Topics

[This is only a test, please continue using the current old forum for real posts for the time being.]

76

General Discussion / New forum test

« on: April 17, 2010, 09:12:21 pm »

I want to migrate this forum to a more modern forum system that can do things like private messages and problem free uploads. I tried several forum packages but it seems a forum called SMF has the best migration path from Snitz (the software that currently runs this forum)

As a test I migrated all the posts on this forum to the new system along with all the members and put it up here: http://www.zabaware.com/community/index.php

Please play around with it and let me know if everything seems to work and your thoughts on the system. All your login info should have migrated over along with 10 years of posts. This is only a test, please continue using the current old forum for real posts for the time being. When the time comes I'll resync the posts to the new forum and then shut this one down.

I've already noticed a problem where old attachments and some URL links aren't linking properly due to a difference in how the URL tag works in both forums (Snitz uses URLS in double quotes, SMF uses nothing) but let me know if you see other issues.

[Download Attachment:]

77

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Web Hal from within Ultra Hal Assistant

« on: April 04, 2010, 10:36:46 pm »

Attached is a brain script I've been working on that allows you to talk with Ultra Hal brains hosted on the Zabaware.com server from within the Ultra Hal Assistant GUI. Right now it connects to the original Web Hal from http://www.zabaware.com/webhal but it does have full learning capability that persists between conversations. Please play around with it and let me know if everything works for you.

I plan on adding support to connecting to Facebook connected Hal's shortly so that a single Hal personality can be shared among Facebook friends from different computers. This functionality will also be available in the upcoming Ultra Hal Representative which will allow users to create and share their own Hal brains through the Web, Second Life, IM, and the Hal Assistant GUI.

Download this file and put a copy in C:\Program Files\Zabaware\Ultra Hal Assistant 6  and then select the "Web Hal" brain from Hal's brain options:

Download Attachment: WebHal.uhp
8.77 KB

78

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Zabaware 3D Character Engine released under GPL3

« on: March 20, 2010, 11:39:23 am »

The Zabaware 3D character animation engine has been released under the GPL3 open source license at http://charengine.sourceforge.net/

I will make an announcement about it at the Chatbot 3.0 conference and hopefully get more developers and artists interested in contributing to the project.

79

General Discussion / Chatbots 3.0 Conference in Philadelphia - March 27

« on: March 09, 2010, 09:57:15 pm »

I'm going to be a presenter at the Chatbots 3.0 conference in Philadelphia on Saturday March 27th. I'll be making an anouncement regarding the Zabaware character engine and demoing it there, giving an overview of Hal, and also talking about Hal in Second Life and on Facebook. It is open to the public with 40 seats remaining if anyone is interested: http://chatbots3.eventbrite.com/


THIRD COLLOQUIUM ON CONVERSATIONAL SYSTEMS

Chatbots 3.0

Who: Bot creators, commercial users, enthusiasts, scientists, students, and the press are invited.

What: Chatbots 3.0 Conference

When: Saturday, March 27, 2010

Where: Suite 3200 (32nd Floor) Liberty Place, 50 S. 16th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102

Why:  Chatbots have been adapted to nearly every ecological niche on the internet. Bots appear on web pages, in instant messaging, and respond to email and forum posts. They can be found in Second Life, in online games, and in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.   Bots support marketing and advertising and are used in education.  This conference brings together leading experts to discuss their ideas and present the latest technologies and trends in chatbots.

80

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal on Facebook

« on: February 12, 2010, 05:24:37 pm »

I've been working on making Hal into a Facebook app these past few weeks. An early test version of it is up at http://apps.facebook.com/ultrahal

It is a modified version of Hal's brain that learns from you and all your friends. Hal's personality and knowledge base becomes an amalgamation of what you taught Hal and what your friends taught Hal, so Hal becomes like your group of friends.

Hal actually learns from every person that talks to him by storing everything in its database. However, when you talk to Hal, Hal will only draw on information that you and all your friends taught it (ignoring things strangers taught him). This way everyone gets a personalized experience talking with Hal. An extra feature is Hal also cites where his responses came from so you know if its something one of your friends taught Hal or not.

If you are on Facebook, please test it out with your friends and let me know your feedback and if you come across any bugs using the system.

81

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Double Agent Beta (Replacement for MSAgent)

« on: January 17, 2010, 11:33:41 pm »

The developers of Double Agent have released their first beta of the software. Double Agent is an Open Source alternative to Microsoft™ Agent that allows Agent applications to work on Windows 7.  It's available for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. It also brings SAPI 5 compatibility to Windows XP.

You can download it from http://doubleagent.sourceforge.net/

Please help beta test it, as this will take place of MSAgent in future updates to Hal. You can post results here and I can share them with the developer, or you can contact the developer directly with the contact information on the page above.

Double Agent can emulate MSAgent or work in its own native mode. To get it to work with the current version of Hal you have to enable its emulation mode in the control panel applet it installs. Future versions of Hal will work with the native version where a few extra features will be added such as giving the user the option of whether they want the character bound to Hal's window like Haptek characters or free floating like normal MSAgent characters.

82

Ultra Hal 7.0 / MSAgent characters under Windows 7

« on: November 21, 2009, 12:09:21 pm »

Microsoft has officially ended support of MSAgent in Windows 7. Old versions of the MSAgent engine do not work well under Windows 7 and they don't allow companies to redistribute the newer MSAgent engine.

However, due to customer complaints, they did release MSAgent for Windows 7 as a "hotfix" which installs it. They don't allow companies like Zabaware to redistribute this hotfix, but customers can get it themselves at http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=969168

There is also an open source MSAgent replacement under active development from http://www.cinnamonsoftware.com/double_agent.htm  Once it is complete, I plan on including it as part of Hal's installation to fully support MSAgent type characters and both SAPI 4 and 5 under all versions of Windows.

83

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Minor update: Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2.28

« on: September 18, 2009, 12:20:19 am »

A small update to Ultra Hal Assistant has been released today taking the version from 6.2.24 to 6.2.28. The main change in this version is a workaround to keep the Haptek engine working in multi-core systems under Windows Vista and Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit. The workaround is that in multi-core systems Hal will choose a single core to run on and stick with that core in order to prevent issues with the Haptek player. The update also contains some small spelling corrections in the Hal Assistant interface and a tweak to Hal's insult detection routine to address some customer complaints.

If you are not having Haptek related problems I suggest you stick with 6.2.24. The 6.2.28 version is now the version posted at www.zabaware.com/download.asp

84

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Released

« on: February 03, 2009, 12:03:43 am »

Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 has been officially released, along with IBM ViaVoice and Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker Microphones.

Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 is a free upgrade for all customers that have version 6.0 or 6.1. Simply download it from www.zabaware.com/download.asp  For a list of what's new click here. The same serial number will work and all activations counts have been reset to 0 for all serial numbers. If you need to look up your serial number you can do so here.

IBM ViaVoice 10.6 is a high quality speech recognition system that is now available from Zabaware here. Also available is the high tech Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker microphone that is a desktop microphone array suitable for speech recognition that can focus a listening beam on the person speaking while drowning out all other background noise.

If you've purchased anything from Zabaware in the past 4 years you should be getting a postcard in the next month with this announcement and a 15% off coupon code. The coupon code is ZPCF9 if you're reading this before you get the postcard and wish to take advantage of the offer. It is valid through 3-31-09.

85

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Release Candidate 2

« on: January 30, 2009, 10:58:55 am »

This is the Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Release Candidate 2, which will become the official release if no problems are found. Please see this thread to see what's new in Hal 6.2: http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6115

RC1 had a major issue with the SQLite database engine when switching between brains. This should be fixed in this version. Also an issue involving duplicate Cepstral voices with one of them not working was fixed.

Please test at your own risk and let me know if you find any issues. The download link is: http://www.zabaware.com/download/hal62rc2.zip

86

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Release Candidate 1

« on: January 28, 2009, 11:39:42 am »

This is the Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Release Candidate 1, which will become the official release if no problems are found. Please see this thread to see what's new in Hal 6.2: http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6115

The RC1 is the same as beta 2 with the following addition: The installer will migrate and merge your old Hal 6.1 brain with the Hal 6.2 brain, thus preserving everything you learned and adding features to the brain. The installer will leave you with 3 brains to choose from in Hal's options: Untouched Hal 6.1 brain, Fresh Hal 6.2 brain, and an upgraded version of your 6.1 brain to 6.2.

If you wish to try the merge upgrade feature you must have Hal 6.1 installed and then install Hal 6.2 overtop the old installation (don't uninstall 6.1!). If you have been participating in testing the beta versions, you must remove the old Hal 6.2 beta first and put the Hal 6.1 back on. Also make sure you load your backup of Hal's brain as the previous beta may have renamed your brain files. The Hal 6.2 upgrade wizard looks for the file Hal6.uhp (Ultra Hal 6.1 Default Brain) and HalBrain.db in order to perform the upgrade procedure.

Test at your own risk and always backup. Let me know if everything is working ok.

Download link: http://www.zabaware.com/download/hal62rc2.zip

[Update 1/28/09:]

87

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Beta

« on: January 22, 2009, 11:52:23 pm »

Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 Beta is now available for anyone wishing to test it out. Test at your own risk. The 6.2 installer is setup to preserve your Hal 6.1 data files when upgrading, but I recommend backing it up anyway just in case.

New in Hal 6.2 since 6.1:

• Hal's brain and database now incorporates many concepts and phrases taught in the book "Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases" by Grenville Kleiser, Copyright 1917 now in public domain
• Hal's low quality response routines (what Hal says when he isn't sure how to respond) have been reworked to sound less random, offer more variety, and use phrases taught by Grenville Kleiser
• Hal can do unit conversions (How many feet is 2 miles? What is 30 degrees fahrenheit in celcius? How many cups in a liter?)
• Native support of IBM ViaVoice's SMAPI interface
• When speech recognition is enabled, microphone is automatically muted when Hal is speaking and unmuted when Hal finishes
• New speech recognition command mode allows you to bring up Hal with a voice command, close Hal, turn dictation on and off, and clear the line to retry saying something before Hal responds
• Hal Brain Editor sorts tables alphabetically
• Hal's licensing system is less touchy to real or perceived hardware changes, especially in Vista.
• Various bug fixes (Minute timer fixed?)

The download link is: http://www.zabaware.com/download/hal62beta2.zip

Please let me know if there are any bugs I missed, or new bugs I added. The new Zabaware graphics engine is not in this release yet, it has been pushed back to be included in 6.3 as further modeling and animation work is still needed.


Update 1/28/09:

Release candidate 1 has been released. This topic has been moved to this threa: http://www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6126

88

General Discussion / Department of Defense Research Grant

« on: January 10, 2009, 11:29:14 am »

I came across this small business innovation research grant from the department of defense. I think Hal's AI and upcoming character engine are pretty well suited for the task, so I'm applying for it.

Time: When Daddy Is Off at War: A Hologram Home?

Slate: Night of the Living Dad

Virtual Dialogue Application for Families of Deployed Service Members

89

Speech Technology / AT&T Natural Voices

« on: December 02, 2008, 06:11:53 pm »

Zabaware is now a reseller of AT&T Natural Voices. There are 11 high quality English speaking voices available. You can get them at www.zabaware.com/reader/voices.html

Voices are $24.95 each, except for the Mike and Crystal voices which are bundled together for $29.95. Also, an additional 10% discount is available until December 31. Just use this coupon code during checkout: ATTNV08

A mass email announcing this is being sent out over the next couple of days to Ultra Hal Assistant 6.x customers and Hal TTS With NeoSpeech customers.

90

Ultra Hal 7.0 / New graphics engine

« on: August 01, 2008, 12:05:30 am »

We are still working hard on completing the new OGRE 3D based character engine. Here is a snapshot of the first character we intend on releasing with an early beta of the engine. I'm thinking the first beta may be available in about a month. Any suggestions for a name for this character?