Conmergence

OpenSER

OpenSER is a mature and flexible open source Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) server (RFC3261). It can be used on systems with limitted resources as well as on carrier grade servers, scaling to up to thousands call setups per second. It is written in pure C for Unix/Linux-like systems with architecture specific optimizations to offer high performances. It is customizable, being able to feature as fast load balancer; SIP server flavours: registrar, location server, proxy server, redirect server; gateway to SMS/XMPP; or advanced VoIP application server.

OpenSER aims to be a collaborative project of its users to develop secure and extensible SIP server to provide modern VoIP services.

Anyone can contribute to one of next items:

• - code development - OpenSER core, modules and adjacent applications
• - documentation - writing or enriching documentation
• - miscellaneous - different management tasks (e.g., web site maintenance)
• - ideas - new ideas bring brilliant solutions

Features:

• robust and performant SIP (RFC3261) Registrar server, Location server, Proxy server and Redirect server
• small footprint - the binary file is small size, functionality can be stripped/added via modules
• plug&play module interface - ability to add new extensions, without touching the core, therefore assuring a great stability of core components
• stateless and transactional statefull SIP Proxy processing
• support for UDP/TCP/TLS transport layers
• IPv4 and IPv6
  
• support for SRV and NAPTR DNS
• SRV DNS failover
• IP Blacklists
  
• multi-homed (mhomed) and multi-domain support
  
• scripting language for configurations file. With a syntax similar to sripting languages, the configuration offers a powerful and flexible way to deploy custom SIP services.
• management interface via FIFO file and unix sockets
• pseudo-variables to access and manage parts of the SIP messages and attributes specific to users and server
• authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) via database (MySQL, Postgress, text files), RADIUS and DIAMETER
• digest and IP authentication
  
• CPL - Call Processing Language (RFC3880)
• SNMP - interface to Simple Network Management Protocol
• XMLRPC -management interface via XMLRPC
  
• NAT traversal support for SIP and RTP traffic
• ENUM support
• PERL Programming Interface - embed your extensions written in Perl
• Java SIP Servlet Application Interface - write Java SIP Servlets to extent your VoIP services and integrate with web services
  
• load balancing with failover
  
• least cost routing
• support for replication - REGISTER offer new functions for replicating client information (real source and received socket).
• logging capabilities - can log custom messages including any header or pseudo-variable and parts of SIP message structure.
• modular architecture - plug-and-play module interface to extend the server's functionality
• gateway to sms or xmpp
• multiple database backends - MySQL, PostgreSQL, flat files and other database types which have unixodbc drivers
• straightforward interconnection with PSTN gateways
  
• impressive extension repository - over 70 modules are included in OpenSER repository
  

Scalability:

• OpenSER can run on embedded systems, with limitted resources - the performances can be up to hundreds of call setups per second
• used a load balancer in stateless mode, OpenSER can handle over 5000 call setups per second
• on systems with 4GB memory, OpenSER can serve a population over 300 000 online subscribers
• system can easily scale by adding more OpenSER servers
• OpenSER can be used in geographic distributed VoIP platforms
• straightforward failover and redundancy

Smart Phone Electronic Medical Record / Mobile Contactless Payment / Remote Monitoring, Developments Toward...

<ed.note>Since vendors are looking at remote monitoring for disease management I should list those as well. I'll also be on the look out for sensors which are car-based now that wi-fi is available in automobiles. There are some parallel developments which I guess I should mention: Major League Baseball and other event vendors as well as transportation providers and social networks are putting the cell phone closer to the center of their business models. ( Robert Neelbauer on social graphs here -- cells will eventually be tracked by them. ) Of course, on the other end of the spectrum is home automation.</ed.note>

Phillips (still using POTS lines)
Qualcomm
Nokia's Intellisync Call Connect for Cisco

Shout out to http://www.wirelesshealthcare.co.uk who usually gets these stories before anyone else.

The Tech Scene: Banking by Cell Phone - This Time It's for Real?,
Use of Mobile and Wireless Technology Jumps in Hospitals,

iPhone ? ? ? ( Remember Osirix ), icefirst, liferecord, Access, aKos, ARANZ Medical, Asia eHealth presentations, Banco do Brasil, Blackberry [2], Diebold, Docobo, ebay VOIP (Skype), Gemalto, Google [2][3][4], INSIDE Contactless, J/Speedy, mBlox, mFoundry, Microsoft, m-Wallet, Obopay, payWave, Mayo Clinic InTouch, NTT DoCoMo, PayPal Credit Card, Privium, Samsung, telSpace, Telzuit's Bio-Patch PDA,
Telemedicine & eHealth Directory 2005, Verisign, ViVOtech, FeliCa, [2], Mifare [2], NFC Forum, Blackberry, Ubuntu mobile, Globe Telecom and Smart Communications

Managing Virtual Distance - Driving Business Transformation through Distributed Work, November 14-16, 2007

The Disneyland Hotel • Anaheim, CA

THE One, THE Only Conference Focused on Strategies, Teams, Tools & Beyond in the Virtual Workplace
ANNOUNCING INAUGURAL CONFERENCE ON MANAGING VIRTUAL DISTANCE

• IDENTIFY, MANAGE & MEASURE virtual distance
• Break through language barriers & manage MULTI-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS
• Harness virtual KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
• Believe the unbelievable & witness the power of VIRTUAL WORLDS technology
• Transform business norms & cause cultural shifts in the way people work through SOCIAL NETWORKING
• Implement new millennium strategies that change the way we think about INNOVATION in a corporate context
• Manage, Train & Measure Productivity of the REMOTE EMPLOYEE
• Identify SECURITY CHALLENGES introduced by the transition into Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

To Register:
E-mail register@iirusa.com
Call 888.670.8200
Fax 941.365.2507 
Visit http://www.iirusa.com/virtual

The New World of Work
Daniel W. Rasmus
Director of Information Work Vision – MICROSOFT

Virtual Distance Under High-Stress
Honorable Jerry MacArthur Hultin
President – POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY & FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF THE U.S. NAVY

Global Projects vs. Traditional Projects
Karan Sorensen
Chief Information Officer – JOHNSON & JOHNSON PHARMACEUTICAL R&D

Legal Issues & IP Protection
Michael S. Mensik
Partner – BAKER & MCKENZIE

Virtual Worlds Technology
Philip Rosedale
Founder & CEO – LINDEN LABS

Secrets of High-Performance Distributed Teams
Cynthia C. Froggatt
Author of “Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace”

Leadership in the Digital Age
Charles H. House
Executive Director – STANFORD UNIVERSITY, MEDIA X LAB

A Perspective From Corporate Resources
Ann Bamesberger
Vice President of Open Work Services – SUN MICROSYSTEMS

More here.

Voice: The New Fingerprint?

Jun 1, 2007 By David Jastrow, speechtechmag.onlineinc.com

Prevailing security methods used to protect against identity theft are losing ground to fraudsters. In fact, the total cost of identity fraud in the United States in 2006 reached $56.6 billion, up 6.4 percent from $53.2 billion three years earlier, according to the 2006 Identity Fraud Survey Report from Javelin Strategy and the Better Business Bureau. What’s more, mean resolution time for these cases has risen to 40 hours and costs $6,383 per person, up from 33 hours and $5,249 per person three years ago, according to the same report.
 
The overwhelming damage to organizations forced the government to step in. New laws designed to protect people from identify theft, such as the Bank Secrecy Act, are requiring higher levels of user authentication for financial transactions.

internet Low Bitrate Codec

iLBC (internet Low Bitrate Codec) is a FREE speech codec suitable for robust voice communication over IP. The codec is designed for narrow band speech and results in a payload bit rate of 13.33 kbit/s with an encoding frame length of 30 ms and 15.20 kbps with an encoding length of 20 ms. The iLBC codec enables graceful speech quality degradation in the case of lost frames, which occurs in connection with lost or delayed IP packets.

Features

• Bitrate 13.33 kbps (399 bits, packetized in 50 bytes) for the frame size of 30 ms and 15.2 kbps (303 bits, packetized in 38 bytes) for the frame size of 20 ms
• Basic quality higher then G.729A, high robustness to packet loss
• Computational complexity in a range of G.729A
• Royalty Free Codec

IP Over IP

Mar 26, 2007, "More VoIP patent suits likely" by Carol Wilson, telephonyonline.com

The season for suing over Internet telephony patents has probably just begun, according to patent attorneys.

<ed.note>One of the realities of non-open source business is dealing with the fact that it's not what you earn, it's what you are allowed to keep.</ed.note>

Calls for Change - free emerging telephony conference in San Francisco

Calls For Change is a one-day miniconference bridging emerging telephony applications and social change. A series of talks and workshops targeting Activists, Advocacy, Fundraisers, and Organizers will be held by Technical Innovators who have been successfully using telephone networks as a powerful tool for social change. A wide breadth of tools will be covered, from traditional membership communication, Get Out The Vote, and call centers, to more recent tools and technologies such as Web 2.0 applications, VoIP, polling, and SMS. The community is invited to brainstorm, discuss needs of advocacy organizations, and share skills in building out these systems.

Calls For Change will be held in conjunction with O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony Conference February 27th to March 1st. When: February 27th 2007 Where: San Francisco Airport Marriott

Who: Activists, Advocates, and Organizers working for social change will meet with and collaborate with Techies who will have been using the the phone system for social change.

Cost: FREE, register online with the discount code "etel07ftel" here.

What: The day will be divided up in to two sections, a morning of presentations about campaigns which have successfully used the phone system (mobile, voip, and landline). We will have presentations on some of the applications which have been built for these campaigns.

The afternoon will be devoted to workshops to evaluate the needs of advocacy organizations and technical workshops to share skills in building out the systems.

If you would be interested in speaking, please contact me. We are particularly interested in hearing about non-technical problems that were solved using technology.

Sea Change of VoiceXML and Phone Application Servers Too Great to Ignore

Nov. 30, 2006 By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Chances are, if you are a consumer and have used the phone to contact a company with which you do business, you may have encountered VoiceXML. Not sure? If you have called AT&T’s (News - Alert) toll-free directory assistance or Cingular’s Voice Connect, General Motors Onstar or E-trade, all of these organizations are utilizing VoiceXML in an effort to better serve their customers.

Based on the Worldwide Web Consortium’s (W3C’s) Extensible Markup Language (XML), VoiceXML uses speech recognition and/or touchtone (DTMF keypad) for input, and pre-recorded audio and text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) for output. The technology is quickly surpassing proprietary IVR as it is considered faster, available in reusable and off-the-shelf applications, less expensive and easily integrated.

The cost savings associated with VoiceXML is one of the biggest draws to the technology. It is less expensive than traditional IVR, due in part to that fact that IVR requires a second silo infrastructure from existing Web infrastructure while VoiceXML does not. This difference can save organizations a considerable amount of capital when the commercial Web team can also manage the IVR application, instead of having separate Web and IVR development teams.

Mobile eHealth [ Updated: was Hands Free To Care With Wireless Phone ]

Story 1: 16th November 2006 Wireless Healthcare

Doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers in hospitals can now instantly communicate with one another thanks to a partnership between Vocera Communications, a wireless communications solutions company, and Xwave, a division of Bell Aliant, one of Canada’s largest information and communications technology (ICT) providers.

Using basic voice commands conveyed through a hands-free communication badge, the Vocera Communication System instantly connects people with one another, allowing them to quickly access patient information, make decisions, and act on them in a timely manner—anytime and anywhere in any wireless-networked building or campus. The badge weighs less than two ounces and can be clipped to a shirt pocket or collar, or worn on a lanyard, enabling instant communication via a combination of wireless local area network (LAN), voice-over-IP (VoIP) and speech-recognition technology.

Story 2: "Use of Mobile and Wireless Technology Jumps in Hospitals" By Neil Versel, contributing editor, Digital HealthCare & Productivity

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Even though adoption of electronic health records (EHR) and other clinical IT remains fairly anemic, at least one aspect of health-IT has taken giant steps forward in the last few years: the use of mobile and wireless technology where choices are proliferating.

Sprint network to use Intel's WiMax

By John Markoff and Ken Belson, The New York Times

Intel has also made progress in South Korea, which is using a version of WiMax called WiBro, and in developing countries like Brazil and Pakistan.

...More broadly, Intel has long wanted to create a global wireless network that mirrors today's land-based Internet, in which dozens of competitors build equipment designed to support a single open standard.

Sprint says it expects to reach a third of the U.S. population with its new network by the end of 2008.

Sprint's WiMax gambit could put pressure on Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless, and on equipment makers, to move toward more open standards and what the industry refers to as "network neutrality," a network design in which all types of data traffic are treated equally by the network operators.

Asterisk Desktop Manager 1.0 RC1 Released

We are proud to announce a new release of Asterisk Desktop Manager - ADM 1.0 release candidate 1

We are also pleased to mention that we have a new active member of the development team, Adrien Barilly.

With these new additions we hope to be able to provide many more useful features in the coming months, along with some polishing of the existing code, and the TODOs

Enjoy the release, and please do leave us some feedback on the forums.

You can also find us on irc at irc.freenode.net #ADM

Yours,
Richard Hamnett

FreeSWITCH

FreeSWITCH is an open source telephony application written in C, built from the ground up and designed to take advantage of as many existing software libraries as possible.  FreeSWITCH makes it possible to build an open source PBX system or an open source voip switching platform as well as unite various technologies such as SIP H.323, IAX2, LDAP, Zeroconf, XMPP / Jingle etc.  FreeSWITCH can also be used to interface with other open source PBX systems such as OpenPBX, Bayonne, YATE or Asterisk

One of our fundamental goals is to leverage as much expertise from the open source community and, if at all possible, to prevent duplication of work.  That said, it is sad but true that not all existing software libraries fit the bill but we try as hard as possible to make it happen.

AdvocacyDev III, Oakland, July 31 to August 2

If you’re passionate and/or curious about developing open source software for online organizing and online advocacy, Aspiration invites you to join us for AdvocacyDev III.

The third annual convening of developers, organizers, and activists working with open source tools for online activism will take place in Oakland, California from July 31 to August 2. If you’re interested in creating better tools for online activists and organizers, please join us for knowledge sharing and brainstorming!

In addition, Electric Embers will host their second annual Most Excellent AdvocacyDev Veggie-Friendly BBQ Shindig on Monday night the 31st.

For latest complete details, see http://www.aspirationtech.org/events/advocacydev3

Sessions will include…

• Show and tell on all the latest open source eAdvocacy platforms and tools, including the latest from CivicSpace/CiviCRM, Radical Designs Activist Mobilization Platform (AMP), GoodStorm, and others.
• ScoutSeven’s DotOrganize project, and the findings of their research on needs and gaps in nonprofit eAdvocacy and database capabilities.
• MobileVoter will share the latest in Cell phone/SMS organizing techniques, and join in discussion on how to better integrate SMS support into open source eAdvocacy tools.
• PICnet will demo their brand-new
  NonprofitSoapbox platform, which integrates other open source tools and platforms.
• Emerging technologies: Discussion of the role of VOIP and the Asterisk platform, and How-To’s on podcasting and activist blogging.
• Prototyping new advocacy tools: Using Ruby on Rails to do rapid web development.
• Building and configuring CivicSpace/CiviCRM sites
• In-depth Drupal development session: Module development and theming
• Business Development: How to pay the bills and work on advocacy development projects)
• eAdvocacy Capacity Building: What trainings, documentation and knowledge sharing is necessary to grow the pool of practitioners in the eAdvocacy space. What is needed to better empower local organizers with local causes to use these tools?
• Open standards and open API’s (Application Programmer Interfaces) for eAdvocacy: what’s needed to allow better data sharing, pooling of legislative and other public data, and enable feature interoperability between platforms? What eAdvocacy “mashups” are useful and possible?
• Email Deliverability: While features and functionality of open source advocacy platforms continue to grow, deliverability of associated email blasts continues to decrease as service providers raise spam barriers and network neutrality is threatened.
• Usability: how can online activist tools be made friendlier and more accessible for organizers and activists?
• Trainings and skillshares on various platforms, tactics, and techniques.

The event will take place at East Bay Community Foundation Conference Center in Downtown Oakland.

To Register, please go to

https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/Aspiration/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1602&t=advocacydevII.dwt

If the above link doesn't work, try

http://tinyurl.com/mmf4z

AdvocacyDev III is organized by Aspiration, http://www.aspirationtech.org

For more information, contact advocacydev@aspirationtech.org

Allen Gunn
Executive Director, Aspiration
+1.415.216.7252
http://www.aspirationtech.org

Aspiration: "Better Tools for a Better World"

If you still think open source doesn't matter to your business model...

you might want to ask Intel what it thinks of asterisk.

Gizmo Project 2.0* (That's the GOOD kind of Asterisk)

<ed.note> Michael Robertson, Desktop Linux innovator, MP3.com innovator, SIP innovator on Gizmo, Asterisk...from Michael's Minute.</ed.note>

May 23rd, 2006     Learn more about the Gizmo Project This week, SIPphone is releasing Gizmo Project 2.0* (note the asterisk), our popular free VoIP software for high-quality, easy-to-use PC calls. Usually, the star-shaped character means there's an exception such as "supply limited", "annual contract required," or some other tiny-print qualifier that makes the offer seem not as good as it initially appears. This time, however, the asterisk symbol stands for something positive - Asterisk support. If you've never heard of Asterisk, you're not alone because it's one of the best-kept open source secrets. Asterisk is PBX software that turns an ordinary PC into a powerful inter-company phone system ("Press 1 for sales, press 2 for customer support, etc"). To get a professional phone, companies normally have to buy or lease expensive digitals service and phones. The systems take weeks to install and as the company grows, you have to buy more extensions, expansion modules, and upgrades - all of which make it very expensive. With Asterisk, a simple Linux PC can be transformed into a customizable phone system for a school, business or even an advanced home system. I spoke with the original author Mark Spencer and he estimates there are more than 250,000 installations of Asterisk. Asterisk can be complex to set up, so companies have sprung up that provide point-and-click setups such as Switchvox (which was founded by former MP3.com personnel). Gizmo Project 2.0 now has support for Asterisk, making it possible to easily configure it to remotely receive and dial calls from from an Asterisk system on any net-connected PC. It's nothing new to use software to accept Asterisk calls. What IS new is to be able to do it reliably. Oftentimes, Asterisk calls get blocked by routers, NATs and firewalls using other SIP software, so the phone rings but one or both parties can't hear each other. Easily set up Gizmo Project to work with Asterisk! Using the experience garnered by successfully connecting millions of calls through any type of network configuration, Gizmo Project smartly works with Asterisk to ensure calls connect with high reliability. For each call, Gizmo 2.0 quickly and automatically checks to see if an incoming or outgoing call is blocked by a router, NAT, or firewall and invisibly connects the call through a more reliable path. This ensures that Asterisk users can successfully receive and dial calls from anywhere on the net - even if they are outside their company headquarters. It also makes Gizmo Project the ideal software companion for Asterisk users - superior in reliability to even some software programs that charge $50 per copy.     Gizmo Project available on the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet Gizmo Project 2.0* is available immediately for Macintosh and Microsoft Windows computers and you can read the official release here. The Linux version is not yet available, but there's a good reason. The SIPphone Linux experts have been creating a version of Gizmo Project for Nokia's brilliant 770 Internet tablet. This Linux-based Wi-Fi device will shortly ship with Gizmo Project, making it possible for the first time to send and receive call SIP calls and calls to/from any traditional phone. The initial version of the 770 did not ship with any voice software. Many people assumed there was no microphone, but in fact there is a tiny hole in the front. SIPphone has been working closely with Nokia to bring standards-based SIP calling to this device. - Michael

Open Source Goes Mainstream

<ed.note>Apparently this is the most recurring title for this subject but the one I'm linking to is in the April, 2006 VON Magazine by Richard Grigonis.</ed.note>

Making Telework a Federal Priority: Security is Not the Issue [Updated with the healthcare angle]

<ed.note>Petroleum prices and healthcare costs -- Jon Gordon of American Public Radio included this post in the FutureTense newsletter yesterday. Every US employer and state health program is being hammered by healthcare (read: obesity-related diabetes) but they are not going to spring for a treadmill in each cube -- plus which, it would be noisy if they did. But if they add the telework (telewalk) home office to the equation -- well, that's different. My "Cyberbike 3000" is a self-modified reclining excerbike with a tray mounted where the plastic console used to be. This allows me to ride while using my notebook. I pedal while reading and take a break while typing. I hope to do voice rec at some point. I haven't yet figured out how to connect the generator and battery to generate the electricity for the notebook.</ed.note>

Fighting fat by walking while working

Listen in RealAudio

As technology advances, we become more sedentary. At home, we spend more time in front of our computers and televisions. In the office, we type e-mails instead of walking down the hall to talk with colleagues.

Thomas Niccum, president of Twin Cities-based Lancet Software, has decided to fight the motionless lifestyle of a modern white collar worker by rigging his office so he can do most of his work while walking on a treadmill.

Niccum's treadmill-equipped office was inspired by the work of the Mayo Clinic's Dr. James Levine, whose research finds that the more people move around during the course of a normal day, the thinner they'll be. He calls it "NEAT" (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis).

Levine says we need to incorporate more motion into every part of our day.

An Architecture for Peer-to-Peer Session Initiation Protocol (P2P SIP)

draft-shim-sipping-p2p-arch-00 submitted by Eunsoo Shim

This document describes an architecture for peer-to-peer SIP systems in which a separate and independent peer-to-peer overlay layer provides a distributed resource placement and search service for SIP. It also aims to help identify what should be specified for interoperation.

VeriSign Completes Successful Integration of Private and Public Electronic Numbering (ENUM) Networks in Austria

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 3GSM -- VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) , the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications networks, today announced it has successfully integrated its IP peering solution between Voice over IP (VoIP) service providers and the Austrian Public Electronic Numbering (ENUM) root. This is one of the first examples of integration between public and private ENUM services and can serve as a template for interconnecting public and private directories to facilitate the growth of Internet Protocol (IP) applications.

ENUM assigns an Internet address to an individual as a single point of communications and allows landline, mobile calls, e-mail and instant messages to be exchanged using one IP number. Public ENUM trials are taking place globally, facilitating commercial convergence between the public switched telephone and VoIP networks.

The public-private integration, which completed compatibility testing last year, gives VeriSign Carrier IP Connect customers access to Austria's Public ENUM data and eliminates the need to query network databases multiple times to obtain individual contact information.

See also "VeriSign's VIP Protects Sign-On IDs", February 13, 2006,  By Sean Michael Kerner, Internetnews.com

VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP), announced today, will offer users the promise of a single security device that will enable authentication on VIP-enabled Web sites. So far the list of future VIP-enabled sites includes industry heavyweights PayPal, eBay and Yahoo.

SkyCreek Joins The VoiceXML Forum To Help Promote Voice Extensible Markup Language

PRWeb

SkyCreek Corporation, an industry leader in IVR and speech solutions, announced today that it has joined the VoiceXML Forum. As a member of the VoiceXML Forum, SkyCreek will support the development and promotion of VoiceXML as an open, broadly supported markup language to enable speech-based applications and Internet information and content becoming voice and phone accessible. The VoiceXML Forum is an industry organization formed to create and promote the Voice Extensible Markup Language.

What Should the Government Role be in Ensuring an Open Internet (more questions than answers)?

Jan. 12, 2006 Jeff Pulver Blog

For the past few years, many of us have been prophesizing the emerging battle between Internet Application Providers and Internet Access Providers. My blog posting on Monday - "My reaction to WSJ's "Phone Companies Set Off A Battle Over Internet Fees" - apparently hit a nerve, setting off a flurry of debate on my blog and throughout the blogosphere. Frankly, I was a little taken aback, because I don't think I was saying anything that I and others haven't already been saying for the past couple of years. In any event, I found a few new allies and seemed to have rankled some feathers. There is no longer any doubt in my mind that we are witnessing the emergence of the new battle for control over the Internet and communications.