Google Inc. is adding a free e-mail feature that may persuade more people to cut the cords on their landline phones.

The service unveiled Wednesday enables U.S. users of Google’s Gmail service to make calls from microphone-equipped computers to telephones virtually anywhere in the world.

All calls in the U.S. and Canada will be free through at least the end of the year. That undercuts the most popular PC-to-phone service, Skype, which charges 1.2 cents to 2.1 cents per minute for U.S. calls. It also threatens to overshadow another free PC-to-phone calling service called MagicTalk that was just introduced by VocalTec Communications Ltd.

Skype, Google and many other services have been offering free computer-to-computer calling for years.

Google hopes to make money on its PC-to-phone service by charging 2 cents or more per minute for international calls. The international rates will vary widely, sometimes even within the same country. Google posted a rate chart at https://www.google.com/voice/b/0/rates.

People also will be able to receive calls on their PC if they obtain a free phone number from Google or already have one.

The phone numbers and technology for the new PC-calling service are being provided by Google Voice, a telecommunications hub that the company has been trying to expand.

Besides planting Voice’s technology into Gmail, Google also plans to promote the service by setting up red phone booths at universities and airports scattered across the United States.

Study: Blacks use cell phones more

Blacks talk twice as much as whites on their cell phones, and women talk and text more than men, according to an analysis of wireless bills by the Nielsen Co.

The media-tracking firm went through the phone bills of 60,000 people for one year to figure out that blacks talk an average of 1,331 minutes per month, compared with 647 minutes per month for whites.

Whites were the least talkative people in the study, which ended in May. Hispanics talked 826 minutes per month, and Asians and Pacific Islanders 692 minutes per month.

Blacks text more too: 780 messages per month, compared with 566 for whites. Hispanics text almost as much as blacks, at 767 messages per month. Asians and Pacific Islanders text the least, at 384 per month.

One reason blacks talk more on cell phones may be that fewer of them have home phones, but this hardly explains the whole difference. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 25 percent of black adults had only cell phone service last year, compared with 21 percent for white adults.

A study by the Pew Internet &American Life Project last year found that blacks were more likely to use the Internet from their phones.

Women talk 22 percent more than men: 856 minutes per month compared with 667. They also text 34 percent more.

Associated Press