If you're reading this article, you've probably heard about all the exciting things, products, and services you can build with a Twilio number. You can send and receive SMS, receive calls, design an Interactive Voice Response (IVR), and code any telecom scenario you can think of in your favorite language. And it all starts with a Twilio phone number.

But, unfortunately, it is sometimes not so easy to purchase a number. We developers are often unaware that national regulations determine who is allowed to acquire a telephone number and under what conditions.

Many legislators prefer this approach because it helps prevent abuse and spam. However, it can be a challenge for us, as some legislators are stricter, while others are more relaxed, allowing easier access …

It is crucial for my mum to talk to her children every day. She loves talking with us, even if it’s just to listen to our voices.

Now that we are grown up, and we don’t live in the same house anymore, she continues her ritual. She takes time every evening to call us one by one with her phone. Sometimes it’s not easy for her, but she never misses a single day without doing it.

One day I asked her why she didn’t call us in a group like on Facebook or Zoom. She answered that it would take time for her to configure the internet, login into her account, etc. Then I started to imagine a way for her to reach all of her children with a single phone call.

If you face the same problem as my mum, or you just want to call multiple people with …

There are few things more frustrating than sending a test message or call to your application and not getting through – especially if you check the Twilio logs and see that your call or message never reached the number. If you’re a developer in India, your development process might be running up against some special telephony restrictions.

It is important to understand India’s messaging limitations before you consider developing an app to send SMS to Indian mobile devices. However, if you just need to test an application that is being developed for deployment in other countries, the Twilio Dev Phone is a great solution.

Limitations of Twilio SMS to Indian mobile devices

When sending messages to India from Twilio, your Twilio phone number won’t appear as the sender of the message: the sender ID will be changed by the carrier before your SMS messages are delivered to end users. Usually …

Twilio SIGNAL 2022イベントで「顧客エンゲージメントの好循環」と題した45分間のスポットライト講演をお届けしました。同講演ではTwilioとGoogle Cloudの両テクノロジーを活用し、対話型AI戦略を実現したテクノロジー志向の自動車メーカー「Owl Car」(架空)の事例を紹介しました。Owl Carは、Twilioが開発した「Google Cloud Dialogflow CX(CCAI)との1-クリック音声統合」を使用して、Twilio Voice、Twilio Segment、Twilio FlexによるConversational AIエクスペリエンスを強化しました。

このブログ記事では、Google Cloudのフセイン・チノイさんと私とで1-クリック統合の仕組みをデモンストレーションし、本統合機能の優位性を皆さんに理解いただき、Twilioが提供する強力なコミュニケーション機能の活用方法と、拡張性が高く堅牢・安全なバーチャルエージェントをDialogflow CX上に構築するためのベストプラクティスを紹介します。また、その過程でOwl Carの例をさらに発展させ、ユースケースの詳細とOwl Carが実装に用いたデザインパラダイムを共有し、ここで提供する例をベースに皆さんが独自のソリューションを構築・発展させられるよう、参考となる記事にしたいと思います。

前提条件

このブログ記事を最大限に活用いただくために、1-クリック統合のオンボー …

Automation is essential to improving the efficiency of any process. By harnessing technology solutions for monotonous tasks, human resources are freed up for use in more intricate aspects of the process. An excellent example of this is automating notifications and reminders using phone calls.

In this article, I will show how to build a Go web application which, when provided with a phone number, will make an automated phone call to the provided phone number and play one of three pre-recorded audio files. But keeping with the spirit of the season the caller will be greeted with a spooky Halloween message.

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, you need the following:

• A free Twilio account
• A Twilio phone number
• A phone that can make and receive phone calls
• A basic understanding of Go
• Go 1.19
• Git

Set up the project

The first thing you need to do is to create a …

Halloween is right around the corner, which means it's time to prepare a costume, stock up on treats, create fun DIY projects with Twilio, and think of ways to scare friends and family.

In this blog post, I will teach you how to build a spooky Halloween IVR (Interactive Voice Response) project using Twilio Studio, our low-code/no-code application builder with drag and drop widgets.

After you’ve built this program, you can use it to scare your friends & family. I’m sure you’ll get some reactions like this:

Want to try it out yourself? Make sure your phone isn’t set to Do Not Disturb, then send a text message to +1(940) 394-8137. But beware, it’s creepy.

This blog post is structured as follows:

1. Prerequisites: Things you need before continuing
2. Twilio Studio Flow: Create a Flow, then build our project with drag and drop widgets
3. Twilio Assets: …

Technology provides us with countless benefits, and as programmers, we should better ourselves to produce more value all the time. But then again, there are certain seasons in a year when you should just relax and have fun with your skills. In this tutorial, you will use Amazon Polly to create audio files from text, add some optional (ideally spooky) sound effects and play that file to your friends using Twilio Voice and .NET.

Prerequisites

You'll need the following things in this tutorial:

• A free Twilio account
• A Twilio Phone Number
• An OS that supports .NET …

Although landlines have been decreasing in popularity with the rise of mobile phones, some households continue to use them as a primary means of contact. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 10.4% of adults aged 65 and older have a landline alone without mobile service. This demographic is important to account for when sending critical alerts and time-sensitive notifications to customers.

In this tutorial, we are going to build a demo that checks an end user’s phone number type and sends an instant alert as a voice call or SMS depending on whether the device is a landline or mobile. You can build this in the Twilio console or programmatically. We’ll use the console in this blog post.

Prerequisites

• Create a Twilio Account
• Buy a Twilio Phone Number

What we will build

1. A Twilio Function that uses the Twilio Lookup v2 API to determine a phone number …

Ahoy there! Have you explored the Twilio Voice SDK JavaScript Quickstart? Are you now ready to learn how to use your SDK-powered app to interact with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR)? That is exactly what this blog post will cover – and by the end of it, you should be able to dial a number using your cursor, or interact with an automated IVR you have setup.

Solution: a UI dialpad for the Twilio JS Voice Quickstart

Our Quickstart does not contain a UI dialpad out of the box, nor does our SDK. The purpose of our Quickstart app is to familiarize yourself with placing and receiving calls via your web browser, and to give you a taste of what you can achieve using our SDK. Although the Quickstart wasn’t built to be a full production application, I will run through how you can change the UI …

Biometrics technology is frequently used for authentication and identification purposes across industries, including financial services, healthcare, and the humanitarian sector. Integrating biometrics into development and humanitarian assistance programs can help to identify the people targeted for assistance, reduce fraud and de-duplication, and simplify registration and identification.

The World Food Programme uses biometrics to make sure that the right assistance reaches the right people. Vodacom Tanzania uses voice biometrics to enable people with disabilities to access their products and services more easily. Chase Bank uses Voice ID to identify callers accessing personal bank account information. Another interesting fact about voice biometrics is that if compromised, they can be invalidated by enrolling a new phrase. If your face, fingerprint, or iris data is hacked you cannot invalidate the data, and your identity is lost forever. It's complicated, however – we recognize that the use of biometrics has pros and cons, and it's …