Department of Defense Research Grant

[Medeksza]

I came across this small business innovation research grant from the department of defense. I think Hal's AI and upcoming character engine are pretty well suited for the task, so I'm applying for it.

Time: When Daddy Is Off at War: A Hologram Home?

Slate: Night of the Living Dad

Virtual Dialogue Application for Families of Deployed Service Members

[lightspeed]

sounds like a cool idea , think the only thing would be that like in the article if the army finds out a soldier was killed would be good to take all that info. off so kids dont see him as alive when he or she isnt but think they would try to make sure about that .hope you get the grant .
 p.s. how is the hal next version coming along hope its out soon !![]

[NIGE]

Good luck on your quest Robert.
I think the only drawback will be how good you can get the models to look.

[tedathome]

Sounds great and a good way to enhance Hal's functionality.
I hope you get the grant.

[Medeksza]

quote:Originally posted by NIGE

Good luck on your quest Robert.
I think the only drawback will be how good you can get the models to look.

Yeah, part of the grant would go toward improving the Zabawarre character engine and making a tool that can create characters using a couple photos of a persons head from different angles.

quote:Originally posted by lightspeed

p.s. how is the hal next version coming along hope its out soon !!

Improvements to Hal's brain, speech recognition system, and bug fixes are pretty much complete. The new character engine is about 90% complete (working but speed improvements and wider support of hardware is still needed) and the character itself is about 2/3 complete, basically more animations need to be made and lip sync improvements. Development is a little slowed down as I need to save up more funds to be able to pay a programmer and artist to finish the character engine and characters. At this point, I'm probably going to release a Hal 6.2 with just the improved brain, speech recognition, and bug fixes. The character engine will probably be in Hal 6.3 now. Releases within the Hal 6.x line will be free for all Hal 6.x customers, but with Hal 6.2 Zabaware will become a reseller of IBM ViaVoice and Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker microphones.

[freddy888]

Sounds great Rob, I hope you manage to get the grant.  I wish the new character engine could be in the next release, but if there's nothing you can do about it that's fair enough.  Anyhow, best of luck!

[echoman]

I have to be honest, I am only interested in the brain improvements. This seems to me more important than Hal's looks.

[lightspeed]

robert what exactly is the "IBM ViaVoice and Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker microphones." and what do they do and what is their purpose ?
 thanks []

[Bill819]

Robert
I don't know just how much money you need and are talking about but if you set up page to accept donations or even for future updates I am sure that some of us older users would be more than happy to put something in the pot, I know that I would.
Bill

[Medeksza]

quote:Originally posted by lightspeed

robert what exactly is the "IBM ViaVoice and Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker microphones." and what do they do and what is their purpose ?
 thanks []

IBM ViaVoice is a high quality speech recognition system that in my opinion is more accuracte and better than the free Microsoft Speech Recognizer. IBM ViaVoice used to be directly sold to consumers a few years ago but IBM has stopped and now only sells it to businesses who wish to incorporate into their own products. The latest version of IBM ViaVoice is version 10.6 which was never released directly to consumers. Zabaware will sell IBM ViaVoice 10.6 as a seperate add-on to Ultra Hal Assistant for $40. Retailers used to charge $50 when they sold IBM ViaVoice to consumers, and the current leading speech system, Dragon Naturally Speaking retails for $99.

The Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker microphone is a seperate product. Speech recognition technology usually requires wearing a headset microphone with properly positioned and calibrated boom microphone in order to work well. The Voice Tracker is a desktop microphone that sits on your desk but has the same quality as a headset, even if you are clear across the room. The Voice Tracker Array Microphone contains 8 small microphones oriented in various directions. It is able to determine from which direction speech is coming from and electronically steers toward the person who is speaking. Its digital signal processor focuses on the the person who is speaking and spatially filters noise from other directions. It has noise reduction algorithms that filter out background noise and reverberations that are present in the acoustic environment. You can find out more about it at http://www.acousticmagic.com/  Zabaware will be a reseller of this microphone for $250, expensive but really high-tech stuff.

[Medeksza]

quote:Originally posted by Bill819

Robert
I don't know just how much money you need and are talking about but if you set up page to accept donations or even for future updates I am sure that some of us older users would be more than happy to put something in the pot, I know that I would.
Bill

Thanks for the offer. I don't want to publically post financial details of the character engine because of potential competitors, but, but based on current Zabaware sales I should be able to save enough in about 2-3 months to finish the job. Of course if Zabaware's sales are higher than expected then it could be sooner. Maybe instead of donations you might be interested in new AT&T voices for Hal? http://www.zabaware.com/products/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=5

[lightspeed]

then i take it in general terms your zabaware "hal" sales have been going good ? hope so this is always a good sign that you make income from hal and are able to afford and do updates . p.s. robert did you see the 3d program ? (think that was how i worded it , in the general area topics . ) that would be a very cool thing that would be nice if you could sell that with hal to !! it turnes everything back ground pics , animated pictures , etc. into a 3 d enviroment for the user . sounds like a next step actual 3d product that many will be using . []

[DrFaraday]

quote:Originally posted by Medeksza
IBM ViaVoice is a high quality speech recognition system that in my opinion is more accuracte and better than the free Microsoft Speech Recognizer. IBM ViaVoice used to be directly sold to consumers a few years ago but IBM has stopped and now only sells it to businesses who wish to incorporate into their own products. The latest version of IBM ViaVoice is version 10.6 which was never released directly to consumers. Zabaware will sell IBM ViaVoice 10.6 as a seperate add-on to Ultra Hal Assistant for $40. Retailers used to charge $50 when they sold IBM ViaVoice to consumers, and the current leading speech system, Dragon Naturally Speaking retails for $99.

Wow, that explains a lot.  I've been looking at both ViaVoice and Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Amazon.com.  All the ViaVoice versions seem really old.  Now I see why.

The latest Dragon software seems to have serious issues with some computers, including mine, which uses a Sempron processor.

Robert, what you have said here about your plans to sell ViaVoice sounds like an excellent deal!  I think I shall hold off on purchasing speech recognition software, and buy ViaVoice from Zabaware when you make it available.