Pal Dean Elwood sent me this video. He set up embedded VoIP app developer Voxygen which is going from strength to strength. They developed the call control APIs for Telefonica’s Blue Via platform.
The video shows a mockup Thunderbird video screen just like they had in real life. The app is powered by Voxygen software running on a Raspberry Pi and talks to Blue Via for the call control and conferencing.
State information from Blue Via feeds through to the flashing eyes to say when a call is coming in or has been answered. The RaspberryPi manages another LED to say who is speaking at any given point in time.
When they recorded the Thunderbirds series the technology was of course all purely imaginary. Now it is pure simplicity.
Hardware was simply
- Raspberry Pi
- The ‘slice of PI/O’ board, to interface to 10 LEDs and 5 switches
- 5 push-buttons with integrated LED
- 5 pairs of White-LED ‘eyes’
- A small amplifier and speaker for sound effects
- Power supply and a few ancillary electronic components
Software was
- Standard Pi Debian wheezy operating system
- Application code, written in PHP 5
- Some interfacing code in C that allows switching of LEDs and sensing of switches
Marvellous innit? Now watch the vid. Thunderbirds are go!