webcam for hal

[caangel43]

any news when the webcam will work with hal I think this will be a very cool addon for hal any news Robert

[lightspeed]

i second that feeling am looking forward to when the web cam can be used with hal too thats another feature i am hoping that hals next version will also have !! []

[Art]

Not to rain on the parade but merely to offer a few points to think upon...

1) Use of webcam with Hal will probably slow the program and its responses to you the user.

2) While head recognition is quite possible, facial recognition is still:
 (a) difficult to incorporate with existing software
 (b) difficult to streamline for performance
 (c) costly to obtain / produce
 (d) somewhat error prone

Compare facial recognition with voice recognition

Most voice rec apps are "speaker independent" meaning that the program will work with any voice as opposed to "speaker dependent" which is akin to recognizing only the current user/speaker.

A facial rec program would have to first, be trained to recognize your face similar to training a voice for dictation in a speech app.

Next, locate and isolate the user's head as to distinguish it from other items / images that might be present (background things).

Once isolated the program would have to do a "comparison" of all faces contained in its database (provided yours is not the only one).

Lastly, once a favorable match has been located, the program would most likely do a final comparison of features like brow ridge, chin, cheek bone placement, bridge of nose, eyes, etc. until it "knows" with certainty that it has a correct match.

While we're talking seconds and miliseconds the processing time to obtain the final match takes time away from the program's main instruction set.

One thing that might logically be done would be to have the program do it's facial search after startup is completed, find a match then drop out of its routine. It now knows who you are so it wouldn't need to keep "looking" at you. The program could then carry on as normal.

If you were to leave, log out, quit, screen saver (maybe) then another facial rec routine might be required.

Just some thoughts...don't get me wrong, I'm quite excited at the prospect of webcam usage for Hal. We'll just have to see how far Robert plans on pushing the limits.

Here's looking at you kid!

[caangel43]

that sure is a bummer maybe oneday things will come out to make it simple to do maybe some software that will not strain the computer.

[Will and Mr Data :) :]]

Hi from Will,
we await ultrahal vision also,
as suggested recognition could run on command to give us a start, if the pc power is to slow.

 if zabaware released next version with vision  even a basic vision recognition and or tracking and check boxes to check in the options menu for all up grades like vision rec, vision track, auto idle or loneliness , time, and so on.

then customers of zabaware would pay for next version and post there up grades that they come up with to zabaware to be released back to the customers quicker. more money for zabaware, fast product development, customer gets products fast.

bye for now and be well from Will and Mr Data

[ramccoid]

Hi
I reckon you would need at least a dual core computer, preferably a 64 bit 2 processor to use face recognition. I've tried it on a 32 bit computer and as Art said it doesn't have the processing power to run such a application, even a simple version of face recognition. Then again the quad core chips are due out any time now and they would run it without a hitch. It's time to upgrade to be able to use these types of advancements.

Roy.

[lightspeed]

maybe this is off subject but then i wonder about a voice recognition ?? that way even if you didnt have a web came maybe hal could recgnize your voice or if someone one else was in the room and talks hal may say who's that woman (or man ) talking ?? hal program to learn the difference in deeper voice as man and lighter for women . just a thought . []or would a program like that require just as mucg as web cam .?

[Bill819]

Hi Will
I think that I bought some of the same forarms with hands thay you are using on your bot. Although they look really nice they don't have enough strength for my likes. I am glad to see that someone else thought of the same idea though.
Bill

[Will and Mr Data :) :]]

Hi Bill819, from Will,
one hand was given to me, and the other came from the Nelson Recycle Centre, got it for a coin donation.
[]

[Carl2]

lightspeed
  I'm using Dragon Naturally Speaking preferred  ver 9 with Hal, I've been using Dragon for ages and it works fairly well. I am very sure the speech  recognition works by changing the sound to text. No sound information is transferred to hal, just the text of what you said.
  Art thanks for the information on facial recognition, I'd been looking at HP who has a Quad processor available, I'll also have to go with the 64 bit version of Vista that will raise the price.  I'd like to add that at this time Dragon is still speaker dependent unlike other voice recognition we use.
  I'm under the impression the vision for Hal will be quite simple, The webcam will allow hal to look at a picture of the speaker and compare it to another picture of the user.  I'm hoping people will be able to make plugins to extend hals use of vision.
Carl2

[Bill819]

Lets stop the confusion about what is required to run face recognition. Those of us who purchased the ER1 Robot Kit can tell you that it does not take a powerful computer to run that software. In fact It run quite well on a one gigahertz machine but Hal on the other hand benifits greatly on faster machines.
On my old 1 giga hrtz laptop it took Hal about 3 to 6 seconds to respond to something that I said. Now on my latest laptop a 2.4 giga machine it is almost instaneanous replys.
Back to 'face recognition' the ER1 software comes with the best one available to the pubic bundled inside their robot package. It was so good that they sold the rights to use it to Sony in their robot dog AIBO. Now there is talk that the new Robosapiends #3 will have it built in too.
Bill