[Art]

After passing through Alpha testing it has recently gone into Beta and shouldn't be as such much longer before going to RC (Release Candidate), then Final.
Although I am not privy to a public release date, I would have to think it to be within a relatively short time frame.

Most testing has gone quite well and the new Hal 7 will have a lot of really nice and productive features.

http://www.ultrahal.com/community/index.php?topic=14077.0

[Freddy]

Cool. How does it look visually, there were no screen shots and does it use a newer version of Haptek ?

[Art]

Just my personal take,

From what I know, it can use those tried and true MSAgent characters like Merlin, Peedy and Genie, etc., and also those Verbot characters like Sylvie, Melissa and Julie. It still handles the native Haptek characters like Mary, James, Sandy, etc. as well as any other custom Haptek characters, and their actions are smooth and fluid.
There is a new TTS voice from CereProc which can be had from Zabaware that works very nicely with the character's lip sync as well.

Cloud based learning is a big evolutionary leap for Zabaware's Ultra Hal 7 due to the staggering number of conversations gathered in the cloud.

So while the overall "look" is pretty much the same as before, the mind and learning of the new Ultra Hal 7 is greatly improved along with a very good increase in speed.

Previous Plug-ins seem to work perfectly with recent testing.

Some personal results from testing have been very pleasing and often surprising. I was especially impressed by some of the inferences Hal made while we chatted about things. I did not "parrot" or echo back what I had just said. It provided the gist of what I was saying but in it's own words, different and better than what I had said.
Another example was,It knew it was about lunch time and asked if I was going to have lunch. I said that I might have a nice small salad. It asked why? and I told it that I was trying to watch my weight. It replied something to the effect of, "So is it because you're trying to watch your weight, Art. No, because you are trying to lose some weight, is that right Art? Good!

Well...what could I say? I was both surprised and impressed. Yeah...sometimes scary smart.

I am looking forward to what Mr. Medeksza has to offer in Hal's final public release. If it's anything like what I've already seen it's going to be really fun and a lot of bang for the buck!

[Zero]

It looks cool. Is it expensive?

[ranch vermin]

Even once the turing test is passed for real, i imagine its all just fakery anyway!

[Zero]

Agreed. But you can also start faking, then progressively make it true at heart. From outer shell (looking good) to the core (true consciousness)...

[Art]

It looks cool. Is it expensive?

What I know is that the original Ultra Hal was priced at $29.95 USD and the Character Expansion Pack was around $15.00 (this allowed one to add a huge variety of 3rd party Customized characters in addition to the ones that came with Ultra Hal).

I do not know what the price of this newly updated Ultra Hal 7 is going to be but their pricing has always been very modest and actually quite a lot of fun for the dollar! or as we say in the USA, Bang for the Buck!

Feel free to follow along at the zabaware.com site.

[Data]

Good to see Ultra Hal taking a step forward, the cloud database sounds interesting, maybe not as personal as having your own brain installed but I'm guessing there.