So,I've got a cellphone with front and back cameras, a tablet with front and back cameras, and a laptop with a front camera, and a desktop device for which I could easily get a front camera for a far less than anything with it's own dedicated screen will cost, all of which have (or have available) both native and web-based video chat software (including versions specialized for group and one-on-one use.)
Whyever would I want or need a dedicated video chat device? Why would anyone?
Also, a laptop-sized (so, I guess, somewhere between 10” and 19”) isn't going to make people feel like they are in the same room.
I suppose if you wedded a 3D camera to a HoloLens-like AR system, with some clever software, that might make people feel like they are in the same room.
This reminds me of that infamous "Show HN: Dropbox" thread.
It is 2017 and I don't know of any video conference system or software that "just works" everywhere, all the time, under all bandwidth conditions. If Facebook thinks they can pull this off by tight control on hardware, they will sell like hotcakes.
Cisco charges an arm and a leg for its videoconferencing devices, which are basically fancy versions of this. I'm okay with Facebook trying out a cheaper version for the average consumer. If they fail, it's their money; if they succeed and the product is game-changing, the world more or less gets better.
(I realize this is where people bring up 1984 which I think is just cynically off-topic.)
When I was working in a different city and separated from my family and friends for months at a time, I always thought it would be cool to have this always-on video chat device that wouldn't really be used for direct chatting, but more like leaving the door open so if we're bored, we can just "bump" into each other.
It's strange, but you sometimes miss the "mundane" parts of life. Especially if you are on assignment for several months, there might not be much to say day after day, but just having some company is a nice feeling.
I can also see how it would be helpful for remote teams. If these devices were just on all the time and team members could peer into what others were doing or listen in on spontaneous jokes.
Of course I know there are ways to do this now with existing solutions, but it's more of a hassle to get it setup and also to automatically reconnect if there are network problems.
You don't need one. But I bet you that someone who doesn't know much better and has a general love of consuming things could be convinced that if they don't get one, they will be missing out on all the fun things their friends are doing.
I'm all for this. We recently purchased some Echo Shows, one for us and one for my grandparents and the Amazon experience to setup communication between the two was absolutely painful.
First both need an Amazon account which, okay that's not so bad. But now both Amazon accounts need to log into the Amazon Alexa mobile app which my grandparents can not do as they do not have a mobile phone with apps on it so, instead, I have to use their login on my phone. Then I had to register their cell phone with their account on my mobile phone because they can't do the text message verification via their landline that they've had for 30 years and to top it all off now their Echo has all of the contacts from my phone because it doesn't let you manually manage contacts per Amazon account, no they have to be copied directly from your phone.
So if they can make it so all they need is a Facebook account and now they can video chat with us or any of their friends and family? That would be perfect for my grandparents.
> So if they can make it so all they need is a Facebook account and now they can video chat with us or any of their friends and family? That would be perfect for my grandparents.
You can already do that, though. Facebook has built-in videochat on all platforms. I'm not clear how this device is substantially better than videochatting on your laptop.
I worked in Videoconferencing in the 90's and the advent of better CPU and processing power come the turn of the century with netmeeting, many in the industry thought the days of dedicated hardware and expensive MCU (Multipoint control units) was soon to be usurped. Nearly 20 years on and yet to see that killer video conferencing feature.
Of note was also privy to early testing of Three (UK 3G mobile network) tests for video and whilst managed to stream the Matrix in the early days as a test, that never took of either and that was more due to the costs of data connections, an issue very much moot these days (least in the UK).
One area that often lets down videoconferencing at the consumer level are the camera's and the environment the user uses them in and gets down to lighting. But again, no killer, easy to use consumer solution has come and taken the market by storm.
Sure many point to point video solutions on offer and used but no universal standard multipoint as easy as sending an email to multiple people is jumping out.
With that, I wish Facebook good luck and they do have the user base to drive this, but I'm not sure it is a feature as high in demand for consumer users as many wish or feel it is.
I can only put this down again to the environments such consumer systems (your mobile say) are used in and whilst the processing power is there to alleviate much of this, that has still to come to fruition as a user friendly reliable experience.
I have a SIP network among some friends of mine, and it is awesome. The quality and latency are superb, and the resource usage is acceptable. The problem is peering with all of the lazy third-party networks. It seems something always goes wrong when I try to SIP some random Cisco system outside of my infrastructure. The client applications and libraries could also use some TLC.
I have a feeling that WebRTC portals are going to be the main way SIP calls are made as time goes forward, so somebody has to do it, I'd be glad to devote my life to it if I could make a salary and do it as open source.
I think SIP could be great, if some focus were put on interoperability and service providers. We really need something you could rightly call the GMail of SIP to show the world that open standard n-to-n video conferencing can be done well.
We've had the prospect of video chat for decades. 2001 A Space Odyssey showed us that it would be the de facto way to talk to our families. Tom Selleck promised us in the early 1990s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8) that AT&T would bring it to us. And when we finally got it, most people said, "meh". Almost all chat platforms have some sort of video integration, and for the most part, its acceptance is lukewarm. Perhaps it's because it doesn't work amazingly well? Perhaps its because people really don't want to have to get dressed to have a conversation? Perhaps I'm just not in the right crowd?
FaceTime seems to be way more popular than most realize. Anecdotally, my children use it daily to talk with grandparents and cousins and I see people on public transportation using it in place of telephone calls (makes more sense there because they're not driving). And, I use it when traveling to talk to my family.
The issue going forward is the lack of standardization across protocols. Despite Apple's mention in the keynote when FaceTime was announced that it would be open, FaceTime is iOS/Mac only for now. And, I don't see Facebook's playing nice with Amazon's, etc.
A lot of people I know, so this is very anecdotal, don't even like to talk on the phone anymore, they prefer texting. I do most of my video chatting at work with some of our remote co-workers and that's mainly because we want to screen share. If it wasn't for the screen share (we use google hangouts) then we'd probably never video chat.
My theory about why people would rather just text than voice/video chat is that it consumes to much effort and commitment of time. People want to be able to quickly switch contexts and apps. If you're talking or video chatting then you have to be more focused and your phone is occupied during that process.
Also I think there's just an abundance of ways to communicate with anyone around the world now that video chat is not as special as it once seemed. I tried counting how many ways I could be contacts and my list was long.
I'm avoiding even voice calls, I just don't like it, e-mail is best communication platform for me, followed by chats. I would only accept video calls from my relatives. It's a very niche thing.
Video was also the feature that was going to justify the 3G spectrum auction prices. In the UK many billions were paid by the telcos and part of the marketing promise at the time was the then 'obvious' application of video calling. We would all be chatting by video on our flip phones, not sending txt messages. txt messages were an accidental phenomenon as I understand it, something squeezed into the chatter needed for the phone to stay in touch with base station.
Cameras in phones by Nokia et al. from 2005 are with this in mind, front facing, VGA video that is handled at the phone level as a video call:
There is no 'app' that puts the video in a http stream somehow, this was baked in functionality, now abandoned by telcos.
Yet there is the selfie phenomenon, again something that few imagined to be the thing it is. Cameras used to point outwards, now they point at the owner. I would not be surprised if cheap phones only come with selfie cameras soon, much like how laptops only come with 'selfie cameras'.
A large tablet for just doing Facebook and Facebook video does not sound portable enough for what it does, 'phablets' are better on the commute, why carry another device? Sounds to me as if Facebook are trying to hard on all the failed VR apps.
One thing was pricing (back when UMTS was all about selling video calls, the operators slapped on an higher charge), another was that until recently the handheld screens (never mind cameras) were very low resolution.
I must say the Video chat in Amazon Echo Show is very interesting from my experience using it over the past few weeks when talking to my family in other side of the world. The Mics are so good that they can hear them from pretty much anywhere in my 800 sqft home.
It would be very interesting to see how this device competes. The features i would love to have is a 360 Camera attached to a large screen. with Multiple Mics / Good Speakers. Ability to seamlessly which to multiple screens based on where I am.
Do you trust a Facebook camera on your kitchen counter/night stand/living room table? I feel like they haven't done much for themselves(in terms of branding) as a privacy-friendly company to the point where technophobes are going to be comfortable setting these up in their homes.
Oh sweat progress, now we can leave all the text based internet and chat-apps behind us, finally able to identify people again not by there words, but by there colour, there pattern of speach and the wealth of there surroundings.
If there ever was progress that should move humanity backwards this is how it looks.
This move (along with the smart speaker), might help put 'M' at an equal footing with Alexa, Cortana, Siri, Google Assistant and the likes in terms of media recognition. Somehow, M is not brought up as often when AI assistants are mentioned.
Instead of articles about what Facebook is working on, I'd be more interested in what they're not working on at this point. I can't think of an area they aren't trying to disrupt.
> I can't think of an area they aren't trying to disrupt.
Disrupt is a strange way of putting it when they are an incumbent copying and implementing exactly what others have been doing for a long time. To me disruption means a significant change from how things are currently done in a given market -- a change that also changes the paradigm for how things are done in the market.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
Whyever would I want or need a dedicated video chat device? Why would anyone?
Also, a laptop-sized (so, I guess, somewhere between 10” and 19”) isn't going to make people feel like they are in the same room.
I suppose if you wedded a 3D camera to a HoloLens-like AR system, with some clever software, that might make people feel like they are in the same room.
[+] [-] mertd|8 years ago|reply
It is 2017 and I don't know of any video conference system or software that "just works" everywhere, all the time, under all bandwidth conditions. If Facebook thinks they can pull this off by tight control on hardware, they will sell like hotcakes.
[+] [-] callmeed|8 years ago|reply
So Facebook can see what's in your house and on your body and deliver those relevant, targeted ads you so dearly crave.
[+] [-] morley|8 years ago|reply
(I realize this is where people bring up 1984 which I think is just cynically off-topic.)
[+] [-] wedaugtwo|8 years ago|reply
It's strange, but you sometimes miss the "mundane" parts of life. Especially if you are on assignment for several months, there might not be much to say day after day, but just having some company is a nice feeling.
I can also see how it would be helpful for remote teams. If these devices were just on all the time and team members could peer into what others were doing or listen in on spontaneous jokes.
Of course I know there are ways to do this now with existing solutions, but it's more of a hassle to get it setup and also to automatically reconnect if there are network problems.
[+] [-] jimmykramer|8 years ago|reply
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/ocean-plastic-pat...
[+] [-] Qworg|8 years ago|reply
(Disclosure: My project)
[+] [-] williamscales|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paul6987|8 years ago|reply
OH wait in that instance because Siri's AI is horrid.
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|8 years ago|reply
First both need an Amazon account which, okay that's not so bad. But now both Amazon accounts need to log into the Amazon Alexa mobile app which my grandparents can not do as they do not have a mobile phone with apps on it so, instead, I have to use their login on my phone. Then I had to register their cell phone with their account on my mobile phone because they can't do the text message verification via their landline that they've had for 30 years and to top it all off now their Echo has all of the contacts from my phone because it doesn't let you manually manage contacts per Amazon account, no they have to be copied directly from your phone.
So if they can make it so all they need is a Facebook account and now they can video chat with us or any of their friends and family? That would be perfect for my grandparents.
[+] [-] hellbanner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PhasmaFelis|8 years ago|reply
You can already do that, though. Facebook has built-in videochat on all platforms. I'm not clear how this device is substantially better than videochatting on your laptop.
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|8 years ago|reply
Of note was also privy to early testing of Three (UK 3G mobile network) tests for video and whilst managed to stream the Matrix in the early days as a test, that never took of either and that was more due to the costs of data connections, an issue very much moot these days (least in the UK).
One area that often lets down videoconferencing at the consumer level are the camera's and the environment the user uses them in and gets down to lighting. But again, no killer, easy to use consumer solution has come and taken the market by storm.
Sure many point to point video solutions on offer and used but no universal standard multipoint as easy as sending an email to multiple people is jumping out.
With that, I wish Facebook good luck and they do have the user base to drive this, but I'm not sure it is a feature as high in demand for consumer users as many wish or feel it is.
I can only put this down again to the environments such consumer systems (your mobile say) are used in and whilst the processing power is there to alleviate much of this, that has still to come to fruition as a user friendly reliable experience.
[+] [-] microcolonel|8 years ago|reply
I have a feeling that WebRTC portals are going to be the main way SIP calls are made as time goes forward, so somebody has to do it, I'd be glad to devote my life to it if I could make a salary and do it as open source.
I think SIP could be great, if some focus were put on interoperability and service providers. We really need something you could rightly call the GMail of SIP to show the world that open standard n-to-n video conferencing can be done well.
[+] [-] stevenwoo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nobleach|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xphilter|8 years ago|reply
The issue going forward is the lack of standardization across protocols. Despite Apple's mention in the keynote when FaceTime was announced that it would be open, FaceTime is iOS/Mac only for now. And, I don't see Facebook's playing nice with Amazon's, etc.
[+] [-] flanbiscuit|8 years ago|reply
My theory about why people would rather just text than voice/video chat is that it consumes to much effort and commitment of time. People want to be able to quickly switch contexts and apps. If you're talking or video chatting then you have to be more focused and your phone is occupied during that process.
Also I think there's just an abundance of ways to communicate with anyone around the world now that video chat is not as special as it once seemed. I tried counting how many ways I could be contacts and my list was long.
[+] [-] vbezhenar|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|8 years ago|reply
Cameras in phones by Nokia et al. from 2005 are with this in mind, front facing, VGA video that is handled at the phone level as a video call:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N70
There is no 'app' that puts the video in a http stream somehow, this was baked in functionality, now abandoned by telcos.
Yet there is the selfie phenomenon, again something that few imagined to be the thing it is. Cameras used to point outwards, now they point at the owner. I would not be surprised if cheap phones only come with selfie cameras soon, much like how laptops only come with 'selfie cameras'.
A large tablet for just doing Facebook and Facebook video does not sound portable enough for what it does, 'phablets' are better on the commute, why carry another device? Sounds to me as if Facebook are trying to hard on all the failed VR apps.
[+] [-] pazimzadeh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DarkTree|8 years ago|reply
http://ethw.org/Picturephone
[+] [-] digi_owl|8 years ago|reply
These days however it is all data.
[+] [-] toomanybeersies|8 years ago|reply
My parents are luddites, so I still ring their landline.
[+] [-] dhanainme|8 years ago|reply
It would be very interesting to see how this device competes. The features i would love to have is a 360 Camera attached to a large screen. with Multiple Mics / Good Speakers. Ability to seamlessly which to multiple screens based on where I am.
[+] [-] dhimes|8 years ago|reply
So can The Others.
[+] [-] wonder_bread|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MBCook|8 years ago|reply
My twitter feed is full of people pointing out their CEO (Zuckerberg) tapes over his webcams, but now wants users to put this in their homes.
[+] [-] AceJohnny2|8 years ago|reply
I can use my phone for video chat over Facetime. Or Facebook Messenger. Or Skype. Or Whatsapp. Or Google Hangouts (haven't installed Duo. yet)
Signal and Line can both do audio calls but not video. Yet.
I think with the union of all those networks I should be able to do a video chat with 95% of my contacts.
When's SIP taking over the world again?
[+] [-] digi_owl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] honestoHeminway|8 years ago|reply
If there ever was progress that should move humanity backwards this is how it looks.
[+] [-] raghavtoshniwal|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pgeorgep|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|8 years ago|reply
Disrupt is a strange way of putting it when they are an incumbent copying and implementing exactly what others have been doing for a long time. To me disruption means a significant change from how things are currently done in a given market -- a change that also changes the paradigm for how things are done in the market.
[+] [-] fiatpandas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shusson|8 years ago|reply