One of the world's most popular Web browsers recently received a host of updates that include interoperability with external media players and a new feature that supports live chat with WebRTC.
A report at Tech Crunch last week revealed that Firefox beta for Android will include a "send to device" feature that will allow users' smartphones to connect with the set-top box Roku and multimedia dongle Chromecast as well as, potentially, other video receipt devices. Furthermore, Firefox desktop developers are working to create a stock WebRTC-based video chat system. Tech Crunch said, as of Sept. 4, the Android update is not live yet, but Mozilla has made an official announcement on its blog that concerns its efforts regarding video chat.
"We've been testing WebRTC in experimental builds of Firefox for the last few months and today are expanding these trials to Beta to get more user feedback and for load testing purposes,” the company says on its blog. “With this WebRTC experiment we're aiming to simplify video and audio communications by building an integrated communications feature directly into Firefox. It's free to make voice and video calls and there's no need to download software, plugins or even create an account, it's ready to go immediately when you open Firefox Beta."
For anyone brave enough to try out the new WebRTC feature, it will not be enabled by default. Even though this is a testing build, users must go into the "customize" windows and look for a speech bubble icon. Clicking the icon will allow any user to send a video link -- something like https://call.mozilla.com/#call/XXXX -- that they can share with a friend. When both people have clicked on the link, a call will begin. Users should remember that the product is still considered part of a beta test, so it may not always work as expected. However, Tech Crunch points out that the service was stable enough to make fairly straightforward calls.
"Send to device" works by allowing users to play a video on any website and then transmit that information directly to their televisions. This also may not work entirely as users expect, but it can help to expect the unexpected when dealing with software that, for good reason, has not yet been released as a stable build to the public. There are bugs, but the technologies are growing, and Mozilla is further developing its products to reflect the capabilities of HTML5 and the changing Web.
Edited by
Rory J. Thompson
