Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer’s microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?”

Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail.

At long last, it's time for everyone to step into the future of voicemail and phone calling. Google is teasing us with the groundbreaking voicemail and portable phone numbers of Google Voice. It's finally out of beta and offered to everyone in the U.S., without the need for one of those pesky invitations. Is it time to jump into Google Voice? Maybe not.