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31 October 2003
Talk to you
 Voice
command
After recieving several pleasent e-mails regarding my
voice command software, I've decided to release it for
download.
Voice command - Verion 1.0
It weighs in a about 250KB, complete with source code
if you'd like to build on what I've done. Enjoy :)
Oh and before you e-mail me saying it doesn't work,
read the readme.txt file!
DVD drive
As you may be able to make out in the picture above,
I've upgraded my new simple carputer design to feature
a DVD-ROM drive as well. So I'd be able to watch DVD
films in my new small, glovebox based design.
My main concern was that the electrical system wouldn't
be up to scratch and that the system would re-start
on me and be unstable. But to my surprise, after watching
10 minutes of the Matrix on the DVD, everything was
working fine.
 So
I set about trying to force the system + DVD drive into
my glovebox. But things didn't go quite as smoothly
as I hoped :) Carputer + DVD = *just* too big to fit
into the glovebox. So close!
The only solution is for me to invest in a slim-line
DVD drive, which will fit into the glovebox easily.
So that's on my shopping list for the next hardware
improvement to the system.
Wireless networking
I'm also looking into wireless networking, as things
have got very cheap and fast since last time I looked!
When I was writing for a website called HardwareCentral
a few years back, I wrote a review of a Diamond wireless
network system. It had a maximum speed of 1Mbps, but
you'd be lucky to reach that ;)
These days 802.11b/g give us an easy 100 meter range
with up to 54Mbps! Although in reality, the average
transfer rates evens at about about 20Mbps. But that's
still mighty fine.
Website Improvements
It's time to shake things up round here again. Lots
of this carputer section is getting out of date, just
take a look at the FAQ where I'm still searching for
a touchscreen device. Now I've got a broken one ;)
So *hopefully* this weekend I'll remove some sections
and re-focus and re-write the more useful ones.
26th October 2003
Talk to me
The two main things that have been getting
my down about my carputer, is the fact it was getting
overly complex and that the touch screen had stopped
working.
Making things simpler
When I first started building the system, everything
was simple and small. But as it went on, everything
got bigger and more complex. My DDR motherboard was
speedy and powerful, the shiny silver case looked good,
but it was getting too large.
I decided to go back to basics, the motherboard, a tiny
DC2DC power board and a hard drive. By cutting the system
back to these parts, I was able to fit everything in
my cars glove box. This meant I didn't need to have
wires connecting everything in the front of my car,
to the computer parts in the back.
As the pictures below show, the carputer is nice, small
and fits into the glove box perfectly :)
Controlling the carputer
The other thing that needed solving was the question
of controlling the carputer. After the touch screen
broke, it meant just using a keyboard and mouse, which
isn't very good for when you're driving the car.
I'd written some voice command software a while back,
but it had a few drawbacks. Firstly at the time, I was
using a headset microphone. Which meant I needed to
wear that whenever I wanted to speak to the carputer.
Secondly the software wasn't great. Whenever you wanted
to input a voice command, you needed to press the scroll-lock
key to get the system to listen.
So in effect, you needed the keyboard to use voice commands
:)
Talking to the carputer
In order to really make the carputer easy to use, I
decided to re-write my voice command software. I set
out to solve the short-comings of my last attempt.
The main thing I wanted to do, was to make the voice
command system 'always on'. So that all I needed to
do was speak, and the system would respond to me.
Of course the problem with this, is that if the system
heard you talking or some music sounded like a command,
it would think that is was you telling it to do something.
To get around this issue, I implemented a master command.
So that in order for the system to accept a request,
it had to be pre-fixed with a preset command. Currently,
it's set to listen for 'computer'. As soon as I say
this, the carputer beeps to acknowledge it's heard me,
then it listens for the next word I say as the main
command. For instance, I might say 'Travis' and it would
then start to play Travis. If I decide I don't want
the computer to respond to a command, then I just say
'cancel' and the system goes back to stand by mode.
The only other thing to mention is that I've fitted
a microphone into the frame of my car, so now I no longer
have to wear a headset. Very useful!
As the picture below-left shows, this latest version
of the voice command software is written and working.
I've made the interface look a bit nicer than my last
attempt ;) Would you guys like me to release it for
you to download? I'm perfectly happy to do so, along
with the source code for you to modify and improve on.
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Voice Recog Verion
2
My latest and greatest
voice command software.
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Carputer in glove
box
Everything simplified
to fit into my glove box. |
Empty glove box
All the space my re-worked
carputer can take up. |
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All the pieces
Monitor, hard drive, motherboard,
power and controls. All that is needed.
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Microphone
No more headset, the mic
is now part of the car. |
Mini controls
For those times where
keyboard input is needed.
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So there you have it, after almost giving up on my
carputer. I've come back to a more simple, more compact
and easier to use system. Now all I need to do is turn
the system on and then talk to it. Beautiful.
Oh and one more thing... I recently found this
great piece of hardware, called an isolator. It
basically allows you to wire in another battery for
your carputer, so that when the engine is cranking the
system will switch to this backup battery. Then when
main power is back, it'll return to the main power source.
Perfect for use with a carputer :)
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