Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the still-no-mac-audio-blah dept.
lotusleaf writes "According to an article at PCWorld, "Google Inc. has bought video conferencing software from Marratech AB", "The client software runs on Windows 2000 or XP, Mac OS X 10.4, or versions of Linux". Could this provide a cross-platform video conferencing boost to gTalk?"
Agreed. There is a serious lack of crossplatform video conferenceing software that actually works well on all platforms. One can only hope Google is up to the challenge. Though if any company can do it, it's probably them...
I just had a video conference with my mother over Skype. She use Windows and I am using a Mac. That is, your post is wrong in that it is only for windows.
However, the Mac implementation is rather buggy and one have to restart Skype occasionally when the video stops working, but it is working more or less. Despite this, it is actually the only realistic alternative to cross platform video conferencing at the moment.
I doubt google will support all platforms. At best, maybe windows, mac os and linux. People forget about PDAs, BSDs, Solaris, ecomstation, cell phones, game consoles, etc. There are a lot of platforms in this world.
Windows, Mac OS and Linux are not the only platforms. Its really funny to hear people complain about software support on their platform. Windows users complain if it does work on every version of windows, or at least the one they like. Mac users complain about windows only software but tout their platform as superior if they happen to get a Mac only product. Linux users try to say Windows and Linux or Windows, Mac, Linux without remembering they are an open source platform. I remember when we were all in this together. Now that linux has commercial support from IBM and other firms its now OK to ignore every other open source OS on the planet. From my perspective, the only thing Linux is missing is games. You already have the video drivers to play them.
If google were smart, they'd take the approach Netscape did years ago and port to everything possible. Remember Netscape shipped for linux, solaris, irix, hp-ux, windows, mac os, and a slew of other platforms. There was even an OS/2 version. I can't think of a single company that is not open source that ships on that many platforms today.
What were you just using to type your gTalk message with, if not the keyboard?
-- im in ur.sig, writin ur memes.
Google must be doing something right
by
porkThreeWays
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I was thinking the other day... in the past 2 years google has bought A LOT of companies, technologies, and created new ones. I thought there's no way they could be a profitable company right now. Well I checked google's Q1 profits and they are actually up 68% to 1 billion a quarter. I know there will be a lot of posts that google is becoming a one hit wonder. Perhaps... but I think if they've got their financials in such good order they've really separated themselves from the dot bomb's of the 2000's. Just a thought...
-- If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Re:Google must be doing something right
by
phantomcircuit
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Lots and lots of expensive ads.
Re:Google must be doing something right
by
RGRistroph
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Google has always hyped itself, and been hyped, as an incredibly productive and creative organization. All this talk of 20% of time on independent projects, etc.
However, a lot of Google's recent history consists of buying other businesses, not of developing cool stuff themselves. They bought youtube, blogger, jotspot, writely, measure map, and now Marratech and of course Doubleclick.
This is not reminiscent of a "skunkworks" full of geniuses producing cutting edge technology. Rather, it is more reminiscent of Microsoft from the early 90s onward. Microsoft likes to wait until it realizes that a certain niche of technological innovation (like the internet) is actually going to pan out, then buy some relatively cheap player in the area and re-brand it's technology and re-sell it quickly to get a foot in the door with some crap backed by marketing muscle, and then re-work that purchased technology through a few versions until it is passable.
It seems to me that this is what google is doing. It is only a matter of time before the executive suite and associated beancounters beggin to look at buying startups and hiring cheap "commoditity" programmers from overseas as the most reliable way to make money, and begin to look with suspicion on the high salaries and benefits of the Googleplex genius set.
Of course, when I first saw the iPod, I thought to myself "They're going to try to be the Gucci or Ferrari of friggin' mp3 players ? Apple is finally dead." So take my predictions with a grain of salt . . .
Re:Google must be doing something right
by
suv4x4
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Otherwise Google is a one trick pony which peculiarly spends most of its R&D budget outside of its core revenue market !
Wait a minute.. We're on to something. So Google has one single core business which makes it profits, and keeps spending R&D on other initiatives, and entering late in markets by buying other companies which are already there.
Where the heck is this familiar from.. Anyone help?
Re:gTalk support in gaim
by
peragrin
·
· Score: 2, Informative
gtalk works fine under adium, which is based on libpurple, or whatever it is being called now. No video is another story. i don't see why it is so hard for video to be done. As even google said when gtalk was first sent out that video would be added.
-- i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Re:gTalk support in gaim
by
nexxu
·
· Score: 2, Informative
gTalk works in gaim [pidgin] (jabber is the protocol) but unfortunately supports only text:)
A cursory reading of the product FAQ reveals it is SIP based and supports H.264. Hopefully means that Mac users will be able to use iChat as a gTalk client, since it uses the same protocols and codec. Better yet, this could mean real standardization.
-- It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
Agreed. This is something often overlooked when there is a discussion about Google, but its willingness to develop on open standards for multiple platforms should serve as a model for the tech industry.
While a number of scenarios have dinged their "Do no evil" approach, I'll take Google over any day.
Congrats Marratech
by
gnurfed
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
As I attended Luleå university of Technology as a CS student when the technology was developed, I got to use the software from its infancy. Before I graduated they started recording lectures with the system (with video and slides), so you could either follow it live from home (and of course ask questions to the lecturer) or review it later. Cool shit which is probably a lot cooler today.
The Marratech crew were all true nerds (meant as a compliment, of course) and they really deserved this success. Hmmm.. They're probably all slashdotters and reading this, so GRATTIS! (congrats)
Re:Congrats Marratech
by
ltjohhed
·
· Score: 3, Informative
It's good to see that the development of Marratech has gotten in touch with the real world in the last couple of years. This wasn't all the case when the product was released in the mid/late 90's. A product which assumed that everyone had 100Mbit switched multicast routing enabled networks, and of course a 100Mbit internet access.
Although being a geeky developer is often a good thing, the academic world somethimes clashes hard with the 'real world'.
However the product has evolved, and now we have gotten our first Google office in Luleå!
-- All generalizations are false
Google Should've Bought Camfrog
by
Khyber
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Then Google would have a very efficient and very powerful voice/video application. And tehe only thing missing is Linux support for the cilent - there's Win/OSX/Linux versions of the room server software, one just needs to add in a Linux client and that would be that.
-- Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I wasn't aware there were still IM clients that didn't have video anymore. Nice to see gTalk catching up to ~2003 I suppose. Odd that with an army of PhD's, Google seems to have to buy all their tech elsewhere and is still years behind.
Doesn't anyone else think this is a little strange?
It's now 18 months since the LibJingle announcement. And yet there's still no sign of anyone except Google using it. GTalk still looks like an Alpha. The whole IM market is still hopelessly fractured with very little chat interop between IM systems and virtually no interop for voice and video.
I really hoped that GTalk and LibJingle would lead to a link up between Google, Apple, AIM, Gaim, Jabber and all the 3rd party clients. There was even a press release where Google and Skype were talking about gateways and interop. Guess I was too optimistic.
What are they all doing?
Re:LibJingle
by
LibrePensador
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Google interops with Gizmoproject.com for chat and will have voice real soon.
-- Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
PSI has Jingle support, but not yet in an official release. See http://psi-im.org/wiki/Jingle_branch, and someone has made a fork of Psi called Jabbin http://www.jabbin.com/ that has libjingle in their releases. Since Gaim/Pidgin has finally gotten AOL off their backs, I would expect something from them Real Soon Now (and AdiumX will most likely follow in their footsteps due to libpurple), and I've heard Kopete will try to have jingle in by KDE4
-- "I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
RTFA : This is for internal Google use!
by
cyberianpan
·
· Score: 2, Informative
TFA reports
For now, Google plans to use the software internally, as a tool for its employees, the spokesman said, declining to speculate whether Google might later try to market the technology or integrate it into one of its commercial products.
Should Google decide to market or integrate the technology into its products, the move would be seen as another in a string of recent steps taking Google into the sphere of collaborative work tools. They're only then saying maybe for regular users!
Re:Multiplatform support
by
LibrePensador
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Kopete should have decent support for it once KDE 4.0 is officially released. These things take time. I actually appreciate the fact that Google is funding some of this work through SOC scholarships, rather than creating a brand new client.
In other words, they are working to integrate their work into existing projects, rather than create a close-source monolithic client for linux.
-- Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
Misleading Summary
by
mpapet
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The entire summary is filled with misconceptions.
1. SIP client protocol has been implemented for every desktop. Windows/Mac/Gnome-ekiga/kde-twinkle and kphone. 2. Multiple SIP servers are open, and Free AND integrate with Google's IM platform. (openser being generally excellent, there are a number of others) 3. Conference bridges are open and Free and work nicely through most clients. 4. Nortel-style phone systems are still absurdly priced.
The SIP protocol should revolutionize communication. The thing holding everyone back in the U.S. is the telco patent portfolio. The message waiting indicator has been litigated, the claims AT&T successfully made against Vonage are ridiculous.
I predict Google will be in court with AT&T over VOIP-related patents in very short order.
Re:Skype(MOD PARENT DOWN)
by
bcmm
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I appreciate Google using an open standard for their IM system, as I use Linux and have been able to use it despite the absence of a Linux client from Google, as it works with any IM client supporting Jabber.
However, who says that their video extension to the protocol will be an open standard?
-- # cat/dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Actually, you are spot on!
by
Wonderkid
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I was in Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Microsoft did buy up a number of players, one of whom had developed a fantastic MPEG4 based video codec. It could do all kinds of amazing things that even today's codecs cannot do - such as embedded data, like graphs, text and more. MS ended up with the lacklustre Windows Media player. Doing nothing with the technology they purchased. MS and others often make a purchase to block their competitors or prevent the companies they buy from becoming a threat. Of course, normally, it is simply as case of not re-inventing the wheel. How many people know where Apple's iTunes came from? Not Apple! They purchased a relatively ugly looking but technically proficient 3rd party MP3 playback application, prettied it up and et Voila! But on the whole, unlike MS and Google, Apple do tend to design and develop most of their software and products in house which is why it interoperates so well.
Slashdot Mirror
Hopefully this will let Skype start quietly dieing the way it should have when it started providing video support for Windows clients only...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I was thinking the other day... in the past 2 years google has bought A LOT of companies, technologies, and created new ones. I thought there's no way they could be a profitable company right now. Well I checked google's Q1 profits and they are actually up 68% to 1 billion a quarter. I know there will be a lot of posts that google is becoming a one hit wonder. Perhaps... but I think if they've got their financials in such good order they've really separated themselves from the dot bomb's of the 2000's. Just a thought...
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
gtalk works fine under adium, which is based on libpurple, or whatever it is being called now. No video is another story. i don't see why it is so hard for video to be done. As even google said when gtalk was first sent out that video would be added.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
gTalk works in gaim [pidgin] (jabber is the protocol) but unfortunately supports only text :)
A cursory reading of the product FAQ reveals it is SIP based and supports H.264. Hopefully means that Mac users will be able to use iChat as a gTalk client, since it uses the same protocols and codec. Better yet, this could mean real standardization.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
As I attended Luleå university of Technology as a CS student when the technology was developed, I got to use the software from its infancy. Before I graduated they started recording lectures with the system (with video and slides), so you could either follow it live from home (and of course ask questions to the lecturer) or review it later. Cool shit which is probably a lot cooler today. The Marratech crew were all true nerds (meant as a compliment, of course) and they really deserved this success. Hmmm.. They're probably all slashdotters and reading this, so GRATTIS! (congrats)
Then Google would have a very efficient and very powerful voice/video application. And tehe only thing missing is Linux support for the cilent - there's Win/OSX/Linux versions of the room server software, one just needs to add in a Linux client and that would be that.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Actually, if you have OS X 10.4 you can add a Jabber account to iChat.
a nswer=24076
I added my gTalk account to iChat, and I can video chat with other Mac users using the same setup.
Hey! Google even has a help page about this!
http://www.google.com/support/talk/bin/answer.py?
Ramen
I wasn't aware there were still IM clients that didn't have video anymore. Nice to see gTalk catching up to ~2003 I suppose. Odd that with an army of PhD's, Google seems to have to buy all their tech elsewhere and is still years behind.
Doesn't anyone else think this is a little strange?
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
It's now 18 months since the LibJingle announcement. And yet there's still no sign of anyone except Google using it. GTalk still looks like an Alpha. The whole IM market is still hopelessly fractured with very little chat interop between IM systems and virtually no interop for voice and video. I really hoped that GTalk and LibJingle would lead to a link up between Google, Apple, AIM, Gaim, Jabber and all the 3rd party clients. There was even a press release where Google and Skype were talking about gateways and interop. Guess I was too optimistic. What are they all doing?
Kopete should have decent support for it once KDE 4.0 is officially released. These things take time. I actually appreciate the fact that Google is funding some of this work through SOC scholarships, rather than creating a brand new client.
In other words, they are working to integrate their work into existing projects, rather than create a close-source monolithic client for linux.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
The entire summary is filled with misconceptions.
1. SIP client protocol has been implemented for every desktop. Windows/Mac/Gnome-ekiga/kde-twinkle and kphone.
2. Multiple SIP servers are open, and Free AND integrate with Google's IM platform. (openser being generally excellent, there are a number of others)
3. Conference bridges are open and Free and work nicely through most clients.
4. Nortel-style phone systems are still absurdly priced.
The SIP protocol should revolutionize communication. The thing holding everyone back in the U.S. is the telco patent portfolio. The message waiting indicator has been litigated, the claims AT&T successfully made against Vonage are ridiculous.
I predict Google will be in court with AT&T over VOIP-related patents in very short order.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I appreciate Google using an open standard for their IM system, as I use Linux and have been able to use it despite the absence of a Linux client from Google, as it works with any IM client supporting Jabber.
However, who says that their video extension to the protocol will be an open standard?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I was in Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Microsoft did buy up a number of players, one of whom had developed a fantastic MPEG4 based video codec. It could do all kinds of amazing things that even today's codecs cannot do - such as embedded data, like graphs, text and more. MS ended up with the lacklustre Windows Media player. Doing nothing with the technology they purchased. MS and others often make a purchase to block their competitors or prevent the companies they buy from becoming a threat. Of course, normally, it is simply as case of not re-inventing the wheel. How many people know where Apple's iTunes came from? Not Apple! They purchased a relatively ugly looking but technically proficient 3rd party MP3 playback application, prettied it up and et Voila! But on the whole, unlike MS and Google, Apple do tend to design and develop most of their software and products in house which is why it interoperates so well.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.