Google Protobufs: "Protocol Buffers are a way of encoding structured data in an efficient yet extensible format. Google uses Protocol Buffers for almost all of its internal RPC protocols and file formats."

A simple binary format for sending and recieving data. Sounds good. I'm a big fan of xml, but it's not needed everywhere and I certainly see the advantages of using a binary format like this. Apple's binary plists have worked for me in the past, but I think a cross-platform open spec would be even better to use.

I wonder how long till they have objc wrappers?

Update: Paul Saab and Kevin Ballard have both pointed out Thrift to me, which is a simmilar technology that was donated to Apache from the folks at Facebook. Looks like Thrift has more language support as well.

via Jonathan Wight.