Google Buys GrandCentral

Google announced that they'd purchased GrandCentral Communications, a Web-based service that lets you coordinate all of your phone numbers and voice mails into one account. Just reading the feature list makes me salivate:

If you have multiple phone numbers (e.g., home, work, cell), you get one phone number that you can set to ring all, some, or none of your phones, based on who's calling. This way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job. The service also gives you one central voice mailbox. You can listen to your voicemails online or from any phone, forward them to anybody, add the caller to your address book, block a caller as spam, and a lot more. You can even listen in on voicemail messages from your phone while they are being recorded, or switch a call from your cell phone to your desk phone and back again.

Unfortunately, the service is closed to new users. You can sign up for limited beta testing slots, but there's no guarantee a slot will ever be open in your region. It also looks like it's restricted to the United States.