Ask-Adders TV Listings
My idea started with looking at making TV Listings accessible. This is why I came up with the combination of using Web, SMS and Phone services to provide the information.
I've created a simple web site that allows you to browse the TV and Radio listings for the next week. This allows you to create your own personal listings that you can receive alerts on via either email or SMS. This web site is written in PHP accessing a MySQL database. The database is populated using the Perl TV-Anytime module once a day.
If you phone 01483 604620 you will be provided with a menu system that will allow you to navigate the programs on any of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ TV Channels. This information is updated every 10 minutes by process that discovers which programs are running by accessing the database and this text is then used to generate voice using Cepstral software. When required the Asterisk phone system plays these sound files back to anyone phoning that number.
The SMS service accepts messages on 07914 229975 and will then respond with the information you require. Eg. Sms 'TV ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳1' and after a few minutes you will get a response with the next few programs on that channel. This is using gnokii over Bluetooth to connect to the phone and Perl script are handling the processing and sending of the text messages.
There are numerous improvements. As this is only a prototype a more reliable service for sending SMS would be required and the VOIP services is only running on a ADSL connection, so the sound quality can be poor. See for more information and ideas.
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