Google Voice acquires VoIP purveyor Gizmo5

by admin November 14, 2009 at 11:20 am

Since its inception, Google Voice has offered a wide range of features for managing your phone calls, with one glaring exception: calls passing through Google Voice have to be directed to another phone number if you actually want to answer them. This gap may now have been closed with Thursday’s announcement that Google is acquiring Gizmo5, also known as the Gizmo Project.

As currently implemented, Google Voice in conjunction with Gizmo allows you to place unlimited free calls to the United States and Canada (and cheap rates elsewhere), but requires you to maintain two separate accounts. Launch the Gizmo software on your Mac to log into your Gizmo account, then fire up your 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. If this sounds unwieldy, it’s simpler in practice—but the Google acquisition could mean that it will shortly become even easier.

Read more: macworld.com