I've been playing with simple tools like audlink.com and
audioblogger.com for over a year now. They're low tech in the sense that
they can work on any phone. But they're not open source, so we can't
install them anywhere, particularly outside of the US, so you need to
make an intl call to reach them.

If we could just get a simple open source system for doing what these
tools do, that would be a tremendous first step. The only reason I began
looking at asterisk was that it was the first open source tool I found
that seemed capable of doing this. But I'm certainly open to using a
simpler app if it can get the job done.

Has anyone played around with other open source tools that could be a
useful base for a mobcasting solution?

ac

Chris Foster wrote:
> A belated hello to the mobcasting list from London. My name is Chris
> Foster, and I work in the University of Arts, London in e-learning.
>
> I'm interested in all types of mobile technology, and I'm positive
> mobcasting tools could be very useful, both in the south, where mobile
> phones are available and literacy is patchy, but also in places like the uk
> where such software could be used as an aid to learning and social connections
>
> Open source telephone projects such as asterix are definitely a good way to
> go to having a realisible mobcasting tool (although like Andy I'm unsure of
> the telephony jargon). Also, it might be worth examining more "lo tech"
> solutions, even if only for some experiments. Hence, I flag a possible
> combination, I worked on recently.
>
> Initially all I wanted was to post to a blogger blog from a phone (without
> having to call the expensive US audioblog number!!). This is possible using
> the skypeIn service, some free skype answering software (called Jabbernut)
> and some glue code. With the skypeIn you can call a computer from any
> phone, and the answering software will save voicemail messages as wav
> files on the pc. It is then just a matter of detecting, converting and
> uploading those files to the relevant blog........But you can go further
> than that. When you call skypeIn from your phone, it can be answered by the
> answering software using a personalised greeting from your computer. It is
> possible to change this file automatically using a previous voice messages.
> Hence, a primitive mobcasting app. I hope to be able to adapt this in the
> future to allow art students to share critiques of public artworks within
> my job.
>
> I have to say that this type of approach has problems at the moment. The
> skypeIn quality is often so poor you cannot hear it and the answering
> software/my code is only just up to the task. Saying that I think that
> building this does highlight a number of issues, particularly the
> importance of a level of voice quality, and how exactly the interactions
> would work. Anyone interested in trying it out is welcome to email
> me for the code i wrote, its not too complicated, written in python.
>
> It seems like the technology is nearly good enough to build some really
> useful telephone/pc hybrid applications and I look forward to working with
> the list to help develop them.
>
> Cheers
> Chris
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

--
-----------------------------------
Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.tsunami-info.org
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
-----------------------------------