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Google Duo Video Chat App Arrives On iOS and Android With End-to-end Encryption (betanews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Video chat should be simple, but it is not. The biggest issue is fragmentation. On iOS, for instance, Facetime is a wonderfully easy solution, but there is no Android client. While there are plenty of cross-platform third-party options to solve this, they aren't always elegant. Skype is a good example of an app that should bridge the gap, but ends up being buggy and clunky. Google is aiming to solve this dilemma with its 'Duo' video chat app. With it, the search giant is putting a heavy focus on ease of use. The offering is available for both Android and iOS -- the only two mobile platforms that matter (sorry, Windows 10 Mobile). Announced three months ago, it finally sees release today. There is no news about the Allo chat sister-app, sadly.
What about desktop applications? Is this planned?
Video chat should be simple, but it is not.
Seen from a historical perspective, video chat is frankly miraculous, and it's amazing that it works at all. But sure, okay. I can be jaded and take things for granted with the best of them.
The biggest issue is fragmentation... Facetime... third-party options... Skype.
Okay, so your thesis is that there are too many competing, non-standardized solutions. Cool, I'll buy that. How can we solve this dilemma? With some sort of open, universal standard that can be agreed upon, however grudgingly, by the major players?
Google is aiming to solve this dilemma with its 'Duo' video chat app.
Uh. Won't that just mean more fragmentation? And therefore, by your own logic, doesn't that just make the problem worse?
Does not work on tablets, iPad or desktop because it is phone number based. :-(
One thing we ought to have learned by now is that with free Aps from Google *YOU* (and everyone else in your contact list) are their "product". They are a targeted advertising company -- pure and simple; Alphabet may eventually make them something else, and give them a reason to stop doing evil, but that is not now. With that premise out of the way (and dismantle it if you can) why is google offering this -- and does "With End-to-end Encryption" really mean encrypted so even google can't eavesdrop and datamine? I recently declined to participate in a paid, on-line seminar because Google was hosting the video service; I would have liked to attend. I refuse to by ANYTHING (no matter how much I want it) which uses Google's payment services. I try to avoid dealing with people who have the bad taste to use gmail for important correspondence. Anyway, I'm not likely to go for this unless I have better assurances of complete privacy than merely a mouthing of words about "end to end encryption". Google has a 100% record of getting their foot in the door with promises of privacy and changing the terms of their "free" offerings later. And I am taking 20 computers off of Microsoft for the same solid objection. I'm not going to easily sell my privacy for trinkets. But I would like a good reason to feel differently. It would be nice to be able to video chat with people who don't have iphones. "If you would not willingly give your body to any passer-by to do with has he willed, why do you give your mind?" -Epictetus
Don't believe it and don't trust it. The "APP APPY APPS" guy has one point, they never have you in mind, period. Your phone isn't your property. Your carrier owns it, its manufacturer owns it, your government owns it, you just pay exorbitant rent. Anything you do on your phone can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion, at the very least.
Google has no interest in providing you a secure communication channel.
On a desktop computer that runs Linux or Windows7 at the latest, install Pidgin, install OTR plugin. Now you can communicate securely with others who have also installed Pidgin and OTR plugin. This is free, it uses rotating AES symmetric keys. No one stands to make any money or get any sweet government buddy points by selling you out, because there's nothing to sell out. It's all free, as in free, as in beer, as in speech, as in whatever.
Google can't be trusted.
Serious question. POTS systems are pretty much standardized world-wide, except for the numbering schemes between various regions around the globe. But right now, I can simply dial a number for virtually any country in the world, and it'll work.
Fragmentation within the video space exists BECAUSE of what Google is doing right now. This isn't their first chat system. It isn't their second. It really isn't even their third system. (Chat, Voice, Hangouts, Google+). If they can't even manage decent interoperability between their own services, how the hell are end users supposed to enjoy this?
Since the POTS networks have been upgraded over the years to include things like CallerID, SMS and HD Audio/VoLTE, why couldn't they just add another universal expansion for a video protocol that can be standardized across the board that any telco and handset manufacturer could get behind? I don't need to worry about having to download an app to be able to call or text someone, why should I have to do the same if the exact same call contains video on top of voice/text?
Except it is peer-to-peer, it uses Google servers to initially set up the call, but the actual call traffic is direct. Don't take your facts from a random AC without a bit of checking.
Oh no... it's the future.