In one of the biggest court rulings that will impact how we use the Internet, the U.S. Appeals Court struck down net neutrality -- the 2011 FCC rules that all Internet traffic must be treated equally by Internet service providers. We dove in to what that means for the WebRTC community and other top stories this week. Enjoy!
The ZOEN, a provider of live online music lessons, announced this week it is using Google Helpouts to make The ZOEN instructors available to teach users across the Internet musical instruments. The Web cameras are placed where the instructor and student can watch the other’s instrument and the teacher can correct the student for any improper placements.
In an unusual move, we touched a little bit on Microsoft in WebRTC this week, as it announced it is powering DVE Systems’ Immersion Room, which enables holographic presentations and collaboration. Does this new standard complicate WebRTC development?
Also this week, TrueConf, a provider of interactive video communication solutions, introduced its software for Linux in beta version, which is designed for Ubunti 12.04 and Debian 7.2.0 and above. This announcement comes off the heels of the company’s announcement to bring BYOD collaboration to video conferencing in November 2013. The TrueConf video conferencing solution supports desktops and laptops running on Windows or OS X, mobile devices on iOS and Android, and Chrome and Mozilla browsers using WebRTC.
We also saw some interactive video in a marketing campaign for beer company Grolsch. This “rare character” campaign is one of the first integrating interactive video and telephony functionality, creating a seamless, interactive and personalized user experience. It used the Twilio call platform to make the campaign possible. The cloud communications provider has been involved in the development of WebRTC and integrating telephony into the browser. This campaign is a step toward that integration…although it’s not quite there yet.
One of the areas predicted for WebRTC to have a big impact is the contact center – in Brisbane, Australia, one of the local shopping centers has installed a booth that allows users to initiate a video conference with the City Council’s call center staff. Through this device, people can not only make sure their voices are heard when they have an opinion, but can actually look the call center staff in the eye and see that they are, in fact, actually listening to them.
Dialogic provides solutions for rich media mixing and intelligent call control, and enables application developers to harness the power of WebRTC in multiparty multimedia environments. It received two awards for its PowerMedia XMS Media Server Software, BorderNet 2020 product with integrated media gateway and SBC functionality and BorderNet Virtualized Session Border Controller.
We also took a look at the relationship between wearable technology and WebRTC off the heels of CES 2014, which featured many wearable tech vendors and products. There are basically two different angles when looking at the relationship between wearable technology and WebRTC: The first is incorporating WebRTC a la Plantronics, which enhances its Concept series for gesture-based movement and contextual data. Joe Burton, Plantronics’ CEO, explained that WebRTC opens up a whole new world of communications options, which makes it an ideal environment for wearable capabilities. The second is the growth of the Internet of Things – smart TVs, security systems, toothbrushes and more are starting to join the Internet of Things – and how the browser will adapt to that in wearable form factors.
Stay tuned to WebRTC World every week for the latest industry resources, trends and news. Have a great weekend.
