Re: Visual Voicemail

[Wil Chung]

Well, I was just saying that decoding beeps from Asterisk is probably harder
to do than to decode SMS(s), and let the phone keep track of what voice
mails are available to listen to (like an index), and then Asterisk keeps
the voice mails.  When the user wants to listen to a specific voice mail, it
kept the voicemail SMSes and can look through it (like an index) for the one
the user wants, and then it calls Asterisk to request that particular
voicemail.  It gets returned to the phone (probably streamed if over IP, or
your Asterisk box just calls your phone and plays the message)

I think you(Austin) were thinking that you'd want to cache it on the phone
somehow.  I guess the phone can do that if it's been played at least once,
up to a certain number of voicemails cached, so it doesn't have to get it
from the server again (unless the voicemail expired)

I've never set up Asterisk before, so I can't claim to know for sure.
However, my impression is that it's much like setting up your own
webserver.  (someone correct me if I'm wrong) You download it, you compile
and install it.  However, I assume you have to have a modem of some sort and
a landline or dedicated cell phone.

Wilhelm

On 1/20/07, Austin Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


This sounds like a really good idea. You'd want to save a recording of
the message on the phone so that you can rewind and whatnot. How much
trouble is it to run your own Asterix box? Or do you envision this
being some kind of service?





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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Dimitris Kogias]

> Think like a developer: how can we make it work?   Think like an
> entrepreneur: is there a solution here that we can offer?   Can we
> transform GSM-as-usual into a transport?   If GSM is just the tube you
> use to get to the mobile device, and the number that you call isn't the
> GSM number, then you can intercede if the call isn't answered and
> capture the voicemail, perhaps in an Asterix PBX.   Once you have the
> voicemail, the phone can download it next time it has IP connectivity.  
> Voila: visual voicemail, no scraping needed.

IP connectivity is nice but not a must.  SMS is also a possibility, as
are unanswered voice calls from predefined DIDs used as signaling
(bidirectional too, to cover SIM changes).

Voicemail notification for GSM is in fact signaled using SMS today.  The
relevant ETSI standard, if I'm reading it right, specifies an option for
the caller ID of the call(s) that originated voicemail(s), and I
wouldn't be surprised if that's what Cingular implemented for the
iPhone.  Who wants to take bets that other carriers will have it
implemented in the not too distant future?

Anyway, I prefer my voicemail to live on servers under my control, as
you suggest.

> 
> The question is, is this a service anyone would go to the trouble to
> use?   In some ways it would suck - no way to notify the phone that the
> voicemail is present if you're off the IP network.

Yes, and not necessarily, respectively.

D.

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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Austin Taylor]

On 1/20/07, Wil Chung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Lars here has the right idea, I think.  But I'd like to take it a step back
and forward again.  Instead of letting the Asterix box send back beeps after
a query, the Neo just keeps track of the information sent from the Asterix
via SMS, and displays it as a list of voicemails to call. And then when a
user clicks on a voicemail, the phone can use either the voice or IP as a
data line to query the Asterix box for the correct voicemail.

Wilhelm



This sounds like a really good idea. You'd want to save a recording of
the message on the phone so that you can rewind and whatnot. How much
trouble is it to run your own Asterix box? Or do you envision this
being some kind of service?

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Re: Visual Voicemail - I already have an implementation.

[Lars-Peter Clausen]

Redvers Davies wrote:

I'm not saying it's the best implementation in the world but its simple,
free and I like it.

IMAP.

Why re-invent the wheel.

1) Notification of mailbox changes (IE, immediate notification of new
email).
2) Ability to scan headers.
3) Random access.

Basically:

My calls to vonage get automatically emailed.to my imap server.  I have
a specific imap account for these calls which go to my cellphone.  I can
see who the call is from before I download the messages.

The infrastructure is simple, it would just require some application
development on the openmoko to make it look like a voicemail client.

3/4 of the wheel is there.  Why re-invent it?

Regards,



Red

Yeah, that sounds like a really great solution.
But it has two drawbacks:
- You have to use vonage
- You need IP network access in order to get the emails

But as I said I am looking towards a solution that doesn't depend on IP 
network and is mostly carrier independent.
So I think it is (at least in the beging) inescapable to setup your own 
voicemail server. The server then could use many different ways to 
communicate with the phone, either email or sms or direct gsm 
connection. But what we need is a consistent protocol for each of this 
method and not many in form of a carrier specific protocol. You do not 
want to write hundreds of parsers.
So our server would you send an sms or if you have a IP network 
connection an email and than would display its content nicely on the 
screen with the ability to press on the entry an immediately hear your 
voicemail.


I really like the idea of Wilhelm Chung to use sms to notify you about 
missed calles and parse the date and caller out of it. My current 
carrier sends me sms with only date. Well that would be start, but you 
would have to write a parser for each carrier and each language used. 
And even then direct access to the voicemails would be quite 
complicated, because they first tell you what voicemails you have wait 
and than you can choose which you want to hear.


So I think we should workout some kind of a protocol for both gsm/sms 
based and ip-network/imap based access to voicemails.
And also we should constantly talk to telkos and ask them what they 
think about this and where they see possibilities to implement visual 
voicemails.


I for myself see huge potential to create visual voicemail system with 
the help of the openmoko community and establish a new way to interact 
with your phone not only for voicemails.


Lars

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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Wil Chung]

Lars here has the right idea, I think.  But I'd like to take it a step back
and forward again.  Instead of letting the Asterix box send back beeps after
a query, the Neo just keeps track of the information sent from the Asterix
via SMS, and displays it as a list of voicemails to call. And then when a
user clicks on a voicemail, the phone can use either the voice or IP as a
data line to query the Asterix box for the correct voicemail.

Wilhelm

On 1/20/07, Lars-Peter Clausen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Ted Lemon wrote:
> On Jan 19, 2007, at 9:20 PM, Austin Taylor wrote:
>> Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it?
>
> Think like a developer: how can we make it work?   Think like an
> entrepreneur: is there a solution here that we can offer?   Can we
> transform GSM-as-usual into a transport?   If GSM is just the tube you
> use to get to the mobile device, and the number that you call isn't
> the GSM number, then you can intercede if the call isn't answered and
> capture the voicemail, perhaps in an Asterix PBX.   Once you have the
> voicemail, the phone can download it next time it has IP
> connectivity.   Voila: visual voicemail, no scraping needed.
>
> The question is, is this a service anyone would go to the trouble to
> use?   In some ways it would suck - no way to notify the phone that
> the voicemail is present if you're off the IP network.
>
> I think it's a ripe place to do some research, but whether it is
> actually useful, we'd have to see.   Personally, nothing against
> Cingular, but if I have to switch to them to get this feature, it's
> not worth it to me - I quite like t-mobile as a carrier in general.

When I thought about this i got a similar solution:
At least with some carriers you give them a number which should be
called if your mobile phone does not answer.
So we would give them the number of an Asterix box which answers the
call and save all relevant data(date/time, caller, voice...).

You said this would only be possible to use that when you are connected
to an IP network.
But why couldn't the Asterix box behave just as the carriers voice mails
do? It would call you back or send you an sms when you have voicemails
and then offer you either to hear it the "normal" why like carriers do
now or if you have an IP network connection to use a visual voicemail
system.

But I would like to go one step further: You could let the Asterix box
encode the data like caller and date in some "beeps" and then use the
phone to decode it and display it on the screen. And as it isn't that
much data it could be done in an acceptable amount of time time.

So in my opinion it is quite realistic to have visual voicemail on your
neo.

Lars



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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Lars-Peter Clausen]

Ted Lemon wrote:

On Jan 19, 2007, at 9:20 PM, Austin Taylor wrote:

Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it?


Think like a developer: how can we make it work?   Think like an 
entrepreneur: is there a solution here that we can offer?   Can we 
transform GSM-as-usual into a transport?   If GSM is just the tube you 
use to get to the mobile device, and the number that you call isn't 
the GSM number, then you can intercede if the call isn't answered and 
capture the voicemail, perhaps in an Asterix PBX.   Once you have the 
voicemail, the phone can download it next time it has IP 
connectivity.   Voila: visual voicemail, no scraping needed.


The question is, is this a service anyone would go to the trouble to 
use?   In some ways it would suck - no way to notify the phone that 
the voicemail is present if you're off the IP network.


I think it's a ripe place to do some research, but whether it is 
actually useful, we'd have to see.   Personally, nothing against 
Cingular, but if I have to switch to them to get this feature, it's 
not worth it to me - I quite like t-mobile as a carrier in general.


When I thought about this i got a similar solution:
At least with some carriers you give them a number which should be
called if your mobile phone does not answer.
So we would give them the number of an Asterix box which answers the
call and save all relevant data(date/time, caller, voice...).

You said this would only be possible to use that when you are connected
to an IP network.
But why couldn't the Asterix box behave just as the carriers voice mails
do? It would call you back or send you an sms when you have voicemails
and then offer you either to hear it the "normal" why like carriers do
now or if you have an IP network connection to use a visual voicemail
system.

But I would like to go one step further: You could let the Asterix box
encode the data like caller and date in some "beeps" and then use the
phone to decode it and display it on the screen. And as it isn't that
much data it could be done in an acceptable amount of time time.

So in my opinion it is quite realistic to have visual voicemail on your neo.

Lars



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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Sencer]

Disable voicemail w/ your carrier (if possible; otherwise just answer
before it kicks in).  Write a voicemail app for the phone that answers
the call after a few rings, plays a message, records response to local
memory.  Assuming we've got access to the caller ID data, that should
be everything needed to write a visual playback app.


The Sony Z5 did that in the nineties already. What this is missing is
all the calls you get when the phone is off or you don't have
coverage, which depending on where you live may be the majority of
calls/voicemails you are interested in.

But don't get me wrong: A voicemail app that runs and records on the
phone is great. I've been missing that feature ever since.


Sencer

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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Sven Neuhaus]

Austin Taylor schrieb:

 Visual voicemail requires back-end support from the carrier.


Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it?


Right. If there is some distinct signal (beep) between messages on your 
voicemail, the phone could probably recognize it. Otherwise it gets a 
lot more difficult.
We'd need a profile for every carrier (the users could help create the 
profiles).


-Sven

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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Jeremy Nikolai]

It's not up to the carrier to support it, if you're not depending on
the carrier's voicemail system.  This is an idea I'd been thinking about for
a while, and was the first thing I thought of when OpenMoko was
announced - since it takes access to the gsm module to be possible.

Disable voicemail w/ your carrier (if possible; otherwise just answer
before it kicks in).  Write a voicemail app for the phone that answers
the call after a few rings, plays a message, records response to local
memory.  Assuming we've got access to the caller ID data, that should
be everything needed to write a visual playback app.

Plus, you can do fun things like throwing in a simple turing test
("dial 7 if you're human", before even ringing/passing to voicemail),
or handling incoming numbers differently (ring immediately on
recognized numbers, send others straight to voicemail).

Pitfalls:
You lose the immediate ability to remotely access voicemail; the
functionality could easily be recreated in the phone, but your phone
needs to be on somewhere for it to work.  The whole thing would also
fail if you're phone's off or out of range - though carrier
voicemail's always there to fall back on.

For me, though, I can easily live with these limitations - I never use
remote access (I've always got my phone on me), and I can't remember
the last time I've looked at my phone and seen less than 4 bars.

As soon as 2/11 hits, this'll be my first goal.


On 1/19/07, David Schlesinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


 Visual voicemail requires back-end support from the carrier.


 On 1/19/07 5:34 PM, "Gervais Mulongoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


It is my understanding that Visual Voicemail is a feature that is purely
iPhone + Cingular.

 On 1/19/07, Christopher Ellison < [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 > wrote:

Might we be able to have visual voicemail, as advertised with the
 iPhone...or is this service provider dependent?

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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Ted Lemon]

On Jan 19, 2007, at 9:20 PM, Austin Taylor wrote:

Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it?


Think like a developer: how can we make it work?   Think like an  
entrepreneur: is there a solution here that we can offer?   Can we  
transform GSM-as-usual into a transport?   If GSM is just the tube  
you use to get to the mobile device, and the number that you call  
isn't the GSM number, then you can intercede if the call isn't  
answered and capture the voicemail, perhaps in an Asterix PBX.   Once  
you have the voicemail, the phone can download it next time it has IP  
connectivity.   Voila: visual voicemail, no scraping needed.


The question is, is this a service anyone would go to the trouble to  
use?   In some ways it would suck - no way to notify the phone that  
the voicemail is present if you're off the IP network.


I think it's a ripe place to do some research, but whether it is  
actually useful, we'd have to see.   Personally, nothing against  
Cingular, but if I have to switch to them to get this feature, it's  
not worth it to me - I quite like t-mobile as a carrier in general.



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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Austin Taylor]

Um, because, all other things being equal, you'd have to parse out an audio
stream to get at the information you'd need...?


Having just sent myself a voicemail and then listened to it, it seems
that the messages aren't denoted by tones like I had hoped. Knowing
what to record, then, would be rather difficult.

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Re: Visual Voicemail

[David Schlesinger]

On 1/19/07 8:56 PM, "Pius A. Uzamere II" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>> >The best bet may be to come up with a standard, well-designed API
>> >that carriers could implement to allow handsets to get visual voicemail.
>> >In a few years or less, some carriers may get behind it.
> 
That¹s absolutely the best approach, and the best forum in which to pursue
such things (in my opinion) is initiatives like the Linux Phone Standards
Forum, etc... See http://www.lipsforum.org...

An ad-hoc approach to a problem like this seems intemperate, hasty and prone
to fragmentation.


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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Pius A. Uzamere II]

The best bet may be to come up with a standard, well-designed API that
carriers could implement to allow handsets to get visual voicemail.  In a
few years or less, some carriers may get behind it.

On 1/19/07, David Schlesinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


On 1/19/07 8:20 PM, "Austin Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>>  Visual voicemail requires back-end support from the carrier.
>
> Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it?

Um, because, all other things being equal, you'd have to parse out an
audio
stream to get at the information you'd need...?

Just guessin'.

Me, I try to think like an engineer. You can use a chisel for a
screwdriver,
but it'll never be a good one.



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Re: Visual Voicemail

[David Schlesinger]

On 1/19/07 8:20 PM, "Austin Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>>  Visual voicemail requires back-end support from the carrier.
> 
> Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it?

Um, because, all other things being equal, you'd have to parse out an audio
stream to get at the information you'd need...?

Just guessin'.

Me, I try to think like an engineer. You can use a chisel for a screwdriver,
but it'll never be a good one.



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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Austin Taylor writes:
>>  Visual voicemail requires back-end support from the carrier.
>
>Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it?

No camera?

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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Austin Taylor]

 Visual voicemail requires back-end support from the carrier.


Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it?

Austin

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Re: Visual Voicemail

[David Schlesinger]

Visual voicemail requires back-end support from the carrier.


On 1/19/07 5:34 PM, "Gervais Mulongoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> It is my understanding that Visual Voicemail is a feature that is purely
> iPhone + Cingular.
> 
> On 1/19/07, Christopher Ellison < [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>  > wrote:
>> Might we be able to have visual voicemail, as advertised with the
>> iPhone...or is this service provider dependent?
>> 
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Re: Visual Voicemail

[Gervais Mulongoy]

It is my understanding that Visual Voicemail is a feature that is purely
iPhone + Cingular.

On 1/19/07, Christopher Ellison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Might we be able to have visual voicemail, as advertised with the
iPhone...or is this service provider dependent?

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