Google Voice

Google is again expanding their offering. If it's not the the Nexus One, Buzz, or Wave it has to be Google Voice. One telephone number for all your lines and you can exclude numbers. This makes it easier for someone to find you without them having to call each of your individual lines. Voice mail has a fantasic feature of converting voice messages to text. Think about when you get a voice message in a movie. Now instead of having to wait to listen to the message, you can view the message quietly in text format.  
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Another great function here is the ability to have different voice greeting messages for different people calling you. International calls are also made possible with this feature. As soon as the receiver picks up, google forwards you to the call. This service is however not free and requires credit. You can upload credit at any time and view your balance as you wish.

SMS and email can be synced, notifying you via SMS of emails received. Stay up to date all the time, this is fantastic if you not using a Smart Phone ofcourse. Features keep flowing, this one is, "the bomb". When receiving a call, you can select to forward the call to voice mail and like an answering machine, you can listen in on the message and decide wheather to accept the call or simply leave it to voice mail. When calling someone, your google number will be displayed as the caller ID. Conferece calls are also possible as you can add people to your conversation. Feedback about Google Voice has quite positive and I would imagine, mostly coming from the US.

If this hits SA, Telkom and Cellular networks may have some serious strategising to do. Watch this video for a brief visual overview.