Recommendations on Mac OSX (preferably Swift) video chat APIs? - macos

I'm tasked with developing a fullscreen native Mac OSX (Swift preferably, as I've been experimenting with it a lot lately) application that will connect two kiosks in two different parts of the US (each with high speed hardwired internet connections) in a video chat session. The kiosks must be able to automatically/programmatically connect and reconnect in case of lost connection. I was looking into TokBox but it seems their SDK/API is WebRTC, iOs, or Android oriented, otherwise it would have been a great choice at first glance. As I understand it, WebRTC is really just meant for browsers.
Does anyone have recommendations on an SDK/API that can help me accomplish this?

You can use WebRTC and make a web app out of the website. It will look and feel like a regular appp. Take a look at Mike Kelly's Refract for a painless web app packager.

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What's the easiest way to make a real-time chatting app with Xamarin?

I'm trying to figure out a way to create a real-time chatting app with Xamarin and some kind of backend technology. How can I do it?
I have a better solution. The above-mentioned technologies(buddy SDK & SignalR) will require you to integrate and handle everything by your self. Instead, you can go for CometChat SDK, which has real-time chat along with Audio/Video chat functionalities. Also, you can use its ready-made UI inside your application. It is the easiest & quickest way for you to make a real-time chatting system. For more information on CometChat you can refer to the following link:
https://developer.cometchat.com/docs/xamarin-forms-quick-start
As mentioned by ChristiaanV, SignalR is the way to go.
The Performance is great with Xamarin, we delivered more than 150k messages within 2 hours without any problems regarding the connection.
With Azure Mobile App and ServiceBus, you can easily scale out your backend, as described here http://www.asp.net/signalr/overview/performance/scaleout-with-windows-azure-service-bus
Have a look at SignalR, it's a good and easy to use framework to do realtime 'things'. They also have a Xamarin Component which is free to use.
https://github.com/SignalR/SignalR
http://components.xamarin.com/view/signalr
Please note that I personally don't have experience with using it on mobile devices, so I can't tell you anything about how it's performing battery / performance wise.

hosted app for firefox os similar to: http://www.zoobe.com/, is it possible?

I'm currently working at a project to develop an App for firefox os similar to: http://www.zoobe.com/.
So it's basicly a hosted app, where you can choose a 3D-character. Then you have to make a picture for the background and record your voice on the phone. A Video will be rendered then and the 3d-character will speak the recorded message for you!
So my generell question is: Does anybody know, if its possible to develop such complex app for firefox os at this stage?
I've read, that all the APIs required for the project, like camera API and so on are already working.
I would implement the data-flow between server and client with node.js.
I would be greatful for any evaluations, tips and help.
There is no sound recording API yet, so I fear you will have to wait for it to be implemented for this kind of app to be possible. You can track the work on this API at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=803414

Best way to approach WP7 app development?

I have some knowledge of basic PHP developing however right now I am thinking about developing a phone app. I do however have a bit of a conundrum in that I love WP7 and I have so many ideas for features which can't be done on iOS and Android, however at the same time I am completely aware that my target users (filmmakers) generally have iOS or android phones.
Is there a way I can develop the app, which I will get a developer to do rather than myself, with WP7 as the lead platform and then make a relatively simple conversion to the other platforms or do apps generally have to be completely reworked for each platform?
Also, just to though it out there, any idea of where to go to find a freelance app developer?
Thanks
James
I think you have a few options, but the first question I would have is: where comes the data from. Are you the owner of the data, and do you already have a datasource from where you can get the data from? If not I would suggest take some time to write a decent 'backend' from which the different platforms easily can get the data from.
Also all different platforms have their own pro/cons which you cannot share that easily. If you build a WP7 app in silverlight/xna, you cannot directly port it to a ios/android variant, also functionality will probably look/react different. You will need different solutions foreach platform with this approach.
Another option would be to use an platform like phonegap which can create a solution that will work on multiple platforms. (It uses HTML5 to get it work on the different platforms)
Build your app on iOS and android first, and when you have an app to base WP7 development then contact a developer that has made similar apps to yours.

Send data from WP7 phone to a near by phone via bluetooth or other mechanism

I'd interested in sending data from one WP7 to another WP7 phone so I could create 2 player games. If I understand correctly most WP7 will support bluetooth, but its not in the minimum spec, is this correct? What API's can I use to access the bluetooth, any good examples of this out there?
Unfortunately Microsoft don't provide any access to the bluetooth stack via any documented APIs in this version of the Dev tools.
They don't seem to have any sense of urgency about fixing this (or any of the many other missing features), so I wouldn't expect the situation to change any time soon.

Non-flash / No-plugin Video chat?

We are developing a social website and looking to implement video/audio chat for users (people a user is friends with). Most of the talk from the tech team was to use flash. But I don't want users to install anything. Can video/audio/conferencing be done purely in AJAX? Either develop it from scratch or use open source frameworks if any?
Flash is already installed on practically ever browser out there -- except iPhones, iPads, etc. which will likely never support Flash.
AJAX and HTML and CSS currently have no access to video and audio input hardware, so that's a non-starter. In the future this may change.
For now Flash is (for better or for worse) the best way to go.
No, unfortunately you can only do this with a plugin (ie Flash).
I don't believe you have access to video or audio input devices from just the browser.
HTML5 will be the answer in the near future (Work in progress): Link1 and Link2
But for now the only option is Flash

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