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Microsoft's Asimov System To Monitor Users' Machines In Real Time
SmartAboutThings writes Microsoft will monitor users in the new Windows 9 Operating System in order to determine how the new OS is used, thus decide what tweaks and changes are need to be made. During Windows 8 testing, Microsoft said that they had data showing Start Menu usage had dropped, but it seems that the tools they were using at the time weren't as evolved as the new 'Asimov' monitor. The new system is codenamed 'Asimov' and will provide a near real-time view of what is happening on users' machines. Rest assured, the data is going to be obscured and aggregated, but intelligible enough to allow Microsoft to get detailed insights into user interactions with the OS. Mary Jo Foley says that the system was originally built by the Xbox Team and now is being used by the Windows team. Users who will download the technical preview of Windows 9, which is said to get unveiled today, will become 'power users' who will utilize the platform in unique scenarios. This will help Microsoft identify any odd bugs ahead of the final release.
More like the Orwell system, or perhaps the Huxley system...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Prior to Windows 8, what exactly where people using to start applications if they were not using the start menu?
Or did they just notice the start menu was being used less often because people were keeping applications open?
90% of the people I see using windows have the desktop covered with icons to launch everything.
This is probably true, but it also illustrates the problem with Microsoft removing the Start Menu.
Removing the Start Menu provides zero benefit to the people who don't use it (they don't use it so they don't care if it's gone and removing it has no effect on how they do things) and makes things more difficult for the people who do use it.
The problem was that most moderately tech savvy people decline to share telemetry data. So the data they were using to make decisions was already heavily skewed toward the barely computer literate crowd.
This is a classic problem with data analysis. You have to be sure you have a truly representative sample. It's astonishing that they made this simple mistake and made such a huge change without doing more analysis.