Google Data » Vincent Paquet

Two new groups of callers to help you manage your privacy

Vincent Paquet — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:56:00 +0000

Google Voice helps you customize how you treat callers by giving you the ability to play a custom greeting for your parents or send your chatty neighbor straight to voicemail.

Many users have asked us for controls aimed at people who are NOT in their address book. So today, we’re adding two groups of callers for Google Voice users:

People in your address book: this allows you to customize the experience of all contacts in your address book. This also works by exclusion. For example, you can set a special greeting just for people in your address book, or screen anyone not in your address book.
For anonymous callers: these are callers who do not have a caller ID. They sometimes appear as unknown, or restricted, depending on why the caller’s number is not shown. You can use this group to for example screen any call without a caller ID.

Those two new groups are specific to Google Voice and can be managed from the group tab.

As always, we hope you like this new feature and welcome your feedback.

Posted by Tom Ford, Software Engineer

Google Voice expands to new markets

Vincent Paquet — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:01:00 +0000

When we asked our users what features they’d like to see in Google Voice, we heard a lot of different answers. And we listened very closely to all of them. A few themes stood out for us: you’d like to see us bring more awesome features to your phones, and you’d like to see Google Voice in other countries. But we asked ourselves: is this ambitious enough? Surely we can do something even better than that. And that’s when the future became clear to us: Dogs and cats. Texting. Together.

Introducing Google Voice...For Pets.

You might ask yourself, “Google Voice? For my pets? How is that even possible? There’s only a few bluetooth headsets that can fit my dog, and they’re so expensive!” The secret is in our special Voice Communication Collars. The collars fit around your pet's neck and use a series of sensors to record audio directly from your dog or cat’s vocal cords, using technology originally developed for NASA spacesuits. Using your WiFi network, audio messages are uploaded to your Google Voice account within seconds. Alternately, a tiny micro-LED emitter built into the collar can project a keyboard onto the floor, so your pet can tap their front paws to send text messages. With a little training, your beloved Fluffy will be able to let you know exactly what she wants every minute of every day. Wherever you go.

We didn’t just stop there. Voicemails from your pet would be pretty silly if you haven’t been trained how to understand cat or dog. Thankfully, we’ve solved that problem too. We took our voicemail transcription engine and combined it with millions of adorable pet videos from the Internet, training it to understand our furry friends. Now our transcription engine can now translate cat meows or dog growls into English!

Thanks to our mobile apps, you can always keep in touch with your pets, no matter how far away they are.

We’re rolling out Google Voice for Pets in a limited beta. Click here to apply to be one of the first pet owners to try our special communication collars.

Posted by Alex Wiesen, Software Engineer

Your Circles, now in Google Voice

Vincent Paquet — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:46:00 +0000

To help make it even easier for you to organize your contacts, today we’re adding Google+ Circles to Google Voice. Circles give you more control over how you manage your callers; for example, calls from your “Creepers” circle can be sent straight to Voicemail, only your “College Buddies” circle will hear you rap your voicemail greeting, or you can set your “Family” circle to only ring your mobile phone.

You can customize your Circles settings by visiting the Groups & Circles tab in your Google Voice settings.

Give it a try and let us know what you think.

Posted by Tom Ford, Software Engineer

Google Voice Android app – now with offline texting

Vincent Paquet — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:52:00 +0000

Sometimes the times that we’re offline can be our most productive times. However, whether on a plane or out of range of coverage, it’d still be nice to be able to draft text messages. With this new app, you can now compose new messages (single recipients for now) while offline and the app will automatically queue them and send them out when you’re connected again.

We hope you enjoy this new feature.

Posted by Yong Hoon Choi, Software Engineer

Send SMS to multiple recipients

Vincent Paquet — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:52:00 +0000

Until now, sending a text message to multiple recipients required copying and pasting the message for each recipient.

To make this a bit easier, we just launched the ability to send a single SMS message to multiple recipients. Just click on the SMS button at the top of your Google Voice inbox, enter names or numbers (separated by commas) in the "To" field, write your message and click send.

Replies from each recipient will be threaded into separate conversations, so you can keep track of them in your Google Voice inbox. To prevent spam, we've set a maximum of five recipients per message.

This feature is also available from the Chrome extension and we'll also be adding it to the Google Voice mobile app soon.

We hope you like this new feature, and as always, welcome your feedback.

Posted by Greg Hecht, Member of Tech Staff

Google Voice for iPhone and Palm WebOS

Vincent Paquet — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Today we are launching a new Google Voice mobile web app for iPhone OS 3.0 and higher and Palm Web OS devices, harnessing the power of HTML5, a new web technology that makes it possible to run faster, richer web-based applications right in the browser.

In addition to letting you access a streamlined version of your Google Voice inbox, the new web app also lets you display your Google Voice number as the outbound caller ID (so return calls come back to your Google Voice number), send and receive text messages for free, and place international calls at Google Voice's low rates.

To get started, visit m.google.com/voice in your mobile browser. For quick access, don't forget to create a shortcut to this URL on your home screen or Palm Launcher.

Just a reminder: you'll need a Google Voice account and a voice plan on your cell phone to place calls using this web app. Don't have a Google Voice account? Request an invite.

Posted by Michael van Ouwerkerk, Software Engineer

New Google Voice extension for Chrome

Vincent Paquet — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:11:00 +0000

With today's official release of Google Chrome extensions comes a new & improved Google Voice extension that gives you easier access to many Google Voice features:

- See how many new messages you have. Think of it as a message waiting light for your computer that lets you know when you have new voicemail or text messages waiting for you.

- View the most recent messages in your inbox. Clicking on the extension button gives you access to your most recent voicemail and text messages. You can read your voicemail transcripts and will soon be able to play messages right from that window.

- Quickly call or text any number. Click on the "Call" or "SMS" buttons to easily call or text for free anyone by just typing their name or phone number. Since the extension is connected to your Google address book, you can just type any name from your address book, without having to remember their number. You can also benefit from Google Voice's low rates when calling any international number.

- Click any phone number on a web page to start a call. If you're looking for a phone number online, nothing is more annoying than having to physically type it on the phone to place the call. With the Google Voice Chrome extension installed, you can just click on any phone number on any web page and select the phone you want to dial from and you will be connected right away.

To try it out, install the Google Voice extension. If you don't already use Google Chrome, you can download it here.

Posted by Brian Peterson, Software Engineer

Faster voicemail access

Vincent Paquet — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:30:00 +0000

When it comes to voicemail, Google Voice is all about saving you time. We transcribe your voicemails so hopefully you don't need to listen to them, we send notifications via email and SMS notifications so you know when you have new messages, we even let you listen in as callers leave you messages so you can decide if the call is urgent before picking up.

To make voicemail even easier, today, we implemented two changes in the way you listen to voicemails through your phone.

First, when you dial your own Google Voice number, we now begin playing your voicemails without the need to press 1 anymore. Since listening to voicemail is the most common reason people call their own numbers, we thought it made sense to save you an extra step. All the other options will still be available from the menu, but if you don't select any other option, your voicemail messages will be played automatically.

Second, we now play your voicemails starting with the most recent, rather than the oldest. This way, if you've received several messages from the same caller, you'll hear the most recent update before the outdated voicemail.

We hope you like those improvements and, as always, we welcome your feedback.

Posted by John Rector, Software Engineer

Doing our share to help Haiti

Vincent Paquet — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:15:00 +0000

It's impossible to watch the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake without wondering how one can contribute in helping the thousands of families who lost everything in this disaster.

Google set up a disaster relief page, which includes information and resources for anyone interested in helping out, and the Google Voice team also wanted to respond in our own way.

Particularly in the wake of such a catastrophe, for people in the US who have family in Haiti, it is critical to stay in constant contact with your loved ones, provide moral comfort, and offer daily updates to friends and family in Haiti.

To help those families, we're offering free calling to Haiti through Google Voice for the next two weeks. To place a call using Google Voice, use the Click2Call button on the website, the Google Voice mobile app, or dial your own Google Voice number and press 2 to place an outbound call.

Posted by the Google Voice team

Google Voice on the Nexus One

Vincent Paquet — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:55:00 +0000

We're excited to see today's launch of Nexus One, particularly since Google Voice is one of the pre-installed apps on the phone. This is the latest version of the Google Voice mobile app we released for Blackberry and Android-powered phones last July.

Google Voice comes pre-installed on Nexus One phones sold in the United States. Existing Google Voice users can log-in and access their voicemail messages right away, while new users can set up Google voicemail as an alternative to their carrier's voicemail.

With the Google Voice mobile app, you can receive free voicemail transcriptions and play messages in the order you want. A karaoke-style interface lets you easily replay any part of a message, without needing to listen to the whole voicemail. You can also place international calls via Google Voice and enjoy Google Voice's low rates from your Nexus One.

Last but not least, the app is synchronized with the web, so you can access and listen to all your voicemail messages from any computer by simply logging in to www.google.com/voice.

If you're already using Google Voice and have a Google phone number, you can display this number as the caller ID on outbound calls. Additionally, you can send and receive text messages using the Google Voice app for free.

To learn more about the app, visit m.google.com/voice. And for more on the Nexus One, visit google.com/phone. As always, we welcome your feedback on how to improve Google Voice.

Posted by Christian Brunschen and Jacob Hesch, Software Engineers

Upgrade to a Google Number

Vincent Paquet — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:54:00 +0000

A few weeks ago we launched the ability to use Google Voice with your existing number. This option gives you all the voicemail features of Google Voice, like transcriptions and email/SMS notifications, without needing to ask people to call you on a new number.

But once you've dipped your toes in the water, you may decide you'd like more of the features that come with a Google number, like call screening, SMS via email, and custom ring schedules.

Today we're announcing that if you've been using Google Voice with your existing number, you can now upgrade your account, pick a new Google Voice number, and start taking advantage of the full Google Voice feature set.

To do this, click “Settings” and look for a link to “Get a Google Number” next to your voicemail access number.

Once you've upgraded, you can reactivate Google Voice for your cell phone’s voicemail. This will let you continue accessing all your voicemails in a single place, whether someone calls your Google Voice number or your underlying cell phone.

Posted by Ilya Frank, Senior Software Engineer

Help improve transcription quality

Vincent Paquet — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:37:00 +0000

Google Voice automatically transcribes voicemail messages so you can get a sense of what messages are about without needing to listen to them. The automated process sometimes works great, sometimes not so well. But we're committed to making it better. After all, my friends don't call me "ten cent" in real life!

There are many variables that influence the quality of transcripts, from background noise, to caller accent, to connection quality, and more. Having a pool of messages that can be used to gauge accuracy is very useful in that respect.

And this is where you can help by "donating" some of your voicemail messages. Until now, the only feedback you could give was to let us know if the quality of the transcript was good enough to be useful or not, by checking the corresponding box next to the message. You can now go one step further by letting us figure out why it was good or bad. When you rate a transcript, you will be asked whether you would like to donate the message. You have three options:

The messages you donate may be listened to, manually transcribed by us and/or used to gauge transcription improvements over time, but they will never be made public or used for any other purpose than improving the transcription quality.

And if you're feeling generous, you can go back to old messages you previously rated and donate those, too!

Thanks in advance for your help.

Posted by Vincent Paquet

Helping you broadcast your Google Voice number

Vincent Paquet — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:34:00 +0000

When someone sends you an SMS to your Google Voice number, that message not only goes into your inbox online, but we also forward it out to all of your mobile phones (assuming you told us you wanted to receive SMS messages on those phones). When you receive it on your mobile phone, you may have noticed that the message does not appear to come from the sender's actual number, but from a (406) number (which spells "GOO" btw), with the sender's number (or name if they are in your address book) at the start of the message. We do this so you can reply from any of your phones and keep a record of the entire conversation online in your Google Voice inbox.

But when you - a Google Voice user - send a text message to another Google Voice number from one of the forwarding phones on your account, you probably want Google Voice to display the SMS as from your Google Voice number rather than from a (406) number. This way, the Google Voice user to whom you sent the SMS will see your Google Voice number as the originating number, the single number that reaches you everywhere.

We had been doing this automatically on all accounts up until now, as we felt it was more logical to display your Google Voice number rather than a (406) number when sending an SMS to another Google Voice user. After further reflection on this, we realize that you should decide if you want this feature or not (rather than us) so we've made this a user selected option rather than the default setting. If you like this behavior, its easy to set up. Just go to "Settings > Calls > Caller ID (out)" and select "Display my Google Voice number".

Posted by Vincent Paquet

About Voicemail and Privacy

Vincent Paquet — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:18:00 +0000

There were some conflicting reports yesterday about Google Voice voicemails being searchable online, so we wanted to clarify how Google Voice works.

Google Voice lets you access your voicemails online from your inbox. Your account is password-protected, like any other Google service, and its content cannot be read by anyone unless you choose to share the information in your account.

Google Voice can also send you an email notification when you have a new voicemail. The link points to a web page that displays only that particular message. The web address for that unique message is virtually impossible to guess.

However, if a user copied that unique URL from their email notification, and published it on a public website, then typical search engines, including Google, could have indexed it. Very few people chose to do this: of the millions of voicemail messages left on Google Voice, only 31 messages were made publicly searchable by users.

Nonetheless, three weeks ago, we decided that even if a user chose to include this unique URL in a public website, it would remain unsearchable. Since we implemented that change, no new messages have been indexed.

If you want to publicize a Google Voice message on your website, we provide a special embed code for this purpose. Visitors will then be able to listen to that particular message, but the message itself will remain unsearchable.

Posted by Vincent Paquet, Sr. Product Manager

Free calling now to Hawaii and Alaska

Vincent Paquet — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:05:00 +0000

When we launched Google Voice, we offered free calling to the continental US. We've just expanded this to all 50 states by adding free calling to Alaska and Hawaii.

You can initiate free calls to Alaska and Hawaii from your inbox online, from our mobile apps, or by dialing your own Google Voice number from one of your phones and selecting option 2 to place a call. You can also forward calls to your Google Voice number to Alaskan or Hawaiian phones for free.

Please note that Google Voice is only available in the US, and you'll need a working US phone to setup a Google Voice account.

Posted by Vincent Paquet

Towards better transcription. Period.

Vincent Paquet — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 03:54:00 +0000

Voicemail transcription is a popular feature of Google Voice. Having the ability to receive a transcript of a new voicemail by email or SMS and get a quick idea of what a voicemail is about, saves you time in deciding which voicemails are worth listening to.

Since transcription is fully automated and most people often don't talk in the same organized manner that they write, it is tricky to insert punctuation into a message. And reading long messages without punctuation can feel weird.

Today we made some more progress on transcript readability and launched an improved transcription engine with punctuation. Don't expect it to insert question marks for your callers' questions, but it should help make your message transcripts easier to read by breaking them into sentences separated by periods.

We hope you will like the improvement...

Posted by Vincent Paquet

Need a new number?

Vincent Paquet — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:03:00 +0000

Your Google Voice number is tied to you rather than a device or a location, so it stays with you as you move, change jobs, or switch phone companies. Your forwading phones may change but your Google number remains the same, so you don't need to send out updates all the time about new numbers to reach you at.

But we also realize that there are times where you might want to change your Google number. Maybe you'd prefer to have a local number after moving to another area code. Or maybe you'd just like to find a more personalized number than what you have now to keep for the long term. For situations like these we have added the ability to change your Google Voice number. There is a one-time $10 charge for changing your number, and it can be done in your account settings within a few minutes.

Because changing phone number is rarely a smooth process -people to notify, forms to update, etc.. - we have added a few extra touches to make the process as painless as possible. After you pick a new number, it will become effective right away, but your old number will keep working for another three months, so you have time to update everyone. During that period, calls and SMS to both numbers will show in your account. And before your old number expires, we'll let you know who's still calling it so you can update them individually.

Posted by Vincent Paquet

What is that number again?

Vincent Paquet — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:15:00 +0000

Numbers are important. Whether it is a time to meet, a phone number to call, or an amount of money, catching a number correctly is a big deal. Trying to scribble down the right number while listening to a voicemail can be a pain, which is why number accuracy is a top priority for our approach to voicemail transcriptions. Yesterday, we added number normalization to help isolate numbers, phones numbers and times and display them as numbers that are easier to read than words.

Here are a few example of how number normalization has improved some or our own transcripts:

"...it's four twenty five..." is now "...it's 4:25..."

"it's wednesday about a quarter to four..." is now "it's wednesday about a 3:45..."

"two hundred fifty two dollars and ninety eight cents" is now "$252.98"

"...gave you forty eight hours..." is now "48 hours"

Transcribing voicemail accurately is not a small challenge because no two people pronounce the same word exactly the same way and because background noise and mobile phone line quality can vary dramatically. Since the Google Voice transcription process if fully automated, results may vary from one message to the next, so you may want to listen to the message before you write that $252.98 check, but this should help you get the gist of a message faster.

Remember also that you can have new voicemail notifications sent by SMS to your cell phone by just checking the box in your settings.

Posted by Vincent Paquet

Keyboard shortcuts & Search Operators

Vincent Paquet — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:20:00 +0000

In an effort to help you spend more time with your family and friends, we have recently released two features designed to help you be productive when using Google Voice:

1. Keyboard shortcuts.

If you like to keep your hands on the keyboard, you now only need one or two keystrokes to access the most common actions:

c: quick call

m: quick sms

right arrow: next page

left arrow: previous page

g then h: go to history

The full list of shortcuts can be accessed here.

2. Search Operators.

Need help searching through your message history? Use search operators for a more efficient search. Here are a few examples:

- type "from:nick" or "from:4085555555" in your search box to find all messages from one caller

- type "message:restaurant" to find all voicemail transcripts and SMS where the word restaurant is mentioned

The full list of search operators can be accessed here.

Posted by Vincent Paquet

Archiving now available in your inbox

Vincent Paquet — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:09:00 +0000

Since Google Voice is about letting you easily manage your communications, we wanted to give you various ways to organize your inbox. Besides the option to only display unread messages, you now have the ability to archive messages.

Archiving , a familiar feature for gmail users, moves a message (voicemail or SMS or recording) away from your inbox, but keeps it in your call history and the appropriate folder, so it remains accessible and searchable when you need it.

We hope you'll enjoy the new feature!

Posted by Vincent Paquet

Helping you fight Phone Spam

Vincent Paquet — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:31:00 +0000

Among the GrandCentral features that we have carried over to Google Voice, is the ability to tag a caller as spam. This means that future calls from that number will not ring your phones, will not be in your messages when you check voicemails from your phone, but will end up in a Spam folder that you can check whenever you feel like it, similar to your Gmail spam filter. Tagging a caller as spam only affects your account and is not shared with other users.

One of the lesser known features of the Phone Spam filter is that we also collect numbers from reported (and confirmed) Phone spammers to block them for the benefit of all our users (we call it Craig's list internally since Craig came up with that idea). These are not individual pranksters reported by individual users, but automated dialers that call thousands of numbers every day.

Phone Spam is something most of us wish we had never experienced (those of you who have not yet received your "second notice that the factory warranty on your vehicle is expiring", count yourself lucky), but it is unfortunately a growing trend.

The Phone Spam list has also carried over to Google Voice and data shows its growing usefulness: we are blocking tens of thousands of calls on a daily basis, and that number is growing daily. Although we can't promise you won't get reminded about your factory warranty, we'll do what we can to help you avoid it...

Posted by Vincent Paquet

Accessing GrandCentral after upgrading to Google Voice

Vincent Paquet — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:16:00 +0000

We have received several questions about what happens to GrandCentral accounts after upgrading to Google Voice.
Although no new call/voicemail will show up in the GrandCentral account, you can keep accessing your GrandCentral voicemails, call log and address book even after you have upgraded.
Note that you can export your GrandCentral address book and import it in your Google address book if you don't already have them there.

Posted by Vincent Paquet, Google Voice PM