Hello World
Calls
Hear them, wherever they are
Voice and video, one to one or with the whole circle, over a connection built to survive the networks people actually have.
Straight between the two phones
When the network allows it, a one-to-one call goes directly from your phone to theirs and touches nothing in between. When it does not — and on a lot of mobile networks it does not — it goes through our own relay in France instead of failing.
- Encrypted between the two phones. In a call between two people the media is protected end to end by WebRTC, on the direct path and through the relay — which a group call is not, because somebody has to combine it.
- Picture-in-picture. Look something up, answer a message, keep the video running in the corner.
- It rings like a phone call. The call arrives on your lock screen the way any other call does.
- ConnectionLivedirect, phone to phone
- If that path closesour relay takes over mid-call
- Mediaencrypted between participants
Or the whole circle at once
Group calls are here for everybody: voice or video, with the people in a circle or a group chat. They run through our own server rather than a service somebody else operates, on the same machine that carries the rest of Hello World.
A group call is not end to end. Somebody has to put everyone’s picture and sound together, and that is our server: the media is encrypted between each phone and the server, decrypted there to be combined, and encrypted again on the way out. Protected in transit, and not in the way a call between two people is.
Join late, leave and come back, or turn your camera off and stay on voice — a call is not a commitment to be looked at.
Said plainly
A call is not translated while it is happening
Messages and voice notes are translated. Live speech on a call is not, so nobody should join one expecting it — that is the whole of the disclosure, and it is here rather than buried.
What to do meanwhile
Send a voice note instead. It is transcribed on your phone, translated on our server and arrives as text the other person can read and have read aloud by their own phone — which is the same conversation, a few seconds later.
Nothing listens in
Because a call is not translated, no part of Hello World processes what is said on one. There is no transcript, no recording and no model in the middle. Security and privacy.
Call the people you miss
One to one or the whole circle, on the network you happen to have.