The EU webinos consortium has released its first specification and is inviting feedback from TV companies, broadcasters and application and software developers among others.

The webinos objective is to define a ubiquitous platform for secure, interoperable web application deployment.

Headed by Fraunhofer Fokus, webinos claims to be ‘pioneering the vision to define a ubiquitous platform for secure, interoperable web application deployment’. Recent announcements from Tizen and Sony Ericsson/Sony all lend support to the vision of ‘multi device’ and ‘device intercommunication’ based upon ‘web based applications’.

The draft specification builds on the Device APIs and security work driven within W3C, HTML5, PhoneGap and the Wholesale Application Community (WAC), with webinos members presently developing implementations on different devices and operating systems to test and refine the specification.

‘The webinos platform is structured for innovation and open collaboration,’ the consortium says. ‘We invite any parties interested in multi-device web applications to join us and to commit to the internet ethos of openness and interoperability.

The webinos specifications consist of three parts. The first describes and defines the overall webinos platform, structure and the interaction of its components. The second describes the specific APIs available on webinos devices, while the third is the webinos security framework, which covers the policy based security and privacy elements of webinos.

‘In total, webinos has released the specifications of 27 distinct JavaScript APIs, some of these APIs are references to (or minor enhancements of) existing W3C or WAC specifications, others are brand new, such as Vehicle, TV, Discovery, Attestation, NFC, and Sensors,’ Nick Allott, Technical co‐coordinator explains. ‘It is important to understand webinos is not just about new JavaScript APIs. A new architectural model is proposed, which specifically addresses the requirement for devices to allow web applications to seamlessly but securely communicate with each other, even when offline.

Draft specification highlights:

• The use of JSON-RPC to allow device APIs to be used remotely, and as a side effect bridging the gap between traditional web services and RESTful interfaces and JavaScript APIs.
  Incorporation of node.js technology into the implementation for both client and server processing.
• Innovative new protocols, device and user identity mechanisms, that forms a strong architectural foundation for running applications in web contexts
• Mechanisms for remotely discovering and invocating services between applications and devices, both on the public internet and for local networking (WLAN, Bluetooth, NFC) scenarios’

The webinos consortium has been set up by 22 organisations, including global players such as Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, BMW Research & Technology, Sony Ericsson and Samsung Electronics. W3C, the international internet standards body, is also member of the consortium and will ensure that the webinos work is consistent with current and emerging standards.

‘We are determined and active in growing this base,’ says Stephan Steglich (Fraunhofer Fokus) Project Co-ordinator ‘Our specifications are only the first step, our open source code base is well underway, and will be released shortly’.

Download webinos specification
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