juberjabber

WebRTC now available in Chrome!

2012-01-18T20:59:00.004-08:00

Been a while since my last update! After the launch of Google Hangouts, I moved over to a new team at Google, focused on building the next audio/video communications platform for Google and the web.

This team, known as WebRTC, has been hard at work building the first version of this platform and integrating it into the Chrome browser. Today marks a big milestone for our team, as the first version of Chrome with WebRTC support is now available on the Chrome dev channel, as well as in Chrome canary builds.

Check out our announcements on the Chromium blog and our own WebRTC blog, which gives instructions on how to enable WebRTC support. This is a very early release (an alpha platform on a dev version of the browser) and a number of things are not yet implemented or still in flux. But the basics are there, and you can do some really great stuff with the API even now. We'll be releasing some demos in the next few days to give a taste of what you can do with WebRTC.

Hangouts Mailbag

2011-07-03T22:51:00.000-07:00

Wow, people sure seem to like Hangouts! Following up on a few questions I've been asked in the past week:

Q: "So does this require a certain operating system or version? I would love to conference with a few friends in remote areas with limited computer access."

A: We support all major desktop OSes and browsers (including Mac OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard"). You can see the full list of supported configs here. Other configs may work, but we haven't tested them specifically.

Q: "I was curious about: Latency < 100 ms -> Is this end2end ?"

A: This is the end-to-end transmission latency target.

Q: "Any comment about mobile access?"

A: I'll let our PR answer this: "... we can’t comment on future product plans. However, Google Plus heavily invests in mobile products as we believe you should be able to share and communicate, whether you are on the web, tablet, or phone.”

Q: I love the look of the interface. How much of this design and technology grew out of the Google's Marratech acquisition?

A: Upon acquisition, the Marratech team was immediately integrated into our group, and they've had a big role in the development of our video technology.

Q: Are you guys planning to open up the tech behind Hangouts? Also, is it based on Muji or was it built from scratch?

A: Yes, we plan to publish the specifications needed to interoperate with Hangouts. At a high level, it's based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture. We looked at Muji but concluded it wasn't a good fit for our service.

Q: Since Hangout is basically a "meet-me" conference, meaning the participants initiate a session with the conference bridge, why is there a need for ICE and STUN?

A: ICE is useful for many things besides NAT traversal. We're able to do a bunch of smart things related to mobility, firewall compatibility, and service failover using ICE.

Lifehacker: Google+ Hangouts Is the Best Free Group Video Chat We've Seen

2011-06-29T21:56:00.000-07:00

From Lifehacker: Google+ Hangouts Is the Best Free Group Video Chat We've Seen

Team Lifehacker has been playing around with Google+ all morning, and so far the coolest innovation we've seen—particularly from a productivity standpoint—is the Hangouts feature, which creates rooms for you to hang out with your friends, coworkers, or any of your social circles. It's great.

Announcing Google+ Hangouts

2011-06-28T11:14:00.009-07:00

What we've been working on recently :-) From the Google Blog:

+Hangouts: stop by and say hello, face-to-face-to-face

Whether it's inside a pub or on a front porch, human beings have always enjoyed hanging out. And why not? It's how we unwind, recharge, and spend unscheduled time with old and new friends alike. Hanging out is deceptively simple though, and the nuance gets lost online.
Just think: when you walk into the pub or step onto your front porch, you're in fact signaling to everyone around, “Hey, I've got some time, so feel free to stop by." Further, it’s this unspoken understanding that puts people at ease, and encourages conversation. But today’s online communication tools (like instant messaging and video-calling) don’t understand this subtlety:
They’re annoying, for starters. You can ping everyone that’s “available,” but you’re bound to interrupt someone’s plans.
They’re also really awkward. When someone doesn't respond, you don't know if they’re just not there, or just not interested.
With Google+ we wanted to make on-screen gatherings fun, fluid and serendipitous, so we created Hangouts. By combining the casual meetup with live multi-person video, Hangouts lets you stop by when you're free, and spend time with your Circles. Face-to-face-to-face:

To support Hangouts, we built an all-new standards-based cloud video conferencing platform. This platform combines high quality, low latency, and strong security with the ease of use of a web application. Through the efficiency of this new platform, we're able to deliver a leading video conferencing experience at Google scale.

A few noteworthy technical points:

Fully browser-based/cloud-based
Client-server: leverages the power of Google's infrastructure
Designed for low latency (< 100 ms) and high performance (multicore + hardware acceleration)
Standards-based: XMPP, Jingle, RTP, ICE, STUN, SRTP
Fully encrypted (HTTPS + SRTP)

Check it out at https://plus.google.com/up/start/?sw=1&type=st!

Google voice and video v2.1.7

2011-06-28T10:08:00.001-07:00

Today, we released the 2.1.7 (and 2.1.8 for Windows) update for the Google voice and video chat software. All current installations will automatically update within the next few days. 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.

Here's what's new in the latest version:

Several installer improvements; installation no longer requires a browser restart
Improved smoothness of video rendering
Added support to monitor and reduce CPU utilization when system is under extremely high load
Fixed issue where playout volume was too low on various machines
Fixed issue with incorrect audio ducking behavior on Vista/Win7
Fixed issue with delayed audio if connectivity was briefly interrupted
Fixed issue with delayed video on Mac when under high CPU load
Fixed issue where encryption/decryption could fail on sequence number rollover
Fixed random flash effect when entering fullscreen in some browsers
Fixed many crashes

If you're on 2.1.7 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 email me using the "Email Justin" link above.

Google Talk now supports XMPP Jingle

2011-06-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

As reported by the Register last week, we've just finished updating Google Talk and its related services to speak XMPP's Jingle call signaling protocol. A lot of stuff had to change here - many different code bases, clients, servers, and reporting systems - but the migration is now complete.

From our announcement to the Jingle mailing list:

We are pleased to announce that we have launched support for Jingle
XEP-166 and XEP-167 for Google Talk calls to and from Gmail, iGoogle,
and Orkut. We have also added the same level of support to libjingle
(http://code.google.com/p/libjingle), which is used by many native
clients. From this point on, it will be our primary signalling
protocol, and the old protocol will only remain for backwards
compatibility.

If you're interested in interoperating with the Google Talk service, you can now refer to the public XEP-0166 and XEP-0167 documentation for implementing call signaling.

If you're interested in the differences between the old and new protocols, you can also see the old "Gingle" protocol documentation on our developer site.

Google Talk + AIM = XMPP Federation!

2011-05-19T20:36:00.001-07:00

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

2011-05-06T18:55:00.004-07:00

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.

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.

Gingerbread gets Google voice and video chat!

2011-04-29T20:52:00.038-07:00

The Google Mobile team just announced the release of Google Talk with video chat (originally added for the Honeycomb release) in Gingerbread 2.3.4. Like other communication services, video chat benefits from network effects, and adding millions of additional video chat endpoints will be a nice boost to the Google Talk network.

I've been using this on my Nexus S, and it's quite nice. The software uses the same libjingle-based stack as Google voice and video, and the front-facing camera on the Nexus S really works well.

Vtok Brings Google Video Chat to the iPhone

2011-03-13T17:56:00.001-07:00

From GigaOM:

"... a new app called Vtok will finally let Google Talk video chat users connect with friends on their iPhones — and soon, on Android mobile devices as well.

Vtok hooks into Google Talk, providing users with a list of all their contacts that are available for video chat and enabling them to initiate both voice and video chat calls. The app runs in the background and will send push notifications if someone tries to start a video chat with a user that’s logged in. Users that are signed in and receive call requests can choose to speak either by voice or video. Calls can be made or received on both Wi-Fi and 3G networks."

More info at vtokapp.com.

Click to call in Gmail

2011-03-10T21:32:00.001-08:00

From the Gmail Blog today:

With the ability to call phones built right into Gmail, you no longer have to get out your phone and retype a number anytime someone sends you one in an email or chat message. Starting today [...] Just click the number, and Gmail’s dialpad will pop up, already populated with the number you’re trying to call.

I use Gmail calling for all my calls at my desk, and this makes things even easier. More great features like this on their way!

Google Talk on Motorola Xoom first look

2011-02-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

From PC Magazine: Google Talk on the Motorola Xoom: Video Walkthrough
Google's Honeycomb OS adds video chat, and we take it for a spin on the Motorola Xoom.

Google Video Chat / Flash 10.1 issue on Mac OS X

2011-02-05T09:52:00.001-08:00

A few people have written in to say that the Google Voice and Video software has caused webcam support in Flash Player 10.1 to stop working on Mac OS X.

We recently discussed this problem with Adobe, and they have confirmed it is a bug in the 10.1 version of Flash Player (see Adobe's bug tracker at https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-5730). It affects not just Google Voice and Video, but any application that installs its own QuickTime component.

Fortunately, Adobe has come up with a fix for this in the upcoming 10.2 release of Flash Player. If you have been affected by this issue, you can get the 10.2 RC build that has been confirmed to resolve the problem at http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html.

Update (2/8/2011): Fixed the Flash Player download URL.

Jim Breuer Demo Slam with Google Video Chat

2011-01-22T22:32:00.001-08:00

Google voice and video v1.8

2011-01-20T19:16:00.001-08:00

Today, we released the 1.8 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.

Here's what's new:

Fixed issue where webcams could fail to be detected on Mac OS X
Improved call quality monitoring

If you're on 1.8 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.

Google voice and video in Android Honeycomb

2011-01-05T18:56:00.002-08:00

Check out the video chat demo at 1:05!

Update: New, longer demo!

Google voice and video issue with Chrome 9 beta

2011-01-05T18:50:00.001-08:00

A few users on the Chrome beta track (current version 9.0.597.19) have contacted me recently about Google video chat not working properly in this Chrome version. When using the Chrome dev (10.0) or beta builds (9.0) on Windows, the video window stays all black and does not display the live video.

This issue was caused by some of the enhancements to plugin sandboxing that were added for Chrome 9, and is being tracked in the Chrome bug tracker at http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=64356. We're working with the Chrome team to get this issue resolved as soon as possible, but in the meantime you can work around this issue in several ways.

Enable Gmail's "Video chat enhancements" lab. In addition to resolving this issue, this lab also provides a higher-resolution video chat experience. Active the lab by going to Gmail Settings -> Labs -> Video chat enhancements -> Enable -> Save Changes.
Disable Chrome's built-in Flash player. Go to about:plugins -> Details -> disable gcsf32.dll -> enable npswf32.dll
Switch off the Chrome beta track (will take you back to Chrome 8.0)
Or use an alternate browser (temporarily!) for your video chatting

A bit embarrassing, but these things can happen with beta software. I'll update this post when the problem has been resolved.

Update (1/22/2011): This issue has been fixed in the latest builds of Chrome 9 and Chrome 10.

Google voice and video v1.7

2010-12-10T19:05:00.003-08:00

Today, we released the 1.7 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.

Here's what's new:

Improved performance for networking and media processing, especially when the system is busy
Fixed issue that could cause crashes in Safari 5+
Fixed issue where frames could be dropped at call startup when using the Video chat enhancements Lab
Fixed an issue where video could fail to appear on OSX
Fixed issue where killing the Google Talk Plugin process could crash the browser process on some platforms
Various performance improvements for Atom CPUs
Added support for hotplugging and unplugging of webcams on Linux
For interoperability, added support for video bitrate to be specified via XMPP signaling

If you're on 1.7 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.

Hangin' with Vint Cerf

2010-11-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

Turned 36 today. No Hulk Hogan visit like my last birthday, but I did get to meet Vint Cerf (the true father of the Internet) the other day. Really a nice guy, and gives our team lots of feedback on our products, especially about our use of Internet standards. Glad to have him here at Google!

Google voice and video v1.5.1

2010-10-21T22:06:00.003-07:00

Today, we released the 1.5.1 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.

Here's what's new:

Fix issue where we would write a 'debug.log' file to the application directory, in some cases the desktop
Fix issue where the plugin could crash if cameras sent resolutions other than requested
Fix issue where we would sometimes show the camera capability icon even if you had no camera
Various performance improvements

If you're on 1.5.1 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.

Google voice and video v1.4.2 and v1.4.3

2010-09-16T16:40:00.001-07:00

Today, we released the 1.4.2 (Windows) and 1.4.3 (Mac) updates 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.

Here's what's new:

All-new, hardware-accelerated video rendering subsystem (more on this later).
Fixed a crash when processing RTCP packets.
Fixed a crash on Windows when ending a call.
Fixed an issue on new MacBook Pros where loading Gmail (and starting the Google Talk Plugin) would cause a switch to the high-performance GPU and cause the battery to drain more quickly.
Several minor fixes and improvements.

The 1.4.3 release for Mac also resolves issues identified by some early users of 1.4.2 on Mac OS 10.4. Note that when running on Mac OS, Google voice and video requires QuickTime 7.2.1 or later (the current version is 7.6, so almost all Macs should have this.)

If you're on 1.4.2 on Windows or 1.4.3 on Mac 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.

CNET TV: Google Voice vs. Skype Prizefight

2010-09-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

For some reason, they don't even mention Google video chat, but I'm still happy with the result :-)

Google voice and video RPM packages now available

2010-09-01T12:06:00.002-07:00

Following up on my earlier post, we've now released a new version of Google voice and video for Linux that includes both Debian and RPM packages. As usual, it can be downloaded from www.google.com/chat/video; upon visiting this page, you'll be given the option of which package you want to download.

This new version also includes fixes for some top crash issues seen since release. If you've already installed the plugin, you'll be notified through the typical package update mechanism that a new version is available.

Also a quick followup regarding some of the PulseAudio questions: while PulseAudio is supported, it's not required. If PulseAudio is not detected, the plugin will fall back and use ALSA.

Lastly, we're also working on resolving the issues reported with upside-down ASUS cameras and a debug.log file appearing for a few users. If you encounter other issues, please report them in the Google Voice and Video Help Forum.

Hold the phone! Free calls in Gmail!

2010-08-26T23:55:00.001-07:00

We were excited yesterday to release our new Google Voice integration in Gmail, and the response so far has been fantastic. Over 1 million calls were placed in the first 24 hours, and the press coverage and user feedback have been great. Some choice quotes:

David Pogue, New York Times: "Google just loves upsetting the apple cart. It shook up Web searching and advertising. It shook up free Web-based e-mail services when Gmail offered gigabytes of free storage rather than a few megabytes. It shook up the way companies go public.

The latest development is particularly shakeworthy: Google now lets you make free phone calls from your computer. It isn’t new fellow geeks who have installed Skype or iChat and use special “handles” like SkiBunny1968–but it will be to normal people, on regular American and Canadian phone numbers. Free."

Michael Arrington, TechCrunch: "... Today Google Voice is being integrated right into the browser via Gmail. It’s amazingly good – I know because I’ve been testing it for the last few days."

John Cook, TechFlash: "I've been test driving Google's new phone service this morning, placing free calls from my Gmail account to work colleagues and family members. So far, the service has worked like a charm -- crisp sound, an easy-to-understand interface and, most importantly, no dropped calls."

techiefool, CNET comment: "Google has put the awesome back into email again."

Try it out for yourself! Head on over to gmail.com/call and get started - it's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

One quick tip: from the main Gmail page, you can type "gp" to bring up the phone dialer. Useful if you want to make a call without taking your hands off the keyboard!

Google Talk turns 5!

2010-08-24T23:00:00.005-07:00

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of Google Talk, the world's largest open chat, voice, and video service. To our users worldwide - whether you know it as Talk, Gmail Chat, Orkut Chat, or just "GChat" - thanks for your continued support!

Google voice and video - now available for Linux!

2010-08-19T17:05:00.044-07:00

Google voice and video chat is now available in Gmail for Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions. As the comments on this blog indicate, I know many folks have been waiting very patiently for this day! For those of you using RedHat-based distros, we're planning on adding RPM support soon as well.

This release required significant engineering to develop an all-new video rendering solution and an all-new PulseAudio-based audio handler, along with work to support 64-bit and countless webcam compatibility tests. We spent a lot of effort to make it fully feature-complete, with all the same goodies as the Windows and Mac versions, and we're happy to now support Google voice and video now on all major desktop platforms.

Visit www.google.com/chat/video and start video chatting!

Google voice and video enterprise firewall configuration

2010-08-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

If you're a network administrator trying to control access to Google voice and video chat, take a look at our help document on this topic, specifically this line:

Allow your XMPP clients to connect to all IP addresses resolved on DNS name talkr.l.google.com, UDP port 19295 and 19302, or TCP port 19294.

This rule allows your internal users to contact our STUN and relay servers over UDP and TCP. In the event that policy does not allow receipt of UDP from the Internet, just allowing access to TCP port 19294 will allow users to still contact the relays via TCP, although performance may suffer in congestion situations. Lastly, if policy does not permit access to TCP port 19294, port 443 may be used instead.

Note that the info for talkr.l.google.com is updated regularly as we add/turn down datacenters, so it's a good idea to check regularly for changes.

Awesome Google video chat photo

2010-08-01T23:14:00.001-07:00

Love this photo - Google video chat lets a grandma virtually attend a wedding. Full story on the Gmail Blog.

Google voice and video v1.3.1

2010-07-16T12:00:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, we released the 1.3.1 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.

Here's what's new in version 1.3.1:

Fixed an issue on Windows XP where audio could become garbled or significantly delayed , especially when other applications were using the sound hardware.
Fixed an issue on Mac OS X where the Google Talk Plugin process could show as "Not Responding" in Activity Manager.
Improved detection and reporting of deadlock conditions (unfortunately often caused by buggy audio drivers)
Some important stuff that I can't talk about yet :-)

If you're on 1.3.1 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. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Google video chat setup tutorial

2010-07-07T22:30:00.003-07:00

If your Grandma (or Grandpa) has encountered some hiccups setting up Google video chat, we've made a short video that hopefully will make the process a bit easier. We know this is a killer use case for video chat, and are always looking to make getting started even easier!

Full story on The Official Gmail Blog.

Google voice and video v1.2.0

2010-06-08T12:00:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, we released the 1.2.0 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.

Here's what's new in version 1.2.0:

Changed audio handling to use the Core Audio sound subsystem on Windows when available (Windows Vista and later). This provides smoother audio streaming with lower delay.
Added support for the Windows 7 'Default communication device'. This allows you to use one device for music and sounds, but another device (e.g. a headset) for voice and video calls. For more information, see 7Tutorials' explanation of how to set up the default communication device.
Fixed a problem in initialization of the video subsystem that was causing a small but significant portion of calls to connect very slowly and eventually time out.

If you're on 1.2.0 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. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Google voice and video v1.1.2

2010-04-21T13:19:00.004-07:00

Yesterday, we released the 1.1.2 update for the Google voice and video chat software. This update fixes the issues some users were seeing with 1.1.1. 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.

Here's what's new in version 1.1.2:

Fixed problem where the plugin did not load properly if it encountered an error accessing Windows Firewall.
Fixed problem where the plugin did not load properly on some Macs running OS 10.4.
Fixed problem where video did not appear for users using the "dev" versions of Chrome with integrated Flash.

If you're on 1.1.2 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. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Lastly, thanks to all the users who emailed and posted about their issues with 1.1.1. Your feedback was critical in identifying the issues and determining a resolution, and we really appreciate your help.

Issues with Google voice and video v1.1.1

2010-04-17T09:06:00.003-07:00

A few people have written me regarding video chat no longer working after the 1.1.1 update, on both PC and Mac platforms. We're trying to understand the issue right now, but in the meantime, we have provided a workaround to go back to an earlier version. To go back to the earlier version, you will need to uninstall the current version of the Google Talk Plugin, and then re-install from http://www.google.com/chat/video. (Even if you have already tried this, you should try it again now, since we have now made the older version available.)

More information on this issue, including full instructions on how to perform the uninstall/re-install, is available at the Google Chat Help forum. This forum will be kept up-to-date with the latest developments on this problem.

So far, this workaround has been reported to solve this problem. If this is not the case for you, please post to the forum or let me know.

Google voice and video v1.1.1

2010-04-15T15:25:00.004-07:00

This week, we released the 1.1.1 update for the Google voice and video chat software. All current installations will automatically update within the next few days. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://www.google.com/chat/video and re-run the installer.

Here's what's new in version 1.1.1:

Improved echo cancellation on Mac OS X.
Improved internet proxy auto-detection, leading to better connectivity in some network scenarios.
Fixed an incompatibility that could lead to crashes when starting video calls with certain cameras.
Improved robustness of connection between browser and plug-in, which previously could have resulted in being stuck at 'Detecting Devices' on the Chat settings tab.
Added support for the H.263 (1998) video codec.
Added support for the G.722 (64 Kbps) audio codec.

If you're on 1.1.1 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. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Can You Video Chat On a Plane?

2010-03-11T11:02:00.003-08:00

From John Battelle's Searchblog: Video Chat on the Plane? Illegal? OK? Legal Gray Area?

... my kids can now gather around any one of our home computers, fire up iChat, and BAM! they can see me even as I zip across the Nebraska sky at some 400+ mph.

Except tonight, as I was chatting with my lovely wife and two lovely daughters (much to the amusement of my seat mates, using Bose headphones and my MacBook's built in microphone), the very nice steward - who I must note brought me extra nuts even though he didn't have to - told me I had to quit my video chat.

"Security. Cameras not allowed!" was the response. There was clearly no argument.

I protested, but not too loudly. I don't want to end up stripped searched in a cold basement cell below SFO, after all. I told my family I had to quit the video chat.

I've written about video chat on a plane before, but this is the first I've heard of someone being told to stop. Granted, you want to be a polite passenger and listen more than talk (see the FAA memo about blocking Skype conversations) but seems like if you're not bothering anyone it should be OK. Anyone have a similar experience?

Google Seattle Tech Talk Event - Video Chat and Chrome Video

2010-03-01T23:28:00.004-08:00

I'll be giving a talk on Google video chat Wednesday at Google's Seattle office. Andrew Scherkus will also be talking about the implementation of the HTML5 video tag in Chrome. Short writeups:

Google Voice and Video Chat by Justin Uberti
How does video chat really work? The basic concepts are simple, but in the real world there are a number of things that make life much more complicated. Learn how all the pieces fit together in this deep dive into Google video chat.
Justin Uberti is currently Tech Lead for Real-Time Communications at Google, where he led the effort to create Google video chat. Prior to joining Google in 2006, Justin served as the chief architect for AOL Instant Messenger, including the development of AIM's voice and video chat.
Google Chrome HTML5 Video by Andrew Scherkus
How exactly do you get video playback working in a multi-process, cross-platform, sandboxed browser? Find out what worked, what didn't and what it's like to work on open source projects at Google in this retrospective on implementing HTML5 Video in Google Chrome.
Andrew Scherkus is currently a Software Engineer at Google Kirkland. Since joining Google in 2008 he's been busy leading development on Google Chrome's HTML5 audio/video implementation. Prior to that Andrew was finishing up his bachelor of Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo and working as an intern for ATI and Google.

For more info, see our Seattle Tech Talk Page.

A smoother voice and video experience

2010-02-25T22:38:00.003-08:00

New post from some of our video chat engineers on the Google talkabout blog, discussing some of our recent work in improving service quality. Like most Google services, video chat has lots of checks to let us measure how good our service is. So we can see in real numbers that we've dramatically improved the quality from when we launched the service a year ago. It's great seeing the needle move as our engineers roll out continual adjustments and improvements almost every week.

We have spent the last few months focusing on three things: quality, quality, and quality! For those of you with the Google voice and video chat plugin installed, you have recently received an automatic update that contains:
A fix that reduces crashes on newer macs (Mac OS X v10.6.2 specifically)
A fix for webcam compatibility on Windows (including HP webcams)
Several fixes to increase plugin stability
Several fixes to the infrastructure used to set up and connect your video calls.

From users who have chosen to “Report quality statistics” in their chat settings, we can see a substantial increase in call connection rates and a big decrease in the call drop rate. We hope that this will result in more enjoyable conversations with our software.
As with all software, working on improving quality is a never ending process, so we hope that you will continue to report any issues you have in our user forum, and we will continue to work on improving connection rates and call quality.

Google Completes Acquisition of On2 Technologies

2010-02-22T14:08:00.001-08:00

From Digital Media Wire: Google Completes $124.6 Million Acquisition of On2

Google has announced the completion of its $124.6 million acquisition of video encoding firm On2 Technologies, following a vote by On2's shareholders to approve the deal. Google said that it plans to repurchase an equal number of shares on the open market that it issued as part of the transaction, to be funded from available working capital.

"Through rapid innovation in browsers and web standards, the Internet is becoming the leading platform for development," said Sundar Pichai, vice president of Product Management at Google.

"We believe On2's engineering talent and technology will be an incredible asset for us as we work to improve this platform."

Google voice and video v1.0.21

2010-02-20T23:20:00.004-08:00

This week, we released the 1.0.21 update for the Google voice and video chat software. All current installations will begin an automatic update within the next few days. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://www.google.com/chat/video and re-run the installer.

Here's what's new in version 1.0.21:

Fixed an incompatibility with webcams using the 24BG color space (including many HP webcams, as reported here)
Fixed an issue that could cause crashes on Mac OS X 10.6.2 (especially with the new iMacs, as reported here)
Fixed an issue that could cause crashes when receiving H.264 FU-A NAL units
Improved compatibility with the Opera browser

If you're on 1.0.21 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. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Gmail turns on HTTPS for all

2010-01-12T23:33:00.003-08:00

I previously mentioned that if you visit Gmail via HTTPS at https://mail.google.com, your Gmail session will be secure, meaning that nobody will be able to see your information as it flows from Google to your computer. While this is great, it's easy to forget to type https:// when you visit Gmail.

So last year, we announced the ability to force Gmail to always use HTTPS, meaning that no matter how you enter into Gmail, your session will be secure. However, users had to manually turn this on, so most people didn't take advantage of this.

That's why I'm happy to report that we've now enabled HTTPS by default on all Gmail accounts. Users don't need to do anything different - but now, their access to email and chat will be fully protected by HTTPS.

This is a great step forward, and I'm glad to see Google leading the way here - from my quick tests, HTTPS is not yet supported on Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or AOL Mail.

Google voice and video v1.0.19

2009-12-16T23:06:00.003-08:00

Today, we released the 1.0.19 update for the Google voice and video chat software. All current installations will begin an automatic update within the next few days. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://www.google.com/chat/video and re-run the installer.

Here's what's new in version 1.0.19:

Improved efficiency of the video codec
Improved call setup time in cases where DNS lookups are blocked
Fixed issue where video could become corrupted during a call (green and upside down)
Fixed issue where calls could fail to start on Windows machines with Pentium III processors
Fixed accidental output to the debug console on Mac OS X (more info)
Fixed several crashes that could occur when ending a call by closing the browser
Fixed crash that could occur when the system time was set to a date before 1970
Fixed several other crashes that could occur during calls
Fixed issue where certain crashes would fail to be recorded properly

If you're on 1.0.19 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. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Google voice and video v1.0.16

2009-11-22T22:36:00.000-08:00

Today, we released the 1.0.16 update for the Google voice and video chat software. All current installations will begin an automatic update within the next few days. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://www.google.com/chat/video and re-run the installer.

Here's what's new in version 1.0.16:

Substantially enhanced noise reduction algorithm, which should noticeably reduce background noise during calls
Video codec quality and efficiency improvements, including support for the pending H.264-SVC packetization standard
Fixed problems with incorrect display of video streams with nonstandard aspect ratios
Fixed problems on certain Macs where the camera could take several seconds to start up
Fixed several crashes, plus additional diagnostics to detect deadlock situations

If you're on 1.0.16 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. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Hulk Hogan visits Google!

2009-11-06T14:54:00.000-08:00

As part of our Authors @ Google series, Hulk Hogan stopped by Google Kirkland on Tuesday to discuss his new book, My Life Outside the Ring. Having watched Hulk Hogan while growing up (including, of all things, Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling), I had to check this out.

(Above, Hulk wishes me a Happy 35th Birthday...)

Some hints at what's in store for Google video chat...

2009-11-06T09:26:00.003-08:00

From SFGate: Google Apps will get stronger video chat capabilities

Google Apps users can expect to see significant improvements in the suite's voice- and video-chat capabilities, as the company builds on Gmail's current features in that area.

Gmail's voice and video chats are now limited to one-to-one communications, but Google wants to broaden that capability to more than two participants and make it more robust all around for Apps.

"This [current Gmail capability] is the first step in a much broader set of features we hope to roll out over the next six to 12 months around video [and voice] chat capabilities," said Rishi Chandra, a Google Apps product manager. "It's a great opportunity for us to push that space along."

More Kirkland Grand Opening Coverage

2009-10-29T12:18:00.004-07:00

From the Seattle P-I's Microsoft Blog(!): Google Invests in Kirkland with new campus

With about 600 Seattle-area employees, Google's influence in the region pales in comparison to Microsoft's. But the Internet giant, whose friendly image has won over millions and millions of worldwide Web users, may have the chance to start small – with Kirkland.
"Google is a very, very important part of our high-tech sector," [Kirkland mayor Jim Lauinger] said. "The high-tech sector is growing rapidly in Kirkland. It's taking a breather right now, but it's going to grow."

From Xconomy Seattle:

Google Kirkland Is Hiring, and Other Highlights from the Company’s Northwest Birthplace

Lastly, as I am wont to do, I asked [Google VP] Alan Eustace and [Google Kirkland site director] Scott Silver individually to boil down Google’s culture to one word. Neither took the bait. Eustace did say Google’s culture is quite uniform across its various centers worldwide. He used words like innovative, open to new ideas, community focused (versus competitive), happy, and high-energy, to describe the culture, but wouldn’t commit to just one of them.
Silver came closer to giving me one take-home message. “Engineers are in charge,” he said.

Other mentions:

From Chris Pirillo's blog: Google Seattle
From KMOX News: Google moves into new headquarters

Google Kirkland Tour

2009-10-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

Today was the official grand opening of our new Kirkland campus. Here's a video of the event from TechFlash.com.

FedEx: Video Chat Commercial

2009-09-21T22:48:00.001-07:00

Funny.

Google voice and video v1.0.15, for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

2009-09-18T11:27:00.004-07:00

Today, we released a specific 1.0.15 update for the Google voice and video chat software. This update is for Mac computers only, and is focused on resolving compatibility issues with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. All current Mac installations on OS 10.4 and 10.5 will begin an automatic update within the next few days.

However, if you have previously installed an older version of Google voice and video chat on OS 10.6, you will need to visit http://www.google.com/chat/video and download the new 1.0.15 version.

The following Mac OS X 10.6 issues were fixed in version 1.0.15:

Fixed problem where the Google Talk Plugin was not detected in Safari
Fixed problem where the Google Talk Plugin would delay system sleep by 30 seconds
Fixed problem where video would not be displayed in a video chat
Fixed problem where registration for automatic upgrades did not work
Fixed problem when uninstalling and reinstalling the same version

The issue with video not being displayed in a video chat is the result of a QuickTime bug in OS 10.6. We have implemented a workaround for this situation, but we have received reports that an extra step may be necessary for some users. If, after installing version 1.0.15, you continue to encounter this issue with video not being displayed, a single reboot of your Mac should fix the problem. We are working with Apple to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

If you are on 1.0.15 and experience problems, please report them on the Gmail voice and video chat forums. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Voice and video chat in Orkut!

2009-09-15T10:00:00.001-07:00

Following on our recent launches of chat in Orkut and video chat in iGoogle, today we launched voice and video chat in Orkut. This makes Orkut the first social network with built-in voice and video chat, and significantly expands the reach of the Google video chat network.

Read more about this launch on the Orkut blog.

Using Zfone to secure Google video chats

2009-09-13T21:17:00.006-07:00

One of our team members sent me a link indicating that Zfone could be used to secure Google voice and video chats with ZRTP (as shown in the screenshot above). I did some research, and it turns out that one of the Zfone developers managed to get this wired up a few months ago, as documented in an entry on the Zfone blog. For those not familiar with Zfone, Zfone is a small download that encrypts voice and video traffic so that it cannot be intercepted or tampered with, all with minimal setup. You can read more about Zfone/ZRTP on the Zfone FAQ.

I haven't had a chance to try this out yet, but it's pretty neat that the Zfone team was able to get this working without any support from us (yay standards!). If you want to give it a shot, you can download the Zfone Beta for Windows, Mac, and Linux from this site.

XMPP support on App Engine

2009-09-03T23:05:00.001-07:00

Google Talkabout: XMPP support on App Engine

Thanks to some great work by Michael Davidson, AppEngine now supports the ability to host XMPP bots (written in either Java or Python). All the tricky work of setting up and deploying a bot is now handled for you.

To get started, head to the AppEngine site on Google Code and check out the API docs (Java | Python).

Google voice and video v1.0.13

2009-08-20T16:08:00.004-07:00

Today, we released the 1.0.13 update for the Google voice and video chat software. All current installations will begin an automatic update within the next few days. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://www.google.com/chat/video and re-run the installer.

Here's what's new in version 1.0.13:

Improved startup time for both voice and video calls.
Detection and recovery for some situations that would cause the plugin to hang indefinitely, which could lead to messaging like "Detecting devices" in the settings page or "Add voice/video chat" in the roster or chat menu.
Fixed connectivity problems caused by VMWare virtual network adapters.

If you're on 1.0.13 and still having a problem, please report it on the Gmail voice and video chat forums. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Google video chat tips, installment #1

2009-08-20T11:14:00.005-07:00

From the Google Talk Blog: tips on using Google video chat, from one of the engineers on our team.

Did you know you could use the "pop-out" arrow on the top of a chat window to make a video chat bigger? This will separate the video chat into its own window that you can resize and move around as you like.

If you want to make the video chat as large as possible and block everything else out, simply use the Full Screen button in the top left corner of the video area. This will fill up your screen and make your conversation much more immersive. Based on the feedback you've given us, we have added the ability to mute your microphone while in full screen mode. To do this, simply hit the space bar!

Pidgin Adds Support for Google Voice and Video Chat

2009-08-19T23:07:00.001-07:00

Slashdot | Pidgin Adds Google Talk Voice and Video Support

Just read that Pidgin 2.6.1 (on Linux) supports interoperability with Google video chat. Haven't had a chance to try it myself yet, but we'll be checking it out this week. Nice job Pidgin team!

Temporary solution for Gmail voice and video chat on Linux

2009-07-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

If you're dying to try out Gmail voice and video chat on Linux right now, here's a temporary solution that may work for you while we finish the official Linux version. This clever hack allows the voice functionality of the Google Talk Plugin to work on Linux via the Wine shim layer.

Also, responding to some of the comments on the 1.0.10 post:

We expect to support ALSA and PulseAudio.
The packetization to be used for H.264/SVC will be that specified in http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-avt-rtp-svc-18.txt, which is currently on its way to becoming a RFC.

Cool testimonial for Gmail video chat

2009-07-09T23:05:00.002-07:00

Saw this on YouTube today. It's great to see people having fun with our product.

Tweet your Gmail video chat experiences!

2009-07-09T11:25:00.003-07:00

Searching Twitter for "Gmail video chat" or "Google video chat" has been a great way for us to see how people are using the service. Some great recent tweets:

"set up gmail video chat for my parents for while i'm away. they're so impressed that i can click a series of buttons and magically appear." (link)

"Google video chat is pretty awesome in terms of a free service. I am left wondering why Google is not promoting it more aggressively." (link)

"Just discovered Gmail's "Archive" feature, along with a whole slew of things I didn't know existed. Best video chat ever." (link)

Our team keeps an eye on these feeds, so if you include "Gmail video chat", "Google video chat", or #googlevideochat in your tweet, you can be sure we'll see it!

You can also follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/juberti

Gmail video chat on a plane!

2009-07-06T21:52:00.001-07:00

Video Chatting at 35,000 Feet Works Pretty Darn Well - The Steve Rubel Lifestream

As an experiment I tried having a real-time video chat with my dad using Gmail and it worked relatively well. Video/sound cut in and out. Still, it was all quite manageable as you can see from the screen capture...

Gmail voice and video v1.0.10

2009-06-30T14:59:00.004-07:00

Today, we released the 1.0.10 update for the Gmail voice and video chat software. All current installations will begin an automatic update within the next 24 hours. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://mail.google.com/videochat and re-run the installer.

Here's what's new in version 1.0.10:

General fixes:

When uploading a log file to Google, we now display an incident ID that you can use when reporting an issue.
Improved software auto-updates to now complete successfully even if Gmail is open, so upgrading to the latest version now happens more quickly. (We are still working on improving this on Windows Vista.)
Improved call setup time when behind firewalls that only allow outgoing HTTP/HTTPS.
Fixed issue where a device access dialog box would sometimes appear when starting a call.
Fixed crash when using a software firewall that caused UDP socket creation to fail.
Fixed crash that could occur in rare cases when a timing function returned the same value twice in a row.

Windows-specific fixes:

Fixed an issue on Vista where software auto-updates could cause the browser to suddenly restart.
Fixed an issue where having the 'Sony BlueTooth Video' camera device would cause the browser to crash.
Fixed various issues with code signing.

Mac-specific fixes:

Fixed an issue on 10.5.7 where the microphone would only work for the first call.
Fixed several issues with the installer that could cause preflight_script errors or other problems.
Fixed an issue where the built-in iSight camera could fail to be detected.
Fixed an issue where audio and video would suddently freeze about 2 minutes into the call.
Fixed an issue where the plugin could get into a loop and consume 100% CPU.

If you're on 1.0.10 and still having a problem, please report it on the Gmail voice and video chat forums. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who has written in asking about support for Linux. We've had to rewrite a key piece of technology, so this has taken some time. However, the results will be worth the wait.

Gmail voice and video v1.0.8

2009-04-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

Today, we released the 1.0.8 update for the Gmail voice and video chat software. All current installations will begin an automatic update within the next 24 hours. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://mail.google.com/videochat and re-run the installer.

Here's what's new in version 1.0.8:

Added support for the H.264/AVC video codec, in addition to the H.264/SVC codec that we typically use. This allows us to be compatible with video software that does not yet support SVC. When using H.264/AVC, Gmail video chat will send and expect in-band parameter sets, and send using a single-NAL RTP packetization.
Made several improvements to voice quality, including additional tuning of our echo cancellation and automatic gain control algorithms.
Fixed a problem where device settings would not be saved in some cases if no webcam was present.
Fixed a problem where the browser plugin would sometimes not be detected by Gmail, even though it was installed.
Fixed various crashes in the browser plugin.
On Windows, fixed a problem where video chat would never work in certain network conditions. This was most often seen when using wireless broadband or other types of PPPoE connections.
On Windows, fixed a problem where certain Sony Vaio cameras could cause the browser to crash when starting a video chat.
On Windows, fixed a problem where certain Creative cameras could cause Chrome to display a "sad plugin" when starting a video chat.
On Mac, fixed a problem where users of PostgreSQL (or any other app that uses a lot of shared memory) would see a "black box" instead of video.

If you're on 1.0.8 and still having a problem, please report it on the Gmail voice and video chat forums. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Watch YouTube videos right inside Gmail chat

2009-01-26T22:44:00.008-08:00

Last week we launched another new feature we've been working on, media previews in Gmail chat. It's pretty cool. Frequently my friends will set YouTube links as their status messages, but from just a bare link, it's hard to tell whether or not the video is worth watching. However, with Gmail media previews, I can mouseover their name in my contact list to see the video title, and with a single click, I can play it right within Gmail.

It's also great for when friends send you a video link in chat. We parse the link and insert a thumbnail with the video title so you know exactly what your friend is trying to share with you (a rickroll, maybe?) Just click on the thumbnail and you can then watch the video right inside Gmail, without opening a new browser window or tab.

It's a fun feature, and makes sharing videos much more interesting. Check it out!

Gmail voice and video v1.0.5

2009-01-20T14:04:00.005-08:00

Today we released the 1.0.5 update for the Gmail voice and video chat software. All current installations will begin an automatic update within the next 24 hours. If you do not want to wait, you can visit http://mail.google.com/videochat and re-run the installer.

Here's what's new in version 1.0.5:

On Windows, enabled sending and receiving video for CPUs without the SSE2 extensions (such as Athlon XP and Pentium III). Due to the lower processing power of these CPUs, the resolution of the sent video will be reduced.
On Mac, added support for the macam USB camera driver library, enabling hundreds of branded and generic webcams for mac users. Some work better than others; depending on the camera, you may experience low performance or errors when using macam. For best results, we recommend having only a single macam device attached, and closing Gmail before plugging or unplugging macam devices.
On Mac, changed automatic updates to no longer prompt the user to shut down the browser.
Fixed several issues on both platforms where the plugin could crash during or while ending a call.
Fixed an issue on certain Sony Vaio notebooks where the web browser would crash during call setup.
Fixed an issue on Mac where the plugin would crash during call setup if the installed version of QuickTime was very old.
Fixed an issue on Mac where old instances of the plugin would still appear in the Activity Monitor.

The fixes in this version should resolve the vast majority of the "my webcam doesn't work with Gmail voice and video" issues. If you're on 1.0.5 and still having a problem, please report it on the Gmail voice and video chat forums. As always, feel free to email me directly as well.

Snow in Seattle, 2008

2008-12-20T09:26:00.001-08:00

Winter's officially here in Seattle. After schools were closed on Wednesday on the possibility of snow, we got a few inches on Thursday, which promptly made driving an interesting physics experiment. Today, it was 13 degrees outside when I woke up, and the forecast calls for 4-8 more inches of snow and winds up to 50 MPH. Brrr....

Google Seattle Holiday Party 2008

2008-12-17T11:59:00.003-08:00

Photo credit: Steve Lacey

There weren't any casino tables this year, but the classic video games were back in force. Playing Tempest or the original Star Wars while dance music is pulsing is a wild ride...

Google Android robot, full size

2008-12-11T22:06:00.001-08:00

Just got back from a visit to the Mountain View campus.
Our green mascot keeps watch over one of the Charleston Rd buildings.

Tuesday Mailbag

2008-12-09T23:24:00.004-08:00

Thanks to everyone who wrote in. Some of the top questions about Gmail voice and video chat from the past few weeks:

Q: I can't hear the other person, but they can hear me. How do I fix this?

A: Your sound output device may be muted. On Windows, go to Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices, and click the "Advanced..." button. Make sure the mute checkboxes for both "Master Volume" and "Wave" are not checked.

Q: When I go to Gmail Settings -> Chat, I just see a "Detecting devices" message. How do I fix this?

A: This issue should be fixed in the recently released 1.0.3 version.

Q: On my Mac, I don't see my video or my friend's video. How do I fix this?

A: Some Mac incompatibilities were fixed in version 1.0.3. One issue remains where PostgreSQL, if installed, can use up all the system's shared memory. You can workaround for now by stopping PostgreSQL or changing its shared memory usage. We expect to have a fix for this in an upcoming release.

Q: Do you support the macam camera driver?

A: macam is not supported in version 1.0.3. However, we expect to release a fix for this shortly.

Q: Is a Linux version available?

A: Gmail voice and video chat is not currently available for Linux. If you would be interested in testing a Linux version, you can sign up at https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pYZOS6WEwfd2dhlZI2m_bRQ.

If you have a question that's not answered here, please check the Gmail voice and video chat FAQ, and if that doesn't answer your question, feel free to email me directly.

Gmail voice and video v1.0.3

2008-12-08T00:01:00.004-08:00

On Thursday, we released a 1.0.3 update to the Gmail voice and video chat software to version 1.0.3. If you go to Gmail settings, and select the "Chat" tab, you should see the text "Google Talk plugin v1.0.3.0" indicating that your software has been updated. If, for some reason, you see a previous version (or the dreaded "Detecting devices") text, you can run the updater manually by downloading from http://mail.google.com/videochat.

Here's what's new in version 1.0.3:

Windows related fixes

Fixed issue where the browser would be unable to communicate with the plugin, resulting in "Detecting devices..." forever.
Resolved incompatibility with Creative camera drivers and software that could result in browser crashes.
Implemented first fix for issue where users saw green bars and plugin crashes on machines without support for SSE2, such as Athlon XP, Pentium III, and previous. For these machines, only avatar images will be displayed during a video call, as if no camera is present. We are continuing to work on this issue.
Fixed issue where users could select the known incompatible "Asus virtual Camera" driver.

Mac related fixes

Fixed issue where the "Default device" option may not actually select the default microphone.
Fixed issue where installer could incorrectly report a successful install when it actually failed.
Fixed issue where users with high UID values could only see black video (AKA the "black box" issue).
Fixed issue where the installer misidentified some Intel machines as PPC.
Made made several internal improvements to the installer.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in or posted to the Gmail chat forum. Your feedback is extremely helpful in allowing us to identify and diagnose these issues. I'll do a new mailbag with some of the other reports and suggestions later this week.

Day 2 Mailbag

2008-11-12T22:41:00.003-08:00

Wow! Thanks to everyone who has tried out Gmail voice and video chat in the first 24 hours. Wanted to answer some questions I've received:

Q: Will you release an open source version of the plugin?
A: Our plugin is built on the libjingle open-source library. At a minimum, we plan to release an updated version of libjingle.

Q: What video codecs do you support?
A: Today we support H.264/SVC, an extension of H.264/AVC that excels in realtime scenarios. As SVC is a superset, the Gmail client can currently decode an AVC bitstream, and clients receiving a SVC bitstream can do some minimal NAL sorting to decode just the AVC component of the bitstream. We plan to add support for sending an AVC bitstream if the remote client requests it. In the future we may also support H.263.

Q: Is there a RFC for H.264/SVC packetization?
A: The packetization has not yet advanced to RFC status. We are currently using one of the more recent drafts (need to check on exactly which one). We plan to move to the final version when it is available.

Q: How can a 3rd-party client interop with Gmail voice and video chat?
A: Right now, any client that supports the Google Talk "session" extension to XMPP and a compatible set of codecs can participate in calls with Gmail voice and video chat. Now that the official Jingle specifications are becoming final, we plan to move to using XEP-0166, XEP-0167, and XEP-0180.

Q: Will a desktop version be available?
A: Please see this post on the Google Talk Blog.

Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat

2008-11-11T11:11:00.001-08:00

It's here! Today we're launching voice and video chat, right inside Gmail. We've tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video. And we've built this product using Internet standards, such as XMPP, RTP, and the newly-standardized H.264/SVC video codec.

This product was a lot of fun to create, and it's just as much fun to use. Check it out in the product video below, and then head on over to http://mail.google.com/videochat to try it for yourself.

This is just our first version, and we have a lot more planned. We're always glad to hear feedback from users - tell us what you think by leaving a comment on this blog or sending me an email (juberti). If you really like it, feel free to say so over a video chat!

Using Google Talk chatback from Blogger

2008-06-12T23:39:00.003-07:00

If you're interested in allowing readers of your Blogger blog to chat with you, it's pretty easy to do so with Google Talk chatback.

To add chatback to your blog, first go and create a chatback badge at http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New. Configure it to your liking with the "Edit" link, and the copy the HTML from the box at the bottom to your clipboard (Ctrl+C, or Apple+C)

Then, log in to Blogger and choose the "Layout" tab for your blog. Decide where you'd like the chatback widget to go, and choose the appropriate "Add a Page Element" link.

When presented with the list of possible elements, choose "HTML/Javascript". A window with a "Title" and a "Content" box will pop up. In the "Title" area, you can type whatever you want for a heading, such as "Contact Me". In the "Content" area, paste the HTML you copied before (Ctrl+V, or Apple+V). Click "Save" and the window will close.

You'll then see the new page element show up on your blog layout. Choose "Save" again on that page, and you should get a message indicating that "Your changes have been saved". Your chatback badge will then be live, and will show up the next time you view your blog.

Tip: You can customize your chatback badge to match the look of your blog by specifying the font and color used in the badge. Learn how to do so in this post on the Google Talk blog.

Google Talk goes Green

2008-04-01T00:30:00.002-07:00

From our Official Google Talk Blog:

Here at Google, we're committed to helping build a clean energy future and reducing our carbon footprint. And now Google Talk is part of the solution. We don't know about you, but we were surprised to learn the inconvenient truth that every character (byte) we send in a message results in about 0.0000000000000000034 metric tons* of CO2 being released into the atmosphere! So if we can reduce the number of characters we send when we chat with all our friends, we can help the environment at the same time.

Teenagers (and some adults) must be aware of this, because they already reduce their character usage by abbreviating words and dropping vowels when they send IM and SMS (text) messages. We think this is a great idea. If all our millions of users started using IM-speak, we'd save hundreds of millions of wasted (and environmentally damaging!) characters.

For example, if we want to say:
As far as I'm concerned, you can give me the twenty dollars you owe me when I see you later.

You could save more than 50% in wasted characters by saying:
AFAIC, U can gve me the 20 $$ YOM whn I CUL8R.

In honor of Earth Day (3 weeks from today: April 22, 2008), on that day our Google Talk servers will start automatically sending your conversations using IM-speak instead of normal words. But you can help save some computing power (and more wasted energy!) by shortening your conversations yourself.

Of course, if you want to make an even bigger difference, you may want to look into becoming a Virgle Pioneer.

Add Google Talk chatting to your blog!

2008-02-26T21:57:00.005-08:00

This week we launched the Google Talk Chatback feature, which allows you to add presence and instant messaging functionality to your blog or website. You can create a Chatback "badge" here, which will give you HTML code to paste into your page.

Your badge will communicate your presence state to readers of your page, and optionally display your Google Talk status message. Guests visiting your page can click on the badge to immediately start a chat with you, with no Google account or download needed. In addition, your email address and Google account stay hidden, meaning that you won't have to worry about spammers getting your contact information (an unfortunate side effect of using a mailto: link).

It's a neat feature and it's super easy to set up and use. As an example, you can use the badge above or in the "Contact Me" section to chat with me right now. Give it a try today!

AIM XMPP gateway is now live!

2008-01-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

It wasn't as soon as I had hoped, but the AIM XMPP gateway I wrote about just over a year ago is now up and running at xmpp.oscar.aol.com. Anyone with an AIM or ICQ account can now access the AIM/ICQ network using their favorite XMPP client. For instructions on how to configure your client, click here. Some more information can also be found on Digg.

Right now you can only connect to the AIM/ICQ network using this gateway, there is no XMPP Federation. This means that you cannot talk to users on any other IM network at this time, including Google Talk. Hopefully AOL will add support for XMPP Federation in the near future.

Still, this is a welcome development. While at AOL, I worked on the initial design for this project, and it's good to see it live. Note that the gateway is still not officially launched, so it may be unavailable from time to time.

Set your Google Talk picture from your webcam

2007-12-13T23:37:00.000-08:00

Check out the official Google Talk Blog - this week we launched a feature that allows you to set your Google Talk picture from your webcam.

I wrote this as a small side project to teach myself Flash/Actionscript, which was quite, um, interesting, given my C++ background (I miss static type checking). It was a lot of fun though, and I owe many thanks to our UX designers who helped supply the necessary "Googley" factor.

You can try it out here in the Google Talk gadget - simply click on your Google Talk picture in the upper right hand corner, and choose the "Take Photo..." option (you'll need a webcam to see this option). You can also see how it works (in Japanese) in this unofficial video.

There are a few undocumented keyboard shortcuts for this feature:

SPACE will take a picture
ESC will discard the taken picture
ENTER will save it as your Google Talk picture

Have fun, and feel free to post feedback.

Google Talk + AIM = Now!

2007-12-04T12:00:00.000-08:00

It's been almost two whole years (and a new job and hometown) since I first blogged about Google Talk and AIM getting together, but today, it's ready to go! Starting this morning, we're rolling out AIM support to all Gmail accounts. You'll be able to link your AIM name to your Gmail account, and contact any of your AIM buddies directly from the Talk client inside Gmail.

As a longtime resident of the AIM universe, I never thought that I would give up my favorite AIM Lite for a web client. But the AIM integration in Gmail is that good. It's fast, easy to set up and use, and works on any computer. Best of all, it saves your IM sessions in Gmail, which makes it easy to remember a conversation from months ago. Bottom line: if you use Gmail and use AIM, you'll probably really enjoy the combined experience.

Some answers on what are likely to be FAQs:

By default, your AIM buddies are displayed in the "most popular" order typically used in Gmail and Google Talk. To view them in alphabetical order (and enable the scrollbar), click on "Options" at the bottom of the contact list on the left side and choose "Top 250".
You can also adjust the size of your contact list by clicking on "Options" and selecting between "Tiny", "Small", "Medium", and "Large".
AIM users that are away or idle show up as yellow dots. The away message, if present, is displayed in the contact list.
Your Gmail status message carries over to AIM, and vice versa.
You can see AIM users' buddy icons, but setting your Gmail user avatar does not currently affect your own AIM icon.
If you log into Gmail using HTTPS (as I mentioned here), your AIM session will be secured as well.
This integration is not XMPP Federation. This was a contractual limitation. On the plus side, this means Gmail users don't need to manually add all their AIM friends to their Gmail contact list.
The AIM implementation was developed on top of the Open AIM libraries. (It's a little weird knowing that the code my team wrote at AOL is now running in Google datacenters.)

Like it? Hate it? Favorite feature missing? Wish something was a little bit different? Send me a note, or drop a comment in the Gmail suggestion box.

Mount Si in the Snow

2007-12-03T22:53:00.000-08:00

From Mount Si in t...

They say there is no such thing as a Seattle hiker who hasn't been to the top of Mount Si. With that in mind, I hiked the 4,167 foot mountain a few weeks ago with my brother, hoping a great view of the Snoqualmie valley would be waiting for us at the summit.

Well, not exactly. Above 3500 feet, the temperature dropped below freezing, the Seattle rain turned into snow, and there was little protection from the wind. We scrambled over snowy, slippery rocks to arrive at the first summit, where we found that the view was indeed terrific... for about 100 feet.

Regardless, the snow added a fun twist on what was already a great hike. If you ever have the chance to hit Mount Si when the conditions are right for snow, I highly recommend trying it.

1 Year at Google!

2007-10-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

Tuesday marks a year for me at Google. Woohoo! I think that means I'm no longer a Noogler. I still can't disclose what I'm working on (although it is extra-awesome).

But my AOL non-recruit agreement has expired. Now accepting resumes!

Google expanding in Kirkland

2007-08-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

As mentioned today in the Seattle Times, Google has signed a lease to occupy a new three-building office campus in Kirkland just down the street from our current offices. At 180,000 square feet, this will provide a lot of much-needed space as we grow our staff from the current 400+ employees to the goal of "several thousand". No word yet on whether the Kirkland campus will feature a Tyrannosaurus skeleton.

Update: Another story, with pictures, in the Seattle P-I.

View Larger Map

Lessons Learned: Google Tech Talk on Building Scalable Systems

2007-08-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

Reza Behforooz, tech lead for the Google Talk service, recently gave a presentation at a Google-sponsored scalability conference in Seattle. In his talk, Reza discussed many of the challenges involved with running a large-scale service, and how Google Talk has addressed these problems. While it doesn't give away all the secrets, the presentation does provide valuable insight into the Google Talk service architecture.

It's also interesting to note that many of the methods used to scale the Google Talk service to millions of online users were the same ones used at AOL to scale up the AIM service. There are a number of minor architectural differences between the two systems (XML vs binary protocol, gatewayed connection to presence server vs direct, for starters), but the essentials are very similar.

You can watch the full talk with Q&A below, or if you'd rather just read the highlights, check out Dare Obasanjo's notes from the conference.

Random IM of the Week

2007-08-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

In my work on AIM and Google Talk, I get a lot of random people sending me messages. Some of the IMs are funny, some are bizarre, and more than a few are social engineering attempts. But one conversation I had last week was sufficiently random to be worth sharing.

sender: sir
sender: please cancel your hamburger
sender: ive asked you twice sir
me: cancel
sender: sir
sender: dont play games with me
sender: have you cancelled your hamburger?
me: it was a cheeseburger
sender: sir that will not do
sender: cancel your hamburger now
me: can it be a double hamburger?
sender: yes sir the more the merrier
sender: sir cancel it
me: ok cancel my double hamburger then.
sender: ASAP
sender: sir i cannot cancel it for you
sender: it is YOUR hamburger
sender: you must do it
me: ok. cancelled.
sender: sir you and i both know much more effort is required a double hamburger
sender: please refrain from playing games
sender: sir
me: right. my mistake. cancelled cancelled.
sender: sir
sender: please refrain
sender: control yourself
sender: no need to yell
sender: calm down
sender: im willing to negotiate
sender: sir?
sender: sir if you do not respond your are terminated i hope you realize
sender: terminated sir
me: my hamburger will be terminated?
sender: no you sir will be terminated
sender: sir
sender: you are terminated due to lack of balls
sender has signed off.
me: but what about the hamburger?

Google Tips and Tweaks

2007-07-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

Saw a couple interesting blog posts recently with tips for Google web search and Gmail.

From Marc and Angel: 7 Clever Google Tricks Worth Knowing

My favorite tip is #1, using Google Image search to search for faces. Try it!

From Trendplex: Top 10 Gmail Tweaks

Here I like the Gmail conversation preview plugin - right click on a conversation to quickly view the conversation in a popup, as shown here.

iPhone in a Blender

2007-07-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what would happen if you put an iPhone in a blender? Me neither. But it's pretty amazing to watch anyway. Check this and other interesting blendings out over at willitblend.com.

Google NYC

2007-07-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

Just got back from 3 weeks on the East Coast. After 8 months in Seattle, I had completely forgotten what hot & humid feels like! (For those unfamiliar with East Coast summers: like walking through a warm marshmallow.)

I spent a week of that time at the Google office in New York City. It's an incredible facility - the building takes up an entire Manhattan city block, and the view from the cafeteria on the 8th floor is truly remarkable.

The culture is definitely different than either the Kirkland or Mountain View offices - still Googley, but with much more of an urban feel. If this sounds interesting to you, you can find out more about Google NYC here.

Seattle Times: The lure of great Google perks

2007-06-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

Brier Dudley, columnist from the Seattle Times, visited our Kirkland office earlier this week to check out the Google culture and see where we're heading. His story about his visit contains some great quotes from Kirkland engineers on what it's like to work here:

"My theory is none of this is real and we all went to programmer heaven," [Google engineer Steve] Yegge said.

"I think that every 10 years there's a place to work," he explained. "It was Microsoft in the 1990s, arguably Apple in the '80s. ... Google is that Mecca right now."

Being such a great place to work has definitely helped with recruiting. We've grown substantially since I started 8 months ago, and it looks like this trend is expected to continue.

Managers said they haven't seen a drop in applications and they have authority to hire as many smart people as they can find [...] Google's local engineering group is up to 400; within five years it should have "a couple of thousand employees" in the area.

Brier also enjoyed his Google lunch so much that he wrote a separate column with a review of the food.

Instant messaging: feature or product?

2007-05-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

From VentureBeat: Instant messaging: feature or product?:

An interesting article about how instant messaging is increasingly being integrated into web applications. Just like web email largely replaced desktop email clients, a similar shift is starting to happen with instant messaging. Here's what the article has to say about Google Talk:

Gmail has already successfully integrated the company’s IM platform, GTalk, so that its users can chat while emailing. We’ve also heard rumors that GTalk will be integrated with applications such as Google Docs. AOL and Google also agreed to make their IMs interoperable, albeit in a roundabout way — and it looks like this will happen soon. Like [Microsoft software architect Ray] Ozzie, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been stressing the importance of mobile — like Microsoft, Google is integrating apps across platforms. What’s more, 3rd party sites such as Joost are integrating GTalk into their offerings.

NES Nostalgia

2007-05-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

A co-worker mentioned this little gem to me this week: 100 of the top NES games, playable in your browser with no download. It's implemented as a Java applet, and the games play pretty well, with only an occasional framerate stutter.

In addition to Super Mario, there's Zelda, 1942, Double Dragon, Tecmo Super Bowl, and 95 other ways to trigger a late 80's flashback.

If you find yourself addicted, many of these games are available from the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console.

Windows Live Messenger Customer Study

2007-05-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

From Inside Windows Live Messenger: "RESULTS: What is your favorite messenger feature?"

What is your one favorite Messenger Feature?
* IM
* Video Call
* Sharing Folders
* Voice clips
* Emoticons
* Games and Activities
* OIM - Offline IM
* Nudge
* Display Picture and Personal Status Message that follow you
* Ability to log into Messenger with any email address

At first, I was surprised by some of these features near the top of the list. Turns out though that they aren't in any particular order.

Where did April go?

2007-05-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

When you're heads down and cranking, time sort of seems to disappear. All of us have been pretty busy lately working on some great new features and integrations, but we always enjoy the speculation on exactly what it is we might be working on. Google's recent purchase of videoconferencing technology from the startup Marratech definitely started the rumor mill cranking. Some opposing views on what's in store:

InformationWeek: "Could An Enhanced Google Talk Spell The End For Skype?"

IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband: "Google Talk is headed to Google's corporate backwater..."

Commodore Nostalgia

2007-03-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

Just got done reading "On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore", by Brian Bagnall. As someone who grew up right outside Commodore headquarters and learned to write code for both the C64 and Amiga computers, it brought back a lot of memories. If you ever read a copy of COMPUTE!, played a game by Epyx, or experienced a Guru Meditation Error, you'll get a kick out of this book.

The book paints a detailed picture of the various eras of Commodore technology, but it also provides compelling portraits of the engineers and executives responsible for Commodore's successes and missteps. You can really feel for the engineers who invested so much of their lives into the company with seemingly so little in return.

Some interesting factoids are revealed as well. The stories behind why C64 games took so long to load, how the Amiga chips got their names, and why so many Commodore computers were DOA are all covered in the book.

One particular thing that jogged my memory was the descriptions of the various marketing campaigns. I can still recall the strains of J.S. Bach's Invention #13, which was featured in one of the early Commodore commercials. So after finishing the book, I checked to see if any of these commercials could be found on YouTube. YouTube did not disappoint - enjoy the VIC-20, C64, and Amiga commercials in all their 80's glory...

Embedding the Google Talk Gadget

2007-03-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

As an embeddable module, the Google Talk Gadget can be put in a number of interesting places. It works great in the Google Personalized Homepage, but here are a few other places where it can be handy:

Bookmarklet: Drag Google Talk to your Bookmarks Bar for 1-click access to a floating version of Google Talk.
Firefox Sidebar: go to http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client, bookmark it, and check the "Load this bookmark in the Sidebar" checkbox in the dialog that pops up:
Hit OK, click the bookmark, and it will open in Firefox's sidebar panel.
Netvibes: Check it out in your Netvibes Homepage.

Google Talk Gadget

2007-03-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

Today, we're releasing the Google Talk Gadget - a embeddable component that provides a rich IM experience anywhere on the web! It's Flash-based, so it's nice and snappy, requires no download, and works anywhere Flash 8 is supported, including Mac OS X and Linux. It's got the same look and feel as the downloadable Google Talk client, along with some cool new features, including integration with YouTube and Picasa - if you add a video as your status message, your friends can watch the video directly from Google Talk!

See it in action, or check it out in this YouTube video. If you're using the Google Personalized homepage, you can add the gadget to your page. Or, if you'd like to add it to your own page, learn how here.

More coverage on the Google Talk Blog and Official Google Blog.

Matt Cutts on "Not trapping users' data"

2007-03-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

Matt Cutts had a great post the other day about how Google is making good on Eric Schmidt's promise to not trap user data. Eric had spoken out at last year's Web 2.0 conference against web companies locking users in by preventing them from taking their personal data somewhere else.

Schmidt was asked if users could get all of their search history and export it to Yahoo. “We would like to do that, as long as it is authenticated….If users can switch it keeps us honest.”

Matt looks at various Google products and finds that most of them do allow you to export your data, including Search, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Blogger, Google AdWords, Google Groups, and a few others.

Matt also mentions Google Talk, noting that the service supports the open XMPP protocol and therefore can be accessed by any XMPP client. That's definitely a big positive; in addition, you can export your contacts as a CSV file from Gmail (go to "All Contacts", click on "Export"). However, there's no easy way right now to get at your saved chat history; Gmail's POP access doesn't include chats. Clearly, that's something we'll want to address in the future.

Update 3:25 PM: added explanation on how to export contacts.

Lessons Learned: Google Report on Hard Drives

2007-03-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

The other day, several Googlers released a white paper detailing the experiences they have had with hard drive failures in our datacenter machines. According to the report, there hasn't been a good study on hard disk lifespans in a really large population, so the decision was made to collect this data from the large number of machines that Google has in service. The study reached several conclusions, some of them surprising:

There was no consistent pattern of disk failure associated with high temperature or increased disk activity.
Some SMART error signals are well-correlated with impending drive failure, including scan errors, reallocation errors, and probational counts; drives that reported a scan error were 39 times more likely to fail within 60 days.
However, other SMART error signals have only weak correlations with failure, namely seek errors and CRC errors; over 72% of all drives reported at least one seek error.
A majority of the failed drives (56%) reported none of the aforementioned well-correlated errors, and a large fraction (36%) reported no SMART errors whatsoever.

As someone who has had a few drives go bad over the years, I found this very interesting. My key takeaway: certain SMART error signals (not all) serve as a valuable warning, but you can't count on SMART to tell you when your drive is about to fail.

Lots more data and details in the full paper.

Crunch Time...

2007-03-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

Haven't had a post for the past two weeks - like some other Googlers, I've been pretty busy lately. Reminds me of a joke I heard before joining Google: "Your 20% time? That's hours 80 to 100 in the workweek". Fortunately, it's not quite as bad as that. I've got a number of (hopefully interesting) posts queued up which I'll be putting up this week.

Tivo Series 3

2007-02-21T22:24:00.000-08:00

I'm not usually a super-early adopter of home electronics. After spending all day thinking about code, I don't want to come home and have to debug my TV setup. But when I heard about the Tivo Series 3, I was instantly interested.

I've had a Tivo Series 2 for years. Before I got it, people would tell me, "it will change the way you watch TV". I found this hard to believe at the time, but after using Tivo for a few weeks, it quickly became hard to remember the pre-Tivo days. Watching TV on my own schedule + Tivo suggestions + instant replay + 30 second skip = a truly better TV experience.

Until the local cable company started offering HD programming. I then found myself having to choose between HD content the old-fashioned way, or the now-inferior SD picture on Tivo. Additionally, I now had both the Tivo and the cable box sucking power 24/7. In an attempt to resolve this, I tried the cable company HD DVR, which seemed like a reasonable solution, but it just couldn't match Tivo. Awful UI + no 30 second skip + massive power consumption + lockups = a very unsatisfactory product.

So the notion of a Tivo, with all its goodness, that could display/record HD seemed like the perfect solution. And when I found out that I could transfer my lifetime membership from my Series 2, I was sold. Having now spent about two months with the Tivo Series 3, I can say it has lived up to my (high) expectations. The high points:

Same great Tivo UI
HD recording/playback
THX certified
Dual tuners (works for HD, too)
Internal format conversion (essential when your TV only does 1080i)
Lifetime membership transfer
Great remote (even better than the Series 2)
30 second skip still works!

Power consumption is quite reasonable too - even while recording HD, the Series 3 only draws 34 watts, compared to 28 watts for the Series 2. (Both of which are way better than the cable company DVR, which could be used to heat a small room). Of course, not everything is perfect. Some (minor) lowlights:

Tivo to Go is currently disabled
No HD display for Music/Photos
Music/Photos does not support DLNA media servers

Hopefully these can be rectified in a future firmware upgrade, but they're really just minor complaints. Overall, I've been very satisfied with the Series 3. It just works, and works great.

Gmail Theater: Why Use Gmail?

2007-02-15T14:15:00.001-08:00

Why you should use Gmail... in four acts.

And now that you're convinced you should use Gmail, you can sign up for an account at http://mail.google.com/mail/signup. As of yesterday, we've dropped the invitation requirement for new accounts, so anyone can use Gmail.

Google Talk URLs

2007-02-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but was holding off until all the pieces were in place. But now that CustomizeTalk has scooped me on this topic, I figure I ought to publish it ASAP...

Did you know that Google Talk has its own URL scheme? These "gtalk" URLs can be embedded in web pages or desktop shortcuts to make it easy to message or call someone from Talk. Right now, the two supported URLs are:

gtalk:chat?jid=foo@gmail.com (starts a chat)

and

gtalk:call?jid=foo@gmail.com (starts a call)

Simply replace "foo@gmail.com" with the XMPP ID of the person you want to chat with/call and you're all set.

If you use multiple accounts, you can also add the "from_jid" parameter to the URL to control which account the message is sent from. Here's an example of a URL using from_jid:

gtalk:chat?jid=foo@gmail.com&from_jid=bar@gmail.com

As mentioned above, "call" and "chat" are the only URL commands currently supported. If you specify any other string, invoking it will simply cause the Talk client to come to the foreground.

Update: previously I had mentioned that you could use these links to put a "contact me with Gtalk" button on a web page. I goofed; the currently released version of Google Talk won't bring up the invitation UI when these URLs are invoked, so you can't do this quite yet.

Usage Stats From the Major IM Networks

2007-02-01T10:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I saw a post from the Windows Live Messenger team where they said that they recently went over 30 million simultaneous users. Now, lots of statistics are offered up by the major IM networks when referring to their respective audiences, but the two that I like to focus on are simultaneous online users and IMs/day. Claims about "active users" or "total users" can be hard to compare, since it all depends on how you count. Simultaneous users and IMs are clear indications of how many users are stressing the system on a daily basis.

The WLM post got me interested on whether I could determine these numbers for all the major messaging services. A little Googling, and I was able to come up with numbers or reasonable estimates for most of the major services; I've included links to the sources I used. (Google does not release user numbers, so Gtalk is absent from this chart.) Here's the breakdown:

Service	Active Users	Max Simultaneous Users	Total IMs/day	Dominant Regions
Windows Live	204M (1/2007)	30M (1/2007)	5.7B (8/2006)	Europe, Latin America, East Asia
QQ	221M (9/2006)	20M (9/2006)	4B (estimate)	China, South Africa
AIM/AOL/ICQ/iChat	63M (3/2006)	10M (estimate)	2B (estimate)	US, Israel
Yahoo	60M (6/2006)	10M (estimate)	2B (estimate)	India, ?
Skype	50M (estimate)	9M (1/2007)	0.5B (estimate)	East Asia, Europe

I couldn't find exact data for some of these numbers, so extrapolated from what I did have. Readers, if you have recent public data for the estimated values (especially Yahoo), I'd be interested to see it.

Nevertheless, from these numbers, it looks like WLM is about as big as Yahoo+AOL+Skype combined. That's a formidable lead in a space that is fairly mature.

Secure Access to Gmail and Gtalk

2007-01-29T17:44:00.000-08:00

Did you know that Gmail and Google Talk both support TLS encryption (aka SSL), rendering the data you send to and from Google secure and inaccessible to would-be eavesdroppers? Google Talk uses TLS by default, and Gmail will use it if you point your browser at https://mail.google.com (note the "https" instead of "http").

The use of TLS/HTTPS creates a secure channel between your computer and Google's data centers. This is especially important when your computer is connected to a public network, such as a Wi-Fi hotspot; I have been to conferences where people were known to use packet capture software to spy on competitors who were careless enough to communicate over cleartext channels.

I'm glad to see that Google has made security a priority. Moore's Law has made support for TLS fairly cheap from a operational standpoint, so there's really no good reason to not feature it. Let's hope TLS becomes more common in the web world.

Update: I didn't have time to check extensively, but I noticed Google Calendar and Google Docs & Spreadsheets both support TLS access as well.

I've been tagged

2007-01-18T11:35:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by Greg, from his AIM Info blog. The rules of blog tag are simple - tell 5 things that people might not know about you, and then tag 5 other bloggers to continue the chain.

So, here are 5 things you might not know about me:

My first computer was a TI 99/4A, circa 1981. I saved my BASIC programs on a tape recorder.
At college I studied Mathematics and Physics. I learned C++ after a friend gave me the book "Learn C++ in 21 days".
I used the same keyboard, a Microsoft Natural Keyboard, for over 10 years, including my entire tenure at AOL. The Natural Keyboards are the only keyboards I have been able to use for an extended period of time without discomfort.
I am a Philadelphia sports fan, whose teams, combined, have gone 92 consecutive seasons (since 1983) without a championship. That is longer than the drought suffered by the Boston Red Sox.
I am a b-boying (breakdancing) fan. Doing the worm at a company party is always a crowd-pleaser.

And my 5 tagees? I've picked 5 other bloggers from the Kirkland office:

juberjabber

WebRTC now available in Chrome!

Hangouts Mailbag

Lifehacker: Google+ Hangouts Is the Best Free Group Video Chat We've Seen

Announcing Google+ Hangouts

Google voice and video v2.1.7

Google Talk now supports XMPP Jingle

Google Talk + AIM = XMPP Federation!

Google voice and video v2.0.7

Gingerbread gets Google voice and video chat!

Vtok Brings Google Video Chat to the iPhone

Click to call in Gmail

Google Talk on Motorola Xoom first look

Google Video Chat / Flash 10.1 issue on Mac OS X

Jim Breuer Demo Slam with Google Video Chat

Google voice and video v1.8

Google voice and video in Android Honeycomb

Google voice and video issue with Chrome 9 beta

Google voice and video v1.7

Hangin' with Vint Cerf

Google voice and video v1.5.1

Google voice and video v1.4.2 and v1.4.3

CNET TV: Google Voice vs. Skype Prizefight

Google voice and video RPM packages now available

Hold the phone! Free calls in Gmail!

Google Talk turns 5!

Google voice and video - now available for Linux!

Google voice and video enterprise firewall configuration

Awesome Google video chat photo

Google voice and video v1.3.1

Google video chat setup tutorial

Google voice and video v1.2.0

Google voice and video v1.1.2

Issues with Google voice and video v1.1.1

Google voice and video v1.1.1

Can You Video Chat On a Plane?

Google Seattle Tech Talk Event - Video Chat and Chrome Video

​A smoother voice and video experience

Google Completes Acquisition of On2 Technologies

Google voice and video v1.0.21

Gmail turns on HTTPS for all

Google voice and video v1.0.19

Google voice and video v1.0.16

Hulk Hogan visits Google!

Some hints at what's in store for Google video chat...

More Kirkland Grand Opening Coverage

Google Kirkland Tour

FedEx: Video Chat Commercial

Google voice and video v1.0.15, for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Voice and video chat in Orkut!

Using Zfone to secure Google video chats

XMPP support on App Engine

Google voice and video v1.0.13

Google video chat tips, installment #1

Pidgin Adds Support for Google Voice and Video Chat

Temporary solution for Gmail voice and video chat on Linux

Cool testimonial for Gmail video chat

Tweet your Gmail video chat experiences!

Gmail video chat on a plane!

Gmail voice and video v1.0.10

Gmail voice and video v1.0.8

Watch YouTube videos right inside Gmail chat

Gmail voice and video v1.0.5

Snow in Seattle, 2008

Google Seattle Holiday Party 2008

Google Android robot, full size

Tuesday Mailbag

Gmail voice and video v1.0.3

Day 2 Mailbag

Say hello to Gmail voice and video chat

Using Google Talk chatback from Blogger

Google Talk goes Green

Add Google Talk chatting to your blog!

AIM XMPP gateway is now live!

Set your Google Talk picture from your webcam

Google Talk + AIM = Now!

Mount Si in the Snow

1 Year at Google!

Google expanding in Kirkland

Lessons Learned: Google Tech Talk on Building Scalable Systems

A smoother voice and video experience