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The @googlevoice twitter has announced that the gmail voice plugin was used to make over 1 million voice calls in its first 24 hours. And this wasn’t even a feature that all gmail users could use. W0w.

I just set up a bbpress forum for the site:

wifitalk.ca forum

Any registered user for the blog automatically is given a forum account with the same username and password. From now on, posts from the blog will create a forum topic, and comments on the blog posts will create posts in the associated forum topic and vice-versa.

Feedback is appreciated.

Google has is now testing a voice call plugin in gmail that allows you to make phone calls to regular numbers for free in Canada and the US using your computer.

This is a separate service from Google Voice, as you do not get a call-in number assigned to you, but if you have a Google Voice account and someone calls that number, you can set up Google Voice to notify you in gmail. It is great news that you don’t need a Google Voice account in order to take advantage of this service as this means that users outside the US can take advantage of it. This undoubtedly is a product stemming from Google’s acquisition of Gizmo5.

I am in Canada and have two gmail accounts. One is tied to a Google Voice account using the method outlined here, and the other doesn’t have a Google Voice account tied to it. I have just enabled the voice call plugin for the gmail account that doesn’t have Google Voice tied to it from Canada, so I can confirm that it works outside the US.

This is a direct shot at Skype. Skype charges $3.95 USD to make unlimited calls to any phone number in Canada and the US. Google just offered this exact same service for free, without the need to use a separate app – it is just a plugin for your browser.

The pop-up notification states “Free calls to the US and Canada in 2010″ so it seems that for now this is temporary, but because Google Voice offers free calls in the US and Canada, it may persist.

I also just tried it with both google accounts and can report the following:

1. If you have a Google Voice account, the caller ID displayed on the receiver’s phone will be your Google Voice number.

2. If you do NOT have a Google Voice account, the caller ID displayed on the receiver’s phone will be some number from California.

This is a personal note: My phone contract is now up, and I still don’t know who I’m going with… Hmmm.

Rogers is now in on the 6 GB smartphone data plan for $30 with iPad sharing now too, except sharing costs an additional $20 instead of the $10 it costs with Bell, and is only available on 3-year contracts as opposed to being available on all post-paid accounts.

Adding reasonable data plans like this is a step in the right direction, but the fact that you have to add it to a voice plan is rather annoying, and the fact that it costs an extra $20 to access that bandwidth from another device is just a plain old money grab.

theboygeniusreport got their hands on a Bell memo indicating that they are going to offer a 6GB data plan add on for all post-paid voice-only subscriptions that can be shared with an iPad on the same account for an additional $10.

The nice thing for iPad users is you no longer have to pay for an entirely separate plan (which made no logical sense anyways), and moves to a more customer/data centric way of charging for service, as opposed to a device/data method.

It makes sense from a consumer point of view to pay a carrier a certain fee for the ability to use a certain amount of bandwidth, irregardless of device, so we should give Bell a thumbs-up on this one.

It looks as though the cheapest Bell plan is still $30 a month, so to get a plan like that, add $30 for the 6 GB of data, and then turn your smartphone into a 3G VOIP device will still cost you $60.

What I am still trying to decipher is if it works on a shared family plan. The memo mentions that “Members (mates)” are eligible, but it is unclear whether both parties are able to share the data. It could make for a nice family plan add-on – $20×2 = $40 for the voice, and then $30 for the 6 GB of data = $70 for a 3G VOIP plan split between two people.

The cult of Mac is reporting today that the iPhone will be coming to T-Mobile.

Referencing a source high up in T-Mobile’s organization, they claim an 80% chance that iPhones will be available on T-Mobile by the end of Q3 this year (late September). Deutsche Telekom, carrier of the iPhone in Germany and T-Mobile’s parent company, was rumoured to have influence in the deal.

This could be very good news for Wind Mobile as their relatively thin offering of phones is due to them being on the 3G-AWS band, which is slightly different from the standard 3G bands that most carriers operate on. T-Mobile is also on the AWS band, which means that if the iPhone is going to work for T-Mobile, it will work for Wind.

The iPhone 4 doesn’t list the AWS band in its specs, but it could be that the phone is indeed capable of operation on the appropriate frequencies and that they just aren’t listed. Unlocking the phone (which hasn’t been done yet), and trying a T-Mobile (or Wind) SIM would be the first test.

Many have suggested that Verizon would be the next likely candidate once the AT&T exclusivity contract runs out, but for now Verizon runs a CDMA network, while the iPhone is a GSM phone. However, Verizon is upgrading to LTE in the fall, and it looks like it will be a GSM network, so this CDMA argument could be moot.

Skype has released an updated version of their iPhone app, complete with iOS4 features such as multitasking. This seems to be a fixed update, following the error which caused Skype to recently disappear from all iTunes app stores. Now you can make and receive Skype calls on your iPhone seamlessly as you can leave the app running in the background. Previously, the app would have to be running and active in order to receive a call, crippling its ability to be used as a regular phone line.

This also paves the way for very usable, very cheap calling on the iPhone, especially if you use an iPad 3G SIM to get a data-only iPhone plan.

Skype has been under some pressure from its userbase of late to add this functionality, as it has been anticipated for a while now and incorporates some very important usability features. Impatient users have resorted to tying their Skype accounts to Fring, a third-party app that acts as a front-end for many communications programs and protocols and is kept very up to date. Skype and Fring recently got into a battle of words over video chatting over the Skype network on the new iPhone.

In addition, Skype has canceled its plans to begin charging a small monthly fee for 3G calls, instead keeping that functionality free. You will however still have to pay for a Skype-In number and Skype-Out credit, but those can be had for very low rates considering what you can do with them.

UPDATE FROM SKYPE: “Today, Skype just submitted a new version of its iOS4 build to Apple. In the process we encountered some difficulties. Skype will work quickly to get its current Skype for iPhone app back up as soon as possible.”

Looks like it was just an updating issue.

TechCrunch says that Skype has disappeared from the App Store.

No word yet on if this is a glitch, or if Apple has just removed it.

I can confirm that the Skype App doesn’t appear in the Canadian version of the store either. This leads me to believe that this isn’t just a glitch. UPDATE: Gone from the Japan and Australia stores too.

The Skype website still has an iPhone app page, but clicking on the link just gives you something like this:

Some posts on the Skype forums suggest that iOS 4.0.1 doesn’t work with Skype.

Why might this be? I can think of a couple of reasons (all purely conjecture at this point).

1. It’s a glitch, and it’ll be back up later. (with one app store maybe, but with both Canada AND the US?)
2. Skype is updating the app, and this is a temporary effect from removing the old version before the new one comes up.
3. Maybe AT&T is upset over the loss of long-distance minutes Skype users save on and have gotten Apple to pull the app because it “replicates functionality” of the iPhone.
4. Maybe Apple is upset over Skype getting cozier with Verizon and BlackBerry in their partnerships
5. Maybe Apple is upset that Skype hasn’t updated their app to include iOS4 features yet and are pushing them to release a new version
6. Aliens (it could be anything).

UPDATE 2: Seems some users are getting a pop-up message when logging into skype on their iPhones:

Free Skype trial

You’ve got until at least August 2010
to make and receive free Skype-to-
Skype calls over your mobile
network.

After that, you’ll need a mobile
subscription.

Is the Skype app about to become pay-per-use?

Thoughts? Comments?

Australian researchers have managed to create a mobile VOIP network out of nothing more than a group of wifi-phones. No towers or server needed.

They mainly envision this technology as being useful in the wilderness where no phone towers exist, or in emergency situations where a disaster has destroyed the local phone network. It works by daisy-chaining together a series of wifi-capable devices through an adhoc wifi network. The phones themselves then decide how to route information from one phone to the next without the need to bounce a signal back to a central server for routing.

Range is limited to wifi-distances between nodes, but nodes can be anything – wifi access points or other stationary devices, or mobile phones with wifi capability.