Google Voice Number Porting

Google Voice has a lot of features that help you manage multiple phone numbers more like your email accounts. The main problem is that you need a new phone number to use most of the advanced features and this is not convenient.

Now you can port an existing mobile phone number to Google Voice for a small fee: $20. The process is rather complicated and may incur additional charges, but it's important to keep in mind that Google is not a wireless carrier (at least not yet) and you'll still have to get a non-Google phone number.

Number porting is a feature in which your existing mobile number will become your Google Voice number and you can take advantage of the full set of the Google Voice features, like one number to ring all of your phones, online voicemail, and more. Number Porting also costs a one-time fee of $20, payable via Google Checkout. Note that you will still need carrier service (Sprint, T-Mobile, Cricket, etc.) to receive calls on your mobile phone.

At the moment, you can make free calls in the US and Canada if you use Gmail Chat, but it's likely that this feature will also be available in Google Voice's mobile apps for Android and iPhone.

{ Thanks, CJ. }

Gmail Cloud Print

Google has enabled Cloud Print in Chrome's Dev Channel builds for Windows, but the only option available was to print a test page. Now you can use Google Cloud Print from Gmail's mobile web app for Android and iPhone. The integration lets you print attachments without having to use a full-fledged computer. Since there's no printer with native support for Google Cloud Print, you still need a computer running Google Chrome.

Cloud Print is enabled by default in Chrome Dev Channel and it can be manually enabled in the other builds by typing about:flags in the address bar, clicking "Enable" next to "Cloud Print Proxy" and restarting the browser. To be able to use it, you first need to go to Options >> Under the hood >> Google Cloud Print and log in with a Google account.




Update: According to Google, this feature is also available in Google Docs. "This feature will be rolling out for English speaking users in the US and will work on most phones that support HTML5, such as devices running Android 2.1+ and iOS 3+."