Since Skype is moving to fully centralized service that can be even more easily wiretapped by Governments around the world (not just US), I'm very excited about the "revolutionary" (literally) capabilities of this protocol, as people will be able to speak 1-on-1 without interference, if the communication is also encrypted. Does being encrypted or not depend on that specific WebRTC client, or does it come encrypted by default like SPDY?
Look, you're kidding yourself if you think that WebRTC is going to liberate you from the prying eyes of government surveillance. As a developer, I'm <i>very</i> excited about the possibilities that WebRTC enables (websockets just can't cut it in many instances), but computer science is not a panacea for political apathy. P2P is nothing new, and anybody who cares to secure their online communications can already do so with ease, everyone else is happy enough to self document their activities on Facebook.
Yet another HTML5 "Game Changer" which has already been available as part of the Adobe Flash Platform[1] for the best part of three years.<p>Just saying :)<p>For those down-voting me; I find this attitude very strange. If the tools were present in another widely deployed runtime, but were heavily under utilised then why are people getting so excited about them this time around?<p>I guess some people just love to hate Flash.<p>[1] <a href="http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cirrus/" rel="nofollow">http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cirrus/</a>
"This is the most significant step forward in web browser connectivity since 2004, when Google launched Gmail and AJAX was coined."<p>Microsoft --> AJAX[1]. And yes, I know that they aren't saying that Google --> AJAX but it kinda leaves that impression.<p>----<p><a href="http://garrettsmith.net/blog/archives/2006/01/microsoft_inven_1.html" rel="nofollow">http://garrettsmith.net/blog/archives/2006/01/microsoft_inve...</a>
Even this is a naive understanding of how WebRTC will change the web. Resiliency and decentralization in ways we've never seen before!<p>For more information, check us out at <a href="http://WebP2P.org" rel="nofollow">http://WebP2P.org</a> and join in #webp2p on Freenode!
At the moment, NAT means that lots of connections have to go through a central server, at least to set up the connection. With IPv6, that need should vanish (providing you aren't firewalled by your router).<p>The two things combined should remove a lot of middlemen.
"Through an open standards approach, WebRTC integrates browser-to-browser communications directly into the fabric of the Internet."<p>Why is this source credible?
While this tech is exciting for a wide variety of reasons, this blog post completely misses the point for me in its efforts to hype this.<p>> imagine it amplified by secure, real-time transmissions of audio and video<p>Ok, I'm imagining it. And I'll still be imagining it in 12 months time, because WebRTC does nothing to fix the outstanding issues in setting up secure communications.<p>> Skype, Cisco, and Polycom will all see their conferencing technology commoditized.<p>Really? Surely you could have said that Cisco / Polycom would be destroyed by Skype, but that didn't happen. Why would in-browser conferencing, which will almost certainly be a worse experience than Skype, which is itself a far worse experience than dedicated conference hardware/software, commoditize conference technology?<p>And for that matter, why did the wide variety of already-existing browser-based conferencing tech not do this?<p>Personally I'm more excited about ideas like P2P downloading, and using DHTs to disseminate information.
from <a href="http://www.webrtc.org/running-the-demos#TOC-Demos" rel="nofollow">http://www.webrtc.org/running-the-demos#TOC-Demos</a> :
Justin Uberti (Chrome-webrtc team member) has sent in a App Engine based 1:1 video calling app. <a href="http://apprtc.appspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://apprtc.appspot.com/</a> source code: <a href="http://code.google.com/p/webrtc-samples/source/browse/trunk/apprtc/" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/webrtc-samples/source/browse/trunk/...</a><p>after source code reading (and chrome dev console output observing) you have to realize:
1. there is need of 'signaling server'
2. session encryption keys are exchanged through that server<p>yes, anyone could setup their small server and call through it an make sure tls / ssl cert of their server is intact etc. that will not be a case for avg Joe. not to mention tat browser itself will be an attack vector.
This is very interesting, especially the peer-to-peer browser stuff. With all the attacks on pirate sites lately, it would be interesting to have a new playground for new P2P apps. Joe Soap would be able to get onto P2P by just opening a web page.
Is no one here worried about (again!) audio/video codecs and presence implementation? As far as I've read webrtc specs there are no specifics, they've left implementation details in the hands of implementors.<p>I fear that Microsoft will push something skype-specific, Google (and possibly Mozilla) vp8 and xmpp/jingle, who knows what Apple will do with Safari. And different clients/browsers won't be able to communicate between themselves.
I can't tell what they mean by this: "If all goes according to plan, over 50% of all web browsers will support this capability in the next three to four months."<p>There are only five browsers that count, so why didn't they just say "three of the five major browsers?" Or, if they mean more than 50% of browser installations, are we really at the point where we can get 50% of all browser installations updated within a couple of months?
for a great multi-user demo of webRTC check out
<a href="https://bitly.com/webrtcio" rel="nofollow">https://bitly.com/webrtcio</a><p>and it's resulting library, webRTC.io
Here comes the glorious HTML5 revolution, reinventing things that were around for decades, but now that it's "a standard" and "in javascript" it changes <i>everything</i>. First it was sockets, then it was WebGL now P2P. I wonder what revolution we will have next - a standardized file system access.
I remember this demo from march, got me all excited :)<p>live streaming video to a webpage, from your phone, that's incredible<p><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3531958/iphone/webrtc-opera-mobile-12.ogv" rel="nofollow">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3531958/iphone/webrtc-opera-mobile-1...</a>
I just started learning more about WebRTC and it looks like an interesting foundation for numerous startups. New technology among others to help solving specific tasks.
<i>These capabilities open the door to a new wave of advanced web applications.</i><p>I have read this line as:<p><i>These capabilities open the door to a new wave of advanced web security issues.</i>
And when you screw off the wheel it can double as a mop!<p>What exactly does it help to have your video-feed drive around on a broomstick?<p>I can see the entertainment value for a couple days. But when it's time to get work done again I sure as hell don't see people preferring a video broomstick next to their desk over a plain old skype-window...
>This is the most significant step forward in web browser connectivity since 2004, when Google launched Gmail and AJAX was coined<p>That's not quite right. Microsoft invented XMLHTTP, the interface which XHR is based on, in '98 or '99 for Outlook Web Access.