The optk Developer Command Line Utility

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tokbox-inc_markWhen I’m working on developing an OpenTok application, I want to move fast. As a software engineer, I have loads of little workflow shortcuts, scripts, tricks, and favorite tools. When I started to build optk, I wanted to shave off just a couple seconds off of something that I had to do dozens of times a day.

I usually start my OpenTok project building the client, whether that be using the OpenTok JavaScript SDK, iOS SDK, or Android SDK. A button here, a label there, fill out the menu, and then add some WebRTC-powered streaming goodness. At that point I’m not worried about how Sessions and Tokens are going to be generated, that’s a concern for my server, and I’ll solve that after I have some basic tangible UX.

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Crowdcast: Live Video Events That Don’t Suck

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CrowdcastThe evolution of live video has spawned new and engaging ways for brands, organizations and people to connect with their audience. Whether it’s participating in a team meeting held remotely, hosting a virtual conference for hundreds of people all over the world, demo-ing a new product to customers via a webinar, or broadcasting a live stream of an event, there is no question live video is now becoming a standard feature in any business or entrepreneur’s communication toolkit.

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TechTok: Driving Growth with Engagement Automation for Mobile Applications

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techtoksWhat are the biggest challenges for mobile app developers?  And why does success with mobile remain so elusive?

At this month’s TechTok, Streethawk CEO, David Jones, will be answering some of these questions.  He’ll be talking to us about how top apps use engagement automation to drive growth, focusing on virality, look-a-likes & referral programs as well as big recurring issues including:

• User retention

• Cost of paid acquisition

• Why referral growth has been constrained until now

• Onboarding and engagement tactics

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New Release: OpenTok iOS & Android 2.7.0

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OpenTok mobile SDKsWe’re happy to announce that we recently made available OpenTok mobile SDKs 2.7.0 for iOS and Android.  Improvements have been made in three main areas: Xcode 7 and iOS 9 support, quality and reliability and ease of use of the library.

Now let’s jump into all the details:

Platform specific

Xcode 7 and iOS 9 support

A beta bitcode version of the OpenTok iOS SDK is now available here.  For more information about this update you can check out our blog post. If you have any comments or need to report any issues, please contact us at: ios-bitcode-beta@tokbox.com.

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White paper: The Real-Time Revolution in e-Learning

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EDULinkedIn2

It is estimated that by 2019 50% of all higher ed classes will be delivered online. So there’s no doubt that education, both in and outside of the classroom, is entering a whole new era.

The first wave of e-Learning impacted education, bringing educational resources online. But the second wave – active e-Learning using technologies like WebRTC – is set to revolutionize it, creating new interactive experiences with communications in context.  In the real world, this means that a student in Detroit can now be tutored in calculus by a math teacher in New York or college students at MIT, UCLA, and Oxford collaborate together on an article to be submitted to a renowned academic journal.

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TechTok catch up – Changing the face of robotics

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kubidocAt this month’s TechTok, the team from Revolve Robotics came along to talk about all things robots: how robotics have changed and continue to do so, the evolution and potential of telepresence robots, as well as how you can leverage the OpenTok platform and Kubi robotics capabilities to build powerful and engaging telepresence robots.

Revolve Robotics CTO, Ilya Polykov, and CEO, Marcus Rosenthal spoke about their integration of OpenTok and Kubi.  If this is something you are working on or are interested in, check out their API.   If you’re developing an app based on the OpenTok platform and want to use Kubi, this API will help you make this happen in a matter of days.

If you’re interested in buying your own Kubi robot, you can get $100 off your online purchase using the promo code ‘tokbox’ at checkout for a limited time only.

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TechTok: Application Security’s Last Mile – The Future is Reactive

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techtoks2015 is notable in the number of sites that have been compromised by hackers, and the outlook continues to look grim. Companies have been rushing headlong into putting services online, prioritizing functionality above all. Up-time and scale, which has plagued early the early internet, while still a challenge, has improved significantly; however, security failures continue to get worse. This calls for a new approach. Application Security has been focused on vulnerability prevention, and static controls. In a world of continuous delivery, security needs to be continuous. In a world where hackers act faster than companies can patch, security needs to be adaptive, and responsive. What’s missing is defending the Application in production. This is Application Security’s Last Mile, and will be the focus of this talk.

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Introducing the Interactive Broadcast Solution

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TokBox's Interactive Broadcast SolutionOver the last 5 years, we’ve helped hundreds of companies create rich and engaging applications with OpenTok powered live video and voice. Now, we’re bringing broadcasters and brands (who are now broadcasters too) unprecedented audience engagement with the launch of our new Interactive Broadcast Solution.

Until now live broadcasting applications have focused on one-way streaming. This works well for conferences or events. But now, Interactive Broadcast is the first solution to enable multi-­party panels, video-based audience participation, and an on-brand experience for website and application owners. The Interactive Broadcast Solution gives broadcasters the tools they need to bring user-generated content and viewer-participation content to both online and TV audiences.

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When a Chrome update breaks your WebRTC application

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chrome logoEarly December saw the roll-out of Chrome 47. When doing anything with WebRTC, this is always an interesting time. A release brings new features or may break things, like removing the getUserMedia functionality for insecure origins.

Our metrics clearly track such roll outs as seen below:

# of OpenTok calls

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Demo App: Building with the Pre-Call API

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// _ // ]]>GUEST POST: WebRTC.ventures is a custom design & development agency focused on building WebRTC applications. They are part of AgilityFeat, which is one of our development partners at TokBox. Jean Lescure from their team wanted to share their experiences using our new API for detecting call quality.

DemoBack in August TokBox announced their new Pre-Call API, for testing out bandwidth conditions, and posted a repository on github with a proof of concept. At WebRTC.ventures we saw a great opportunity to build upon that project and got working on creating a demo app out of it, including a server implementation in NodeJS which is compatible with Heroku.

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