Free Text Messaging via CallWave

CallWave makes it possible for users to forward their cell phone's voicemail answering to a service that they can hear over the Internet, using a Dashboard widget. Now the company has released a free text messaging widget that works with cell phones, as well.

The CallWave Free Text Messaging widget -- offered as a free beta -- lets you view a list of contacts and select who to text -- the text message is sent to their handset. Any replies that you get bounce to your cell phone. And CallWave subscribers are given access to their messages in a permanent, searchable archive, accessible from a personal Web page.

CallWave's "Visual Voicemail" widget keeps track of who's called your cell phone and shows you caller ID numbers; you can play back the messages within the widget.

Other new features coming soon to CallWave include "Vtxt," a voice to text transcription service that uses speech recognition to convert audio voicemail into text.