Google Voice Launches Today
Google has a vast catalog of wonderful, or at least potentially wonderful, applications. Unfortunately, for every top-notch, constantly-updating product like Gmail or Google Docs, there are plenty of others languishing in desperate need of attention, like Google Talk. But if there was one product that we thought most desperately needed attention, it was GrandCentral.
GrandCentral was an online phone service Google purchased a couple of years ago. Users signed up and received a free phone number. Calls to this number could be set to ring any of your pre-existing phones, like a home or cell phone, and new numbers could be added as needed. This meant that, in theory, your GrandCentral number would be the last phone number you'd ever need to give out. But, the service went largely untouched after Google bought it. Today, Google is finally trying to make good on the promise of the service by launching Google Voice.
Google Voice is essentially GrandCentral by another name, but with some new, very welcome features. It seems that Google Voice is designed to work with your Google Contacts (though we're still waiting for access to the service to confirm this), so there should be no need to create a separate address book. Using groups created in Contacts, you will be able to set your Google Voice number to send different callers to different phones (for example, when a coworker calls, your office line and cell phone will ring, but not your home phone).
Google's one phone number for everything service, 
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