Tag Archives: WebRTC

TechTok – Failing gracefully with WebRTC

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techtoksWebRTC works great. Let’s talk about failure though. Back in the Voice-over-IP days, developers would use tools like Wireshark to analyze call traces. With WebRTC and the RTCPeerConnection API we are able to diagnose and handle failures using Javascript surprisingly well. The real challenge is understanding how these tools can help you help your users and, thus, fail gracefully.

At this month’s  TechTok on May 21, Philipp ‘Fippo’ Hancke, &yet’s WebRTC lead and industry veteran will tell us everything we need to know about how to handle failures with WebRTC.

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TokBox at Video Hack Day

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VideohackdayTokBox is excited to be sponsoring Video Hack Day in New York this Saturday (May 9), an event dedicated to all things video.  At a time when more and more exciting video apps and services are popping up, we are looking forward to going along to see what the community can come up with next.

We’ll be sending Ankur along to the event who will offer up a couple of OpenTok hack ideas as well as answers and advice on the day.  If you’re up for a challenge, why not think about WebRTC powered augmented or virtual reality apps?  Or adding a live video chat to a media site?  We’ll be awarding a GoPro for the best OpenTok hack so give it a go!

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Can Meerkat be more Snapchat than Yo?

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meerkat

Hype used to be what every new app developer wanted, until it became a euphemism for flash in the pan. Meerkat and Periscope are so hot right now, as evidenced by the breathless fan boy bloggers and the equally breathless declarations of their death (in particular Meerkat’s).

This current iteration of native mobile live video streaming has captured the attention of the media and also the general public. Is this a game-changing and sustainable phenom, or a flash in the pan?

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Google Helpouts wasn’t helping

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helpouts-gGoogle shuts down plenty of products. Reader, Glass, Talk, Wave. But the closing down of Helpouts gives particularly valuable lessons for those who are building WebRTC based applications and services for the always on ‘find an expert market’, of which there are many.

 While it’s clear that it didn’t get enough  traction and had some monetization issues, the real question is why? In healthcare in particular there is a large and growing world of people for whom video communications, powered by WebRTC, is a critical lifeline (literally).  This is a world that includes housebound cancer-patients, the blind, recovering drug addicts, time-constrained parents and their community of carers, and healthcare practitioners. A recent report cited 89% of healthcare executives that said they expect telemedicine to transform the U.S. healthcare system in the next decade, with the number of patients using telehealth services growing to 7 million in 2018, up from 350,000 in 2013.

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The Royal Bank of Scotland Introduces Video Banking

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The Royal Bank of Scotland introduces Video Banking with OpenTokAn innovative approach to banking has enabled Coutts and Co in particular to thrive since its inception more than 300 years ago. The bank of choice for Her Majesty The Queen, Coutts has a commitment to continually bring the latest offerings in banking and support for its 70,000 global customers.

As Coutts operates as part of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) group, ensuring quality of service to its clients worldwide is a top priority. RBS has a heavy focus on innovation and scouts the globe to identify companies and technologies that may be of service to the bank and its customers needs.

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Be My Eyes: Connecting blind people with sighted helpers via video

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bemyeyes-logoWhile blind people are able to go about their day just like anyone else, simple everyday tasks can often present challenges. Whether it’s identifying the right public transit route for a commute, checking the expiration date of a carton of milk, or grabbing the right ingredients from the pantry for a meal, it may require assistance.

Founder of non-profit organization Be My Eyes, Hans Jørgen Wiberg, spent three years working for the Danish Blind Society consulting people about how to cope with visual impairment. Wiberg, who is visually impaired himself, found one common thread among all of the people he worked with: while the visually impaired often lean on friends and family to help them overcome everyday hurdles, they at times feel guilty asking for assistance. If they just ‘had a pair of eyes’ once or twice a day, they could accomplish a whole lot more on their own, without leaning on those closest to them.

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Firefox Hello now available for all Firefox users

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Screen Shot 2015-01-09 at 4.53.15 PM

Today the latest version of Firefox Hello, powered by OpenTok, has been released. In the coming weeks, Firefox Hello will appear at the top right hand corner (chrome) of your Firefox browser, making it easier than ever to start a call.

Mozilla has produced a new product video that demonstrates Firefox Hello in action (included below). For further information you can read the Mozilla blog post here, as well as copied below.

We hope you enjoy using Hello and look forward to sharing more updates with you soon.

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The Future of WebRTC and Video Banking: 4 Use Cases

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The Future of WebRTC and Video Banking: 4 Use CasesWhen people think about banks, the thoughts that spring to mind are images of serious people in conservative suits, large buildings with marble-floored lobbies and rows of teller windows, and well-fed men who look like the guy on a Monopoly box. Indeed, leading banks have always worked hard to maintain stellar reputations for reliability, safety, and longevity. You don’t tend to think about banks being big risk-takers, or experts at trying out new business practices or cutting edge technologies.

But when you look a little closer, the truth is, leading banks are expert at understanding and taking calculated risks, which is essential to their core business of taking deposits from some customers and prudently loaning out those funds to others. They are also remarkably forward-looking in trying out new technologies and business innovations, even if they don’t always portray themselves this way.

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ConceptBoard: The Future of Remote Working Tools

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cb_logo_300ppiIn the past decade, technology innovation has been one of the main catalysts for change in the way that we work. Tools like email, instant messaging, Skype, productivity and task management systems are making it easier than ever to stay connected (and focused) outside of the office – whether you’re at home, a coffee shop, or in a plane, train or automobile.

According to one estimate by the American Community Survey, telecommuting has risen 79 percent between 2005 and 2012 and now makes up 2.6 percent of the American work force, or 3.2 million workers. Two+ years later, you can imagine how much this has increased. 

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The Eternal WebRTC Video Codec Debate – Consensus Finally!

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Snail crossing finish line“Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.”  – Bertrand Russell

The world has indeed changed in the last year as WebRTC has made massive strides both from a standardization and from a market adoption point of view. A whole host of innovative applications are succeeding on mobile and desktop end-points.

But despite another 12 months of progress, one of the key points of contention that remained stubbornly unresolved was the great video codec debate: Should VP8 or H.264 be the Mandatory-to-Implement Video Codec for WebRTC? It was a welcome and surprising move that led the IETF Working Group to finally arrive at the following consensus just last week:

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