Extended Abstract 2008
From Sfvlug
San Fernando Valley Linux User's Group
Logo on http://editthis.info/sfvlug/Main_Page top left corner
SCALE 6X Project
Revisit Psyche and revive success of previous expos by fixing problems with the Sphinx2 speech recognition system. Also inject the concept of being able to control systems by speaking to a computer interface using a controlled language user initiative spoken dialogue system. What that amounts to is something between natural language and a menu driven system-initiative. That allows the user to interact beyond the constraints of a menu driven system but is still restricted within a limited grammar and vocabulary.
While the Psyche project may seem complicated on the surface it is actually fairly simple in that all the heavy lifting is done by some powerful open source tools. The speech recognition is accomplished by the CMU Sphinx2 speech recognition engine. http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/html/cmusphinx.php All speech synthesis is done using the University of Edinburgh's open source Festival speech synthesis system. http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/
The original Psyche served as a glue language combining speech recognition as triggers for a very simple system of commands. If time and a few technical issues permits we would like to include Regulus to help us in building a more sophisticated dialogue system. Currently Regulus uses a proprietary speech recognition engine and is compiled with the proprietary SICStus Prolog.
While we expect to have, in the least, a presentable version of Psyche available for this year's presentation we do not want our presence at the event to be limited to or dependent on this project alone. We also want to demonstrate the importance of a community based system of technical and social merit in the form of a Linux User's Group. We intend to provide information about our organization and meetings as well as more general information about GNU/Linux and the importance of the free and open exchange of knowledge and knowledge based systems.
We understand and fully accept the commercially motivated organizations in the larger FOSS community, but our organization is primarily free of any profit motive and is fueled by technological and social interests. However, our members themselves are not entirely free of any profit motive and still need to make a living wage we can't guarantee any particular level of excellence in our presentation. With that said, we are confident that even if we do not have a fully functioning demonstration of our Psyche project we will have an acceptable demonstration of a user group with long history of sharing technical knowledge to an audience of widely variant backgrounds and skill sets in a friendly and approachable setting.
A functioning demo of Psyche would involve a standard desktop computer system running a fairly standard GNU/Linux desktop system with a sound card capable of full duplex, a microphone and speakers. We would also display a poster sized sign with our name and logo. On the table we plan to have hand outs with information on our organization, links to online resources, maps and directions to meeting locations. We plan on having two, but at least one person in the booth during the hours the expo is open to the public.
