When signing up for Amazon EC2 I had to activate the service using my phone. I clicked a button that said "Call me now", then amazon displayed a PIN on my screen which I then had to key in my phone once I received a phone call from them. Once the call was completed my screen automatically updated and said I was approved.
Which service allows Amazon to do this? I know they're Twilio and other services but I'm wondering if anyone knows which service/API they use.
You could achieve that with Twillio. I just recently played with their API (through the PHP library they provide) and they make these kinds of things trivial.
So in this case, it sounds like you want Gather:
http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/gather
On top of the their markup, you can constantly poll for the status of a call, etc. so you can update your own application in real time, e.g. to reflect that the call finished or if the input was correct or incorrect.
Related
I am trying to use the sample code provided for Amazon Alexa API, and trying to run hello world / history buff examples through the computer. How do I test from my local machine, about the request and response formats. In the README file it is given to visit this website : http://echo.amazon.com/#skills, but I could see nothing there as it mentions more about connecting to the device. I dont have the device, but I would like to test things locally through my laptop.
We have a tool that we built specifically for this purpose:
https://bespoken.tools/blog/2016/08/24/introducing-bst-proxy-for-alexa-skill-development
Requests and responses from Alexa will be sent directly to your development laptop, so that you can quickly code and debug without having to do any deployments. We have found this to be very useful for our own development.
Our Github project is here:
https://github.com/bespoken/bst
We are also adding other useful commands for Alexa development.
Yes, the Test tab in the Alexa Developer Console allows you to interact completely with your skill during development.
You will type in your utterances instead of speaking them, but from a program logic perspective, there is no difference.
The Test page also provides a place to type in your skill's reponses, to see what they'll actually sound like. I recommend that you do so if you don't have an actual device. Sometimes adding or removing a comment can help make the responses easier to understand, or sound more natural.
Use http://ngrok.com
See my video for a tutorial:
https://youtu.be/eC2zi4WIFX0?t=108
I'm guessing the key point in OP's question is "dont have the device".
There is a web simulator at https://echosim.io
It behaves just like any other Alexa 'device'. Login with your Amazon account and it picks up all your selected skills, etc. Shows up as just another device in the Alexa app.
Only downsides: You have to click to talk, and it's pretty slow, presumably because it has to receive, buffer, convert and re-ship the audio.
Also, I'm not sure how you register/connect to the Alexa service in the first place without an Echo/Dot device, but I assume there is a way.
UPDATE:
More recently, there are a number of free 3rd-party apps on Android and iOS devices to also simulate an Alexa/Echo device. It can be less klunky than the web site. Search for 'Alexa' in your App/Play store and try a few of them out. "Reverb" is one: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reverb-for-amazon-alexa/id1144695621
Good luck.
I dont have the device, but I would like to test things locally
through my laptop.
If you are developing the skill using an AWS Lambda function in Python, have a look at: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/FirstAlexaSkills/0.1.2
It can generate custom Alexa events based on your parameters (utterances, slot variables) and allows you to create test cases against your local code, as well as against AWS Lambda itself.
You can also test your skill locally by following this tutorial:
How to test your Alexa skill locally
I am wondering if there is a way for a Firefox OS app to broadcast an event to all other apps and for the interested apps to hook on that event and trigger a corresponding action.
An example of use case I have in mind: the Camera app broadcasts the event "picture taken" and another app hooks on this event and take some action on the new picture that has been taken (for example, uploads it to a server).
There's not currently a web API in Firefox OS to broadcast events to all open and/or interested apps.
For your particular use-case of apps being notified when a new photo is taken by Camera, the best approach is probably to open DeviceStorage for "pictures" and listen to "change" events.
Documentation for this is at:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DeviceStorage
Alternatives exist but are more restricted functionally, and available in fewer releases and contexts:
The system can broadcast messages, but only certified apps can listen. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator.mozSetMessageHandler
The InterAppCommunication API allows web applications to message one or more other apps, but in a more tightly coupled way than a general broadcast. However this API is not yet standardized, and is only available to certified apps. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=876397
Access to system preferences is coming soon for non-certified apps, and maybe could be used to do this, but that's a hacky way of accomplishing messaging and data sharing. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SettingsManager
Note: For every example here, your app would have to be running for it to work. There's no mechanism for waking an app up when a specific action or event occurs. Web Activities is the closest API for event-specific app loading. Timers API is for non-specific app loading.
From this article[1]:
App authors can build an app that will handle one or more activities. That means that the app will be callable by another app to perform some specific actions defined by the activity. For example, let's pretend we want to build a photo manager. It could be used by another application to pick a photo. As an activity handler our app will become part of the other application's workflow.
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Activities
I am working on a product for Windows 8 that needs to perform some low-level tasks, display some UI, and communicate with an external server. I definitely need a Windows service to accomplish the low-level tasks. At the same time, I would like to use the cool features of Windows App Store apps, like push notifications, live tiles etc... for the UI. In this design, both my service and my app would communicate with my external server.
The flow would be something like: my Windows service sends some information to my server, which then sends a push notification to my App Store app.
I understand that deployment is not pretty in this scenario, but let's put that aside for now. My problem: How does the server know that the service and the app are on the same machine, and consequently linked together? i.e. When my Windows service sends information to the server, how does the server know where to send the push notification? I need is some sort of shared, unique, identifying information.
I have seen lots of discussion (usually frustrated in nature) about the lack of inter-process communication between App Store apps and desktop apps. In my case, I have two options:
Generate the exact same unique identifier in the service and in the app. This seems unlikely because apps don't seem to be able to access very much system-specific information. I'd love to be shown that I am wrong about this.
Generate a unique identifier in the server OR in the app and communicate it to the other component. Potential ways to do this:
Create the identifier in the app, save it to a file, and then access the file from the service.
Some sort of local socket solution (I've read this doesn't work, but have not tried)
Of course, option 2 seems likely to violate the Windows 8 app Certification Requirements, notably:
Windows Store apps must not communicate with local desktop
applications or services via local mechanisms, including via files and
registry keys.
Any advice would be most appreciated.
I'm not a lawyer, but if it says "via local mechanisms" then you could still possibly communicate via a cloud service as long as having both apps installed isn't necessary to have some features in the app or if you don't mean to publish the app in the store.
You could save some sort of a token in the documents folder or if your desktop app can run with appropriate permissions - it could access the local data folder of the Windows Store app to synchronize the token for use in communication with the web service.
Perhaps the user could just be asked to copy and paste a token between the two apps?
Just wondered if it was possible to send a toast from one WP7 phone to another.
Example of use:
User A presses a button on their phone to alert other users driving nearby with status "empty" that they are needed at the GPS location of User A
If anyone can provide some insight on if this is possible, and how it can be done, it would be great.
Thanks,
Can you?
No.
If I understand your question correctly, no it is not possible.
I understand your question to be "can I do this without having to implement something on a server somewhere?" And the answer to that is unfortunately "no".
What you will need to do as #softarn and #MrMDavidson alude to, you will need to implement something on the server.
But why not?
The reason for this is pretty simple. IF it was possible to do this, then it would open the door for abuse. Imagine if, without having to go through a Microsoft server, I could write a bit of code that would send push notifications constantly to all my users (who had downloaded my app of course). What happens if my users are on data plans that charge per bit? Well I've just screwed over a whole bunch of my users, and not only are they upset with me, they're upset with their stupid phone. Alternatively, what if Microsoft wants to give all windows phone users the option to get push notifications only every 15 minutes instead of immediately? Well, without operating as a go-between, Microsoft would be entirely unable to provide such functionality.
Here's how to fake it
So, in order to interact with toast notifications, it's a requirement that Microsoft gets to play middle man, so if needed, they can pull the plug on / monitor / regulate toast notifications on behalf of the user.
If you wanted to implement a bit of server code that emulated this behavior, that is certainly possible. As #MrMDavidson says, you'd basically need to take the following steps in the architecture of your app:
User's GPS location changes
WP7 app contacts a server that you own, notifying it that the user has moved
Your server code makes note of this, storing the data in a SQL database
After storing your new location, the server scans the SQL database for all other users of your app who are "nearby" and have their status set as "empty"
For each of the users in the database that match the criteria of being (a) nearby, and (b) having an empty status, the server code calls the user's "channel uri", sending the desired message
To your users, it's all the same
This would effectively accomplish your goal, and from the perspective of users, the experience would be seemless, and for all intents and purposes it will appear as if they got a notification directly from another user's phone.
Hope that clarifies things, I did assume you're familiar with the general workflow of sending Toast Notifications.
Happy coding!
Provided that User A's phone knows the push notification URI for User B's phone then, yes, you can send notifications from one phone to the other. However the question becomes; How do you distribute User B's notification URI to User A's phone? You'll either need an "offline" mechanism (email, for instance) or a server to act as a central repository. You're probably better off having a service layer over the top of the push notifications though to manage user-to-user relationships. Then User A's phone can say "Tell my friends that they're needed!". This can be an async-fire-and-forget call to your server. Your server can then implement retries and parallel execution to notify all User A's friends that they're needed at the location.
Yes of course it is possible. Read on to how push notifications work, though I don't think it will be as easy as you think. You'll need (I think) a server that the phones communicate through.
I'm trying to write the most basic application for windows phone 7 and want to be able to send files (specifically XML in case that changes anything) to my app. Currently I have a WCF service setup so I can send push notifications through it. The problem is that there is a limit on the amount of raw data I can send via a push notification.
My solution to this is to send the initial push notification (either tile or raw) to alert my application that I want to send a file to it and then make the app somehow communicate with a server (everything is on my personal computer btw - I'm just trying to figure out how things work) - from which the app will recieve/download the files.
What is the easiest way to accomplish this? Note that I'm not concerned with security or anything like that.
Clarification - the question is essentialy: how do I transfer files from/to a server to/from the phone? Assume everything else was handled - the app is up and running and the user has given or will give permissions to every possible thing he may give his permission to.
Unfortunately, the total size of a push notification (including HTTP headers) is 1kb. This means that it can't be used to send large amounts of data.
Instead of sending the whole file, send a notification (raw or toast—as appropriate) which should be treated by the application as a trigger to go and retrieve the new file/data/whatever from the server. It may also be worth checking for new messages when your app starts. However, if when you start the app it will notify the server that it is ready to receive raw notifications and such messages will be sent indicating new content is available, it may be unnecessary to add this extra check.
To transfer files to/from the phone you will need to use either HttpWebRequest or WebClient as this is the only way to use HTTP on the device and HTTP is the only protocol currently available to transfer data.
While WebClient may appear to be easier to use than HttpWebRequest it is less flexible and will automatically perform it's callback on the UI thread and if you're downloading files in the background you almost certainly don't want this.
There is no way to transfer files to/from a conencted PC and have them exclusively available to your app.
First of all: you won't be able to do this approach automatically - the user will have to open your app to do that because WP7 SDK doesn't allow your app to run on background/start automatically once a push notification is received.
The only way to communicate with your server, at this point in time, is web services. If I were you, I would check for new information available once the app is started, if there is new info, I would call one or more web services which would return me all the information that I need.
If you want, you can use a timer to check for information periodically.
As I said, it will only work while your app is running (check the app lifecycle if you don't know it yet), WP7 doesn't allow apps to run in background, that is a serious limitation IMHO.
Good Luck,
Oscar
Maybe a little bit off topic but when I was thinking about file sharing in my WP7 app, I found two approaches:
Integrate an app with Dropbox
Use advanced explorer for WP7
You can use the WebClient class and the DownloadStringAsync method in order to download data from a web service .
A good example of this is Scott Guthrie's Twitter app from MIX10 .
George