Mozilla has released further enhancements to Firefox Hello, powered by OpenTok, including the ability to screen share within a video chat. This new feature allows participants to open and share a browser tab or application window from within the chat, making browsing, shopping, drafting or any other activity more collaborative and engaging.
Tag Archives: WebRTC
FAILED – TechTok with Philipp Hancke
At this month’s TechTok, Philipp ‘Fippo’ Hancke, &yet’s WebRTC lead and industry veteran, explains everything you need to know about how to handle failures with WebRTC.
‘If you’re going to launch a WebRTC powered service for financial gain, then you need to have done everything within your power to ensure it works reliably across as many cases as possible.’ Chris Koehnke.
Philipp knows just how to do this so we will leave it to him to tell you. If you want to learn more about how to fail gracefully with WebRTC you can watch a video of Philipp’s full presentation here:
The Future of Field Services and WebRTC: 3 Use Cases
One of the fun things about running a communications platform company is watching new use cases emerge as companies and developers innovate using our technologies.
Several months ago, we began to notice a new trending mode of use of WebRTC in the area of Field Service enablement. I’ve also heard people describe it as remote workforce applications, or even fleet management systems.
The key concept is that a field worker – someone who goes onsite to a customer location to effect a repair, make an inspection, or deliver or pick up products, uses some sort of a computer or electronic device as an essential tool for that onsite visit. Increasingly these devices are smartphones or tablets.
It’s predicted that by 2018, 70% of mobile workers will use a tablet or a hybrid device that has tablet-like characteristics. (Source: RapidValue Solutions)
TechTok – Failing gracefully with WebRTC
WebRTC 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.
TokBox at Video Hack Day
TokBox 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!
Can Meerkat be more Snapchat than Yo?
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?
Google Helpouts wasn’t helping
Google 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.
The Royal Bank of Scotland Introduces Video Banking
An 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.
Be My Eyes: Connecting blind people with sighted helpers via video
While 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.
Firefox Hello now available for all Firefox users
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.