The Official Google Blog has announced a new service within gmail that will allow you to make free gmail to telephone calls to Canadian and US numbers and low rate calls to other nations. The service is said to be offered only to gmail users in the US, but the CBC reported yesterday that if you are a Canadian with a gmail account and have your language setting tweaked to English (US) then the service will also be available to you. The roll out is happening over the next few days, so don't panic if you don't see the option just yet. You will need to install the video and voice chat add-on to enable the functionality but it's a quick and painless install. According to the blog post the service will remain free at least for the remainder of the year, similar to Skype's roll-out of Skype Out a few years back. I don't make a lot of phone calls, but I'm bound to be making Google my choice of carrier at least until 2011.
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