A birth in the family (and coworkers in a tightly knit office are often “family” enough) can be an inspiring event. But two births in the family make it worthwhile to do something really special! Using Phono (a jQuery plugin/JavaScript library that “turns any Web browser into a phone”) and Tropo (an API that “adds voice, SMS, Twitter, and IM support” to various programming languages, simply), Chris Matthieu of Voxeo Labs hacked together a nifty little application that allows you to turn your baby monitor into what’s essentially a conference device accessible from the Web.
So really, that’s a VoIP-based baby monitor? Think of the possibilities! Phono is used in the Web browser, unmuted, so that it can take in what’s going on in the room with the baby monitor, and Tropo (muted) manages the monitor’s conference room. What’s especially cool is that you can have multiple people (such as relations spread out all over the country — or even the world) listening in at the same time. Family bonding through technology’s not a new idea, but this is an interesting application of it.
More details (like the whole freaking source code for the super curious!) on how to build your own VoIP baby monitor can be found at the Phono blog.