5 ms·

Impressive: Video and voice calls in your browser without a plugin in sight

66 points by johntdyer 15y ago

anju 15y ago
nice...!!!
johntdyer 15y ago
:)
- fourmii 15y ago
  Very nice effort. Hopefully this will help start a shake up of the entrenched videoconferencing industry and all their expensive and cumbersome technology...
johntdyer 15y ago
More info on the Phono WebRTC plugin can be found here http://phono.com/webrtc http://phono.com/webrtc
thedangler 15y ago
For basic video calling you don't need phono, WebRTC can do that all on its own. The other stuff is impressive.
- saghul 15y ago
  Well, then you need to implement your own discovery and routing mechanism. It might just be a web page a la ChatRoulette, but something is needed. Phono uses XMPP for this (IIRC), which opens the window for really cool integration with existing endpoints.
mistercow 15y ago
Neat, but is it really that impressive? Instead of using an external plugin, the plugin is rolled into the browser. There was no reason to expect that would be difficult. The real difficulty will be getting different browsers to provide reasonably compatible implementations.
- akalsey 15y ago
  WebRTC is a w3c standard - it's part of HTML 5 - so getting browsers to support it isn't going to be as big of a problem as you suspect. Browsers today (even with HTML5) are mainly consumers of media. There's great ways to get audio and video to a browser, but no capabilities for getting access to a user's microphone and camera and no way of sending media from a browser to elsewhere. WebRTC fixes that. A phone call has two halves, there's the signaling (where does this call go to, is it still active, did the other party hang up, etc) and the audio (the "media" in telecom parlance). What Phono is doing in this demo is connecting the media and the signaling from an early WebRTC implementation to the public phone network. Using the audio capture from the browser and letting you make and receive real phone calls with it.
  - sologoub 15y ago
    Nicely put.
- sologoub 15y ago
  While I agree that the real difficulty is getting consistent adoption, such first steps are extremely important. If no one takes these steps, such technologies as WebRTC will never get proper adoption. Features with such technologies will not be revenue drives, but you get media exposure and also can give yourself a pat on the back for doing the right thing.
rwaldron 15y ago
Related: http://weblog.bocoup.com/javascript-webrtc-opera-mobile-12/ http://weblog.bocoup.com/javascript-webrtc-opera-mobile-12/
quattrofan 15y ago
And Microsoft paid all that money for Skype....
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  I believe Microsoft (and eBay for that matter) vastly overpaid for Skype, but at the same time Skype does way more more than this does. Comparing the two things at all is disingenuous.
  - quattrofan 15y ago
    Not really, I've used Skype since it launched and I love it. But like Word my guess is that most people probably only use 20% of its functionality, voice/video calling and chat. If this does that easily and for free, it will very quickly eat into Skypes market. I for one would switch.
    - georgemcbay 15y ago
      Google Voice w/Gmail integration and Google+ Hangouts have been doing all this stuff for free for a while now and I'm a huge fan of both but I don't think either has substantially changed Skype's market.
darklajid 15y ago
An article that talks about two companies that I like a lot so far. On the other hand - couldn't vox.io plug WebRTC in whenever it is supported and therefor make the flash requirement optional in the future? Interesting - I hope it'll land in a FF beta for me.
fourstar 15y ago
Only a matter of time. http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro

66 points by johntdyer 15y ago

anju 15y ago

nice...!!!

johntdyer 15y ago

fourmii 15y ago
Very nice effort. Hopefully this will help start a shake up of the entrenched videoconferencing industry and all their expensive and cumbersome technology...

johntdyer 15y ago

More info on the Phono WebRTC plugin can be found here http://phono.com/webrtc http://phono.com/webrtc

thedangler 15y ago

For basic video calling you don't need phono, WebRTC can do that all on its own. The other stuff is impressive.

saghul 15y ago
Well, then you need to implement your own discovery and routing mechanism. It might just be a web page a la ChatRoulette, but something is needed. Phono uses XMPP for this (IIRC), which opens the window for really cool integration with existing endpoints.

mistercow 15y ago

Neat, but is it really that impressive? Instead of using an external plugin, the plugin is rolled into the browser. There was no reason to expect that would be difficult. The real difficulty will be getting different browsers to provide reasonably compatible implementations.

akalsey 15y ago
WebRTC is a w3c standard - it's part of HTML 5 - so getting browsers to support it isn't going to be as big of a problem as you suspect. Browsers today (even with HTML5) are mainly consumers of media. There's great ways to get audio and video to a browser, but no capabilities for getting access to a user's microphone and camera and no way of sending media from a browser to elsewhere. WebRTC fixes that. A phone call has two halves, there's the signaling (where does this call go to, is it still active, did the other party hang up, etc) and the audio (the "media" in telecom parlance). What Phono is doing in this demo is connecting the media and the signaling from an early WebRTC implementation to the public phone network. Using the audio capture from the browser and letting you make and receive real phone calls with it.
- sologoub 15y ago
  Nicely put.
sologoub 15y ago
While I agree that the real difficulty is getting consistent adoption, such first steps are extremely important. If no one takes these steps, such technologies as WebRTC will never get proper adoption. Features with such technologies will not be revenue drives, but you get media exposure and also can give yourself a pat on the back for doing the right thing.

rwaldron 15y ago

Related: http://weblog.bocoup.com/javascript-webrtc-opera-mobile-12/ http://weblog.bocoup.com/javascript-webrtc-opera-mobile-12/

quattrofan 15y ago

And Microsoft paid all that money for Skype....

georgemcbay 15y ago
I believe Microsoft (and eBay for that matter) vastly overpaid for Skype, but at the same time Skype does way more more than this does. Comparing the two things at all is disingenuous.
- quattrofan 15y ago
  Not really, I've used Skype since it launched and I love it. But like Word my guess is that most people probably only use 20% of its functionality, voice/video calling and chat. If this does that easily and for free, it will very quickly eat into Skypes market. I for one would switch.
  - georgemcbay 15y ago
    Google Voice w/Gmail integration and Google+ Hangouts have been doing all this stuff for free for a while now and I'm a huge fan of both but I don't think either has substantially changed Skype's market.

darklajid 15y ago

An article that talks about two companies that I like a lot so far. On the other hand - couldn't vox.io plug WebRTC in whenever it is supported and therefor make the flash requirement optional in the future? Interesting - I hope it'll land in a FF beta for me.

fourstar 15y ago

Only a matter of time. http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro