Skip to main content

My Google Voice Fandom goes all 1984

OK, I got a little excited in my two recent posts about Google Voice (GV).

To recap: I thought if Google would only take the phone number they issue you in Google Voice and let your contacts email you with it [my phone]@gmail.com and re-route to your website from it [my phone].google.com, as well as add fax send/receive to GV, then we'd be on our way to a truly global inbox and a single address.

As I drifted from consciousness to sleep later that night, I pondered the other ways people contact you. And then it occurred to me, that Google could partner with the US Post Office.

Someone could simply write your GV phone number in the Send area of an envelope. When the USPO's scanners see it, they they do a look up of the actual address, print it, and route the mail along.

Or typing the GV number and a key word like home or work would route the mail to the correct address as listed in your Google setup.

Finally, it occurred to me that Google was also in the Online Health Records business. That's when it started getting a bit creepy.

As a nation, the US has so far resisted a National ID card. Could Google slide an International ID card by all of us by calling it a Google Voice phone number? Give everyone a GV phone number, combine it with their country code, and you've got a unique identifier.

Of course this is ridiculous, a GV number is opt in by its very nature. I still want my GV phone number to have all the power I described above.

While I'm being a 1984 style paranoid, let me call your attention to Facebook's new face recognition software. I've been telling every young person I know who'd listen (a very short list), that this capability was coming.

I asked them to flash forward to age 45 and seeking a new job. They finally score an interview. As they walk into the lobby, the surveillance camera records their likeness. By the time they take the elevator to the 20th floor, a still image from the video has been used to scan the internet, and their interviewing manager is looking at photos of them from 20 years before in Spring Break.

Facebook's application isn't there yet, but this capability could be deployed.

Now something less depressing: your video game playing teen may be building job skills. I've talked before on this blog about the disruptions technology is causing. Who knew it would disrupt fighter pilots. But your gamer could be well positioned.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Notes Folder : My new note taking system

I'm in the process of moving to a new way to keep my notes. It would be best to make a separate post on my long time notetaking app, Evernote, and how it now disappoints me.  Bottom line, I no longer trust the company behind Evernote since it was acquired. My first inclination was to finally look at alternatives. like Notion, Joplin, Obsidian, etc. of I was not enamored with any of them, so I gritted my teeth and stayed with Evernote. TThe situation made me think about how I use Evernote. To keep up additional posts on this topic, search on the tag Notes Folder Updates : January 24, 2024 and in updates noted here. Most of the things I store are quick notes, lists, online receipts for online bills, that sort of thing.  Kind of an online file cabinet if you will. If I were a doctoral student though I could see storing PDFs of papers and research materials.  If were working on a large project, then plans, communications etc. would all be there. Back when I began using Evernote way b

Recording your own notes with Google Voice

Note :   April 2016:  Frankly I don't know if this works anymore.  It is 7 years old. I stopped using this when Google Now became useful on my phone, and I could dictate reminders using it. I found a way a while ago to use Google Voice to record a personal note, transcribe it, and email it to me. A recent Lifehacker post "Five Things We'd Like to See in Google Voice" lists that need as their #5 request, so I realized what I'd figured out is not common knowledge. In GV's Contacts, create a Group "Special Transcription" To avoid listening to my standard voice mail when I call, I recorded a short voice mail greeting for this group simply saying "Record note now" I added a contact with my own cell phone number as the only number, and made it the sole member of this group. In GV's phone settings, I edited the settings for my cell phone. In the section "Direct access to voicemail when calling your Google number from th

Ten Years of Evernote

This blog post was set to publish exactly as the day begins on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. That is ten years to the day after my first Evernote  post. With my second note, I was already getting down to business; recording the agreement I'd come to on the phone on a minor business matter. My affection for Evernote has not dimmed since that day ten years ago. Since then, I've accumulated about 7.8 new notes a day. Ironically, I have needed to pull up only a few notes a year. Yet, when I need them, I need them badly and am glad to have Evernote all over again. My philosophy of what to capture is simple : If you encounter something you might remotely want to see again, it goes into Evernote. from a blog post June 1, 2015 I've written here about Evernote than any other topic.  Even wrote a now horribly out-of-date book. Don't get me wrong. If something better comes along that imports my Evernote notes well, I can be enticed to move.  But in t