LEAK: FACEBOOK VIBES MUSIC SERVICE

Software guru Jeff Rose had his curiosity piqued yesterday with the proper launch of Facebook Video Calling, and rather than just being satisfied with things working, he took it upon himself to see how exactly things were coming together under the hood. Turns out, the program grabs a startlingly small download link called FacebookVideoCalling.jar, which in turn uses LiveConnect to allow the Java applet to fetch a few other things. This enables the program to source your Facebook user ID (as well as an application ID), and from there, the installer has permission to use two things: a video chat plugin called "peep," and something else dubbed "vibes."

Curiously enough, only one of those two were launched to the world, so logical skeptics are obviously opining that Facebook has a connected music service up its sleeve. 'Course, there's no indication that said service will actually use the Vibes moniker, but we could definitely ponder worse titles

T-MOBILE CONFIRMS FREE CALLING OVER WIFI

Last week, the online grapevine foretold that T-Mobile users would have complimentary calling over WiFi. Now, the pink provider's powers that be have made good on the gossip and officially made free WiFi calling official. The service is available to those with Android handsets with the carrier's Smart Wi-Fi app preinstalled and are on T-Mo's Even More or Even More Plus plans.

AT&T OFFERING FREE CALLING/TEXTING TO JAPAN

AT&T is now offering free calling and texting to Japan due to the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the island nation last week. AT&T will be offering this to all its customers between now and March 31st.

VERIZON CONFIRMS VoLTE FOR NEXT GEN NETWORK

Verizon has confirmed to CNN that it will utilize Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) for its next generation voice network. The company is expected to make a public announcement, and host demonstrations, at next week’s Mobile World Congress. In the future, Verizon hopes to route all voice and video calls, text messages, and data packets over its LTE network.

“Calls between VoLTE-equipped smart phones will sound better,” notes Verizon. “The ‘high-definition’ audio fidelity will be a major selling point.”

The report also notes that VoLTE will allow simultaneous voice and data usage — a capability currently unavailable to most CDMA handsets. Verizon declined to comment on how it plans to price and roll-out VoLTE, but we’re sure it will be a slow transition. [BGR]

GOOGLE'S FREE CALLING THROUGH GMAIL EXTENDED A YEAR

Google announced their free calling through Gmail in the US and Canada will be extended for another year. The free calling promotion was set expire at the end of this year, however ”In the spirit of holiday giving and to help people keep in touch in the new year,” Google will add another year to the promotion.

The promotion applies to all calls made from within Gmail, and is completely separate from Google Voice, which also affords free calling to the U.S. and Canada. Gmail’s recently added voice calling feature is thought to be a prelude to the eventual addition of VoIP services to Google Voice. [BGR]