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SD Times
December 2017
www.sdtimes.com
NEWS WATCH Apache Kafka reaches milestone with version 1.0.0 Open-source software foundation Apache released version 1.0.0 of its Kafka distributed data streaming platform last month, with the first full version number indicating Apache’s confidence that Kafka is ready for major professional use. “Apache Kafka is playing a bigger role as companies are moving to real-time streaming and embracing stream processing,” Jun Rao, vice president of the Apache Kafka team, said in the announcement. “The 1.0.0 release is an important milestone for the Apache Kafka community as we’re committed to making it ready for enterprise adoption.” The Apache Foundation highlighted features of Kafka 1.0.0 aimed at enterprises, like the ability to publish and subscribe to streams of data at a massive scale; real-time stream processing with exactly-once semantics, which avoids sending the same messages multiple times in the case of a connection error; and long-term storage of data streams. Accompanying various bug fixes and general improvements in the update are performance improvements to Apache’s implementation of TLS and CRC32C, including Java 9 support, faster controlled shutdown, better JBOD support and exactly-once semantics.
W3C: WebRTC 1.0 is now feature complete The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced
Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) version 1.0 is now feature complete. The specification will now move onto a Candidate Recommendation period to address any feedback from the community before moving to Proposed Recommendation status. WebRTC is a set of protocols and APIs for enabling real-time communications such as live video chat between browsers and mobile applications. “The WebRTC framework provides the building blocks from which app developers can seamlessly add video chat in gaming, entertainment, and enterprise applications,” the W3C writes in a statement. The W3C has been working on WebRTC along with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IEF) since 2011. The standard will enable web browsers to access cameras and microphones, and set up audio and video calls. In addition to its real-time
audio and video capabilities, the organization says WebRTC also provides the ability for peer-to-peer data exchanges to the Web WebRTC 1.0 is expected to move onto Proposed Recommendation status by April 15, 2018. Going forward, the WebRTC working group will turn its focus to interoperability. Other updates will include improving the main WebRTC 1.0 API; finalizing designs of other associated specification such as managing media streams; new designs and features for the next WebRTC version; and adding new functionalities.
Google announces Gmail add-ons for developers Google wants Gmail to be more than just a place where users receive and send emails. The company is announcing
new tools that will allow users to do more from their inbox. The Google G Suite team is releasing Gmail add-ons, a new extensibility framework for developers, and ten ready to use enterprise integrations. Earlier this year, Google announced Gmail add-ons as part of a limited developer preview. Add-ons enable developers to add app functionality directly into Gmail and have it run natively on the web and in Android with iOS support coming soon. The team announced it is expanding the preview to include all developers. “Gmail Add-ons let you integrate your app into Gmail and extend Gmail to handle quick actions. They are built using native UI context cards that can include simple text dialogs, images, links, buttons and forms. The add-on appears when relevant, and the user is just a click away from your app’s rich and integrated functionality,” Wesley
Marko moves to the JS Foundation The JS Foundation has announced that it is bringing on eBay’s Marko library. Marko is a library designed to streamline web development by creating UI components. eBay developed the library in 2012 in order to meet its need of supporting UI components and asynchronous rendering for Node.js applications. “eBay has been a longtime core contributor to open source technology. And, we firmly believe that we should use technology to empower and globally connect people, ” said Patrick Steele-Idem, principal engineer at eBay. “By housing Marko under the JS Foundation, we hope more developers will be able to collaborate and contribute to the long-term goals of the project.” The JS Foundation will be providing support and governance for Patrick Steele-Idem ongoing projects. It will also be providing promotional support in an attempt to grow Marko’s community. “By moving Marko to the JS Foundation, we feel that we will be able to more closely align with other projects in the JavaScript ecosystem,” wrote Steele-Idem. “In addition, we want to make it clear that Marko has and always will be open to outside contributions and outside maintainers. While we have seen great growth in the Marko community, we believe there is still a lot of potential yet to be unlocked. Through neutral governance and close ties with other prominent projects, we believe the JS Foundation will allow the Marko community to grow and flourish.”