News from Industry

This week we had a number of bug fixes and a change to the packaging build logs.

Improvements in build system, cross platform support, and packaging:

• FS-8723 [Debian] Adding a file extension to the package build logs

The following bugs were squashed:

• FS-8708 [mod_rayo] Fixed the example configuration to map to correct DETECTED_TONE event from spandsp_start_tone_detect
• FS-8711 [mod_skinny] Fixed a couple of possible memory leaks in mod_skinny packet reading code
• FS-8722 [mod_skinny] Remove nested redundant mutex that could cause a hang
• FS-8713 [core] Fixed a crash caused by read exceeding buffer
• FS-8716 [core] Fixed the recording offset delayed by a few seconds for rtmp stream
• FS-8677 [core] Fixed a crash (possible memory corruption) after codec change
• FS-8673 [core] Fixed a core dump on playback after “Decode Codec is not initialized!” log message
• FS-8715 [mod_sofia] Make the oubound_proxy on the profile consistent with how we do the same thing on the gateway
• FS-8679 [mod_sofia] Fixed sofia sending call completed elsewhere if not disabled by the option ignore_completed_elsewhere

The FreeSWITCH 1.4 branch had a couple of bug fixes back ported. And again, keep in mind that 1.4 is quickly moving toward end of life and won’t be supported any longer except for high level security issues.

The following bugs were squashed:

• FS-8708 [mod_rayo] Fixed the example configuration to map to correct DETECTED_TONE event from spandsp_start_tone_detect

 

Who needs to communicate in enterprises anyway?

Everyone.

Communication is… overrated

But do we really need to treat it as if it is the most critical piece of the enterprise world?

I use multiple systems to make my calls these days. They are WebRTC based or proprietary apps such as Skype, WebEx or GoToMeeting. I grumble when I have to use a proprietary system and install stuff on my laptop, but that’s life.

It was like that for me even when working for enterprises in the past – big and small. Somehow, you always need to have a “phone system” and be reachable. But other than that? I’d say “omnichannel” as a buzzword has stuck to the contact center but is just as important in unified communications.

But in Unified Communications, Omnichannel means something really different – it means that you can now reach out to people on lots of different channels and mediums – picking up the ones most suitable for the taks – which most often than not ends up being different than what the corporate IT has decided you should be using.

And you know what? I couldn’t be bothered with it.

The essence of Unified Communications is the here and now. Real time communications. If a minute passed, it is no longer interesting. It is lost.

Hangouts. Talky. A phone call (international or otherwise). Skype. Anything else.

Just pick one and lets meet.

—

Enterprise Messaging though is a different story.

It isn’t focused in the here and now, but rather in collecting data and making it accessible. It is about synchronizing teams and aligning them – asynchronously.

And “omnichannel” there? It means integrations with anything and everything that is enterprise software.

Which makes it the point of access for an employee to his daily life in the office.

It is a lot more sticky these days than unified communications.

—

Unified Communication is on another rebranding rampage. We used to call it “Convergence” a decade or two ago. And when that felt old, we started calling it Unified Communications. There are analysts that are now coining the term WCC – Workstream Communications and Collaboration. A mouthful that simply says Unified Communications need to look at the Enterprise Messaging space and copy it.

The end result will still be a focus on the here and now. And it will still be overrated.

 

[show promotion title=”strategy-session”]

The post Unified Communications is Overrated appeared first on BlogGeek.me.

 

Dave Horton discusses his open-source, node.js-based SIP load balancer for FreeSWITCH servers (http://davehorton.github.io/drachtio-…) which is currently deployed in several service provider networks.

The challenges in testing WebRTC services How do you view WebRTC? As a VoIP technology or an Internet one? There’s a huge divide between the two, especially when it comes to testing them. WebRTC sits in the intersection between them, making it doubly hard to grok – and test. Tsahi will outline in this session a few of the main challenges, with suggestions on how to fix them. He will also use the opportunity to show how testRTC.com addresses these challenges.

Hey FreeSWITCHers!
Last week FreeSWITCH turned ten!

It has been a long road,
With many, many lines of code.
The community has been there through thick and thin,
And witnessed all the hard work put in.
Long nights, no break,
But, a wonderful piece of software they did make.
Blood, sweat, tears, and no perks,
Would result in a switch that just works!

We had no idea they would be so merciless,
So, we apologize on behalf of Rachael from Cardholder services.
Convey your appreciation with some flair,
Show Tony how much you care,
By clicking on link below,
And, send him something as thanks for Verto.

http://goo.gl/3WCNnI

Challenges ahead.

A shy over a year ago, I wrote about 3 startups: Talko, Wire and Switch

All of them looked promising. All were using WebRTC.

In 2015, Switch had a meeting with $35 million, along with quite a few successful deployments in businesses big and small.

A month ago, Talko got acquired by Microsoft. I’ve interviewed here the Talko team in the past. Selling to Microsoft shows. Shutting the company. With little objections from customers. It all points to a single conclusion – Talko has been a failure when it comes to the business side of it. It probably had a solid technology – otherwise – why would Microsoft acquihire the team and fold it into Skype? I am sure Ray Ozzie and the team of Microsoft veterans in Talko added to this acquisition, but there was no other value in this transaction.

The Talko Team expresses it best on their updated homepage:

However, as engaged as many of you have been, the reality is that the broad-based success of communications apps tends to be binary: A small number of apps earn and achieve great viral growth, while most fall into some stable niche.

Talko didn’t grow fast enough or big enough. Clementine’s acquisition by Dropbox is similar. A communication solution geared towards team/group/enterprise communications gets acquired for its team with the service being left behind, never to be seen again.

And that’s in the less competitive domain of the enterprise. What will be with Wire? The third company I wrote about.

On Android, Wire reportedly has 100K-500K installs. Assuming iOS has twice as much (I am trying to be positive), that still falls way short of any of the messaging services we usually hear about – they are measured by 100’s of millions. Of active monthly users – not installs.

It is hard to see how Wire can change its abysmal future without a serious pivot or a drastic change in current market trends. Some will say this is a matter of a directory service and network effects. I think it is a matter of strategy and luck. Where Wire failed to attract the crowds, a different messaging service – Telegram, with 50M-100M installs on Android and a reported 60M monthly active users.

Wire was formed in 2012 and Telegram in 2013. So we can’t say Telegram had any head start here.

WebRTC makes it too easy to build and launch a communication service, which in turn, makes it hard to build a viable business with it. The role of product managers and people who need to think of the business case is more important than the technologists building the service when it comes to WebRTC. At the same time, finding good developers who grok WebRTC isn’t easy either.

2016 is going to be crucial for Wire.

What do you see for your initiative in 2016? Do you have a business case and route to market and money, or are you tinkering with the technology, assuming that if you build it they will come?

 

Planning on introducing WebRTC to your existing service? Schedule your free strategy session with me now.

The post Can Wire Succeed Where Talko Failed? appeared first on BlogGeek.me.

When it is the wrong metric to track.

Microsoft playing the number games with Edge adoption stats

44.5 billion.

minutes.

That’s how long people have been using Microsoft Edge “just last month”, according to Microsoft:

Over 44.5 billion minutes spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in just the last month.

That other number of 200 million monthly active devices using Windows 10 is much more impressive.

I am interested in Edge due to WebRTC and ORTC. It is one of the missing pieces of our puzzle to get adoption (or at least that’s what we’ve been told).

So how can 44.5 billion minutes can be so unimpressive?

Do the math.

Let’s assume only half of Windows 10 users make use of Microsoft Edge.

This gets us to an average of 445 minutes a month per user, placing it at less than 15 minutes a day (!)

How many of these minutes are spent with an idle browser? I got a laptop and a desktop open 24/7 with Chrome running on them. Even when I am engaged in other applications.

Microsoft decided to announce a largish number to hide the fact that Microsoft Edge isn’t really getting the love and adoption they expected, which is sad. I’ve used it a couple of times on my own Windows 10 laptop. It does what it is supposed to do and does it well, but that’s about it.

The challenge is migrating from Chrome. It stores my credentials to the many sites I visit, it has that nice search bar that often times just finds the URL I need without really searching (it automatically completes from its history), there are the few extensions I’ve got installed. All in all, it does the work. It is bloated and a memory hog, but the time when this mattered (a year or two ago) passed already, so there’s very little incentive for me to switch browsers.

Microsoft is killing Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 in the same day next week, pushing businesses into Internet Explorer 11 or Microsoft Edge. This might gain them a percentage or two more in adoption of Microsoft Edge – not nearly enough. Microsoft will probably announce end of life for Internet Explorer 11 in a year or two – the sooner the better if they want Microsoft Edge to grow.

What else can Microsoft do to improve its position? I don’t know. I don’t believe they can. The opportunity to surpass Google Chrome had come and gone. They will need to wait for the next opening when Google falters with Chrome or make something enticing enough for people to switch. It is sad, as Microsoft Edge is technically sound – it made browsers interesting again.

For WebRTC, Microsoft Edge still makes no difference at all. We’ve seen a few announcements of ORTC support by some vendors, but that’s about it. There’s no urgency in vendors to support it. The discussions are still about Internet Explorer when it comes to WebRTC.

Where does that leave us?

• Companies who waiting for Microsoft to adopt WebRTC will continue to wait
• Those who haven’t waited have made the correct choice – deal with what’s available and don’t wait for the forces that be to save you
• While Apple might get WebRTC properly, Microsoft hasn’t. Introducing ORTC into Internet Explorer is what the market needs, but it won’t happen by Microsoft
• Mobile is unaffected, as consumption there is done by apps, so browser adoption issues are irrelevant for most

 

Planning on introducing WebRTC to your existing service? Schedule your free strategy session with me now.

The post When is 44.5 Billion a Small Number? appeared first on BlogGeek.me.

Submission of presentation proposals for Kamailio World 2016 is open. Deadline for submission is February 18, 2016, notification of accepted proposals will be done latest on March 03, 2016.Be aware that interesting proposals can be accepted before the deadline, we plan to have two intermediate review sessions before February 18, 2016, announcing any accepted presentations immediately. Note also that at the previous edition there were more proposals than available slots and the 2016 edition celebrates 15 years of Kamailio project development, expecting a significant increase of interest for the event. Therefore it is recommended to send your proposal as soon as possible, do not wait till deadline.To submit the proposal, fill in the web form at:

• https://www.kamailioworld.com/k04/call-for-speakers/

The main topic of the conference is Real Time Communications, with the majority of the content being about Kamailio and other open source projects in the area. However, like for the past editions, we welcome very interesting presentations beyond those subjects.If you are interested to look at the agenda from previous edition, visit:

• http://conference.kamailio.com/k03/schedule/

Have a great 2016! Looking forward to meeting many of you at the next Kamailio World!

Continuing the tradition, many members of Kamailio project community will be at Fosdem 2016and we are planning again a social event on Saturday night (Jan 30, 2016). Among participants announced so far: Alexandr Dubovikov, Daniel-Constantin Mierla, Federico Cabiddu, Giacomo Vacca and Lorenzo Mangani.Should you want to join us for some drinks, food and interesting chats, announce yourself on sr-users mailing list (sr-users [at] lists.sip-router.org). As usual, each participants pays for himself or herself.There will be also couple of talks touching Kamailio on various tracks of Fosdem.

Time to fix the stupid notifications of all them apps. Especially messaging ones.

Push notification for messaging apps – not as easy as you thought

When it comes to messaging, they are probably the most chatty applications out there when it comes to push notifications (not including Candy Crush).

I’ve had my share of bad experiences with messaging and notifications to know what works for me and what annoys the hell out of me. This is also where you see the true leaders shine and the rest slumbering along.

IP messaging is considered by most developers a rather simple thing to implement. It isn’t.

Here are a few things you should incorporate into your push notifications implementation when you want to deal with messaging capabilities.

#1 – Synchronize devices

Your service is sending me messages? Great.

You are aware I am the proud owner of a smartphone, tablet, laptop and PC? And that I generally connect through all of them interchangeably.

So when I am receiving a message (or sending one for that matter), it would be nice if said messages would magically appear in all of my devices. And in a timely fashion.

One of the reasons I’ve been using Skype less and less this year is that it just didn’t synchronize properly – not showing messages on all devices, or popping notifications on the app on my laptop a day or two after I’ve already received them on my phone or on the PC. It seemed like Skype just weren’t seriously prepared for this world of multiple devices per person.

Assume that if I sign in from a new device, I don’t want a “fresh” start – I want all of the data and context that is available to me on my other devices to be availalbe in this new device of mine as well.

#2 – Clear notifications. Everywhere

You know that fuzzy feeling inside when you receive an email? My whole house is pinging (or used to ping), each device trying its best to be the first to announce that incoming email.

The main problem is, that handling the notification (=opening it) on one device didn’t necessarily clean it from all other devices.

Google Mail got it right after a year or two on Android. WhatsApp got it right the first time – it was almost a magical feeling when they came out with their web interface and messages got cleared on the web or on the phone automatically – and FAST.

The most annoying thing is an app that doesn’t clear its notifications. I know there are many who don’t care, but I like my notifications windows clean. Going over multiple devices to clean the same message is a show stopper for me these days (and again, up until a few months ago, Skype didn’t get this one right).

#3 – Mobile and web

Notifications should occur both in mobile apps and in web browsers. Modern browsers already support notifications, so make sure to utilize it when needed.

You need to remember that knowledge workers may sit all day in front of a computer – so why not leverage that to show notifications there instead of making them pick up the phone?

#4 – How urgent is it again?

Not. Every. Single. Message. Is. The. Same.

How are you going to report them? Or even notify them?

You may have them notified separately. Or bunch them up under a single icon.

Slack just added a Do Not Disturb feature. Great. I can now silence notifications in Slack. The problem is, they decided that my work day is 8am-10pm. Anything not in this timeframe isn’t notified to me. It would have been fine – but only if when 8am arrived – they’d pop up a notification about things I’ve missed.

Groups in Whatsapp can be silenced, or certain people. You can even do it for a period of time (I don’t really care about kindergarten related chatter when I am abroad). But it is manual. It would have been so much better if somehow, WhatsApp magically would decide what I prefer and what I didn’t when it came to notifications.

#5 – How do I reply?

The vinyl Android SMS application enabled me to mark messages as read – right from the notification. No need to enter the app just so it knows I’ve read it. Some other apps enable replying to notifications without getting into the app.

What are you doing regarding your app? Is the only thing I can do is enter the app, or can I act from the notification itself? (guess what I prefer)

#6 – Where in the view stack will I be landing?

Got the notification on my phone. Pressed it. Where will it lead me?

LinkedIn’s terrible app (even the latest incarnation of it) does a great job at putting you in the wrong view – try accepting an invite to connect and you’ll end up preferring to open it inside your browser.

Skype gets you to the conversation. Pressing the back button on Android leaves the app. But if you then enter the Skype app explicitly, after several incoming notifications of a group conversation there – it will lead you to the same conversation over and over again – at least to the same amount of times you pressed on the notification of new messages in that group. Something is terribly wrong there.

WhatsApp does a decent job here – there’s a single WhatsApp notification for everything. If all notifications are from the same conversation – that’s where you’ll land. If there are multiple conversations you are being notified of – you’ll land at the WhatsApp homepage. Oh – and if you press back? It takes you from the conversation view to the homepage of WhatsApp before letting you leave the app.Gmail does the same.

#7 – Think Offline

Bonus points for handling unconnected use cases. Many miss this one when it comes to notifications.

When you press the notification, the app is launched and it goes to the server to grab the actual reason for notification. But what if I am INSIDE an elevator? Some apps do a miserable job at making sure that the launched app can show me the message without being connected (you already got me that notification – why not get the whole damn message while at it?)

Why is it important?

IP Messaging is probably one of those areas where developers go NIH. They know it all. How can sending a couple of messages be hard? Oh – you also need push notifications on top? No worries! There’s that simple API in iOS that does that.

But that’s usually only the beginning of the saga when it comes to IP Messaging and push notifications. If you decide to develop it in-house – you better be ready to writing down the exact spec in detail to get it right. Otherwise, find someone who does that for a living.

 

Planning on introducing WebRTC to your existing service? Schedule your free strategy session with me now.

The post Messaging and Push Notifications: Best Practices appeared first on BlogGeek.me.

The 2016 has just started and I am really looking forward to it.

The big celebration of 15 years of development for Kamailio project happens this year.  Although has changed the names few time, along the years SIP Express Router (SER) and OpenSER, it is a real performance to stay atop and continue the development at high pace for such long time in the open source environment.



The Kamailio World Conference, scheduled for May 18-20, 2016, in Berlin, will take care to organize a great party for this celebration, expecting many of the relevant developers in the history of the project, which will share the experiences and the impact in their careers because of being involved in the open source project. Be sure you don't miss this edition!


One of the first milestones in 2016 is the release of Kamailio v4.4.0, a new major version, which will bring as usual several new modules, plus improvements and new features in the existing components.

The first event where we expect to get a consistent group of Kamailio developers and friends is Fosdem 2016, in Brussels.

With a continuous increase of activity in the community of Kamailio project, I expect plenty of new ideas and challenges to work with along 2016! Stay tuned and keep an eye on this blog for updates!

The amazing 2015 for Kamailio is done! Thank you everyone for contributing to it!Now it is the time to get prepared to fill the 2016, with interesting discussions on our forums, solving new RTC challenges, adding features in Kamailio and welcoming new contributors!We wish a healthy and prosperous year to all Kamailio friends! We are looking forward to meeting many of you at Kamailio World Conference, where we are going to celebrate 15 years of development for Kamailio project, as well as at other events around the globe!

Consider this my end of year review for WebRTC in 2015.

Tomorrow will mark the last day of 2015. As we head into 2016, it is time to review what we had this year in WebRTC. For me this year proved to be a real rollercoaster, but somehow I get a feeling 2016 won’t be any different.

I dug some of the statistics I regularly collect, with differences and trends in 2015 in mind. From there, the road to an infographics about WebRTC State of the Market was a short one. For those who have membership access to my site, I will be spending the next Virtual Coffee discussing these findings in detail.

Feel free to share and embed this infographic (click to enlarge or download the PDF) if you wish:

Share this Image On Your Site

<p><strong>Please include attribution to BlogGeek.me with this graphic.</strong></p><br />
<p><a href=’https://bloggeek.me/webrtc-state-market-2015/’><img src=’https://bloggeek.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/201512-WebRTC-infographic.png’ alt=’WebRTC State of the Market – Are we there yet?’ width=’540px’ border=’0′ /></a></p><br />
<p>
See you all in 2016!

 

Planning on introducing WebRTC to your existing service? Schedule your free strategy session with me now.

 

The post WebRTC State of the Market: End of 2015 appeared first on BlogGeek.me.

While owning the domain miconda.eu for quite some time, never found the time to set it up. With the winter holidays giving sort of a break, I pointed blog.miconda.eu to my blog (here) at by-miconda.blogspot.com.

The main domain miconda.eu is pointed to about.me/miconda . I plan to make more use of this domain (email?!?), let's see if 2016 brings more spare time ...

Enjoy the winter holidays!

WebRTC Broadcast will be all the rage in 2016.

As I am working my way in analyzing the various use case categories for WebRTC, I decided to check what’s been important in 2015. The “winner” in attention was a relatively new category of WebRTC broadcast – one in which WebRTC is being used when what one is trying to achieve is sending a video stream to many viewers. These viewers can be passive, or they can interact with the creator of the broadcast.

Up until 2014, I had 4 such vendors in my list. 2015 brought 15 new vendors to it – call it “the fastest growing category”. And this is predominantly a US phenomena – only 3 of the new vendors aren’t US based startups.

Periscope and Meerkat are partly to “blame” here. The noise they made in the market stirred others to join the fray – especially if you consider many of them are based in San Francisco as well.

TokBox just introduced Spotlight – their own live broadcast APIs – for those who need. At its heart, Spotlight enables the types of interactions that we see on the market today for these kind of solutions:

1. Ability to produce video by using WebRTC – either from a browser or a mobile app
2. Ability to view the video content as a passive participant – usually via CDN by way of Flash, HLS or MPEG-DASH
3. Ability to “join” the producer, creating a 1:1 video chat or a video conference that gets broadcasted to others

Here are some of my thoughts on this new emerging category:

• Most of the focus today is using WebRTC broadcast on the producer’s side. The reasons are clear:
  • Flash is dying. HLS and MPEG-DASH are replacing it on the viewer side, but what is going to replace it in the producer side? Some go for specialized broadcasing applications, but WebRTC seems like a good alternative for many
  • This is where vendors have more control – they can force producers to use a certain browser – it is much harder to force the viewers
  • WebRTC plays nice in browsers and mobile. No other technology can achieve that today
• The producer side is also where most constraints/requirements come from today:
  • You may want to “pull in” a viewer for an interview during a session
  • Or have a panel of possible speakers
  • You may wish to split the producer from the “actor”, facilitating larger crews
  • All these fit well with the capabilities that WebRTC brings to the table versus the proprietary alternatives out there
• H.264 is the predominant requirement on the viewer side at the moment. VP9 is interesting. This means:
  • Trnascoding in necessary in the backend prior to sending the video to viewers
  • H.264 in Chrome can improve things for the vendors
• There’s a race towards zero-latency. Vendors are looking to reduce the 10-60 seconds of delay inherent in video streaming technologies to a second or less (not sure why)
  • This would require attempting to replace viewer end of the architecture to a WebRTC one
  • It will also necessitate someone building a backend that is optimized for this use case – something that wasn’t researched enough up until today
• Peer assisted delivery vendors such as Peer5 and Streamroot is another aspect. These kind of technologies sit “on top” of a video CDN and use WebRTC’s data channel to improve performance
• I’ve started noticing a few audio-only vendors joining the game as well. This will grow as a trend. The audio based solutions tend to be slightly different than the video ones and the technologies they employ are radically different. The technologies and architectures may converge, but not in 2016

2016 will be a continuation of what we’ve seen during 2015. More companies trying to define what live WebRTC broadcast looks like and aiming for different types of architectures to support it. In most cases, these architectures will combine WebRTC in them.

 

Planning on introducing WebRTC to your existing service? Schedule your free strategy session with me now.

The post The Rise of WebRTC Broadcast and Live Streaming appeared first on BlogGeek.me.

With an amazing 2015 almost gone, it is a good moment to thank and greet the people involved in Kamailio project, old and new friends, developers, contributors, the engaged and warm community members.
Very soon 2016 will arrive, Kamailio will celebrate 15 years of development, therefore we are looking to a special year ahead!


Together with Asipto, I Wish You Merry Christmas and Happy Winter Holidays!

Is it just me or are browsers fun again?

Who would have believed? Microsoft releasing their JavaScript engine as open source. And under a permissive MIT license.

While there are many browsers and vendors out there, there are probably only 4 that matter: Chrome (Google), Firefox (Mozilla), Edge (Microsoft) and Safari (Apple).

Who haven’t I included?

• Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Microsoft is actively transitioning away from it to Edge
• The rest of the pack, as far as I can tell, are nice wrappers around Chromium – and are negligible in their market share anyway

What should we expect in 2016 from the browsers? A lot.

Google Chrome

For Google, Chrome is an important piece of the puzzle. It lives in the web and the more control points it has over access to information the better positioned it is.

The ongoing activity of Google in WebRTC is part of the picture, and probably not the biggest one.

Google is the company with the least amount of regard to legacy code that there is. When something requires fixing, Google developers are not afraid to rewrite and refactor large components, and management allows and probably even encourages this behavior – something I haven’t seen anywhere else.

A few examples for recent years:

• Google forked WebKit into Blink, essentially replacing the page rendering inside the browser. The first order of the day after the fork? Spring cleaning – removing code that isn’t necessary for Chrome
• Google switched EVERYTHING from OpenSSL to BoringSSL. OpenSSL seemed to have some vulnerabilities lately, so Googlers took the time to fork it, clean it up – and deploy the new project across Google
• Introducing SPDY and getting HTTP/2 out the door

That said, it seems that Google have been somewhat complacent in the area of speed and size with Chrome. I am sure the Chrome team is aware of it and working hard to fix it, but the results haven’t been encouraging enough. This will change – mostly because of the actions of the other browser vendors.

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla is in transition. From relying on Google as its main benefactor to spreading the risks.

In the past few months though, Mozilla has started trimming down its projects:

• Mozilla plans on splitting Thunderbird, its email client, from Mozilla
• Mozilla stopped developing and selling Firefox OS smartphones – I wonder how will this affect its relationship with Telefonica, TokBox and the Hello project

These changes indicate that Mozilla understood it can’t just try and replicate every cool new Google project and open source it – it will now focus on making Firefox better. This is a much needed focus, with Firefox slipping in market share for quite some time now.

On the browser front, the notable changes Firefox is making are around privacy and the pornprivacy mode.

Microsoft Edge

Edge is new. It is a complete rewrite of what a browser is. It is speedy, clean and with huge potential. It has its own adoption challenges to overcome (mainly people comfortable enough with Chrome and not caring to try out Edge).

What to do? Microsoft just open sourced the JavaScript engine in Edge – Chakra. It shows some interesting performance results that seem to rival Chrome’s V8. The more interesting aspect of it, is the clear intent in getting Chakra into Node.js as a V8 alternative. Not sure if it will work, but it does has merit. It shows to me that:

1. A browser/webapp today is split into two – frontend and backend (we already knew that). More often than not, these days the backend is based on a Node.js framework. Microsoft wants to be a part of that backend, probably to end up licensing Windows 10 on servers
2. JavaScript today is more than a browser scripting language. A JavaScript engine’s health/popularity/importance relies on the ecosystem around it – which is why Microsoft ended up open sourcing it

I am sure there’s an engineer at Google already tasked at reviewing the code of Chakra once it gets a public git repository.

Edge is trying to move the envelope. This will challenge Google further with Chrome – always a good thing.

Apple Safari

Safari seems second place at Apple. It is working, but not much is said or done about it.

We hear a lot of rumblings about WebRTC in Safari lately. How will this shape into Safari, iOS and Mac is anyone’s guess. The bigger question is will this be the only significant browser change to be introduced by Apple or part of a larger overhaul?

Why is this important?

The web isn’t standing still. It is evolving and changing. Earlier this year, WebAssembly was announced – an effort to speed up the interactive web.

While many believe that apps have won over the web when it comes to development, we need to remember two things:

1. There are times when an app won’t do – as Benedict Evans phrases it well in Apps versus to web: “Do people want to put your icon on their home screen?” – and sometimes they just don’t
2. Apps are sometimes built using HTML5 – usually because a developer wants a single code base for all platforms or just needs easier access for his service from a browser and mobile apps at the same time

An interesting road ahead of us.

 

Planning on introducing WebRTC to your existing service? Schedule your free strategy session with me now.

The post The Browser Wars are Back appeared first on BlogGeek.me.

It’s easy, as long as you know where to look for it.

This was published yesterday. Oftentimes, the things I read out there about WebRTC sounds just like this conversation from Dilbert’s life.

WebRTC is elusive. It is located in the cracks between VoIP and the web – a place where most people are just clueless. My own pedigree is VoIP. About 6 years ago, as an “aging” CTO trying to build a cloud service with an API for developers that runs a VoIP service, I was given an important lesson – there’s much to be learned from a 24 year old kid with milk teeth. In a span of a year and a half I got introduced to agile methodologies, internet scale, continuous deployment and a slew of other techniques – none of them was given the term we use today – but they were all there. It helped me later in understanding how and why WebRTC is so transformative.

As we head into 2016, I guess it is time to state a few of the great resources out there for WebRTC – the places I rely on in my own reading about WebRTC.

The Bloggers

Out of the people out there that cover WebRTC, there are 3 that I make it a point to read. All of them are good friends of mine:

• Chris Kranky, who is always fun to read
• Disruptive Analysis, by Dean Bubley
• The New Dial Tone, written by Amir Zmora
• WebRTC by Dr Alex is relatively new to the scene and is showing promise for low level WebRTC developers

The Vendors

Most company blogs suck. Big time. They are boring, and usually read like brochures or press releases. There are a few decent corporate blogs covering WebRTC – some of them can be considered mandatory reading.

TokBox

TokBox has the best corporate blog all around if what you are looking for is WebRTC related information. Now that they have recruited Philipp Hancke they probably will improve further.

Between their new offerings and features announcements are gems of information in the form of whitepapers of certain verticals and insights on WebRTC from the service they operate. They also run TechToks that get recorded and published on YouTube.

callstats.io

The callstats.io blog is another great resource, especially when it comes to covering getstats() related stuff and media quality. Highly recommended.

AT&T

I’ve written my own guest post on the AT&T Developers blog once or twice, so I know how they operate. While being a large corporation has a lot of limitations, when they publish content about WebRTC or adjacent technologies – it is worth the time to read.

A testament to that is the recent series of WebRTC UX/UI posts they have commissioned from &yet – mandatory reading for anyone who delves into web apps for WebRTC.

Sinch

While Sinch’s blog hasn’t been too interesting when it comes to WebRTC lately, earlier this year they had great content to share. Lately, it tends to be around use cases of their customers – totally interesting, but from a different angle.

I’d register on their blog if I were you to keep posted. I am sure they’ll have interesting articles for us next year as well.

WebRTC Digest & Blacc Spot Media

Blacc Spot Media started WebRTC Digest they also run their own Blacc Spot Media blog. Both are great resources with good content.

The digest site is all about acquisitions and money raising in the space, while Blacc Spot Media tries to cover the industry and the ecosystem.

At times, there needs to be some further validation to the vendors being written about there (some aren’t really doing WebRTC but are in the real time space), but all in all, one of the better resources out there.

webrtcHacks

By far the best place for WebRTC developers to go.

In-depth and timely content.

If you aren’t subscribed – then please do.

WebRTC Weekly

If you don’t want to subscribe to too many resources, and are in the need for a single source, then Chris Kranky and me operate the WebRTC Weekly. Subscribe by email to receive one email a week with links to the relevant articles and posts from all over the web related to WebRTC.

There are three reasons why something doesn’t get included in the WebRTC Weekly:

1. Trash content, which either isn’t accurate or just too shallow
2. Repetitive, of something that was already covered in the weekly (usually at a higher quality)
3. We missed it… email us with things you think we should include

The post Where to find Quality WebRTC Resources appeared first on BlogGeek.me.

The Kamailio SIP Server v4.1.9  stable version  is released. This is a minor release including fixes in code and documentation since v4.1.8 – configuration file and database compatibility is preserved within 4.1.x series. Important Note: branch 4.1 is not going to be packaged anymore, v4.1.9 being the last version to be released from this branch, marking the end of the official maintenance for 4.1.x series.The current latest stable branch is 4.3, at this time with v4.3.4 being released out of it. The project is officially maintaining the last two stable branches, these are now 4.3 and 4.2. Therefore it is recommended to upgrade to latest 4.3.x – be aware that you may need to change the configuration file from 4.1.x to 4.2.x or 4.3.x.Resources for Kamailio version 4.1.9Source tarballs are available at:

• http://www.kamailio.org/pub/kamailio/4.1.9/src/

Detailed changelog:

• http://www.kamailio.org/pub/kamailio/4.1.9/ChangeLog

Download via GIT: # git clone git://git.kamailio.org/kamailio kamailio
# cd kamailio
# git checkout -b 4.1 origin/4.1Binaries and packages will be uploaded at:

• http://www.kamailio.org/pub/kamailio/4.1.9/

Modules’ documentation:

• http://www.kamailio.org/docs/modules/4.1.x/

What is new in 4.1.x release series is summarized in the announcement of v4.1.0:

• http://www.kamailio.org/w/kamailio-v4-1-0-release-notes/

See more details about the latest stable branch, v4.3.x, at:

• http://www.kamailio.org/w/kamailio-v4-3-0-release-notes/