Gearing for Launch & A New Year Update Video - The Feather Newsletter #2
Jan 2022 Progress Report
Hey everyone,
This January, we’re excited to bring you the first of many monthly updates you can expect moving forward into 2022. You are receiving this email because you are either an investor in Feather Systems or wanted to be updated about our progress.
TLDR;
We’ve achieved a lot the past year, but here’s a summary of the best parts:
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We’re nearing a March launch for FeatherStream
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FeatherStream is in a usable state and we are entering pre-alpha tests
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We’ve developed server support for MacOS, a feature our primary competitor lacks.
P.S. Stay tuned until the end of the progress report video to view a demo of Feather in action through long distances (Atlanta → New York).
Progress So Far
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Our program, FeatherStream (codenamed Homing-pigeon), currently allows users to access their desktops remotely from another device, with cross-platform support for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. FeatherStream is a desktop application built in Electron, a chromium-based framework, and the remote desktop is streamed to the client as a video using WebRTC.
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Mouse and keyboard user inputs (with the exception of system shortcuts) are functional with minimal latency. User inputs from the client are handled via event listeners in the program window and are then replicated on the remote end with a modified version of RobotJS, a desktop automation library.
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Our modifications to RobotJS were necessary for the library to work seamlessly with JavaScript keyboard event outputs as well as minimizing latency caused by the RobotJS library itself.
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FeatherStream also allows users to set up and connect to multiple servers from the same client device and working seamlessly across multiple devices.
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In addition, we successfully configured CI for this project to automatically give us Linux, Windows, and MacOS builds for testing.
Looking Forward
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Moving forward, we will implement application-level video streaming so users can access specific programs remotely. Users will be able to use different applications with a near-native experience.
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We will add a shared clipboard mechanism so users can copy and paste between their local and remote devices without problems. We will be setting up a file system view for users to be able to access both local and remote files and a way to transfer and share files between devices.
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We will continue to improve and develop our testing framework to start multiple instances of FeatherStream and help us release more robust versions of this product.
Product & Operations
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We experimented with expanding our team and company structure with the hiring of a temporary intern over the winter.
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As a result, changes are being made to clarify and streamline the onboarding process.
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Preliminary issues with logistics have been patched.
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A March 15 online launch event is being planned to properly showcase Feather.
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The new feather.systems site is now live.
Objectives (Q1)
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Reach latency parity with our primary competitor
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Begin seed round
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Collection of 100 pre-alpha testing users
Overall it has been an exciting year as we begin to gear up to bring Feather into the public eye. We have made mistakes, fixed them as a team, and grew as part of the process. Now we can’t wait to see what comes next.
// Feather Team
