[AG-TECH] AG calling

Derek Piper dcpiper at indiana.edu
Fri Jan 19 11:23:23 CST 2007


	Hi all,

	Something I was thinking about was the differences between AG and H.323 
and I was wondering if a 'blend' of the two, in a way, would be an 
interesting direction to go in.
	What I'm thinking about is this, and of course there are many questions 
and details to work out but I thought I'd bring it up to see what people 
might think:

A 'Call server' that people log in to when the 'AG caller' client 
starts, analogous to the IM server, Jabber server or H.323 'gateway'
	Allows IM communication with all those connected
	'Buddy lists' to see who's on?
	What about distribution of servers.. would you need an account on every 
server in the world? what about a registry of servers?

IM 'calling' ..i.e. make a noise, flash something.. get user attention.
	nicer than speakers on hanging around in a venue
	people who don't know you're on or where you're on may stand a better 
chance of contacting you :>

Initiate video call just allocates IP addresses in the same way as a 
venue and runs media tools against either multicast or unicast to a 
bridge if that preference is set.
	Simple 2-way video conferencing. We've achieved 'AG Skype'

Add another participant to a 'call' by invite or by messaging each 
participant.

Could also move to 'conference room' which is the same as an AG venue is 
now.
	Maybe launch full AG VenueClient at that venue?
	Then you could do the same shared-app stuff as we have now.


	I'm kicking this around as a possibility and a direction for a project 
either as something that the AGtk moves towards or is an add-on for it. 
One of the things I've noticed is that polycoms are often used as a back 
channel and an ad-hoc meeting method because you can *call* someone. 
It's a videophone. AG relies on someone turning up where you are, and 
that's sometimes very awkward and not what people want to do.
	Basically to implement it seeing as we have a Jabber integration 
doesn't seem that hard on the surface. The client would start off to 
appearing something like GAIM, Psi or Skype and you place a video call 
to someone or start a conference in a venue.

	I'm curious to hear some points of view about it.

	Derek

-- 
Derek Piper - dcpiper at indiana.edu - (812) 856 0111
IRI 323, School of Informatics
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana




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