so it's an android specific form of a pipe file as per posix

i don't see why this can't be applied to all operating systems, that would be nice isolation... really would just be a matter of having a client specific key to auth with to sign requests and authorise getting responses, android does that part for you but it's the same same really 

 Yep. I think someone tried to replicate on a desktop signer with socket files in the home dir. It's all about specifying a good standard for the communication.