JAM with Chrome: New web app lets friends bond over music

Yesterday, in an official blog post, Emma Turpin from Google Creative Lab lifted the curtains on JAM with Chrome. It is an interactive web application that allows users to play music with their friends, never mind if they are elsewhere in the world, by using the Chrome browser on their computers. JAM with Chrome allows users to bond with their friends over music, letting them play together as a band on the web, in real-time, even though the instrument may not be quite the thing they are good at. 

Users can begin by visiting the aforementioned link, and on hitting Enter, users get the option to pick from a selection of 19 instruments, from acoustic and bass guitars to drum kits and keyboards. Users can pick the instrument of their choice, and take it from there. The application offers tips on how to go about with hitting the right notes. Users can also pick between the Easy and Pro modes for the instrument they pick, and change settings on the fly. 

Turpin shares that in the default 'easy mode', users can experiment by clicking individual strings, drum pads or keys, or they can play around with the four different autoplay functions and let the machines do the work. Once they switch to 'pro mode', they can move to playing any instrument using your keyboard.

“Invite up to three friends in different locations to join your JAM via the sharing buttons on the site. Here’s “Keyboard Cat” jamming with his friends,” she writes further.

JAM with Chrome is clearly one of the most interesting things to have come from the Google fold, and while I did not particularly hit the right notes, the concept of coming together with one’s friends on a unique platform is interesting. 

Elaborating some more on JAM with Chrome, Turpin shares that it is a Chrome Experiment that uses the latest, modern web technologies, including HTML 5 features such as the Web Audio API, WebSockets, Canvas, and CSS3. 

A few months ago Google brought the much cherished Lego to its browser. Google introduced Build, a virtual Lego play set that users can assemble right on their browser. Build is a collaborative 3D building experience, and is an example of the extent of browser technology. Build is an assortment of a whopping eight trillion bricks made with WebGL that enable powerful 3D graphics right in the browser, and demonstrates the upper limit of current WebGL graphics performance. Users can assemble these Lego bricks atop Google Maps, and pick a plot alongside someone else's.

To begin with, users are required to go to buildwithchrome.com, and click on Build to head straight to picking their plots. Once a user picks his choice of an area to build, he can proceed. Here, the users are greeted with a section on their left, complete with Lego bricks. Users also have the choice to build using Lego bricks in the colour of their choice. At the bottom of the screen, tips are displayed, which users can look at to know how to place bricks, remove them, rotate the brick, how to zoom, undo, and so on. Once you feel you have attained perfection, you can hit Publish. Doing so is the only way of saving your hard work, since you cannot save your build, while you are still at it. This does seem to be a bit of a downer since you are always worried of losing your work. Also, you cannot make any changes once you have published your build. 

Google recommends that you use Chrome to make your builds, since the browser can handle the graphics required.