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VoIP Archive: VoIP

February 5, 2006

Skype payphone...

Unigamer writes "My dream has come true. Ever since last summer when I saw the Skype Video Payphone, I wanted to have a payphone hooked up to VOIP. Not long after I saw that article on Makezine, I put a "wanted" ad on Craigslist Sacramento for a Payphone. I said I wanted it for a project, didn't have a lot of money I can spend on it, and it didn't have to be working. I left it alone, never thinking I'd get a response from anyone." Link. Hopefully, I'll have time to accept real money in the MAKE payphone soon and have that converted to Skype credits...

January 30, 2006

What is Asterisk? SYSTM video!

New SYSTM! - "What is Asterisk? Asterisk is an insanely powerful, yet easy to use, open source voip telephony toolkit (server software) that runs on virtually any platform. It allows anyone to manage VoIP services in their own home in more powerful ways than the most expensive PBX (public branch exchange). For example, it can serve as a gateway from a VoIP service to your copper phone lines, forward calls to your mobile device from wherever you are, allow you to create VoIP connections to anyone on the Internet, manage voicemail, prompts ... a virtually limitless capability depending on how far you want to take it." [via] Link.

January 25, 2006

Phoning It In From ETel - Radio Handi Makes Its Debut

Brian McConnell on the Etel blog writes "Radio Handi enables people to create voice communities around any subject, place of interest or peer group, and to telecast live audio from MP3 feeds or conference phones. You can create a message board and party line for your club, for people who share an interest, or for your friends. With it, you can create an open party line that people can dial into from all over the world (30+ countries and 1 VoIP network to start with, much more to come). It's also a great platform for ad hoc broadcasting. Just hook a microphone up to a Mac running Gizmo, and you can beam a live audio feed into a conference room that people can then dial into from all over the world (watch for a series of how-tos on ad hoc telecasting and other topics later this week)." [via] Link.

January 24, 2006

"Call out" with Google Talk with the JabPhone

I'm going to try and get to ETel to check out this new JabPhone. Nat writes - "The Poly9 hackers who were at Where 2.0 in 2005, showed up at Emerging Telephony today with Jabphone, a service built on libjingle, Jabber, and Asterisk that lets you call out to regular telephone numbers from Google Talk. This is the power of open standards and open source, folks--they've been able to add the Skype Out feature to Google Talk without any assistance from Google." [via] Link.

January 9, 2006

HOW TO - The Internet Dog Feeder

Kkassing writes "After setting up two webcams and the new Skype beta to watch my dog while I'm out, I decided to give him some incentive to obey my commands over the internet. So I built an internet powered dog feeder with a Basic Stamp kit and two servos (one to drop the food, one to knock the funnel if it gets stuck). Full source included." Link.

January 5, 2006

New Skype for Mac OS X

Skype 1.4 for Mac is now out - new features look pretty useful - "Call forwarding and call auto-answer, Fast call set-up - drag and drop contacts to add them to chats and calls, Self-expression - users can now broadcast their mood along with their online presence through emoticons, Auto-pause/auto-resume iTunes for in-bound and out-bound voice calls, Notifications - Skype notifies users of new messages and when users come on- and off-line, along with an overview of available Skype services, The Mac OS X version is now available in Japanese." Link.

VOIP Phreaking...

Intro to SIP hacking slides from the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress "Within the last year VoIP devices and applications flooded the market. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) became the industry standard although it's still under constant development. VoIP networks converge with the PSTN and thus offer ways and means for new (and old) attacks. The talk gives a brief introduction on how various components in the VoIP universe interact. The main part deals with implementation problems within SIP in both end user as well as ISP site devices and applications." [via] Link.

December 28, 2005

Homemade Skype Phone Receiver...

Trevor writes "Here's a simple mod I did to an old telephone reciever to make it compatible with my laptop- for use with Skype. I tried using the original coiled telephone cord, but for some reason I couldn't get adequate microphone volume through it. Funny, because telephones are made for talking..." Link.

December 14, 2005

Emerging Telephony...

Like VoIP hacks and all things telephony? Check out out O'Reilly's new Emerging Telephony site - ETel for short - "...covering VoIP, Asterisk, voice and mobile applications, as well as the policy and regulatory issues that impact these important technologies. In addition to daily blogging and the exclusive in-depth articles you'll find here, we'll be spotlighting the new related O'Reilly books, like Switching to VoIP and Asterisk: The Future of Telephony and Skype Hacks. We'll have these authors chiming in on the blog from time to time, too." Link.

December 13, 2005

Vonage WiFi phone...

Scott writes "Vonage just released a VoIP WiFi phone... you can use your Vonage VoIP account on any public WiFi access point (but not at places that charge, such as the airport, Starbucks, etc). I'd love to see this phone modded/hacked to be used with other providers (I use Voicepulse)." Link. If you use EVDO, you could at least make a mobile hotspot (see how to) but I'm not sure what settings you can change in the phone for providers (if any).

December 4, 2005

HOW TO - Make a robot deliver your messages

DoctaBu" writes "Using some base code from PlasticBug's DittyBot, I created VoxCaller, an Automator workflow that lets people send computerized voice messages to other people via e-mail. People might think they should just call the person, but I personally think that Zarvox delivers messages in a more... exciting way." This is a lot of fun. Link.

December 3, 2005

HOW TO - Distribute VoIP throughout your home

Great resource for wiring up your home for VoIP, in MAKE 03 we also have a guide "One obstacle to replacing traditional phone service with Voice over IP is that for your existing home phone jacks to work, it's necessary to make a change to your inside telephone wiring. Fortunately, this change is very easy to make. In some cases it's as simple as removing a plug from a jack. Still, a basic understanding of how telephone wiring works is useful before attempting to make such a switch." Link.

December 1, 2005

Skype 2.0 supports video

Hot off the press - Skype beta 2.0 has video built in, blog presence and a hardware deal - "Skype released the beta version of Skype 2.0, the newest version of its software that allows anyone with an Internet connection to make free Internet calls. The software is designed for greater ease of use, integrated video calling, and enhanced features that allow people to stay in touch and express themselves online. Skype also announced its collaboration with global headset and Webcam partner Logitech, as well as partnerships with Webcam manufacturer Creative, and with weblog software and services company Six Apart." Link.

November 26, 2005

HOW TO - Running Asterisk@Home Under Windows

Run Asterisk on a Windows machine, handy for on the go..."We have been touting how cool the Asterisk Open Source PBX is and especially how nice the Asterisk@Home installation package is for some time now. You are all excited to try it out but don't have an extra machine, or maybe you are like us and want a way to show clients the web interface and the features but you don't want to run Linux on your laptop or carry a second machine. Well now, with the help of a few free downloads, you can now do a complete installation into a virtual machine on your system..." Link.

November 22, 2005

DIY Skype VoIP Phone Adapter

Here's a cheap Skype/VoIP interface to your wired or wireless phone. "Just imagine: You can walk with your wireless phone chatting with Skype friends for free, you can make free call to your mom if she is connected to the Internet. You can make your telephone network with servises, voicemail, etc and chat there using your old phone. Skype wireless phones are expensive, VoIP adapters cost ~$60, but you can make it for free if your have details.. from old TV, Radio or other electronics." Link.

November 21, 2005

ETel: Makers Wanted!

From Nat "Are you hacking something cool around voice-over-IP, Skype, Google Talk, gaim, Asterisk, VoiceXML, or similar technology? We want to know about it! We're looking for participants in the ETel Fair at our Emerging Telephony conference (conference is Jan 24-26, San Francisco; Fair is the evening of the 25th). We want cool hacks, funky devices, awesome apps. The fair is like a poster session with booze: you and a dozen others each have a demo of your system and a poster describing it, and conference attendees and the general public get to walk around, drinks in hand, grilling you about how it works, how much work it would take to add feature X, or whether you want to work for them/be acquired by them/come back to their hotel room for drinks and "session initiation". If that sounds like you, drop mail to me (gnat AT oreilly.com) and Surj (surj.patel AT gmail.com) and tell us what you've got ..." Link.

November 20, 2005

Skype Starter Kits in RadioShacks...

"...Skype has struck a partnership with consumer electronics chain RadioShack. Skype Starter Kit More than 3,000 RadioShack locations nationwide on Monday will begin offering the Skype Starter Kit, which includes the software that enables a customer to use Skype's free computer-to-computer telephone service, a headset and 30 minutes of Skype's premium service, with which a user can call a landline or cell phone, company executives said." [via] Link. See our previous hacks and projects with Skype, like the Skype payphone here.

November 2, 2005

DIY Skype headset

Astrogoth writes "Thanks to Apple, I couldn't pair my Bluetrek G2 bluetooth headset to my PowerBook to use with Skype, so I built my own headset from an old pair of Grado SR-80 headphones and an Apple iSight web cam. I described what I did so others could do the same." Link.

October 25, 2005

VoIP security...

We cover a lot of the new Voice over IP services (and gear) here, but you might wonder how secure these services are. The folks over at Skype announced "work is now complete and you can download the full report from Skype security center (PGP signature). There's also an executive summary available" [via] Link. Slashdot also has a story about VoIP security threats and the new VoIP security threat taxonomy. Link.

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