[LINK] WebSockets

[Johann Kruse]

On 30 March 2011 20:38, Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
> I'm not sure that javascript can't do this anyway.  If you can do video conferencing in javascript, why not open a stream or socket.

WebSockets-like functionality has definitely been around for some time...

For example Exchange Activesync (aka EAS) which is the push-email
protocol used by Exchange, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, etc was
introduced around 2005.

EAS uses an extended time-out HTTPS session so that the client
maintains a connection to the Exchange Server, which can then
instantly respond to the already-open session when new email arrives.
Because the client is listening but not sending any traffic until the
timeout, there is no excess bandwidth consumption.

It's not WebSockets - but to the end-user it's the same effect.