Google Voice finally debuts in the App Store - Digitaltrends.com

Apple has approved the Google Voice app for its App Store, and the free VoIP is better than ever for its official release.

Sure, iTunes now has the Beatles Anthology available for download, but Apple‘s got bigger news: the Google Voice app is here. It may not have warranted a full-page notice, but there are plenty of iPhone users out there celebrating Google Voice‘s long-coming availability in the App Store.

Prior to today, users were limited to using Google Voice on the Web only, but to fantastic results. It’s been wildly popular, allowing users to make international calls for pennies and send free unlimited texts – and all with Apple’s stiff disapproval. Apple claimed concerns over the app duplicating its own primary function and has allegedly been reviewing it since. This invited some attention from the FCC and FTC, and a year and half of subversive use later, here we are.

The app allows users to bundle multiple phone lines under one number, as well as transcribe voice mails. The dirt cheap international calling and free SMS service remains, and Google is even going to bolster the app with optional push notifications and quicker call connection.

And it is definitely more powerful than its Web-based counterpart, for anyone out there wondering if the app is worth installing (for free, mind you). While we can’t imagine anyone is really wondering that (again, emphasis on free app), the so-far glowing reviews (including this one from SlashGear) say it definitely is.

What’s also encouraging about the addition of the Google Voice app is what it means for the App Store. Apple’s approval process has had its fair share of critics, and it recently implemented some policy changes as a response to user and developer frustrations. Apple claimed it would be relaxing its restrictions for app guidelines, and adding Google Voice is a significant step in that direction.

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Rare Honor for a Living Service Member - New York Times

The young staff sergeant, Salvatore A. Giunta, now 25, of Hiawatha, Iowa, was an Army specialist when he took part in the firefight in eastern Afghanistan three years ago. He is the first living service member to receive the Medal of Honor, the military’s most prestigious award, for action in any war since Vietnam.

Sergeant Giunta and the other soldiers of Company B, Second Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, were part of a campaign to provide food, winter clothing and medical care to Afghans in remote villages. They were ambushed in the Korengal Valley in a coordinated attack from three sides.

In a packed ceremony in the East Room before Sergeant Giunta’s family, squad mates and the parents of two soldiers who were killed in the ambush, Mr. Obama recounted the events on the night of Oct. 25, 2007.

“The moon was full; the light it cast was enough to travel by without using their night-vision goggles,” Mr. Obama said, with Sergeant Giunta standing at his side, looking straight ahead. “They hadn’t traveled a quarter-mile before the silence was shattered. It was an ambush so close that the cracks of the guns and the whizzes of the bullets were simultaneous.”

The two lead squad men went down. So did a third who was struck in the helmet. Sergeant Giunta charged into the wall of bullets to pull him to safety, Mr. Obama said. Sergeant Giunta was hit twice, but was protected by his body armor.

The sergeant could see the other two wounded Americans, Mr. Obama recounted.

By now, the East Room was so silent you could hear a rustle from across the room. One Army officer took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

Sergeant Giunta looked down as the president described how he and his squad mates threw grenades, which they used as cover to run toward the wounded soldiers. All this, they did under constant fire, Mr. Obama said. Finally, they reached one of the men. As other soldiers tended to him, Sergeant Giunta sprinted ahead.

“He crested a hill alone with no cover but the dust kicked up by the storm of bullets still biting into the ground,” Mr. Obama said.

And there Sergeant Giunta saw “a chilling sight” — the silhouettes of two insurgents carrying away the other wounded American — his friend, Sgt. Joshua C. Brennan. Sergeant Giunta leaped forward, and fatally shot one insurgent while wounding the other. Then he rushed to his friend. He dragged him to cover, and stayed with him, trying to stop the bleeding, for 30 minutes, until help arrived.

Sergeant Brennan died later of his wounds. So did Specialist Hugo V. Mendoza, the platoon medic. Five others were wounded.

Speaking to reporters after receiving the award, Sergeant Giunta said the honor was “bittersweet.”

“I lost two dear friends of mine,” he said. “I would give this back in a second to have my friends with me right now.”

The outposts in the Korengal Valley were disbanded this spring after months of patrols that cost the American military dearly. Forces were moved to provide security to larger population centers.

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Facebook CEO has "made every mistake you can make" - CNNMoney

By Julianne Pepitone, staff reporterNovember 16, 2010: 10:14 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney.com) -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he's made "every mistake you can make" in business, but love of the product keeps users faithful.

At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Tuesday night, conference moderator John Battelle pressed Zuckerberg on the social network's past failings.

"The Facebook trait seems to be pushing the envelope so far and then saying, 'Oops,'" Battelle said. "Is that an intentional point of view? That I didn't ask permission, but now I ask forgiveness?"

Zuckerberg, a young CEO at 26 years old, conceded he has "made every mistake you can make. But people allow those mistakes because they love [Facebook]."

Zuckerberg appeared more at ease than he usually is at conferences, and he readily admitted that Facebook is still figuring out the best way to handle issues like data privacy.

"As far as I can tell, Facebook Connect has enabled the greatest portability of data ever created," Zuckerberg said, referring to users' ability to interact on other sites using their Facebook identities.

For other data portability options, users can download their Facebook data into a zip file. Zuckerberg said the idea was to give users control over their information, but he admitted, "I'm not sure we're 100% right on this."

Despite Facebook's imperfection, its users are loyal: Zuckerberg said more than 50% of Facebook's 500 million users visit the site at least once a day. As a result, he said, the idea of social is now woven into the online experience.

"Over the next five years, most industries are going to be rethought to be social," Zuckerberg said. "Social makes any Web application a whole order of magnitude more engaging than anything else."

Gaming developers best embody that philosophy, Zuckerberg said, citing four successful companies that were built around the Facebook platform: Zynga, Playfish, Playdom and Crowdstar.

"All four are really good companies, too," Zuckerberg said. "Zynga's market cap is now bigger than EA's. That's massive disruption.

Audience members laughed when Zuckerberg called Facebook a "small" company in pointing out that the site has "only a few hundred" engineers.

"If something doesn't have to be built by us, we'd rather it wasn't," Zuckerberg said. "Apple and Google will come up with an idea and just build it, but we're more decentralized. Why not mobilize some young entrepreneur to build their own thing, build their own company?"

Moderator Battelle asked whether Zuckerberg is "interested in the business social graph, connections between businesses" -- i.e., a B2B social network. But Zuckerberg looked blank, saying, "I don't know what that means."

Zuckerberg also rehashed Monday's announcement of a Facebook messaging system, which combines messages across Facebook, email and text.

He said a Facebook bug that surfaced earlier Tuesday, which mistakenly deleted legitimate user accounts, was not related to the messaging system.

Battelle asked the question that's constantly buzzing in Silicon Valley: When will Facebook go public?

Zuckerberg said flatly: "Don't hold your breath." 

First Published: November 16, 2010: 10:10 PM ET

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