As you may know I have been involved in a start-up called jooce. For the last couple of months we were in a private beta for family and friends. Now we open up the curtains a little bit more. Public beta should start next monday. Now the reason why I write this is because I am so excited about our technology. If you look at a system like ours you easily say “I can do that in a day”. I did the same mistake. Before I started working on this sort of beast.
jooce is not an online desktop. Technically speaking it is a platform that allows you to communicate using our IM client and share files instant using an online storage. The whole client is based on AS3 plus the backend — a combination of Java and C++. Since we have an eclectic cocktail of knowledge at jooce I am proud to talk about some features that we came up with.
Media player with seeking using a “big disk”. One of the main features is the media player. The jooce media player allows you to seek through files just like you know it from the Flash Media Server. Since we are a poor start-up we went with the cheaper solution. red5 as the weapon of choice has been optimized and extended to stream files over the network. If we have the time we surely will contribute this to the project. It is so great seeing files being streamd over the network using our internal protocol.
Multiple caching solutions are a second piece that makes such an application actually what it is. All client side operations are done immediately and you only have to synchronize with the server. Unless of course data is requested from the server like opening a folder for the first time. And also pictures are cached as single instances. Basically if I go to your “joocetop” and drag a wallpaper that I like to copy it over to my stuff I will have the same version as you have and it stays cached until one of us actually modifies the data of the file.
Another thing are APIs in the jooce system. All of the components are self-made. Our datagrid can handle more then a 1000 items and for me it scrolls as smooth as it would have only 100. There is a 3D engine involved in switching desktops wich runs fullscreen for me at a 90fps — take in mind all the other stuff that is going on during that process while hopping from one desktop to another. We also use our own event system to get rid of a lot of overhead regarding the memory. It is a mixture of the DOM event model and WinAPI.
So there is a lot of other stuff I could talk about. Like our Webupload supporting YourMinis embeds. We also have a simple physics engine in the system for springs and other funky stuff. But what was it actually that I wanted to say..? Ah, yes. I love my job!
I’m still waiting for my invite
The founders said they’d give me an invite but It has not come yet :(
Man, I can’t wait to see this - sounds awesome!
Would love an invite and to see how you have integrated our technologies….looks great.
It looks and sounds awesome, but I didn’t really get the “real-world” - use-case? As I understood it’s IM and File-Exchange. But what is the “killer feature” for the user? Please, don’t get me wrong! I admire your work and knowledge - maybe you can explain some more details about the idea behind jooce.
alex: It works by copying the embed code into our Webupload and then you get the widget on your disk and you can share it via drag and drop as well. Will make sure you get one.
Daniel: I think that is more a question that the management could answer but I will do the best I can. jooce is targeting the cybercafé generation. This means basically that people who do not own a computer but use one each day. Here they have a one-stop-shop for their online needs. Instant file sharing is already a killer feature to me tbh.
Of course you may not see the use of this in developed countries. But there are a lot of other people out there you should not forget about.
Aha! Now I understand. Yes, that sounds pretty interessting and could be successful. I’ve been to Thailand a few years ago and a lot more people there use computers in cybercafes. With your explanation I can see the goal :D
Keep up the great work!
I can’t wait to see it!
Iwould love to have a JOOCE.com invite. That site looks like what Microsoft VISTI should have looked like. If you don’t know this already you can create a OS out of your site. The visuals are off the charts. i just wish i had an invite. Keep up the good work and keep moving forward. Maybe one day you site will become a Operating System (Microsoft watch your backs)…
I had been looking around for an invite to Jooce and i finally got one today from rawtheories.com just thought i would let everyone know.
i didn’t know you are involved in jooce, but i’m a user of jooce and i am eager of it.
great work!!
before jooce i loose one usb-pen-drive at week. now i am safe : )