This week I got to spend some time in Nottingham, UK with the team responsible for the DiaStar project.  If this hasn't yet penetrated your consciousness, then I should say that DiaStar is an open-source project that allows an open-source switch (typified by the Asterisk platform) to interconnect and use the resources of Dialogic hardware and software. 

The big news with DiaStar right now is that the latest software supports the FreeSWITCH platform, and although the final code is anticipated to be available during Q3, there is a Developer Preview version that you can use right now.  If you want an early opportunity to experience this, and you can tolerate a few bumps in the road, then I would encourage you to take part.  The team are happy to hear your bug reports and product suggestions, and of course since it is an open-source project, you are welcome to take part in the development.  When the code is is finished it will be offered back to the FreeSWITCH team to check into the open source tree there.  Take a look here for documentation on the FreeSWITCH code (mod_woomera).

What can it do?  Well, it offers comparable functionality to that already released for Asterisk, with call progress analysis and conferencing.  My own particular interest is strongly in video, so i'm excited about the video functionality, namely:

• IVVR, or allowing users with IP video phones to interact with video-based applications.
• Video conferencing, i.e. allowing multi-party SIP video conferences, with the media-processing offloaded from your main FreeSWITCH server, including transcoding between different video codecs.

In each case, the application is controlled via the standard configuration files (in the case of FreeSWITCH these are XML), so the new functionality calls only on the existing skills of FreeSWITCH developers and integrators.  I hope to record a video demo at some point and upload it here - stay tuned.