Interactive Rich Media

Voxeo offers three main application platforms for free to developers: CallXML, CCXML, and VoiceXML.

The Prophecy 8.0 - CallXML 3.0 platform allows developers to build robust IVR applications using only static content. CallXML suits the needs of most telephony applications that use touchtone input (DTMF).

The Prophecy 8.0 - CCXML W3C 1.0 platform allows to deploy the next-generation conferencing/call routing applications to ensure that they will stand the test of time.

The Prophecy 8.0 - VoiceXML 2.1platform includes the Voxeo ASR engine (available only in US English) and is the world’s first and only 100% certified-compliant VoiceXML 2.0 browser. The Prophecy Platform supports all the VoiceXML 2.1 additions and enhancements, as well as the SISR/SRGS grammar formatting standards. It also includes legacy support for the older GSL and JSGF grammar formats.

I created an account a few years ago to do my first trials with VoiceXML. Today I updated the account and started with a new HelloWorld test application. The telephone numbers to access the application are the following:

• Skype VoIP :  +99000936 9991425592
• SIP VoIP :  sip:9991425592@sip.voxeo.net
• iNum Number : +883510001801392

iNum Number from Luxembourg : +352 20880108 p 883510001801392

If calling from a mobile phone (for instance with a BlackBerry) to an iNum number, you have to insert a pause between the local number and the iNum number by using the menu during the number editing.

My first iNum call to the HelloWorld application was succesfully established today at 21h21 with my mobile phone.

An iNum is a new kind of global phone number that is not tied to any country or location. It uses a new +883 global country code that was recently created by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union). An iNum offers several compelling advantages:

• It is a global phone number that will be able to be called from anywhere in the world
• It is a portable phone number in that it is not tied to a specific country
• Calls to an iNum can be free from some service providers and may be inexpensive from other providers
• It is reachable from both the traditional Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and also from Voice-over-IP (VoIP) providers

The +883 country code used for iNums is still in the process of being deployed globally across the existing PSTN. As a result, users in some countries may not be able to dial an iNum directly on their existing PSTN carrier. To assist users whose carriers do not yet support the +883 country code, Voxbone, the carrier behind the iNum initiative, has set up local phone numbers in 45 countries. For Luxembourg, this number is +352 20880108. Simply dial this local access number and dial the chosen iNum afterwards.

iNum is an initiative launched by Voxbone, supplier of local telephone numbers to communications services providers and businesses worldwide. Voxbone is a privately held company with offices in Brussels, Singapore and Los Angeles.

An iNum will be automatically assigned to developers of a new application on the free VoiceXML VOXEO platform.

Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle. A detailed overview about the Eclipse software is available at Wikipedia.

I started a year ago to use the EUROPA version (platform 3.3) of Eclipse to develop JAVA applications for the web. I changed now to the new release GANYMEDE (plaform 3.4.) published in june 25th, 2008. I use the IDE for Java EE Developers (163 MB) with tools for Java developers creating JEE and Web applications.

A tutorial how to create servlets with Eclipse has been published on the Java Tips website. A french tutorial about servlets and jsp pages with Eclipse and Tomcat is available at the website of Serge Tahé (Maître de conférences en Informatique à l’université d’Angers). Another useful tutorial about Struts (méthode de développement gérée par l’Apache Software Foundation qui a pour but de fournir un cadre standard de développement d’applications web en Java respectant l’architecture dite MVC : Modèle – Vue – Contrôleur ) has been edited by the same author.

Other interesting tutorials are listed below :

• Russell Bateman and Etretat Logiciels, LLC : Using the Eclipse Web Tools Platform with Apache Tomcat
• Marty Hall and Larry Brown : Core servlets and JavaServer Pages
• www.codestyle.org : JAVA servlets FAQ

To integrate my existing Java projects in Eclipse, I created a new Java Project in the Eclipse Workspace, copied the folder with the source files in this new project folder and executed the file - refresh menu.