WhatsApp, Used By Over One Billion People, Gets Video Calling Feature (engadget.com) 56
After disrupting how people text in many regions of the world, and changing how people make voice calls, Facebook-owned instant app WhatsApp today announced it is bringing "fully encrypted" video calling feature. From a report on Engadget: Now, the Facebook-owned company is ready to unleash video calls on everybody and in the coming days will roll out the feature to iOS, Android and Windows devices. When the feature is activated, open a chat and select the phone icon. You'll then be given an option to place a voice or video call. When we tested the feature, we found that voice and video quality was excellent over strong WiFi, but your mileage may vary if you're connecting via a mobile or slower broadband connection. While Facebook Messenger users have enjoyed voice calls for over a year and a half, many popular messaging apps like still don't offer the feature. With over one billion users, WhatsApp's video calls can connect people all over the world, regardless of their choice of mobile operating system, allowing it stay ahead of apps like Google's Allo.Though video calling feature has existed on apps such as Skype for years, what gives WhatsApp an advantage is its sheer user base. In comparison to Skype, which has about 300 million active users, WhatsApp has over one billion.
protocol and codec ? before trust... verify (Score:2)
I honestly dont know how people can trust that they are doing the right thing without knowing about the design....
They use a modified SIP communications for Audio is it the same for video ?
knowing the codec would be good ?
the problem is that is it point to point or simply proxied through their servers ?
anyone know ?
thanks
John Jones
Face recognition (Score:1)
This could hardly make it easier. Expect automatic tagging every time someone, friend or not, posts your picture
Re:Face recognition (Score:4, Insightful)
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
The govs have been at that for years. They like users to be facing the camera with their face upright for best collection results.
Lets hope that fully encrypted part is deep at the OS level on both ends
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Lets hope that fully encrypted part is deep at the OS level on both ends :)
Heh, yeah, well, we are talking about facebook here. We all know better than to believe they'll put up much resistance against a subpoena, or even a 'request'.
video calls (Score:2)
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You are using an iPhone so that you can be vendor locked-in into a video protocol while many cross-platforms alternatives exist?
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Most alternatives to FT suck horribly. Skype gets worse by the day, it seems, even without updates. Duo has bad audio, much like Hangouts before it. Hangouts was better, but not by much. On the PC you have some better options, but comparing those to mobile options is missing the point of having a mobile.
Most people in the world want stuff that works. No one cares about vendor lock-in with their phones because there's no lock-in. Get a different phone. Done,
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WhatsApp is only getting video calling now, and Duo only came out some months back. So anybody who wanted FaceTime automatically had vendor lock-in. If WhatsApp does a good job on the video calling, then they pretty much not only liberate us from vendor lock-in, but also, for Windows Phone users, solve the problem of there not being a VOIP app. The popular ones, like Vonage or 8x8 are there on the other 2, but not on Windows Phone.
So w/ WhatsApp video calling, vendor lock-in will be a thing of the past
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Hangouts audio is very good, at least as good as Facetime from my experience.
On the PC you have some better options, but comparing those to mobile options is missing the point of having a mobile.
No it's not. Any video call solution should work on both mobiles and PC, otherwise why even bother considering it?
No one cares about vendor lock-in with their phones because there's no lock-in. Get a different phone. Done
Once you've made all your contacts to use Facetime will you be ready to get a phone from another vendor and stop using Facetime? If not, you are vendor locked-in.
Vendor lock-in is the single most important aspect to look when choosing a communication (video/phone/chat) protocol. If it's proprietary, it's not a good star
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I somehow really doubt every single one of your contacts has whatsapp installed.
For most people, whatsapp is just another messaging app a small part of your contacts is using. You still require other applications because whatsapp doesn't work on PCs.
How do you video chat with your Android friends? There is no use for Facetime. You still need another video chat software for your non-iPhone contacts. Since all your iPhone contacts will be in the same boat, why not use that one for all your contacts?
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How do you video chat with your Android friends? There is no use for Facetime. You still need another video chat software for your non-iPhone contacts. Since all your iPhone contacts will be in the same boat, why not use that one for all your contacts?
All of them have WhatsApp on their phones. What they don't have is Duo, which came out only recently. So far, I only video chatted w/ my iPhone contacts, and did only audio chats w/ others in my family. Once WhatsApp has video chat, I can use that for everyone.
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With hangouts/skype you could have been doing video chats with all your contacts for years
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The big deal, as the summary says, is that WhatsApp has vastly more users than any other comparable app. Over a billion people getting video calling in an app they already actively use could have an impact. Nowhere does the summary suggest that there were any technical breakthroughs involved.
And as for the value of these companies, that's over a billion users to track and monitor and sell their data; the value of that is well established. That's why Facebook bought WhatsApp. That's why Microsoft gave away W
WhatsApp vs the others (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, WhatsApp picked up since it is a platform independent messaging system that allows one to send not just text, but also photos and brief videos through its service. One can also make voice calls. Now, video calls are added. This third one is big, since up to now, one could only make video calls on FaceTime, Skype and Duo. Of these 3, FaceTime is iOS only, Duo is Android and iOS only and Skype too is limited. WhatsApp in the meantime is there on many more platforms.
What I hope is - WhatsApp makes this feature available on all its platforms, not just iOS (the way it enabled only the iOS version for GIF files).
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one could only make video calls on FaceTime, Skype and Duo.
Uh? There are tons of other cross-platform alternatives such as Google Hangouts, Tango, ooVoo, Viber, peer, camfrog...
FaceTime and Duo shouldn't even be considered as they are single platform.
Whatsapp is yet another video chat service. And certainly not a good one, since it doesn't even work on PCs.
Skype too is limited
How so? Not being limited to a single OS seems like a good start.
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Windows Phone has about 0.5% market share so it doesn't really matter. But Hangouts and probably others are available on PCs, so it's far from being Android/iOS only.
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Skype too is limited
How so? Not being limited to a single OS seems like a good start.
Not encrypted
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Do you really value encryption on a proprietary video chat software where you can't even confirm there is no government back door?
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Duo is at least dual-platform. Skype's quality sucks everywhere. WhatsApp didn't become popular for video chat. It became popular for text messaging. That's kind of why we're posting comments to a story about WhatsApp adding video chat.
Which platform ? (Score:2)
WhatsApp in the meantime is there on many more platforms.
Of which most are soon-to-be-deprecated [bbc.com] (like S60, BlackBerry, etc. basically anything that isn't iOS nor Android)
Or are nothing more than a glorified remote viewer-over-html [whatsapp.com] (for Windows/Mac OS X/Linux) and needs to be used together with the phone app.
So, all things said, WhatsApp only supports iOS and Android officially too, like everyone else.
And although they started as a variant of Jabber/XMPP, WhatsApp has been extremely active in trying to shut down and perma-ban any attempt at a 3rd party client.
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So, all things said, WhatsApp only supports iOS and Android officially too, like everyone else.
Everyone else? You means the crappy ones.
There are many solutions with PC support such as Skype and Hangouts. It makes a hell of a difference in people you can reach.
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What you stated is incorrect. There are plenty of other cross platform video calls.
One one them is Facebook Messenger. It works from a browser (even on Linux), and on Android phones. Not sure about iOS though.
The other is Google Hangouts. It also works from a browser (yes, on Linux too), on Android and on iOS.
Skype used to work on Linux (native application, not from a browser), Android, and iOS as well, but has not used it for a while on my Linux desktop.
WhatsApp is not cross platform. It does not work from
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The convenience of having all the account details hidden from the user by creating usernames from phone numbers made it gain traction over username oriented messengers.
At the time ios and blackberry alternatives are platform specific, it's not clear for most android users that their android device is linked to a google account, sometimes autocreated so google talk never worked
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The convenience of having all the account details hidden from the user by creating usernames from phone numbers made it gain traction over username oriented messengers.
What you call a convenience is whatsapp biggest flaw. Why rely on legacy phone numbers? They are not free, are location based, can change, you can have more than one, you can share one with many people. Of all the IDs they could have used they ended up choosing the worst. And because of that there will never be a whatsapp on PC* so it is doomed to fail.
*a glorified phone remote doesn't count.
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While SMS has been free for years, it's not always that there was iMessages or Hangouts that people could use, and even if they did, there was the issue of non-portability: you don't have iMessages on Android (Apple is thinking of introducing it now, while not too many people download Google apps on their iPhone if they're already happy w/ the Apple equivalents.
That's the point. SMS is free, but to send things like pics or videos, you'd need MMS. WhatsApp bypasses that assuming that one only uses WiFi r
As a WhatsApp user... (Score:2)
I can tell you it is great. Here is my list of whys (I know some may be covered by other apps):
- I have several friends 2000 miles away. We have had a group chat open for almost 2 years now. We share pics, videos, and life updates. I am not on FB, and this is just more personal. We meet up once or twice a year, and it makes it easy to coordinate things
- my wife and I have a group chat with our daughter... no need to remember to send multiple messages
- WA can handle bigger photos / videos / documents.
Dang, I knew I'd forget one..... (Score:2)
- WhatsAppWeb - You can access your chats from your browser. Makes it so much easier for me to type things or share things that aren't on my phone.
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Except that your phone must still be powered on, with signal and battery. All three limitations being 100% artificial since your PC is more than powerful enough to send messages.
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Fully agree w/ this. I have parents & sister's family living in another country, while my son lives in the opposite end of the country. With two of them, I have to FaceTime, and the others, I just use Vonage. Now, w/ this, I can do video chats w/ everyone. Also, when I travel outside the US, I use my Lumia, and now, I can use that to video chat as well. Speaking of which, right now, Windows 10 Mobile doesn't have any VOIP apps like the other 2 (I mainly use Vonage and 8x8), but WhatsApp can now ser
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How well does it work? (Score:2)
As an Android user, I'll be interested to see if this is better than Skype for video calls. I have found Facetime to work way better than Skype over the same connections; Skype is sometimes so crappy that I'll borrow an iDevice instead.
Re:How well does it work? (Score:4, Informative)
You should try Google Hangouts. Works great. Cross-platform. Works on PCs. No phone number required.
Congratulations (Score:2)
Congratulations, you just invented Skype.
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OTOH, Skype communication isn't encrypted, whereas Whatsapp is.
Encryption (Score:2)
Technically Skype was supposed to use RC4
(which is completely crappy so it doesn't work).
In practice, Skype specially since the Microsoft buyout isn't opposing 3rd party clients.
(e.g.: there's a 100% opensource Purple/Pidgin/Adium plugin that relies on the web.skype interface and works on Linux)
(And in practice Skype heading toward the direction of packaged webapps anyway. Just don't mind the current incompatibility between microsoft's ORTC and the rest of the universe' WebRTC)
Which means you could use an e
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so they just invented a crappy Skype.
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instant app == agile (Score:2)
...Facebook-owned instant app WhatsApp today announced...
An instant app, eh? So they love agile over at Facebook I take it.
Fully? (Score:2)
>"announced it is bringing "fully encrypted" video calling feature. "
Fully encrypted? So it is end-to-end/user-to-user without any server interception? With a closed-source app, how do we know it has no backdoors, no logging, no intentionally weakened keys, no overrides, no stored keys, etc? Just asking....