Product Hunt Daily Digest
December 8th, 2021

Using real-time AI to make video conferencing smarter

Yes, we’ve covered new meeting software ad nauseam at this point, but can we help it if there’s still so much to surface here?

Today, Headroom debuted its meeting software to the community. At a time when Zoom is still making headlines, what makes a competitor like Headroom stand out?

The tool is focused on filling user experience gaps, using AI to power the real-time legwork that goes along with having a meeting. And the founding team is stacked with AI expertise.

That includes co-founder Andrew Rabinovich, an ex-Google software engineer who worked on computer vision and ML algorithms for photo and video annotation. Prior to starting Headroom, he spent five years at Magic Leap where he was the Head of AI. Co-founder Julian Green is also an ex-Googler where he launched computer vision products like the Cloud Vision API and managed deep-tech moonshots (i.e. "innovation that achieves the previously unthinkable.”)

“Headroom uses real-time AI to make video conferencing smarter and more natural,” wrote Green on the launch page. That includes “enhanced video and audio quality at lower bandwidth, real-time transcripts, one-click notes, gesture recognition, real-time share of speaking time by participant, cloud video recordings and replays, searchable transcripts and notes.”

The demo illustrates the features, and we have to agree with the video that “the best part” seems to be that everything (across transcripts and collaborative notes) is searchable.

While we haven’t seen real-time gestures before (which are fun and much easier than finding reactions on your keyboard), we have been watching makers launch real-time, collaborative note-taking Zoom apps over the last year. And just yesterday, we watched founder Richard White launch Fathom to #1 Product of the Day with a tool that aims to eliminate note-taking on Zoom calls.

So if you want to keep Zoom at the top of your work vernacular, you can “circle back” to some of those apps. If you want to try Headroom, now’s a great time to do so and share feedback with the makers. The tool is free.

Green also threw out a challenge to “discover the 4th gesture recognized in Headroom meetings… 👍 👎 ✋ ? ... No, not that one!”

Find the fourth gesture
YOUR VIDEO IS READY

If you’ve ever uploaded a video to a website and impatiently waited for your video to be ready, you’re not alone. But most of us don’t know what it takes to process those videos — so we complain and maybe even ditch it completely.

api.video debuted is a new tool called Progressive Upload for product builders that makes videos available for playback 88% faster. The product launched into the top ten products of the day on Tuesday.

Instead of creating and uploading a video, users hit record and once finished, the video is available almost immediately. See how it works.

Super quick playback
Makers
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