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The Microsoft Bob code lived also on in Office 97, 2002, 2002(XP) in the annoying Office Agent and Windows XP (in Windows desktop search, and WinXP setup second

by frik 11y ago

The Microsoft Bob code lived also on in Office 97, 2002, 2002(XP) in the annoying Office Agent and Windows XP (in Windows desktop search, and WinXP setup second stage welcome screen). Bill Gates wife Melinda was responsible for the Microsoft Bob (marketing, management level): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob Related products (predecessors) were Microsoft Creative Writer and Microsoft Fine Artist (both for kids): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_Artist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_Artist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Writer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Writer Search on Google/Youtube for better picture/videos - both sister programs are very similar to Microsoft Bob, the have navigation screens and cartoon characters that help you.

DanBC 11y ago
> in the annoying Office Agent Clippy is interesting because original plans would have made clippy useful, but some decisions ended up hobbling it. http://robotzeitgeist.com/tag/bayesian-inference-engine http://robotzeitgeist.com/tag/bayesian-inference-engine > No persistent user profiles. > No reasoning about user competence, i.e., novice versus experienced user > Small event queue with emphasis only on the most recent interactions of the user with the software interface (this means the engine was trying to guess the values of many variables using very little data.) > Separation between user interface events and word-based queries; for word-based queries the engine ignored any context and user actions. > Last and possibly most important and I quote from the paper, “The automated facility of providing assistance based on the likelihood that a user may need assistance or on the expected utility of such autonomous action was not employed.” Instead, “The Office team has employed a relatively simple rule-based system on top of the Bayesian query analysis system to bring the agent to the foreground with a variety of tips.” This is why Clippy kept popping up all the time. It was not using the mathematically correct engine that the researchers had designed. It was driven by some rule-based system that one or more of the developers from the product team thought was a reasonable substitute.
- Narkov 11y ago
  What it "should have been" sounds awfully like what Siri/Google Now/Cortana is today. Microsoft has a real ability to be ahead of the game but still end up chasing :)

by frik 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

> in the annoying Office Agent Clippy is interesting because original plans would have made clippy useful, but some decisions ended up hobbling it. http://robotzeitgeist.com/tag/bayesian-inference-engine http://robotzeitgeist.com/tag/bayesian-inference-engine > No persistent user profiles. > No reasoning about user competence, i.e., novice versus experienced user > Small event queue with emphasis only on the most recent interactions of the user with the software interface (this means the engine was trying to guess the values of many variables using very little data.) > Separation between user interface events and word-based queries; for word-based queries the engine ignored any context and user actions. > Last and possibly most important and I quote from the paper, “The automated facility of providing assistance based on the likelihood that a user may need assistance or on the expected utility of such autonomous action was not employed.” Instead, “The Office team has employed a relatively simple rule-based system on top of the Bayesian query analysis system to bring the agent to the foreground with a variety of tips.” This is why Clippy kept popping up all the time. It was not using the mathematically correct engine that the researchers had designed. It was driven by some rule-based system that one or more of the developers from the product team thought was a reasonable substitute.

Narkov 11y ago
What it "should have been" sounds awfully like what Siri/Google Now/Cortana is today. Microsoft has a real ability to be ahead of the game but still end up chasing :)