The way we are communicating is constantly changing, and so is the WebRTC landscape. Here are the top stories in the WebRTC community this week.
Skype finally announced free group video calling this week – something users have been requesting for years – for Windows desktop, Mac and Xbox One users. But the underlying question coming from many is, “Is this because of WebRTC?”
VoxImplant released its Android SDK this week, allowing developers to easily embed voice communication into an app. So far video support is not included in the SDK, but the company says it will come to the Android SDK soon.
Facebook hosted its f8 Developer Conference this week, and in the midst of plans for mobile development tools, mobile app engagement and a mobile ad network, I couldn’t help but make connections to WebRTC and opportunities for developers to really push the real-time communications technology forward.
Cisco is now working with Jive Software to offer a fully integrated real-time communication and collaboration solution for companies’ employees, end users and partners. Jive solutions will now be sold as an integrated part of Cisco’s collaboration solutions as well as resold through the company’s partner network. Jive offers social business software for today’s businesses across multiple areas, including IT, marketing, customer service, sales and government.
One of the big challenges for WebRTC is the lack of support in Internet Explorer. Even though it’s less than 55 percent of browsers in PCs, many organizations have blocked the download of Chrome or Firefox. However, a new hack has been found that opens IE up to security breaches by just going to a website and using Flash. In fact, the U.S. Homeland Security agency has recommended ceasing using IE until the hack is fixed.
Mark Beaven, the CEO of Kangatime, presented his platform this week at the Stamford Innovation Center that sits somewhere between a social network and media storage cloud. The benefit to using the system is the organization it represents and is primarily aimed at parents wanting to share the joy of children. Because the nature of the platform is about family, it could be used for other team and social groups, but Beaven shies away from calling it a social network—It certainly represents added value than many social networks we use today.
Mozilla released a Firefox update this week. A big addition that users will grow to appreciate over the next year or so is full support for WebRTC, letting users make video calls, and even share files across browsers from within a simple Firefox interface.
OnSIP is taking its business phone service to the next level with The OnSIP Network and WebRTC-based InstaCall solution. We first met InstaCall back in February, when the company announced the beta release for sales and support teams to embed video calling functionality into their websites or applications. This week, the company officially rolled out InstaCall, which runs on The OnSIP Network, a signaling Platform as a Service (PaaS) for developers to build scalable WebRTC solutions.
The object real-time communications (ORTC) specification revolves around object-centric APIs to enable WebRTC in browsers, mobile endpoints and servers. Unlike WebRTC 1.0, ORTC does not mandate a media signaling protocol or format, so it doesn’t use session description protocol (SDP) within its APIs. The ORTC API requires less of a background in UC concepts like SDP and SIP and is designed to address WebRTC, mobile and server-side development needs. The ORTC specification was recently updated, including support for simulcast and scalable video coding, as well as enhancements to the object model such as control of senders/receivers as well as communications transport aspects (ICE, DTLS and data channel).
We recently caught up with Doug Pelton, CEO of Priologic Software, who discussed the company’s products using WebRTC, the transformation of industry adoption and his views on hot topics, such as browser support, video codecs and vertical impact.
Check out WebRTC World for other stories you may have missed, and visit our WebRTC Conference & Expo homepage to learn more about the networking and educational opportunities coming up in Atlanta in June. Have a great weekend.
