[LINK] WebSockets

Tue Mar 29 09:03:36 AEDT 2011

It's been a holy grail of big media since the web started - to be able to push their stuff to the punters.  Just like on the telly.  They've had to rely on meta refresh and javascript.  It must be so difficult for them.

Personally I will be hanging out for some way of blocking stuff like that.  I hate websites that push stuff at me when I don't want it.

They really don't get it that people want to decide what they want and when they want it.

On 2011/Mar/29, at 1:12 AM, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:

> Perhaps of interest .. HTML5 'WebSockets'
> 
> To see how these new websockets work, have a look here:
> 
> http://www.worldspreads.com/en/home.aspx
> 
> If your browser supports WebSockets, the world market information
> at the bottom of the page will refresh every couple of seconds. For
> example, as i write this, the Aussie dollar is worth 2.75 cents more
> than the US dollar. Oops, now it's 2.81 .. and, now it's 2.83 cents :)
> 
> The new Mozilla browser supports HTML5 WebSockets, whereas IEv8 does not.
> 
> Here's a news article regarding WebSockets ..
> 
> --
> New Protocol Turbocharges the Web: WebSockets lets the Web handle complex 
> communications in real time.
> 
> Monday, March 28, 2011 By Paul Boutin
> <http://www.technologyreview.com/web/37162/?nlid=4279>
> 
> Over the past 15 years, Web-based applications have gradually replaced 
> those based on other networking protocols for everything from personal 
> communications to home electricity meters. 
> 
> But there's a major shortcoming in the hypertext transfer protocol˜HTTP˜
> the system used to communicate over the Web. HTTP was originally designed 
> for serving up simple documents and files to Web browsers, not for 
> complex, real-time interaction.
> 
> Under the original HTTP protocol, a client, such as a Web browser, must 
> open a connection to a server, make a request, wait for a response, and 
> then close the connection. 
> 
> If the client needs more data, it must open a new connection. It's like 
> hanging up the phone and redialing after every sentence of conversations.
> 
> And if the server has new info for the client, it must wait until the 
> client requests it rather than sending it over instantly. 
> 
> This redundancy chews up bandwidth. Worse, it makes it nearly impossible 
> to keep a Web client stuffed with up-to-the-second information. In some 
> situations, such as financial trading, those lost milliseconds can mean 
> missed opportunities.
> 
> Web developers have been hacking around HTTP's limitations for years with 
> programming techniques such as Comet, which delays closing an HTTP 
> connection in order to transmit more data. But what they really want is a 
> connection between client and server that stays open indefinitely and 
> allows both parties to send data back and forth as needed.
> 
> The nearly-complete HTML5 standard for current and future Web software 
> includes just such a solution, a new protocol called WebSockets. 
> 
> This protocol allows a Web client to create a connection, keep it open as 
> long as it wants, and both send and receive data continuously.
> 
> Kaazing, a startup based in Mountain View, California, was a leading 
> developer of the WebSockets standard. 
> 
> The company now sells a product that serves as a software gateway, 
> allowing WebSocket connections between existing Web clients˜browsers, 
> phones, and desktop software˜and the back-end systems to which they 
> connect. CEO Jonas Jacobi, who spent eight years working on Java-based 
> corporate software for Oracle, says WebSocket technology is promising not 
> just because it's faster, but because it's cheaper. "It removes the need 
> for a lot of middleware," he says. "That's not where companies want to be 
> putting their engineering resources; they want to focus on improving the 
> product they deliver."
> 
> So far, Kaazing's early customers tend to be in the financial sector, 
> where milliseconds count in transactions at banks, hedge funds, 
> exchanges, and private trading firms. 
> 
> The company has partnered with Informatica, a maker of messaging 
> software, to develop a WebSocket-based internal communications system for 
> companies. 
> 
> Mike Pickett, a vice president at Informatica, says the appeal of 
> WebSocket tech is that "it is agnostic to the specific type of [Web] 
> browser˜IE, Firefox, Chrome. Developers don't have to write a specific 
> extension for each browser," which they often do for workaround 
> solutions. (Currently, Internet Explorer requires an add-on to handle 
> WebSockets.) Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and some other browsers have support 
> built-in. If your browser supports WebSockets, you can watch a demo of 
> financial markets updating several times a second at the bottom of this 
> page. <http://www.worldspreads.com/en/home.aspx>
> 
> Kaazing's other early customers tend to be online gambling companies like 
> Unibet. That's because betting requires up-to-the-second odds, which are 
> hard to provide without a persistent connection. 
> 
> Importantly, WebSockets aren't exclusive to Kaazing.  Google has been an 
> early champion. Besides building the technology into its Chrome browser, 
> the company supports a site that shows developers how to implement it. 
> 
> <http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/websockets/basics>
> 
> Ian Hickson, who leads HTML5 specifications for Google, wrote, "Reducing 
> kilobytes of data to 2 bytes [...] and reducing latency from 150 
> milliseconds to 50 milliseconds is far more than marginal. In fact, these 
> two factors alone are enough to make WebSockets seriously interesting to 
> Google."
> 
> --
> 
> Cheers,
> Stephen
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link

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