Chrome 21 beta: interaction with webcams, microphones and game controllers

The Chrome beta channel has a version of Chrome 21, which received support for some properties of the open protocol WebRTC.

First of all, developers note the emergence of two new APIs that allow you to interact from a browser with a webcam (a little earlier, similar functionality appeared in Opera 12 release) and a computer microphone, as well as with some game controllers. The work is based on using the getUserMedia API and is one of Google’s first steps to integrating WebRTC into your browser. In fact, this means that the need to use Flash or Java for "heavy" applications and the installation of any other plug-ins that work with video or sound, disappears.

For the end user, the work of the new functions is as follows: the user entering the site with new functionality will see a pop-up panel notifying that the page wants to access the camera and microphone - in turn, the user is free to allow the script to work or refuse.

Developers are trying out new functionality on two sites - Magic Xylophone (play on xylophone) and Webcam Toy (applying effects to a webcam video stream).
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Interestingly, Microsoft mentioned a little earlier that it plans to implement WebRTC support in Internet Explorer.

The second API is called Gamepad Javascript and allows Chrome 21 to recognize some USB game controllers for online games.

Download Chrome 21 beta here .

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