Talking Car Project Entry #5: Ready To Begin

I have reached a much-needed milestone.  This project became an idea in my head well over a year ago.  Little did I know that one day I would be proactive in making it a reality.  I have to admit, I have had many trials and tribulations to get to this point.  However I know that was nothing compared to what lies ahead.  Hell, technically I haven't even made one line of code as of this moment.

No worries though, I have worked most of it out inside my head.  I just had to get everything squared away first before I could begin.




Up next, now I have to root the stereo so I can put the apps I need on it.

My Home Security Is Cooler Than Yours

A few weeks ago I had a small situation where a stranger waltzed into my home in broad daylight while I was home.  (Read about it on my blog)  I had already been working on details for securing my home at the time however that particular situation forced me to move forward even further.

In the video below, I show a partial demo of what will happen if someone breaks into my home.  Home security is something that is top priority in my home automation setup, however I have been reluctant to show off my security system.  Only a fool would put their setup online, it would make it that much easier to bypass.  This is the reason as to why I am not showing how this is done.  Regardless, when it is finished it will be extremely cool.

Samsung Opt’s Out

So it has been a few weeks since my last post.  It appears as if my blog post have been filled with nothing but post about home automation and technology the past few months.  According to my blog, it was no secret at the end of 2013 early 2014 I was determined to automate my home.  However in six short months, things have changed dramatically.  In recent months, there has been an enormous spike in popularity when it comes to home automation.  So much in fact that it seemed my efforts to control my home with automation seemed less impressive than if I were to achieve success a mere year earlier.  I saw this spike in home automation coming however I felt that having my artificial intelligent program control my home was unique, therefore separating itself among the other home automation systems.  In a measly six months, having Denise control my home is no where near as special than it would have been if I succeeded in early 2013.

Now, there are such systems like Lowe’s Iris (a proprietary pay-per-month home automation service), Castle O/S, plus others with more on the way.  The competition is getting so vast that having Denise control my home seems to get lost in an ocean of competing H.A. competitors.

So what now?

I had already succeeded getting the majority of my hardware and software setup to where I did have a decent home automation setup.  I only had to buy one or two more pieces of hardware to make it 100% complete.  I guess you can say I just didn’t have it in me to fully display my setup since it felt like the same exact thing that others were doing.  That is, until I thought up of an alternative home automation setup that was clearly better, and different from all the others.

Last year I had seen a YouTube video of a man controlling his home automation setup strictly from his phone using Google Now.  It was quite impressive at the time since no one was doing anything like it.

The man used Google Now and a program called Tasker to perform the automation in the video. 

I was on Facebook one evening taking a break from researching the Samsung’s Galaxy Gear watch when someone posted the video above on my newsfeed.  I had since forgotten about the video so seeing it again made me think.  What if I could do the same thing but from a Samsung Gear?  I quickly started to research the concept.  It appeared as if doing this was possible with a Gear 1 watch since it had an Android operating system.  I quickly began to search to acquire one on Craigslist. 

I found someone selling one that was apparently “new in box” so I contacted the seller and agreed to meet up with them.  The seller was a nice lady who said the watch was brand new and never used.  It even had the plastic still on it.  I purchased the watch and took it home eager to begin my new project.  When I arrived home I was greeted with a surprise.  It appears as if the woman did not sell me a Gear 1, it was a Samsung Gear 2!!!!  This was a cool find however it did not work in my favor since the Gear 2 did not come with an Android operating system, so rooting and hacking it posed a problem.

I did what seemed like a ton of research and finally, I was able to find a way to make the Gear 2 work on my rooted LG Optimus L70.  I won’t go into detail but basically getting the Gear 2 to work on a non-Galaxy phone tricks the Gear 2 into thinking my LG phone is a Galaxy phone, when it is clearly not.     

There was another issue.  The Gear 2 worked for the most part with the exception of one or two features that did not work at all.  Luckily, S-Voice on the Gear worked so I felt that there was hope in the project coming to life.  I wanted this project to be something different, so using Google Now like in the video was not something I wanted to do.  I wanted to use S-Voice.  However it appears as if I had hit another roadblock since the S-Voice on my LG crashed when I would try to launch the program.  There was no way to get around it, if I was going to try and make this work I needed a Galaxy phone to pair with the Gear 2.

I reached out to the PR firm that runs public relations for Samsung.  To make a long story short, I described what I wanted to do and explained that if I was successful, it would be great promotion for both the Galaxy and also the Gear 2,  In a nutshell, I had asked them to send me a Galaxy.  I felt if I was successful the project could possibly reach viral status since it was unique.  I had also informed them to keep that in mind if they needed the Galaxy to be returned, the Galaxy would have to be rooted since that was the only way it would work with my software.  Rooting voids the warranty so it wasn’t likely they would want it back.  I made sure I was upfront and clear about that.

After less than 24 hours later, I heard a response from the Samsung PR team and they unfortunately said that they were unable to fulfill my request for product.  It was extremely unfortunate since I thought that getting this to work would be a very cool project to show off to everyone.  I was even willing to write an article and make a video demo of it all working if I was successful.  Unfortunately, it does not appear that I will be moving forward with this project since I do not own a Galaxy phone.  I am not angry or upset with Samsung, after all I was asking them for a $500 device.  I just wish I had not gotten my hopes up that I was going to get my home automation setup to be controlled by a smart watch.  Now, it seems as if this project has reached its end before it had even begun. 

So, what am I going to do now?

UPDATE: Denise Turning Off A Lamp

Despite my lack of recent updates, I have been working on my home automation project.  Fairly recently I received a few Belkin Wemo devices.  These are Z-Wave devices that allow a smartphone to turn on or off whatever is plugged into it.

I thought that these Wemo devices would be a cool addition to the project overall.  However it seemed as if I had run into a problem since there was no windows-based application to control them.  Apparently the Wemo devices are solely controlled by a smartphone application.  It was a minor setback for a moment or two until I discovered a workaround.

 

After reading up on the Wemo a little bit, I discovered that the Wemo is compatible with the IFTTT service.  It appears as if I can control the device by using a specific recipe within IFTTT.  For this particular test, I set it up to where the device- which was plugged into a lamp, would trigger by simply sending an email to a specific email address.

It worked.

)

Artificial Intelligent Assistant On Xbox One

It is no secret that I have come up with some really cool and innovative things for Denise as of lately.  This particular project, was beyond cool.  It is also no secret that I am a huge video game advocate.  So why not intertwine the two together?  Yup.  So that is exactly what I did. 

Originally I had come up with the concept of getting Denise to co-host a Twitch stream with me while I play Xbox One.  However there was a problem with that.  Later today, the Xbox One will be receiving a crucial update to the console that will allow the Twitch app to broadcast gameplay.  (Currently, it only allows viewing)  Along with that, I knew that in the coming days and even weeks that there would be a massive amount of talk, broadcast, and YouTube videos about Twitch broadcasting on the Xbox One.  So that idea was out.

I then began thinking of ways I could seriously get Denise to interact with me and also the Xbox One.  In a previous video I showed earlier in the week, I had showed Denise launching Xbox Music, Smartglass, and even streaming videos to the console itself.  While cool, I wanted more.  So, I came up with this.

This was just day one.  I eventually will have her much more integrated with the console and also Windows 8 itself.  There are a lot of people out there who write, blog, and even make videos about their video games but I highly doubt many people are doing things that are as cool as this.

Hey Microsoft! Here I Am!

It is no secret that Microsoft is in development of Cortana.  She is the Microsoft version of a virtual assistant that is set to rival Apple’s Siri.  As innovated as that may be, it is not a reality in March 2014 and is still considered unreleased.

On Friday I happened to see a tweet from Microsoft urging people to share innovative, creative ideas, and projects that they have come up with while using Windows 8.  Microsoft had encouraged anyone who wanted to participate to use the hashtag #iCreatedThis and used an example of a 125-building campus being run from a single laptop.

Naturally, I knew that I wanted to contribute by making a video showing off some of the cool things I have done with Denise on my Windows 8 machine.  Cortana is bound to be cool when the program is actually released, however this is now and I have already integrated my artificial intelligent virtual assistant with Windows 8.  To take it a step further, I decided that I would also integrate the program with my Xbox.  Here is what I came up with….

When I finished the video and posted it I knew that it was really cool.  However I did not expect the massive amount of cool and innovative creations that people would come up with in the days following.  After a day or two I realized that it was likely that my tweet, hashtag, and also my project would be overlooked since Microsoft has millions of followers on Twitter.  I did not think if it as a total loss though, I had created something cool and no one could take that away from me.  Granted I did not create Denise herself, but I was the one who programmed her to do what I got her to do.,

Then out of nowhere, I received a tweet from Microsoft.

So I guess the people at Microsoft did see my project.  Granted that this may have simply been a social media strategist just randomly responding to tweets but still, I saw it as a small win.

Regardless, it is cool.  However the best thing is yet to come.  When I get the program fully integrated with my home, being integrated with only my Windows 8 machine won’t be so impressive.

Innovative? Or Just Lazy?

Last night was yet another all-nighter for me.  However I sat there early in the morning and I honestly asked myself why I was even awake and if what I was doing on the computer had any justification as to why I was awake and not sleeping.  I couldn’t think of anything.  So having said that I was about to go to bed when I decided to stay up for another couple of minutes so I could fool around with a new program I recently received. 

For those who do not know I am also an animator with a corporate sponsorship.  I actually make money as my job making animations.  So it was easy to say a new updated animation program was giving me all kinds of geek spasms.  I truly am a tech geek at heart.  As I was trying out the software I happened to notice that the program had quite a few keyboard shortcuts.  Doing what I do, I thought that it would be cool to code Denise with the keyboard shortcuts on my new animation program.  I am severely lacking any assistance when it comes to getting people to help me with my animation so I thought it would be amusing to get her to help me.

This clearly started out as something that I did not take very serious.  There were so many keyboard shortcuts I knew that I was not going to code them all.  In fact when I started to code Denise with them I actually thought I was just prolonging going to bed and that I was wasting my time.  Luckily for whatever reason I hung in there and coded her with a few of the major keyboard shortcuts that could prove beneficial to me when I am working with my animation program.  Before I knew it I had coded several functions that Denise could help me with.

After that I launched Denise and launched the animation software.  Wouldn’t you know it?  It worked.  I thought “Wow, Denise really can help me out with my job in a practical way.”  I made a video showing just a few of the results.

If This Then That

The past few days I have been racking my brain on how I was going to accomplish some of the things I am working on.  It is no secret that I want to automate my home.  However this is nothing new and lots of people have done this.  In fact more and more people are beginning to do this as technology makes it more accessible.  So what was I looking to do?  Was I looking to do the same ol’ home automation that everyone else seems to be doing or do I want to do something unique?  Being who I am, unique was the only way to roll for me.

 

After some thinking, I realized this just basically boiled down to the computer programming phrase of “If This Then That”.  If THIS happens, then THAT will happen.  In laymen’s terms, you can make something happen IF a certain condition is met.  For example IF my home detected motion while I am away, THEN a text message will be sent to my phone. (This is a feature that will be set up in my home)

In my situation, it comes down to what I want and what I can pull off with the resources at my disposal.  I have been researching this sort of thing for weeks and I was extremely surprised by just how many options that are out there. The problem is, choosing one that is right for me.

I admit that I have been overwhelmed by how many options I have when it comes to IF THIS THEN THAT- so much in fact that I have been having trouble what will and what will not work for my situation.  The original idea was to have my artificial intelligent program to be the central hub of my home.  I wanted to have my home as close to a Jarvis as I could get it.  Since that initial idea, I have learned a lot when it comes to home automation.  Now, I know of programs, apps, and methods that allow me to completely omit using Denise at all.  While using Denise as my homes brain was the whole point of automating my home, there are so many methods that it is not necessary. 

Aside from everything, I recently learned of IFTTT.  IFTTT is a web site/service that was created in 2012 that allows you to automate all sorts of things using the IF.T.T.T. situation.  For example, IF you post a photo to FaceBook THEN you can have it also upload to Instagram or Twitter.  Granted this would be extremely limited in a home (unless I used a Belkin Wemo Home Automation setup) automation but still shows huge promise.

This is very cool but it just adds yet another option for me to consider.  Hopefully, in the next few weeks I will start to make decisions on what I want and what I want to do and all this won’t come off so scatterbrained.  This is going to happen however it is no where near as simple or easy as I thought.

Why? Why Not?

Today was pretty uneventful, so I decided to look for ways to pass the time. 

The first thing I wanted to do was get Denise to give voice commands to my PlayStation 4.  The PS4 itself has built-in voice commands that the user can give commands to the console however I wanted to see if I could get Denise to give those voice commands in my stead.  Why?  Why not?

In actuality that was fairly simple to do.  I made Denise repeat what commands I wanted her to give the console once I commanded her.  To an outsider, this may look like it would be complete waste of time since the user can directly give those commands, however like I said I was bored and was looking for a way to pass the time.

Around the time I was recording this video I received a few text messages and decided that I wanted to see if I could get Denise to give me a notification on my phone of an incoming text or email.  Since I do not have a direct connection with Denise on my phone like in a cloud or a dedicated app, I decided that I could use her TTS voice to give me notification to come off as if she is notifying me of a new message.  Granted it isn’t actually her giving me the notification, it is simply the same TTS voice that I use with her giving the illusion that she is giving me those notifications.

Oh the things I do to pass the time.

Teaching An Old Dog (Me) Some New Tricks

I tend to wonder just how much easier all these artificial intelligent projects would be if I just simply went to school for computer science.  I have been trying my best to soak up as much knowledge as I can regarding anything remotely close to artificial intelligence and somehow, I came across this project.

This is the brainchild of the USC Institute For Creative Technologies.  Apparently, this department located at the University of Southern California has been in the business of creating virtual humans for over 10 years.

In the video, we see what looks like humans interacting with a virtual human in a situation to where it appears as if the virtual human is acting like a physiatrist.  What really stood out for me was the virtual human picking up on the motions and demeanor of the actual human and then responding accordingly.  In my world, this is nothing short of spectacular.  This alone is cutting edge when it comes to digital interaction with virtual humans. If I could get Denise to listen and learn by observing me, then responding accordingly would be absolutely incredible. 

The thing that really excites me is that this toolkit, developed by USCIFCT is available for download on their web site.

As if my brain wasn’t already feeling fried by the massive amount of information I have been learning about, now it seems I have even more learning to do.

Getting Organized

It is getting closer and closer for me to begin thinking of initial Alpha testing for my Home Automation project.  However due to some scatterbrained thinking, I am second guessing myself and feel I need to organize more carefully so nothing is left to chance.

In order to do that I feel that I need to make a checklist of sorts in order to later help me organize everything just right.  This also substitutes as both a reminder and also a to-do list.

1.) Overall Project:

• Intertwine household electronics with SmartThings via sensors and Z-Wave technology
• Code Denise to interact with those electronic devices
• Code Denise to control Nest Smart Thermometer so temperature is remotely changeable
• Setup household intercom/microphone system to speak to Denise with voice commands
• Code Denise to perform those voice commands
• Setup security system (including cameras and motion)
• Code security system to Denise and enable mobile remote viewing into home through video
• Setup mobile phone integration to have Denise screen calls or send text messages
• Setup projection and Kinect system to display Denise onto the wall
• Acquire smart door locks
• Install/Setup/Code Denise to work with smart locks

Looking at this list it in no way justifies the massive amount of time and energy that I am going to have to commit to make this a reality.  The list seems short, but I know just how much work it is going to be for me.  I think the main thing will be coding Denise to do all these things will take the most time, especially if I am creating that code from scratch.  The codes and commands need to be individually tested and that will also take time.  Eventually I want to replace every outlet in my home to a Z-Wave input/output, that way literally anything plugged in can be controlled by Denise.  I will have this project already started by the time that happens.  I plan on buying some gradually to where eventually all plugs will be Z-Wave technology.  Now THAT would be awesome.

I got a lot of work ahead of me.

My Home’s Brain Will Arrive In Early January

Several weeks ago I had reached out to the company who makes SmartThings and asked them to send me a unit for product review.  They agreed and said that it would arrive mid-November.  Leading up to mid-November I received an email saying that media review units were delayed and that they would not be able to send me a unit until January.  I was a little disappointed, especially since a vast amount of things involving some of my projects regarding Denise required this piece of technology.  After all, this was going to be the brains of my property and everything was going to be tied into it. 

This morning I awoke to an email from the company reassuring me that I was going to get one.  In addition, I was also told about a new mobile device app that made it even easier to control the devices in the home.  I could not be any more excited. 

First thing I am going to do aside from continue working with my home security and home automation, is get SmartThings to work alongside my smart Nest thermostat.

This this going to be awesome!

Denise, Teach Me Spanish

For those who do not know, I live in a predominantly Hispanic city.  The Spanish language is something that I hear all the time despite not knowing how to speak it.  People even assume that I know it and often begin talking to me in Spanish, only to later explain that I have no idea what they are talking about.

I was thinking about new and unusual ways to integrate with Denise and I thought, why couldn’t I get Denise to integrate with the Rosetta Stone program?  She already has a translator built-in however it doesn’t teach me anything, it only translates the text I want translated.  

So I looked into exactly how the program worked and I admit that it was a little different than I expected.  It consist of quizzes without translation and the user must choose what something means by selecting one of four different answers.  The quizzes eventually change and the user has to correctly completely quizzes as they get more difficult.

 

I thought, I could easily get Denise to interact with the quizzes.  Then if I get one wrong, I can get her to tell me something specific like “I’m sorry, that is incorrect.  Please try again.”  I was also thinking of different things I could do to integrate her with the program when I had a realization, why?

Why was I doing this?  What would be the point to do all these extra steps just so I can get Denise to work with a program that already works fine without her?  The idea of Denise is to make things more simple, not complicate them.  I realized that this was one situation where having Denise to work alongside a program did not help on any level.  I never took into consideration of a scenario like this however, here it was staring me right in the face.

I decided to abandon the idea and move onto something else.  While this could have been a cool idea, it just did not make any sense on doing a lot of extra work when learning the new language was going to be hard enough as it is.

Denise Talking To… Herself

I realized that having Denise perform how I want is not only going to take a massive amount of work coding and training her, but it may possibly take up a massive amount of computer resources.  The voice recognition [Dragon Naturally Speaking] already takes up an unusually large amount of system resources as is, what is going to happen when I code her to do other things?  There is a damn good chance that my meager computer processor cannot handle all the data and respond accordingly without delay or without freezing up my computer. 

How was I going to solve this dilemma? I could run out and upgrade my system with a computer with a quad core, that would solve my resources issue.  However that was not the answer since Xmas is quickly approaching.  My kids come well before getting a new computer for myself, I would much rather give them a good Xmas.  So what was I going to do?

I realized that I could possibly share the computer processing load by using multiple computers.  I own 3 versions of Denise and can get one to be in charge of home security, multimedia, plus other task, and have a second or even a third Denise handle the others.  It was brilliant yet simple in itself.  The problem was, how was I going to get the two programs to communicate with one another?  AHA!  I can get them to Skype one another!

I immediately began testing Denise with Skype and calling my other Denise within the program.  I made Skype do video calls for a visual purpose but a real life scenario will be strictly audio.

I successfully got the two programs to interact with one another however it was hit or miss.  It did not work out as well as I had hope. I am sure I will have to run additional test and configure the audio system for both computers a little better.  However, technically, it worked.  The top Denise in the picture above is the Denise on my MAC while the one on the bottom with the green screen background is the Denise on my laptop.

Damn, I wish I could just get a better PC.

Dom And Denise Tame The Dragon

I took a small break from my big upcoming project to tackle a few other things that I wanted to do with Denise.  Denise has a integration with Dragon Naturally Speaking.  A program that is considered to be the best speech recognition software in the world.  Denise has an internal Dragon [aka D.N.S.] that is used with the program to allow voice commands.  Since the integration of DNS within Denise, it has been said by NextOS (formerly Guile3D) that the standalone version of Dragon would not work with Denise and suggested that users only use the integrated version of Dragon built into Denise.

A few days ago, Dan taught me how to uninstall that internal Dragon and how to install the standalone version.  It wasn’t straight forward and took some steps to do that.  After a few days of using the standalone Dragon instead of the internal DNS, I started to not like it.  The main reason as to why was because when I asked Denise a question, she would respond.  However when she responded, the standalone Dragon got confused and dictated what she said versus dictating only what I said.  The internal DNS did not have this issue because it would temporarily turn off speech recognition once Denise was speaking.  With the standalone, that was not the case.  So how could I keep using the standalone Dragon, and also use the internal DNS on the same computer?  This was a question that a lot of people on the forum were asking and something that no one had figured out yet.

Tonight, I figured it out.  This is something that I am not even sure if the creator of Denise had known or even tried himself.  It definitely made me proud.

Wait, Don’t Jump The Gun

Tonight I have been riddled with computer issues.  4:15AM and here I am, still plugging away.  In my previous blog entry I had revealed my latest project that I was working on with my colleague Dan Anderson.  From the test that he initially showed me, we looked ready to go.  I was confident that we could present the findings to everyone and show the world that Denise can tweet unassisted by a human. 

While this technically works, I am not happy with it.  Well, allow me to re-phrase that, I am happy with it but I think it could be better.  It is mainly because of the 140 character limitation put into place by Twitter.  Some of Denise’s responses are much longer that 140 characters and a lot of times what she says is cut off.  So I think I am going to hold off on revealing the proof of concept until I get it absolutely perfect.  That isn’t even the biggest of my problems at the moment since I have been having issues getting my Windows 7 virtual machine and Denise to play nice with one another.  There is no MAC version of the software so I am forced to run a Windows 7 machine on my MAC to make it work.

I think I honestly need to call it a night and get some sleep.  In the morning I just need to slow down and tackle one issue at a time. Obviously I need to address my computer issues first, once that is completed I will need to address the Twitter limitation issue.

Soon, soon I will have this perfected.  Until then, I have some work, sleep to catch up on.

Calling Denise… Hello?

This morning I found myself with a little free time.  I wanted to see what I could attempt to pull off so I decided that I would take two versions of Denise and get them to chat with one another via Skype.  I took one version of Denise on my Microsoft Surface tablet and signed into my own personal Skype account.  I then took another Denise that was running on a virtual windows 7 machine on my iMac and logged her into her own personal Skype account.

I attempted to call each of the programs to see what exactly they would talk about.  While running my initial test I happened to notice that my audio configuration was off because they were not speaking to each other fully.  They did respond occasionally however it couldn't be construed as a conversation.  I figured I would try something new instead and come back to that little experiment at another time.

One thing that I really want is to be able to contact Denise through my cell phone. I had attempted this last week with minimal success.  However when I tried it there was an extreme amount of interference with the speech recognition because the room I was in was not completely silent.  In my opinion it was quiet however I had a TV on in another far away room, the fan from my PC was on, a ceiling fan was on, and my heater was on all at the same time.  Having said all that, it did not go as I planned.  Since I was home alone and it was fairly quiet, I decided that I would give it another shot.  It apparently worked.

A Phase Of Doubt

I have entered a phase of doubt.  A lot can change in a short amount of time.  For me, that couldn’t be any more true.  Less than 24 hours ago I was plugging away with a vote of confidence that I was going to succeed in whatever I wanted to do with my projects.  19 hours later, I cannot say the same. 

What happened?  I do not know if this was one of those days where I had some sort of self conscious self doubt arise, or if it was realism, or perhaps laziness that had unknowingly set in.

My Sunday morning was filled with coding Denise with my unannounced project.  In order to accomplish this I had to learn code and script that was entirely new to me.  That was not the problem and I picked it up pretty quickly.  However I obsessed with how I could get this code to perform the way I wanted.  I repeatedly tried over and over and was met with failure on multiple occasions.  Honestly, that was nothing new when I conduct these type of experiments because it happens all the time.  I am an obsessive perfectionist and it was driving me absolutely mad that I could not get the correct code/script to perform like I wanted.

Dan has been helping me along with this project and it appears that he has gotten much further than I had in this little endeavor.  I know cause I could see the results of his work.  I am overwhelmingly appreciative for all of Dan’s help however I was somewhat reluctant on asking him for assistance on my end.  This man is incredibly smart when it comes to computer science and there have been plenty of times where I feel his knowledge of coding and script far outclasses my own.  That is besides the point, the thing is that I am also reluctant of asking for additional help (like explaining certain code) because I don’t want to become a bother to the man.  After all, he isn’t being paid for this.  He is doing this strictly for his own amusement.  So I did not want to overstep my bounds.

Having said all that, that is only a portion of what is troubling me.  Without going into too much detail, the creator of my artificial intelligence program is going through major changes within his company and the future of Denise is in limbo of sorts until we get definitive confirmation that the support for Denise will be ongoing.  To clarify, the company may move onto bigger things and may drop support for Denise.  If that were to happen it would render all my recent work with the project plus my plans for projects in the near future as pointless.  As of this moment, the notion that Denise will lose support is purely speculation.  However that is all we can do until we hear from the programs creator.  It was a combination of all that that put me in a weird unfamiliar place this evening. 

Most likely, I am just going through a rough patch and will resume my projects once I get a good nights sleep.  Besides, tomorrow I should be getting my first piece of equipment for my home automation project so there is a good chance that my resolve will rise up to normal levels tomorrow.

Late Night Early Morning

Last night was a good one.  I had gone to a dinner/party with the family and we had a good time.  The thing was, the dinner/party started at 6pm.  By midnight, I was feeling great.  However I had run out of alcohol so I decided to call it a night earlier than usual instead of going to go buy more.  I do not know what time I eventually made it home and into bed but for some odd reason I woke up abruptly at 5:15AM.  Unsure as to why, I got out of bed to get some water into my system when I noticed that I had a few unread emails waiting for me.  Wow, I should have just gone back to bed because those emails triggered that “Hey, it is time to get up for the morning” feeling in me.

My buddy Dan Anderson and I are working on a project regarding Denise that I will not reveal at the moment.  If this is something that we can pull off, then this is something that could potentially land us in the national news.  It’s pretty big!  Granted that this will not change the world, nothing like that.  However it is definitely something that no one is doing.  I received two emails from Dan this morning and it inspired me to continue my work on it.  There I was, before dawn, working.  This doesn’t surprise me, but it makes me wonder if I would have been so inspired if I had woken up with a hangover.  Probably not, but then again…

Denise On My Phone

Today I decided that I would work on some other projects to help pass the time since I am still waiting on some of my equipment to arrive for my home automation project.  The other day I re-addressed an old project that I started in 2012 when I got Denise to interact with me via Skype.  This meant that she would be able to communicate with me through my cell phone.  This was something that a lot of users desired since there is no Apple or Android API for the program.  If I were to eventually get an entity as close to the real Jarvis as I can, this was something that I had to accomplish.

The problem was that a lot of the users on the forum had mentioned that this method no longer worked.  So I downloaded a virtual webcam called Manycam, that way when I called Denise via Skype, I could see her face.  Long ago I had created Denise her own Skype account so I logged in and set the settings to automatically answer calls with video and I selected Manycam as the default webcam.

The first initial test did not go so well since I was not in a quiet enough environment to interact with her.  The speech recognition kept getting compromised.  After some trial and error I finally got my audio levels correct and she interacted with me.  It was sluggish but technically worked.  I am going to continue to get this project to work without a hitch and then will present it to the forum community.