November 2022 Summaries

This article discusses the implementation of an attention detection system for online meetings and video conferencing using face landmark detection technology. The system calculates a participant's attention score based on their facial pose, specifically yaw and pitch angles, and assigns a score from 0 to 2 to indicate low to high attention levels. The system is integrated with the Vonage Video API to enable real-time attention scoring for all participants in a call. The article provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up and implement the system, including cloning the repository, installing packages, setting up the environment variables, and running the application. The system can be further improved by incorporating additional data sources, such as iris movement or multiple face recognition.

Vonage AI Studio is a Low-Code / No-Code conversational AI platform used by businesses to handle complex customer interactions through voice and text. It allows users to retrieve data from third-party sources like Webhooks, store it as parameters for later use, and perform conditional operations with the data. The platform enables businesses to validate customer identities by matching pin numbers with data retrieved from a Webhook, integrates with Webhooks, sets up parameters to extract specific information, collects user input, and creates logic based on the returned data. With this setup, virtual agents can return names and account balances found in a database when users supply a correct pin number. The platform provides a flexible way for developers to extend applications by adding features such as webhook authentication, security measures, and retries.

You can take over a codebase that's not happy with its current state by refactoring and enhancing it, making changes such as restructuring the project to improve its overall architecture and grouping similar functionality into modules. You should also consider branches in your version control system, where you might find features or enhancements that were developed separately from the main branch, and understand what makes a good dependency, including considering the license, maintenance, popularity, and supporting assets. When testing code, scope your testing to only test how your code sends and receives data, assuming that other software does its job correctly, sending success and error responses for your code to process. You should also use semantic versioning when making new releases, updating supplementary materials such as changelogs, READMEs, and code samples to reflect the changes in the latest version. Additionally, you need to be comfortable advocating for yourself and your work, setting expectations that part of your time needs to be spent on improving the legacy codebase, which will help you understand the codebase and pay dividends later on.

The FutureNow Hackathon was a 24-hour technical competition held by Vonage and Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Dubai Campus, where students from MAHE's Computer Science program competed to build solutions using Vonage AI Studio platform. The winning team, quadKernals, built a project called Domino, which is a video interface for chat applications that uses GIFs and text-to-speech functionality to improve user experience. The team learned about web development, API requests, and data-driven approaches while building the project, and were impressed by the ease of use and power of AI Studio's drag-and-drop interface. They plan to apply their skills in future projects, including a university tech fest event, and are interested in pursuing careers in software engineering, machine learning, and cybersecurity.

That's right, v3 of the node SDK is now fully promised. A long-asked-for feature has been released, along with breaking out the SDK into smaller components, which will help the team release new features more quickly. The updated SDK uses promises and async/await or .then/.catch to make code cleaner by avoiding callback hell. Functions have also been updated to use parameter objects instead of function arguments, helping keep functions with many optional parameters more manageable. Version 3 uses Typescript to help with code completion in your preferred IDE, and a monorepo breaks up the code base into smaller packages while keeping the dependencies tree intact. The SDK will continue to support version 2 for another six months, bringing new features and fixes until around May of 2023. Support is available through documentation, code snippets, and the Vonage Developer Slack channel.

Seamless user experience is crucial for product growth, especially in banking applications and FinTech. To achieve this, an OTP-based JWT authentication system can be implemented using the Spring Boot framework and the Vonage Verify API. The system consists of three main steps: JWT creation, filtering user requests, and accessing API functionality. The JWT creation step involves generating a token with an expiry period and returning it to the user. The filtered user requests step involves verifying the token and setting the context that the user is authenticated. The accessing API functionality step involves using three different API routes to complete the authentication process. The system also includes a JWTUtil class for handling JWT encryption, a JWTFilter class for filtering user requests, and an AuthenticationFilter class for getting the authenticated context. Additionally, the Spring Security config is updated to handle the same, and controllers are defined for restricted and unrestricted routes. The service layer provides methods for sending OTPs and verifying OTPs. The system can be tested using three API endpoints: /api/hello, /api/login/init, and /api/login/verify. With this implementation, a better user experience can be achieved by providing seamless authentication and authorization.

To become happier with an inherited codebase, it's essential to understand what the code does, how it's organized, and its structure. This involves reading available documentation, building a "Hello, World" project that uses the code, and exploring the codebase to identify areas for improvement. Tooling such as static analysis tools, behavioral analysis tools like CodeScene, test coverage tools, mutation testing tools, and profiling tools can help gain insights into the codebase's structure, technical debt, and potential vulnerabilities. By using these tools and understanding how they work, developers can build trust with their team, tackle technical debt, and make changes to improve the codebase.

In the world of software development, Marc Andreesen's 2011 statement that "software is eating the world" still holds true today, with APIs playing a crucial role in accelerating the creation and adoption of software. Communications APIs enable startups to expand their capabilities without having to build everything from scratch, allowing them to focus on their core product and utilize out-of-the-box features like Voice, Messages, Video, and Authentication. By leveraging these APIs, startups can achieve superior customer experiences, create scalable products, and build fast while keeping burn low. Vonage for Startups provides a supportive environment and educational resources for early-stage companies to learn how to use Communications APIs and unlock their full potential.

VitePress is a static site generator powered by Vite and Vue.js, offering a faster and leaner development experience for modern web projects. It allows users to create an HTML website based on text with community-themed support, spending more time writing content than managing infrastructure for a content management system like WordPress. With VitePress, users can have themes, performance, and server-side code execution without requiring additional setup. The project starts from scratch, using Yarn or NPM to initialize the folder, adding VitePress and Vue as dev dependencies, creating sample documents, and setting up navigation capabilities with a sidebar menu and top-level navigation bar. Other notable features include GitHub edit links, custom containers for highlighting specific content, syntax highlighting in code blocks, and deploying the app using `yarn docs:build`. The final step involves adding communication features such as video or messaging capabilities to enhance the static site's functionality.

The inaugural DevCity London event was hosted by the Vonage Developer Relations Team and took place at Dabbers Social Bingo on October 26th, 2022. The evening featured a mix of content, networking, and fun, with guests enjoying food, drinks, and games including bingo. The event showcased Vonage's APIs and client SDKs, and provided an opportunity for attendees to connect with each other and the Vonage Developer Community. The night ended with a surprise twist, including disco balls, confetti cannons, and a roaming magician, leaving everyone in high spirits and eager for the next DevCity event.

Low-Code and No-Code development platforms are visual software development environments that allow business users to build apps without writing code, using drag-and-drop components. These platforms have varying levels of coding required, with Low-Code requiring some coding, while No-Code requires none. The main difference between the two is the level of complexity in app building and maintenance. Low-Code is used for Rapid Application Development, targeting developers with little coding experience, while No-Code is used for Self-service applications that can be maintained in-house, targeting business users with no coding experience. These platforms offer benefits such as increased development speed, reduced costs, and improved ability to address customer needs. The choice between Low-Code and No-Code ultimately depends on the specific use case and existing developer resources.

The Vonage Helpdesk is a PHP web application built in Laravel 9 that demonstrates modern PHP code and best practices for working with Vonage APIs. It allows users to create tickets, choose communication mediums, and respond to them through multiple channels such as SMS and the web application. The application uses Laravel's Sail for portability and Docker, and requires a Vonage API account to function. With this tutorial, developers can set up the application locally and explore how it handles SMS interactions, including sending notifications and receiving replies from customers. The application also includes features like multichannel communications, real-time updates, and voice capabilities using Deepgram, which will be explored in future articles.