Category: Video
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Remote Working: the Benefits, Disadvantages, and some Lessons Learned in 15+ years
Continue Reading: Remote Working: the Benefits, Disadvantages, and some Lessons Learned in 15+ yearsWith so many people now having to learn to work remotely due to restrictions related to COVID-19, what information can people share who have been working from home? Back in October 2019, I realized it was 20 years ago when I started working remotely, and so I sent out some tweets asking for opinions about the benefits of working remotely, the challenges / disadvantages, and then the lessons people have learned. I subsequently recorded podcast episodes on each of those three topics.
The links to the Twitter threads and podcasts are below.At some point I may turn them into longer articles themselves, but in the meantime, I hope they will help some of you with ideas for how to get adjusted to this new way of working.
And… I would suspect many of you might just want to jump directly to the lessons learned…
Benefits
- Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/danyork/status/1181883371611406336
- Podcast episode: TDYR 380 – Remote Working, Part 1: What are the BENEFITS of working from home?
Many of the benefits were about no commute, the ability to be present with family, freedom to work and live wherever, flexibility, caring for family, and more. (Note that a good number of the benefits mentioned (such as working…
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Facebook Messenger’s “Instant Video” Lets You Simultaneously Use Video and Chat
Continue Reading: Facebook Messenger’s “Instant Video” Lets You Simultaneously Use Video and ChatThe messaging wars continue! Today Facebook Messenger added “Instant Video” to it’s iOS and Android app, allowing you to easily share live video while still in a text chat. Facebook has had “video calling” since back in May 2015, but that requires both parties to answer the video call in the same way that Facetime, Wire and every other video app does it.
“Instant Video” is different:
VIDEO STARTS OUT ONE-WAY – Only the video of the person initiating “Instant Video” is shown. The recipient sees the video of the sender, but their video connection is NOT enabled. Now, the recipient can start sending video, but they don’t have to.
AUDIO IS OFF INITIALLY – When the sender starts their video, the recipient receives the video without any sound. They can easily start getting sound by tapping on the speaker icon on the video, but this is great because often you are having a text conversation precisely because you don’t want to use audio.
YOU CAN STILL SEE THE CHAT – The video overlays the upper right corner of the chat window, but that’s it. You can still see the chat messages and continue having your chat.
This last point…
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Wow! Cisco To Acquire Tropo’s Communications Application Platform
Continue Reading: Wow! Cisco To Acquire Tropo’s Communications Application PlatformWOW! In companion blog posts today Cisco and Tropo announced Cisco’s intent to acquire the Tropo team and platform:- Cisco blog: Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Tropo
- Tropo blog: Tropo joins Cisco to Power next-gen collaboration APIs
As someone who was at Voxeo in 2009 and helped launch Tropo (and wrote many of the early blog posts about it[1], as well as some of the python samples), I’m thrilled for the team there now that this is happening.[2]
Congratulations to all involved!
Over the years since leaving Voxeo, I’ve written about Tropo from time to time and continued to watch its progress. I’ve continued to be very impressed by what they’ve done over the years. They’ve truly made it easy for people to create powerful applications using simple programming languages.
It looks like the Tropo website is struggling right now so here is a snippet of their announcement post:
Six years ago we launched Tropo with the idea to make it easy to power phone calls through a simple API. Since then, we’ve empowered thousands of developers to add voice and messaging to their applications.
From our very first sign-up in 2009, to powering thousands of mobile and…
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Join Live Today at 9:00 CDT – Internet Video Codec BOF at IETF92
Continue Reading: Join Live Today at 9:00 CDT – Internet Video Codec BOF at IETF92Can we create a royalty-free (RF) video codec that can be deployed ubiquitously and become the new open standard for video communication across the Internet?THAT is the fundamental question of the Internet Video Codec (NETVC) Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) happening at IETF 92 in Dallas today, March 24, 2015, from 9:00-11:30 CDT (UTC-5). You can listen and participate live using the following links:
You also may want to view the presentation that will be used during the session.
The goal of the overall effort is defined as this:
- Development of a video codec that is:
- Optimized for real-time communications over the public Internet
- Competitive with or superior to existing modern codecs
- Viewed as having IPR licensing terms that allow for wide implementation and deployment
- Developed under the IPR rules in BCP 78 (RFC 5378) and BCP 79 (RFCs 3979 and 4879)
- Replicate the success of the CODEC WG in producing the Opus audio codec.
The BOF proposal contains more of a narrative:
The Internet needs a royalty-free (RF) video codec that can become the backbone for universal deployment of video related technologies. Royalty-bearing codecs put constraints on implementors that are…
- Development of a video codec that is:
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Join Me On VUC Today At Noon US EDT To Talk IPv6, IoT, WebRTC and more…
Continue Reading: Join Me On VUC Today At Noon US EDT To Talk IPv6, IoT, WebRTC and more…Today at 12 noon US Eastern (in about 3.5 hours), I’ll be part of a panel on the VoIP Users Conference (VUC) talking about IPv6, WebRTC, the Internet of Things (IoT) and much, much more… you should be able to watch it live at live.vuc.me or embedded here:
VUC host Randy Resnick had a scheduled guest be unable to attend and so he asked a group of us to come on for what he is calling a “VUC Vision” session. I will be on there, as will, I believe, Tim Panton and a number of others. I expect the discussion should range over good variety of topics. It should be a good time… you’re welcome to join in the discussion.
It’s probably best to also join the IRC backchannel where links are shared, questions are answered and other comments occur. You also can visit the Google+ event page for the VUC session today where there may be additional links and info.
If you won’t be at your computer, you can also call in via:
- sip:200901@login.zipdx.com
- +1 (646) 475-2098
- Skype:vuc.me
The session will of course be recorded so you can listen/watch later.
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Lesson Learned The Hard Way – Google+ Hangouts On Air …
Continue Reading: Lesson Learned The Hard Way – Google+ Hangouts On Air …I learned a hard lesson today that Google+ Hangouts On Air (HOA) are limited to 4 hours in length…. and to read the rest of the story, visit Disruptive Conversations…(Good lesson that I shouldn’t be posting articles at 1:00am! But leaving this post up here for a bit because there are now social media links out there pointing to this URL…)
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VUC Today: The Jitsi VoIP Softphone – Join The Call To Learn More!
Continue Reading: VUC Today: The Jitsi VoIP Softphone – Join The Call To Learn More!What is new with the Jitsi softphone these days? What new capabilities does it have as it continues to expand its support of SIP, XMPP and other protocols?
I’ve long been a fan and user of Jitsi, in part because it supports IPv6 and is the only VoIP softphone I know of right now that supports DNSSEC, something I’m continuing to experiment with, so I’m looking forward to today’s “VoIP Users Conference (VUC) call at 12 noon US Eastern – about 2.5 hours from now.
You can watch it live via a Google+ Hangout On Air, or call in (potentially using Jitsi!) via:
- sip:200901@login.zipdx.com
- +1 (646) 475-2098
- Skype:vuc.me
There’s also an IRC backchannel where links are shared, questions are answered and other comments occur.
And for those of you using Google+, there is a Google+ Event you can join.
It should be a good show! (And yes, you can watch it / listen to it later…)
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Alec Saunders Is A Rock Star In RIM’s Strange New Blackberry 10 Video
Continue Reading: Alec Saunders Is A Rock Star In RIM’s Strange New Blackberry 10 VideoOh… my. As anyone who knows me can attest, it’s extremely hard to render me speechless… but I admit to sitting here this morning staring at the screen with a rather uncomprehending expression on my face and with my mouth hanging open…Sometime after my friend Alec Saunders joined RIM last year as their VP of Developer Relations, I said to someone that while I admittedly did view his new mission as somewhat akin to tilting at windmills, he was perhaps just the kind of “rock star” that RIM needed. A very passionate and dynamic presenter… a very charismatic leader who could rally people… a creative guy with a theatre background… someone who thinks differently…
… never in my wildest ideas did I expect that we would be seeing Alec AS an actual “rock star” in a music video! But yes indeed, here he is with two other VPs from RIM in a remake of the famous REO Speedwagon song. (Alec is the main singer.)
Unbelievable.
My speechlessness soon gave way to laughter … and appreciation for them for doing something rather different. If they were looking for a way to be “remarkable” and memorable, they found it.
Now, somewhat…
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Video: What Is WebRTC/RTCWeb All About? How Does WebRTC Work?
Continue Reading: Video: What Is WebRTC/RTCWeb All About? How Does WebRTC Work?Do you want to understand what WebRTC / RTCWEB is all about and why so many people are passionate about its potential for extending real-time communications (voice, video, chat, data-sharing, etc.) into web browsers?I recently wrote about some of the larger issues of how WebRTC will disrupt telecom, but in this video, “RTCWeb Explained“, Cullen Jennings, one of the co-chairs of the IETF’s RTCWEB working group, dives down into the technical details to explain how it all works and what the various different components of of the solution are. I particularly like how Cullen covered some areas like “identity” that I haven’t seen stressed as much in other pieces about WebRTC. The video comes in at about 39 minutes and is well worth viewing:
For more information, I’ve put together a page about the broader WebRTC / RTCWEB initiative with links to relevant resources.
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Video: An Excellent Tour Of Voxeo’s Awesome New Office!
Continue Reading: Video: An Excellent Tour Of Voxeo’s Awesome New Office!My friends and former colleagues at Voxeo have produced a truly outstanding video giving a tour of the incredible space they have created in Orlando, Florida:
Kudos to the Voxeo marketing team for creating this video! And congrats to Jonathan Taylor and the rest of the team for realizing his vision of creating a truly unique working space and corporate culture in Orlando.
I’d note that Voxeo is quite often hiring and truly is a great company to work for. If you’re looking for a job in the communications space with an excellent team of people, you should definitely check them out!
(Full disclosure: I worked for Voxeo from 2007-2011 and remain a shareholder.)
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