July 2017 Summaries

Handling high volume inbound SMS and webhooks with Twilio Functions and Amazon SQS requires offloading incoming requests to a queue, allowing for efficient processing and cost-effective compute resources. By using Twilio Functions, developers can push incoming messages and status callback events onto SQS queues, which can then be processed by background workers at a controlled rate. This approach frees up web applications from handling webhook requests, reduces costs, and enables more efficient message reply logic. The solution is particularly useful for nonprofits and social enterprises that rely on Twilio's communication technology to increase their impact.

Twilio has introduced a new feature for Twilio Elastic SIP Trunking that allows users to specify the geographic region where originating traffic is sent, which can lead to improved voice quality. This change enables users to direct calls over the Twilio Super Network to a specified region instead of the public internet, and can be achieved by including an optional region parameter in the origination SIP URI. The feature is available immediately, and Twilio offers instant provisioning with contract-free pricing, making it easier for enterprises to deploy SIP trunking quickly and at a lower cost.

Heymarket, a software company co-founded by Amit Kulkarni, has developed a tool that allows businesses to treat SMS like email, enabling teams to share inboxes and respond to customer messages more efficiently. The shared inbox feature lets team members collectively monitor and respond to texts without sharing personal authentication tokens, allowing businesses to scale their messaging capabilities and improve the speed and quality of their customers' experience. With its powerful mobile app and focus on simplifying UX decisions, Heymarket aims to help a range of businesses from small SMBs to large enterprises improve their customer service and communication.

SIP Interface has expanded its support to include international regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and South America, enabling users to specify the region closest to their communications infrastructure for optimal service quality when sending or receiving SIP traffic through Twilio. To utilize this feature, users can update their IP address whitelist and point their communications infrastructure to Twilio's localized URIs or include a region parameter in their SIP URI. This expansion allows developers to easily add cloud voice capabilities to their existing VoIP infrastructure without costly upgrades or hardware purchases, enabling features such as WebRTC capabilities on top of an existing IP PBX or call center.

A developer can use Twilio Functions and SendGrid to forward incoming SMS messages sent to their Twilio number directly to their email address. To do this, they need a Twilio account and phone number, as well as a SendGrid account. They must also configure environment variables for the SendGrid API key and email addresses used to receive and send emails. The developer writes a single Twilio Function using Node.js and the got package, which makes HTTP requests easily. The function sends a JSON object to the SendGrid API to send an email with the incoming SMS message details. After configuring the Function and hooking up their Twilio number, the developer can test it by sending a text message to their number and checking their email for the forwarded message. This solution eliminates the need for a separate server, making it a convenient option for bits of plumbing like this using Twilio numbers.

The next-generation Ruby helper library has been released, offering new functionality and modern language features, built from ground up based on developer feedback. The new library provides improved consistency across languages, including PHP, Java, .NET/C#, Python, and Node, with enhanced features such as accessing resources, listing resources, paging, proper types, error handling, and a configurable HTTP client. A comprehensive Getting Started Guide, guides, tutorials, auto-generated documentation, and a migration guide are available to help developers get started and migrate their existing applications to the new library.

Creating an online version of the game "Once Upon a Time" using Twilio Programmable Chat allows friends to play together, sharing a story one line at a time. The project uses Node.js, Express.js, and Twilio's Programmable Chat API to create a basic online version of the game. The code includes endpoints for retrieving messages from the server and displaying them on the client-side. Once Upon a Time is played by navigating to the chat endpoint, adding new lines to the story, and then viewing previous lines displayed in a browser window. The project also includes buttons to display all messages or just the latest one, and allows users to set their own name.

The article provides an example of how to send local notifications with GIFs using Swift and iOS 10's UserNotifications framework. The app requests permission from the user to send notifications, displays a notification with a SEGA-related GIF and a prompt for the user to continue receiving notifications, and allows the user to select whether or not they want more notifications by clicking on "Yes" or "No". The article also touches on how to add input options to notifications and provides an example of how to send notifications from a remote server using Twilio Notify.

Haskell is a functional programming language that allows developers to write clean, concise, and expressive code. It can be used for various purposes, including sending SMS messages using the Twilio API. To start with Haskell, one needs to set up the developer environment by configuring package managers, installing Haskell, and choosing an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The popular package manager Stack is preferred due to its isolated and reproducible build system. With Stack, developers can create new projects, install packages, and send SMS messages using Twilio. The language also supports creating "Hello, World" programs in both interactive mode and from a Haskell file.

You want to build a fully featured burner phone with Kotlin that can receive SMS and calls, allowing you to use multiple phone numbers for various purposes such as loyalty cards, prize draws, and selling items online. You'll use Twilio to forward incoming messages and calls to your own number, which can be easily changed or discarded if needed. The application will be deployed on Heroku, and you can configure it to use different Twilio numbers for each purpose. With this burner phone application, you can create new numbers as needed, receive messages and calls, and even block unwanted senders or add voicemail capabilities in the future.

Introducing Call Recording Encryption Call Recording Encryption is a new feature for Programmable Voice that provides additional security for recordings on the Twilio platform by encrypting all recordings with a public key provided by the customer, limiting access to the recordings to only the holder of the corresponding private key. The feature is now available in developer preview and can be enabled via the Console at an account or subaccount level. To use this feature, customers need to generate a valid RSA key pair, submit the public key to Twilio, and store the private key securely with hardened access control. With Call Recording Encryption, additional properties will be available on recording metadata to indicate the public key used for encryption and provide values required for decryption.

The author shares his experience of sharing the birth of his son with friends and family who are far away. He wanted to find an easy way to automate this process, so he built an API that allows people to send a Twilio phone number and receive picture messages with photos from a cloud storage account, specifically Dropbox in this case. The author guides through purchasing a Twilio phone number, setting up a Visual Studio Web API project, creating a Dropbox helper class, and connecting the API to Twilio using ngrok. He provides step-by-step instructions on how to use the API to share photos with others, including generating an access token for Dropbox and handling errors. The author concludes by sharing his completed code and invites readers to build upon it or report any issues they may find.

Twilio has introduced Call Recording Encryption as a new feature for its Programmable Voice platform, providing enhanced security for sensitive call recordings by allowing users to encrypt recordings with their own public key before storage. This feature addresses the needs of customers who must comply with stringent data protection regulations by giving them full control over access to recordings, which can only be decrypted by the holder of the corresponding private key. Currently available in a developer preview, this feature requires users to generate an RSA key pair, submit their public key to Twilio, and store their private key securely. Once configured, all subsequent recordings will be encrypted, and additional metadata will be provided to aid in decryption. Twilio encourages developers interested in using this feature to share their use cases for potential collaboration and access to pricing and implementation details.

Ozonetel, a communications suite provider, has extensive experience in building and managing communications networks for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprises across India. They set up 18 points of presence to enable their clients to switch from hardware-based call centers to cloud-based solutions, improving call handling and customer engagement. Recently, the company expanded its services to the United States, partnering with Twilio's Super Network to power its clients' communications. By leveraging Twilio's platform, Ozonetel can focus on helping SMBs and enterprises unlock the full potential of their communication tools, including features such as screen pops, call tracking, and integration with CRM systems like Salesforce.

As a developer evangelist at Twilio, Margaret Staples shares her journey from designing space colonies to creating software solutions. She reflects on how her childhood dreams of making humans happy and healthy in space evolved into a passion for technology and collaboration. After realizing that progress comes from individual contributions, she transitioned from designing systems to developing software, teaching, and learning with others. With her renewed excitement for the future, Margaret now aims to help connect developers with people everywhere through the Twilio Developer Network.

There’s a part of app development that feels Sisyphean`, CTO Trey Stout avoids this process by relying on OpenGL and WebGL for testing at scale, cutting down deployment time and enabling regular feature updates and community contributions. This approach democratizes developer contribution and financial independence, allowing ScribbleChat to build new features and marketplaces while empowering its users with a more personalized experience. By using web-based debugging and testing, Trey's team is able to spend their cycles improving the app rather than constantly iterating and debugging.

A Twilio Functions-based IT support hotline, inspired by the "Hello IT" machine from The IT Crowd, was built using JavaScript and Twilio's Programmable Voice features. The hotline uses speech recognition to gather user input, answering common IT support questions such as "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and providing a link to Stack Overflow for more complex problems. The hotline can be tested by calling the provided phone numbers, with additional features such as custom sounds, smarter solution lookup, and email/Slack ticket submission planned for future development.

If a phone rings and there’s no one there to answer it, does it make a sound?` This question highlights the importance of answering calls in a timely manner, particularly for businesses that rely on inbound leads. Netguru's Callio app uses Twilio's voice API to forward incoming calls to a Slack channel, allowing the team to track and manage client communications more efficiently. Lukasz Ozimek, the software engineer behind Callio, initially estimated it would take three months to build the project but completed it in just two weeks. The app is now available on GitHub for developers to build their own version, showcasing its simplicity and ease of use. By leveraging Twilio's voice API and Ruby programming language, Callio enables businesses to scale their consulting work while providing a local experience for clients worldwide.