Media Alert: WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) becomes design-complete; on-line live communications now only one click away

Dear Media, Analysts and Friends of W3C,

W3C is pleased to annouce that WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications), which has re-shaped the world of online communications, has become design-complete, strengthening the Web Platform as a solid actor in the telecommunications arena.

Live video chat is easier than ever on the Web and with WebRTC. on-line live communications now only one click away. WebRTC is a set of protocols and APIs whose standardization at W3Cenables this cross-browser and device communication. The WebRTC framework provides the building blocks from which app developers can seamlessly add video chat in gaming, entertainment, and enterprise applications to the Web.

 
For more information, please see our Media Advisory here  (and text version below).  Please contact us if you'd like more information or to schedule an interview. 

Yours sincerely,
Amy van der Hiel
W3C Media Relations
w3t-pr@w3.org
+1.617.253.5628

 

----

   [1]W3C Media Advisory  For immediate release

      [1] 
https://www.w3.org/


WebRTC becomes design-complete strengthening the Web Platform as a solid
                 actor in the telecommunications arena

W3C calls for testing and experimentation to bring universal
interoperability to real-time communications
     __________________________________________________________

   [2]W3C Press Release Archive
     __________________________________________________________

      [2] 
https://www.w3.org/Press/


   [3]WebRTC icon

      [3] 
https://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc


   [4]
https://www.w3.org/
 — 2 November 2017 — The World Wide Web
   Consortium (W3C) today called for broad implementation and
   testing of the Web technology that re-shaped the world of
   online communications. [5]WebRTC 1.0, first version of the main
   JavaScript API for Web Real-Time Communications, published as a
   W3C Candidate Recommendation, has now become feature-complete,
   sending a strong signal about stability of the API.

      [4] 
https://www.w3.org/

      [5] 
https://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc/


   Live video chat is easier than ever on the Web. WebRTC (Web
   Real-Time Communications) is a set of protocols and APIs whose
   standardization enables this cross-browser and -device
   communication. The WebRTC framework provides the building
   blocks from which app developers can seamlessly add video chat
   in gaming, entertainment, and enterprise applications.

  On-line live communications now only one click away

   WebRTC is widely [6]deployed across all the major browsers,
   both on desktop and mobile, and has already re-shaped the world
   of on-line communications.

      [6] 
http://caniuse.com/#feat=rtcpeerconnection


   Setting up an audio-video communication system used to require
   years and millions in investment - now that the major necessary
   bricks have been standardized and deployed as a royalty-free
   feature in browsers, it has become a commodity available to any
   Web site, any Web app. This means on-line live communications
   no longer needs to be a product - it can be a feature of any
   on-line experience. Setting up an on-line meeting no longer
   requires agreeing on apps or plugins in advance - it is just a
   matter of sharing a link.

   This also means the Web platform itself is positioning itself
   as a [7]critical actor in the telecommunications landscape -
   many telcos and communication service providers have started
   building or adopting WebRTC-based solutions to enrich their
   offerings, and as the API stabilizes, we expect many more to
   join.

      [7] 
https://www.w3.org/Telco/


   Beyond real-time audio/video, WebRTC also introduces the world
   of peer-to-peer data exchanges to the Web: before WebRTC, both
   the Web and P2P networks have been strong forces of technical
   and business disruptions, and we can expect that combining the
   universal reach of the Web with the dissemination power of
   peer-to-peer networking will provide many new opportunities for
   rethinking how to build and operate data exchanges. The
   emergence of P2P Content Delivery Networks based on WebRTC are
   a clear first illustration of the potential.

  Complementary W3C and IETF protocols

   Reaching Candidate Recommendation was a major effort, launched
   6 years ago in close collaboration with the [8]IETF. Their twin
   [9]RTCWeb Working Group developed the complementary stack of
   protocols that underlies all the operations exposed by the
   JavaScript API. It enables WebRTC Web applications to
   interoperate both with native WebRTC apps as well as with
   existing communication systems (e.g. based on SIP).

      [8] 
https://www.ietf.org/

      [9] 
https://tools.ietf.org/wg/rtcweb/


   The [10]W3C WebRTC Working Group worked through [11]770 issues
   (and counting), taking great care in ensuring its APIs work
   well within the security and privacy needs of Web browsers and
   their users. The resulting API likely represents one of the
   most complex sub-system exposed to the Web platform today.

     [10] 
https://www.w3.org/2011/04/webrtc/

     [11] 
https://w3c.github.io/spec-dashboard/issues.html?groupdi=47318&shortname=webrtc


   Developers who started adopting WebRTC in their products over
   the past few years will know that, as we advanced in our
   understanding of what needed to be exposed and how, the API
   evolved considerably, creating challenges in keeping code bases
   updated, and dealing with different rate of adoption of these
   changes across browsers.

  WebRTC Next Version efforts already underway

   Now that the API is stable, the Working Group will focus its
   efforts on interoperability - while projects such as
   [12]adapter.js have helped insulate developers from some of the
   inconsistencies across browsers, our goal is to bring all
   browsers to the same level. Great efforts have already been put
   in our [13]associated test suite, and with the recent release
   of a [14]dedicated open source engine to facilitate
   cross-browser testing of WebRTC, we look forward to much more
   progress in the short term on this front as we work toward
   bringing WebRTC to Recommendation.

     [12] 
https://github.com/webrtc/adapter

     [13] 
https://github.com/w3c/web-platform-tests/tree/master/webrtc

     [14] 
https://github.com/webrtc/KITE


   We also know that there is more specification work ahead of us:
     * improving the main WebRTC 1.0 API as we get more
       implementation experience,
     * finalizing the designs of other associated specifications
       to help managing media streams (recording, page and screen
       sharing),
     * looking into new designs and features for "WebRTC Next
       Version" (based among other things on the exploration of
       the [15]ORTC Community Group),
      
http://www.w3.org/community/ortc/


     * and more generally, gathering input on what new
       functionalities are needed to make the Web platform a
       strong communication platform (e.g. a [16]call session
       API?).

     [16] 
https://medium.com/the-making-of-appear-in/open-feature-request-callsession-api-6f4228a21091


   Many of these will be part of the discussions the Working Group
   will hold at its meeting during [17]W3C annual Technical
   Plenary meeting in November 2017.

     [17] 
https://www.w3.org/2017/11/TPAC/


   Reaching Candidate Recommendation is thus only one step among
   the many others we will need to carry out our mission to bring
   real-time communications everywhere - but it is a major step,
   which we hope the whole WebRTC ecosystem, and more broadly, Web
   platform users and developers, will benefit from for many years
   to come.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

   The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead
   the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards
   and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible,
   and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C develops
   well known specifications such as HTML5, CSS, and the Open Web
   Platform as well as work on security and privacy, all created
   in the open and provided for free and under the unique W3C
   Patent Policy. For its work to make online videos more
   accessible with captions and subtitles, W3C received a 2016
   Emmy Award.

   W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of
   dedicated technologists representing more than 400 [18]Member
   organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly
   hosted by the [19]MIT Computer Science and Artificial
   Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the
   [20]European Research Consortium for Informatics and
   Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, [21]Keio
   University in Japan and [22]Beihang University in China. For
   more information see [23]
https://www.w3.org/.


     [18] 
https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List

     [19] 
http://www.csail.mit.edu/

     [20] 
http://www.ercim.eu/

     [21] 
http://www.keio.ac.jp/

     [22] 
http://ev.buaa.edu.cn/

     [23] 
https://www.w3.org/


   End Media Advisory

Media Contact

   Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Officer
   <[24]w3t-pr@w3.org>
  mailto:w3t-pr@w3.org

   +1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)
     __________________________________________________________

   [25]W3C Press Release Archive

     [25] 
https://www.w3.org/Press/

Received on Thursday, 2 November 2017 14:16:04 UTC