Output42 is developing an application in the sphere of assisted living, aiming to help those with Dementia, Alzheimers and similar mental impairments. A feature of this app is extremely simple video conferencing and the ability to make calls out to landlines. Skype has an API that is usable only for voice calls, SkypKit Beta is not easily available and certainly it would seem not to a precocious upstart like output42. So what to do? We have currently implemented a solution from wowza which works well over broadband but has latency issues and requires the latest Flashplayer Beta to overcome echo problems, but it works and we are grateful. Other issues are that there is no land line calling and it is only available to be installed in a web client, we overcome this by embedding a browser in the app, messy, but for a prototype acceptable.
Recently we have stumbled upon ooVoo. Its a skype-a-like app that has really good fast free 1 to 1 video conferencing and has what looks like a very usable developer API, both for web and windows. It claims to have a million users currently so its are not going to fold overnight, we hope…
So off we go down the road with ooVoo, wish us luck and if anyone out there has a “why dont you use this instead” moment, share it please and we will try it.
Analysts say Microsoft’s aim in buying Skype is to improve its video conferencing services…. good good news
The dev team at output42 have been waiting for a decent API to allow us to hook into skype video. Several months ago Skype announced its Skypekit Beta program, it was to provide a rich API to allow developers to target of all kinds of devices with Skype connectivity. Judging by the activity on the Skypekit website it seems to have withered on the vine.
Lets hope that microsoft pick up the mantle and roll out an API that lets developers create great video enabled apps.
In the meantime wowza is it for us.
At Output42 we do projects for customers, often on legacy code and oddly enough they are happy to pay for us to test the changes. So, we do a good job on the enhancements and testing and before you know it they are back for more, Krrrching! You then do some more and test the changes and the changes you made previously, release it and they are happy, Krrrrching! and so the cycle repeats. However it all starts to fall apart when you have done this many times and the job of testing the changes gets to unmanageable, unprofitable proportions … gulp.
Enter automated testing. At Output42 our testing team has settled on using seleniun as the framework for testing web applications. We will try and share the whole story, warts and all.
We have been rather busy recently, expanding our presence on the internet. Our sales team has totally monopolized our web design team to complete multiple websites in a very short time. It was a few weeks of hard work for everyone, but we’re proud of the results. First, we’ve launched two new product lines:
Aviation42 is a product and services brand dedicated to aviation, based on our many years of experience in the industry. We’re feeling very enthusiastic about this offering and the positive feedback we’ve had from the first customers.
Logistics42 is a new brand for our supply chain support toolset, where we combined Greg’s experience with insight from one of our largest customers. In short: this one will be a killer app.
We’ve also felt that our home market in Poland has been a little underloved for quite a while. So, after a couple of weeks of brainstorming, sketching, designing, testing and redesigning we’ve come up with a new Polish website we really like – output42.com.pl – In fact we like it so much, we’ve decided to give our main English website a similar makeover in the next few weeks.
And there is of course the one last thing… We would like you to get to know us better so we’re starting this blog as a little sneak-peek behind our PR firewall. Please bookmark us and come back for more tidbits and stories about life in Output42.
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