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Microsoft Agent is a technology developed by Microsoft to make using a computer easier and more natural for users. Microsoft Agent employs 3D animated characters, text-to-speech engines, and speech recognition software and microphones to further this goal.

History and reception

The concept of Microsoft Agent first appeared in Microsoft Bob, which used an early version of Agent technology internally referred to as "Microsoft Actor." This technology achieved its greatest fame as the initial version of the Office Assistant in Office 97, sometimes dubbed "Clippy" or "Clippit" after the ubiquitous paperclip Agent that shipped with the software. However, Bob Actors are incompatible with Office ones after version 97, and vice-versa.

The current version of Microsoft Agent was quietly released on Microsoft's "developer network" web site in 1998. However, Agent's fame began when it was embedded in Microsoft Office using Visual Basic starting with the 2000 edition of the software, although this use did not include Agent's much-touted speech synthesis or recognition capabilities. Like its predecessors, Microsoft Agent was not popular with most users, with this distaste entering popular culture (though some found it genuinely useful).

Microsoft's animated Agent characters were the presenters of various search functions based on a sophisticated Bayesian probability program. Microsoft Research had spent years perfecting the search functions and the presentation characters under the "Lumiere project". The project was named thus because many Microsoft software developers and executives were impressed by a helpful talking chandelier called "Lumiere" in the 1991 Disney feature film cartoon Beauty and the Beast. The faithful Lumiere (actually a butler turned into a candelabra by a magic spell) had helped his grumpy master win over the heart of Belle by giving discreet hints all the time. The Microsoft developers and executives thought this was good and sought to replicate it on the desktop, albeit with the goal of writing standard letters, making spreadsheets, and easing into using a computer, instead of gaining the love of another person.

The main problem was that right from the start the creators of the Lumiere project ignored basic human psychological and physiological reactions to peripheral movement and to the presence of faces or caricatures of faces. Humans are immediately distracted by any movement in the periphery of their vision. Their concentration is also much affected by the presence of faces or caricatures of faces. Since the computer system (unlike Lumiere in the movie) had no way of telling when a user was concentrated (and should not be interrupted at any cost) and when it was the right time for a helpful hint, the interventions often came at the wrong time in a chronically annoying way.

Any user could easily replace Clippy with other animated cartoon characters, all bearing a caricature of a human face to some extent. Users could easily add characters to the ones that Microsoft shipped with software by putting additional Agent files in the proper directory, but they could not modify the existing ones in shape or in behavior. With the proper development tools, they could design a character which would have had a different, less obtrusive presentation routine or draw a character which would have been less animated or less human-looking and thus less distracting. However, Microsoft did not bring this fact to the attention of users, and at any rate it was beyond the expertise of Microsoft's target user base consisting largely of inexperienced users.

Microsoft still has groups working on Bayesian algorithms and software agents, and they seem to be paying more attention to the annoying interruption issues, if their reported research can be used as an indicator. Microsoft also has people who are very much aware of the issues behind peripheral movement and have developed information awareness software which bypasses the problem completely, such as Sidebar in the Aero user interface or User Experience for Windows Vista.

Technology

Microsoft Agent characters are stored in files of the .ACS extension, and can be stored in a number of compressed .ACF files for better World Wide Web distribution. Microsoft Office 97 and Microsoft Bob Actor characters are stored in files of the .ACT extension.

The speech engine itself is driven by the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI), version 4 and above. Microsoft SAPI provides a control panel for easily installing and switching between various available Text to Speech and Speech to Text engines, as well as voice training and scoring systems to improve the quality and accuracy of both engines.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Microsoft Agent ]

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