Contact center telephony

Contact center telephony

In marketing, contact center telephony is the communication and collaboration system used by businesses to either manage high volumes of inbound queries or outbound telephone calls keeping their workforce or agents productive and in control to serve or acquire customers. This business communication system is an extension of computer telephony integration (CTI). == Overview == The interactions between callers and customer service representatives are supported by the collective system of computers, telephones and the Internet. The shift from CTI to contact center telephony is marked by the sheer change in the customer’s behavior when it comes to communication. Means customers are no longer confined only to voice-based communication i.e. phone to connect with their customer service departments. In addition, they are making use of email, SMS, chat, social media, and other virtual contact channels. This is also the reason for the shift in nomenclature from "call centers" to "contact centers", "contact" being a wider term than "call". Respecting the trend, contact center owners need to adopt unified communication or multi-channel approach to let customers get in touch with them via their preferred communication mediums, either voice or non-voice (data). Cloud-based phone system is a further advancement in the direction as it allows operators to access all the features and benefits of call center telephony over the Web against an affordable & flexible pay-as-you-go subscription model. Thus, in-house infrastructure deployment to manage public switched telephone networks, storage, communication applications, and collaboration servers is no more an obligation. Neither is the need to invest resources for their upgrade, repair, maintenance and security as cloud vendor would be responsible for the same. == India == India, a popular call center business process outsourcing destination, often uses a cloud-based phone system in order to cut operational expenses and downtime, and increase connectivity. == Promotion == Businesses can rely on contact center telephony services to respond to their customers’ queries over phone, email, chat, fax, etc. Integrating it with their customer relationship management tools, entire contact details of customers and their interaction sessions with different customer service representatives can be found at one place. The combination can manage not just sales and marketing but also deliver excellent post-sales customer service or technical support to allow customers derive the most from their products or services. Hence, it’s becoming instrumental in increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty and most of the call center services in India are taking refuge from it. The entire contact center telephony service can be availed by professionals over a browser. Hence, businesses can leverage the concept of BYOD (bring your own device) and mobility and serve their customers well using mobile applications. According to market analysts, BYOD increases satisfaction among workforce, and hence their individual and collective productivity as well. BYOD programme significantly reduces the TCO (total cost of ownership) as professionals prefer to work with their own devices rather than using company-provisioned devices. Next, they tend to be more caring towards such devices and can even shell out money to update and upgrade those when required. Integration of IM, along with audio and video conferencing services helps call center or contact center representatives to get real time assistance from their peers or seniors to resolve any complex issues. They can internally exchange information and knowledge articles as and when required. Real-time call monitoring/barging system can be used by quality assessment team to provide important guidelines to agents to maintain the standard of the service as per industry norms. Integrated recording feature is helpful for internal training and quality purposes to improve productivity and customer satisfaction in equal measures. It also helps in getting business insights and improving products or services to gain deeper penetration into the market.

Morphological antialiasing

Morphological antialiasing (MLAA) is a spatial anti-aliasing technique used in real-time computer graphics. It reduces artifacts, such as jaggies, when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution. MLAA is a post-process filtering which detects borders in the resulting image and then finds specific patterns in these. Anti-aliasing is achieved by blending pixels in these borders, according to the pattern they belong to and their position within the pattern. Introduced in 2009, MLAA was an early and influential example of anti-aliasing techniques done in post-processing, which makes them suitable for deferred shading. A similar method in this class is fast approximate anti-aliasing (FXAA). Temporal anti-aliasing, also a post-process, has become the most common anti-aliasing method for real-time rendering and video games. Enhanced subpixel morphological antialiasing, or SMAA, is an image-based GPU-based implementation of MLAA developed by Universidad de Zaragoza and Crytek.

Information element

An information element, sometimes informally referred to as a field, is an item in Q.931 and Q.2931 messages, IEEE 802.11 management frames, and cellular network messages sent between a base transceiver station and a mobile phone or similar piece of user equipment. An information element is often a type–length–value item, containing 1) a type (which corresponds to the label of a field), a length indicator, and a value, although any combination of one or more of those parts is possible. A single message may contain multiple information elements. The abbreviation IE is found in many technical specification documents from 3GPP. It is not uncommon for a single specification document to contain thousands of references to IEs.

Open Rights Group

The Open Rights Group (ORG) is a UK-based organisation that works to preserve digital rights and freedoms by campaigning on digital rights issues and by fostering a community of grassroots activists. It campaigns on numerous issues including mass surveillance, internet filtering and censorship, and intellectual property rights. == History == The organisation was started by Danny O'Brien, Cory Doctorow, Ian Brown, Rufus Pollock, James Cronin, Stefan Magdalinski, Louise Ferguson and Suw Charman after a panel discussion at Open Tech 2005. O'Brien created a pledge on PledgeBank, placed on 23 July 2005, with a deadline of 25 December 2005: "I will create a standing order of 5 pounds per month to support an organisation that will campaign for digital rights in the UK but only if 1,000 other people will too." The pledge reached 1000 people on 29 November 2005. The Open Rights Group was launched at a "sell-out" meeting in Soho, London. == Work == The group has made submissions to the All Party Internet Group (APIG) inquiry into digital rights management and the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. The group was honoured in the 2008 Privacy International Big Brother Awards alongside No2ID, Liberty, Genewatch UK and others, as a recognition of their efforts to keep state and corporate mass surveillance at bay. In 2010 the group worked with 38 Degrees to oppose the introduction of the Digital Economy Act, which was passed in April 2010. The group opposes measures in the draft Online Safety Bill introduced in 2021, that it sees as infringing free speech rights and online anonymity. The group campaigns against the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport's plan to switch to an opt-out model for cookies. The group spokesperson stated that "[t]he UK government propose to make online spying the default option" in response to the proposed switch. == Areas of interest == The organisation, though focused on the impact of digital technology on the liberty of UK citizens, operates with an apparently wide range of interests within that category. Its interests include: === Access to knowledge === Copyright Creative Commons Free and open source software The public domain Crown copyright Digital Restrictions Management Software patents === Free speech and censorship === Internet filtering Right to parody s. 127 Communications Act 2003 === Government and democracy === Electronic voting Freedom of information legislation === Privacy, surveillance and censorship === Automatic Vehicle Tracking Communications data retention Identity management Net Neutrality NHS patients' medical database Police DNA Records RFID == Structure == ORG has a paid staff, whose members include: Jim Killock (executive director) Former staff include Suw Charman-Anderson and Becky Hogge, both executive directors, e-voting coordinator Jason Kitcat, campaigner Peter Bradwell, grassroots campaigner Katie Sutton and administrator Katerina Maniadaki. Neil Gaiman was previously the group's patron. As of October 2022, the group had over 43,000 supporters. == ORGCON == ORGCON was the first ever conference dedicated to digital rights in the UK, marketed as "a crash course in digital rights". It was held for the first time in 2010 at City University in London and included keynote talks from Cory Doctorow, politicians and similar pressure groups including Liberty, NO2ID and Big Brother Watch. ORGCON has since been held in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2019 where the keynote was given by Edward Snowden.

Full30

Full30 was an American online video-sharing platform primarily dedicated to firearms and shooting sports-related content. The service was established in 2014 by Tim Harmsen and Mark Hammonds as a result of YouTube's increasing restrictions on gun-related videos. == History == After the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, many companies attempted to distance themselves from any association with the firearms industry. As a result, YouTube began demonetizing and sometimes outright deleting firearms-related videos, and in one case, popular YouTube poster Hickok45's channel was completely deleted but later restored. In response, Harmsen, who operates the Military Arms Channel on YouTube, decided to create his own video-hosting website to allow himself and other firearms content creators a platform free from such restrictions; he named the website Full30 — a reference to the popular 30-round STANAG magazine. In July 2020, site representatives announced the site had new ownership. By the end of 2022, the site began to be redirected to a series of other websites. By 2025, it was largely deactivated with the front page replaced by a form to be filled out to receive "updates", with no other explanation. == Contributors == Hickok45 Military Arms Channel Forgotten Weapons Bavarian Shooter Liberty Doll CloverTac

WebPlus

Serif WebPlus was a website design program for Microsoft Windows, developed by the software company, Serif. It allows users to design, create and upload their website onto the internet without any knowledge of HTML or other web technologies. Much like Microsoft Word, WebPlus uses WYSIWYG drag and drop editing to add and position text, images and links as they would appear on the finished web page. Once a user has designed their site, WebPlus can preview the site in a web browser before uploading the site using the in-built FTP. The software comes with a variety of pre-designed sample websites containing Filler text like Lorem ipsum, which can be used as a template for quickly designing a site. It also provides drawing tools for creating and editing buttons and web graphics. == Free WebPlus Starter Edition == Previously Serif had made available feature limited Starter Editions of their software, based on older versions, which could be obtained and used free of charge. For WebPlus the final free edition was based on version X5 and this was released in September 2012. This continued to be available from Serif's server until it was withdrawn around March 2016. WebPlus was then only available as a paid-for version X8. == Program Withdrawal == In March 2016, Serif announced that WebPlus X8 would be the final version, and that there were no current plans to design an application to replace it. Sales of WebPlus X8 by Serif were ended around December 2016. In early 2018, Serif announced that Serif Web Resources, hosted on Serif servers and required to implement some advanced web-site functionality in WebPlus created sites, would no longer work after 31 August 2018. In 2018, Serif also shutdown the servers that generated the "Plus" software registration numbers on-line from the product version and the individual generated installation number. Serif revealed the alternative was to use a universal master registration number, which is 881887. This is known to work with post 2003 Serif "Plus" software (e.g. verified to work with PagePlus v5.02). However, later Serif "Plus" software still registers itself automatically if within a certain recent period of a previous Serif software registration on the same PC. == Supported platforms == WebPlus was developed for Microsoft Windows "Win32" graphical desktop interface and is fully compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista (32/64bit), Windows 7 (32/64bit) and Windows 8. == Features == Web hosting to upload websites to the internet with the address www.sitename.webplus.net and email [email protected]. E-Commerce tool to create online stores with providers such as PayPal. Form wizard generates online forms to collect information from website visitors. Add blogs, forums, hit counters, online polls and content management systems to websites using Smart Objects. Google Maps tool embeds maps and optional navigation markers within a website. Site navigation bars adopt a website's structure providing a tool for navigating around the website. Photo gallery groups a collection of images together and displays them as an animated slideshow. Search engine optimization (SEO) tools optimise a websites search ranking with the likes of Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Collect website metrics such as page popularity and number of website hits using Google Analytics. WebPlus X5 introduced a button studio for creating button graphics. Restrict access to specific pages on a website with a secure member's area. WebPlus automatically converts images and graphics into a web targeted format, optimising them for fast download. Embed YouTube videos within a web page. Add animated effects to a website with Animated GIFs, Animated Marquees or by importing Flash videos. Stream news and information feeds to a website using RSS and podcasts. Automated Site Checker analyses and corrects potential problems with a website. AdSense tool incorporates Google AdSense advertisements into a website In-built FTP transfers files onto a web server, uploading a website to the internet. In-built Basic Photo Editor the PhotoLab can make automatic adjustments and "Quick Fix's" to photos. From X5, WebPlus offers image editing and filters, through its PhotoLab and also provides a dedicated background-removal tool in the form of Cutout Studio. Display images, Flash videos and web pages using animated Lightboxes. Filter Effects can be applied to the graphical objects, giving convincing, realistic effects such as glass, metallic, plastic and other 2D/3D filters. WebPlus also provides QuickShapes for creating button and web graphics. These predefined shapes can be quickly modified with sliders to adjust certain parameters, for example creating rounded rectangles, etc. Shapes include: rectangles, ellipses, stars, spirals, cogs, petals, etc.

GlTF

glTF (Graphics Library Transmission Format or GL Transmission Format and formerly known as WebGL Transmissions Format or WebGL TF) is a standard file format for three-dimensional scenes and models. A glTF file uses one of two possible file extensions: .gltf (JSON/ASCII) or .glb (binary). Both .gltf and .glb files may reference external binary and texture resources. Alternatively, both formats may be self-contained by directly embedding binary data buffers (as base64-encoded strings in .gltf files or as raw byte arrays in .glb files). An open standard developed and maintained by the Khronos Group, it supports 3D model geometry, appearance, scene graph hierarchy, and animation. It is intended to be a streamlined, interoperable format for the delivery of 3D assets, while minimizing file size and runtime processing by apps. As such, its creators have described it as the "JPEG of 3D". == Overview == The glTF format stores data primarily in JSON. The JSON may also contain blobs of binary data known as buffers, and refer to external files, for storing mesh data, images, etc. The binary .glb format also contains JSON text, but serialized with binary chunk headers to allow blobs to be directly appended to the file. The fundamental building blocks of a glTF scene are nodes. Nodes are organized into a hierarchy, such that a node may have other nodes defined as children. Nodes may have transforms relative to their parent. Nodes may refer to resources, such as meshes, skins, and cameras. Meshes may refer to materials, which refer to textures, which refer to images. Scenes are defined using an array of root nodes. Most of the top-level glTF properties use a flat hierarchy for storage. Nodes are saved in an array and are referred to by index, including by other nodes. A glTF scene refers to its root nodes by index. Furthermore, nodes refer to meshes by index, which refer to materials by index, which refer to textures by index, which refer to images by index. All glTF data structures support being extended using a JSON property, allowing arbitrary JSON data to be added. == Releases == === glTF 1.0 === Members of the COLLADA working group conceived the file format in 2012. At SIGGRAPH 2012, Khronos presented a demo of glTF, which was then called WebGL Transmissions Format (WebGL TF). On October 19, 2015, Khronos released the glTF 1.0 specification. ==== Adoption of glTF 1.0 ==== At SIGGRAPH 2016, Oculus announced their adoption of glTF citing the similarities to their ovrscene format. In October 2016, Microsoft joined the 3D Formats working group at Khronos to collaborate on glTF. === glTF 2.0 === The second version, glTF 2.0, was released in June 2017, and is a complete overhaul of the file format from version 1.0, with most tools adopting the 2.0 version. Based on a proposal by Fraunhofer originally presented at SIGGRAPH 2016, physically based rendering (PBR) was added, replacing WebGL shaders used in glTF 1.0. glTF 2.0 added the GLB binary format into the base specification. Other upgrades include sparse accessors and morph targets for techniques such as facial animation, and schema tweaks and breaking changes for corner cases or performance such as replacing top-level glTF object properties with arrays for faster index-based access. There is ongoing work towards import and export in Unity and an integrated multi-engine viewer and validator. ==== Adoption of glTF 2.0 ==== On March 3, 2017, Microsoft announced that they would be using glTF 2.0 as the 3D asset format across their product line, including Paint 3D, 3D Viewer, Remix 3D, Babylon.js, and Microsoft Office. Sketchfab also announced support for glTF 2.0. The glTF and GLB formats are used on and supported by companies including DGG, UX3D, Sketchfab, Facebook, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Adobe, Box, TurboSquid, Unreal Engine, Unity, and Qt Quick 3D. The format has been noted as an important standard for augmented reality, integrating with modeling software such as Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, and Poly. In February 2020, the Smithsonian Institution launched their Open Access Initiative, releasing approximately 2.8 million 2D images and 3D models into the public domain, using glTF for the 3D models. In July 2022, glTF 2.0 was released as the ISO/IEC 12113:2022 International Standard. Khronos stated they would make regular submissions to bring updates and new widely adopted glTF functionality into refreshed versions of ISO/IEC 12113 to ensure that there is no long-term divergence between the ISO/IEC and Khronos specifications. The open-source game engine Godot supports importing glTF 2.0 files since version 3.0 and export since version 4.0. === Extensions === The glTF format can be extended with arbitrary JSON to add new data and functionality. Extensions can be placed on any part of a glTF, including nodes, animations, materials, textures, and on the entire document. Khronos keeps a non-comprehensive registry of glTF extensions on GitHub, including all official Khronos extensions and a few third-party extensions. PBR extensions model the physical appearance of real-world objects, allowing developers to create realistic 3D assets that have the correct appearance. As new PBR extensions are released, they continue to expand PBR capabilities within the glTF framework, allowing a wider range of scenes and objects to be realistically rendered as 3D assets. The KTX 2.0 extension for universal texture compression enables 3D models in the glTF format to be highly compressed and to use natively supported texture formats, reducing file size and boosting rendering speed. Draco is a glTF extension for mesh compression, to compress and decompress 3D meshes, to help reduce the size of 3D files. It compresses vertex attributes, normals, colors, and texture coordinates. Various glTF extensions for game engine interoperability have been developed by OMI group. This includes extensions for physics shapes, physics bodies, physics joints, audio playback, seats, spawn points, and more. The VRM consortium has developed glTF extensions for advanced humanoid 3D avatars including dynamic spring bones and toon materials. == Derivative formats == 3D Tiles, an OGC Community Standard, builds on glTF to add a spatial data structure, metadata, and declarative styling for streaming massive heterogeneous 3D geospatial datasets. VRM, a model format for VR, is built on the .glb format. It is a 3D humanoid avatar specification and file format. == Software ecosystem == Khronos maintains the glTF Sample Viewer for viewing glTF assets. Khronos also maintains the glTF Validator for validating if 3D models conform to the glTF specification. Khronos maintains a glTF Compressor tool to interactively optimize and fine-tune compression settings for glTF assets using KTX 2.0 textures. glTF loaders are in open-source WebGL engines including PlayCanvas, Three.js, Babylon.js, Cesium, PEX, xeogl, and A-Frame. The Godot game engine supports and recommends the glTF format, with both import and export support. Open-source glTF converters are available from COLLADA, FBX, and OBJ. Assimp can import and export glTF. glTF files can also be directly exported from a variety of 3D editors, such as Blender, Unity (using the glTFast importer/exporter), Freecad, Vectary, Autodesk 3ds Max (natively or using Verge3D exporter), Autodesk Maya (using babylon.js exporter), Autodesk Inventor, Modo, Houdini, Paint 3D, Godot, and Substance Painter. Open-source glTF utility libraries are available for programming languages including JavaScript, Node.js, C++, C#, Python, Haskell, Java, Go, Rust, Haxe, Ada, and TypeScript. Khronos keeps a list of these libraries and other related applications on their ecosystem site. The Khronos 3D Commerce Working Group released Asset Creation Guidelines in 2020 outlining best practices for use of the glTF file format in 3D Commerce. In 2025, the Working Group launched Asset Creation Guidelines 2.0, a continuously updated resource with additional guidance for geometry, mesh optimization, UV maps, textures, materials/PBR performance, and web optimization. The Khronos PBR Neutral Tone Mappers specification is a tone mapper designed to faithfully reproduce an object's base color, hue, and saturation when using PBR rendering under grayscale lighting, supporting brand- and product-accurate color representation. Khronos maintains the glTF Asset Auditor to allow retailers and advertising technology platforms to validate 3D assets against either a default Audit Profile modelled on the 2020 3D Commerce Asset Creation Guidelines or a custom profile defined by the target application.