You can now use Google Docs to perform OCR image-to-text conversions when you upload high-resolution files. It is a nice newly added feature from Google (and of course it is free)

For 3rd party webapps or services that uses Google Docs, they can use this URL parameter to accept JPG, PNG, and GIF files for conversions. Keep in mind this is still in beta.

Tell us what you think of Google Docs OCR performance. Was it good for you?

Google Docs OCR Convert Images To Text

Via Life hacker

New in GMail fresh from the mad scientists at Google Labs – you can now activate a feature that allows you to play your Google Voice messages in your GMail account. Furthermore, the playback syncs with your GVoice account and causes them to be marked as no longer new. Slowly but surely Google is tying together all their services into a supermegamonstercloud application set. Though it still pisses me off that the same features they activate in Google Tasks in GMail aren’t immediately available in Google Calendar. And that Tasks still doesn’t have an API that some coder in a dark room can use to sync my To Do’s with my iPhone. C’mon you lazy Googlers – get at it!

Google Voice Now Fowards SMS To Email

One of the most popular feature requested from Google Voice was the obvious forward inbound text messages to email. You can now receive incoming text messages to your email. Furthermore, you can even reply from email as well. Users previously could respond to the Google Voice text message on their phone but email forwarding was previously not an option.

Now, once we can have Gmail push to our iPhones then I can cancel the ridiculously priced text messaging plan from AT&T.

Via TechCrunch

Google is facing a lot of threats to its future relevancy lately. First, Apple claims to have “not yet approved” its Google Voice app which allows cheap international or free calls to Canada, free SMS texting, and phone intelligence. Secondly, Google’s competitor, Yahoo, partners with Microsoft to use their Bing search engine. Thirdly, Facebook is still growing and becoming a social desktop with rumored micro payments and online check out in the works.

Successful technology companies are the ones that control the platform. The platform allows 3rd parties to extend features by using the APIs. An example is the widely successful iTunes App Store. This allows the company controlling the platform to grow exponentially with scale and thus profit with others effort. This is another reason why Google wants to be the operating system for both mobile phones (Android), laptop computers (Chrome OS), and browser (Chrome browser).

Google’s core business is search and advertising. What do you do, however, when the ISP serving the user injects their own ads instead of defaulting to your engine? Well, most recently, I noticed this when searching using Safari but instead of the usual Google Search page, I get Comcast with Yahoo results!

Is this a threat to Google? Absolutely! Is this legal? Not sure. But by the time this matter goes through the courts. Google may have lost so much revenue that it doesn’t matter if Google wins by law. Remember the fate of Netscape browser after Microsoft included their own browser in their Windows releases? Microsoft got fined a huge amount. However, by the time it was over, Netscape was gone (well, actually sold to AOL) but is no longer relevent.

Domain High Jacking By Comcast

As everyone in the tech world knows, the FCC is poking into why exactly Apple decided to reject the Google Voice application from the App Store.  The investigation has dragged in Google and AT&T as well, with the FCC asking some hard questions about what exactly happened.  Today, all three companies delivered their responses.  I strongly urge you to read their responses via TechCrunch, because of the flurry of commentary that’s popped up on the web since the release, it’s my opinion that TechCrunch has gotten to the heart of the matter in Michael Arrington’s unique style.

Here is TechCrunch’s commentary on AT&T’s response, as well as the full text of the AT&T letter.

Here is TechCrunch’s commentary on Apple’s response, as well as the full text of the Apple letter.

Here is TechCrunch’s commentary on Google’s response, as well as Google’s response.

Most importantly (and if you want to skip over the previous to get to the meat of the matter), here is Michael Arrington’s insights into Apple’s distorted reality as evidenced in their letter.  Even someone like myself, who writes about gadgets out of love and as a distinctly part time hobby could see issues with Apple’s responses.

Mr. Arrington points out something that didn’t even occur to me until I read his post – aside from the email app and the phone, most of what I do with my iPhone does indeed revolve around Google-provided services.  I use Safari to access Google Reader.  I use third party apps that get me to POI’s via Google’s mapping app.  I use Google’s mapping app as a poor man’s GPS when I am too lazy to fire up my Mio.  I’ve already swapped out Apple’s Contacts and To-Do apps with an app that sync Google Calendar to my iPhone (and, god willing, will allow Tasks syncing in the near future).  As Google improves the Safari version of gMail, I’ll probably start moving over to using that more than I use the Apple mail client, especially because Apple seems incapable of providing a universal inbox a la the Palm Pre.  He’s absolutely right that the iPhone is a very pretty shell around a bunch of Google services, with Google Voice supplanting yet more iPhone functionality.

Dammit I never should have sold my Google stock.  At this rate, AT&T will be a dumb (albeit expensive) pipe to an Apple manufactured platform that provides a pretty (non-Android) version of the Google OS.

Make Free Calls to Canada with Google Voice

Google Voice now allows you to make free calls to Canada from within the continental US. Previously, you can only make free calls within the US with your Google Voice number.

You can make the call by logging into mobile apps , or by dialing your own Google Voice number from one of your phones and selecting option 2 to place a call. You can also install GV Mobile for a jailbroken iPhone from the Cydia store. GV is now free and can utilize your phone’s Contacts.

Google Palestine and a Bomb

Google’s Palestine page has a doodle that closely resembles a bomb. However, it is actually not a bomb, but a drawing of an electromagnet in celebration of the birth of its inventor Hans Christian Ørsted. Well, could have fooled me and all the Googlers out there. It has a wire and a compass (which looks like a timer). That magnet does look like a stick of dynamite.

This is just poor taste regardless if it was never meant to offend anyone. Google and their smart engineers should have seen this coming. Google, let’s hire some real artists shall we?