4 ms·

The amazing technology behind Google+ Hangouts

70 points by qpleple 15y ago

pthatcherg 15y ago
Article didn't mention it, but Justin's blog post did: "Standards-based: XMPP, Jingle, RTP"... We're working on publishing the spec, which should be available soon. In fact, it's already implemented in libjingle: http://code.google.com/p/libjingle http://code.google.com/p/libjingle
- ryukafalz 15y ago
  Could you link us? If they're opening up the technology behind it, it really will be amazing. I have to wonder if it's based on Muji or if it was built from scratch. EDIT: Never mind, found it in the article. http://juberti.blogspot.com/2011/06/announcing-google-hangouts.html http://juberti.blogspot.com/2011/06/announcing-google-hangou... EDIT 2: Oh, you're a Googler. Good to see that you'll be opening it up. :D
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Very excited to see this used here and know that it will be replaced by even more plugin-less awesome- WebRTC. I wonder if that's just a Google-internal thing or if Google+ will embrace other social networks wanting to integrate.
jimboyoungblood 15y ago
Sounds interesting and all, but how is this "amazing"?
protagonist_h 15y ago
Flash has had peer-to-peer video support for 3 years now and it's available to 90%+ users on the web. Chatroulette was built in 2 days around this technology. Whenever "standards" catch up to Flash, it's being touted as "amazing".
- dmix 15y ago
  The article clearly states that whats interesting is the client-server infrastructure behind it and the fact that it isn't P2P.
akavlie 15y ago
"WebRTC is supported by Mozilla and Opera" -- hmm, someone is absent from that list
- akavlie 15y ago
  Actually, to be fair, Microsoft isn't the only one missing.
  - traskjd 15y ago
    Chome is moments away from getting this it seems: http://peter.sh/2011/06/flexbox-web-sockets-inclusion-of-webrtc-and-smooth-scrolling/ http://peter.sh/2011/06/flexbox-web-sockets-inclusion-of-web... Great blog btw, I check it each week to see what's cooking under the hood of Chrome :-)
hugh3 15y ago
HN Feature Request: a filter that strips the word "amazing" out of all headlines.
nl 15y ago
P2P can introduce latency Can someone explain this to me? I guess if your video has to go via multiple hops, that would be laggy, but if you connect directly to each peer in the conversation surely that would be less laggy than a client-server architecture?
- noibl 15y ago
  It's because of limited upload bandwidth when sending multiple copies of a stream.
jahmed 15y ago
Awesome? Umm it doesn't work on my Google supplied Cr-48.
- nickythegreek 15y ago
  Worked on my Samsung Series 5, but when trying to do a youtube watch with a friend and the tab crashed.
- zer0her0 15y ago
  Hopefully will when the plugin is baked into an update.
- jahmed 15y ago
  Yeah I'm dumb and I had the "Click to play" flag turned on so it was blocking it.
suprgeek 15y ago
I think "the hint" of the amazing technology behind Google+ Hangouts would be more appropriate. Could one of the people involved please publish a more detailed blog posts as how all these pieces are linked together. The tweaker in me wants to start fiddling with it ASAP: 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)

70 points by qpleple 15y ago

Article didn't mention it, but Justin's blog post did: "Standards-based: XMPP, Jingle, RTP"... We're working on publishing the spec, which should be available soon. In fact, it's already implemented in libjingle: http://code.google.com/p/libjingle http://code.google.com/p/libjingle

ryukafalz 15y ago
Could you link us? If they're opening up the technology behind it, it really will be amazing. I have to wonder if it's based on Muji or if it was built from scratch. EDIT: Never mind, found it in the article. http://juberti.blogspot.com/2011/06/announcing-google-hangouts.html http://juberti.blogspot.com/2011/06/announcing-google-hangou... EDIT 2: Oh, you're a Googler. Good to see that you'll be opening it up. :D
drivebyacct2 15y ago
Very excited to see this used here and know that it will be replaced by even more plugin-less awesome- WebRTC. I wonder if that's just a Google-internal thing or if Google+ will embrace other social networks wanting to integrate.

jimboyoungblood 15y ago

Sounds interesting and all, but how is this "amazing"?

protagonist_h 15y ago

Flash has had peer-to-peer video support for 3 years now and it's available to 90%+ users on the web. Chatroulette was built in 2 days around this technology. Whenever "standards" catch up to Flash, it's being touted as "amazing".

dmix 15y ago
The article clearly states that whats interesting is the client-server infrastructure behind it and the fact that it isn't P2P.

akavlie 15y ago

"WebRTC is supported by Mozilla and Opera" -- hmm, someone is absent from that list

akavlie 15y ago
Actually, to be fair, Microsoft isn't the only one missing.
- traskjd 15y ago
  Chome is moments away from getting this it seems: http://peter.sh/2011/06/flexbox-web-sockets-inclusion-of-webrtc-and-smooth-scrolling/ http://peter.sh/2011/06/flexbox-web-sockets-inclusion-of-web... Great blog btw, I check it each week to see what's cooking under the hood of Chrome :-)

hugh3 15y ago

HN Feature Request: a filter that strips the word "amazing" out of all headlines.

nl 15y ago

P2P can introduce latency Can someone explain this to me? I guess if your video has to go via multiple hops, that would be laggy, but if you connect directly to each peer in the conversation surely that would be less laggy than a client-server architecture?

noibl 15y ago
It's because of limited upload bandwidth when sending multiple copies of a stream.

jahmed 15y ago

Awesome? Umm it doesn't work on my Google supplied Cr-48.

nickythegreek 15y ago
Worked on my Samsung Series 5, but when trying to do a youtube watch with a friend and the tab crashed.
zer0her0 15y ago
Hopefully will when the plugin is baked into an update.
jahmed 15y ago
Yeah I'm dumb and I had the "Click to play" flag turned on so it was blocking it.

suprgeek 15y ago

I think "the hint" of the amazing technology behind Google+ Hangouts would be more appropriate. Could one of the people involved please publish a more detailed blog posts as how all these pieces are linked together. The tweaker in me wants to start fiddling with it ASAP: 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)