As usual, I have an idea for a first-person 3D game.  This one popped into my head a week ago and is the culmination of several tenants for such a project:

• Focus on story via exploration and voyeurism (e.g. for AI behaviour).
• Quick to play, easy to get lost.  Wandering may be crucial to progressing.
• Use of atmospheric electronica (Rudy Adrian, Stars of the Lid, etc. etc.).
• Mostly emergent controls and non-static dialog using text-to-speech.
• Engaging story which is a mystery you unravel to complete the game.
• Simplified models so I can concentrate more on their movement.

What I’ve decided on so far is an frigid runic setting of a large city filled with synthetic beings: robots for all intensive purposes.  They do not, however, know they are robots and that is part of the story and your character’s story.  I have some concept for the lore involved and a vague thought for the initial chapter (something I can sink my teeth into).  The core game is you start out and must find out who you and your people are: where did it all begin.

Speech synthesis in the context of video games has interested me for some time.  Today I messed around with eSpeak, IBM TTS, and AT&T Labs.  Using the last of those three I generated the following audio clips which have pieces of the story I’ve been drafting.  These are named based on the AT&T voice, not the character who would be saying them.  My descriptions follow each sample.

This is conceivably the very first line of the game, when you are dropped behind the eyes of this being.  You hear yourself (the character you play) speak and exactly why is part of the mystery.  It starts as a game mechanic to set mood and assist you, but is actually part of the story too.  It’s difficult to get the cadence right with all the TTS tools and something I’ll have to play with some more.  I wanted a main character voice that was not overwhelming to listen to and also to have a bit of emotion to it.

The society is not particularly advanced, and their ability to repair (heal) is left to technicians (versus physicians) which are the equivalent to the doctors of yore which thought to cleanse people by bleeding them.  This particular technician, however, is more like a hacker with much better skills but a bit of a criminal record.  Perhaps him or someone he knows can even give upgrades …

Our main character eludes to the presence of genders within this group of humanoids which could possibly mean they’re some kind of manufactured species.  The fact is that the personalities of the two types are distinct and comparable to our own contemporary versions.  I can’t call them sexes since these people do not sexually reproduce (no facilities for that).  While I want to avoid too many stereotypes, looking into this world requires convincing me that these are essentially human creatures even if they’re not strictly biological.  This helps form a relate-able emotional connection.

I love the way this one turned out, much like the very first one up above.  It hints at some issues that you’re looking for the roots of.  How long has this race been around, where did they come from, and why can’t they remember any of that?

2009 Audi TTS – First Drive
No longer just a pretty boy, the 2009 Audi TTS may be Audi’s best sports car yet. … has done wonders for the sale of small sports cars and for Audi’s sport standing. …

” Audi ” Test Drive: 2009 Audi TTS roadster
2009 Audi TTS. Ottawa, Ontario – On the face of it, driving a sports car in the winter seems … 2009 Audi TTS. Click image to enlarge …

Audi | TTS
Image and vehicle data supplied by JATO Dynamics Ltd. 2009 Audi TTS Convertible … All-New Audi Tts. Get the Secret Low Price of a New Audi. Free Quotes Fast. …

2009 Audi TTS Roadster Pictures, Specifications, and Information
The Audi TTS is the top of the TT model line. … The unveiling of the TTS also marks something of an anniversary for Audi: It was …

Obstajajo 3 različice Audija TT.

Audi TT, Audi TTS in Audi TT RS. In roadster izvedba vsakega modela.

Specifikacije:

• Audi TTS ima vrstni 4 valjni Turbo FSI motor, s prostornino dveh litrov.
  Pogon ima na vsa 4 kolesa.

• Audi TT RS ima vrstni 5 valjni motor s prostornino 2.5 litra.
  Pogon ima na vsa 4 kolesa.

Zunanjost:

• Audi TT je prvi TT in se ga prepozna po zaokroženih linijah.

• Različica TTS je novejša in lepših linij.

• Glavna razlika med Audijem TTS in Audijem TT RS je zadnji spojler.

Audi TTS in Audi TT RS sta izredno dobro oblikovana.
Sta lepa in majhna coupeja.

Najbolj mi je všeč Audi TT RS coupe (na sliki).

Uradna stran Audi
in nemška stran z vsemi šestimi modeli TT.

Astona Martina Rapide bi si moral ogledati tukaj.

The Wiktionary XML dump -> db is virtually sorted, and was fairly trivial to code, albeit comparatively slow to process (3 mins +/- on my naff laptop to get a full list of available titles, for example, although this also includes a lot of metapages e.g. categories etc). Setup was straightforward enough, one block of code to create the InputStream & instance the methods class, and then the methods class itself.

try {
 InputStream in = new FileInputStream("F:/wiktionary/enwiktionary/wiktionary.xml");
 XMLInputFactory factory = XMLInputFactory.newInstance();
 XMLStreamReader parser = factory.createXMLStreamReader(in);
// instance the custom xml examiner class which contains whatever methods needed...
 XMLStreamMethods xsm = new XMLStreamMethods();
// call required methods
 xsm.examine(parser);
}
catch(Exception e){e.printStackTrace();}

The XMLStreamMethods class (which probably needs a better name!) was largely scarfed and adapted from code from XML.com. I’ll probably get discursive about the methods once this is closer to a decent cut, but effectively I’m really only interested in title and text tag contents, and most of the processing work is in grabbing the IPA renditions from the volumes of surrounding text fluff. Suffice it all that was really required from the example xml.com source was to hack the tag names from headers to title and text and then call workers accordingly.

The future of social computing is in the integration of various services and technologies – but the fun is already available now. Here’s a nifty demo of the integration of cloud computing’s services with increasingly powerful mobile computers (smartphones or netbooks). Developers can take advantage of far more computational power both locally on the device – faster, cheaper processors thanks to Moore’s Law – and computational power residing on networked data centers.  Think of a business or social activity, and thanks to platforms like the iPhone, Android, and the new Windows Phones, “There’s an app for that.” Or there soon will be.

This quick little demo feels like nothing fancy today – but ten, even five years ago it would have seemed like sci-fi. In fact it’s available now, and uses a new Windows Phone, in this case a Samsung Intrepid, making use of Tellme software from Microsoft integrated with Bing Search web services. The demo intregrates some longtime technologies in their state-of-the-art condition today using cloud-services delivery:

• Speech-to-text
• GPS-enabled location-based services
• Web search
• Voice-enabled dialing
• Social media (crowdsourced ratings integrated in search results)
• Hardware UI (a dedicated TellMe button on the Samsung Intrepid phone)

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E aí, galera! Sei que não tenho postado nada no blog, mas é porque estou mais ocupado com o Você Acredita? e mesmo que não estivesse, tenho tido pouco assunto pra postar…

Mas enfim, agora eu tenho um assunto, e que pode interessar à vocês:

Reading Wednesday

O que seria isso? Bem, vamos à explicação…

Eu venho usando bastante o Twitter e vejo vááários Trending Topic’s inúteis… Os únicos que eu realmente vejo alguma “utilidade” ainda são o “Music Monday”, para indicar músicas na segunda-feira e o “Follow Friday” para indicar twitters interessantes durante a sexta-feira…

E sendo eu um leitor ávido (e escritor nem tanto), pensei: Por que não um TT (trending topic) no twitter com um intuito mais nobre, como o de incentivar a leitura?!

Vamos estimular os twitteiros a lerem mais!

E assim, unindo minha linha de pensamento com a do @kipukuoleman, criamos o “Reading Wednesday”, que assim como o “Music Monday” e o “Follow Friday”, reservar um dia para indicar algo, no caso, algo para ler.

Eu sei que, diferente de “Music Monday” ou “Follow Friday”, o “Reading Wednesday” não tem a besteirinha de ter as iniciais iguais, mas ainda assim, não queremos fazer algo enfeitadinho, queremos fazer algo útil!

Queremos fazer do fenômeno que é o twitter algo mais cultural, queremos incentivar a leitura, em todos os seus aspectos, para incentivar a evolução intelectual da twittosfera!

E assim é a idéia básica do Reading Wednesday:

Toda quarta-feira, postar um tweet com o nome do Trending Topic, seja como “Reading Wednesday”, ou “ReadingWednesday” ou mesmo como um hashtag, “#readingwednesday”.

[Atualizando = seria mais interessante para tentar chegarmos aos Trending Topics todos usarmos o mesmo formato. Eu indico a hashtag #readingwednesday por ser mais padrão de tag.]

E indicar nesse twitter algo que você considere uma boa leitura. Vale tudo: livros, fictions, artigos, revistas, blogs, quadrinhos, webcomics, e qualquer outro tipo de leitura que você considere estimulante, pois o que vale é incentivar a galera twitteira para ler!

Eu admito, a idéia tem tudo pra não ir pra frente, mas eu pessoalmente vou estar postando toda quarta lá uma indicação de leitura para meus (atualmente) escassos followers.

Enfim, estamos (eu e o @kipukuoleman) aí com uma idéia de incentivo à leitura via twitter, resta saber se vocês querem aderir ou não!

Vamos tornar o twitter um lugar um pouco mais cultural!

E até um próximo post!

First the S4. Now the TTS. These days, Audi is dispatching of its RWD’d sort-of-crosstown rival (and let’s face it- by most measures, its heretofore superior) left and right. The global economy notwithstanding, Ingolstadt has at least a couple of important reasons to feel good lately, with perhaps more on the way.

Nevermind that I happen to think there’s little parity in the Road & Track comparo. A $13,900 price differential? Really? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; it’s been known to happen.

Addendum: Et tu, Edmunds?

- Gyro

I am still playing with Wiktionary IPA as a source for my implementation of TTS. Conrad Irwin suggested the dump download from Wiktionary might be more appropriate & complete than spidering on demand and building a local map that way, and I could not but agree with him, the Wiki dumps had completely slipped my mind when wrangling with the miscellaneous other little subtasks that this project seems to be engendering.

Anyway, with the downloaded XML weighing in at 120MB+ it looked like this was going to be a nightmare, then I remembered James Clark’s trang, a tool I haven’t used in a long time, just unzip and classpath the executable jar and run as follows:

$ java -jar trang.jar -I xml -O xsd wiktionary_280909.xml /schemas/wiktionary.xsd

& a couple of minutes later, viola (sic).

The output schema looks like this in case you ever need it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified" targetNamespace="http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.3/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:export-0.3="http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.3/">
  <xs:import namespace="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" schemaLocation="xsi.xsd"/>
  <xs:import namespace="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace" schemaLocation="xml.xsd"/>
  <xs:element name="mediawiki">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:siteinfo"/>
        <xs:element maxOccurs="unbounded" ref="export-0.3:page"/>
      </xs:sequence>
      <xs:attribute name="version" use="required" type="xs:decimal"/>
      <xs:attribute ref="xsi:schemaLocation" use="required"/>
      <xs:attribute ref="xml:lang" use="required"/>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="siteinfo">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:sitename"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:base"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:generator"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:case"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:namespaces"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="sitename" type="xs:NCName"/>
  <xs:element name="base" type="xs:anyURI"/>
  <xs:element name="generator" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="case" type="xs:NCName"/>
  <xs:element name="namespaces">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element maxOccurs="unbounded" ref="export-0.3:namespace"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="namespace">
    <xs:complexType mixed="true">
      <xs:attribute name="key" use="required" type="xs:integer"/>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="page">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:title"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:id"/>
        <xs:element minOccurs="0" ref="export-0.3:redirect"/>
        <xs:element minOccurs="0" ref="export-0.3:restrictions"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:revision"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="title" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="redirect">
    <xs:complexType/>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="restrictions" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="revision">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:id"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:timestamp"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:contributor"/>
        <xs:element minOccurs="0" ref="export-0.3:minor"/>
        <xs:element minOccurs="0" ref="export-0.3:comment"/>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:text"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="timestamp" type="xs:NMTOKEN"/>
  <xs:element name="contributor">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:choice>
        <xs:element ref="export-0.3:ip"/>
        <xs:sequence>
          <xs:element ref="export-0.3:username"/>
          <xs:element ref="export-0.3:id"/>
        </xs:sequence>
      </xs:choice>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ip" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="username" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="minor">
    <xs:complexType/>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="comment" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="text">
    <xs:complexType mixed="true">
      <xs:attribute ref="xml:space" use="required"/>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="id" type="xs:integer"/>
</xs:schema>

That gives me enough to work with, now to tear into the XML with JAXB…..

NB (Later). Well I played with JAXB, but unfortunately there are a number of facets of JAXB which will make this less amenable than XMLBeans, notably the issues surrounding preservation of whitespace & full support for all schema constructs. Close, but unfortunately no cigar on this occasion. So I am now working up an XMLBeans cut, and this is looking promising.

NNB(Later again) Well it looks like XmlBeans won’t play nice with large files, which is a shame because there is a lot of stuff in there that I could have done with. Off to play with STAX /cry….

We’ll see you tonight at TT’s for The Lights Out CD release of “Color Machine”!

Download the new tracks from “Three Four” right here! You can pay whatever you want, or pay nothing at all. This widget gives you the ability to download the songs for free, so long as you tell five friends about Roman Traffic. All we want is for you to have the songs and for new people to hear it!

My friends at HUMANWINE HQ have transmitted the following:

(click the image for the Facebook event)

I think you should go. Experience the magic firsthand, rather than listen to me blather about how much I love them. And I do. O, I do.

(see 1/4 of all of the photos I’ve ever taken)

Don’t forget to go early and see the other performers, who kick a comparable amount of ass.

xo

K

]]> http://szyzygycode.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/implementing-text-to-speech-quickly-with-freetts/ Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:39:14 +0000 syzygy http://szyzygycode.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/implementing-text-to-speech-quickly-with-freetts/

I had a quick play with the FreeTTS Text to Speech API yesterday. I needed a voice alert for a little Swing app I was running up. Outwardly this looked like hard work, perhaps more work than I cared for, but nevertheless I persisted and came up with this as a quick first shot. I have to do some more work on it to resolve issues with threadedness, but that’s just a matter of time and, like Marcel Proust I will probably get round to it… someday anyway… Let me say that the TTS voices are horrible and work needs doing on these (for which the FreeTTS guys are not responsible) more than the API itself which works pretty much out of the box. The API, when boiled down, does what it says on the label.

You can get FreeTTS from here on Sourceforge.

You need to unzip it, head to the unzipped bin directory and run the JSAPI.exe to make the jars, then put the jars where you need them and make them available to your application. And put the speech.properties file somewhere your app can find it like your {jre}/lib. You will probably end up using the kevin voice. I have it hardcoded but you can easily extend and modify the code to take a String with the name of the voice you want to use or hardcode your own in place of nasty kevin. I’ve put the ShowVoices routine in there to show you the available voices just in case… But kevin works, almost. All you need to do is instantiate TTSReader, and call consume, passing it the String you want it to speak.

import com.sun.speech.freetts.Voice;
import com.sun.speech.freetts.VoiceManager;

public class TTSReader {

public void showVoices() {
        VoiceManager voiceManager = VoiceManager.getInstance();
        Voice[] v = voiceManager.getVoices();
        for (int i = 0; i > v.length; i++) {
            System.out.println(v[i].getName() + "  : " + v[i].getDomain() );
        }
    }

    public void consume(String input)
    {
    VoiceManager voiceManager = VoiceManager.getInstance();
        Voice myVoice = voiceManager.getVoice("kevin");
        myVoice.allocate();
        myVoice.speak(input);
        myVoice.deallocate();
    }
}

clicca sull'immagine per ingrandire

Questo piccolissimo ma utilissimo e fantastico programma corre in aiuto alla esigenza (e goduria) di poter ascoltare testi contenenti parole in lingue diverse con la dizione corretta (che fantastica figata!!!)
Chiaro che il programma freeware (grazie mille allo sviluppatore per avero diffuso gratuitamente, sempre tu sia lodato! ) non ha ancora le capacità di accorgersi se un termine è italiano o inglese (magari in futuro con un controllo incrociato di dizionari caro programmatore, forse potrebbe farlo?? )). Tuttavia potete fare in modo di fargli leggere ad esempio le parole tra “virgolette” in inglese e le altre in italiano. Oppure cliccando, prima della riga o della parola che volete fargli leggere, con il tasto destro del mouse, potete selezionare dal menù la lingua desiderata.

Quando ho iniziato a cercare programmi di audiolettura cercavo un programma di audio lettura comodo, e da grafico che sono anche gradevole. Tuttavia passati i mesi e facendo esperienza con vari software ho capito quali sono le esigenze di un lettore più esigente. Ad esempio: dopo un po’ che si usano gli Speech Reader se conoscete anche solo scolasticamente altre linque, vi risulterà sempre più fastidioso farvi leggere e convertire in mp3 testi che prensentano parole in italiano e in altre lingue come l’inglese. Questo perchè la voce TTS Italiana anche se di generazione SAPI5, leggerà le parole inglesi con la pronuncia e i fonemi italiani. Il risultato una pronuncia che più maccheronica non si può! Riascoltando più volte questa pronuncia dopo un po’ di tempo risulta davvero sgradevole, quasi irritante. Il rischio poi è di imparare i termini inglesi con la pronuncia maccheronica italiana dovendoli riascoltare più e più volte attraverso lo speech reader che non è in grado di interpretare se una parola è in italiano o in un’altra lingua.

Ammetto che avevo sottovalutato mesi fa questo bellissimo programma.
Se come me state spesso per lavoro davanti al computer e la sera desiderate riposare gli occhi, o se come me dopo aver studiato PNL avete scoperto di essere fortemente auditivi e quindi memorizzate meglio i suoni che le immagini, o se come me anche prima di aver studiato PNL vi piaceva di più la radio che la TV, ed infine se come me vi piace leggere e studiare e vi piacciono le lingue, questo è sicuramente il programma che fa per voi!

Informazioni aggiuntive tratte dal sito di Dimitrios Coutsoumbas (Dimio):

Componenti aggiuntivi da installare

Per aprire anche i file PDF, scaricare il DSpeech PDF Plug-In (ca 250 KB).

Su Windows XP, se vi vuole utilizzare le voci SAPI4, bisogna installare SAPI4, scaricabile da qui (ca 800 KB).

Su Windows NT4/2000 bisogna installare SAPI5 scaricabile da qui o da qui. (ca 6 MB)

Su Windows NT4/2000/XP, se si vuole utilizzare le funzioni di riconoscimento vocale, bisogna installare il MS-Recognition Engine, scaricabile da qui (ca 30 MB).

Dove trovare le Voci

• Le voci SAPI5 sono le migliori, ma sono quasi tutte a pagamento, le più famose sono quelle di Acapela, Cepstral, Loquendo, RealSpeak e VoiceWare.

RealSpeak: Sono sicuramente tra le migliori voci attualmente disponibili.
British English, Italian, Spanish, French, German

eSpeak: E’ un nuovo engine open source in inglese (buono) e in altre lingue (sufficiente).
Multilanguage

• Le voci SAPI4, invece, sono di minore qualità, ma sono spesso gratuite e si possono trovare molto più facilmente, le più note sono:

L&H TrueVoice: Buon campione vocale, ma lente nelle conversioni in wav o mp3.
American English, British English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Traduzione dell’interfaccia in altre lingue

L’interfaccia di DSpeech è traducibile in altre lingue:

Italiano (By Talksina & Marco Tettamanti)

Spagnolo (By Ricardo Abad & Esteban Mello)

Spagnolo di Valencia (By Ricardo Abad)

Spagnolo Catalano (By Josep Rullo Batalla)

Francese (Jean-Paul DAVIN)

Tedesco (By Björn Gott)

Portoghese (By Ângelo Miguel)

Portoghese Brasiliano (By Antonio Cezar Locutor and Abel P. do Nascimento Jr.)

Spagnolo Latino Americano (By Rafael Lopez Jr.)

Giapponese (By Philip Deane)

Chinese (CHT) (By Hong Kong Blind Union)

Czech Republic (By Janusz Chmiel)

Romania (By Irina Popovici)

Download Software dal sito originale

This example demonstrates how to transport a tablespace from a 10g ASM on Windows environment to 11g ASM on AIX environment using the DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER package.

The source database on Windows is GENUA1 and the target database is a 11g RAC database RACDB1.

Create the tablespace and the test object in the source database

SQL> create tablespace test_asm
  2  datafile size 100m;

Tablespace created.

SQL> select file_name from dba_data_files
  2  where tablespace_name='TEST_ASM';

FILE_NAME
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+DATA/genua1/datafile/test_asm.376.696333127

SQL> conn system/xxx
Connected.

SQL> create table myobjects
  2  tablespace test_asm
  3  as select * from dba_objects;

Table created.

SQL> select count(*) from system.myobjects;

  COUNT(*)
----------
     56504

Create a database link from the source database to the target database

SQL> CREATE DATABASE LINK  DBS2 CONNECT TO
  2  system identified by oracle
  3  using 'racdb1';

Database link created.

SQL> select * from dual@dbs2;

D
-
X

Create a directory to hold the converted datafile on the source

SQL> create directory source_dir as '+DATA/genua1/xtransport/';

Directory created.

Create a directory to hold the tablespace meta data dump on the source

SQL> create directory source_dir_2 as '+DATA';

Directory created.

Create an O/S level directory for the data pump export logfile

SQL> create directory test_asm_log as 'd:\oracle\';

Directory created.

Create a directory on the target to hold the transported datafile

SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY target_dir  AS '+DATA';

Directory created.

Create an O/S level directory for the data pump import logfile

 create directory test_asm_log as '/u01/oracle/';

Directory created.

Make the tablespace which is going to be transported read only

SQL> alter tablespace test_asm read only;

Tablespace altered.

Export the tablespace meta data using Data Pump

C:\Documents and Settings\bwdba_cbduat>expdp directory=source_dir_2 dumpfile=test_asm.dmp transport_tablespaces=TEST_ASM transport_full_check=Y logfile=test_asm_log:exp.log

Export: Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production on Monday, 31 August, 2009 10:41:34

Copyright (c) 2003, 2007, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Username: system
Password:

Connected to: Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Produc
tion
With the Partitioning, Real Application Clusters, OLAP, Data Mining
and Real Application Testing options
Starting "SYSTEM"."SYS_EXPORT_TRANSPORTABLE_01":  system/******** directory=sour
ce_dir_2 dumpfile=test_asm.dmp transport_tablespaces=TEST_ASM transport_full_che
ck=Y logfile=test_asm_log:exp.log
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/PLUGTS_BLK
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/TABLE
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/INDEX
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/INDEX_STATISTICS
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/POST_INSTANCE/PLUGTS_BLK
Master table "SYSTEM"."SYS_EXPORT_TRANSPORTABLE_01" successfully loaded/unloaded

******************************************************************************
Dump file set for SYSTEM.SYS_EXPORT_TRANSPORTABLE_01 is:
  +DATA/test_asm.dmp
Job "SYSTEM"."SYS_EXPORT_TRANSPORTABLE_01" successfully completed at 10:42:16

Use DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER to transfer the export dump file to the target

SQL> begin
  2   dbms_file_transfer.put_file
  3   (source_directory_object => 'source_dir_2',
  4   source_file_name => 'test_asm.dmp',
  5   destination_directory_object => 'target_dir',
  6  destination_file_name => 'test_asm.dmp',
  7   destination_database => 'dbs2');
  8   end;
  9  /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Use RMAN to convert the tablespace to the target AIX 64 bit format

Note that the converted datafile will reside in the directory we created in an earlier step - +DATA/genua1/xtransport

RMAN> convert tablespace test_asm to
2> platform 'AIX-Based Systems (64-bit)'
3> format '+DATA';

Starting backup at 31/AUG/09
configuration for DISK channel 2 is ignored
configuration for DISK channel 3 is ignored
configuration for DISK channel 4 is ignored
allocated channel: ORA_DISK_1
channel ORA_DISK_1: sid=470 instance=genua11 devtype=DISK
channel ORA_DISK_1: starting datafile conversion
input datafile fno=00224 name=+DATA/genua1/datafile/test_asm.376.696333127
converted datafile=+DATA/genua1/xtransport/test_asm.266.696338369
channel ORA_DISK_1: datafile conversion complete, elapsed time: 00:00:07
Finished backup at 31/AUG/09

Use DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER to copy the converted datafile to the target

SQL> begin
  2    dbms_file_transfer.put_file
  3    (source_directory_object => 'source_dir',
  4     source_file_name => 'test_asm.266.696338369',
  5    destination_directory_object => ' target_dir',
  6    destination_file_name => 'tts1_db1.dbf',
  7     destination_database => 'dbs2');
  8    end;
  9     /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

On the target import the datafile meta data using Data Pump

The imp.par import parameter file has the following contents 

directory=target_dir
dumpfile=test_asm.dmp
logfile=test_asm_log:imp.log
TRANSPORT_DATAFILES='+DATA1/tts1_db1.dbf'
keep_master=y

middba1:/u01/oracle> impdp parfile=imp.par

Import: Release 11.1.0.6.0 - 64bit Production on Monday, 31 August, 2009 11:39:32

Copyright (c) 2003, 2007, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Username: system
Password:

Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.6.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Real Application Clusters and Real Application Testing options
Master table "SYSTEM"."SYS_IMPORT_TRANSPORTABLE_02" successfully loaded/unloaded
Starting "SYSTEM"."SYS_IMPORT_TRANSPORTABLE_02":  system/******** parfile=imp.par
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/PLUGTS_BLK
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/TABLE
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/INDEX
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/INDEX_STATISTICS
Processing object type TRANSPORTABLE_EXPORT/POST_INSTANCE/PLUGTS_BLK
Job "SYSTEM"."SYS_IMPORT_TRANSPORTABLE_02" successfully completed at 11:39:48

On the target database RACDB1, check that the TEST_ASM tablespace has been plugged in and the MYOBJECTS table is present

middba1:/u01/oracle> sql

SQL*Plus: Release 11.1.0.6.0 - Production on Mon Aug 31 11:41:29 2009

Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.6.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Real Application Clusters and Real Application Testing options

SQL> select file_name from dba_data_files where tablespace_name='TEST_ASM';

FILE_NAME
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+DATA/tts1_db1.dbf

SQL> select count(*) from system.myobjects;

  COUNT(*)
----------
     56504

Hey, Stealth300 and Choboys are sleeping over at my house! We are making the TTS SLEEPOVER EDITION! I am currently playing a game. It is a new game that I haven’t played before. If you can guess what game it is, you will get something special. Good luck!

Sprachausgabe in KDE ist schon lange möglich, war aber für Deutsch immer relativ kompliziert einzurichten. Dies liegt vor allem daran, dass einige benötigte Komponenten unter recht merkwürdigen und restriktiven Lizenzen stehen. Das hat sich leider auch mit KDE 4 nicht geändert. Etwas leichter als damals ist die Installation allerdings schon geworden, da MBROLA und zwei deutsche Stimmen jetzt im non-free Repository von Debian sind.

Achtung: Zur Zeit wohl von Bugs gebissen
Die Synthese bricht leider immer nach einigen Silben oder Wörtern ab. Den Grund dafür habe ich noch nicht gefunden. Das Problem trat, wenn ich mich richtig erinnere, mit KDE 4.2 noch nicht auf. In diesem Zustand ist das Ganze natürlich ziemlich unbrauchbar. Trotzdem habe ich hier schon mal alle nötigen Schritte zusammengestellt und Screenshots gemacht. Eventuell findet ja jemand raus, wieso es nicht mehr als ein paar Silben bzw. Wörter am Stück reden will.

Und so geht’s:

Als erstes die nötigen Pakete installieren. (Achtung: MBROLA und die Stimmen sind in contrib / non-free).
apt-get update && apt-get install kttsd kmouth mbrola mbrola-de6 mbrola-de7

Jetzt brauchen wir noch TXT2PHO, welches leider nicht über Apt zu installieren ist.
Von dieser Seite die Datei txt2pho.zip runterladen und dann als root-Benutzer folgendermaßen installieren:
unzip -d /usr/share/ txt2pho.zip
chmod +x /usr/share/txt2pho/txt2pho
cp /usr/share/txt2pho/txt2phorc /etc/txt2pho

Jetzt müssen in der Datei /etc/txt2pho folgende Pfade angepasst werden.
DATAPATH=/usr/share/txt2pho/data/
INVPATH=/usr/share/txt2pho/data/

Das geht z.B. mit mcedit in der Konsole sehr einfach.
mcedit /etc/txt2pho

Die markierten Zeilen wurden angepasst

Jetzt kann man in den Systemeinstellungen unter Zugangshilfen die Sprachausgabe einrichten.

Systemeinstellungen -> Zugangshilfen

Sprecher -> Hinzufügen

Sprache und Synthesizer wählen

Im Konfigurationsdialog für den Sprecher müssen dann die Pfade zu MBROLA, TXT2PHO und den Stimmen eingetragen werden (KTTS findet einiges davon automatisch).
txt2pho-Programmdatei /usr/share/txt2pho/txt2pho
Mbrola-Programmdatei /usr/bin/mbrola
Die Stimmen für MBROLA liegen in /usr/share/mbrola/voices/ (de6 für eine männliche und de7 für eine weibliche Stimme).

Sprecherkonfiguration

Zur Zeit gibt es einen Bug, der dazu führt, dass KTTSD mitten in der Ausgabe abbricht. In den meisten Fällen hilft es, als Audio-Ausgabe für KTTSD von Phonon auf ALSA umzustellen.

Audio-Ausgabe auf ALSA umstellen

Jetzt kann man KTTSD aktivieren.

Sprachausgabe aktivieren

Dann noch mit OK bestätigen und die Sprachausgabe sollte (sollte! ) laufen.

Ein einfacher Weg zu testen, ob alles klappt ist KTTSD direkt über D-Bus anzusprechen:
qdbus org.kde.kttsd "/KSpeech" say "Hier spricht dein Computer" 0
Wenn man was hört, hat es geklappt.

KMouth ist eine einfache GUI, die eingegeben Text vorliest.

KMouth bei der Arbeit

KTTSMgr bringt einem ein Icon im Systemabschnitt des Panels für leichten Zugang zu den Einstellungen und der Möglichkeit den Inhalt der Zwischenablage vorzulesen.

KTTSMgr Icon

Achei essa dica no site do English Experts. Ela é aplicável a pessoas que estão aprendendo inglês e querem conferir o aspecto de dicção em frases. Os setores de telecom tem interesse em tecnologias de TTS para uso em aplicações, etc. Fiz alguns experimentos e o interessante que há mais de uma linguagem e tipo de locução. Abaixo uma pequena descrição:

O Loquendo é um site transforma o seu texto em arquivo de áudio no formato WAV. É isso mesmo! Basta você digitar ou colar o texto na caixa “enter a message” e depois clicar em “Play”. O sistema gera automaticamente um arquivo de áudio com a narração do texto e inicia o download.

O visitante pode escolher entre a narração em voz feminina e masculina, particularmente eu achei a narração feminina mais natural. Você ainda pode colocar uma entonação de surpresa em palavras e frases, para isso basta colocar uma exclamação no final.

Interessado? Acesse o Loquendo.

You’ll probably notice a Listen Now button on my blog, and a widget in the sidebar that allows you to subscribe to my podcast. It works in blogger..but I’ll have to find out how to get it on this new WordPress blog.

I’ve been getting ready to present at the AT4ALL
Conference in Milton next week and my presentation will be about literacy tools for the 21st century, thinking specifically of our students with special needs. If you are there, the session will hopefully go something like this:

This session shows parents and educators the new kinds of literacies with which our students need to develop fluency in order to develop 21st century skills. Web 2.0 tools like Google for Educators, blogs, wikis, rss, social networking, global projects, diigo and other online tools for literacy will enhance the education of our students with special needs, while allowing them to access collaborative tools that will be so important as they continue their education and move on to the workforce. This session will provide a practical look at some of the best ways teachers can motivate students and enhance their use of technology to improve their literacy.

I find this an important topic because while modalities available on the web are getting more and more diverse ensuring more and more access, it’s still a pretty text-based place. If you can’t read, it’s difficult to navigate deeply and go beyond “surfing the surface” as my co-presenter Peter Skillen, would say.

This week, while I was checking out a really good article about where to start with using cell phones on a blog called The Innovative Educator I noticed the Listen Now button and soon found out that Odiogo.com allows you to create text-to-speech podcasts from your RSS feed to ipod, iphone, and MP3 players as well as instantly reading your content on the blog in a really decent voice!

It’s called ‘talking your content’. Very sweet! Another way to open access to those who struggle with reading, or perhaps if you have a class blog with younger students who are non-readers this will be a help for you! It’s working great so far, although it seems to take a few hours to upload the feature to new blog posts, so we’ll see how it goes as I get using it. You can see how it works immediately if you click on my older postings for now.

I’m looking forward to learning about lots of new tools to enhance access for special needs students (and ALL students) at AT4ALL…hope you see you there!

For recognizing the handwriting in Windows Mobile 5/6-based touch screen devices, DIOTEK has released software called “DioPen Cursive”. It is the best handwriting software product for recognizing Cursive handwriting. Moreover, it is efficient for rating various types of handwritings of Americans and Europeans. Besides, it is able to recognize print handwriting.
Even if you have written multiple lines in your mobile, they can be recognized using this software. The optimized user interface of the device lets you input characters correctly only with fingers without additional stylus pen. At present, it is able to recognize English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Other languages such as, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Dutch will also be supported soon.

Click to know about recent Windows Messenger and Hotmail in your mobile

Some important features of this software :
•High recognition accuracy from extensive handwriting database
•Multiple languages support (over 70 Languages)
•Outstanding multi-function soft keyboard with maximized convenience
•Preloaded on numerous mobile phones and other devices over the years
•Easily applicable to various platforms and operating system of your device

[ More ]

Jeg skulle egentlig skrive dette innlegget igår men jeg hadde dameproblemer og var utslitt.

Jeg tvang Karoline til å bli med i en sånn bilde ting

Som mange vet, dro jeg og karoline til  namsos. Vel vi stod opp klokken sju, sjekket busstabellene og var på vei til namsos via buss rundt klokken 8. Når vi kom fram dro vi først og shoppet en god del, deretter dro vi til piercing og tatoverings sjappa og spurte om noen hadde tid til å sette piercing. En mann kom ut og sa vi måtte ringe et nummer som førte oss til en dame som jobbet der.  Hun var ute for øyeblikket og vi skulle ringe og spørre når hun kom tilbake. ”ute” viste seg å være i Trondheim så der var de planene avlyst.

Vi shoppet en stund til, før vi dro til bussplassen for å vente på bussen. Dessverre viste det seg at på tts sin hjemmeside hadde de skrivd at bussen gikk en halvtime etter den tiden den faktisk dro. Så vi var altså fanget i Namsos Oo

Karoline, smart som hun er, dro til et taxibyrå..ting? og spurte om noen kunne kjøre oss til høylandet så vi kunne hoppe på bussen der i det minste. Mens vi gikk med sakene våre bort til taxien la jeg merke til sjåføren og hvisket til karoline “vi fikk en hunk, vi fikk en hunk!”

Den første delen av turen prøvde vi forskjellige nummer for å nå fram til tts slik at vi kunne sette regningen (på over 1000 kr) på dem. Dessverre var alle klagetelefonting steng for dagen og karoline måtte få moren sin til å overføre penger til henne slik at hun kunne betale. Jeg følte meg litt uansvarlig der jeg satt med bare en 100 lapp igjen og noen småpenger, og ingen penger på kortet .___.

Etter at vi ga opp på tts småpratet vi med sjåføren, som viste seg å være i forsvaret (noe ubåt greier) i bergen.

Noe som overasket meg bittelitt var at noe av det første han spurte om var “så hva gjør dere i namsos da? går dere skole her?”    ’ehh’ tenke jeg. ‘hvor gammel tror du jeg er? altså karoline, greit nok, men jeg? jeg er 14 ikke 20 oO’

Karoline lirte av seg at ho skulle begynne andreåret på vidregående og jeg sa jeg gikk i tiende. Jeg satt i setet rett bak han så jeg så ikke ansiktet hans noe særlig men karoline sa at han så litt sjokkert ut når jeg sa hvilken klasse jeg gikk i. Jeg antar slike ting er et kompliment helt til du blir 25.

På høylandet satt mr.armyboy og ventet med oss i tjue minutter mens vi ventet på bussen. Plutselig spurte Karoline meg om jeg hadde penger. Når jeg sa ja hvorfor det, svarte hun av vi måtte jo tipse den snille taxisjåføren. Jeg dro ut alle storpengene jeg hadde som  ikke var 50øringer og enkroninger og prøvde å gi dem til han. Han sa ”neineienie” og ville ikke ta dem imot. Jeg slenger pengene i pasasjersetet og Karoline gjør det samme. Når han prøver å gi dem tilbake sier jeg at jeg ikke vil ha dem for nå er dem skitten og ekkel uansett.

Deretter kaller jeg taksameteret for et parkometer og vi dro hjem. THE END