Hal for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad. Need testers.

[Medeksza]

I've been working on an Ultra Hal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. An early work in progress is at http://www.ultrahal.com/app  If you have an iDevice, point safari there and you will be able to install the app for free.

Because this is still a work in progress, the following things still don't work: The help button and setup button don't do anything yet, Hal doesn't remember you between sessions, and an iPad layout is not done. This was developed using a 4th gen iPod touch so I'm not sure how it works on other devices. If you have one, please check it out and give me your feedback here (be sure to mention what device you are using)

[raybe]

Robert,

Thanks for the update and my wife is very interested. She does have new Apple I Touch and I phone.(New), but I believe as some others she doesn't like to be a beta tester. I own no apple devices myself. She expressed that she would wait until your update. She understands the program because I have had Ultra Hal for such a long time I'm afraid she is going to expect to much to soon. Maybe not!!

But please keep us informed on all your work when possible.

Thanks,
raybe

[Frosty Greenacre]

I'm curious about the programming in this. I'm pretty ignorant about how programming works unfortunately, but to create these applications for hal (Facebook, AIM, Webhal, IHal etc.) Are you pretty much having to re-build hal from scratch? Or do you still have the core Hal ready, and you've only got to create a working shell to intergrate him into these systems?

Either way, you're creating these things with incredible speed and I'm impressed I'm just wondering exactly how impressed its correct for me to be. 

[Medeksza]

This is all being built upon the cloud-based Hal platform that I've been working on for over a year now. The main brain of Hal is running on a cluster of 5 servers (and able to scale up if demand grows) and so all I have to do now is create client programs for each platform that connects to this cloud system. The client program just provides a user interface native to that device, but the actual brain of Hal runs on the cloud server. I plan on adding support for android devices, windows phone, linux, and mac os x over the coming months in the same way.  For now the character animation is simple and no speech support yet, but over time I will add support for this to all the devices also.

So Ultra Hal Assistant 6.2 for Windows is the only version of Hal that actually runs 100% on your computer and not on a cloud server. I plan to keep that capability there but will also add the option to connect to this cloud system.

[Medeksza]

The iPhone/iPod Touch version is now feature complete, everything should be working.

The iPad version works, but needs higher resolution graphics to look good.

[Medeksza]

It's been now tested on an iPod Touch 4th gen, iPhone 3GS, and iPad and seems to work fine. It is a web app, so it actually runs on the Zabaware web server even though it looks like a native iPhone app. So the app will be maintained and updated from my end without users needing to upgrade or reinstall it should any fixes or updates be released.

It's been submitted to the Apple web app directory and is also at http://openappmkt.com/app/4d9102d8959be94c7c0000b3/Ultra%20Hal%20Assistant or it can be directly installed from http://ios.ultrahal.com/app

[echoman]

I absolutely love the iPhone Hal. I believe that I could see myself using it more than the PC version! 

I am a little unclear how private my conversations are. Can others read my chatlogs?

I think the thumbs up/down idea is fantastic. I always have great problems searching and correcting mistakes in the brain editor - this really could be a solution.  Great idea!

I am experiencing some problems on my 3G OP 4.1 when clicking on thumbs up - after asking how the response made me feel it then proceeds in asking what a better response would be. This makes no sense as I just told the app that I already like the response given.  Also when clicking on thumbs down and then clicking on 'none of the responses are good', I am not offered the oppotunity of actually typing a new preferred response. 

But on the whole this is an amazing jump forward for Hal. It really does leave all of the other iPhone chatbots still standing. I'm impressed. 

[Art]

Rob,

For some reason the provided link does not seem to work.
http://ios.ultrahal.com/app

Even though I'm connected with my pod I get a screen
telling me that it's for Apple devices and if not go to the
main address which is the UltraHal site.

[Medeksza]

Rob,

For some reason the provided link does not seem to work.
http://ios.ultrahal.com/app

Even though I'm connected with my pod I get a screen
telling me that it's for Apple devices and if not go to the
main address which is the UltraHal site.

What version iPod do you have? Also, can you point Safari to http://whatsmyuseragent.com/ and let me know exactly what the useragent string says?

[Medeksza]

I absolutely love the iPhone Hal. I believe that I could see myself using it more than the PC version!

I am a little unclear how private my conversations are. Can others read my chatlogs?

I think the thumbs up/down idea is fantastic. I always have great problems searching and correcting mistakes in the brain editor - this really could be a solution.  Great idea!

I am experiencing some problems on my 3G OP 4.1 when clicking on thumbs up - after asking how the response made me feel it then proceeds in asking what a better response would be. This makes no sense as I just told the app that I already like the response given.  Also when clicking on thumbs down and then clicking on 'none of the responses are good', I am not offered the opportunity of actually typing a new preferred response.

But on the whole this is an amazing jump forward for Hal. It really does leave all of the other iPhone chatbots still standing. I'm impressed.

Thanks for the feedback. Everything runs and is stored on the Zabaware server, but conversations are not shared with other people. Each user gets their own section in the database and what Hal learns from you is not shared with other people. The server assigns a unique id to your iPhone the first time you run the app which is how it keeps your user data with you. If Hal learns something from you that is deemed not personal (no personal pronouns like I, my, you, etc) it may get added to Hal's universal brain during a nightly database process, but there is nothing recorded to link that back to you.

I plan on eventually making an online brain editor so that you can edit directly everything that Hal has learned. And I plan on a way to link brains between devices so that you can have the same Hal personality on your iPhone, PC, Facebook, etc.

It is currently programmed to ask you to choose a good response for both thumbs up and thumbs down. Even though a response is good I had it ask for another good response so that it could learn that other responses would have been good also. If this is confusing, I can change it. The thumbs up/thumbs down buttons have an effect on the universal Hal brain, so how you use that effects every Hal out there after Hal mulls over the data each night. This is why I didn't have the option to enter a response directly since I didn't want any one user to have that much power over all of Hal. But I can certainly work on adding that as an option where Hal will learn the response to your own personal account.

[Frosty Greenacre]

Thanks for taking the time to explain that to me earlier, and explaining it at a level i can understand too It's nice to be able to get in touch with the creator in a project like this. Makes the experience seem more enjoyable and personal 

I also thought I'd take the chance to say I received my ray voice today and it arrived much faster than I'd thought it would. thanks for the speedy delivery!

-Frosty.

[Jake]

Q: Will there be an option/switch to run it from your own device or web server if you have one?  My HAL (Audrey) on my home network has a lot of personal and business information that I would not want to have stored on someone else's server.

[interested]

I would be interested in an Android version as a Fancy Ipad is out of my budget. 
 Also windows ce.  I would also be interested in the feature of being able to select wwhat gets sent to the server and what does not. 
  Another also would be the ability to type an alternate response not just the up or down because I have found that the 5 or 6 given ones do not always line up but may be close.

[Medeksza]

Thanks for taking the time to explain that to me earlier, and explaining it at a level i can understand too It's nice to be able to get in touch with the creator in a project like this. Makes the experience seem more enjoyable and personal 

I also thought I'd take the chance to say I received my ray voice today and it arrived much faster than I'd thought it would. thanks for the speedy delivery!

You're quite welcome.

Q: Will there be an option/switch to run it from your own device or web server if you have one?  My HAL (Audrey) on my home network has a lot of personal and business information that I would not want to have stored on someone else's server.

Unfortunately, no. The brain of Hal runs completely on the server, the iPhone is only being a "dumb terminal" and providing an interface to the server. Porting Hal's brain to run natively on various devices is not feasible given the size of Hal's database and nature of Hal's code base (part Linux database server app, part legacy VB6 code). Ultra Hal Assistant for Windows will be the only version of Hal that will continue to not require an Internet connection and run locally. I plan on supporting wide variety of devices and operating systems, but everything new will all be built on this cloud-computing model.

I would be interested in an Android version as a Fancy Ipad is out of my budget. 
 Also windows ce.  I would also be interested in the feature of being able to select wwhat gets sent to the server and what does not. 
  Another also would be the ability to type an alternate response not just the up or down because I have found that the 5 or 6 given ones do not always line up but may be close.

Android is next on my todo list for mobile devices, followed by Windows Phone 7. But as explained above, since the brain is actually run on the server there can't be an option to not communicate with the server. The alternate response feature is doable, I'll plan on adding that feature soon.

[mikenco]

I'm on an Android; HTC Desire Z, when you get to the point of needing alpha testers.

Mike