Talk of the town

The big thing today seems to be talk.google.com, Google's new instant messaging service. I've seen it work, and it looks great.

The best part is that you can push a button and switch from typing messages to talking (if you both have a microphone and speakers). That is really neat.

Naturally the client is Windows-only at the moment, but lots of free software programs already work with Google Talk, because the cool folks at Google based their system on an open protocol. There's no sound for us Linux geeks at the moment, but I'll bet it doesn't take long.

That's one of the hardships of being a free software zealot. Sometimes you have to be patient for the good toys.