Mycroft (software)

Last updated
Mycroft
Developer(s) Mycroft AI team
Repository
Written in Python
License Apache License [1]
Website mycroft.ai

Mycroft was a free and open-source software virtual assistant that uses a natural language user interface. [2] [3] [4] Its code was formerly copyleft, but is now under a permissive license. [1] It was named after a fictional computer from the 1966 science fiction novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress . [5]

Contents

Unusually for a voice-controlled assistant, Mycroft did all of its processing locally, not on a cloud server belonging to the vendor. It could access online resources, but it could also function without an internet connection.

In early 2023, Mycroft AI ceased development. [6]

History

Inspiration for Mycroft came when Ryan Sipes and Joshua Montgomery were visiting a makerspace in Kansas City, MO, where they came across a simple and basic intelligent virtual assistant project. They were interested in the technology, but did not like its inflexibility. [7] [8] Montgomery believes that the burgeoning industry of intelligent personal assistance poses privacy concerns for users, and has promised that Mycroft will protect privacy through its open source machine learning platform. [9]

Mycroft AI, Inc., has won several awards, including the prestigious Techweek's KC Launch competition in 2016. [10] They were part of the Sprint Accelerator 2016 class in Kansas City and joined 500 Startups Batch 20 in February 2017. [11] [12] The company accepted a strategic investment from Jaguar Land Rover during this same time period. [13] The company had raised more than $2.5 million from institutional investors before they opted to offer shares of the company to the public through StartEngine, an equity crowdfunding platform. [14]

In early 2023, Mycroft AI ceased development. [6]

Software

Mycroft voice stack

Mycroft provides free software for most[ clarification needed ] parts of the voice stack.

Wake Word

Mycroft does Wake Word spotting, also called keyword spotting, through its Precise Wake Word engine. [15] Prior to Precise becoming the default Wake Word engine, Mycroft employed PocketSphinx. Instead of being based on phoneme recognition, Precise uses a trained recurrent neural network to distinguish between sounds which are, and which aren't Wake Words.

Speech to text

Mycroft had partnered with Mozilla's Common Voice Project to leverage their DeepSpeech speech to text software. [16]

Intent parsing

Mycroft uses an intent parser called Adapt to convert natural language into machine-readable data structures. Adapt undertakes intent parsing by matching specific keywords in an order within an utterance. They also have a parser, Padatious. Padatious, in contrast, uses example-based inference to determine intent.

Text to speech

For speech synthesis Mycroft uses Mimic, which is based on the Festival Lite speech synthesis system. [17]

Modular design and interoperability

Mycroft was designed to be modular, so users are able to change its components. For example, espeak can be used instead of Mimic. [18] [19] [20] [21]

Hardware

The Mycroft project had created smart speakers that run its software. All of its hardware is open-source, released under the CERN Open Hardware Licence. [22]

Its first hardware project was the Mark I, targeted primarily at developers. Its production was partially funded through a Kickstarter campaign, which finished successfully. Units started shipping out in April 2016. [23]

Its second hardware project is the Mark II, intended for general usage, not just for developers. Unlike the Mark I, the Mark II would be equipped with a screen, being able to relay information both visually and acoustically. As with the Mark I, the Mark II's production was partially funded through a Kickstarter campaign, which wrapped up in February 2018, hitting almost 8 times its original goal. Mark II shipping started to crowdfunders in the end of 2022. In February 2023, a post on the Kickstarter page announced that they "will not be able to fulfill any remaining Mark II rewards", however they "will still be shipping all orders that are made through the Mycroft website". [24]

Partnerships

Mycroft had undertaken several commercial collaborations. In May 2018, the company partnered with WorkAround, an impact sourcing provider who broker work opportunities for refugees, to undertake bulk machine learning training. [25] In October 2018, Mycroft collaborated with disease surveillance and forecasting company, SickWeather, to identify the frequency of coughing on public transport, funded by the City of Kansas City, Missouri. [26]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Device driver</span> Software interface to attached devices

In the context of an operating system, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and other computer programs to access hardware functions without needing to know precise details about the hardware being used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux distribution</span> Operating system based on the Linux kernel

A Linux distribution is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro, if distributed on its own, is often obtained via a website intended specifically for the purpose. Distros have been designed for a wide variety of systems ranging from personal computers to servers and from embedded devices to supercomputers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qt (software)</span> Object-oriented framework for software development

Qt or is a cross-platform application development framework for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows, macOS, Android or embedded systems with little or no change in the underlying codebase while still being a native application with native capabilities and speed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Hat</span> Computing services company

Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nvidia</span> American multinational technology company

Nvidia Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem, it is a software and fabless company which designs and supplies graphics processing units (GPUs), application programming interfaces (APIs) for data science and high-performance computing, and system on a chip units (SoCs) for mobile computing and the automotive market. Nvidia is also a dominant supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xen</span> Type-1 hypervisor

Xen is a free and open-source type-1 hypervisor, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was originally developed by the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and is now being developed by the Linux Foundation with support from Intel, Citrix, Arm Ltd, Huawei, AWS, Alibaba Cloud, AMD, Bitdefender and EPAM Systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ubuntu</span> Linux distribution developed by Canonical

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution derived from Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in multiple editions: Desktop, Server, and Core for Internet of things devices and robots. The operating system is developed by the British company Canonical and a community of other developers, under a meritocratic governance model. As of October 2024, the latest interim release is 24.10, with most-recent long-term support release is 24.04.

Wind River Systems, Inc., also known as Wind River, is an Alameda, California–based company, subsidiary of Aptiv PLC. The company develops embedded system and cloud software consisting of real-time operating systems software, industry-specific software, simulation technology, development tools and middleware.

coreboot Open-source computer firmware

coreboot, formerly known as LinuxBIOS, is a software project aimed at replacing proprietary firmware found in most computers with a lightweight firmware designed to perform only the minimum number of tasks necessary to load and run a modern 32-bit or 64-bit operating system.

UNIGINE is a proprietary cross-platform game engine developed by UNIGINE Company used in simulators, virtual reality systems, serious games and visualization. It supports OpenGL 4, Vulkan and DirectX 12.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kernel-based Virtual Machine</span> Virtualization module in the Linux kernel

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a free and open-source virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the mainline Linux kernel in version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KVM requires a processor with hardware virtualization extensions, such as Intel VT or AMD-V. KVM has also been ported to other operating systems such as FreeBSD and illumos in the form of loadable kernel modules.

Docker is a set of platform as a service (PaaS) products that use OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers. The service has both free and premium tiers. The software that hosts the containers is called Docker Engine. It was first released in 2013 and is developed by Docker, Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open vSwitch</span> Virtual network switch

Open vSwitch (OVS) is an open-source implementation of a distributed virtual multilayer switch. The main purpose of Open vSwitch is to provide a switching stack for hardware virtualization environments, while supporting multiple protocols and standards used in computer networks.

CHIP was a single-board computer crowdfunded by now-defunct Next Thing Co. (NTC), released as open-source hardware running open-source software. It was advertised as "the world's first $9 computer". CHIP and related products are discontinued. NTC has since gone insolvent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Librem</span> Computer line by Purism featuring free software

Librem is a line of computers manufactured by Purism, SPC featuring free (libre) software. The laptop line is designed to protect privacy and freedom by providing no non-free (proprietary) software in the operating system or kernel, avoiding the Intel Active Management Technology, and gradually freeing and securing firmware. Librem laptops feature hardware kill switches for the microphone, webcam, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viv (software)</span> Intelligent personal assistant software

Viv is a discontinued intelligent personal assistant created by the developers of Siri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Assistant</span> AI-powered digital assistant from Google

Google Assistant is a virtual assistant software application developed by Google that is primarily available on home automation and mobile devices. Based on artificial intelligence, Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations, unlike the company's previous virtual assistant, Google Now.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home Assistant</span> Home automation software

Home Assistant is free and open-source software used for home automation. It serves as an integration platform and smart home hub, allowing users to control smart home devices. The software emphasizes local control and privacy and is designed to be independent of any specific Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Its interface can be accessed through a web-based user interface, by using companion apps for Android and iOS, or by voice commands via a supported virtual assistant, such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Home Assistant's own "Assist" using natural language.

Plasma Bigscreen is a software project from KDE which contains an interface optimized for Smart TVs and other computers such as the Raspberry Pi which can be connected to large displays.

References

  1. 1 2 "Having the Right license is just as important as having a License". 28 June 2017.
  2. ↑ Bhartiya, Swapnil (25 December 2015). "2015's most exciting Linux devices". CIO magazine. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  3. ↑ Hunckler, Matt (25 July 2017). "5 Growing Artificial Intelligence Startups You Need to Know About". Inc.com. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  4. ↑ Hunckler, Matt (15 May 2017). "This Open-Source AI Voice Assistant Is Challenging Siri and Alexa for Market Superiority". Forbes . Archived from the original on 13 October 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  5. ↑ "Why Name it Mycroft?". 14 August 2015.
  6. 1 2 Lewis, Michael (2023-02-01). "Update from the CEO: Part 1". Open Source Conversational AI Community. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  7. ↑ Harrington, Rebecca (1 January 2016). "Customize An Open-Source HAL For Your Home". Popular Science . Archived from the original on 27 June 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  8. ↑ Bhartiya, Swapnil (17 January 2016). "Mycroft: Linux's Own AI". Linux.com. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  9. ↑ Mycroft AI (2018-05-24), Mycroft StartEngine Equity Offering , retrieved 2018-07-08
  10. ↑ "Alexa can you find me a better assistant? | Techweek". Techweek. 2017-09-11. Archived from the original on 2018-07-09. Retrieved 2018-07-08.
  11. ↑ Fein, John (22 February 2016). "Announcing the 2016 Class of the Sprint Accelerator Powered by Techstars!". Techstars . Archived from the original on 30 September 2017. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
  12. ↑ Lynley, Matthew (8 February 2017). "Here's the 20th batch of 500 Startups companies". TechCrunch . Archived from the original on 30 September 2017. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
  13. ↑ Burch, Bobby (27 February 2017). "Jaguar Land Rover invests in artificial intelligence startup Mycroft". Startland News. Archived from the original on 12 January 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
  14. ↑ "Mycroft AI". StartEngine. Retrieved 2018-07-08.
  15. ↑ "Precise Wake Word Engine". GitHub. 30 March 2020.
  16. ↑ Smith, Katie. "Developing an Open Source Voice Assistant: Interview with Mycroft AI's Steve Penrod". All About Circuits. Retrieved 24 October 2018.
  17. ↑ Gold, Jon (7 January 2016). "Raspberry Pi-based home AI project open-sources key components". Network World. Archived from the original on 19 May 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  18. ↑ Stahie, Silviu (7 January 2016). "Mycroft Releases Key AI Component as Open Source". Softpedia News. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
  19. ↑ MSV, Janakiram (20 August 2015). "Meet Mycroft, The Open Source Alternative To Amazon Echo". Forbes . Archived from the original on 14 February 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  20. ↑ Stahie, Silviu (14 August 2015). "Mycroft Is an AI for Your Home Powered by Raspberry Pi 2 and Ubuntu Snappy". Softpedia News. Archived from the original on 6 June 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  21. ↑ Crist, Ry (17 August 2015). "Meet Mycroft, an open-source smart-home AI platform". CNET . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 21 June 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  22. ↑ "Github: Mycroft Mark I hardware". GitHub . Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  23. ↑ Adair, Kris (4 April 2016). "Making a Mycroft & First Shipment". Mycroft blog. Archived from the original on 27 June 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  24. ↑ Dobberstein, Laura (13 February 2023). "Creator of Linux virtual assistant blames 'patent troll' for project's death". The Register .
  25. ↑ "Using Precise to Help Refugees - Mycroft Partners with WorkAround". 14 May 2018. Retrieved 24 October 2018.
  26. ↑ Bezner, Elyssa (18 October 2018). "Collaboration in the air: Cough detection sensors combine Sickweather, Mycroft tech". StartlandNews. Retrieved 24 October 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.