back to article WTF is... WebRTC?

Last week’s release of Firefox 18.0 saw the not-for-profit browser gaining “preliminary” support for a technology called WebRTC. Folk downloading the browser afresh or updating from a previous release may have been keener on Firefox’s new support for Apple’s “retina” displays or the browser’s promised JavaScript performance leap …

COMMENTS

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  1. jake Silver badge

    WebRTC==Wannabes encouraging boys Reacting To Crap

    Please, kiddies, learn to think things through. This entire concept is a very bad idea.

    1. Chris_Maresca
      Thumb Up

      Re: WebRTC==Wannabes encouraging boys Reacting To Crap

      Really? I built an internal app in about 20 minutes that allows the scanning of pages via a webcam.....

      Show me how to do that quickly in any other way that's capable of deploying across 3 different operating systems...

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: WebRTC==Wannabes encouraging boys Reacting To Crap

        I built an internal app in about 20 minutes that allows the scanning of pages via a webcam.....

        So that's one moderately-useful application (though I have to wonder what the audience is - what's the intersection of people who want to do this, with those who own a webcam, with those who don't own a scanner, with those who don't own a smartphone with a capable camera?), versus the half-dozen awful ones mentioned in the article.

        Color me unconvinced. Of course, I'll use NoScript and the like to block it anyway. I start using new technologies when they solve problems for me, not when someone tells me how great they are.

        1. Chris_Maresca

          Re: WebRTC==Wannabes encouraging boys Reacting To Crap

          I start using new technologies when they solve problems for me

          Er, that's exactly what I did - that was my point.

          For some segment of the population, it's useful, just because you can't see that doesn't mean it's worthless.

  2. Richie Hindle
    Thumb Down

    eBay?

    "Seeing a real face and hearing a real voice, you can make a better judgement of an eBay seller’s hyperbole [...]"

    If only eBay had thought to buy Skype while it had the chance.

    1. Flywheel

      Re: eBay?

      Seeing a real face and hearing a real voice, you can make a better judgement of an eBay seller’s hyperbole [...]"

      Or Alan Sugar for that matter..

  3. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Wow....

    kicking VoIP and Skype.....maybe using email address like Apple do.

    Wow if there was only some sort of Session Initiation Protocol using a standard codec,bit like G711 that could connect to some sort address like fredsmith@mysipdomain.com

    Luckily seems Apple got there 1st with WebRTC following close behind.

  4. Wish You Were Here
    Paris Hilton

    And what will it be used for?

    Smut. Interactive smut. Nothing new there then.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: And what will it be used for?

      And it will make MITM attacks almost physical.

    2. The BigYin

      Re: And what will it be used for?

      So what? You think Hollywood blazed the trail for the VCR?

    3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      A Quiet Worldly Word to the Wise ..... is Worth a Thousand Pictures?

      And what will it be used for?

      Smut. Interactive smut. Nothing new there then. …. Wish You Were Here Posted Tuesday 15th January 2013 14:05 GMT

      To win hearts and minds in virtual battles with smarter intelligence feed and novel cyber seed is the game-changer it and IT can and therefore will be used for, Wish You Were Here, and in so doing will IT drag the present into a braver new orderly world future with live information one can actively query.

      Although to be sure will fools and tools also use it for pornography and interactive smut but that is an ancient physical ingredient which wins no virtual battles and delivers nothing at all new and definitely identifies one and all in such self-centred communication as sub-prime?

      Indeed, you can be assured that it has been successfully trialed to deliver what is required and now just needs introduction to global markets with their millions/billions of state and non-state actor players.

      Such is certainly what HyperRadioProActive IT is using it for in the field, and in the teeming and streaming more irregular and unconventional fields of AIR&dDevelopment with alien terrain teams.

      The Great Game is changed, and one needs to to get one's head around the new natural super order of such virtual things to give oneself every chance of being successful and effective and not be a loser in Live Operational Virtual Environments, which in earlier times and other places are labelled and pimped and dumped on humanity as Reality.

      To imagine it otherwise and not to be so [or to not imagine it possible at all with Command and Control in IT] is to be in a delusional state of debilitating denial/self-denial.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Used for in-browser green screen

    The best example usage I've seen so far is the in-browser green screen - http://spamtech.co.uk/software/html5-live-webcam-green-screen/

    Very cool!

    1. Benny

      Re: Used for in-browser green screen

      Christmas eve eve, I did a little experiment with getUserMedia to show snow falling on top of the webcam feed, and have it settle on any horizontal edges. Didn't take that long and I thought it was pretty cool, considering its just some JavaScript and a dash of CSS.

      Once it all gets finalised and secured properly, it's going to make for some cool stuff being built - lots of nice interactivity without having to resort to Flash.

  6. Charlie van Becelaere

    They got the acronym wrong

    “Customisable, Ubiquitous Real Time Communication over the Web” (CU-RTC-Web).

    Really? CU-RTC-Web?

    Clearly it ought to be CURT-COW.

    There, I fixed it for you.

  7. The BigYin

    Just wait

    MS will implement "improvements" to this so it will only work on IE and only if you have required Skype libraries installed.

  8. Sandtreader
    Boffin

    Flash?

    Just thinking... Could support for uncooperative browsers (IE!) be provided with a Flash app using the Camera/Mic access and implementing the WebRTC protocols over a raw socket?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Flash?

      "a Flash app using the Camera/Mic access and implementing the WebRTC protocols over a raw socket"

      You gotta be kidding me, right?

    2. Mike Flugennock

      Re: Flash?

      Just thinking... Could support for uncooperative browsers (IE!) be provided with a Flash app using the Camera/Mic access and implementing the WebRTC protocols over a raw socket?

      Sadly, yes, probably... and let the interactive "live" MITM attacks and spam begin!

  9. Mike Flugennock
    Devil

    "Maximum Disruption" hardly describes it

    It might be "impossible to say how", but I'll bet I can take a really good SWAG:

    At this stage, it’s impossible to say how this will affect existing voice and video communications services. It’s tempting, for instance, to forecast WebRTC will give mobile phone network operators and VoIP players like Skype a hiding, by allowing people to communicate easily over channels they don’t control - or, crucially, don’t obtain revenue from...

    ...and, of course, pester the living shit out of the rest of us with even more annoying advertising.

  10. Mike Flugennock
    Thumb Down

    Sounds like something that can only end badly

    I see a whole new level of socially-engineered pwnage around the corner.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sounds like something that can only end badly

      Yes, I'm the CEO of the National Bank of Nigeria, honest. Please ignore the mud and the malnourished animals.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "WebRTC... comprises browser code that Google open sourced back in June 2011 and which implements an emerging standard API being developed co-operatively by web standards bodies the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)"

    Yeah. Like Google are altruistic, if nothing else eh? </sarcasm>

  12. Decade
    Meh

    Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

    "[Microsoft] maintains it wants to make WebRTC more flexible… That makes the technology more readily adaptable to a given developer’s needs, but it also limits interoperability."

    Good to see that some parts of Microsoft are still up to their old tricks.

    I suspect that one reason SIP never caught on is that it allows a bewildering array of codecs. If you have a SIP client from one vendor and want to communicate with a SIP client from another vendor, you have to carry so many codecs, most of them patented. Skype is just simpler to use and more reliable. So, I see Microsoft is trying to preserve the value of the investment in Skype.

  13. Why Not?
    WTF?

    So lets get this straight

    Whilst browsing the support docs to fix an obscure issue with some industry trailing backup project I get a chap named Edgar with an Indian accent coming online to read me a script that asks have you inserted a clean tape in HiDef?

    Or while I'm researching a piece of software I get a greasy pimp offering me half a dozen exceptional candidates with 100 years experience in Microswear server server 2021.

    Great! Should do my blood pressure a real favour.

    I can delete those in email and let them go to voicemail on my phone.

    1. Caspy7

      No

      You know how when you go to a website and it wants to access your location and you can say, "yes, just for now", "yes, always", "no, never" or ignore it (AKA "no, for now")?

      That's how it will work. If you never want to hear from that site again, that's an option.

      And as always (in Firefox) there will be the ability to turn off the functionality entirely.

  14. GrantB
    Pint

    New and improved Chatroulette?

    As far as I know Chatroulette implemented this using Flash - so video and sounds of .. monkeys being spanked, chickens choked etc where transmitted peer to peer. Not sure it worked that well.. after a quick look at what was on offer on the cr site, I backed out of there pretty quickly. (Really quickly, honestly).

    So WebRTC will be used extensively by the ummh, 'commercial' webcam industry to allow consenting adults to exchange the kind of images you really don't want to be streamed from a centralised server. Could be another avenue for enterprising pirates as well to exchange streaming video peer to peer..

    1. Patrick Finch

      Re: New and improved Chatroulette?

      "Could be another avenue for enterprising pirates as well to exchange streaming video peer to peer.."

      -or copyright owners to stream content to an authenticated end-point?

    2. true

      Re: New and improved Chatroulette?

      It's true that WebRTC can be used for various purposes, but I think the most popular usage of it is still for sites like http://bazoocam.org/chat/

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The great thing about standards, is there's so many of them. Stop creating new platforms!

  16. Atonnis
    Unhappy

    I am very tired today...

    ...so I'll admit that I'm feeling thick....but, I just don't understand the woohoo about this.

    We've had real-time updating for ages, and live feeds....what am I missing here?

    Wish I'd got more sleep last night...

  17. Caspy7

    See The Demo

    For those liking to see this in useful action, here is a video demo that a couple Firefox devs made with WebRTC.'

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6-rAv6bU8Q

    A couple notes about the video:

    - The split screen effect is achieved through the video capture software & has nothing to do with WebRTC.

    - The sidebar and persistent hovering video is achieve through the Social API and only used to better demo WebRTC.

    - One thing they didn't demo was permissions. Just like when a website wants your location, you have the option to allow for now, allow always, never or ignore (aka "not now"). So not only would a network/user need permission to connect to you, they would need permission to share different types of data with you.

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