"Together", the new version of Jami and a new step forward

Jami under­goes conti­nu­ous ongoing deve­lop­ment and rele­ase, so you can expe­ri­ence impro­ve­ments and new featu­res as we imple­ment them. When we reach a signi­fi­cant miles­tone or intro­duce impor­tant new featu­res, we will give it a code name. We have given today’s rele­ase of Jami the code name «Toget­her».

The pande­mic affec­ting our world has had a consi­de­ra­ble impact on the Jami team, like everyone. This has forced us to review our prio­ri­ties, even rethink our vision of the Jami project.

We’ve deci­ded to trans­form Jami from a simple peer‑­to‑­peer commu­ni­ca­tion system, into group commu­ni­ca­tion soft­ware that would enable large groups to colla­bo­rate, while preser­ving indi­vi­dual privacy and secu­rity, yet still be free (as in free­dom) and gratis (free of charge). «Toget­her» lays the foun­da­tion for this new direc­tion.

What will you find in this new version of Jami? Let’s review the tech­ni­cal impro­ve­ments and new featu­res, which exem­pli­fies the name «Toget­her».

Major tech­ni­cal impro­ve­ments

Many tradi­ti­o­nal «bug fixes» were imple­men­ted, and there isn’t enough space here to list them all. Overall, Jami has become more robust and reli­a­ble. Howe­ver, three nota­ble impro­ve­ments are worth menti­o­ning.

There has been a signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ment to Jami’s ability to operate on low-band­width networks. We are very proud of this impro­ve­ment, as it will open commu­ni­ca­ti­ons to a large number of users with limi­ted access to the Inter­net (and they make up the vast majo­rity of huma­nity!) using Jami. For exam­ple, now Jami needs only 50 kB/s in audio/video mode, and 10 kB/s for audio-only calls.

Mobile versi­ons of Jami (Android and iOS) are now much less deman­ding on your phone’s resour­ces, dras­ti­cally redu­cing battery consump­tion. Mobile device wake up is impro­ved, and calls are gene­rally more effi­ci­ent.

Jami for Windows has seen a signi­fi­cant tech­ni­cal evolu­tion. It has been almost comple­tely rewrit­ten, provi­ding a much better user expe­ri­ence. Jami works better in Micro­soft desk­top envi­ron­ments (Windows 8, Windows 10) and now runs on Surface tablets. We are eagerly anti­ci­pate feed­back from users of these plat­forms.

What’s new in the «Toget­her» version

A more effi­ci­ent and enri­ched video confe­ren­cing system

Let’s be honest: until now, Jami’s confe­ren­cing system wasn’t really func­ti­o­nal. We put a lot of effort into confe­ren­cing, and have great results. We were able to test many dozens of parti­ci­pants oursel­ves, with no problem. There are no theo­re­ti­cal limits to the number of parti­ci­pants– only the avai­la­ble network band­width and host device capa­bi­li­ties will limit their numbers. Please, try it with large groups. We look forward to hearing about your expe­ri­ence, it is very useful to us.

Anot­her useful impro­ve­ment is the ability to dyna­mi­cally change the confe­rence layout. You can select the parti­ci­pant you wish to high­light, share a presen­ta­tion, or stream media in full screen. How? Just click on it!

Rendez­vous Points

This is undoub­tedly one of the most inno­va­tive and promi­sing featu­res of “Toget­her”. The bottom line is that it allows you to turn your Jami appli­ca­tion into a confe­rence server with just one click.

“Rendez­vous Points”appear like any other account that you create in the account crea­tion wizard. Each can be perma­nent or ephe­me­ral, and each can have a name that you may or may not regis­ter on the public direc­tory.

Once crea­ted, the users you have invi­ted will be able to meet, see and talk to each other at any time – even if you are absent or on anot­her call! All you need to do is connect your account to the Inter­net.

For exam­ple, if you are a teacher and you have to teach from a distance: create your Rendez­vous Point, and share the iden­ti­fier with your students. From your account, call the Rendez­vous Point and you’re there!

As with video confe­ren­ces, you can control the layout of the video by simply clic­king on the user you want to high­light.

You can create as many Rendez­vous Points as you want.

This is just the begin­ning. We’ve got a lot of ideas for addi­ti­o­nal opti­ons and featu­res for Rendez­vous Points that we’ll be adding in the coming months (such as setting a sche­dule and dura­tion). Please share your ideas and comments. Even if it takes time to consi­der, we always take your input seri­ously!

JAMS – Jami Account Manage­ment Server

Jami imple­ments a free distri­bu­ted network for everyone. Howe­ver, orga­ni­za­ti­ons wishing to use Jami require a higher level of control over users of their network, so we have crea­ted Jami Account Manage­ment Server (JAMS). JAMS allows them to manage their own Jami commu­nity while taking advan­tage of Jami’s distri­bu­ted network archi­tec­ture.

With JAMS, you can create your own commu­nity of Jami users, either directly on the server or by connec­ting it to your of your LDAP authen­ti­ca­tion server or Active Direc­tory service. You can manage user contact lists or push speci­fic confi­gu­ra­ti­ons to groups of users.

This new compo­nent of the Jami ecosys­tem will be espe­ci­ally useful for compa­nies or orga­ni­za­ti­ons such as scho­ols. An"Alpha" version has been avai­la­ble on our website for seve­ral months now, and today a «Beta» version has been posted to test in your envi­ron­ment. A full produc­tion rele­ase should be avai­la­ble in Novem­ber, and by the end of the year, we plan to offer full commer­cial JAMS support.

The plugin module system and the first Jami plugin!

Jami «Toget­her» now inclu­des a plugin system! This allows exter­nal program­mers to inte­grate new func­ti­ons into Jami without having to handle the full comple­xity of Jami. This initial imple­men­ta­tion allows modi­fi­ca­tion of the video stream using speci­fic trans­for­ma­ti­ons.

Initi­ally, we’ve deve­lo­ped a plugin called “GreenS­creen” based on Tensor­Flow, the well-known neural network frame­work deve­lo­ped by Google. Imple­men­ting arti­fi­cial inte­lli­gence in Jami is so exci­ting, opening up an unli­mi­ted number of poten­tial new func­ti­ons and use cases…

The GreenS­creen plugin allows to modify the image back­ground during a video call. What makes it so unique? All the proces­sing happens locally on your device.

GreenS­creen is avai­la­ble for down­load from our website, for GNU/Linux, Windows and Android plat­forms. An Apple version should be avai­la­ble in the near future.

This first version of GreenS­creen requi­res subs­tan­tial machine resour­ces. In fact, an Nvidia grap­hics card is highly recom­men­ded.  For Android, only phones with a dedi­ca­ted AI chip will work well.

What is our road­map for the next few months

Two projects will be at the heart of our acti­vity: conso­li­da­ting and enri­ching the new func­ti­ons menti­o­ned above, and “Swarm Chat”, which will allow the synch­ro­ni­za­tion of conver­sa­ti­ons between multi­ple devi­ces and the commu­ni­ca­tion of private and public groups.

In conclu­sion, quoting Paul B. Preci­ado: «Let’s be aware that when we down­load an appli­ca­tion, we don’t just install it in our mobile, but directly in our cogni­tive device».

GNU/Jami is an appli­ca­tion unlike any other. What do you think about it? Please let us know!