This is interesting – Ericsson has released what it is terming an “experimental” WebRTC-enabled browser on the Apple’s USA App Store and on Google Play. The browser is called Bowser.
The browser “will finally enable web developers to add audio and video functionality to their mobile web applications” the company said.
Ericsson said that the browser enables html5 apps to access the local camera and microphone on a phone, as well as establish audio and video calls to another device using the WebRTC API. You can see a very brief demo of the browser here, and a video call being set up in the video below.
Ericsson Research also has a blog post on the browser.
Ericsson’s blog post pointed out that it is not using the webrtc.org framework. It said, “Having independent implementations of WebRTC, using different media back-ends will help push the WebRTC standard forward.”
An Ericsson press release supporting the launch said:
WebRTC is based on work ongoing within the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engineering Task Force to develop a standard, interoperable approach to real-time communication (RTC) using audio and video in Web browsers without the need for any plug-ins.
Kristofer Dovstam, Master Researcher at Ericsson Research, says: “We believe WebRTC is a very important part of future communication solutions in our industry, and are excited to provide developers with the first version of our experimental WebRTC-enabled browser.”
Ericsson Research is heavily involved in the standardization of WebRTC, and has been developing prototype implementations of the evolving standard for over two years. With Bowser, developers can finally start experimenting with real-time audio and video functionality in mobile web applications.
Ericsson also has solutions to let WebRTC enabled browsers easily connect to IMS based communication networks.