Gmail Chat: Now With Video and Voice

After having signed a deal with MGM Studios that would allow Google to stream full length movies and TV episodes on YouTube, Google decided to sprinkle some video on Gmail too. They spiced up Gmail with something that was long missing.

Gmail chat now does video and voice too. After having chat and rich mail rolled in a single package, video and voice chat comes as a welcome add-on. According to the GMail blog, they have tried to make it "an easy to use, seamless experience with high quality audio and video all for free." My first hand experience says they have faired very well in delivering what they tried for. It uses Vidyo technology which they say is covered under pending patents.

Both participants of the chat need to install a small package of video plugin from here to enable this feature in Gmail. The Mac installer comes as 2.4 MB download and the Windows XP version is a 476 KB initial downloader which then downloads and installs the remaining content. On the Mac, the installation DMG contains a .PKG file and an uninstaller. You need to quit all your browsers before installing it. The Mac version needs Mac OS X 10.4 or later and 5.6 MB of space. Once the installation is complete, it opens the Chat settings page in your Gmail account. The defaults worked fine for me. You can verify if your settings are correct by opening that little section that shows the audio input/ output levels and starts your web cam. The audio output levels here may sound a little low but this is just the level at which you hear the ring that is played for an incoming chat request. The troubleshooting link doesn't really offer any good help yet other than a three step installation guide.

Once everything is in place, you should see a green camera icon besides your name in the chat panel in Gmail. You could start a video and voice chat from the little popup menu on the chat window. A small panel slides up and starts your web cam. The other participant hears a ring and must accept the invitation to video chat before they can view your web cam. The visual and voice clarity is amazing here (unlike that in the settings verification page). It uses  XMPP, RTP and H.264 standards, so that level of performance is expected. You can pop that window out, just as you would during a regular chat to resize the video frame. To have a more immersive experience, you could turn to the full screen mode, which didn't fail to impress me.

What I didn't like was a little echo that I could hear at times. The echo cancellation option in the settings page didn't seem to have any effect in removing it. It didn't work for me if I set my status to invisible.

Overall it is an impressive move by Gmail. There's a good news for developers, for they can leverage this technology in their own applications too.

So, Gmail is indeed getting close to doing our laundry. You can read more about this feature in the Official GMail Blog here.

A Laptop for Children: How HIGs Change

The field of Human Computer Interaction has always interested me ever since I understood what it is. As an HCI enthusiast, I often find myself reading Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) of various user interfaces. Recently, I was reading the HIGs for the Sugar UI. For those unaware, Sugar is the UI used in the XO laptops of the OLPC project fame.

This UI has more than just fascinated me. It is a completely re-invented concept and it has been done very creatively. These laptops are primarily intended for use by children, aged 5 to those in their mid teens. So, how differently do you create an UI targeted for that age group?

Well, to answer that question, just imagine that you literally had to re-invent the wheel, that lets say, will be used on a vehicle for a specific user group. Akin to that, the task of designing an UI for children requires additional imaginative thinking and an ability to present things in the most simplified form. Besides, simplifying necessarily doesn't mean that the UI be stripped of attractiveness. In fact the UI has to be attractive as well so that children are driven to use it. The Sugar UI HIGs take care of the possibility that the the XO might be the first laptop that their users will own, meaning they might have no prior experience of computing. Further, they would like to explore things without having the fear of ending up in a blue screen equivalent.

What excited me the most was the change in metaphors used to describe the environment. Speaking of the Desktop metaphor, the HIG mentions:

While this metaphor makes sense at the office—and perhaps even at home—it does not translate well into a collaborative environment such as the one that the OLPC laptops will embody.

Hence, these comparisons were redefined to create a simple, realistic user interface for children.

Applications are referred to as activities. Children can better relate with an activity instead of an application. So they could have writing activities, drawing activities or may be singing activities that are analogous to a text editing application, drawing, and AV recording applications. Besides, every activity can be a shared activity. An activity can be shared in a mesh which is a reference to the local network. The document gives an example of the web browsing activity. It says that unlike the normal isolated browsing, here you could browse as a collaboration with your group. Privacy in this case is implemented at a different level. Because children will be the primary users, sharing becomes the essence of all activities. Although users can alter the privacy settings if required.

The desktop is replaced by Neighborhood. A user can see other users and groups in their neighborhood. This view shows the group size and the activity around which the group is centered. Users are represented by the XO icons, and you can get more information about the user by clicking on the icon.

The menu bars are replaced by the Frame. But the Frame does more than just provide access to menus. In my opinion, this approach is much more efficient than the currently prevalent desktop layouts. It leaves more room for activities. The frame gives you access to places, people, objects and actions. The frame occupies the boundaries of the screen and remains hidden unless needed. One edge of the frame also doubles up as what we know as a clipboard. Users can place objects, like images, audio clips, links on the frame and then use them later to paste them on bulletin boards, in other activities or on other friends. So it behaves similar to clipboards on other operating systems and at the same time, provides drag and drop support, allowing selection from existing clipboard items, clipboard history and previews.

The hierarchical filesystem as we know on our computers, is replaced by the Journal. the journal maintains a log of whatever the user does. It saves things automatically letting users focus on the activity completely. The journal uses an intelligent algorithm that guesses forgotten entries and offers to delete them to maintain storage space on the laptop.

Files are not treated as they are in normal computing. Each file is an object which in turn is an independent instance of the activity which was used to create it. This way the children can access their creations directly, without having to associate them with an activity. So, a story will remain a story, and not a collection of words that needs to be opened using a text editor.

Besides these, there are a lot more analogies and innovative concepts brought up in the Sugar UI. Just reading those guidelines has changed the way I look at user interfaces and the way interfaces can be designed. (Ok, that happens to me after reading any HIGs...)

Those interested, can read the Sugar UI Human Interface Guidelines here. I also found this interesting picture on Flickr that would help Apple users to correlate the concepts used in Sugar with those used in our Leopard.

The Limited Edition 4GB iPod Nano

The 9th September's Lets Rock event by Apple, that brought in the refreshed iPod lineup was an eagerly awaited one. Despite rumors and concerns, Steve Jobs, proving them false and highly exaggerated, took the stage and delivered the keynote. Now since I (and all other MacBoys) always keep scouring the web for rumors (and of course, facts) related to Apple, I pretty much know what will be happening at such events. But there's always a hope for something - that li-tt-le something, that the God would pop out with his magic wand, something that had been completely covered, away from the eyes of the world and rumormongers. In terms of an Apple event, I always wait for the ever-famous "One More Thing".

But this time, Apple chose to disappoint its followers on that. There was no One More Thing that in this event. Well, not exactly. Though there wasn't any mention about it, there are reports that talk about a 4GB version of the iPod Nano. Though this is not as big as One More Thing, but let me be happy, for this was something that surprised me. Officially announced, were the 8GB and 16GB versions.

The lickable (check this ad out, those things 'are' lickable) iPod's 4GB versions are appearing as Limited Editions in a few stores like this one in Netherands. Available in all 9 colors and at a price of €119 (roughly translates to INRs. 7740) according to a comment by an Apple's spokesperson appearing in this website, the 4GB model is a limited edition model and has been made for some international markets.

Now that gets a little exciting. I hope Apple includes the India in that list of international markets and we have the 4GB model here.

Hoping to buy this Nano sometime soon.

(I know, I had promised myself not to ask mom and dad for anything else after the MacBook, but come on, I'm their only son ;) )

4 Quick Short Posts: Part 2: Lets Rock

Apple held its media event, "Let's Rock" on 9th September in San Francisco. I was very much excited about it and had reminders set up to remind me (just in a rare event if forgot) about it. Now since I can't actually go and see the proceedings, I experienced it vicariously via live blogs. It was nice to see the God take up the stage for the ever famous Keynote. (I know Apple events have Steve Jobs addressing the keynote, but the stories of his ill health made us - the Macboys, worried if there'll be a Stevenote this time or not).

It started with a screen saying "Talks of my death have been greatly exaggerated" and Steve Jobs informing the world that he's fine now. He later revealed some facts and figures about the iTunes Music Store and then came what was most awaited.  The refreshed iPod lineup and iTunes 8. The rumormongers had been very much correct about new iPod Nano design and the new features bundled in iTunes 8.

The iPod Nano received a feature additions and cosmetic changes. Shedding the "chubby" form factor, the new version is longish, some what like the 2G iPod Nano's. It has an accelerometer that brings in a slew of new features. For one, it allows you to shake-to-shuffle - you can shuffle your songs if you give the Nano a slight shake. It also brings in automatic screen rotation - the screen's orientation changes depending on how you hold the Nano. The screen is bigger than the previous generation iPod Nano's. There are also changes to the UI in the underlying software. The most notable change is the range of new colors in which the Nano will be available. Apple is marketing it very appropriately as Nano-Chromatic.

In short - sweet. I wish to buy one of those soon. I like the silver, gray and red colors (I shortened the list, I wrote all the available colors earlier :) ).

The iPod Shuffle, without an explicit mention, also got updated to new brighter colors. Though the rumored 4GB bump is still a rumor and didn't make it to the final product.

With the redesigned iPod Touch, Apple made an entry into the gaming market. The new iPod Touch, with firmware 2.1 was launched as a gaming device. It sports very crisp and delicious graphics. A Nike+ receiver has been built in to this device. I hope to see a good wide range of games for this platform.

Also launched were new accessories for the iPods. Of them, the most notable was the new dual-driver in-ear headphones.

Coming to iTunes 8, the latest major update to Apple's flagship jukebox software. iTunes 8 has a new offering called the Genius. This is one pretty feature that was missing from iTunes. It recommends you music that goes along well with other songs in your library. It requires an iTunes Store account to work. It stores your listening data on Apple's servers and as other users add their listening profiles, the Genius gets smarter giving you better recommendations. You select a song, click the Genius button and in the sidebar you get your recommendations based on that song. The Genius sidebar is a drawer that you can open and close to save screen real estate. The Genius "is" smart and does offer you proper recommendations most of the times.

Besides, there is one new way in which you can browse your library. I personally do not find it preferable over the Cover Flow view, but it can be useful at times. It shows your media in a Grid view. They items are grouped in this view, the default grouping criteria being the album. Songs from one album are placed in one group with the album art of that album showing up. Hovering the mouse over that tile shows up the option to play that album. The grouping criterion can be changed to Album, Artist, Genre and Composers. This view makes the listening experience similar to listening to an audio CD on a player.

There were new additions to the iTunes Music Store. The store now has HD TV shows. It would be interesting to see Heroes, Lost and such in HD.

With that, allow me to move on to the next part of this series of "short" posts. :)

[This post is part 2 of a multipart post, read part one, three and four by clicking on the links]

4 Quick Short Posts: Part 1: What, Why? And Google Chrome

A lot happened since I last blogged. I have a reason for being away. I've been very busy with my college assignments. Not that I say I've been very regular in the past, but it so happens that when I think of being more loyal to the interwebs, something or the other crops up and all that loyalty gets trapped within the confines of my head.

Thought of writing an abridged post, but there is a lot to write and having them separated in to shorter posts sounds like a better idea to me. Plus, some topics deserve to stand out from the rest. They won't be detailed posts, so spare me if I'm not able to serve you well this time.

All done creating a base for the rest, here's part one for you...

Google Chrome:

Google recently (ok, it was recent when I thought of writing about it) launched their new web browser - Chrome. It is based on code from the open source browser Chromium. Chrome became an instant hit without much publicity. That is one thing I highly admire about Google - there's never much flashy advertising about their products, but still they get famous pretty quickly. Chrome, for a relevant example, obtained a little more than 1% of the browser market share within two days of its launch.

As of now, it has been launched for the Windows platform only, but a Linux and Mac port is being worked upon. For the same reason, I've not been able to personally review it, because I never really returned to my PC after 29th July. But from what I hear on the web and from people who tried it out, it has been one great browser. Google, as they put it on their blog says, Chrome is a browser for the current face of the web.

Google Suggest which graduated out of Labs few days back, is built into the OmniBox (the address bar, because it does more than just getting URLs, has been christened that) in Chrome and is a great feature. I see Google Chrome as a step closer to the hypothetical Google OS for computers. Who knows may be we'll have it some day sitting pretty on our computers (Naah, I still don't see the thought of me leaving the Mac!)

To know more about it, I'd suggest all of you on the Windows platform to take it for a spin once, you'll sure like it.

[This post is part 1 of a multipart post, read part two, three and four by clicking on the links]

Safari 4 to Allow Saving Web Pages as Applications

Apple, last Friday released the latest version of its Safari web browser - Safari 4.0, to the developer community. Amongst the new feature additions, there is one feature that will appeal to the general users.

On the Mac, Safari 4.0 takes the well known Web Clip feature one step ahead by allowing web pages to be saved as independent Mac apps. These pages, or site specific browsers, can be run independent of Safari. This functionality could be earlier achieved by a few third party apps like Prism and Fluid, but having it built in to the browser will be an added plus.

With the current scenario in bandwidth availability, saving web pages had become a thing of past or an uncommon affair. This feature however might bring Mac users back to saving pages. It would be interesting to have an independent app for commonly visited websites like Twitter, Google, Facebook and such. It will free the users from the hassles of having unmanageable number of tabs open in a browser. Though it is unclear as to when Safari 4.0 will be available to the general users, this feature will be liked by all.

Apart from this, the new build will have a new "Develop" menu, a redesigned Web Inspector, and JavaScript debugging and profiling options. It also carries over features from the new build of WebKit which include support for HTML 5. It will also support CSS gradients, reflections, masks and named canvases.

The Day the Mac Finally Arrived

29th July, 2008. The date will be recorded as an eventful day in my history - as the day the Mac finally arrived. It was definitely one of my happiest day. One of those when I literally shouted out "YaY!"

Not that it came to me as a complete surprise but after almost an year of rejected and postponed demands, when you finally get something you always yearned for, you do feel extraordinarily happy. I've been smiling with a smile so big, that at times I myself feel that my smile would extend out my face.

So finally, let me introduce to the world my cute little MacBook, which I got as a birthday gift on my 21st birthday.

It is a 13.3 inch white MacBook, with 2GB of RAM and 160GB of hard disk space and Intel's X1300 graphics chipset and a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor powers this beautiful machine.

As a true Apple fan, the MacBook was welcomed home with an un-boxing ceremony, pictures of which have been uploaded to Flickr.

Because I understand the value of this gift, I've decided I wont ask my parents to buy me anything, well not at least anytime soon. I'm just trying to be a good son you know ;)

All this family stuff reminds me of another promise that I made to myself -

"I'll never buy my children a Windows based PC. They will be iChildren. Smart Mac Kids ;)"

I even got a WiFi router so that I can use my internet connection on my Mac anywhere in the home. Ever since I laid hands on this beauty, I've been very happy. Mom says I'll put on weight because of that happiness. :) Well, perhaps they will never understand how it feels to free yourself from Gates and Windows. I've fallen in love with every single thing on my Mac, right from the way the icons on the dock bounce to notify you of certain events, to the screws on the sides. One of those things that I love a lot is the Apple logo on the lid that glows when I'm using my Mac.

With that and another sweet Welcome to Mr. Mac, I would end this post which also happens to be the first to be composed on the Mac.

Recent Account Activity in Gmail

Recently, while checking my mails in Gmail, an extra piece of information regarding "Recent Activity" towards the end of the page caught my attention. If you haven't noticed, check near the bottom of your Gmail page. Gmail now displays your last account activity stats.

It displays the time elapsed since the last activity that took place on your account along with the IP address that was used to log in. Initially when I saw it, it was showing me the time since I logged in. Besides the time is a link to give you more details, clicking on which lists out the last few session details in a new popout window. The page displays information about the last activity on your mail account and any concurrent activity in detail.

The 'Details' page shows the access type (Browser, Mobile or POP3, etc.), the IP address and the date & time of the current and the last 4 sessions. Apart from this, if the account is opened in an another location, you are informed about it in the Concurrent Session Information section. This section lists out the number of places where the account has been simultaneously logged into, along with the access type(s) and the IP address(es).

To take it for a spin, I decided to log in to my account from my mobile browser too. The same section on the mobile browser showed me that the account is open in one other location along with the IP address (of my computer) and an option to check the details. Soon, the content on desktop browser too changed and showed that the account is open in one other location along with the IP address of my mobile phone.

Apart from this, the 'Details' pop-out page gives you an option to sign out all other sessions. The Gmail Help Center, in this answer, says that this data can be used to find out if and when someone gained access to your account. It says, you can know that your account was compromised if there is a great variation in the IP addresses in spite of you accessing it from the same computer every time, or if there is an access type that you never used, or that there is a concurrent session that you do not know of. Here is an entry in the Official Gmail Blog regarding the same.

In my opinion, this is a nice move by Google to keep its users informed about the security of their accounts. With this information at hand, one might be able to minimize damages in an unfortunate event of his/her account security getting compromised.

Another Example of the Mac-PC Clash

A few days ago, I came across this very funny video somewhere on the internet. I won't say much about it, let it speak for itself. 

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

___________________________________________________________

Apple fans would understand it better, and if you laughed only because of things coming out of the envelope, go, get to know the good things first.

Not my innocent keyboard, please!

Usually The Times of India happens to be my secondary (primary being feeds, obviously!) source for news but today an article in The Hindustan Times (HT) caught my attention. As usual, my eyes were unconsciously scanning for words like Computers, Apple and the likes and finally met "Keyboards". HT today carried an article about keyboards and personal hygiene.

Your computer keyboard could be filthier than a toilet seat.

Thats what the title of the article cautioned.

Computer keyboards are filthier and infested with more bacteria than toilet seats, according to a study by British microbiologist James Francis. He compared samples from 33 keyboards to swabs from a loo seat and a door handle of public toilet.

It further says that keyboards contain dangerous levels of killer bacteria such as the dreaded E coli, S Aureus and Coliform. The latter one is what lead to that article perhaps. These bacterias are known to cause diarrhoea, stomach cramps, fever, loss of apatite, and skin diseases.

Those names were scary enough to make me clean my keyboard before writing this. Its not that I didn't know about it, I have read quite sometimes about this, but today something appealed to me more than others. There was once a story about Keyboard Dandruff in the CHIP magazine. That was long long back, when I didn't have a computer of my own. But once I got it, I've been showing that Keyboard Dandruff to my sister whenever I remove it. That used to be an object of humor for us, but now I realize there were bacteria in those white flakes that came out from between the keys.

After knowing all this, I've decided to blot off my laziness towards cleaning things and from now on I expect myself to regularly clean my keyboard and its surroundings.

Take care of your health people. You never know hazards can crop up from anywhere.

No, not my innocent keyboard please! :(

Of Twitter, Tumblr and 512 kbps

Honestly speaking, I'm writing this entry so that my blog doesn't feel lonely. It has been more than a while that I last updated here. But I have an excuse for this hiatus - My exams are fast approaching, and nothing that could make my writing skills feel that desire to wake up, has happened.

The schedule these days has become void of any thing that would bring a bright smile to my face. Everything seems to be monotonous these days. Get up, study, eat, study again, eat again, sleep and then everything would repeat itself in cycles of infinity. The only interesting things that I do at times, to deviate from the humdrum life is a little Twitter-ing and Tumblr-ing.

These two Web 2.0 applications have been giving me a dose of the much needed F5 for my life. Twitter, as defined on its home page, is

a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

On the other hand, Tumblr, is correctly described as a scrapbook. The entries on Tumblr are called tumblelogs. The help section has a better analogy to understand it.

To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.

You can also look at tumblelogs as slightly more structured blogs that make it easier, faster, and more fun to post and share stuff you find or create.

I have developed a liking for these two places. I twitter here and my tumblelog which i have named Dew Drops (all spelled in the lower case actually) is here. I like the simplicity of their concepts. Tumblr allows you to collect stuff from the web and tumblelog it in quick and easy steps, whereas Twitter lets your tweople [a tweatiful twerm supposedly coined by my fellow tweeter - Preshit] know what are you up to.

And what else could beautify the pleasure of doing all this and more, than 512 kbps. I recently got my speeds upgraded to 512 kbps. It seems to be working great - pages open faster, files download at twice of what they used to and the internet has even stopped playing its favorite, hide-n-seek with me.

And when all seems to be gleeful, its time to realize that exams begin from 9th this month and I still have a lot to study. The  piled up books lying around me waiting to be opened and thoroughly scanned, leave me with no option but sign out and study..

Till then..

Some see Something Missing, I see a Revolution

[Ahh... my first tech related post.]

Keeping it aside and coming back to the topic. The unclear title- "Something Missing"

Though i'm quite late in writing about it, but today i realized something, a revolution which many people are failing to see.

Well, a few days ago, Apple released its latest addition to the MacBook family - The MacBook Air.

Amazingly thin, actually the thinnest notebook ever, Aluminum body, 3 pounds weight - So beautiful!

13.3" Glossy LED display, Ambient Light Sensing illuminating keyboard,

2GB standard memory, Solid State Drive, Intel Core 2 Duo, Slimmer battery - So much, in So Less Space

Hidden ports, Mono speakers (thoughtful people use earphone, stereo enabled), 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR

See the complete tech specs here.

True, So Many Innovations, So Little Space.

So far so well, people were amazed at its introduction, but then soon it dwelled in that the beautiful MacBook Air lacks an Optical Drive. It was disheartening for some, but on the other hand there is a group of people, including me, who see an upcoming revolution in this.

In this age of connectivity, where we have WiFi, Bluetooth and most more importantly, the Internet, the removal of an optical drive can be viewed as a revolution instead of a shortcoming. With Online backups, online file sharing and storage services and a lot of bandwidth at our hands, we just do not need to search for optical disks anymore. As for applications, the increasing bandwidth makes downloading them convenient too. And anyways if you have a good computer, you do not need to re-install the OS every 3 months ;) and hence, no re-installing of applications too.

I personally have started to get into this phenomenon of not using the optical drive as much as i used it previously. Backups, application downloads, files, etc - the internet does that all for me. I wish to see my photos, there is Picasa and Flickr and lot many photo sharing sites, i need information - Wikipedia is ever ready to help you, for other files there is MegaUpload and 4Shared. For videos - YouTube.

Plus, I don't have to bother about managing them, no more creating local folders for images of different events, tagging them, no more creating text files for storing information, no more local folders for videos, no more grouping files together by their type locally, the above services do them more gracefully and conveniently. Or still if I can't find what I need, just a simple Google search proves helpful. Just as we have web based emails, we have web based storage for every other thing too.

We just need to see things differently, instead of getting disheartened for lack of something, try to see the newer avenues that have come up. The world is no more what it was when you started reading this post, it has changed a lot. See things in a different way, you'll never find anything missing.

Oh, by the way, just how the hard-bound diary, got transformed into this online blog!

Amazing, and so true.

By the way, for just those who can't afford to assimilate all this, the MacBook Air takes care of them by this wonderful feature called Remote Disk.