Gmail Voice Chat & Video Rocks

Google has pulled off yet another spectacular with web applications... Yahoo have been trying to do this for sometime now, Ebay wanted to do this with Skype after their buy... but it can be said Google has reached their first with quality voice chat and video chat from a web app directly.

To use voice and video chat from Gmail, you have to install a browser addon called GoogleVoiceAndVideo (the size is pretty large: 447KB) and this enables Voice and Video chat from within Gmail, just like the current Instant Messaging (IM) window within Gmail. While you are checking your emails, you can chat from anywhere in the world. You don't need to have that client application installed.

Gmail had text chatting in the web app for a year or so and this helped gain some market share in the IM world. Google Talk and Gmail chat are still long way behind MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messengers usage, but continuous improvements like this may help Google gain some market share in the IM market...

The Voice Chat and Video Chat uses a proprietary technology called "Vidyo technology"... The quality is pretty good and is nearly same as the GTalk desktop application. Obviously like Gmail's chat, there are some bugs in Voice chat as well and sometimes the connection doesn't happen the first time. But most times the voice was clear and crisp. For a first day after launch the service was pretty good.

I often use Skype for Voice and video chat. Skype has got a Linux client and its voice is one of the best in terms of quality. Gmail's voice doesn't work with Linux. Both Skype and Gmail's voice does not use Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which I would have liked to see, to allow inter-interoperability between different VoIP providers. Nevertheless, bringing it to the browser is a new improvement that will bring ease-of-use to the users.

iPhone SDK could open a Pandora's Box

I just received a feed notification about a blog post on Tech-Buzz, about the iPhone SDK when I remembered this post from the wired.

As soon as Steve Jobs, announced the SDK will be released for the iPhone and the iPod Touch in February, I wondered what would happen to AT&T and their exclusivity. Like I mentioned here, the iPhone with its WiFi has a very good scope in the VoIP space. I'm sure this SDK means a lot of help to the developers planning to make VoIP softwares for the iPhone.

But it's not just good news for the good developers. Its also good news for the developers on the evil-side of things... Call them hackers or whatever... these guys have done quite a lot of work on the iPhone already. The Wired article mentions about different vulnerabilities already found on the iPhone and how they can be easily exploited. As more and more softwares are developed and people start installing these, you do open a big Pandora's box. Apple has to take care about these vulnerabilities before giving away the SDK, so that the users are protected from any Virus, Snooping Programs and Trojans that the hackers SDK intends to create.

By releasing the SDK, Apple will make the iPhone/iPod Touch a good platform for apps, but before that, can we have a firmware release that does not just brick the iPhone??

Free Calling On iPhone Without Paying AT&T

iPhone was launched with AT&T and Apple made a promise that iPhone won't work on any other operator's network. But only a week later, people were using the iPhone on any cellular network across the globe. This phenomenon was called iPhone Unlocking!! I'm sure AT&T was tearing its hair off, but now there is more to be angry about.

Apple also didn't allow any other application to be installed on the iPhone. Apple warns that the warranties will be void on the iPhone, if any other 3rd party softwares are installed on the iPhone or if its been unlocked!! So Apple has tried its best to warn the users and keep AT&T happy, but today we have VoIP software maker, Truphone (which advertises itself as a Nokia VoIP app maker) demo'ed their application on an iPhone. You can watch a video of this here.

This means that its even more bad news for AT&T. Atleast they was expecting people who were not unlocking the iPhone to use their network and pay for the airtime charges. But now it seems that people will use the VoIP and just pay for the data services or even better use the office WiFi connections for free!! So, this app is really a pain for AT&T, but is good news for those iPhone owners who are scared of unlocking. Is it only the beginning of the end of the deal with AT&T, or does Apple do a firmware upgrade and change the runtime environment to stop those VoIP apps?? Do we in the near future see Skype for iPhone or YahooVoice Chat on iPhone?? It really isn't very tough to make a 1-1 voice chat software these days and I guided some under-grad students on a low-bandwidth VoIP project!! So may be you can make one for yourself and give people free calling on the iPhone!!