By 
The Web Speech API has two functions, speech synthesis, otherwise known as text to speech, and speech recognition. With the SpeechSynthesis API we can command the browser to read out any text in a number of different voices.
From a vocal alerts in an application to bringing an Autopilot powered chatbot to life on your website, the Web Speech API has a lot of potential for web interfaces. Follow on to find out how to get your web application speaking back to you.
What you'll need
If you want to build this application as we learn about the SpeechSynthesis API then you'll need a couple of things:
- A modern browser (the API is supported across the majority of desktop and mobile browsers)
- A text editor
Once you're ready, create a directory to work in and download this HTML file and this CSS file to it. Make …
On the web we can capture media streams from the user's camera, microphone and even desktop. We can use those media streams for real time video chat over WebRTC and with the MediaRecorder API we can also record and save audio or video from our users directly in a web browser.
To explore the MediaRecorder API let's build a simple audio recorder app with just HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Getting started
To build this application all we need is a text editor and a browser that supports the MediaRecorded API. At the time of writing, supported browsers include Firefox, Chrome and Opera. There is also work ongoing to bring this API to Edge and Safari.
To get started, create a folder to work in and save this HTML file and this CSS file to give us something to start with. Make sure they are in the same folder …
When AWS launched Lambda in 2014 there was no love for Ruby. Platforms like Python, Node.js, and Java started the serverless revolution for hosting and running functions in the cloud. At the end of 2018, support for Ruby was finally launched.
You can build with Ruby on Lambda using raw functions and Serverless Application Model (SAM) templates as described in the getting started guide for Ruby on Lambda, but Ruby is all about developer happiness and when the config file is longer than your program the process could be described as painful. Enter the Jets framework a framework that "leverages the power of Ruby to make serverless joyful for everyone."
From Rails to Jets
Jets combines the experience of building a Rails application with the ability to deploy to AWS Lambda and related services, including API Gateway, S3, and DynamoDB. In this post we're going to …
With the Twilio API for WhatsApp we can send messages to WhatsApp numbers. Those messages can be plain text or include files like images, audio and even PDFs up to 5MB. Let's see how to do so using Ruby.
Things you'll need
If you want to code along with this post, you'll need a few things:
- A Twilio account (sign up for a free account now)
- Ruby and Bundler installed
- The WhatsApp Sandbox Channel installed (learn how to activate your WhatsApp sandbox)
Got all that? Let's get coding then!
Create a new directory for your project and use Bundler to initialise a new Gemfile:
mkdir whatsapp-messages cd whatsapp-messages bundle init
Open up the new Gemfile and add the twilio-ruby gem:
# frozen_string_literal: true source "https://rubygems.org" gem "twilio-ruby"
Install the gem by running bundle install on the command line.
Sending your first WhatsApp message
Create a …
If you're building a Twilio project you will inevitably need to run some code in response to an incoming webhook request. One of the easiest ways to do this is with Twilio Functions, our serverless platform for running Node.js. Recently my colleague Dominik released the twilio-run package that makes it easier to develop, test and debug Twilio Functions locally.
I wanted to make it even easier to get started with a Twilio Functions project, so I built a project generator called create-twilio-function.
Let's take a look at how you can easily start and develop a Twilio Functions project using create-twilio-function and twilio-run.
Getting started
There are a few ways you can use create-twilio-function. The easiest is if you have npm version 6 or higher. You can check this out on the command line with:
$ npm --version 6.9.0
If you don't have an up to …
Did you know you can send and receive media using the Twilio API for WhatsApp? When I found out I wanted to make something fun with it, so why not combine it with AWS Rekognition to work out if I look like any celebrities?
By the end of this post, you'll know how to build an app that lets you send an image to a WhatsApp number, download the image, analyse the image with the AWS Rekognition API and respond to say whether there are any celebrities in the picture.
What you'll need
To build this application you'll need a few things:
- A Twilio account, sign up for a free one here
- An AWS account
- Ruby and Bundler installed
- ngrok to help us test our webhooks
Got all that? Let's get started then.
Application basics
When Twilio receives a WhatsApp message it will send an HTTP request, a webhook …
Have you ever needed to download and save an image in your Ruby application? Read on to find out how.
Plain old Ruby
The most popular way to download a file without any dependencies is to use the standard library open-uri.
Kernel#open is a method that you can use to open files, streams, or processes to read to or write from. For example, you can open a file and read its contents with the following code:
open("./test.txt") do |file| puts file.read end
open-uri extends Kernel#open so that it can open URIs as if they were files. We can use this to download an image and then save it as a file.
To do so, we first require open-uri then use the open method to access an image URL. We can then open up a file and write the contents of the image …
Twilio Programmable Chat provides an SDK and robust back-end for real time chat applications, but it's missing a front-end. If you need a chat UI, as well as a whole bunch of other useful components, then KendoReact might be what you're looking for.
Kendo UI provides well designed and tested components that you can use within your React, Angular, Vue and jQuery applications. In this post we will build a Twilio Chat application with React and the KendoReact conversational UI components.
What you'll need
If you want to build along with this tutorial, then you'll need a few things:
- A Twilio account (you can sign up for a Twilio account for free here)
- A Twilio Chat service and an API key and secret, both of which you can create in the Twilio console (keep these nearby, you'll need them soon)
- Node.js to build our React app …
It's 2019 and you need to receive a fax. What do you do? You could buy a fax machine, hook it up to a phone line and hand out your number. But it's 2019 not 1979, we're living in the future, so let's grab Node.js, pick a couple of APIs and turn that fax into an email instead.
You're going to need a Twilio account, a SendGrid account and this noise to remind you what you're missing out on as you build your very own fax-to-email converter.
Receiving a fax
Rather than bulky machinery we're going to use a Twilio number to receive our incoming faxes. You're going to need a Twilio number that supports fax to build this app, so log in to your Twilio account. You can buy a new number or you may already have one, just look for this icon to show that …
We talk a lot about sending SMS messages from web applications, but what about sending SMS messages from a React application? There's a bit more to it than just the server-side version, but it won't take us long.
Why shouldn't I use the REST API from the client-side?
Technically you could send an SMS using the Twilio REST API directly from a JavaScript client-side application. But (and it's a very big "but") if you were to do that, you would expose your Twilio credentials to anyone using your site. A malicious user could then take those credentials and abuse them, running up a huge bill with your account.
Live view of a hacker with your account credentials
To avoid this we will create a back end application that implements the Twilio REST API, wraps up your credentials and sends SMS messages for you. Then you can call your …