W3C turns BROWSERS into VIBRATORS

Web wonks at the W3C have issued a new Recommendation that gives browsers control of vibrators.

Recommendations are the W3C's polite way of defining standards, so this week's notification that the Vibration API has attained this status means the world now has a standard way to make devices throb, buzz, jitter, oscillate or flutter.

The API's intended uses include gaming and adding tactile feedback to all manner of applications.

A few folks have also pondered whether the standard might be abused, for example by shaking a phone so that its owner thinks they have received a call or notification. Battery depletion is another scenario, as is activating a vibrator so often its performance degrades.

The W3C's also been busy with more serious matters, such as a full draft of the much-hyped WebRTC browser-to-browser video standard and a Media Capture and Streams API that will handle requests to access and stream media.

Over to you, readers, to dream up your applications – fair or foul - for those standards or the Vibrate API. And keep them clean, please. ®

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