Overview
The webphone is an alternative method of web browsing. When an IP address is dialed into it, the webphone connects to the page associated with the address and uses text-to-voice technology to read aloud the text on the web page. A button lights up whenever linked text is being read. Pushing the lit button causes the link to be followed. Accompanying the webphone is a book listing the top websites and their IP addresses.

Progress to date
The dialing, web connection, html-to-text conversion, and text-to-voice functionality has already been developed.

One problem was handling the HTML-to-plaintext conversion. It would be difficult to develop from scratch and impossible to fit on the microcontroller. The solution was using a web-based script that the microcontroller connects to via TELNET. The microcontroller passes the inputted IP address to the script which then accesses the webpage and converts the HTML to plain text. That plain text is then returned to the microprocessor.

You can see the script at work by going to:
http://www.emailerosion.org/cgi-bin/webphone/webphone-html.cgi?url=rhizome.org
You can replace the "rhizome.org" with any other web address you would like to see converted to plain text. The mark-up codes (~LTON, etc.) are used to control the link button.

You can also, of course, pass the script an IP address instead of URL, for example: www.emailerosion.org/cgi-bin/webphone/webphone-html.cgi?url=216.178.38.121.

Remaining tasks
The major remaining task is the NIXIE tube numeric display. Each digit has ten high voltage pins (one for each number plus one for the cathode). In order to control them I'll use a combination of K155ID1 chips and MM74HC595 shift registers. Once the display is working, the design will be translated to a printed circuit board.

The prototype uses an Emic Text-to-Speech module. The module worked well except for the fact that it can only hold 128 bytes of text at a time, which causes awkward pauses in the read text. Because this, the Emic will be replaced with a V-Stamp module (which has 8 kilobyte input buffer).

The code that interacts with the buttons need to be written and the handsets audio needs to be implemented.

I've enlisted woodworker Jonathan Martin's help to help construct the webphone's wooden console.

Issues
One issue is that not every website can be reached by an IP address. Many smaller sites use virtual IP addresses, and a URL is needed to specify which webserver is desired. Another issue is that IP addresses using the new protocol (IP version 6) will not work with the webphone.

Both of these issues are somewhat addressed with the server-side script. The IP addresses included in the telephone book will be stored in a mySQL database along with their associated URL. The server-side script will use the database to lookup the URL (IPs not in the database will be connected to directly). By using the stored URL, we bypass the problems of virtual IPs and changes to the IP addresses. Another advantage of having a server-side process for converting the HTML to text is that the script is easily updated when bugs are found or HTML protocols change.

description | timeline & budget | work samples | the artist