PC Tech World: continue

Friday, December 28, 2012

Continue Making Free Calls From Gmail in 2013

Gmail Call Feature

Do you use Gmail to make phone calls? Did you even know that feature existed? Either way, Google is extending the free calling feature for Gmail users in the U.S. and Canada for at least another year. The "Call phones from Gmail" service launched in 2010, allowing users to make and receive free domestic calls (and low rates for other countries) right from within Gmail.

"Many of you call phones from Gmail to easily connect with friends and family. If you're in the U.S. and Canada, you'll continue to be able to make free domestic calls through 2013," Google announced. "Plus, in most countries, you can still call the rest of the world from Gmail at insanely low rates."

Some locales can make calls for as low as $0.02 cents per minute, including parts of France and China (to name just two), while others are much more expensive. The rate in Antarctica is a bone chilling $2 per minute.

To use the feature, all you have to do is sign up and you'll see a "Call phone" entry in your chat contacts. You can also get video chat (via a plugin) for free.

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By: Dilusha On 8:57 AM

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Nintendo legend will continue to throw wacky innovation our way

Virtual Mario control suits on the horizon

Given his track record at Nintendo you could forgive gaming legend Shigeru Miyamoto for taking a little rest on his laurels, but the man behind Mario is not ready to give up trying to innovate in the name of next-gen gaming.

So the Wii U is a little, well, confused, throwing more control methods at us than the average airport cockpit, but Miyamoto rightly claims that innovation is as (if not more) important than just making the next Sports/Fitness/Shooting game look shinier and more realistic.

"Whenever we're working on a certain platform, as time goes by, everybody, including the game players, is looking forward to more improved versions of the existing software," Miyamoto told Games Master via CVG.

"However, that's not only the direction that evolution should take," he added. "Whenever we can create a different format, unique gameplay should be another direction where game entertainment should head.

"For example Nintendo Land, which is going to debut with the launch of the Wii U system. We've included a variety of games inside of it, some of them will be able to show the way the future of gameplay might head."

So, we can expect a heady mixture of the monumentous (Wiimotes) and the, frankly, mental (pulse monitors) as Nintendo continues to plough its occasionally wacky furrow as a family focused gaming company.

Via CVG