Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 379 posts

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#201

Post by perseusprime11 »

ethanbond wrote: post #191
dzmien wrote: post #189

Why didn't they just update hangouts? I actually use hangouts for video calls with relative frequency, and I wish it was better adapted to changes in network speed like they say Duo is. I think it would be better if "Duo" was just integrated into hangouts as an update. I like hangouts because it allows me to use one app for voice, text and video.

Well it wouldn't be Google with any fewer than 4 semi-competing apps in their own portfolio.

My guess is Duo will be like Inbox competing with gmail. I am guessing here but I think Google is on to something around innovation. They are launching innovative future facing apps without the constraints of legacy systems. They will use this approach to figure out which features work and back port them into their legacy apps. Not a bad approach if it works.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#202

Post by jeyashankher »

helloworld wrote: post #12

Sounds like Duo has a simple user experience, which is great. But it doesn't solve the eye-contact problem with video calls today. When you look at the person on the screen whom you're talking to, that person sees you looking away, because you're not looking into the camera, which is somewhere on the edge of the screen. So you don't make eye contact with the person you're talking to. And for me, that makes video call…

I have an iPhone 6S and the front camera seems to do a decent job with the eye-contact problem. I don't seem to need to do the look into the camera when taking selfies.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#203

Post by xeniak »

dzmien wrote: post #189

Why didn't they just update hangouts? I actually use hangouts for video calls with relative frequency, and I wish it was better adapted to changes in network speed like they say Duo is. I think it would be better if "Duo" was just integrated into hangouts as an update. I like hangouts because it allows me to use one app for voice, text and video.

Duo looks like it doesn't require a Google account; just a phone number - think WhatsApp.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#204

Post by apozem »

wutbrodo wrote: post #42
karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #20

I know these will be preinstalled on Android, but many friends and family use iOS and I will feel silly asking them to install Duo and Allo. Hangouts is able to mix voice, video and text just fine. Why start requiring separate apps? This is Google at its dumbest. They are squandering the small amount of momentum Hangouts has.

Google's communications strategy has been bafflingly dumb for years and years now. Almost my ENTIRE social network (that was on chat; this was before every part of society was "on the Internet") used to be on Gchat. That's a massive network-effects advantage that they had ages before anyone else did (including Facebook, but Facebook's network did surpass them with the ability to find someone by their face). Almost a…

> This is a pretty chronic Google problem that I noticed both from the inside and outside: their engineering and design talent are incredible, but the people responsible for the product and marketing side are evidently really, really bad at what they do.

The people designing Google products just do not understand human interaction. Excuse the Gawker network link, but I think this reaction to a past Google keynote hits the nail on the head.

http://gizmodo.com/5921823/does-google-have-any-social-skill...

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#206

Post by NoGravitas »

jalami wrote: post #51

I'm still putting my money on vector.im and matrix.org. Closed source communication apps are not appealing to me, even if they come with an E2E promise. From a business perspective this makes sense for Google. A big problem with Skype was always the lack of ubiquity. Lot of people had it, but it required another install and explicit configuration. Now that Skype is nearly bundled with W10 and WebRTC has made skype.co…

I'm following matrix.org and vector.im development, hoping they'll get good and take off. Main thing stopping me from jumping on board is that running a matrix home server is said to be very resource intensive and my home server is already overloaded. Maybe later.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#207

Post by syshum »

anentropic wrote: post #200

Hope it works better than Hangouts i.e. without randomly having to reboot your laptop before it will work

I can assure you that you will never have to reboot your laptop before it will work... as it will not work at all on your laptop. It is for Android and iOS only.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#208

Post by donpark »

kyriakos wrote: post #122
donpark wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Recent ML work on Gaze Manipulation]( http://www.creativeai.net/posts/6fokKr6xuytqsnT9F/deepwarp-p... ) [Online interactive demo]( http://sites.skoltech.ru/compvision/projects/deepwarp/ )

is it just me or the examples are just creepy ? anyway I think its a minor issue. I am more worried about if I am dressed / groomed appropriately for the video call rather than if I am having constant eye contact.

that is a major problem too, particularly in Asia and discrimination (race, sex, age, disabled) target groups. audio-only is also impacted (language, stutter, accent, pitch, etc) but to a lesser degree.

but then we developers would be lost without problems.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#209

Post by amelius »

jalami wrote: post #51

I'm still putting my money on vector.im and matrix.org. Closed source communication apps are not appealing to me, even if they come with an E2E promise. From a business perspective this makes sense for Google. A big problem with Skype was always the lack of ubiquity. Lot of people had it, but it required another install and explicit configuration. Now that Skype is nearly bundled with W10 and WebRTC has made skype.co…

> Closed source communication apps are not appealing to me

And they should be forbidden, according to (admittedly a broad interpretation of) the telecommunications act of 1996, [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#210

Post by svantana »

helloworld wrote: post #12

Sounds like Duo has a simple user experience, which is great. But it doesn't solve the eye-contact problem with video calls today. When you look at the person on the screen whom you're talking to, that person sees you looking away, because you're not looking into the camera, which is somewhere on the edge of the screen. So you don't make eye contact with the person you're talking to. And for me, that makes video call…

To me, the obvious endgame is a 3D reconstruction of the image from the perspective of your eyes, so the screen becomes a "virtual window". I tried to pitch this to Skype a few years back, it felt like a no-brainer given that they were then recently acquired by Microsoft (which is big on similar technologies with Kinect and lately HoloLens). But they were completely uninterested! I think they were so used to Skyping that they didn't feel it was a problem.
Post reply on HN