Slashdot Mirror
Audio/Video Conference with iChat and AIM
JHromadka writes "Apple and AOL released today new versions of their instant messaging software that allows audio and video conferencing between Mac iChat users and Windows AIM users. " Anyone else think we're nearing the end of the analog phone system?
Didn't anyone read the "technologies that refuse to go away" article? Analog phones have so many advantages over digital technology that I find it hard to believe they will go away anytime soon.
1. Ubiquity: not just in the US, but world wide. The analog phone network links many countries that will take a long time to bring enough bandwidth to make digital conversations useful. Even in the US, there are a *lot* of places where you can't get broadband. If you are doing video you *need* broadband. If you are doing voice, you *want* broadband for the lower latency.
2. Reliability: with the exception of *major* disasters (which would bring any network down) the analog phone system just works. I keep one corded phone in the house because it works when the power goes out. (Handy, say, to call the electrician on.) My PC will last 15 minutes on battery backup: not what I want to rely on if I come home to a dark house. My local cable provider has "digital phone" service which has outage issues at least once a month, and sometimes weekly. My cell phone is likewise prone to sudden disconnects, but I put up with it for the sake of being mobile.
3. Quality of Service: I have a few friends too cheap to pay for long distance who like to voice chat over Yahoo and other services. It works. Kinda. Except when it doesn't, and drops the connection, or crashes or makes my sound card cry. But even when it works, it sounds bad.
That isn't to say these are insurmountable problems. The analog phone network is mostly digital at it's core, so it isn't a matter of technology, per se. Instead, it is the attempt to shoehorn voice over IP, and particularly over the laggy, drop prone and quirky public Internet. Voice is almost there, if you have good broadband. Video is a joke still: it reminds me of Internet radio about 4 years ago, mostly a novelty. It is going to take a lot of work at the infrastructure layer to make digital VOIP and video a common occurrence that is relied upon, instead of as a novelty, or in applications where people put the infrastructure in place themselves (tele-medicine, big companies with video conferencing between T1 connected locations, etc).
Sig under construction since 1998.
Anyone else think we're nearing the end of the analog phone system?
If I remember Taco, you're still on dial-up, so we better not be nearing the end, for your sake.
i think cell phones already broke that barrier long long ago, most college kids now have a cell phone rather then getting a phone for their dorm or house/apartment. And i also know that alot of other people are doing this aswell for home and buisness.
- MOSKIE
Nope. Why?
Guy A : "OMG I just cut off my leg! Call 911!"
Guy B : "Can't man the latest Windows worm is destroying the 'net"
Guy A : "Oh ok I'll wait.
Get paid to code OSS
That and most people don't like the idea of having to look at whoever they're talking to, or have who they're talking to looking at them.
Who here even stays seated the entire time they're on the phone anyway? Cordless phones were a huge hit for a reason; it lets people do other things when they're on the phone, although that can be a bad thing (like when you're talking to someone and you realize they're using the bathroom) Yeah. Video phones won't be very useful outside of business transactions.
Anyone else think we're nearing the end of the analog phone system?
Not anytime soon, as long as (1) IP-based applications remain best-effort solutions, (2) IP stuff remain significantly more insecure than phone connections (that's quite a low standard to achieve, but still) and (3) any relevant part of the rest of the world doesn't want to switch to VoIP (i.e. everybody who doesn't enjoy the standard of living found in the 5-10 most developed countries in the world).
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If your running Linux and go to their site you'll see that they have a linux version and they keep it updated:) Wonder if it has these new features.
Regards,
Steve
I don't want to see half of the people I chat with... My poor world depends on coolgrl973 being the cute one in that picture!
Not quite yet. The analog phone system will persist until there is a replacement that is not only superior in cost and flexibility but also in ease of use. I can pick up my phone and dial a friend's number and be connected within seconds. If my computer is off or I am not logged into AIM, the process of connecting with them becomes slower and more complicated than dialing their digits.
"This is Zombo Com, and welcome to you who have come to Zombo Com" - www.zombo.com
Other then that it's quite useless unless you are going to make faces at each other or possibly have cyber-sex but then again we're talking about the /. crowd.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
I'm glad to see that I can finally video chat with my windows using friends too. Anyone have an estimate on how long it'll take the gaim folks to impliment this addition so EVERYONE can videoconfrence?
(Analog direct-connection) land lines are not very secure - IMHO it is less secure than splitting into packets sent different ways around the world - the analog line could be tapped anywhere on the journey, but the digital packets are only interceptable (meaningfully) at the terminal-to-exchange space.
Now quantum security is real security.
--
FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
i picked up a USB headset yesterday for my 11 year old sister, because a bunch of her friends have webcams and headsets. She immediately tried it out with her friends. From what I saw, the quality is still sketchy.
Until they get these messenger/aim/ichat systems up to par with VOIP or other standards, people will still use the telephone.
And, while slightly offtopic - why is it that we have so many different IM networks out there? Why cant we just have a simple single protocol allowing each of the different clients to interoperate. I'm stuck using trillian, lacking half the features of all the others, because i dont feel like running four (aim,icq,msn,yahoo) damn messenger clients.
.
we're nearing the end of the analog phone system?
You can't slam down one of those messsage clients. Its more satisfying to slam down the phone after you get mad at someone !
Free XBox, PS2
I don't want to see half of the people I chat with...
Oh come on, I bet you'd really like to see the lower half, you dirty thing you...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
So then the last major compatibility gap to bridge will be to get a version of ICQ that's compatible with those two (and vice versa)? Or better yet, Trillian?
As long as everyone is NAT'ed and firewalled, P2P based technology that requires dirrect comunication will be limited to the geeks (now at the moment though, anyone not running some form of NAT firewall on a DSL or cable line is a idiot) But the technoidiots don't know how to port forward so these technologies will not work At my university we all have our own IP's but All incomeing ports are blocked.........
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
So can an iSight be used with the AOL software on a Windows PC?
I'm not trolling, I'm asking a serious question.
I use the official AOL version of AIM in Linux (for reasons I won't get into.) They haven't released an update for the linux client in nearly 2 years. When can we expect to see a new client for linux?
Is your mother likely to be around in 100 years?
On windows aim, if both people have microphones plugged in, you can click the talk button, and you'll connect with voice. This has been around in aim longer than iChat has existed. I don't have a windows box/webcam to try this on, but perhaps you have to enable talk and video at the same time for it to work?
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Actually, one of the main reasons for keeping an analog line is in case of natural disasters. I was living at 42nd St & 11th Ave in Manhattan on September 11, 2001 -- all of my friends who were in the city that day ended up at my place, since there was no reasonable way to get back to their respective boroughs. And while they were there, everybody was able to use our landline to make phone calls and let their families know they were OK; meanwhile, all of our cellphones were useful only as paperweighs, as the networks were thoroughly saturated with traffic.
I see some comments here saying that video-as-phone won't be useful. I beg to differ.
I'm deaf; and along with that comes the inability to use voice phones. Video phones, either through dedicated lines or on the computer, are a Godsend to people like us. We've been waiting a long time for this.
Being able to sign to a loved one or a friend, instead of using kludgy relay systems like this or others. In fact, there's a company called Sorenson (yes of the codec fame) that has a set-top box for televisions that allows a Deaf person to connect to either (1) any other set-top box or (2) the relay service or (3) another webcam -- all for video chat purposes.
For those that are wondering, by "Relay" I refer to the act of me typing to a person (paid by the government) that voices my message to an person at the other end of a phone number, and types back to me what that person says. Nifty but very very slow and time-consuming.
Before you knock a new technology (ew, I don't want to see Daddy on the toilet) or say its only for business purposes, think about it.
Wasn't there a ruling that said AOL would need to allow other IM systems to connect once they got video going.
Or did they slime out of that?
Why can we just all go Jabber.
Analog will certainly not go away, but it's usefulness will be kept to certain areas such as where the relative security of a switched circuit (to the extent that those actually exist any more) is imortant. Also don't forget that most people in the world don't own computers or have connections capable of audio/video conferencing.
However, for small businesses, this is a great thing. I'd just like to see a system where linux users could a/v chat with windows/mac users without the other users having to be gurus. I've tried getting some people with home offices to work with me via a/v conferencing, but most of them find it excruciatingly difficult to install a plugin to their browser, much less set up an h323 application.
I'd like to hear from anyone successfully doing this with anyone other than another geek.
What people sometimes miss is that most of the public just wants a phone that works when it is supposed to. An example is ATT Wireless' GSM network. High speed data and seamless international roaming is nice but coverage is horrible in many areas thus all the bells and whistles are wasted on people in areas where the GSM deployment is botched. ATT is losing a lot of GSM customers to other networks like Verizon or Nextel because their networks provide better coverage. (Yes in the case of Verizon they have nice wireless data goodies too)
IMO, mobile telephones will replace regular household phones in much larger numbers than PCs replacing phones ever will. Further, specialty devices like D-Link's video "phone" that can be connected to the TV (larger display) may be more popular with non-geeks who just want a computer for word processing and browsing the intarweb.
iChat/AIM is great but my mother will never use it. Same can be said for VoIP.
I say bull.
There are 3 things that count with new technologies : (1) the technology, (2) packaging, (3) packaging. If you package VoIP in the form of a telephone set that plugs into the wall, doesn't take a genius to configure and provides the same sort of service (no choppiness, somewhat okay phone quality, and the ability to dial a number), your mom will use it.
The best example is the Tivo : it's 20+ years people have been able to record shows at predefined times with VHS recorders, even sometimes using barcodes printed in TV guides so you don't have to program your VCR yourself. Yet that sort of application is only taking off since Tivo and ReplayTV, because they realized they should take the basic idea and turn it into a box that connects onto some wall socket, asks your zip code to configure itself, dials, do everything for you, and then present you with menus and things that a 6 year old can understand. But in the end, Tivo boxes are VCRs on steroid. The success comes from the packaging.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
From the Apple iChat "iChat AV uses patented anamorphic resizing techniques so that the video of the person you're chatting with fills the entire screen without distortion"
If videoconferencing is so great, why is it that every time I see Netmeeting used for Application Sharing and/or video, business is still using a speakerphone for audio? Could it have something to do with the internet introducing drop out and up to 2 second delays in audio? For real-time communication, bringing up a dedicated virtual circuit really does have some advantages over using a packet-switched network, especially for audio. Now, if we actually had the infrastructure in place throughout the entire internet to reserve end-to-end bandwidth (e.g. RSVP) and ensure reliable, timely delivery, we could effectively have virtual circuits over the Internet -- with a corresponing increase in cost for the higher Quality Of Service.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Immediately after the Loma Prieta earthquake, you couldn't make a cell call anywhere near San Francisco. Why? Because the wireless companies equipment was programmed to give up after 30 seconds if it didn't get a dial tone, while the phones where so overloaded that it was taking over a minute to get a dial tone on a land line. In a simular fashion, VoIP simply has a lot more potential points of failure than POTS.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Every since this fancy schmancy video iChat came out I've had to wear a shirt when talking to my buddies who absolutely insist on video chat. Now that the AIM/Windows masses will come up to speed in the next few months I'll have to wear a shirt continuously. At least I can still have the freed of a Sportscenter broadcaster and not wear pants.
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
The quality's not sketchy, it's just misconfigured. Go ahead and send me the AIM screen names of these 11 y/o girls with webcams and I'll try to help them fix it...
do not read this line twice.
Wow, that's just flat-out untrue.
If both iChat users are using iChat AV (the software, not the iChat delivered with Jaguar) you can do one-way video chat if the other machine is missing a camera. I do this all the time (ok, just to test and go "hey this is cool" but it does work)
No idea if AOL will support that on PC, but it is a feature of the iChat AV network.
I don't think that the analog phone system will go away anytime soon since there really needs to be an economic reason for the system to go away. Once the system no longer is profitable for the phone companies (since maintenance and upgrades are expensive) they will stop supporting it, unless the government steps in and subsidizes it enough for them to keep providing the service.
If another technology comes about that supplants the analog phone base then the utility companies will probably switch to that technology. The POTS is still compelling because you can pretty much attach a cheap ($5 dollar phone) to a land line and pay for a cheap service. There are other advantages as others have pointed out that the other technologies have not overcome such as availability during a power outage, emergency services, and almost instant availability.
Until the level of service can match most POTS at this point and be profitable at about the same level, no other technology will probably supplant it.
-- Wolfpup
"A man whose circumstances went beyond his control." -- Styx
Why?
Dude, it was on Dr. Phil not too long ago. Millions of Oprah watching Dr. Phil fanatics will go "Oh, WOW!" and order themselves an iMac. I have a relative that called me and asked me about it after seeing Dr. Phil talk to that "Dr. Phil Family" using an iSight.
Product placement really is an amazing thing.
Ah, right, the iSight. (Yeah, I hate the bloody iName thing too.)
The iSight seems basically like the iPod: it's just about the most expensive offering in its niche, but it gets enough small things right that many people find it to be worthwhile.
I've purchased three of them, and I'm happier with them than any of the previous camera I'd owned, which go back through the original QuickCam.
Nothing can stop my TCP/IP over Carrier Pigeons!
'cept a hungry kitty cat.
The Plain Old Telephone System is not analog, save the "last mile" to your house. As soon as you hit the line card, you are a 8 kSample/sec 8 bit/sample digital data stream.
What you MEANT to say was, "How long until the end of the circuit-switched network is replaced by a packet-switched network."
And when you start throwing Quality-Of-Service guarantees, bandwidth guarantees, and everything else to make a packet-switched network have the level of performance and reliability that the circuit-switched network has, guess what - you've just created a circuit-switched network!
www.eFax.com are spammers
iChat AV has supported simulaneous audio/video chat and just audio chat for about a year now. iChat AV 2.1 beta is just the first version to work with Windows clients now that AOL has co-opted Apple's technology for AOL IM 5.5.
mbbac
Earth scientists have used squidcam to communicate between windows and mac for some time now, although it isn't based on an existing instant messaging service. Squidcam also allows for multiple connections at once, something iChatAV/AIM cannot. Read this review on web-cams.
Have you ever used iChat AV?
I tried it for the first time a couple of nights ago. FireWired my Sony Digital-8 video camera to my TiBook 667 running Panther. iChat recognized the camera with no configuration and immediately offered a video-chat button for a friend in my AIM buddy list -- he has a Power Mac G4 and an iSight.
Talked for an hour with a constant two-way frame rate of 15fps over a cable modem / sub-optimal AirPort signal. Plenty good for visual conversation.
The iChat interface is great, too.