I have been praying to see video conferencing work on Linux since Quickcam came out with their first camera. We have had such an application in GNOME for a while. But the missing piece has always been, how do I convince Mac and Windows using friends to jump technical through hoops so that they could see my pretty face.
It seems like soon all the kids will be using Google Talk’s video feature. And now more and more laptops have integrated cameras, so people don’t have to fish around for the dusty webcam in the cabinet.
I am glad to see that Empathy has finally been accepted as a GNOME module, so my only hope is that by the next GNOME release it will inter-operate with Google’s application.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy98WSbueDA&hl=en&fs=1]
Yes We Can

Spending two full weekend days here in Adobe’s conference center with a group of web accessibility folks.
The Google guys seem to have a lot of fun, their effort is to bring usability to the web now. As opposed to spending all their energy evangelizing and wagging their fingers at access issues they find in house and on the wide web. The UW folks here got straight to work on a Facebook AXSJAX extension, and the Amazon.com guys started debugging and improving the existing Amazon.com AXSJAX extension.

Ryan Benson pointed out some Facebook keyboard navigation issues, and showed some tips for making Firefox more keyboard friendly, for example, making the focus rectangle more visible, and enabling caret mode.
Jeff Bigham and other UW folks presented their current projects. I thought the different web usability research metrics were interesting. I have yet to try WebAnywhere.

There was a large representation of Amazon.com folks, which was great. Especially since accessibility is not in their job descriptions. It is really wonderful seeing them invest a weekend in this.

I am happy to meet Wendy and Matt. It is good to know local a11y professionals. I’ll be sure to get thier book when it comes out this November.
I got to introduce Specular with a full 25 slide presentation, I breezed through most of it. And there is a new release today!

In a week, after Obama wins, I will be happy that someone like Sarah Palin was in the race. McCain often comes off as being a moderate, he does everything to disassociate himself from Bush. But having a running mate like Palin really helps us all remember the fucked up mentality that has dominated public discourse in this country for the last 8 years.
McCain and Palin today, demanded that the LA Times release a video in which Obama is shown meeting a PLO persona. The PLO is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. For some reason being sympathetic to Palestinians here in the U.S. is considered hateful or “anti-Semitic”.
As an Israeli and Jewish American I resent McCain’s manipulations, so do many of my friends. Hopfully next week, when McCain loses, he will look back and understand this mistake.