Re: [Fwd: local device discovery - api, demo and source code]

On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 11:33 -0700, Mark Watson wrote:
> Hi Dave,
> 
> 
> Very interesting!
> 
> 
> The flipside of discovery is advertisement. Are there any plans for a
> similar Javascript API for web applications to advertise themselves so
> that they can be found ?

Yes, indeed, along with the means to establish peer to peer connections
between browsers. This raises the question of how web applications
describe themselves for the purposes of being discovered. Personally, I
like the approach taken by multicast DNS**, where users can name
services, and can describe them with a short list of name value pairs.
However, I would be interested in hearing your views.

The code I used for SSDP for UPnP suggests that it would be very easy to
enable browsers to listen for multicast and unicast datagram messages
carrying JSON events, and likewise to be able to send such messages.
This would be handy for applications where browsers form an ad hoc
group, e.g. for multi-user games.

For P2P connections across firewalls and well behaved NAT boundaries,
the idea is to use agents on Internet servers to assist with
establishing the connections. A "personal zone" is established that
includes all of your devices and cloud based services, and which
supports the notion of social proximity for establishing connections
between your devices and your friend's devices.


** multicast DNS is also very well designed for fast responses.
-- 
 Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett

Received on Friday, 15 April 2011 08:47:21 UTC