RE: <device> questions

I'm concerned that this <device> conversation is premature.  The approach is one possible proposal, and an extremely optimistic one at that.  I'd like us to consider others, based on the requirements we settle on, before engaging heavily in this direction.

From: public-xg-htmlspeech-request@w3.org [mailto:public-xg-htmlspeech-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Young, Milan
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 9:52 AM
To: Satish Sampath
Cc: public-xg-htmlspeech@w3.org
Subject: RE: <device> questions

I just joined the Audio and Device working groups.  Will start participating at the start of the year.

But I still think it may be appropriate to request an invited expert.  I remember doing this in the VBWG when we were considering DOM integration with VoiceXML events.  It was effective in getting us quickly up to speed.

Maybe something for the <chair>s to consider.


________________________________
From: Satish Sampath [mailto:satish@google.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 1:36 AM
To: Young, Milan
Cc: public-xg-htmlspeech@w3.org
Subject: Re: <device> questions

Yes there is a risk, though there is sufficient interest in a Device API that it will be picked up soon (I think Ericsson Labs even have a prototype implementation out now).

> Any thoughts about inviting IETF and/or Connection Peer experts to our calls?

I'm not very sure, but if we want to contribute to the Device API spec perhaps some of us should participate in their group/call rather than inviting them to ours?

Cheers
Satish
On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 2:24 AM, Young, Milan <Milan.Young@nuance.com<mailto:Milan.Young@nuance.com>> wrote:
Thanks Satish.  Great information.

The line between requirements and implementation is starting to blur.  Perhaps it would be worth our while to investigate the <device> approach in parallel with requirements.

The approach carries risk, because we might find <device> to be a dead end.  But then at least we would know it's a dead end and it would better frame the protocol and privacy discussions.  At present it's difficult because the potential implementation paths are so diverse.

Any thoughts about inviting IETF and/or Connection Peer experts to our calls?


________________________________
From: Satish Sampath [mailto:satish@google.com<mailto:satish@google.com>]
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 2:16 PM
To: Young, Milan
Cc: public-xg-htmlspeech@w3.org<mailto:public-xg-htmlspeech@w3.org>
Subject: Re: <device> questions

Hi Milan,

  * How does the connection peer proposal tie in with streaming speech audio?  I see support for addStream(), but this whole API seems to be oriented around peers rather than client/server.  Is this just a pattern to follow, or would we try to re-use verbatim?

Yes ConnectionPeer is currently geared towards peers and I was hoping we from this XG can influence to add client-to-server functionality as well.

  * Any thoughts on using WebSockets to transmit the data?  Lower overhead might make it a better choice for streaming compared to chunking.  Bidirectional communication would enable additional use cases and would probably simplify the process of canceling a request.

WebSockets are good if the data being sent and received is text/strings and is available to the web application. Were you thinking about the web app's script getting raw audio and sending through a websocket, or just connecting a stream from the <device> tag to a websocket? The latter seems close to the ConnectionPeer model and we may have to get in touch with the WebSockets group in IETF to discuss.

  * Is anyone aware of standards work exposing the microphone via <device>, or would this be virgin territory?  Privacy is an area where we will have a lot of requirements.

As of now we just have a generic "media" which is suitable for audio+video capture devices. I think we can bring it up in the WHATWG mailing list with our use cases. Privacy should already be an issue which <device> will be addressing and we could piggy back on that.