

Show HN: Google Chrome – Voice Memo - alireyraa
https://github.com/GoogleChrome/voice-memos?utm_source=javascriptweekly&utm_medium=email

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daveloyall
I'm using Firefox nightly. The first time I visited the Voice Memo page, a
little notification box on the bottom left informed me that the app is ready
for offline use.

...How do I access it when I am offline? I looked around for a new tool bar
button, etc, but found nothing.

EDIT: All I have to do is visit the same URL, while offline. ...This means
that Firefox doesn't always do a DNS lookup when you type in a URL... Hm.

~~~
kinlan
Yep, that is pretty much the same with any site that supports either AppCache
or ServiceWorker... Wondering if the "Hm" is a frustration or something else?

~~~
daveloyall
The "hm" is frustration/resignation about the constant pressure to dumb
everything down... Resulting in everything being worse.

There was a time when you had to type the "http"... (You know, to distinguish
from gopher://!)

I was happy to type that in, because it informed my mental model of what would
happen when I pushed enter: My machine would request that resource from this
host. The request would be in the form specified by that protocol, as would be
the response.

In my mind, a URL like [https://voice-memos.appspot.com/](https://voice-
memos.appspot.com/) represents a remote resource. Specifically, a resource in
appspot's domain...

There are plenty of ways they could have addressed these local apps
differently.

localapp://com.appspot.voice-memos

[https://voice-memos.appspot.com.localhost](https://voice-
memos.appspot.com.localhost)

about:apps/voice-memos

[Some Apps button on the toolbar that shows a list of those which are
installed locally]

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callahad
This works wonderfully on Firefox OS. Hooray for open standards!

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kisna72
Here is what I am thinking.

Using .Mp3 format probably violates the patent. But what if you roll out your
own compressor using the same FFT Technology?

Did you research this option? You are basically converting time domain
waveform into frequency domain, then removing the frequency that doesn't
matter much thus causing lossy compression of the music.

~~~
rockdoe
Isn't it using Opus? Much superior to MP3 for voice and the patents are
royality free. RecorderJS seems to at least use Opus.

 _But what if you roll out your own compressor using the same FFT Technology?_

There's quite a bit more to modern codecs than that.

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rockdoe
MediaRecorder should work in Firefox, and this appears to be a trivial demo of
it?

I must be missing why this is Chrome only. Edit: Tested, it "just works" in
Firefox too.

~~~
pgeorgi
My guess is that the github account (GoogleChrome) is simply an account of
Google Chrome developers, and so that demo was probably made by them.

That it works elsewhere - yay open standards :-)

~~~
kinlan
Yep, it was made by my colleague Paul Lewis. we tried to make it work
everywhere where there is getUserMedia and Web Audio support.

