6 ms·

Show HN: Project Maya

88 points by dutchbrit 14y ago

Project Maya has started! For those who haven't read about Maya, please look here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103344 Our goal is to build an open source application that can run in your browser and on iOS/Android without being dependent on app stores. We currently have a working "sneak preview" version viewable over here: http://frontend2.com Want to dig into the source? https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya We recommend you to check it out in Google Chrome/iOS/Android. Our team currently consists of 5 people. If you think you'd be a good addition, please shoot me an email, sam.granger@gmail.com Feedback so far is more than welcome!

dutchbrit 14y ago
Clickables. Previous HN post about Maya's story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103344 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103344 Preview: http://frontend2.com http://frontend2.com Github: https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya
- SchizoDuckie 14y ago
  I've just put a new version on github. https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya/commits/ https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya/commits/ Features: * Massively cleaned up codebase. Removed images folder, pure css3 styling. * Created a words list, that holds tiles to build a sentence * Created play and clear button to operate on the words list * Hacked around with setTimeout to play next in queue because audio onended is not fired?? More to come soon :)
SchizoDuckie 14y ago
Basically, our initial sneak preview does the following: * generate wav files of words via the google translate api * save these wav files into the database (base64 encoding was an (unfortunately failed) experiment * do initial setup and fill of the words database * showing an html5 clickable grid with words and an icon, based on the database query, of all the words found. todo: * create multiple pages from database, list them and switch * allow queuing of multiple phrases, and play them as a sentence * add custom words via web ui and a little php servicelayer * html5 offline storage for all wav files * get tablet browsers to fix data uri's for the <audio> tag! * have a proper design with customizable icon lib Not bad for a project kickstart in half an evening. Are we infringing on any patents yet?
- ktizo 14y ago
  Are we infringing on any patents yet? Don't even think of looking, and sing loudly with your fingers in your ears if anyone tries to inform you. Otherwise you are willfully infringing and the damages are trebled. http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/gmlr10&div=11&id=&page= http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&#3...
  - huhtenberg 14y ago
    *tripled
    - ktizo 14y ago
      Same thing. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trebled http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trebled
      - huhtenberg 14y ago
        Interesting. Treble is favored in a few specific contexts (in the game of darts, for instance), but triple is generally favored everywhere else. Even in British English, where treble is most common, triple appears approximately three times for every instance of treble. In American English, treble is almost unheard of except in relation to sound and music. From here - http://grammarist.com/usage/triple-treble http://grammarist.com/usage/triple-treble
        ktizo 14y ago
        I use both, often without noticing. I think I tend to be more likely to use treble or trebled at the end of sentence and triple or tripled in the middle of one. Note, I am not claiming this as any sort of sensible usage, am just commenting on how I tend to use the words. My pronunciation of words like grass or bath is also similarly scattered. This confuses folk when they try and work out what class background I am from, which is something of an obsession for many people here in the UK.
  - 14y ago
sdoering 14y ago
Great Idea, visting your frontend2.com-site, I encountered, that I am not able to scroll in Chrome and that I am not able to activate a sound twice. So "give me more and more" would not be possible. But keep up the great work, please.
- SchizoDuckie 14y ago
  It's a very first start. I worked on getting the basics done, hopefully tonight i can update it with pages, flowing, queuing, etc. Thx for your feedback!
creamyhorror 14y ago
You are cool people. Right now the grid buttons can't be unclicked, it seems (on a Galaxy Note/Android 4.0.3 here). Is that intentional? I can't scroll either. I assume a reset button will be coming eventually, along with a play-phrase button. How are you thinking of organising the words into panes? In its current state I can't see this violating any patents, since it's essentially a soundboard. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundboard_%28computer_program%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundboard_%28computer_program%... ) It would be hilarious if it turned out soundboards (those programs/pages that play funny phrases and sounds when you click on buttons) actually violated PRC's patents. Will you (eventually) be bundling the app as .apk/.ipa for distribution? That seems like a great way to ensure it stays out in the wild forever (better still if the audio can be included, so it won't break).
- SchizoDuckie 14y ago
  There is already a simple sqlite database that holds info on all the sounds. a name, an icon, a backgroundcolor, and the page it's on. Pages haven't been coded yet, but are already available in the database. A simple sqlite crud interface should suffice for that. More important, as you notice is the UI. Right now it just show the toggle, gets the wav file and hits play. This will be fixed hopefully tonight, so that you can gather a couple of audio files in a que to form a prhase. Should be peanuts, but is was 02:30 am for me last night. This is the progess up to that. And indeed, it's just a sound board, but in my opinion so is the software that started all this. We haven't decided yet on packaging, but since i believe everyone on the team are mobile developers, that should not be a problem at all.
  - creamyhorror 14y ago
    > And indeed, it's just a sound board, but in my opinion so is the software that started all this. Agreed, and that's why this is the Lord's work you're doing. Heck, you might invent some better methods for users along the way. Keep going man.
Tim-Boss 14y ago
This post has restored some of my faith in humanity. The world of software... no, screw that, the ENTIRE WORLD would be a better place with more people like you guys in :)
hk_kh 14y ago
Really nice initiative, When you have some free time, do you mind organizing some milestones and tasks on github so random people can help without being active on the project? I would not mind adding/fixing planned things from time to time.
kirinan 14y ago
Here is a list of tasks I have setup for this project for myself (I'm one of the engineers working on): -List of milestones/tasks so other people can work on this as well -SCM (Bug Tracking etc) system setup (Any suggestions for a hosted free version of SCM Systems HN?) Hopefully I will have this done tonight. I want to get as many people involved as possible as I think we can do a lot more than just help these people!
- viraptor 14y ago
  Pivotal tracker is still free for open projects, I think and integrates with github, so you may want to look at that.
  - kirinan 14y ago
    Thanks sir! This looks like exactly what we need. I will be setting something up tonight!
  - ajtaylor 14y ago
    Trello might be a good fit as well.
deepGem 14y ago
Appreciate what you guys are doing. Tested it out on Samsung Galaxy note running ICS. Quick feedback: The application detected that I was a first time user and injected some sounds into the database +1 There is a 1-2 second delay between the tap and the sound. Guess you guys are already working to sort these out. Looking forward to see this application in its full glory. Any twitter handles to follow ?
- dutchbrit 14y ago
  Sure, you can follow me here http://twitter.com/samgranger http://twitter.com/samgranger :)
franze 14y ago
cool project now another approach: you could produce all the wav-s in-browser. see my (100% open source) mvp at http://lalo.li/ http://lalo.li/ - yeah, you would need to do a lot of tuning/optimization of the speech-synthesizer to get a decent voice, but it would be possible. think in the long term it would be a much more scaleable approach ... there are a lot of words out there .... than storing wav-s in the browser.
- SchizoDuckie 14y ago
  Lalo.li is awesome, but unfortunately, you're using WebWorkers and TypedArrays, that's too high-tech for tablets. Also, this would require loading a waveform on a tablet from a data uri, which is also not supported, according to my tests on either iOS or Android with Crome :( My original prototype (that worked) was to store the wave files as a base64 encoded data URI into the database, but that's been rendered obsolete by this. Now we'll have to rely on pure wave files. Nothing that we cannot overcome, but it would have made the whole concept even more portable.
joering2 14y ago
Great project, I +1 this. I was looking into hacking google translate myself, but failed, or perhaps did not spend enough time. Can you guys post a code on how to tap into word translation speech in google?
- SchizoDuckie 14y ago
  It was almost too simple to be true: https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya/blob/master/audio/speechgen.php https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya/blob/master/aud...
- dutchbrit 14y ago
  And for the reverse, flac audio to text: http://pastebin.com/LQ30iWKD http://pastebin.com/LQ30iWKD
- joering2 14y ago
  I +1 both answers. I am sorry, shame on me I should have research bit more! side note: any idea in this Maya project or others, is it against the law to use those in your non- or commercial project?
huxley 14y ago
This is great (and I'm glad you are doing something practical to help), but I was wondering if you have reached out to Maya's family to see if this tool you are building will fit their particular needs? I remember reading that they tried out lots of different products before settling on SfY, so there may be issues that aren't immediately obvious to people who don't have a lot of experience with AAC.
- dutchbrit 14y ago
  I've been in contact with her family, and SfY :). We want to make this as user friendly as possible.
  - huxley 14y ago
    Brilliant, that is great to hear. SfY brought the cost down significantly but I really hope this project could make it available to even more people. Best of luck!
primitur 14y ago
I believe you should be using MOAI for this: http://getmoai.com/ http://getmoai.com/ The reason is that its a high-performance cross-platform tool that can be used to target Android, iOS, NaCl (Chrome), Windows, Linux and Mac OSX. You can write one codebase which will run on all of those platforms, and I think you will be very much more productive with this toolkit, which is designed for exactly this kind of use (multimedia/graphics/audio content - i.e. games). Please check this out, honestly. MOAI is the perfect tool for this application - HTML5 is not, due to the problems with audio playback involved in HTML5 clients right now.
- SchizoDuckie 14y ago
  I seriously disagree. HTML5, even though it has it's (workable) shortcomings at the moment, can do this. Why would you base an opensource project on a non-free, non-standard framework that nobody heard of? Sure, what it promises is nice, but no.
  - primitur 14y ago
    Well, I'm using MOAI, for starters, and see its power. Plus there's that whole "sound is utter crap in HTML5" thing, yo. Also, moai can run where html5 cannot.

88 points by dutchbrit 14y ago

dutchbrit 14y ago

Clickables. Previous HN post about Maya's story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103344 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4103344 Preview: http://frontend2.com http://frontend2.com Github: https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya

SchizoDuckie 14y ago
I've just put a new version on github. https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya/commits/ https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya/commits/ Features: * Massively cleaned up codebase. Removed images folder, pure css3 styling. * Created a words list, that holds tiles to build a sentence * Created play and clear button to operate on the words list * Hacked around with setTimeout to play next in queue because audio onended is not fired?? More to come soon :)

SchizoDuckie 14y ago

Basically, our initial sneak preview does the following: * generate wav files of words via the google translate api * save these wav files into the database (base64 encoding was an (unfortunately failed) experiment * do initial setup and fill of the words database * showing an html5 clickable grid with words and an icon, based on the database query, of all the words found. todo: * create multiple pages from database, list them and switch * allow queuing of multiple phrases, and play them as a sentence * add custom words via web ui and a little php servicelayer * html5 offline storage for all wav files * get tablet browsers to fix data uri's for the <audio> tag! * have a proper design with customizable icon lib Not bad for a project kickstart in half an evening. Are we infringing on any patents yet?

ktizo 14y ago
Are we infringing on any patents yet? Don't even think of looking, and sing loudly with your fingers in your ears if anyone tries to inform you. Otherwise you are willfully infringing and the damages are trebled. http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/gmlr10&div=11&id=&page= http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&#3...
- huhtenberg 14y ago
  *tripled
  - ktizo 14y ago
    Same thing. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trebled http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trebled
    - huhtenberg 14y ago
      Interesting. Treble is favored in a few specific contexts (in the game of darts, for instance), but triple is generally favored everywhere else. Even in British English, where treble is most common, triple appears approximately three times for every instance of treble. In American English, treble is almost unheard of except in relation to sound and music. From here - http://grammarist.com/usage/triple-treble http://grammarist.com/usage/triple-treble
      - ktizo 14y ago
        I use both, often without noticing. I think I tend to be more likely to use treble or trebled at the end of sentence and triple or tripled in the middle of one. Note, I am not claiming this as any sort of sensible usage, am just commenting on how I tend to use the words. My pronunciation of words like grass or bath is also similarly scattered. This confuses folk when they try and work out what class background I am from, which is something of an obsession for many people here in the UK.
- 14y ago

sdoering 14y ago

Great Idea, visting your frontend2.com-site, I encountered, that I am not able to scroll in Chrome and that I am not able to activate a sound twice. So "give me more and more" would not be possible. But keep up the great work, please.

SchizoDuckie 14y ago
It's a very first start. I worked on getting the basics done, hopefully tonight i can update it with pages, flowing, queuing, etc. Thx for your feedback!

creamyhorror 14y ago

You are cool people. Right now the grid buttons can't be unclicked, it seems (on a Galaxy Note/Android 4.0.3 here). Is that intentional? I can't scroll either. I assume a reset button will be coming eventually, along with a play-phrase button. How are you thinking of organising the words into panes? In its current state I can't see this violating any patents, since it's essentially a soundboard. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundboard_%28computer_program%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundboard_%28computer_program%... ) It would be hilarious if it turned out soundboards (those programs/pages that play funny phrases and sounds when you click on buttons) actually violated PRC's patents. Will you (eventually) be bundling the app as .apk/.ipa for distribution? That seems like a great way to ensure it stays out in the wild forever (better still if the audio can be included, so it won't break).

SchizoDuckie 14y ago
There is already a simple sqlite database that holds info on all the sounds. a name, an icon, a backgroundcolor, and the page it's on. Pages haven't been coded yet, but are already available in the database. A simple sqlite crud interface should suffice for that. More important, as you notice is the UI. Right now it just show the toggle, gets the wav file and hits play. This will be fixed hopefully tonight, so that you can gather a couple of audio files in a que to form a prhase. Should be peanuts, but is was 02:30 am for me last night. This is the progess up to that. And indeed, it's just a sound board, but in my opinion so is the software that started all this. We haven't decided yet on packaging, but since i believe everyone on the team are mobile developers, that should not be a problem at all.
- creamyhorror 14y ago
  > And indeed, it's just a sound board, but in my opinion so is the software that started all this. Agreed, and that's why this is the Lord's work you're doing. Heck, you might invent some better methods for users along the way. Keep going man.

Tim-Boss 14y ago

This post has restored some of my faith in humanity. The world of software... no, screw that, the ENTIRE WORLD would be a better place with more people like you guys in :)

hk_kh 14y ago

Really nice initiative, When you have some free time, do you mind organizing some milestones and tasks on github so random people can help without being active on the project? I would not mind adding/fixing planned things from time to time.

kirinan 14y ago

Here is a list of tasks I have setup for this project for myself (I'm one of the engineers working on): -List of milestones/tasks so other people can work on this as well -SCM (Bug Tracking etc) system setup (Any suggestions for a hosted free version of SCM Systems HN?) Hopefully I will have this done tonight. I want to get as many people involved as possible as I think we can do a lot more than just help these people!

viraptor 14y ago
Pivotal tracker is still free for open projects, I think and integrates with github, so you may want to look at that.
- kirinan 14y ago
  Thanks sir! This looks like exactly what we need. I will be setting something up tonight!
- ajtaylor 14y ago
  Trello might be a good fit as well.

deepGem 14y ago

Appreciate what you guys are doing. Tested it out on Samsung Galaxy note running ICS. Quick feedback: The application detected that I was a first time user and injected some sounds into the database +1 There is a 1-2 second delay between the tap and the sound. Guess you guys are already working to sort these out. Looking forward to see this application in its full glory. Any twitter handles to follow ?

dutchbrit 14y ago
Sure, you can follow me here http://twitter.com/samgranger http://twitter.com/samgranger :)

franze 14y ago

cool project now another approach: you could produce all the wav-s in-browser. see my (100% open source) mvp at http://lalo.li/ http://lalo.li/ - yeah, you would need to do a lot of tuning/optimization of the speech-synthesizer to get a decent voice, but it would be possible. think in the long term it would be a much more scaleable approach ... there are a lot of words out there .... than storing wav-s in the browser.

SchizoDuckie 14y ago
Lalo.li is awesome, but unfortunately, you're using WebWorkers and TypedArrays, that's too high-tech for tablets. Also, this would require loading a waveform on a tablet from a data uri, which is also not supported, according to my tests on either iOS or Android with Crome :( My original prototype (that worked) was to store the wave files as a base64 encoded data URI into the database, but that's been rendered obsolete by this. Now we'll have to rely on pure wave files. Nothing that we cannot overcome, but it would have made the whole concept even more portable.

joering2 14y ago

Great project, I +1 this. I was looking into hacking google translate myself, but failed, or perhaps did not spend enough time. Can you guys post a code on how to tap into word translation speech in google?

SchizoDuckie 14y ago
It was almost too simple to be true: https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya/blob/master/audio/speechgen.php https://github.com/SchizoDuckie/project-maya/blob/master/aud...
dutchbrit 14y ago
And for the reverse, flac audio to text: http://pastebin.com/LQ30iWKD http://pastebin.com/LQ30iWKD
joering2 14y ago
I +1 both answers. I am sorry, shame on me I should have research bit more! side note: any idea in this Maya project or others, is it against the law to use those in your non- or commercial project?

huxley 14y ago

This is great (and I'm glad you are doing something practical to help), but I was wondering if you have reached out to Maya's family to see if this tool you are building will fit their particular needs? I remember reading that they tried out lots of different products before settling on SfY, so there may be issues that aren't immediately obvious to people who don't have a lot of experience with AAC.

dutchbrit 14y ago
I've been in contact with her family, and SfY :). We want to make this as user friendly as possible.
- huxley 14y ago
  Brilliant, that is great to hear. SfY brought the cost down significantly but I really hope this project could make it available to even more people. Best of luck!

primitur 14y ago

I believe you should be using MOAI for this: http://getmoai.com/ http://getmoai.com/ The reason is that its a high-performance cross-platform tool that can be used to target Android, iOS, NaCl (Chrome), Windows, Linux and Mac OSX. You can write one codebase which will run on all of those platforms, and I think you will be very much more productive with this toolkit, which is designed for exactly this kind of use (multimedia/graphics/audio content - i.e. games). Please check this out, honestly. MOAI is the perfect tool for this application - HTML5 is not, due to the problems with audio playback involved in HTML5 clients right now.

SchizoDuckie 14y ago
I seriously disagree. HTML5, even though it has it's (workable) shortcomings at the moment, can do this. Why would you base an opensource project on a non-free, non-standard framework that nobody heard of? Sure, what it promises is nice, but no.
- primitur 14y ago
  Well, I'm using MOAI, for starters, and see its power. Plus there's that whole "sound is utter crap in HTML5" thing, yo. Also, moai can run where html5 cannot.