Cool tool- need to try this out– Jon’s Phone Tool (JPT) uses a Bluetooth mobile phone, your Mac’s modem, or speakers to dial the phone. JPT can also make calls via Vonage, CallVantage, Skype, Ovolab Phlink, Parliant’s PhoneValet, an Asterisk PBX server, IP-based telephony devices, or SIP softphones by Xten Networks, Inc. for use with many VoIP services. Link.
Great write up, background and tinkering- a homemade PBX system! Eight telephone extensions with roughly telco spec voltages and currents (48V onhook, 90VRMS 20Hz sinusoidal ringing, about 25mA loop current offhook.) Ring trip is sub-spec but can handle at least 3 “500” type rotary dial telephone sets in parallel without false tripping. Lines are not balanced, nor is one side ground. [via] Link.
Here’s a good post from 1993 on making a circuit to use old phones as inter-comms- Talking over the phones is easy. You put DC current through the phone and it transmits and receives audio. So two phones and a current source (about 25mA) all in series will give you a talking circuit. A suitable current source can be as simple as a 9V battery and a series resistor whose value is adjusted (with both phones offhook) till about 25mA flows. Link.
Four contestants. Four phones. One Big Prize. We took four heavyweights from the digital art and design worlds, gave them a bottom-of-the-line touchtone phone, and challenged them to transform it into the “uberphone”. Watch their progress as they go head-to-head in the ultimate nerd deathmatch, and then cast your vote on the most tricked-out phone. I’m surprised Vonage sponsored something like this, nice. I hope they post the HOW TOs later. Link.
This new toool is called The Car Whisperer and allows people equipped with a Linux Laptop and a directional antenna to inject audio to, and record audio from bypassing cars that have an unconnected Bluetooth handsfree unit running. Since many manufacturers use a standard passkey which often is the only authentication that is needed to connect. [via] Link.
Memories! “BBS: The Documentary” is an 8 episode series about all aspects of the history of the dial-up Bulletin Board System, or BBS. 3 years in the making and the result of over 200 interviews, this collection puts in one convenient package a sense of the variety and wide-reaching effects of the BBS phenomenon. All in all, over seven and a half hours of material is included across the three region-free DVDs. [via] Link.
Ars Technica has a great guide which demystifies Voice over IP, Asterisk and a lot of the technical jargon associated with using the internet to make phone calls. VoIP, POTS, SIP, h.323 and IAX are covered. If you’re considering a an open source PBX check out the Asterisk info and resources in the article Link.
