After broadcasting of the PrimeTime program on ABC, we have received a lot of questions
regarding "Baldi". We truly believe that you will find answers to most
of your questions.
| Q: | What is "Baldi"? |
| A: | "Baldi" is an animated talking head, developed in the Perceptual Sciences Laboratory at University of California, Santa Cruz. |
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| Q: | What is the role of CSLU in "Baldi"? |
| A: | The CSLU Speech Toolkit is a large research platform that includes modules for speech synthesis, speech recognition, facial animation and rapid application development. CSLU adds various graphical control elements and programming interfaces to the "Baldi" animation system and integrates it into the Speech Toolkit, where it's made available as another facial animation module. "Baldi"'s voice and intelligence is provided by the CSLU Speech Toolkit. |
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| Q: | What is the difference between "Baldi" and CSLU Speech Toolkit? |
| A: | "Baldi" is just one of the animated agents supported by the CSLU Speech Toolkit. The Speech Toolkit gives "Baldi" its voice and capacity to listen and respond. "Baldi" is used in a number of CSLU Speech Toolkit applications, one of which was featured in abc's PrimeTime segment - the Vocabulary Tutor. |
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| Q: | What is the Vocabulary Tutor? |
| A: | The Vocabulary Tutor is a small application that teaches basic vocabulary. It shows pictures and asks questions about them. "Click on the extension cord", for example. The Vocabulary Tutor is not currently available for download. We anticipate a release early in February 2002. |
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| Q: | I am a parent of a hearing-disabled child. Will "Baldi" help my child? |
| A: | "Baldi" can be of tremendous help, but not all by himself. The children at the Tucker-Maxon Oral School were being seen by speech therapists and other professionals, and they had cochlear implants so that they could hear sounds. "Baldi" and all these professionals helped learn the sounds of speech. |
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| Q: | I am a parent of an autistic child. Will "Baldi" help my child? |
| A: | Again, "Baldi" can be of tremendous help, but not all by himself. |
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| Q: | What was the key for the success of "Baldi", as reported on "PrimeTime"? |
| A: | The Tucker-Maxon Oral School has an extremely dedicated staff and excellent support system. The software used is only a very small part of the curriculum and should not be evaluated in isolation. |
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| Q: | How to purchase the "Baldi" program? Is the software available on the market? |
| A: | The CSLU Speech Toolkit is a research platform. As such, it's not currently on the market. CSLU does license the software for commercial use - see http://speech.bme.ogi.edu/corporate.htm The software is made available as a free download for educational, research, personal or evaluation purposes. So you don't have to pay for this software for home use or using software at school: http://speech.bme.ogi.edu/toolkit. |
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| Q: | How can we get our son/daughter involved with "Baldi"? |
| A: | Register on our web site, then download and install the CSLU Speech Toolkit. The Speech Toolkit contains various applications that might be of use. Because we are technical (research) university, we provide only tools and we are not eligible to decide or give advice on how to conduct therapy of your child. |
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| Q: | Do people have to register? How do we handle with this registration information? |
| A: | Registration is the only requirement for downloading the software. See http://speech.bme.ogi.edu/toolkit/register. We use the registration procedure to discourage illegal commercial use of our software. The information is kept strictly private and is only used for internal statistical analysis of our user base. You will not receive unsolicited email from us. |
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| Q: | What is the appropriate age for using the software? |
| A: | The only technical requirement to work with "Baldi" is that the child must be able to use a mouse or other pointing device to control an application. You should discuss the use of the various programs with your child's specialists, as they will be in the best position to decide suitability. The software does not make any attempts at diagnosis. It's not a self-contained curriculum either, but rather one of a number of tools at an educator's disposal. |
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| Q: | Do you have to be an educator to use the "Baldi"? |
| A: | The "Vocabulary Tutor" used at the Tucker-Maxon Oral School (and featured on abc's PrimeTime) is suitable for use by the general public, although currently the documentation is still being written. The rest of the CSLU Speech Toolkit is a research platform that contains a large number of different applications, most of which are not suitable for use by a non-expert. Resources are available on our web site for those that are interested in extending their knowledge. |
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| Q: | How to download the toolkit? |
| A: | http://speech.bme.ogi.edu/toolkit/register
Regrettably, the only support we can currently provide is through our user newsgroup at news://speech.bme.ogi.edu/cslu.toolkit |
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| Q: | Is downloading the only way how to get software? |
| A: | At the moment, yes.
CD-ROM versions of the software will be available upon request soon (for a fee.) Send email to toolkit@cse.ogi.edu |
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| Q: | I've downloaded all 25 Mb of the CSLU Speech Toolkit before the Vocabulary Tutor was released. How do I obtain this tutor? |
| A: | If you download the CSLU Speech Toolkit before the Vocabulary Tutor is released you will be able to add it at a later date by running the "Web Update" tool (Start->Speech Toolkit->Admin->Web Update). It will be a small additional download. |
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| Q: | Is the product available for home use and home computers? |
| A: | Yes! Just download it. |
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| Q: | We have downloaded the CSLU Toolkit and noticed that the software
license was only good until 6/30/01. What will happen when the license expires? |
| A: | The CSLU Speech Toolkit is currently in a beta release phase. The
final 2.0 release will contain license keys that do not expire.
Current beta release license keys will be extended until the final
release is available. You can use Start->Speech->Toolkit->Admin->Licensing
(click the "Download" button) to retrieve new
license keys. |
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| Q: | What are you planning for the future? |
| A: | We are planning to do great things: develop many speech and language tutor programs (together with our colleagues at TMOS and Colorado University), and make "Baldi" speak better and have better mouth movement. We are in the process of getting more federal funding for these projects. |
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| Q: | What else does CSLU offer? |
| A: | CSLU offers various products and services. See http://speech.bme.ogi.edu/offers.htm |
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| Q: | Can we buy software for commercial use? |
| A: | Yes. You have to sign a membership agreement. See http://speech.bme.ogi.edu/corporate.htm |
