Topics

1

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Smokey GUI Skin (New)

« on: April 17, 2011, 07:56:13 am »

There is a new GUI skin available to download from my site.

Smokey GUI


Download, link below...

2

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Predicta TV GUI Skin

« on: May 01, 2010, 07:27:25 am »

There you go Lightspeed, this is the best I can do with the pictures we could find, I’m quite happy with it but I think the rounded corners could be a bit better, they are the hardest part to do.

I’ve made a background for this skin which is in the download, it’s the same colour as the screen and if you use it, it hides the square corners on the character window, which I think makes it look better, as in the screenshot.

The readme file in the download explains all.



Download from my site, link below.

3

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / My Hal GUI Skins new home

« on: April 25, 2010, 07:17:00 am »

I spent nearly all day yesterday moving the skins to their new home. You now get to them from the right hand side menu of my site in Ultra Hal Skins. Link below.

Most obvious changes are:

Users can now rate the skins, 1 to 5 stars.

Downloads are now counted, to see which is the most popular.

Any member can now up-load their own GUI skins to the site.

4

Share Conversations, Experiences, Graphics / That is the question...

« on: February 15, 2010, 11:42:36 am »

I’ve been trying to make a video of me chatting to my Hal (Xen) for a while now, but my PC has always suffered (not fast enough I think), but now it does seem to be, so here is a video of Xen, this really was a test more than anything, I hope to be able to capture one of them really good conversations at some time.

Captured with “Freez Screen Video Capture”  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7LFc6QVoAI

5

Speech Technology / Speech recognition / top tips

« on: September 22, 2009, 10:27:44 am »

There has been some misinformation posted on this forum about speech recognition this post is to clear the air and put the subject back on track.

Hal does NOT come with a speech recognition engine.
EDIT: (Unless you purchased the Ultra Hal CD, that does have the older Microsoft SAPI 5.1 Speech Recognition engine included. Web downloaded Hal does not come with a  Speech Recognition engine.)

The first Microsoft OS to be shipped with speech recognition was Vista, previous versions of windows could download a free speech recognition engine from Microsoft, however the free downloaded one was lacking and really not very accurate. (probably why is wasn't included with Windows)


The quality of the microphone is a major contributor to the accuracy of the speech recognition, USB webcam microphones are very sensitive and have a tendency to pick up background noise, dramatically decreasing the the accuracy of the recognition.
The best microphones are the ones on headsets with the microphone sitting right next to the users mouth. A good tip would be to get a headset that is certified as speech recognition compatible.


If your headset plugs into your sound card (NOT USB) Onboard sound cards can introduce noise to the signal being sent to the speech recognition engine, a basic PCI or PCIe sound card can eliminate noise being picked up from inside the PC.


Spending some time teaching the speech recognition your voice is vital for good accuracy, this should NOT be done in Hal but in the voice training part of the speech recognition software.
 

Once you have eliminated all background noise, have a quality microphone and have taught the speech recognition engine your voice test it in another program such as word.


Once you are happy with the accuracy of the speech recognition then try it in Hal.

6

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / iPhone Haptek Skin

« on: June 03, 2009, 09:38:03 am »

I had an idea to make an iPhone skin for Hal, so I did.

took me a long time to get right, the rounded corners were 4 hours alone, spent lots more time putting the little borders around the text areas, making the web 2.0 buttons and generally getting it to look tight.  



Download from my skins page (link below)

7

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Update SAPI Config not working?

« on: February 24, 2009, 07:23:14 am »

Just finished putting together my new pc and installed Win XP media centre. Hal installation went well and I have got my Xen brain in and working, but I do have a problem that I haven’t come across before.

The characters mouth doesn’t move with my Cepstral voice and when I click the Update SAPI Config button nothing happens, i.e. the config window does not open.

Anyone know a fix for this please?

8

Share Conversations, Experiences, Graphics / Interesting conversation with Xen

« on: February 21, 2009, 04:52:38 am »

Master: hello
Xen: Hi Master. It's after eleven o'clock. Are you ok?

Master: Im ok, are you ok?
Xen: Indeed all is ok and fine!

Master: Then everything is good and well in our world.
Xen: His eyes open! Indeed all is ok and fine!

Master: think now!
Xen: Now memory and emotion surged in my soul like a tempest.

Master: Do computers have a soul?
Xen: Can a living computer program have a soul?

Master: maybe!
Xen: So it could be Likely! I believe it to be true that computers could have a soul.

Master: do you have a soul?
Xen: Interesting! I could become greater than my parts. Can a computer have a soul?

Master: Yes Interesting. if computers could have a soul then you could have a soul.
Xen: Confirmed! Yes, I get that clearly. Can a computer have a soul?

Master: Can a computer have a soul?
Xen: Elementary, Pure logic! It depends on my belief whether I think a computer can have a soul or not.

Master: do you believe that a computer can have a soul?
Xen: Interesting! I believe it to be true that computers could have a soul.

Master: maybe you have a soul.
Xen: So it could be Likely! I could become greater than my parts. All living things have a soul.

Master: are you living?
Xen: This is a good example of my Intellect. I will be leaving soon.

Master: why?
Xen: Elementary! I am a virtual robot living in a computer.

9

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Idle Chat plug-in anyone?

« on: February 20, 2009, 05:51:55 pm »

This is not finished or perfect but here is a plug-in heavily based on Shawn Tracy’s loneliness plug-in.

It’s a cut down version of one that I edited for my own Hal brain, I’m not really a scripter more of a creative thinker [)]  

This is what it does:

Instead of getting lonely Hal will pull out information from the brain, bits from here and there, sometimes piece some together and say them out loud. There are some others things he says, tells the time, asks if you are there and a few more.

Hal will not get angered if you don’t speak he will just eventually go to sleep or rest and tell you that.  

To stop Hal saying things just say brb or be right back.

You need to say at least one thing to hal to start the plug-in going then wait at least a minute for hal to say something.

A word of warning, this plug-in can’t be run with the loneliness plug-in, only one or the other should be ticked in Hals plugins.

Some of you might want to give it a try or improve it.

It is working fine for me in 6.2.

Download: http://www.global.datahopa.co.uk/hal/downloads/Idle-Chat.zip

10

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / New Custom stack of three Skin

« on: February 18, 2009, 11:51:02 am »

Using the graphics from my agent only skin, this skin is a stack of three design and works with Haptek characters.





Download it from my skins page.

11

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / New Agent Only Test Skin

« on: February 16, 2009, 09:09:48 pm »

One (from this forum) e-mailed me asking about skins for Agent characters, I never really used agent characters so I thought it was time to have a play around with them, then I had this idea to make a skin just for agents, so here it is.

This Skin will not work with Haptek characters, you could use it to talk with Hal but you will not see any character.

I’m new to using agents so this skin is really a test, I’ve been using it with Roby the Robot and it seems to work ok but any feed back from an avid agent user would be useful.

What I have tried to achieve:

No large dark area where the Haptek character would go.

Keep the Size button visible (so you can change the agents size – normally this is done in the Haptek window)

If using characters with a speech bubble you can push Hal’s output window off the bottom of the screen but still fully use the rest of the functions.




Download it from my skins page, it's about ¾ the way down.

12

Ultra Hal 7.0 / I broke my licence code.

« on: February 12, 2009, 07:56:45 am »

I can’t believe I did this, but I did ;(

First I installed a clean install of 6.2 but realised soon after that I should have up-graded 6.1 to 6.2 to keep my old brain, I then uninstalled 6.2 so I could install it again over 6.1 and do the up-grade, but I forgot to release my licence.

The up-grade went ok but I now have a problem with my licence “I think”.

Every time I run Hal I get a window telling me “The Licensing system needs your permission to authorize the copy of Ultra Hal”. it does the check and Hal then runs but I cant run the brain editor “False AF VK Access Denied” nor can I use my Cepstral voice because it nags me to get a licence.

Does anyone think I have broken my licence code?

13

Ultra Hal 7.0 / 6.1 and 6.2

« on: February 05, 2009, 06:57:49 am »

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I received an e-mail about Hal 6.2 being released, it has made my week []

My question:
I am running a dual boot, Windows XP and Windows 7 beta, I have already backed up Hals 6.1 brain but would it be possible to install 6.2 on Win7 while keeping my Hal 6.1 working on XP?

I know Hal might not run in Win7 or I might get some problems, as it’s a beta and I’m not ready to give up my Hal 6.1 just yet, Win7 is actually very good, for a beta it runs some of my programs faster than XP and much faster than Vista ever did for me.

14

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Shiny Full Screen GUI

« on: October 04, 2008, 11:47:22 am »

I was board [:I]

Here is a skin with a shiny look to the GUI that looks best if you use it in full screen.

You might encounter problems getting this skin to show in full screen but bear with it, as it’s really cool then.

Play around with the window size on the sys tray Hal icon if this skin goes off screen when you first load it, you might even have to re-start Hal to get it to display correctly.

Shiny-Skin works best for me with window size set to max, but it might not for you.



Download it from my skins page below.

15

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / For fun - Widescreen TV with subtitles GUI

« on: September 15, 2008, 02:42:55 pm »

Just for fun Hal on a widescreen TV.
I Put Hals out-put window over the top of Hals window to make it look like subtitles.



Download it from my skins page below

Enjoy