Using OpenTok apps on Mac OS X Lion 10.7

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Following the release of OS X Lion on Wednesday, Adobe Flash Player has had a series of compatibility issues with Apple’s new OS. The big problem for fans of OpenTok apps? You’re unable to click “allow” or “deny” on the Adobe Flash pop-up that appears before you join a video call.

Until the official Adobe & Apple fix is released, there are a few steps you’ll need to follow to make OpenTok powered apps work:

1) Open System Preferences
2) Open Flash Player from “Other”
3) Click on Camera and Mic
4) Click on Camera and Mic Settings by site…
5) Set static.opentok.com to allow

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You Fly, We Buy: Launch at Startup Riot Seattle

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Here at TokBox we love seeing you, our OpenTok developer community, build awesome applications. To help make your OpenTok app a success, TokBox is sponsoring travel to Startup Riot Seattle for two deserving OpenTok app developers.

Apply now!

So what exactly is Startup Riot? Startup Riot is an all-day event which highlights 25 startups through three minute, four slide presentations given by the startups. The startups subsequently answer questions from a judging panel for three minutes.

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Adding metadata on connections

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You can now attach metadata for each client that connects to a session. For example, you can add information about the connecting user. When a client connects to the session, all existing clients connected to the session can access the metadata for the new connection.

You add this metadata by passing it into the generate_token() method of the OpenTok server-side library. The metadata is then securely embedded in the token string. Here’s an example, using the OpenTok PHP library:

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My Favorite Things

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This week I’ve been travelling the east coast, hittin’ up various events. I’ve learned about a bunch of new stuff I didn’t know about, so I thought I would share some of…

JON’S FAVORITE THINGS!!!

This is the reaction I expect out of all of you:

Okay, my favorite things are:

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Why your company should do an internal hackathon

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Originally posted at blog.mumm.me

Hackathons are awesome.

At TokBox we put our normal schedule aside for a couple days to run our first internal hackathon. The rules were simple: pitch an idea, form teams, build something, then demo it 30 hours later. The winning team would get a prize.

My team didn’t win (though we were proudly among the first losers), but it was a really positive experience. Here’s why I think every company should try doing an internal hackathon:

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OpenTok Apps: Lollapaloobox

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It’s been three weeks since I’ve started my internship.  Since then, I have worked on quite a few projects, ranging from showcase to prototype apps. The one in particular that I’m quite proud of is Lollapaloobox; a mash-up between the OpenTok & Hacklolla APIs. The web app allows users to enjoy the full concert experience from the comfort of their homes.

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Yo Google, Skype – what about the web?

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The big guys are duking it out again, and this time video chat is front and center. In the past few days Google unveiled Google+ with video “Hangouts”, Microsoft-owned Skype released the SkypeKit SDK and there is speculation that Facebook may announce next week it is bringing video chat to the social network.

There’s one thing missing in all of this. The web.

Google+ is surely a nice piece of work and Hangouts is great – and we love anything that makes video conversations more common – but these ‘new’ innovations are actually not new at all, they are alternatives to what we already have, just in a new location. They do nothing to help bring video chat to the web outside of the Hangout.

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OpenTok now supports echo-cancellation

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Several factors deeply impact the experience one has in a group or one-one video chat conversation. There exists a vast body of literature analyzing the various human factors impacting interpersonal communication, via a computer, such as affinity, commitment and attention. Human-Computer interaction experts, social scientists and computer researchers have studied the various dimensions which make the subjective experience of people participating in a conversation compelling.

Audio quality is one such critical component.

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The Bibbil boys brings video chat to Facebook

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We’re very excited to welcome Bibbil, the newest app leveraging OpenTok, to the TokBox family. Bibbil enables users to connect face-to-face with friends directly in Facebook; there aren’t any required downloads, installations or programs running outside of the browser. With two simple clicks within Facebook, users are video chatting with selected friends.

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Help LollapalooBox become HackLolla’s winner – Vote now!

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HackLolla, a developer contest put on by the Lollapalooza organizers, is looking for the coolest app that helps music fans get the most out of the Lollapalooza experience.

Voting has officially begun and we need your support! You can vote for our app, LollapalooBox, through July 10th, 2011 by going HERE and clicking the blue “vote” button.

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