Archive for the ‘Video’ Category

Customer Spotlight: PalmLing

Monday, January 30th, 2012

We are excited to feature PalmLing on this week’s Tropo Customer Spotlight! Today I sat down with Ryan Frankel, one of the co-founders of PalmLing, to discuss their new business and learn more about how they are using Tropo and Phono for their human translation services.

What is PalmLing?

PalmLing is human translation in the palm of your hand. PalmLing is a phone-based platform that enables travelers to use their cell phones to speak with exceptional translators. Translators are available 24/7 and can speak directly to the person with whom you are communicating, or they can provide the information you need to communicate in a foreign language.

PalmLing uses Tropo’s Voice APIs and platform to answer international calls and initiate conferences between callers and translators to provide their service. PalmLing also uses Phono, Tropo’s web phone, to demo their translation service directly from their website. Phono basically initiates a call from the web browser into their Tropo voice application just as if someone dialed their phone number.

To learn more about PalmLing, visit their website at http://palmling.com!

Node.JS Magic 8 Ball Voice App

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Remember the Magic 8 Ball game from yesteryear?

How would you like to have the game with you in your pocket when difficult answers are required.

I built this Magic 8 Ball game using Node.JS and the Tropo WebAPI. If you roll the array up to a single line of code, you’re only looking at a 25-line Node.JS application!

You can call this application at 415-889-8684!

Here is the Node.JS source code that runs the application.

var http = require('http');
var tropowebapi = require('tropo-webapi');

// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8-ball
var answers = [
"It is certain",
"It is decidedly so",
"Without a doubt",
"Yes – definitely",
"You may rely on it",
"As I see it, yes",
"Most likely",
"Outlook good",
"Signs point to yes",
"Yes",
"Reply hazy, try again",
"Ask again later",
"Better not tell you now",
"Cannot predict now",
"Concentrate and ask again",
"Don't count on it",
"My reply is no",
"My sources say no",
"Outlook not so good",
"Very doubtful"
];

http.createServer(function (req, res) {

	// Create a new instance of the TropoWebAPI object.
	var tropo = new tropowebapi.TropoWebAPI(); 	
	var answer = answers[Math.floor(Math.random()*answers.length)];

	tropo.say("Welcome to the tropo node J S magic 8 ball.");

	var say = new Say("Ask your question now after the beep.");
    var choices = new Choices(null, null, "#");

    // Action classes can be passed as parameters to TropoWebAPI class methods.
    // use the record method https://www.tropo.com/docs/webapi/record.htm
    tropo.record(3, false, null, choices, "audio/wav", 5, 60, null, null, "recording", null, say, 5, null, "http://example.com/tropo", null, null);

    tropo.say(answer);

	tropo.say("Please call back to play again!");

    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}); 
    res.end(tropowebapi.TropoJSON(tropo));

}).listen(13188);

Be careful what you ask for…

Voice Texting With Tropo Speech & SMS Technology

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

We all agree that texting while driving is very dangerous, right? Fred Wilson, VC and principal of Union Square Ventures thinks so too. He recently wrote a blog post that starts like this:

“As a parent of two young adult drivers and a third soon to hit the road, nothing scares me more than texting while driving.”

Fred continued his blog post envisioning a Voice Texting application as follows:

“Being an engineer at heart and by training, I’ve been looking for a solution to the problem. I know that the buzz of the phone and the unread/unresponded message is like a drug to many and that the best solution would be a “hands free” way to read and respond. And the bluetooth/hands free voice solution works so well on most cars and most phones now, so why can’t we do the same with texting?”

Having two kids of my own (1 already driving and 1 studying for a drivers permit) and having access to the Tropo API and platform, I felt compelled to build a quick Voice Texting application to share with Fred Wilson! Here is what Fred had to say upon me sharing it with him…

Here is how it works:

To send a text, call (415) 349-3120 and using Tropo speech recognition say the phone number that you would like to text and then speak your message. Tropo then transcribes the message and sends your text message to phone number you spoke without taking your eyes or hands off the road.

Disclaimer: We are not promoting texting while driving even with the proper tools that would keep your eyes on the road such as a bluetooth earpiece and autodial features.

The source code for this project is written in Ruby and open sourced on GitHub in case anyone would like to extend it or perhaps even create a new business around this idea and have a head start! Here’s a video of me demonstrating the technology in action:

Drive safely!

WebPulp.TV Interviews Tropo

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Jose de Castro, our Chief Architect, was recently interviewed by Josh Owens from WebPulp.TV on the interworkings of Tropo’s Webscale cloud communications platform.

Topics covered include:

  • scripting languages (ruby, python, php, groovy, and javascript)
  • scaling our data centers and APIs
  • message queues (rabbitMQ and activeMQ)
  • media server technology
  • VoIP and SIP QoS
  • redundant telco carriers and networks
  • speech recognition and text-to-speech in 24 languages
  • human vs. answering machine detection
  • virtualization
  • using DNS as key value stores
  • splunk logging
  • sponsorship of adhearsion, the ruby telephony framework
  • rayo, Voxeo Labs’ new realtime communication protocol

Webpulp.tv – Tropo – Jose De Castro from Gaslight Software on Vimeo.

Tropo-powered Babelverse wins at LeWeb Startup Competition

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Big congrats to our friends Josef Dunne and Mayel de Borniol at Babelverse for being chosen as winners of the LeWeb Startup Competition.

Babelverse is the first application for real-time voice translation, otherwise known as interpretation. Babelverse relies on really people as interpreters to preserve the quality, context, cultural relevance, tone and emotion of the spoken word.

To ensure high quality, listeners must rate their interpreter after each session. Upon make a request, they will be assigned a personalized ranking of interpreters that are the best fit (automatically taking into account language pair, availability, ratings, expertise, accent…).

Babelverse uses Tropo to allow users to access their system via any cellphone or landline.

Drop2Drink wins Random Hacks of Kindness San Fran

Monday, December 5th, 2011

What a weekend!   Tropo sponsored Random Hacks of Kindness events in 4 different cities.  We’re still resting up from the craziness, but I wanted to do a quick post about the winning project in San Francisco.

Last summer I was attending Summer of Smart at GAFFTA and I met Sarah Filley, who told me about an idea she had for an earthquake preparedness project centered around awareness.  Turns out that there are 62 fire hydrants spread out around San Francisco specifically designated for emergency drinking water in the event of a major quake.  The most publicly available source of this info was a “blurry PDF file downloadable from a city website” or visibly by a blue “drop” painted on each of the hydrants.  Sarah wanted to increase the visibility of these sources of emergency drinking water.

I thought this would make for a great project for Random Hacks of Kindness so I encouraged Sarah to present her project on Friday night.   By Saturday afternoon Sarah’s excellent team of hackers had an interactive Google Map set up.  By Sunday, they had full interactive QR-codes, text messaging (powered by Tropo), Four Square checkins… no longer were these 62 hydrants virtually invisible!

Thanks to the RHoK sponsors:  Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, NASA, HP and the World Bank!   More on the other RHoK locations soon…

Customer Spotlight: flockNote

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

We are excited to feature flockNote on this week’s Tropo Customer Spotlight! Today I sat down with Matthew Warner, the Founder of flockNote, and Jeff Geerling, their CTO, to discuss their business and learn more about how they are using Tropo for their Voice and SMS services.

What is flockNote?

  • flockNote is a custom registration and communication tool that takes care of your bulk emailing, text messaging, phone calling, social media and more – all from one place.
  • flockNote is made specifically for Catholic parishes, dioceses and organizations who want to connect with their members using the most effective communication tools of today.
  • It’s simple, friendly and effective. And it gives your leadership team a powerful way to organize and manage all of your communications across your many ministries.

flockNote uses PHP, Drupal, and the Tropo Scripting API to deliver Voice and SMS services to parishioners. They even use one of Tropo’s SMS short codes (84576) to deliver a very high volume of SMS messages on-demand as needed by churches.

To learn more about flockNote, visit their website at http://flocknote.com!

Customer Spotlight: Speak2Leads

Friday, November 18th, 2011

We are proud to feature Speak2Leads on this week’s Tropo Customer Spotlight. I sat down with Sammy James, the Founder and CEO of Speak2Leads, to discuss their business and how they are using Tropo (and Phono).

You have probably heard the old proverb, “the early bird catches the worm”. This phrase was first recorded in John Ray’s A collection of English proverbs from the 17th century. The saying holds true for the first person to speak with a lead.

Speak2Leads’ technology is perfect for connecting the right lead with the right agent over the phone and the right time. Neither party needs to dial the other. Once a web form is submitted or a document is opened, Speak2Leads can place two calls and bridge the two together in a matter of seconds!

Sammy and his team continue to iterate on new features coming to Speak2Leads that improve both customer experience and lead closing rates. Their new feature in the works is a proactive voice call (similar to a proactive chat but better). Using Phono, our Javascript Phone API, an agent will receive a call if someone sits on a webpage for a given amount of time. If the agent would like to speak to the person on their website, an incoming phone call to the webpage is placed allowing the viewer to answer or reject the call for help. I am eagerly looking forward for this amazing idea to launch!

To learn more about Speak2Leads, visit their website at http://speak2leads.com.

Customer Spotlight: Radish Systems

Friday, November 11th, 2011

We are proud to feature Radish Systems on this week’s Tropo Customer Spotlight. I sat down with Theresa Szczurek and Dick Davis to discuss their ChoiceView platform and how they are using Tropo.

Choice View from Radish Systems is a giant step forward in enhancing traditional voice-powered IVR calls. In fact, they may have coined the term “Visual IVR” because you can now see and interact with the IVR call flow from your smart phone. ChoiceView is available today and runs on iPhone and Android-powered devices.

In addition to automated Visual IVR calls, customer service and support agents can interact with callers live during the call and even push web pages or order forms to the device while the caller is on the phone call. Here is a video of a call center agent upselling Theresa on a larger bouquet of flowers.

Radish Systems also discusses their new REST API in the works that will allow any voice-powered Tropo application to add a ChoiceView Visual IVR dimension to their existing IVR application to help drive customer interaction costs down while improving customer experience and increasing revenues! Sounds like a win-win-win for everyone involved.

To learn more about ChoiceView from Radish Systems, visit their website at http://radishsystems.com.

Customer Spotlight: FetchNotes

Friday, November 4th, 2011

We finally got a chance to catch up with the guys (@_chaselee and @alexschiff) behind the popular new notes service called FetchNotes!

What makes FetchNotes so cool? For one, it has a super simple web UI. The entire site behaves like an app and leverages Python’s Tornado Webserver and AJAX to add and tag notes without lifting your fingers from the keyboard. Tags are basically hashtagged keywords in the note that allow the app to categorize notes by topic.

Secondly, FetchNotes leverages Tropo to deliver a truly multichannel communications experience. Today FetchNotes extensively leverages Tropo’s SMS services but the team has already started working on adding Tropo’s Voice with transcription service as well as Tropo’s Instant Messaging services on all of the IM networks including: GTalk, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and Jabber! We may even see support in the near future for in-browser, voice-powered note taking using Tropo’s Javascript Phone API, Phono.

Thirdly, Chase and Alex are working to add groups and third-party integration into other services such as GitHub or Google Calendar. This would allow developers, testers, and users to take a note about a #feature or #bug and tag it accordingly and watch the note get pushed to other services as GitHub issues or even calendar entries on Google!

The FetchNotes service is still in private beta but the first 50 new subscribers that click on fetchnotes.com/invite/tropo will be allowed to register for the service and check out the new coolness first hand!