Development update

[Medeksza]

I did a lot of work on the new Zabaware site over the past couple weeks, the in-development site is up at http://iis.ultrahal.com   You can now interact with the Ultra Hal bot on the site and it should stay in its chat session as you move page to page and even if you close the browser and reopen it. If you log on with your customer account (the one you made when you purchased Hal) everything Hal learns from will be tied to that account. This will form the basis of being able to connect to the same personality from Ultra Hal Assistant on Windows or mobile devices.

Most of the content on the site is finished and the shopping cart system has been migrated over. Please let me know if you find any missing, incomplete, or broken content.

My to do list before the new site launches and replaces zabaware.com:

• Finish feedback mechanism (thumbs up/down)
• Animate frog (waiting on artist)
• Finish Hal's second life page
• Add Hal database size stats
• Add new page header/footer to this forum

At some point after the new site launches, I plan on making additional improvements:

• Install AT&T natural voices server for better quality TTS
• Add additional characters (Sprite animated mobile Hal character followed by human character)
• Interface for editing Hal's database entries tied to your account

And then following will be an update to Ultra Hal Assistant for Windows and release of phone-gap version of Ultra Hal that will tie into this system.

[tedathome]

 Very nice looking site! Talked to Zaba for a while and had a good conversation.
Animation will add a lot when it comes along. Any chance of users getting a working prototype of the engine?

[Medeksza]

Very nice looking site! Talked to Zaba for a while and had a good conversation.
Animation will add a lot when it comes along. Any chance of users getting a working prototype of the engine?

The animation engine? For the site it will be based on simple sprite animation using pre-rendered sprites and javascript. I'll be utilizing http://www.spritely.net to do it. Unfortunately it's not based on the Zabaware 3D character animation engine started years ago, but should work well for a web site.

[freddy888]

Robert, How are you going to do lip-sync for the web version please ?

[Medeksza]

All I know is when the audio starts playing and when it ends. It will just start a talk animation and end it when audio ends. So it won't actually sync with the lips. But I think with the cartoony nature of the character it will look ok. We'll see though.

[freddy888]

Sounds interesting, I've not had much luck with working out a nice way to do lip-sync on web pages.  I've had a bit more luck with desktop programs, but it's a tricky area and a lot for my little noggin to work out

I look forward to seeing what you come up with 

[raybe]

Robert I agree in the fact of using a character such as Zaba doesn't need a lot of bells and whistles but at some time will need to match the expectations of UltraHal project for perceptions sake.

Curios will you incorporate a spell check for input even at this stage. Unless I missed something I find it hard to believe that sentences I did input might be all correctly spelled. 

The relationships of, I, me, you still seem to allude this recognition for all programs or most, haven't tried all I'm sure. Would seem parsing the whole sentence needs to be taken apart and then re-assembled for recognition.

Off topic sorry. The site looks good and seemed to work as UltraHal begins to learn again.

Just my opinion.
raybe

[rathb18]

So hey quick question will the online database be available to download (maybe every few months a new database gets uploaded)  for people who want to use Hal strictly offline? That way offline users still get access to the content the online version learns?

[Medeksza]

Curios will you incorporate a spell check for input even at this stage. Unless I missed something I find it hard to believe that sentences I did input might be all correctly spelled. 

If you use any browser other than Internet Explorer, I think spell check is built-in the browser itself. Chrome, Firefox, Opera all have built-in spell checking I believe.

[Medeksza]

So hey quick question will the online database be available to download (maybe every few months a new database gets uploaded)  for people who want to use Hal strictly offline? That way offline users still get access to the content the online version learns?

Unfortunately no for several reasons. Currently between all the tables in Hal's database there are 20 million rows of data using about 8 GB of storage, and that's only going to grow as time goes by. The technology used by Hal on the server is much different and not compatible with Ultra Hal Assistant on Windows. It uses mysql, sphinx indexing, and php on a Linux server and currently needs about 16 GB of RAM to run efficiently. There's just no way to get it to copy over to Ultra Hal Assistant 6 for Windows which uses an older VB6 and SQLite.

[Art]

OK...just to be clear, What were those THREE choices for Hal that the users were going to be presented with again?

A local, much smarter Hal,
One that's Internet only (some cloud somewhere)
One that connects part of the time and remains local

I might be a bit off the mark here as established by Robert initially during the journey.

Robert, please restate the Hal possibilities you originally quoted for us. I can't seem to locate it at present.

Thanks.

[Medeksza]

There will be 3 options:

• Local brain only, all conversations with Hal are done without any outside server and all learned information is stored locally, just as it is now. There will be some minor improvements to Hal's brain in this mode, but expect it to be pretty much the same as Hal 6.2 is now.
• Local brain assisted by cloud server. Learned information is stored locally. Brain script is run locally but contacts cloud server to see if it has a better answer in its massive conversational database. This mode allows user customized VBScript code while still utilizing the cloud server to get better answers.
• Full cloud brain. All of Hal's responses come from the Zabaware cloud server and all information Hal learns from you is stored on a private account on the Zabaware server. This allows you to logon to your Hal brain account from any computer without requiring product activation. If you have a mobile device or multiple computers you can interact with the same Hal brain on all devices. Does not support user customized brain scripts (although I could potentially add good scripts to the server if people send them to me). This is currently functional over at my development server http://iis.ultrahal.com

Ultra Hal Assistant for Windows will give the user these 3 options. Ultra Hal Assistant that will be released for other platforms (iPhone, Android, Windows RT) will only support option 3.

[Art]

Good deal! Sounds like you've got all the bases covered, Robert!!

I appreciate your detailed explanations and your efforts!!

[rathb18]

So for the Local brain only version how much change will there be to Hal's starting off knowledge?  I know currently Hal's brain file when starting off is just a few MB how big will the new brain file be?  Also How many sentences are there in 6.2 and how many will be in the new version?

[raybe]

Sorry, but not meant to insult anyone including myself (strange how that happens). Let's stay on topic for Roberts sake and answer the questions he needs answers for before going off into all directions again. The faster he solves one problem the faster he can move to the 2,3, ect.

Believe me I know when you see Robert on line everything just explodes with curious updates and features questions because we don't have him on line all the time. I do it myself all the time. If we are going to help then lets stay on the same course and give him answers to things he needs immediately.

Lets just read Topic post and and answer best we can. Sorry again if I poked any one in the eye (includes myself). Just my opinion.

Thanks,
raybe