Here’s some highlighted new features in Asterisk 1.8:

• Secure real-time transport protocol (RTP) support—New end-to-end VoIP encryption of signaling and media to compliment the existing encrypted signaling support.
  Steve explained SRTP support will be huge since it will allow for government and financial deployments of the Asterisk platform.
• Security event framework—Modular capability for collecting and distributing security events within Asterisk.
• Extensive additions to ISDN-BRI functionality—Call completion services, connected party identification, ETSI advice of charge (AOC), message waiting indicator (MWI), call rerouting and call deflection.
• Session initiation protocol (SIP) changes—Substantial increase in the speed of registrations, transport layer security (TLS) improvements and more flexible network address translation (NAT) handling.
• IPv6 support—Although IPv6 has a slow uptake in the enterprise, at the carrier core, IPv6 is progressing very quickly. Steve mentioned that could be the initial place where IPv6 can be leveraged on the Asterisk platform. He said, “I suspect initially you’ll see it in the carrier and cable deployments. In fact, we have support now for PacketCable NCS built into Asterisk as well, so those two goes nicely hand-in-hand. There are a lot of cable providers that are rolling out IPV6 for all the set top boxes and other devices that are attached to their network.” He added, “The other area IPv6 is big is Asia. There is a lot of IP underruns in Asia where there is billions of people with billions of devices. So it’s really caught on there. In a lot of ways that has been a gating factor for Asterisk deployments in Asia. But now that IPv6 is there, we’re expecting an even larger percentage of adoption.”
• Calendar integration—Support for Microsoft Exchange, CalDav and iCalendar. This is a pretty cool feature. If for instance your Calendar has you listed as in a meeting, Asterisk can automatically send the caller to your voicemail. Or if you are marked as ‘or Out of Office’ Asterisk can automatically forward to your cell phone.
• Channel event logging (CEL)—Enhanced call tracking and logging for better audit trail and billing purposes.
• XMPP distributed messaging—Better scalability for message waiting and device state.
• Improved internationalization and localization—Asterisk offers improved handling of concatenated audio playback (dates, numbers).
• Google Talk and Google Voice support—Inbound and outbound support for Google Talk and Google Voice calling. Google is serious about voice. Google is offering a free DID and free calling until the end of 2010 via Google Talk. So with the Google Talk integration, you essentially have a FREE trunk to make free calling on your Asterisk PBX. Take that Skype Connect!
• High-resolution timestamps for call data records (CDR)—Carrier and enterprise users can track call times to the microsecond.
• Better support for voice codecs—16 kHz signed linear media streams are now supported. Additional HD voice codecs supported. Siren 7 and Siren 14 codecs from Polycom are also now supported
• PacketCable NCS 1.0 support—Allows cable companies to use Asterisk as an option to create business services.
• Default de-noise for conference bridge calls—Conference calls will sound clearer.
• ConfBridge application enhancements—DAHDI hardware is no longer required to use this software feature. New call conferencing application that does not require the DAHDI kernel interface to operate.
• Pitch shift functions—The pitch of audio, including of callers’ voices, can be manipulated.
• Multicast RTP paging—Extremely efficient and scalable method for handset paging. Instead of sending an INVITE to 50 IP phones, you can leverage multicast to send a broadcast to the IP phones. Steve said Polycom, snom, and he said he thought Aastra phones supported this multicast feature. Multicast means a little more work for your switches and routers, but much less stress on the Asterisk server than the traditional way.
• Faster development and more robust unit testing—Digium has implemented Agile development and a new automated testing framework. The Agile process streamlines development and gives Asterisk users a better view into development plans.

There never seem to be enough hours in the day to do all the cool stuff we want to do. We have planned on releasing our barcode scanning libraries for quite some time. Many of you have been patiently awaiting their release. I am happy to announce that we are releasing our iPhone Barcode Scanner SDK today.

Our scanner library works really well on all flavors of iPhones (2G, 3G and 3GS). You guys are getting EARLY access to this new library (it isn’t even released on ShopSavvy yet). The SDK support 1D (UPC and EAN) as well as 2D (QR and Datamatrix) scanning.

If you previously requested it I emailed the link earlier today, for the rest of you feel free to download it right now. There is no cost, but you will need to execute our license agreement within 30 days.

• Barcode Scanner SDK (Free): http://bit.ly/scannersdk
• Barcode Scanner License: http://bit.ly/scannerlicense

If you have any questions please email support@biggu.com and include the following information: name of app, description of app, your name, email, phone and your issue. Support will be provided to all licensees (i.e. if you haven’t executed our license agreement please do so before requesting support).

We are really excited to see what you all come up with using our library – definitely keep us posted and let us know if we can help you be successful. There will be a second release of the library next week that includes some additional features (FYI – our license requires that you update within 30 days of a new release).

…as popular as SharePoint has become, administrators and users don’t always like its restrictions. When you install SharePoint, you must also install Microsoft SQL Server, even if your standard database is Oracle or DB2 or MySQL, and you must install it on Microsoft Server 2003 or 2008. When you use a SharePoint site, you must also use Microsoft Internet Explorer to be able to access its full functionality, even if your standard desktop is a Macintosh or your standard browser is Firefox. Alfresco removes those restrictions, as well as being open source.

• Network and System Monitoring
• Online Backup (on-site and remote storage of data)
• Quarterly audit of IT infrastructure

Businesses who purchase our Managed Services Audit Program can switch to our fully managed fractional IT solution at any time and we will waive our installation fees.  Contact Scott Ryan at 214.550.2010 if you would like to schedule a meeting to discuss our Managed Service Audit Program.