Monday, June 27, 2011

Google to rival Skype

The battle for hearts and minds in the video communications space continues to heat up, with Google plans to add video chat within Chrome recently coming to light. Henrik Andreasson, a Google programmer, explained in a blog post that it would be possible to build video-chat tools into Chrome by offering full support for the Web Real Time Communications (RTC) standard in the browser.
The idea of making video calls directly through the browser is certainly an appealing one, removing the need for add-ons and plug-ins that many are unaware or unsure of, and instead putting the power to call straight into the hands of the end user.
With Cisco, Skype/Microsoft and others all promoting their own video technologies, the key issue will remain interoperability. No-one will buy or use a system if they can't chat to someone else using a different operating system, browser or even telepresence unit.
On this point, in an earlier blog post by Google engineering director Rian Liebenberg detailing the launch of the WebRTC code, he said the company would talk with other browser manufacturers and standards bodies to ensure they could interoperate.

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