizmo-to-landline calls anywhere, anytime, any amount, forever. We'll probably be spending a while trying to make heads from tails of their business plan which pretty much totally gives away the shop, but who's really going to be reeling here is the rest of the VoIP telephony industry that's currently clawing desperately to monetize on landline phone replacements. Not everything's free with Gizmo Project, however; even though you can all over Europe, Asia, and the Americas (to 60 countries and counting), if you want your pals to call you on Gizmo from their landlines, you're going to have to buy a Call In number. (Fret not though, since those cost as little as $3 a month.) Also, in order to call them up they need to have a number registered to an active Gizmo account, which increases the barrier to entry by a bit. But what started with Captain Crunch's 2600Hz whistle may now end with Gizmo Project's capture of the biggest voice trunk of all time; if this is any sign of things to come, we'd say the free voice revolution may finally have a proper flagbearer. So let the free phone wars begin.
Efonica VoIP service supports dial-up too
Fusion Telecommunications of Dubai has just entered the already crowded VoIP market with a beta version of its SIP-powered Efonica service. Registered users can chat amongst one another for free using standard telephones connected to an analog phone adapter or dial POTS lines on the cheap, with calls to the US from other countries costing under two cents a minute. What sets Efonica apart from some of the other services out there is its claimed ability to work even on dial-up connections -- still a rarity these days -- allowing people in areas with low broadband penetration to get in on all the fun offered by Internet telephony. Although the basic version of the service is free, calls to landlines or cellphones and voicemail functionality require signing up for the Efonica Plus option, which will avaiable at the end of the public beta test in about two months.[Via Personal Tech Pipeline]
