Daily Archives: May 24, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic pushed people to stay in their homes, and in turn, forced them to use video conferencing products. In the past couple of months, Zoom became an almost indispensable app, Facebook had to step up and make a rival product, and Google made its enterprise conferencing product free for everyone.

Amid this video conferencing boom, Zooms security and privacy-relatedproblems made a lot of people skeptical about using its products. Plus, the company wasnt transparent about communicating its mishaps this forced a lot of people to look for free open source products, and Jitsi emerged as a perfect solution for them.

Apart from being open-sourced, Jitsi benefited from endorsements by a few highly-regarded names in the security community. In March, a privacy-focusedbrowser Tor tweeted about the product as an alternative to Zoom.

In 2017, in an interview with WIRED, Edward Snowden talked about using his own Jitsi server. Later, in a security conference, a lot of people saw Snowden using Jitsi to deliver a talk.

The product suddenly exploded during the pandemic. That meant Emil Ivov, Jitsis founder, and the rest of the team had to work even longer hours to keep the ship running.

Ivov originally built Jitsi as a project in 2003, when he was studying at the University of Strasbourg. Later, he spun off the project into an app and kept building it for desktop. In 2009, he started a company called BlueJimp (not to confused with BlueJeans, another video conferencing app) around it.

In 2011, Google open-sourced WebRTC communication standards to facilitate things like video-conferencing over browsers.The team took advantage of that and built abrowser-basedproduct, and so Meet Jitsi was born.

Apart from being open-sourced Jitsis ease of use helped it gain more users. To set up a call, you need to go to its website, and itll generate a meeting link with four words. That makes it difficult for Zoombombers uninvited people who join public video conferences and broadcast pornographic material to guess the link. Plus, you dont need to sign up to set up a meeting.

While the open-sourced version is free-to-usefor everyone. Its parent company, 88 offers a paid version with features such as transcription and meeting history.

In the past few months, the team had to scale up the infrastructure as users started to mount due to lockdowns all over the world.

The company learned that all kinds of people started to use video conferencing products. So they had to make things easier for users and educate them about the product as many of them were used to old-fashioned dial-in calls.

However, the pandemic has popularized the companys product. Ivov claims it pushed the apps growth by 10 years:

The pandemic provided an acceleration of 10 years in terms of growth. The last decade was an indicator of people moving towards remote work. This situation has just put us into the fast track mode.

After the pandemic hit the world, Jitsis open-sourced version and 88s paid version have managed to achieve 20 million unique monthly participants.

The next challenge for the company is to introduce end-to-end encryption for calls. The service already offers end-to-end encryption one-on-one calls and plenty of other security measures.

Ivov told me that hes never heard so many people talk about end-to-end encryption:

Ive never heard so many people talk about security and end-to-end encryption as I have in the past few months. We provide different levels of security for different needs. So primarily, we needed to educate people about the options they have.

He said that end-to-end encryption for a call with multiple people is challenging to develop. Ideally, when someone joins an encrypted call without a valid key, they would only see jumbled up video streams. When they have the legitimate key, the video stream would look normal. You can see that in a demo video below.

Now, this is easy to execute when there are two or three people on the call. When video services such as Jitsi meet use WebRTC, they create a connection with a central server that dishes out a single video stream to all participants.

If a service wants to use encryption, it has to create the same number of encrypted connection to the central server as the number of participants on a call.And the central server has to decrypt every stream, re-encrypt it, and send it to another participant.This works well for two or three-person calls. But puts a lot of load on the server for calls with multiple people.

To solve this problem, Jitsi is going to use Insertable Streams, a new feature released by the Chromium team that lets you add an additional layer of encryption. The idea is to encrypt frames rather than connections.

Ivov says the open-source nature of the app has helped people find bugs and report them and thats why we havent seen a major security scare on the app yet.Plus, this also helps anyone who wants to implement their own set of functions on top of Jitsis app.

For instance, the Italy-based classroom collaboration platform WeSchool has built some features on top of Jitsis open-sourced version. And according to WeSchools CEO, Marco De Rossi, nearly 30% of secondary schools in the country are using that tool. Rocket Chat, a free and open-source enterprise team chat solution also uses Jitsi for video conferencing.

The number of people using video conferencing simultaneously might decrease as countries are opening up, but Ivov believes a lot of people will still prefer this method of communication instead of a meeting packed with people.

He said that conferencing apps will need to try and make peoples lives easier by making meeting itemssuch as slideshows, documents, and transcripts available even after the session ends. However, the challenge for them would be to do all of this without compromising anyones privacy, and Ivov believes its possible.

Read next: Ben Goertzel: I'm just another neuron in the goddamn global brain

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A look at how Jitsi became a 'secure' open-source alternative to Zoom - The Next Web

Earlier this year, TikTok-owner Bytedance launched its music app Resso in India. At that time, Ressos team said that at the moment theres no plan for integration between both apps.

However, that seems to be changing. TikTok usually shows the original soundtrack used in the clip in a ticker below. But now, it also includes a shortcut to Resso if the song is available on the music streaming app. If you tap on that, you will be redirected to Resso, where you can listen to the full song.

[Read: A look at how Jitsi became a secure open-source alternative to Zoom]

Whats more, Resso, shows you the back button, so you can go right back to TikTok and resume watching videos.

While this integration is beneficial for both apps, Resso has more to gain from it. The music app is relatively new, and not a lot of TikTok users might have it. So, they would be redirected to Play Store or App Store to download it. Indias TikToks biggest market with more than 200 million monthly active users, so even if a few of them download Resso, its a win for Bytedance.

A TikTok spokesperson told TNW that this feature is currently in the beta testing phase:

As a platform built on innovation, our constant focus is to work towards enhancing the in-app experience of our users. We are currently in the beta testing phase and are early in the process to share any further details.

TikTok played a key role as a hitmaker for a lot of artists and songs, notably Lil Nass Old Town Road, Drakes Toosie Slide,and more recently,Melanie Martinezs Play Date, which is a 2015 song. So rather than have people listen to these songs on Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube, Bytedance wants to leverage Resso and make it an ecosystem play.

Update (22/05/2020): Added statement from TikTok.

Read next: All you need to know about CRM and the common pitfalls to avoid

Read our daily coverage on how the tech industry is responding to the coronavirus and subscribe to our weekly newsletter Coronavirus in Context.

For tips and tricks on working remotely, check out our Growth Quarters articles here or follow us on Twitter.

Continued here:
TikTok now gives you one-tap access to streaming app Resso - The Next Web

Protesters stand in support of Uighurs and their fight for human rights in Hong Kong. (Lee Jin-man / AP Photo)

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For Uighur activists, the coronavirus outbreak could not have come at a worse time.Ad Policy

The Chinese governments regime of oppression and mass internment in the countrys western Xinjiang province, under which upward of 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are subject to arbitrary detention in camps, began in April 2017. For two and half years, Uighurs outside of Chinain large diasporas in the United States, Europe, and elsewherefought tooth and nail for the world to take notice. But for too long, they say, press coverage came in a trickle, and action from foreign governments was all but absent.

At the beginning of this year, however, there was some cause for optimism. Leaks detailing the full extent of the governments brutality in Xinjiang, reported by The New York Times and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists last November, had made a splash. At the end of 2019, after many months of delay, the US House of Representatives passed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act, designed to punish China for its actions, which activists had hoped would be taken up in the first months of 2020 and passed by the Senate with a veto-proof majority.

At last, the plight of Uighurs in Xinjiang seemed on the cusp of breaking through to the mainstream.

Then, as it has so many things, Covid-19 obliterated that momentum. Weve worked really hard to make the world believe there is a massive human rights violation going on, Kuzzat Altay, president of the Uighur American Association, said. Now, nobodys talking about Uighurs. Around the world, events that were planned to seize on what seemed like Uighurs momentChinese embassy protests, advocacy training, and Uighur cultural celebrationswere canceled. Some will be rescheduled. Uighurs worry, however, that even when normalcy resumes, it could be months or longer before they regain any traction. Meanwhile, news from Xinjiang remains bleak.Refugee

But not everyone in the diaspora is lamenting the bad-situation-made-worse. In quarantine, activists have adapted quickly to new constraints, and many say they are finding new ways to reach people and expand the scope of their efforts.

In March, as the United States finally began to respond to the virus, Uighur leaders representing 35 advocacy groups in 18 countries met via Jitsi, a secure Zoom alternative, to discuss how they might regroup. The pandemic was well past the point of being a China story, but there were aspects of the Communist Partys handling of the outbreakthe suppression of journalists and whistle-blowers, an active disinformation campaignthat have long marked the situation in Xinjiang. Perhaps there was a chance to highlight Chinas authoritarian dangers, Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uighur Congress, said. The leaders determined to redouble their efforts, starting with social media.

Since the call, Uighur groups have been churning out more video testimonies than ever, in which members of the diaspora tell stories of friends and family members who have gone missing or suffered in Xinjiang. They post the videos on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and elsewhere, hoping to catch the eyes of everyone around the world who has little place to go right now but their screens. It can be a challenge to break through still, but the videos are getting more views than was typical before the pandemic, Isa said. Interactions with posts on social media are up, and supportive private messages are flowing in.

Of course, Uighurs in the diaspora also have more time at home on their hands. And so, activists are recruiting. Theyre conducting advocacy training on Zoom, sponsoring Twitterstorms and hashtag parties, and enlisting support for letter-writing campaigns to prominent politicians around the world. In April, 38 Uighur groups sent a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging movement on the Uighur Act, the largest such campaign since the crisis in Xinjiang began.

In mid-May, the Senate finally passed the bipartisan bill, sending it back to the House. (Human rights advocates have warned that meaningful enforcement still depends on the president, who has broadly avoided addressing Chinas human rights abuses.) Isa believes the advocacy push helped expedite the bills approval.

For Tahir Imin, who runs an all-volunteer news aggregation service focused on Uighur issues based in Washington, D.C., the lockdown has meant more bandwidth for his team to write and publish articles. With new volunteers, Imin has also expanded his news servicewhich has worked for the past two years in English, Uighur, and Chinese, among other languagesinto German, French, and Urdu. He called the net effect of quarantine a level up for the Uighur cause.

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Indeed, reaching new audiences is an essential part of Uighur advocacy, but translation and targeted outreach often fell by the wayside in busier times, Rushan Abbas, founder of the Campaign for Uighurs, said. In recent years, Abbas has toured US universities and other institutions giving speeches to raise awareness of Uighurs treatment in Xinjiang, but her work was almost exclusively in English. Now, in the past month, her team has translated speeches, press releases, and op-eds into Chinese, Turkish, and Arabic; Abbas said reaching the Muslim world is especially important, as the acquiescence of governments in Muslim-majority countries is in part what has allowed Chinas actions in Xinjiang to continue unchecked. I should not say we thank the pandemic, Abbas said. But we are using this terrible situation as an opportunity.

Many in the Uighur diaspora live in exile from China because they escaped the country or were abroad when the Xinjiang crackdown began and did not dare return. Cut off from loved ones back home, work and fellowship with other Uighurs are often the only things to help those in exile cope with the painand often the powerlessnessof that separation. Social distancing has left many feeling doubly alone.Forced Labor

Making matters worse, scant knowledge of how the coronavirus spread in Xinjiang, and who was affected, have added to the already intolerable anxiety of the diaspora. Amid a dearth of information from the province, Uighurs worry about what the Communist Party might get away with while the worlds attention is turned away. Maybe an entire concentration camp is going to disappear, Altay, of the Uighur American Association, said. Whos going to care? Whos going to hold China accountable?

To manage the added stress brought on by Covid-19, more in the diaspora are turning to activism, Abbas said. This is giving comfort to Uighurs, because they feel like they are doing something, she explained. Instead of being lonely and homesick, theyre being a voice for their people.Current Issue

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This has been the case for Jevlan Shirmemmet. A young professional in Turkey, Shirmemmet discovered recently that Chinese authorities had sent his parents and brother to internment camps in Xinjiang. For two years, Shirmemmet said, he hadnt spoken with his family, because international contact is frequently cause enough for Uighurs to be detained. He avoided advocacy, also, for fear of retribution against friends and family. But learning his family had been detained anywayin his mothers case, he believes it was simply because she visited him once when he was a university student in IstanbulShirmemmet, with encouragement from Abbas, took to social media to tell his story.

Within a week, young Uighurs in Turkey and other countries reached out to Shirmemmet to share that their families, too, were detained. They thought that their collective voice might have a greater impact than that of individual testimonies. From quarantine, about a dozen young Uighurs now work together to create a series of videos about the Xinjiang crisis, how it is affecting specific groups of Uighurs, such as mothers, and other topics in the news that they then link to Xinjiang. In conference calls, they select topics for the videos. Later, some write the content and record the videos, while others translate the videos into a variety of languages.

The group aims for relevance and immediacy. After the World Health Organization advised people to wash their hands, the group produced a video in which Shirmemmet discussed the importance of handwashingand then bridged to the fact that many Uighurs in Xinjiang lack clean water, especially in the detention centers, where hygiene conditions are notoriously grim. Many videos have gotten tens of thousands of viewsfar more, Shirmemmet said, than the typical individual testimonies hes seen.

Shirmemmet now regrets that he did not speak out sooner. He vows that even after the coronavirus lockdown is liftedand its been strict in Turkeyhe will continue his activism. I feel I can do something for my nation and my family, he said. The situation in Xinjiang often seems like it might never improve, he said, but the new camaraderie Shirmemmet has found online is reason to take heart. We are in a difficult position, he said. But we can do something together. That is hope.

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How the Covid-19 Lockdown Is Reshaping Uighur Activism - The Nation

With social distancing still widely enforced throughout the world, working remotely has gained a foothold as a viable, and necessary alternative to heading into an office every day. Safe, remotely connected teams have enabled many creative companies to continue production on projects without a centralized studio.

Modern digital communication methods adopted for remote working may offer studios benefits that will endure far after the lockdowns end. This is certainly true of Agora.Studio, an example of a VFX and animation hub that was well-ahead of the work-for-hire curve; the studio is built entirely using a remote workforce. Co-founder David Hubert describes Agoras web of creative talent as a global ecosystem. The studio has expanded to the point that its able to manage 100s of employees remotely at any given time. AWN spoke with both Hubert and fellow co-founder Jacob Gardner about how they managed to build Agoras success with remote freelancers.

AWN: How did the idea behind Agora.Studio emerge?

David Hubert: We started Agora four years ago, when I was working at a studio and a lot of other studios were asking me for my availability. Gradually, I asked if they would be open to working with freelancers. I reached out to a few contacts over the weekend Jacob was one of themwed met at DreamWorks a few years prior and by Monday, we were ready to go. We had no workflow, no pipeline, just an understanding of the tasks we had to do and the money available for the project. One thing led to another, and now, we have a group of a little over 650 freelancers in our pool of resources. We work on 10 or 12 projects simultaneously, and at the moment, were hiring between 40 and 50 freelancers at all times, so we are ready to scale up as projects come in.

AWN: How difficult is it to work out contracts and NDAs when managing multiple freelancers in multiple locations?

DH: For contractual work, all our freelancers have already signed an NDA and contractor master agreement with us, so they dont have to sign a new one for every new project they work on. We discuss the salary with each freelancer ahead of time to improve efficiency when casting on a new project. We also have a hub where the artists can log in and input their hours for the given day, which are then compiled for invoices. We try to automate and standardize these administrative elements so its simpler for all the freelancers.

AWN: How do you maintain clear communication across remote teams?

DH: When we started, we had two or three freelancers, so we could effectively use email for communication. Now we can have a dozen projects with 40 people at one time, so we need to hire supervisors and email is not really a viable option anymore. If we didnt handle our comms with the right tools, it would take up half of our time.

Jacob Gardner: We use Slack as a primary communication tool, but our use has evolved so we dont lose important information in a sea of comments. To do this, we create a new workspace for each client we work with and create dedicated private channels for each production. For projects that involve different departments, we create sub-channels for each production step: character work, rigging, and animation. The goal is to standardize the structure within Slack and avoid confusion when freelancers jump from one production to the other while also allowing the freelancers to communicate efficiently.

Were continually thinking about how to work most efficiently with people across the world. Some people are working while Im asleep, and vice versa. Weve also tried to bridge the feeling of loneliness from working at home by having Slack communities and virtual rooms in Jitsi that people can access whenever. We have learned that having informal methods of communication can help freelancers feel less lonely working in their own house.

AWN: How is work reviewed?

JG: Having sourced such a large network of freelancers, we soon identified that we needed a solution for reviewing media that wasnt just me recording a video and sharing. We found that solution in the collaborative review tool, SyncSketch; its the ideal tool for notes and annotations. Being able to roll back and forth across the frames weve worked on is essential to our work, and it works so well.

When we have lots of projects on the go, we can switch between them with ease in SyncSketch. This really simplifies everything, and a lot of the tools are convenient for doing things remotely.

AWN: What tools have you built or modified to increase efficiency?

JG: We found we were doing the same things over and over again for each project, so we wanted to simplify these processes and mitigate tasks such as manual clicking. We built some custom tools that have helped us a lot. Any time were building a tool or finding a solution, were thinking about how to make this universal enough to work on other projects or clients in the future. We want to be able to build something that accepts many different requirements; were always aiming to think much broader. If our tools can be easily adapted to each clients requirements, then we save time and expand our capabilities. One example is our own data transfer solution called NextCloud. Its like FTP but much more versatile.

AWN: What other tips can you share about the dynamics of a remote work-for-hire lifestyle?

DH: We know everyone goes through the same struggles when they start working from home. And suddenly, artists around the world have found themselves in this new situation. Weve had artists asking lots of questions, from what computer to buy to how do I deal with my kids? Having a routine is a common tip: get dressed like youre going to work and take a regular lunch break. You need a work structure to make sure you have separation. You need a good computer, internet connection, headset, and webcam. Physical exercise is also especially important. Its easy to just move between the couch and the computer if youre not careful.

We started to produce video clips with the freelancers we work with, sharing tips and tricks for artists who have just started working from home. You can find them all here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/6972970. We had a lot of freelancers that were eager to share their thoughts. We are aiming to produce between 50 to 100 videos of tips ranging from 15 seconds to 2 minutes. Weve started sharing these already and are getting a great response. Some of them are funny and entertaining, while others are more factual and great for new remote workers. We hope by sharing our experiences that we can help other artists and studios out there adapt and thrive working remotely.

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Tips on Running a Remote Animation Studio - Animation World Network