January 2022 Summaries

The Extensions Marketplace by Agora offers developers an easy way to enhance their video calling applications with additional features and monetization options. One such feature is noise reduction, which can be achieved using the Bose PinPoint extension in just three steps: adding the extension, passing its credentials, and enabling it. To integrate this extension into a video call app built with Agora Android UIKit, developers need to enable the Bose extension from their Agora console, download the Bose PinPoint SDK, import it into their Android Studio project, and set the appropriate properties for the extension. This results in a more user-friendly and effective video calling experience.

Agora has released a Web UIKit that allows developers to easily add video calling functionality to their websites with just five lines of code. The kit is fully featured and supports customization using React properties, as well as automatic management of tokens. It also includes features such as dual-stream mode, active speaker detection, and support for TypeScript without third-party dependencies. With the Agora Web UIKit, developers can create video conferencing or live streaming websites with ease.

Agora, a platform that facilitates human connections through video chats and live streaming services, has made it easier for developers to build custom video chat apps or launch their own live streaming service in just five lines of code with the release of its open-source, community-driven Web UIKit. Built on top of the Agora Web SDK using React, the UIKit provides a high-level React component or web component for non-React projects that can be added to websites for video call or live streaming experiences. The UIKit is customizable and extensible from the ground up, allowing developers to select features like active speaker detection, change layouts, join as an audience, etc. Agora also offers UIKits for Android, iOS, React Native, and Flutter.

The Agora Student Ambassador Program, launched in January 2020, aims to train passionate college students on the Agora Real-Time Engagement SDK and educate fellow students and developers. With over 53 ambassadors worldwide and 650+ registrations, the program has inspired more than 17,000 developers globally. Benefits for ambassadors include formal association with Agora, opportunities to connect with engineers, quarterly rewards, support in creating technical content, sponsorships, and potential job offers at Agora or its partners. The roles and responsibilities of ambassadors involve promoting Agora on campus, conducting workshops and meetups, mentoring fellow students, and maintaining projects using Agora SDKs. Interested candidates can apply through an online form to join the program and expand their skill set in real-time communication, artificial intelligence, and voice and video technologies.

This tutorial guides developers through building a live video streaming application using the Agora Android SDK with Jetpack Compose framework, which simplifies and accelerates UI development. The prerequisites include Android SDK, Android Studio Arctic Fox, and an Agora developer account. After setting up the project, developers create a login page to read channel name and user role as input from users. They then build the call screen by adding permissions for camera and microphone, creating an alert screen for user permissions, and initializing the Agora Android SDK. The final UI includes local view, remote view, and basic controls like mute/unmute stream, disable/enable camera, and disconnect.

Real-Time Engagement (RTE) is a technology that helps create shared and immersive experiences by incorporating three key elements: shared context, interactivity at scale, and ubiquity. Startups can benefit from RTE by adding new layers of engagement to their products, leading to increased user engagement, retention, and flexible integration with other technologies. Agora is a vendor that provides access to real-time engagement frameworks and features for startups, allowing them to focus on scaling their user base.

The article discusses how to create a video calling app using the Agora SDK and UIKit, along with adding cool features for enhancing user experience or monetization options through the Agora Extensions Marketplace. It specifically demonstrates how to change your voice in a video call app using the Synervoz Voice FX extension. The process involves enabling the extension, passing extension credentials, setting voice parameters, and integrating it into an existing iOS project. The author provides step-by-step instructions on how to achieve this, including prerequisites, setup, and integration of the Voice FX extension. They also provide a link to the GitHub repository for testing purposes.

The Agora Extensions Marketplace, launched in September 2021, is a platform for app enrichment features such as background and foreground segments, voice changers, and more. In this tutorial, we learn how to add or change eye-catching backgrounds to a streaming app using the VisionLab DoreSegment extension. The process involves enabling the extension, passing extension credentials, and passing an image as the new background. This can be done in three easy steps: installing the Agora UIKit package, integrating the DoreSegment extension, and adding the necessary code to enable and disable the extension.

The Agora Extensions Marketplace, launched in September 2021, offers several extensions for enhancing video call apps. One such extension is Bose PinPoint, which helps remove background noise from calls. To integrate this extension into an existing iOS app using SwiftUI and Agora UIKit, developers need to follow a few steps: 1. Enable the extension by calling `AgoraVideoViewer.enableExtension()` with the appropriate vendor and vendor extension parameters. 2. Add the PinPoint extension via the Swift Package Manager using the URL https://github.com/AgoraIO-Community/Extension-Bose-PinPoint-iOS.git. 3. Define a method to register the PinPoint API Key and API Secret with the extension using `AgoraViewerHelper.agview.viewer.setExtensionProperty()`. 4. Add a button to toggle the extension on or off, updating the background color accordingly. By following these steps, developers can create an enhanced video call app that effectively removes background noise for improved user experience. Other extensions available in the Agora Extensions Marketplace can also be integrated into apps made directly with the Agora SDK.

In this article, the author discusses five key characteristics that can provide a seamless video call experience rivaling those offered by major platforms like Zoom, Google, and Microsoft. These include user controls for the current user, a way to see all users in the call at once, call info such as number of participants and audio/video states, maintaining high video quality even under poor network conditions, and host controls for managing other users' audio and video states. The author also highlights how Agora can help developers implement these features with ease through its UI Kits.