/var/log/geek

I received an invite for Google Voice a couple of weeks ago. I had a Grand Central account years ago, (but like many) I completely left it neglected, and did not upgrade after Google's purchase of Grand Central.

I was a little wary of what may have been changed. You basically log in, and choose your new phone number to connect to it. I can't remember is whether Grand Central had to have a physical phone tied to it, but with Google Voice, you do need a physical phone to tie to your account.

Once all was set up, I used the phone tied to the account to call the new number. It sent my directly into the voice mail system. I was then asked to set up my inbox. Being as I only have one phone, I called my mom to have her check the system.

One of the nifty parts of Google Voice is that it (attempts to) transcribe your voicemail into an email, which it then sends you. I will preface this by stating that my mother doesn't have any heavy accents or speech impediments. This is what she actually said in the voice mail:

"Hey, Ray, this is Mom. I'm leaving this text. Call me tomorrow. Love you. Bye"

Now, what Google's transcription engine (or small children in India) transcribed:

"hey ryan this is mom so yeah i'm leaving intact and call me tomorrow love you bye"

OK, it's not that far off, but I still had to listen to the voice message to get the context of the "intact" statement. Over all I am quite happy and surprised by all of the function of the service. I guess my favorite is the ability to SMS directly from the GMAIL-esque interface.