I’ve been using GrandCentral for a while, and I love it. I have a virtual phone number that will forward to my various real phones. I can filter out spam calls. I can listen to my voicemail online. The list goes on.

Here are some of the new Google Voice features:

• SMS text message support: send and receive text messages via your Google Voice number. Messages are forwarded to the cell phones on your account. You can reply directly from any of your cell phones, or from your computer. This is the most important feature in my book!
• Voicemail transcriptions: your voicemail messages can be automatically transcribed, which will allow you to search through your messages easily from your inbox.
• Conference calling: up to 5 people can call your Google Voice number at the same time, and you can conference them all in together.

And now, the important info you need to know: Google Voice will only be available to existing GrandCentral users initially. HOWEVER, you can request an invitation when it becomes available by filling out a simple form!

Sure, Google will be happy to tell you about how secure their systems are.  I’m sure they’d be happy to point out that they will not share this confidential info with others under most circumstances.  However, if any organization were to subpoena Google for your records (insurance company, employer, etc.), Google may be required to hand it over.  Your usual HIPAA-provided legal protection would be non-existant at Google.

Here are pics of Mr. Jobs after and before his weight loss:

Image courtesy Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

My guess: Steve Jobs has Celiac disease.  The effects of Celiac disease are that villi in the intenstine are unable to absorb nutrients.  This happens when a person with Celiac disease has gluten, which is a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye (some doctors may also recommend avoiding oats and other grains).  There is no cure, though the effects can be reversed simply by avoiding foods with gluten in them.

If Mr. Jobs does have Celiac disease, he would be able to get back to a “normal” weight simply by avoiding bread, cereal, certain sauces, and other products that contain wheat, barley, and rye.  My guess is that he would get back to his usual weight by late spring, just like the letter says.

Disclaimer: this is pure speculation on my part, and this is only my opinion based on my limited knowledge of celiac disease.  I am not a doctor of any sort, and I am not disclosing any private information about Mr. Jobs’ health.

• “qes_x5″ circuit board (I’m guessing this is just the name they chose when designing the board)
• (6) CR2016 3V batteries (which appear to be lightly soldered in)
• QESA080713 display w/ 12-pin connector (this is the outside front cover display)
• QESA080718 display w/ 4-pin connector (this is the inside front cover display…aka the Ford ad)
• HEF4094BT 8-stage shift-and-store bus register
• 12F629 8-Pin FLASH-Based 8-bit CMOS microcontroller

This seems to operate at a very basic level.  Each display is separated into multiple sections (one display has 3 sections, the other has 11).  Each section is sent an on or off signal from the circuit board.  The display cannot show anything other than what it was designed to show.  So that means you can’t customize these to say whatever you want.  However, you could theoretically connect your own display to it, if you had one that would have either 4 or 12 inputs on it.

The power source also has potential to be modified.  Anyone care to remove the batteries and hook up some solar cells?

Even with the potential hackability, I’m having a hard time coming up with something useful for someone to make out of this.  Since the display screens currently operate in a serial manner (i.e. they have one wire per section that turns on/off), it’s not possible to make this into a real e-reader.  But only time will tell how people will try to hack these.  And…Esquire is encouraging people to hack them!

And see what Esquire has to say about recycling these magazines.

http://www.apple.com/retail/crockerpark/

Here is the address/phone number:
267 Crocker Park Blvd.
Westlake, OH 44145
(440) 788-2800

They’ll be giving out free t-shirts to the first 1,000 people. I’ll try to go and will post some pics here tomorrow

Some things to be aware of:

• It is currently only available for Windows. Mac and/or Linux versions are in the works.
• This is an early beta version….not everything will work perfectly.
• Be aware of the EULA before installing the software.
• You can’t keep all your Firefox plugins if you switch to Chrome (though Google will supposedly release their own API for new plugins to be created in the future).
• Since Chrome spawns separate processes for each tab that you open, it can be very memory intensive. The benefit (and reason that Google did this), is that each tab you open is isolated from the other…so in theory, one web site should not slow down your entire browsing experience. But make sure your PC has plenty of memory to support all these separate processes!

I have tried Chrome myself, and pages load VERY fast. I have not run any scientific benchmarks, though it sure seems to be MUCH faster than IE or Firefox. I also REALLY like the clean interface.

It will be interesting to see whether Chrome dies on the vine, or whether it can be a true competitor with IE, Firefox, and Safari. If Google does a good job with managing the development of Chrome, I think it has a great chance of survival.