Google Talk + AIM = XMPP Federation!

It's been over three years since I last blogged about interop between AIM and Google Talk, when I announced the ability for Gmail users to log in to AIM and chat with their AIM buddies. While a step forward for users, who could now talk to twice as many people as before, the approach taken had several technical drawbacks.

For various reasons, the mechanism used to access AIM involved making Google Talk into a "multi-headed" client, where it logged in to the Talk network and the AIM network at the same time, but hid these details under the covers so that from the user standpoint it felt like a single messaging application. Unfortunately that wasn't always true; users needed to have both a Google and an AIM account; they had to remember their Google password and their AIM password, and various features, such as group chat between members of both networks, were technically impossible to implement with this approach.

That's why I'm glad to announce today that the AIM and Google Talk universes are now connected via XMPP Federation. Through the open XMPP protocol, the AIM and Google Talk servers can communicate directly with one another, eliminating the need for separate credentials and the multi-headed complexities of the past. Users can now sign into a single service, either AIM and Google Talk, and communicate with one another simply by adding the email address of their friends to their contact lists. (For AIM users, who historically have been identified by "screennames", the email address is simply screenname@aol.com).

For Google Talk users who previously used AIM integration within Gmail, there's one issue to be aware of. With our switch to use federation, Gmail will no longer log you into your AIM account, and so Gmail won't know who your AIM buddies are. Fortunately, AOL has created a simple web-based tool that will import your AIM buddies into your Gmail contact list, saving you the trouble of adding all your friends by hand.

I'm excited to see this day finally come, and am hopeful that this will lead to federation of all the world's IM services. We've achieved this for email; we should expect no less for IM.

Google voice and video v2.0.7

Today, we released the 2.0.7 update for the Google voice and video chat software. All current installations will automatically update within the next day or two. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://www.google.com/chat/video and re-run the installer.

You can use your Gmail account to find out what version is currently installed. Simply go to the Gmail Settings page and look under the "Chat" tab. You will see the plugin version under the "Learn more" link, in small type.

It's been several weeks since our last release, so there's a lot of new stuff:

• Fixed crashes on:
• Mac OS X - Firefox 4 when resizing popped-out 1:1 call
• Mac OS X - Safari when ending a call
• Windows XP when starting a call
• Fixed several crashes within Google Talk Plugin Video Accelerator during a call
• Fixed an issue where we could misinterpret a camera image format, resulting in green-tinted video.
• Improved rendering performance in many situations.
• Improved audio performance in high CPU situations, and fixed issue where audio could become corrupted in such situations when using Windows.
• Optimized Mac video encoding and decoding performance.
• Enabled use of "Video chat enhancements" lab on systems without video hardware acceleration.
• Improved media performance when connected using TCP.
• Improved hot-plugging and unplugging support for cameras, speakers, and microphones.
• Preferred devices are now remembered even if unavailable, in case they become available again.
• Added support for specifying a port range to use when making media connections, to simplify enterprise firewall configuration.
• Reduced number of steps to install on Mac.
• Fixed an issue where the Mac uninstaller would not uninstall itself.

If you're on 2.0.7 and still having a problem, please take a look at the Google Chat Help Center, or report the issue on the Google Voice and Video Help Forum. You can also tweet @GoogleChat or @juberti, or email me using the "Email Justin" link above.