Ultra Hal 7 Beta - Coming Soon

[Medeksza]

I'm preparing to release a beta version of Ultra Hal 7 in about 2 weeks. I'm preparing a new server this weekend and will migrate zabaware.com, ultrahal.com, and a database server to it over this time. Once the new server is completely and and running Ultra Hal 7 beta will be able to be released. Check back here for more info.

Here is what's new in Ultra Hal 7:

• Biggest improvement: Cloud based learning. Hal can now optionally connect to the "Hal Cloud" brain over the internet to help formulate better responses. As of October 2017 this is a knowledge base of over 26 million sentences of conversation from 1.6 million people. Contrast with the 200,000 sentence database in the default Ultra Hal 6.2 installation. Hal is more intelligent than ever before.
• Your personal Hal bot can follow you from your home desktop, to your laptop, office PC, and in the near future your phone and tablet too. When connected to the "Hal Cloud", your Hal's brain is stored online and instantly available anywhere.
• Access to Wikipedia based answered in cloud mode
• New Hal mobile phone character. Old Hal character still available, but renamed to "Hal Classic CRT"
• New audio wave character simply displays an animated wave audio line when character is speaking
• Program name changed from "Ultra Hal Assistant" to just "Ultra Hal" to shift marketing focus away from assistant functionality to Hal's strengths in its ability to chat, learn, and be a companion. Renamed EXE to ultrahal7.exe
• Splash screen and graphics updated to new version
• Ultra Hal now installs and uses the open source Double Agent library instead of the old MSAgent. This brings full compatibility to MSAgent characters to Windows 7 and newer with full SAPI 5 voice support.
• Hal can answer questions about opposites (What is the opposite of X?)
• Hal can talk about day of week and month (What day of week is it? What month is it?)
• Basic knowledge of alphabet (What letter comes before Z? What letter is after B?)
• Ability to count letters in word (How many letters are in the word computer?)
• Bot memory test: (Q: The football was kicked by Fred. Who kicked the football? A: Fred.)
• Improved math abilities (less false positives and better word problem abilities)
• Software shield license system removed and replaced with simpler login to Zabaware.com server
• Chant SpeechKit upgraded from version 6 to 7. This adds native support for Cereproc voices among other speech system improvements
• Ultra Hal now generates Haptek INI files for Haptek, removing the need to rerun Haptek SAPI config when changing voice settings. This also adds support for Zabaware sold Cereproc voices to Haptek.
• Ultra Hal now uses RegFree COM manifest files for most of its DLL/ActiveX/OCX files. This simplifies installation and minimizes possibility of "DLL Hell" collisions/incompatibilities with other Windows applications. RegFree COM was introduced in Windows XP SP2, so this change now effectively removes support for older versions of Windows from Hal.
• Ultra Hal no longer writes any data files to its "Program Files" location but instead to each individual Windows Users AppData\Roaming folder. This makes Hal more compliant with Microsoft guidelines and also makes it possible for each Windows user to have their own seperate Hal config.
• Improved corrections and substitutions tables for correcting more common errors and understanding more shorthand
• Ultra Hal checks for product updates when connected to cloud service
• Registry setting to adjust speech recognition auto enter countdown start time (SRCountDownStart)

[kryton]

Removes support for older Windows?
Does this include WindowsXP?

I have reason recently to try and reload Hal onto a WindowsXp machine and it comes back "Dependencies missing"

Don't forget all those who have supported Hal for years.

[LiFeTimeGamer]

WOW!!!!!!!  Now I gotta get a new machine with Win 10... LOL 

Thanks Robert for all that hard work...

[Medeksza]

Removes support for older Windows?
Does this include WindowsXP?

I have reason recently to try and reload Hal onto a WindowsXp machine and it comes back "Dependencies missing"

Don't forget all those who have supported Hal for years.

Ultra Hal 7 will work with Windows XP SP2 and newer. The last service pack for XP was SP3, so as long as you have your XP system up to date, Hal will continue to work. Reg-free COM was introduced in XP SP2 and should help minimize dependency issues and conflicts with other programs as you may have experiences sometimes with Hal.

Windows 2000, ME, 98 and earlier will definitely not work any longer with Ultra Hal 7 though.

[Medeksza]

#1: The agent char system: Ive worked with that for years now . Did you find a work around for Agent Char Voice Lip Syncing issues on the high end Voices. SAPI 05 voices. Voiceware voices. You know 1 ones im talking about .The ones that sound human and not like micro**** Sam.
Or is Hal just gonna have the voices that your selling?

Hal with Double Agent will now fully support MSAgent characters with any 32-bit SAPI 5.0 voices and full background transparency of the characters. The old MSAgent library only supported SAPI 4.0 and had pink backgrounds in Windows 7. A hotfix from Microsoft fixed some issues, but not all. Double Agent fixes everything with MSAgent character support.

#02 Hals Brain
Robert , im reading the post and it looks like Hals brain is stored in the cloud and not on my drive.
Rendering Hal useless as a stand alone unit with out Net Access.
Am i miss understanding all this?

The cloud brain and storage is optional. Hal 7 will continue to run your old Hal 6 brains if you wish or will run the Hal 7 brain in local only mode. You'll miss out on some of the new features if you disable the cloud mode, but I am not removing any old functionality.

Robert: So far im not seeing anything that blows my skirt up. But i am seeing somethings that are making me nervous.
The agent char system, Thats deff a step backwards by comparison to haptek and the voice systems has got me really nervous.

Agent support is improved and Haptek-based characters are still fully supported as well. Ultra Hal 7 also includes some non-Haptek, non-Agent characters like the new mobile phone character. Hal 7's plugin system will support new 3D character engine systems when and if they come available as well.

Hal continues to support all SAPI 4.0 and 5.0 voices whether you buy from Zabaware or not. Hal 7 adds support for CereProc voices using CereProc API, but will work with CereProc SAPI 5.0 voices you may already have bought (for more $). Selling CereProc voices without SAPI 5.0 support lets us offer it for less $ than you can buy otherwise, but if you do buy the SAPI 5.0 versions, they will work fine.

My roadmap is to get Hal working on mobile phones and tablets and these changes are needed to get that to happen. However, I worked hard to make sure I have not removed any functionality you are used to.

[LiFeTimeGamer]

Yep I'm sold also...   I can't wait to try it out, then purchase it... 

[Spitfire2600]

Sounds fantastic. I can't wait to start tinkering. I might even have to buy a new copy to play around with.

-Spitfire_2600

[Spitfire2600]

I'm sure I've asked before, but what language is the new Hal written in and how will this affect local pc plugins? I believe you said Hal6 plugins will still work but android will require API's. Will PC only remain VBScript?

-Spitfire_2600

[lightspeed]

a question or two to robert.
 after this hal seven (in the later final version is downloaded will the other files we have brain etc. still migrate into seven (even though it will have the optional online cloud brain , and if so and we later decide to use the cloud brain , it won't delete the current brain files , will it?? ( i would think it would just not use them , all files would stay in case a person decides to change back (not using cloud based frame . ) i would have preferred and hoped the cloud based brain would have worked with a persons custom built brain files , like using the answer from the custom brain file (if it had the answer, then maybe also adding to the answer from the cloud base info. thus forth making it like a hybrid . 
otherwise those of us that have spent years on custom brains teaching it many things have something we can no longer use (and have the cloudbase) .   I would have rather seen a hybrid workings like what i mentioned if possible. i think it would have been a better set up  or will it work that way even though brain files will be elsewhere?

also once the hal7 is finalized , is their any hope of working on a more human lifelike etc. characters to use with hal?
thanks for you time and work on all this. 

[Medeksza]

I'm sure I've asked before, but what language is the new Hal written in and how will this affect local pc plugins? I believe you said Hal6 plugins will still work but android will require API's. Will PC only remain VBScript?

-Spitfire_2600

The new Ultra Hal 7 for Windows is still predominantly a VB6 application with VBScript based brain. It is still customizable locally with VBScript just like Ultra Hal 6 was. It includes additional response routines in the VBScript that reach out to a server version of Hal. These routines sit at a higher priority than the old "MainBrain" and "_UserSent" brains and are meant to replace them when running in "Cloud" mode.

Once the new Android/IOS version is available then those versions will reach out to the server for all parts of the brain (not just "MainBrain" and "UserSent"), there will be no VBScript running this. It will still be customizable however because all parts of Hal's brain will be available using an API and you can then program customized bots using whatever language you like. The server version of Hal itself is built on PHP7, MariaDB, SphinxSearch, and some custom extensions. But it will talk with any language over a JSON based API.

[Medeksza]

a question or two to robert.
 after this hal seven (in the later final version is downloaded will the other files we have brain etc. still migrate into seven (even though it will have the optional online cloud brain , and if so and we later decide to use the cloud brain , it won't delete the current brain files , will it?? ( i would think it would just not use them , all files would stay in case a person decides to change back (not using cloud based frame . ) i would have preferred and hoped the cloud based brain would have worked with a persons custom built brain files , like using the answer from the custom brain file (if it had the answer, then maybe also adding to the answer from the cloud base info. thus forth making it like a hybrid . 
otherwise those of us that have spent years on custom brains teaching it many things have something we can no longer use (and have the cloudbase) .   I would have rather seen a hybrid workings like what i mentioned if possible. i think it would have been a better set up  or will it work that way even though brain files will be elsewhere?

also once the hal7 is finalized , is their any hope of working on a more human lifelike etc. characters to use with hal?
thanks for you time and work on all this. 

When upgrading to Hal 7 all your old Hal 6 brains will remain untouched and will remain as an option in your brain list. They will run exactly as they did under Hal 6 if you choose to use the old brain. There will be a new Hal 7 brain available to use as well. For the initial beta release I would be interested in seeing how fresh Hal 7 brains work for everyone.

Later in November I plan on releasing a second beta with a migration tool that can take an Ultra Hal 6 brain database and load it into a Hal 7 cloud-based brain. This optional tool will create a new Hal 7 brain using knowledge from your old Hal 6 database. The original Hal 6 brain will still remain as an option should you ever wish to go back to it.

[Medeksza]

also once the hal7 is finalized , is their any hope of working on a more human lifelike etc. characters to use with hal?
thanks for you time and work on all this. 

That depends on how well sales go of Hal 7. My next priority after releasing Hal 7 for Windows is to get the Android and IOS versions finished, followed by better online brain editing tools and an API reference for the cloud based brain.

If all goes well I do hope to soon after release a Hal 7.1 with support for the new http://www.expressive.ai/ character engine. This is the new company co-founded by Haptek creator Chris Shaw. This character engine can be supported on all major platforms (not just Windows).

[lightspeed]

thanks for answering robert, i will again though ask you this other question for anyone who has a custom brain made  is their a way you can let that brain work with the online cloud base ? using the priority of any known custom brain and adding if needed addictional information from the cloud base info. for hal. to me this would be a better set up . 
or will it do this ?? instead of either a user has to use the custom brain or the cloud base and not benefit from both .
both would be better .

[Medeksza]

thanks for answering robert, i will again though ask you this other question for anyone who has a custom brain made  is their a way you can let that brain work with the online cloud base ? using the priority of any known custom brain and adding if needed addiction information from the cloud base info. for hal. to me this would be a better set up . 
or will it do this ?? instead of either a user has to use the custom brain or the cloud base and not benefit from both .
both would be better .

Without knowing the specifics of your custom setup I can't say for sure. But in general through VBScript it is possible. Most custom plugins written for Hal 6 should continue to work in Hal 7. It is possible for Hal to draw on answers from both the online database and local brain database simultaneously. The default behavior of Hal 7 will be to learn to and only use the cloud database if cloud mode is enabled, and learn to the local database if it is not enabled.

[onthecuttingedge2005]

Hi Rob.

I would like to request a better programming language or than VBscript be reversed with VBA instead.
I can run Vbscript in VBA but not the other way around. to help those who accomplished so much with
VBscript, VBscript is getting old and VBA is so much prettier and has a larger potential.

please upgrade our programming language to VBA.
and that HAL is out for Christmas for the forums sake.

Jerry