Competition: XML for Mini-Browser in VoIP Phones

Sep 05, 2007

Anika Kehrer

Snom is calling for developers to submit inventive XML applications for the mini-browser in its Linux-based VoIP phones. Contributions will be published under the BSD license.

All XML programmers above the age of 18 are invited to submit code for XML applications for Snom's Business or Lifestyle divisions by 6 pm, October 22. Entrants are allowed to submit more than one program. The XML applications must be designed for the mini browser that runs on all Snom phones with firmware version 7.1.17 or newer.

The conditions for entry are that the entries must be submitted under the FreeBSD license. Contributions that use a scripting language must include a link to an online demonstration. The winner can look forward to trade fair presentations and telco devices, and the top five in the Business and Lifestyle categories will receive telco devices from various sponsors.

Examples of business applications include calculators, currency converters or dictionaries. Lifestyle applications include, for example, a short message system, a phone charge display, and home automation technology implemented in XML for opening house or garage doors. The organizers are looking for originality, or as the contest Wiki puts it: "we say it's time to stop these booring (sic) attempts to use a great tool."

According to the documentation, all the phones currently offer is an XML-controlled phonebook, and XML libraries for PHP. The mini browser is designed for accessing server-side http/https services, such as weather services, to-do-lists and share prices via the phone's keypad. The browser handles specific XML objects, such as defined quantities of letter or number fields, whose content it passes in to a URL as a server process parameter.

Besides binary files of its firmware, Snom also offers the GPL source code in the form of a construction kit that includes a patched Linux kernel, drivers and tools for generating ROM images.