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:
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…
This is the reaction I expect out of all of you:
Okay, my favorite things are:
Seb Lee-Delisle gave an absolutely smashing talk at GothamJS on Saturday about particle physics on the HTML5 Canvas. He did a live code-along and in less than forty minutes we all made some HTML5 eye candy just like in this video:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
This past weekend Tokbox was at Game Hack Day in NYC and we must say it was more fun than we expected. The organizers had a great set of API presentations which included Foursquare, Twilio, OMGPOP, Aviary, and of course OpenTok. We also had the pleasure of learning more about some pretty cool libraries and hardware to hack with. They really went all out, even procuring Parot AR Drones and Microsoft Kinect devices to entice the participants and spark some creativity.
Las Vegas Startup Weekend was this past weekend with a star-studded panel of judges, including Kevin Rose (tea enthusiast and Packer fan), Tom Anderson (everybody’s MySpace friend), Tony Hsieh (deliverer of happiness), Ryan Carson (ThinkVitamin founder), and Josh Reich (banking disrupter).
