A Week in Google: Gmail Rings Telephones, Chromium 7 Hits the Mainstream

In the wake of some pretty serious criticisms, Google's back to upping the ante. The Internet giant released a new Gmail feature for calling phone lines directly (and for free), and Chromium 7 was rolled out, complete with a Web store placeholder and labs. 

Forget Your Phone Bill, Make Free Calls with Gmail

Google's recent VoIP addition is different from the voice and video chat already available within Gmail's chat feature in that it isn't limited to chat users. Gmailers can now call any type of phone directly from their browser. Calls to U.S. and Canada numbers are free until at least the end of the year, and calls to other countries are offered at fairly low rates. 

Image credit: Google

Both the business and mobile version of Google Voice are still in the pipeline, but once they hit the mainstream we imagine that popular services like Skype will have some major competition to consider.

Chromium 7 Has Arrived and It's Not that Awesome

Before you flame me, I understand that Cromium and Google Chrome are different things. Still, number changes usually indicate fairly significant things. In Chromium's case, that isn't so. Whether or not it's a marketing ploy I'll leave up to you to decide. 

Chromium 7 shines when it comes to HTML5 support, and a few changes to the UI make it a bit easier to use.

A new Apps area contains a placeholder for the Chrome Web Store, which due out for consumers later this year, and a new Labs area displays all the experimental stuff. 

Check out more details here. 

Google Grants Sites and Docs New Perks

Brand newness came to Google Sites and Docs in the form of horizontal navigation, global footers, and quick links. See some snapshots and more details here. 

Google Makes Cozy with Small Biz IT, Launches New SMB Blog

The official Google blog recently featured stories from a handful of entrepreneurs, and their business building tales struck a chord so significant that Big G decided to give them their own home.

The Google blog for SMBs is a watering hole for members of the small business community, and features relative information about Google products, features and projects.

"Rather than having to sleuth around in many different locations for details about templates for creating video ads on YouTube, tips for your employees using Gmail or how to respond to the business reviews on your Place Page, you can find all of this helpful information right here in one place," said Jeff Gillis, on Google's official post. "And we'll be contributing content on Google Analytics there as well."

Need more Google? Follow us as we follow our favorite Internet giant here. 

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Tags: chromium 7, enterprise 2.0, google, google apps, google docs, smb, voip