September 2016 Summaries

Getting started with Socket.io in Swift on iOS involves setting up a Node.js server and installing dependencies using CocoaPods. The client-side app uses the Socket.io pod to connect to the server and receive real-time events, such as call status updates from Twilio's API. The app creates a data structure to represent phone calls and updates the table view when new or updated call status information is received from the server. To test the functionality, a Twilio phone number is used to make a call, which triggers the server to emit an event that the iOS app receives and updates the table accordingly.

This post demonstrates how to set up identity management using Stormpath and send login notifications via Twilio's SMS service in a Spring Boot application. The author creates a simple Spring Boot app that uses the Stormpath Java Helper Library and Twilio's Java Helper Library to send SMS notifications when a user logs in from a new device. The code shows how to set up Stormpath, create a custom data object to store user information, and integrate with Twilio to send SMS messages. The post also discusses the benefits of using cloud services for development and provides resources for further learning on Spring Boot authentication with Stormpath.

Twilio answered President Obama's Call to Action to increase support for refugees worldwide, pledging over 650 million dollars to aid the crisis. The company is part of a group of 51 companies committed to providing support for over 6.3 million refugees across 20 countries, including educational, employment, and financial inclusion opportunities. Twilio.org is working with organizations such as the International Rescue Committee, Whispir, Urban Refugees, GigAware, and Ankara Refugee to provide essential services like communication, appointment reminders, social networks, and job opportunities for refugees. The company's true focus is on welcoming and supporting refugees, rather than just meeting a photo opportunity, and is humbled to serve those in need.

Jed Schmidt created a collaborative family photo frame using Twilio, AWS, and Electric Objects. The system uses an iMessage group to receive photos, which are then sent to a Twilio number via API Gateway. The photos are processed by an AWS Lambda function, which crops and uploads the images to an S3 bucket. The most recent images are then composed into a collage using ImageMagick, published on S3, and displayed on the Electric Objects Digital Art Display. The system is designed to be easy to set up and use, with step-by-step instructions provided for creating the frame and integrating it with Twilio and AWS services.

By Kyle Kelly-Yahner on 2016-09-27, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn` Customer.io, a behavior email platform focused on segmentation and automation, has rolled out Twilio SMS for customer segments. This new feature allows users to set triggers for specific customer groups via Twilio's SMS service, enabling the creation of tailored experiences through data-driven insights. The integration aims to simplify the process of crafting messages while focusing on customer engagement and response monitoring. With this expansion, Customer.io enhances its Actions suite with tools like Urban Airship's push Action and a Slack Action, making it easier for users to scale their customer outreach efforts.

A Python script uses Markov chains, Programmable SMS, and Twitter API to create a bot that impersonates Donald Trump's tweeting style. The script downloads all tweets from Trump's account, strips out unnecessary text, and generates sentences based on these texts using a Markov chain model. The generated sentences are then used to reply to incoming SMS messages via Twilio. The script uses Flask for handling HTTP requests and Twilio's helper library for generating TwiML responses. The project showcases how to use Twitter API, Python, and Twilio to create an interactive bot that can engage with users through text messages.

HelloVote is a simple online voting registration platform that allows users to register to vote or confirm their existing registration through text message or Facebook Messenger. By leveraging technology, HelloVote aims to lower barriers to voting and make the process more accessible. The platform also enables users to invite friends to participate in the democratic process by sharing a link. Additionally, HelloVote has partnered with Twilio, Fight for The Future, and its Education Fund to support voter registration efforts. Users can even share their post-voting selfies on the platform's website.

The Twilio family is growing with the addition of the Kurento team, who bring expertise in large group calls, transcoding, recording, and advanced media processing. The Kurento project has gained significant traction over the past five years, becoming a widely popular WebRTC media server on the Internet with a vibrant developer community. Its modular architecture allows developers to build rich real-time experiences with various media types. This integration will further enhance Twilio's Programmable Video capabilities, providing an even more elegant developer experience for peer-to-peer video calls and other advanced media processing needs. The Kurento team will continue to maintain the open source project, ensuring its stability as a foundation for media processing applications in the future.

The SIGNAL London Conference, held on September 20, 2016, was a gathering of developers from around the world who came together to hone their craft and learn about new tools being developed at Twilio. The conference featured launches of several new products, including Voice Insights for WebRTC and Country-Specific Guidelines for Using SMS Around the Globe. There were also live coding demonstrations, including a game of Flappybird and an algorithm that classified objects as huggable or not huggable. Additionally, there were announcements about Twilio's expansion into Spain with the acquisition of Kurento Media Server, and the launch of the Twilio API explorer. The conference also highlighted the community's contributions to social causes, such as Parkinson's research and helping refugees.

Twilio has introduced global SMS guidelines to help developers and businesses navigate the complexities of sending SMS across different countries and carriers. The guidelines provide detailed information on phone number capabilities, message formatting, and local carrier restrictions to ensure optimal deliverability and readability of messages. By using these guidelines, developers can avoid common issues such as garbled or dropped messages, and improve their overall SMS workflow. The guidelines are available online and will be updated over time to reflect changes in global SMS regulations.

To receive an SMS message with C# and Twilio, developers need to install necessary libraries, extend their Controller with `TwilioController`, create an endpoint to accept POST requests with `From` and `Body` parameters, build a response in TwiML format, and connect their application to a Twilio number. The process involves using .NET MVC, handling Twilio's HTTP request, sending a customized response, and deploying the application to make it publicly accessible. With these steps, developers can receive SMS messages and interact with them programmatically.

New phone numbers are available in France, Ireland, and the Netherlands, allowing businesses to have a locally-relevant identity. In addition, developer preview access is being offered for local phone numbers in six new countries: Croatia, Hungary, Iceland, Kenya, Nigeria, and Slovenia. These new numbers have undergone rigorous testing and are now available through the Twilio Console and Phone Number API. Businesses can request these numbers to ensure a familiar geographic prefix for their customers.

The Programmable Voice SDK for iOS has been released in public beta, providing out-of-the-box support for Apple's VoIP Services Push Notifications and making it easier to integrate great VoIP experiences into iOS applications. The new SDK is designed as a replacement for the current Twilio Client SDK v1.2.11 for iOS and offers several improvements over previous approaches, including reduced resource consumption, automatic registration with the user's device, and support for multiple devices. With this release, developers can focus on building their VoIP app without worrying about the complexities of traditional push notification systems. Additionally, the new SDK will also support CallKit APIs, making it easier to use with iOS 10's new features.

The Netherlands has introduced a new class of mobile phone numbers with a +3197 prefix, designated for cloud-based communications such as Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging, to comply with local regulations and avoid fines. These numbers are available in beta through the Twilio Console and Phone Number API, allowing users to send and receive messages while maintaining a familiar Dutch number. The introduction of these new numbers follows a collaboration between Twilio and Dutch providers to add in-country numbers, addressing concerns over non-compliant messaging practices.

Here is a neutral and interesting summary of the provided text in one paragraph: Twilio's Programmable SMS guide provides detailed documentation on how to track SMS conversations, use delivery status to confirm message delivery, retrieve and modify message history, and more. The guide offers code snippets in various programming languages, including PHP, C#, Java, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript, making it easier for developers to build Twilio apps that can handle complex SMS interactions and edge cases, such as tracking conversations with cookies and delivering receipts when replying to messages. With the Programmable SMS guide, developers can level up their Twilio game and build features faster, and get feedback from Twilio through various APIs to continually improve their service.

The Programmable Voice Guide, written by Devin Rader for Twilio, provides information on three key topics: gathering input during a call, recording calls, and modifying in-progress calls. The guide shows how to use the `<Gather>` verb to collect caller input, the `<Record>` verb to record calls until a specified time or key is pressed, and how to modify an in-progress call using the REST API and Twilio's Ruby helper library. These features enable developers to create dynamic experiences for callers, such as IVR systems and custom voicemail systems, and can be used to improve customer support and feedback processes.

Textris is a Ruby gem that makes sending SMS messages in Rails easy and natural, separating out views from controllers. It uses Twilio's Ruby helper library to send SMS messages, but provides a more Rails-like experience than using the Twilio Ruby helper library directly. Textris allows for easy configuration of Twilio and supports localization of SMS messages. The gem can be used with Rails 4 or 5, and provides a number of benefits over using the Twilio Ruby helper library directly, including reduced code length and improved separation of concerns.

Twilio is launching a new documentation format called "Guides" aimed at providing digestible instructions for common tasks with its APIs. The new content is designed to be consumed quickly and efficiently, allowing developers to complete tasks faster. To support this new format, Twilio has also introduced a feature called CodeRail, which pulls the relevant code into a dedicated column on desktop displays, making it easier to access implementation details. The Guides are available in light and dark themes, with mobile responsiveness, and come with quick shortcuts to copy the code to your editor of choice. Twilio is seeking feedback from developers on this new format and invites them to share their thoughts on Twitter using the #docsweek hashtag.

The text discusses how to send an SMS with Node.js using Twilio, a cloud communication platform. To achieve this, you need to sign up for a free trial account, purchase an SMS-enabled phone number, and install the twilio-node library. The code requires only ten lines of code to send an SMS, which uses environment variables for safekeeping of sensitive credentials. The process involves creating a Twilio REST client using the installed library, sending an HTTP POST request to the /Messages resource in the Twilio API, and logging the message SID received from the response.

The Twilio Helper Library for PHP has been released, offering new features and improved functionality based on developer feedback. The library now uses modern PHP language features and provides better paging and namespace support. It introduces the concepts of Resource Context and Resource Instance to improve network efficiency. The library is available in two lines: mainline with stable releases and edge with new features in Developer Preview or Beta. The new version expects required parameters as individual arguments, making the code easier to read and catch missing parameters. A Getting Started Guide and Quickstart are available to help users get started with the new library.

To send an SMS with Ruby using Twilio, you need a Twilio account and an SMS-enabled phone number. You can install the twilio-ruby gem and create a REST client object using your credentials stored in system environment variables. Then, use the client to send an SMS message from your Twilio number to your cell phone. The process is made simple by providing a helper library that makes it easy to make an HTTP POST request to the /Messages resource in the Twilio API. After running the script, you should receive your text message in just a few seconds.

Sync is a purpose-built API for synchronizing state across devices and between users, announced in 2016 as a developer preview, with the aim of simplifying real-time presence management. The Sync API will be made available to developers attending SIGNAL London, where they can hack on it. This event aims to help attendees build features for their users by taking care of all state management in the cloud. The technology has already been proven at scale as the real-time engine behind Twilio IP Messaging.

Authy is being used by Auth0 to add 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) to their applications, making it easier for developers to implement this security feature. The process involves using the Authy TOTP API and the Auth0 Management API to register users with Authy and verify their one-time passcodes. With just a few API calls, developers can set up 2FA in no time. The guide also highlights the benefits of using Authy, including its robust and well-designed solution for both developers and users. Additionally, it explains how to integrate Authy with Auth0's authentication platform, making it easier for teams to protect user accounts.

Twilio, a cloud communications company, is defending user privacy by supporting Microsoft's challenge to blanket nondisclosure orders issued by government agencies when requesting user information. These orders bar companies from notifying users of data requests and can be issued for an unlimited time without proof. Twilio has filed an amicus brief in support of Microsoft's position, along with other tech companies, emphasizing the importance of trust and transparency in business relationships. As a cloud communications company, Twilio believes that trust and transparency should prevail over nondisclosure orders, and it issues semi-annual reports documenting government requests for information received by Twilio.

A Fantasy Football Hotline was created using Ruby and Twilio Voice, building on the concept of Sports Phone from the 1970s. The hotline uses an RSS feed to provide news updates, with a robot voice reading out headlines and pausing between each one. To create the hotline, a Ruby script is used to parse an RSS feed, while Twilio handles phone calls and generates TwiML responses. A Sinatra app is also created to handle incoming calls and send TwiML responses to Twilio. The project showcases how to build simple voice apps with Twilio Voice and Ruby, and provides resources for further learning.

To receive and respond to a text message using Python, Flask, and Twilio, you need to set up your local environment with Flask and Twilio installed. You create an app.py file that imports the necessary libraries, sets up a route for handling POST requests on the '/sms' URL, and uses the Twilio library to generate a response TwiML that tells Twilio what to do next. The app needs a publicly accessible URL, so you use ngrok to open a tunnel to your local machine and generates a custom forwarding URL that you point to in your Twilio console. When someone texts your Twilio number, Twilio makes an HTTP request to your app, which responds with the response TwiML, and Twilio sends a reply message back to the original sender.