Not sure if this is news to anyone else, but it was to me.

It appears google are going into the telephony market - http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

Google Voice gives you one phone number for all your phones, voicemail as easy as email, and many calling features for free.

Wiki link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Voice

EDIT: This was news a few months back according to the date stamp on the google blog, ohh well it's news to me! http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/here-comes-google-voice.html

Seems pretty cool, video about it below.

Looks like it's aimed at the US market initially.

It was originally called Gran[d]Central.

Been in BETA for AGES

But US only at the moment.

Yeah, it does look interesting, but like Hulu and others only for yanks for now.

You can already do similar with Skype. It's good for traveling people because you get a SIM in Europe or whatever (so you can have reasonable local calls) and get your Skype number to forward calls to the new SIM number.

I use Skype flat-out for business.

Cool, a phone number that some internet company that makes all it's money on advertising will assign to me.

Is this more your kinda thing, therm?

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/1962/868921.jpg

Is that the Ass Master 200 from vintage pornos?

im with engin. they do a bit of redirecting, like if the phone is busy or rings out then it directs to my mobile. thats enough for me.

first google wants to read our email to give us targeted advertising and now they want to listen in on our phone calls too, I wonder what their reasoning for that will be? Better customer service? More targeted advertising? f*** that s***, no google, you can't monitor my phone calls.