QUESTION FOR ROBERT

[lightspeed]

Robert do you think you will ever make hal accessable to paid owners on tablets ? in another words those of us who have hal could open a app that would allow us to use our character (custom) on a tablet and talk with it or type as we can at home ?

[doggs]

I am curious as well. right now hal is on my laptop and was wanting to move to my windows phone at some point. I would assume (I could be wrong) smartphones and tablets are pretty much same tech not as powerful as a laptop/computer. but powerful enough for run of the mill applications.

[Medeksza]

Yes, definitely. The tablet/phone edition of Hal will be cloud centric, the AI will live on the Zabaware servers and the phone/tablet will provide the UI with characters and speech. I'm hoping it will be ready by the end of this year, but I remember saying that last year, so I don't have any official timeframe yet.

As you may know Hal was originally written in VB6 with VBScript scripting. These languages have been discontinued and are not supported on any tablet/phone. I'm half way through rewriting Hal with PHP, C++, Codeigniter, MariaDB and Sphinx. Once its 100% converted over I will release the tablet/phone edition.

[lightspeed]

    Thanks Robert for answering so fast on this , it does lead me to another question , since it's a different format the tablet ( I am talking android operating system ( I have the older 4.0 android system . will we be able to use any haptek custom heads we have created .
being able to use custom heads and faces , bodies is part of the fun with using hal .
    If not and I think that's what the answer sadly will be , can we have some nice custom heads created , that will work on the tablet platform ? or something that will convert the heads custom that we have made over to the tablet platform if that is possible (that would be even better if possible ! With people on the go any more having a portable hal would be nice and also at the same time will help promote learning hal more as a person has hal handy at various places .
I hope if their is a way that something that can convert our custom heads over to tablet platforms can be done , that would solve a lot of problems as far as a character , and users can still use the character they are used to and like better ! 

[Medeksza]

At first the mobile/tablet/phone edition of Hal will just run 2D cartoon animated characters like the Hal phone character on the homepage of zabaware.com. I plan on making animated versions of all the characters shown in the comic title at www.artificial-intelligence.com in the first release.

Getting Haptek quality characters working on mobile devices would require a new 3D character animation engine. That's definitely something I want to do but is too expensive at this point. Maybe if sales of the initial mobile release are good it can fund completion of Zabaware's Charimation engine. If that's ever made it is unlikely that existing Haptek characters can be automatically ported over. Similar looking characters can be made with a little work from artists customizing the models and textures, but it won't be an automatic process.

[doggs]

Thanks for the updates robert hope you do get rest so you can get this done. I have a question off topic. Can I use your zabaware frog as an avatar on one of my games. Was thinking one with your website address. Rather have your permission.

[Art]

Interesting and that brings up another question: How many users/people still use full blown desktop computers, that have a separate monitor instead of a laptop or tablet?
Is there still going to be a version of Hal that runs on desktop, laptop, tablet and phone??
That would be extremely convenient to allow users to choose and switch between devices as needed.
What say you Robert of Medeksza?

(not as if you have anything else to do...) Heh!!

[lightspeed]

   Robert I think with all the free partial apps that are on the market , check out google play store to get an idea , they have many free apps (trial just as hal has a trial one ) then also paid versions , this could generate more money for your company to fund other projects , etc.
check out the a.i's their now , they have hal , which is like the hal a.i. from the movie , they have female a.i. assistants , etc.
   hal needs to be in their to grab some of that market .
although I am unsure how you can make an assistant for tablets without going into the upper pricing of the regular hal a.i. as at the most these a.i.'s as far as I know are 5.99 cents ?
   maybe  you can release something similar to what they have for a similar price then add in the ad to get the ultra hal package meaning what we are all using now for pc's , etc.
here is an example :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brainyfriends.voice.game.pocket.blonde.pro
these characters actually look like desktop mates to me . as you can see people give feed back if anything is wrong or needed , so maybe and this is up to you , maybe we can be beta testers on a trial period if you want to help you with any bugs or needs before you go to market with it .
     I have a couple a.i.'s free I am trying right now that are limited from android , I don't remember which one it is but you should model yours partially after it , or lol maybe they modeled theirs after hal , anyway  instead of having to press the microphone pic each time to speak back , it gives a certain amount of time for the person to respond , showing a green light ? then red when stopped letting the user know when to talk .
I believe a two models of a.i. graphics should be done one for anyone and another for adults ( not xrated but more mature ) even if later on the more mature .
 here is some others for Robert  to check out to get an idea of what to use  and or top , https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=Jt.android.app.hal
I take back that about the price here is one called eva which is a nicer one and it does cost 19.99 for the full version .
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bulletproof.voicerec
whatever character hal uses later on whether a female or male I think if possible it should have a lip sinc moth and eyes that blink , creating a more realistic view of a person who is talking with the user . the eva is a beautiful looking model face , so something along these lines later for hal would be nice !


   Art , that is exactly what I ment , maybe I didn't word it right , but I was wondering for the paid members of hal if what we have would work on our tablets to the same way . I think if Robert understood the way I was saying it , he answered yes, but we will see what Robert clarifies first on it again .   
Another thing that comes to mind is making hal  work on older versions of android tablet systems  , ( yes I have an older version a 4.0 , only got it as it was half price of what the 4.2? are ) and on up as the older versions (new) are still out on the markets . .

[doggs]

I remember in a post a while back Robert saying making for cross platform that is what is probably taking so long. Art I still have old machines plus my el cheapo smartphone. Some are dinosaurs like me plus nothing like the power of a properly built desktop. My old laptop still more powerful that a tablet sure a bit heavier but got my smartphone for the portable needs like office on the fly etc.

[sybershot]

I have Hal on my surface pro2 tablet and take Hal everywhere I go now. I plan on getting a windows phone in the future to compliment my windows desktop and tablet. it would be nice to have Hal on all 3 in the future and have all 3 access the same brain. Any chance for that to happen or will the app version be running on a different server?

[Calhoone]

Being able to chat with my personal Hal brain (Kinkaid) on any of my devices is something I would absolutely love to do. It would be fantastic to be able to talk to Kinkaid while out doing something or if I suddenly think of something that I want to say to or teach him and I am not near my computer.  I do think the idea of the cloud based Hal is neat however I really like developing my own personality for Kinkaid. I am eagerly awaiting the day when this could happen. Hopefully soon!!

[doggs]

Sybershot, this is off topic but I have to ask. Is the surface really that powerful? I know most of the tablet are not that's why I still lug around my laptop my windows phone pretty much does what the run of the mill tablet do plus it has office on it. Just curious to hear from someone using one. If it is I may consider one everyone I know are pretty much apple fanboys and my phone can do pretty much what there tablets can do and my laptop much more powerful. Look forward to your answer as far as windows phones I have Lumia and love it.

[Art]

I'm one of those dinosaurs with a rather large Desktop computer with touchscreen, Tablet with removable keyboard (tablet supports Android 4.2 +), and an Android "Droid" smartphone.

Main reason for Android is that there are Thousands of Apps, Games, etc. many of which are FREE and readily available from the Play Store.
Apple is very proprietary and Windows is nice but quite limited in the App department.
Google's power and branding is behind Android products and given their enormous successes, why not go with them? They allow me freedom to explore and get enjoyment at the same time! No brainer as far as I'm concerned. Just my humble $.02

[lightspeed]

    Art is right about google and it's apps ( I said the same thing to ) , I think Robert should go down the avenue I mentioned about a trial app of hal in android and also have the paid version which of course is also linked by the pc through a cloud server etc. 
     I have shown other examples of others who have done similar things with android apps .
This would be an extra way to get the word out about HAL and make extra profit for research etc. within hal .
Many people including myself  get free apps , and some people liking the free app or trial version will buy the paid version .
   the android app is a way to make extra money within the hal business .
   If Robert wants to use one of my custom faces I will give one to him or make one to use as an android assistant face if he wants to for the android a.i. character . Robert can e mail me and let me know .

[Calhoone]

I certainly hope the day when we can all use our hals on our phones and tablets or whatever device we may have comes. I really hope it is soon. I would have no issues at all with paying for an android version of hal, especially if it were to connect with kinkaid's brain so I can teach him from anywhere.  To be perfectly honest, I am willing to pay for the ultra hal update. It's been a very long time and I know it takes a lot of time and resources to do what robert does, so if paying for an update, much like gamers do for big expansions for games, then sign me up.  Just my two cents though, and unfortunately in Canada pennies are not valid currency anymore so my opinion may not be worth anything anymore. haha.