- There was a need for an Organisation to build a phone network for use by their employees. Unlike the yester-years where telephony was analog and it required switching exchanges to route calls. The Govt or large corporations would set up Private Branch Exchanges (PBX) for this function. Now a days calls can be made digitally on the internet itself given that a server can appropriately route them to their chosen destinations. Voice over IP is used to digitally transmit packets over IP on the network to enable calling. There is a need for a VOIP server and clients that can talk to each other just like the old phone network. This can be easily achieved using robust opensource tools.
- Asterisk is an opensource PBX that has been around for a long period of time. Asterisk is an open source framework for building communications applications. Asterisk turns an ordinary computer into a communications server. Asterisk powers IP PBX systems, VoIP gateways, conference servers and other custom solutions. It is used by small businesses, large businesses, call centers, carriers and government agencies, worldwide. Asterisk is free and open source. https://www.asterisk.org/
- For the VOIP Client Linphone is a good choice. There was need for a command line interface to auto dial a call, etc.https://www.linphone.org/
- The above video demonstrates a few capabilites of the system. As can be seen a netbook was used to run the Asterisk Server and configure various VOIP clients to be given numbers that they can be reached at. A couple of spare Raspberry Pis were used to run linphone as VOIP call originators/receivers.
- The first part of the video shows how to dial an RPI receiver using a phone as a VOIP originator. Linphone on the RPI is configured to auto answer the calls and play the message for the intended recepient.
- In the second part, Asterisk can be used to broadcast audio to various configured end clients. As can be seen any call on a configured public number is broadcast to all the clients and played out in public. One use of such a system is in Airports, etc. This system can also be extended for say conditional broadcast for eg. informing the public of an illegally parked car determined so by using computer vision, etc.
Leg Brake on a Bicycle Growing up, there was a need to learn how to drive a geared motor cycle and also get a driver's license. There are two categories of two wheeler licenses: one for geared vehicles usually with leg brakes and one for auto/non-geared vehicles where the braking happens by hand and are simpler to operate. Driving license had already been acquired for the non-geared vehicle but due to lack of availability of a geared vehicle for practice, the acquiring of this license was taking quite some time. The main problem was adapting to braking a vehicle using the leg where one to respond differently and the conditioning takes some time. Unfortunately could not manage to get anybody/s vehicle for learning after many attempts. And at that time (1995 or so) bicycles were rather common and used for transport. So an idea was: why not add such a feature to a bicycle. A Hercules Town and Trek was also available. After some visits to the local bicycle shop and a used vehicle part...
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