KAMEIR

Google announced that the company is buying Gizmo5, the San Diego VoIP company founded by my friend Michael Robertson. Since its inception as Grandcentral, the service has offered a wide range of features for managing your phone calls, with one exception: calls passing through Google Voice have to be directed to another phone number if you actually wanted to answer them. This gap can bow be closed through Gizmo Project.

As currently implemented, Google Voice in conjunction with Gizmo allows to place unlimited free calls to the United States and Canada (and low rates into other countries), but requires two separate accounts. Launch the Gizmo software on your Mac to log into your Gizmo account, then start browser to log into Google Voice; calls placed in Google Voice can be redirected to ring your Gizmo account before connecting to the person you’re calling.

Let’s hope Google gets the interface right this time.

Google has announced that it has purchased one of the largest advertising networks in the mobile industry, Admob, for $750 million worth of Google shares. Google is set to purchase more companies over the next few months as it revs up its acquisition engine. SMART MOVE!

Google’s new “Caffeine” search engine is drawing early negative reviews from testers who say it does not provide better accuracy, than the company’s existing search page (partly because the site was down a lot). I have an idea: kick out any result with AdSense code on it!

Google announced today that it is developing the Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system based on Linux and geared for people who do much of their computing on the Web. The software will eventually run on PCs, but before that it will appear first in netbooks in the second half of 2010, Google says.

A pedicab-like trike, mounted with an 8-foot-high camera has been rolling around the pedestrian walkways of the SDSU to collect panoramic images of the campus for Google Maps’ Street View feature, which gives users detailed, street-level views of map locations over the Internet.

The 250-pound vehicle, which resembles the pedicabs that carry tourists around Philadelphia and other cities, has the cyclist pumping the pedals up front, with the camera mounted on a tower in the back. On the rear is a red generator along with a large white chest that looks like it might dispense ice cream but actually contains the computer recording the digital images.