Wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones while using a computer? Absolutely. This is what Google has set out to offer with the latest feature it has introduced to users of its popular e-mail service, Gmail. Now, Gmail users in the U.S. and Canada have the option to call people directly on their cellphones while using a computer. And while this type of service isn’t exactly new, there’s a twist to the story: Google will be offering phone calls from Gmail in the U.S. and Canada completely free of charge.

Oh yes, U.S. and Canada-based Gmail users can use Gmail to call other people’s cellphones for free, at least until the end of the year 2010. Meanwhile, Gmail users from outside of these two countries will be able to enjoy this new feature for as little as $0.02 per minute. A complete list of international calling rates can be found here: http://www.google.com/chat/voice/.

According to a post on the official Gmail blog, internal testing has shown this new feature to be useful in a lot of situations, ranging from making a quick call to a restaurant to placing a call when you’re in an area with bad reception. I can imagine some uses for this new feature myself. In fact, as a quick glance at the international calling rates shows that Gmail call rates are even cheaper than the rates from local telcos, I can already see myself using this. This just might prove useful for the upcoming holidays.

Update: Jessica Dolcourt wrote a quick review of the new Gmail calling feature for CNet’s Webware blog, and she says that overall, she was pleased with the call quality. “Calls were loud and mostly clear, however, there were a few moments of garbled voices on multiple calls. There was also sometimes a persistent high buzz that was noticeable, but that did not distract from the meat of the call. The experience was about on par for VoIP calls, which are known to break up due to variable conditions with the callers’ hardware, strength of Internet connection, and the telecommunications channels that process the voice data.”

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Somewhere in the world, someone must have woke up, went to his computer and thought to himself, “I’m going to hack Fox News today.” At least that’s how I imagine things started out today for the currently unnamed hacker who gained access to the Fox News online radio newscast dashboard.

He’s either got a lot of time on his hands, is incredibly skilled or received help from others. If you look at the above photo, you’ll see a screenshot of the Fox News Radio popup that you get when you try to listen live to the online newscast on http://radio.foxnews.com/. It says the title of the next radio program is. “Glenn Beck Raped And Murdered A Girl In 1990.” And there’s more.
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YouTube has always been great for hosting videos, especially since it’s free and easily accessible for most people. But if there’s one thing that people complain about the most in it, it’s the 10-minute video upload limit that each and every video uploader since the service started has had to endure. Well, not anymore. Today, YouTube announced that it has finally increased the upload limit to a sweet 15 minutes, and to celebrate, they are encouring users to try and get their own “15 minutes of fame.” More details are available at a post on their official blog, linked below.

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YouTube made a couple of big announcements today relating to both online video consumption and creation. One is intended to help those needing financial assistance to better cook up their next viral video to be posted on YouTube, and the other is an effort to further improve the quality of videos being watched by the millions of viewers tuned in every day from around the world.
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