
Share your screen on Zoom with ultrasound - mahnac
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/214629303-Direct-Share-with-Zoom-Rooms
======
aed
They've had this feature for sometime and it is pretty cool. :)

About a year ago there was an ask HN about conference room systems. I had just
recently gone through the process of selecting and went with zoom. The
"airplay" feature was one of the reasons why.

Here are my notes:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19455428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19455428)

Edit to add one note: They recently (last six months or so) added a feature to
allow you to share multiple screens at once. We've setup most of our
conference rooms with two screens so it's really cool when two people in a
room can wirelessly share their screens and you're able to see both at once.

~~~
ktpsns
Wow, thank you for the tip with owllabs.com -- that device sounds amazing
(while being damned expensive...). Why do you still use another microphones
when you have a 800$ webcam (with integrated microphones) in the room?

~~~
aed
We only have a couple of rooms where we have the Owl plus another microphone,
and those are rooms that are a little bigger than what is suggested for the
owl so having the wireless mics help.

The owl pro seems to have been an improvement there. We only have one pro
right now, but the speaker is much louder and mic a bit better.

------
cridenour
Build your own with:
[https://github.com/quiet/quiet](https://github.com/quiet/quiet)

~~~
ptrik
Reminds me of [https://chirp.io/technology/](https://chirp.io/technology/)

------
no_carrier
Cisco have had this feature on their video conferencing stuff for about a
decade.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Maybe they had it, but I'd say whenever I had to use a Cisco web/video
conferencing product (or , to be fair, most other web conferencing products),
I always felt I was battling someone trying to get everyone connected. With
Zoom my experience really was a "it just works" kind of experience.

~~~
joegahona
Exactly! Same with GoToMeeting -- it litters your downloads with files every
time you want to have a call. Zoom eliminated that friction, and that's why
people are talking about Zoom w/r to this and not Cisco.

------
bobbiechen
Although this is ultrasound it's still audible to me - I'd guesstimate it
around 22-23 kHz. It's in that range where you almost feel it rather than
hearing it, like the whine off some CRTs. I'm sure I'm a rare case, even most
of the other people my age (early 20s) don't hear it unless they're right up
against the speaker, but it sure is annoying for me.

~~~
Hello71
while it's technically possible to hear above 20 kHz, outside of a laboratory
it's far more likely that you're hearing intermodulation distortion, or simply
background noise: at least on Linux, the audio output can be disabled
completely when not in use. therefore, there is background noise only when the
audio output is activated.

~~~
solresol
Being relatively young and having a childhood history of asthma could get them
hearing a little higher than 20 khZ as well, so it's not out of the question
that they are hearing the sound itself.

But the most likely thing is that they are hearing some sort of undertone or
artifact created in the process of the signal generation.

~~~
jdashg
Why asthma?

------
Gonzih
So does that mean that software will always have mic on?

~~~
carlosdp
Maybe, but there's no reason for it to send any audio anywhere while it's
parsing ultrasound, so not a privacy problem.

~~~
Gonzih
Until software is compromised or simply has a bug that stream audio somewhere.

~~~
RL_Quine
In which case it could have just turned on the microphone itself?

~~~
Gonzih
Software that already is listening has more vectors of attack to put it
simply. I'm not a fan of features that compromise privacy and security for the
sake of convenience.

~~~
RL_Quine
That's really nonsensical. Nothing about using an audio input makes code more
vulnerable. The interface is always there if the hardware is.

------
flashman
Zoom is integrated into our Outlook calendars (and pretty well, I might add),
so I assumed the Share Screen function looked at my calendar, saw which room I
was scheduled to be in, and shared my desktop to the corresponding screen.

I suppose doing it with ultrasound is a little simpler, and avoids problems if
we have to duck into a different room due to a schedule conflict.

------
Razengan
Zoom is associated with malware in my mind. Is it the same app/service that
was infamous on here for a while?

~~~
rgovostes
You’re probably thinking of a security vulnerability in their Mac client due
to a poor design choice that they were negligent in fixing expediently.

Still, I don’t think this classifies the app as malware—the behavior was not
added with malicious intent.

[https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-
day-4-million-...](https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/zoom-zero-
day-4-million-webcams-maybe-an-rce-just-get-them-to-visit-your-website-
ac75c83f4ef5)

~~~
Razengan
That definitely counts as malware. Intent is irrelevant. Same with Google's
Keystone and Dropbox storing admin passwords.

If you have higher access to my system than you led me to believe, you are
malware.

~~~
skinnymuch
So Google is associated w/ malware in your mind? And Dropbox? You seemed to be
saying Zoom is primarily associated w/ malware for you. If so, you feel the
same as the other two brands/companies?

~~~
scarface74
If I uninstall Chrome, will it reinstall itself by keeping a daemon running?

~~~
Razengan
Apparently Keystone did/does something like that.

------
baxtr
I love zoom, but I don’t get why this is special. I can share my screen
already today after I am log into the zoom room. So they made it easier by
skipping the login part?

~~~
marcinzm
You can share your screen and then everyone else in the physical room needs to
start typing a bunch of characters in to connect to the right zoom room. Which
you probably email or slack to them or try to figure out how to connect to the
TV. This skips that whole mess and lets them connect automatically.

------
someonehere
Highly recommend enabling this feature to give cross platform Airplay-like
functionality to your Mac and Windows clients.

------
CameronBanga
Crazy, I thought I deleted Zoom months ago but somehow I already have this
update. What great news!

~~~
Razengan
This sounds alarming:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22351190](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22351190)

(Zoom resisting uninstalls)

------
maury91
Is it already the 1st of April?

------
aaron695
> Share your screen on Zoom with ultrasound

So this is misleading?

It just uses ultrasonic to connect? So is just sending a very small amount of
data?

It uses the fact ultrasound can't break through walls to define a space?

You could do exactly the same with Bluetooth or Wireless but you might pickup
next door?

~~~
swsieber
And dropbox just lets you sync files to a remote server.

~~~
taway555
I still don't know why DropBox is a thing. For a Linux user, you can already
build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account,
mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted
filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through
built-in software.

~~~
gsdatta
I think you just answered your own question - that sounds quite painful for me
to maintain and I'd rather pay Dropbox for the time they save me. + all the
added benefits of features they can build with a dedicated organization
improving this workflow.

~~~
imron
Parent is making a joke.

See the top reply on the Dropbox launch thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224)

------
scarface74
Install Zoom on my computer?

I’ll take a hard pass.

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/zoom-defends-use-of-local-
web-...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/zoom-defends-use-of-local-web-server-
on-macs-after-security-report/)

------
bradknowles
Yet another thing to kill with Chlorine Trifluoride. Large quantities.

