June 2015 Summaries

This article discusses how to automate a Mac using JavaScript and Twilio SMS. The author, Ricky Robinett, uses Node.js and JavaScript for Automation to create an app that sends an iMessage from the Messages app when an SMS comes in via Twilio. The automation process involves creating a new Node.js application, installing necessary libraries, and writing code to trigger the automation when an incoming message is received. The author also provides guidance on how to hook up the automation script to Twilio, expose the local host to the outside world using ngrok, and test the application.

Twilio Developer Evangelist Sam Agnew's journey began at HackRU, a Rutgers hacker community event that inspired him to start building things on his own. He grew the community through his involvement and eventually became its director. After working with hackNY, a fellowship program that pairs college hackers with summer internships at NY-based startups, he landed a job as a developer evangelist at Twilio, an organization that aligns with his passion for inspiring developers. Through his experiences, Sam has gained leadership skills, mentorship, and technical growth, which he now uses to supercharge the developer community in NYC and beyond.

By Serge Loncar, CareSpeak founder, leveraging Twilio's SMS capabilities to make outpatient care more seamless for patients and providers by connecting hospitals, pharmacies, and patients through a personal touch via text messaging. With Twilio's global availability and reliability, CareSpeak aims to expand into new international markets, providing a reliable platform for managing medication schedules and other timely logistics, ultimately improving patient outcomes and reducing expensive hospital visits.

The Signal Talks We Wish We Saw In Person` was a conference featuring various talks by developers from companies such as Twilio and Netflix. The event included sessions on using HTTP APIs in Swift, deployment tools for Amazon Web Services (AWS), and other topics of interest to software developers. Developers who attended the event were able to learn about the experiences and strategies of engineering teams at large companies like Netflix, as well as practical skills for implementing certain technologies such as Swift programming language and deployment tools. The talks covered a range of subjects including scalability, leadership, and technical expertise, providing valuable insights for those interested in software development and industry trends.

The author, Phil Nash, was inspired to build a service that allows users to send Tweets like Larry King, who uses a voicemail system to dictate his tweets. The service uses Twilio's recording and transcribing facilities to record calls from a user's phone number, transcribe them into text, and then post them as Tweets on the user's Twitter account. To build this service, the author used Ruby 2.2.2, a free Twilio account, a Twitter application with read and write privileges, and the Twitter SMS application available from GitHub. The service includes endpoints for sending Tweets via phone calls, health checks, and monitoring services, as well as a Twitter streaming client that listens for notifications from Twitter and sends SMS messages to the user's phone number. Once set up, users can test the service by making phone calls, leaving messages, and checking the server log to see the transcription arrive. The author also provides suggestions for additional features that could be added to the service, such as transcribing voicemails and email, taking notes on the go, and getting contextual with hashtags.

Phonebot is an open-source project built using Slack APIs, Twilio, and IBM Watson that enables users to make phone calls within Slack channels. When a user initiates a call with @phonebot, Phonebot transcribes the conversation and posts it in the channel for others to view. The system uses Twilio's telephony-as-a-service to make calls, and IBM Watson's speech-to-text service to translate audio recordings into text. Users can control the phone call by issuing commands such as dialing a number or sending text as speech. Phonebot also supports recording and replaying phone calls for later transcription. The project is deployed on the IBM Bluemix cloud platform and can be configured using environment variables and application manifests.

Twilio Developer Evangelist Chris Hranj shares his experience of attending MHacks III, a 36-hour hackathon where he and his team created an app called FacePress to solve the problem of figuring out fitted hat sizes. He learned that simple ideas should be built using simple tools, and that it's better to focus on doing one thing well rather than trying to incorporate multiple technologies into one project. Chris also emphasizes the importance of starting small and being open to learning from others. After MHacks, he joined Twilio as a Developer Evangelist intern, where he now works with a team that makes every day feel like a hackathon, and aims to share his lessons learned with the developer community to inspire positive impact on the world.

The hack leverages Particle, a microcontroller platform, and Twilio, a cloud communication platform, to control lights via a voice call. The solution allows users to turn their lights on or off remotely by calling a Twilio number with a pre-configured PIN, eliminating the need for a mobile application installation. The system uses Twilio's Voice Call API to connect with Particle's digitalWrite endpoint, allowing users to control devices such as lights and air conditioners using voice commands. The hack also includes a simple web interface for configuring the PIN and device interfaces, with plans to add two-factor authentication in the future.

Twilio` is a cloud communication platform that allows developers to build and deploy voice and messaging applications. In this tutorial, we'll use Twilio's SMS feature to add phone verification to a Rails 4 app. The process involves creating a `PhoneNumber` model to store user phone numbers, generating a PIN, sending it via SMS, and verifying the entered PIN. We'll use AJAX to complete the process on a single page, making it seamless for users. The tutorial covers the creation of a controller, view, and JavaScript files to implement the phone verification functionality.

AvidTrack, a one-stop shop for advertisers, transitioned from a buggy phone system to Twilio's reliable and scalable solution, allowing them to develop features faster and handle an increasing volume of calls. The switch was made after 6 months of struggling with their previous telecom provider, resulting in the loss of clients. With Twilio, AvidTrack has been able to hit the ground running, shipping new features and scaling quickly to meet growing demand.

You can manage your internet identities by creating phone, SMS, and email aliases for each online activity using a tool like Shuffle. This helps keep different profiles separate and secure, protecting personal information from being shared across platforms. The integration with Twilio's API allows users to forward calls and messages from one alias to another, ensuring the safety of user data. By using color-coded profiles, users can easily distinguish between their various online identities, making it easier to maintain a level of anonymity and security.

FrontRush Doubles SMS Traffic Enabling Two Way SMS by leveraging Twilio's text messaging service to enable two-way communication between coaches, players, and recruiters through its app. The company saw significant growth in SMS traffic after implementing this feature, doubling their average monthly messages from hundreds of thousands to millions. This allows for more efficient communication of time-sensitive information such as bus schedules and game day changes, keeping players informed and up-to-date. Additionally, FrontRush offers opt-in SMS updates for alumni and fans, enabling them to stay connected with coaches and receive real-time updates on games. By utilizing Twilio's reliable text messaging service, FrontRush is well-positioned to meet the evolving needs of colleges, universities, and high schools in the sports landscape.

Talkdesk's journey from its humble beginnings as a one-man show with its founder, Tiago Paiva, has been marked by significant growth and success. The company's cloud-based call center solution powered by Twilio has allowed it to scale rapidly, with revenue increasing 10X year-over-year and expanding customer base reaching over 2,000. By focusing solely on developing their product for the first two years after founding, Talkdesk was able to achieve good product-market fit, a key factor in their success. The company's partnership with Twilio has also been instrumental in its growth, leveraging the platform to optimize their own solution. With a $15 million dollar Series A funding round closed and a mission to bring ready-made call center software to all markets, Talkdesk is poised for continued exponential growth.

The author of the text reminisces about getting a Tamagotchi as a child and how it taught him responsibility. He then builds his own SMS-powered Tamagotchi using Twilio's API, Hapi framework, and Node.js. The application allows users to interact with their virtual pet by sending SMS messages, which triggers various responses and actions, such as feeding, playing, sleeping, and waking up. The author adds personality to the pet by introducing randomness and AI-like behavior, making it more interactive and engaging. The project showcases how software can replicate old-school toys and bring back nostalgic experiences with modern technology.

Pingometer is a service that uses Twilio SMS to send downtime alerts to stakeholders in the political realm, aiming to maximize uptime and minimize downtime for government websites. The email alerts sent by Pingometer are marked as urgent but may not be perceived as such by recipients due to the abundance of emails in their inboxes. In contrast, SMS alerts carry a sense of urgency and have a high open rate, making them more effective in grabbing attention during time-sensitive crises. By providing detailed information about downtime, including historical uptime, geography info, status codes, and traceroutes, Pingometer helps its clients take swift action to prevent future downtime. With a strong track record of delivering alerts without issues or complaints, Pingometer's clients can rely on the service to minimize downtime and maximize uptime.

The inaugural SIGNAL conference featured talks from industry leaders and product announcements from Twilio, covering topics such as building iOS apps, fighting homelessness with SMS, and the future of software communications. The conference was divided into four tracks: Equip, Insight, Impact, and Learn, each focusing on different aspects of business success and technical expertise. Keynotes were also held, including an unveiling of new Twilio products like IP Messaging and Video SDKs.

The Twilio team provided backpacks nicknamed "hackpacks" with a small 8×8 LED matrix at their conference, Signal. The hackpack proved to be a blast for everyone from hackers to non-technical attendees alike, and was used to create various projects such as logos, mind-blowing visualizations, and games like Pong and tic-tac-toe. Developers were able to showcase their creativity and skills with the limited display space, with many submitting their projects online or tweeting about them. The Twilio team is collecting all of these hacks at a Github repo and invites others to submit their own projects, providing resources to help get started.

Graham Christensen, a developer at Clarify.io, created an app using Twilio's API and Clarify.io that helps him track what's in his moving boxes by labeling each box with a number and recording a voice message of its contents. The app uses Twilio SMS to send the box number when Graham needs to find something specific, allowing him to quickly locate it. The system consists of four scripts: start.php, gather.php, save.php, and search.php, which work together to receive incoming calls, record audio, process recordings, and respond with results from Clarify.io's API. This app simplifies the moving process by reducing anxiety and making it easier to find specific items, as Graham found in his own experience using it for a recent move.

Save The Hacker hackathon produced innovative web and mobile apps, including Infinite Loop, which coordinates emergency blood donations via SMS, and Carrot, a tool that automates SaaS updates and notifications to users.