New test version: simon 0.3 alpha 2

Well, Qt 4.6.3 has been released and as promised, so has simon 0.3 alpha 2.

What's new with this release? Well: A lot.

The most visible change is probably the completely revamped soundstack which is something I was meaning to do for a long time. Because usually this would have been as dull as it sounds, we managed to spice it up with some serious features:

• Internal sound server takes care of multiple recordings / playbacks at once; An especially developed priority system tells simon if other streams should be stopped or are supposed to run in parallel.
  
• Can handle more than one device simultaniously! The UI and logic have been adapted as well and with the current version you can:
  • Record your trainings samples with two (or more) microphones at once
  • Use multiple devices for recognition (for example in different rooms)
  • Use multiple playback devices for example to drive speakers and headphones at the same time
• Volume calibration helps you to determine the optimal recording value to get the most out of your trainings samples.
• Pause notifications ensure that you don't cut off important information in your trainings data to ensure best results with as little needed data as possible.
• Even the sample collection engine and sam were adapted and the SSC / SSCD system even stores information about the used recording devices in it's database. This way you can reconstruct which device recorded what samples possibly finding faulty / bad quality samples in large databases even faster.
  

But don't think we "only" worked on sound handling...
We removed any trace of Julius on the client and replaced their adin system with our own sound streaming including our own level based voice activity detection which is of course fully configurable through the graphical interface.

The recognizer interface (simond) now only needs to be able to recognize wave files (which I guess most recognizers are able to do) so replacing Julius gets even easier.

Handling of alternate keyboard layouts was improved and simon is now able to "type" for example Greek letters.

This release also contains the announced welcome wizard to make the initial configuration even easier.

Packages are currently being built and uploaded.

Happy testing!