Credential Handler API Polyfill (video demo)

Hey Credentials CG (bcc: VCWG),

I think you'll really like this. The engineering team at Digital Bazaar
has been hard at work creating a production grade polyfill for both the
Credential Handler API in Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox. We're doing
this to accelerate uptake of Verifiable Claims and Decentralized
Identifiers. We're announcing a beta release to developers today.

An introductory video giving some background as well as recordings
showing it working in all major browsers can be found here (~6 minutes
runtime):

https://youtu.be/qdbDu1oV0PI

What does this mean for the Credentials CG work?

* When the polyfill hits production, we expect that ~90% of all browsers
  (roughly 2.8 billion people) will immediately get support for the
  Credential Handler APIs across desktop and mobile browsers.

* Web developers won't need to wait for browsers to implement the latest
  Credential Handler API in order to deploy to their customers. Instead,
  the polyfill will provide missing browser features until the browsers
  support them.

* This will enable us to more rapidly test and deploy new
  verifiable claims features, greatly reducing the cost of innovation in
  the group, and enabling more people to participate in the design and
  development process.

* This approach is not only compatible with DID-based authentication,
  but empowered by it. You can see it how easy DID-based login is in the
  demo video.

* Since this approach is almost identical to the Web Payments API, which
  all browser vendors are implementing, there is a high likelihood that
  this API will be technically acceptable to the browser vendors as
  well. We're going to start that conversation with them in the coming
  weeks.

What is next?

* We'll submit a paper on this to Rebooting Web of Trust for
  discussion.

* We'll continue to harden the polyfill for production usage.

* We'll pick an open license that works for all orgs and implementers.

* We still need to implement some simple things, like better
  animations/transitions when selecting identities/credentials. Some
  CSS still needs to be fixed.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Rebalancing How the Web is Built
http://manu.sporny.org/2016/rebalancing/

Received on Tuesday, 26 September 2017 03:20:17 UTC