Google open sourcing voice and video engine for the web

Google open sourcing voice and video engine for the web(sites.google.com)

228 points by gaika 15 years ago | 43 comments

zmmmmm 15 years ago |

Is this Google's response to MS purchasing skype? Seems like the classic strategy of commoditizing your competitor's business (and they get a 2-for-1 deal since Apple is also wielding FaceTime).

rryan 15 years ago | |

Hm, I don't think so. This post is dated May 3rd, which predates the Skype deal's announcement by 7 days. Also, the WhatWG group for RTC's mailing list was first posted to April 12, 2011. So that potentially indicates this was in the works beforehand. Since Google purportedly put in a bid for Skype they no-doubt knew Skype was on the market, though.

I would guess this is more likely a response to FaceTime. Apple's core business is around getting people to buy iPhones, and FaceTime is exclusive to the iPhone and other Apple products.

rdtsc 15 years ago | | |

There is an IETF realtime-web working group :

http://tools.ietf.org/wg/rtcweb/charters

and this is part of Google's involvement with that.

However the original question is still valid, as this release might have been accelerated quite a bit because MS bought Skype.

TuxPirate 15 years ago | | |

We can also see the project's creation time on http://code.google.com/p/webrtc/updates/list, Jan 27 2011

baconface 15 years ago | |

great point. I think a major reason MS bought skype was integrate it with kinect, which somewhat mitigates this.

r00fus 15 years ago |

Apple, where is the Facetime open spec that you promised? Google may just beat them to the punch.

jmreid 15 years ago | |

Apparently, the FaceTime team wasn't aware that it was to be made an open standard until Steve said it on stage: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/05/11/facetime-standar...

dave1010uk 15 years ago | |

Just found the slide listing the "standards" FaceTime uses [1]: H.264, AAC, SIP, STUN, TURN, ICE, RTP and SRTP. From the list, the only thing left for someone else to integrate with FT would be friend management and presence (online status). Something like Jabber could probably handle this bit pretty well.

[1] http://ugc.kontain.com/photo/20100607/prod_519da669-212a-414...

c_t_montgomery 15 years ago | |

I'm not sure if they intend to or not, but who knows - wwdc is coming up, and this may be perfect timing for them to strike back.

baconface 15 years ago | |

does Apple really intend to do this?

durin42 15 years ago | | |

I remember the facetime announcement including that they were going to publish it as an open standard, and I'm not the only one:

  "The company said it plans to make FaceTime an open industry standard, potentially allowing 
  communication with other devices." 
  -- http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/07/apple_announces_open_standard_facetime_video_chat_for_iphone_4.html

and it's not just AppleInsider - that's just the first non-wikipedia hit for the search "facetime open standard". That said, they never (to my knowledge) delivered, which is a shame. At least now there's something, though it's a pity that FT users will likely be left out.

angusgr 15 years ago |

Does anyone have any ideas what the timeline for browser support is likely to be?

The website currently says they've been working closely with Mozilla and we expect to see WebRTC support in Firefox and Chrome soon!.

rryan 15 years ago | |

I wonder when Safari will get WebRTC support?

grimen 15 years ago | | |

Isn't that about survival of the fittest? Why use a browser that don't support shit when there is a few that does. Might work for now, but not in the future.

taken11 15 years ago | | |

vp8 support? once steve is gone.

yblokhin 15 years ago |

Finally we know what's going with iLBC codec. For more than a year it's been in a limbo.

cdibona 15 years ago | |

Yep, sorry about that. You can still use the old code under the old license, but you can also use it under the new (and more permissive and favorable) license.

car 15 years ago |

Very nice, thank you Google.

Glancing over the API docs, I'm not clear what will be used for signaling. It appears to be based on XMPP/Jingle, am I right?

What about SIP?

walexander 15 years ago | |

From the FAQ: Builds on the strength of the web browser: WebRTC abstracts signaling by offering a signaling state machine that maps directly to PeerConnection. Web developers can therefore choose the protocol of choice for their usage scenario (for example, but not limited to: SIP, XMPP/Jingle, etc...).

jbk 15 years ago |

How do iLBC and iSAC compare to the (also open source) Celt, Silk and Opus (Silk+Celt) codecs?

zokier 15 years ago |

What does this mean to existing SIP/Jingle based systems? Are they now deprecated, or is there some kind of interoperability planned?

dblock 15 years ago |

One way to decimate adversaries is to open-source your entire competitive advantage. Unfortunately that only works when you’re the market leader.

So nobody cares about open-sourcing WebRTC. Something that would be actually noticeable in this field right now would be Microsoft that open-sources Skype and gives everything away under the BSD license.

bad_user 15 years ago | |

     So nobody cares about open-sourcing WebRTC

Except the people that would want to use it? Think of Chatroulette.

     Something that would be actually noticeable in this 
     field right now would be Microsoft that open-sources
     Skype

Noticeable yes, but useful, not really.

What would be useful is for Skype to become a standard that allows interoperability with other services and protocols, such that you could build a client, like a website, that would allow users with a GTalk account to video-call Skype users. Now that would be something.

tobylane 15 years ago |

If Pidgin (the cross platform IM framework that Adium/others use) doesn't get this, I'll be sad/grumpy.

reustle 15 years ago |

Not long until I'll be able to video chat on my Android via Google Talk, woo!

natrius 15 years ago | |

This is already possible on Gingerbread phones.

drivebyacct2 15 years ago | | |

Actually the GTalk update that was released with 2.3.4 uses Neon-specific code rather than the actual video API that Google wrote themselves. It makes no sense and it's the reason that GTalk doesn't have video chat on other Gingerbread phones.

dave1010uk 15 years ago | |

I didn't know Android doesn't have video chat with Google Talk yet. That seems strange, considering some Nokia phones have it built in: http://thehandheldblog.com/2010/02/02/gtalk-video-chat-is-po...

odiroot 15 years ago |

So is this another segment of HTML5 block or a completely novel idea?

It looks like a <device> element with streaming but they don't mention it at all.

chopsueyar 15 years ago |

Good work, Microsoft!

Embrace and extend.

"The company said it plans to make FaceTime an open industry standard, potentially allowing communication with other devices." -- http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/07/apple_announces_open_standard_facetime_video_chat_for_iphone_4.html