SWIMMING in singapore

James Musters:  “Sometimes I forget the rest of the world is developing faster and smarter than us.  Then I see something like this Singapore hotel swimming pool and think, wow!”

PARKING IN BUDAPEST

What Horn & Hardart’s automat did for the slice of pie, this underground parking system does for your Chevy Malibu (more or less):  grabs it, stashes it someplace snug and safe, then retrieves it in two to four minutes when you return.  (Thanks, Alan.)

WORKING FOR VIRGINIA

This guy happens to be extraordinary – in Congress for all the right reasons – but how boring is that?  So he made a funny 30-second spot. 

Google VOICE

John Seiffer:  “Thanks for Friday’s alert – I got my G-voice number.  Here are ten cool things you can do with it.”

JupiterThunder posting here:  “You want this, even if you don’t know why:  One phone number you can set up to ring all your other phone numbers (even schedule when and when not to ring certain numbers), awesome features like ‘always send ex’s calls to voicemail’ and ‘yes your mom did say that to me and I have the recording to prove it.’  Best of all: free outgoing phone calls.”

☞  I called my own Google Voice number and left this message:  “Hey, Andy, it’s yourself, doing a test with Google Voice.  Goodbye.” 

G-Voice promptly transcribed, emailed and texted it to me (so if I were in a meeting, I would see the message just by glancing at my cell phone): “Hey the picture software test with google point. Goodbye.”

On a second try, it did better.  It took, “So, hey, it’s yourself again.  Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” . . . and made it . . . ““So, Haiti.  It’s yourself again.  Now is the time for all good men to come to the end of the country.”  Close enough.

Here are Google’s own top-10 features:  voicemail transcription (sort of), one number, personalized greetings, international calling, SMS to email, share voicemails, block callers, screen callers, mobile app, conference calls.