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Office Guardian Angel Worse Than Clippy

Posted by samzenpus on from the you-never-knew-how-good-you-had-it dept.

ZWilder writes "Remember 'Clippy', the annoying anthropomorphic paper clip foisted upon unsuspecting users of Office? Well Microsoft has taken the concept behind Clippy and 'turned the dial up to 11' with its new, even more intrusive animated life-coach, known as 'Guardian Angel.' Patented in 2006, Guardian Angel is 'an intelligent personalized agent' that 'monitors and evaluates a user's environment to assist in decision-making processes on behalf of the user.' Like a manlier Fairy Godmother. Or a similarly omniscient HAL from '2001: A Space Oddysey.'"

6 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. How ironic by twoears · · Score: 2, Informative

    In light of the story below, "Microsoft Claims Google Chrome Steals Your Privacy," I may not be the only one to find this funny.

  2. Re:April 1 by Bugamn · · Score: 3, Informative

    I would love to believe this is the case, but this news is from March 30th

  3. For assisting the elderly/memory impaired... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    These types of technologies have been under development in many companies for several years to enable elderly people to live independently for longer (hence the pill reminder example in the article).

    They are part of the so called "Ubiquitous Computing" movement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing

    This is not intended to be an add-on for MS-Word.

  4. Re:Obviously this is... by crymeph0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't think Microsoft goes so far with its April Fool's jokes as to file an actual patent application.

    --
    It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
  5. OpenOffice Help Agent by carlzum · · Score: 2, Informative

    It may not be as annoying as Microsoft's animated "clippy," but the smiling little light bulb that pops up in OpenOffice gave me flashbacks of Office 2003. It automatically closes after a few seconds, but given the backlash "clippy" caused, a cheery cartoon character offering advice seems like an odd choice. And I've had it pop up a few times after disabling the option, if that continues I may soon hate "bulby" as much as "clippy."

  6. It's Apple's "Knowledge Navigator!" by dpbsmith · · Score: 3, Informative

    How quickly we forget. John Sculley was showing demoware of the Knowledge Navigator all over the place in the late 1980s.

    Here's a picture of it, bowtie and all.

    It has gone to whatever Valhalla OpenDoc, Cyberdog, and QuickDraw GX dwell in.

    --

    "How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!