Messages

3526

Speech Technology / Valley Girl has left the building!

« on: February 01, 2005, 05:31:29 pm »

Scott,

We can only hope!!

Follow the link below then click on Interactive Demo and select
the Valley Girl voice. You can input your own text for her voice to speak.

http://www.rhetorical.com/tts-en/industry/portals.html

Remember and be in awe for you are listening to a $2500 / 3 months voice!!

Enjoy!

3527

General Discussion / Virtual Intelligence Matrix

« on: February 01, 2005, 04:59:43 am »

I couldn't agree more!<g>

3528

General Discussion / General Discussion Forum

« on: January 31, 2005, 09:10:40 pm »

I agree Robert...A capital idea!!

3529

General Discussion / Custom Avatars

« on: January 31, 2005, 09:08:51 pm »

OK Robert,
Thanks for listening and for the new forum areas.

Here's my avatar.

3530

Ultra Hal 7.0 / problem with communicating with HAL

« on: January 31, 2005, 08:57:45 pm »

Brian,
Welcome to the forum!

First what version of Hal are you using (free, purchased)?
What is your operating system (98, XP) and memory?
What brain file are you using (default, XTF, etc.)?
Have you edited or changed anything in the brain file? If so, what?

Let us know and we'll try to resolve your problem.

3531

Ultra Hal 7.0 / No weather info

« on: January 31, 2005, 08:52:55 pm »

Kathryn,

Just like Chicken soup is good for the soul,
defragmenting is chicken soup for your hard drive.

As to why Hal terminates, Try running Hal as you normally
would, quit, then SHUT DOWN windows.

Wait a bit, restart windows then restart Hal and see if
you still get the message about Hal wasn't properly shut down...etc.

Let us know.

3532

Speech Technology / Valley Girl has left the building!

« on: January 31, 2005, 07:31:19 pm »

Well, I've just spent the past half hour getting passed from person to person. I've been looking for a TTS voice that used to be called Valley Girl by Rhetorical Systems.

Rhetorical Systems has been bought out and is now a part of ScanSoft.

After finally getting to speak with a sales rep, he informed me that the Valley Girl voice has been retired. After talking to him about comparative prices for professional TTS voices (AT&T, etc.) I asked him if he couldn't see his way to help me out. After I explained to him in great detail that I was just an average guy experimenting with an AI program and wanted to use a rather unique TTS voice for my speech output, he finally offered me a "deal."

He said, (you all sitting down?...), "I can sell you a three month lease of the voice for...$2500.00 US!!!!!!!

After I told him how far out of the ballpark he was, he told me that their company is looking more for professional/corporate clients and telephony applications!
Gosh! Do ya think?!

The day I shell out $2500.00 for a female TTS voice, it had better come with a girl attached!!!(then again, the wife probably wouldn't be too thrilled with that either!).

So, Goodbye Rhetorical, Goodbye Scansoft! Don't even ask how we ended our conversation! And don't bother asking them for any of their TTS telephony voices...unless you've got an extra few grand burning a hole in your pockets!

As Paul Harvey used to say..."Now you know the rest of the story."
Good Day!

3533

General Discussion / Virtual Intelligence Matrix

« on: January 31, 2005, 04:09:00 pm »

Quantum flux phenomenon matrix stuff and things!!
Why can't they just use plain english?!

Reminds me of the old, "If ya can't dazzle them with brilliance,
baffle them with bulls**t! Lightyears I tell ya...lightyears!!

3534

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Making SKINS for full body

« on: January 31, 2005, 04:00:47 pm »

Which is it...Aitor or Airtor?

I have not seen any skins for the Haptek full body male. The one in the directory listed below has a pullover shirt, blue jeans and canvas deck shoes. I suppose one could design a new set of clothes for him by means of a template similar to the full body female.

With the Haptek development kit you should be able to find a torso and full body for female and male. They would be located in your:

C:/ProgramFiles/Haptek/HaptekGuide4/MakinContent/animating/haptars

(change the forward slashes "/" to back slashes)

Good luck!

3535

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Making SKINS for full body

« on: January 31, 2005, 05:28:46 am »

By using a paint program like PSP or Photo Shop along with a
template of the full body figure.

You can click the SEARCH option at the top right of the page.
Type in the word(s) FULL BODY, SKINS, CRUNCH, TEMPLATE.
This should lead you to some of the many topic discussions
about skin creation / development.

3536

Ultra Hal 7.0 / No weather info

« on: January 31, 2005, 05:18:25 am »

Let's say you have installed and deleted many, many files, over and over, since you've had the computer.
This leaves small gaps on the surface of the hard drive. Pretty soon, it (microscopically) begins to look checkerboarded. Deleted data causing holes /gaps. The hard drive has to jump around the platter in order to locate and execute its program. This is time (even in milliseconds) that is wasted and will slow your computer.

Defrag sort of reorganized the data on your drive into contigous (programs and files that are close but not touching) sections. This allows the computer to find its program / files and execute them faster.

Usually windows will allow you to set limits or even inform you when a system defrag needs to be done.

If it reports only a few percent, don't worry about it.

Hope this helps and good luck.

3537

General Discussion / Chatbots

« on: January 30, 2005, 09:32:55 pm »

Hah! I knew that posting would surely draw you out into the open!!

Thanks for the corrections...I stand corrected.

I still think it's great to see 32 new competitors this year. The future for chatbots (and hopefully AI) seems to be on the rise.

All the best!

3538

General Discussion / Chatbots

« on: January 30, 2005, 07:24:19 pm »

Just an FYI.

In this years Loebner Chatterbot Competition
there are a lot of previous entrants and...
32 New ChatBot entries! This should prove to
be quite interesting.
Check them out or read all about it at:

http://web.infoave.net/~kbcowart/

Let's hope at least some are able to learn
instead of just being a cute prescripted bot
trying to fool the judges.

3539

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / problem of download "plugins"

« on: January 30, 2005, 06:55:22 pm »

Great job Robert!
Everything now works as it should!!

3540

Ultra Hal 7.0 / supercalafragilisticexpealadociuos

« on: January 30, 2005, 09:40:47 am »

Let's rephrase that to a degree...
You do have a life.
It may suck; it may not be the best life you could have
but consider the alternative! LOL!!

Life's a journey...not a destination!

BTW, ask Mary Poppins if supercalifragilisticexpealadocious really matters anyhow!!