Google tests a new feature that makes Gmail chat more useful: users are able to make and receive Google Voice calls from Gmail. A new phone icon opens a Gmail chat window with a dialpad, an option to find contacts, a credit balance and a call button.

Five months after Google acquired Gizmo5 there are rumors that they are working on a Desktop version of Google Voice. Our friends over at TechCrunch wrote: “We’ve confirmed that they [Google] have now built a Google Voice Desktop application to make and receive calls.”

Barely 3 months after eBay sold most of Skype to an investor group ( led by Silver Lake and includes Joltid Limited and certain affiliated parties, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the business at $2.75 billion. eBay retains an approximately 30 percent equity investment in Skype), Skype managed to make an historic deal with Verizon Wireless to allow Skype calls on their network.