Engineering News Blog

Engineering News

Latest news of interest to engineers. Sourced from GlobalSpec's Engineering News

Previous in Blog: Nokia Phone Still Works After Week Inside a Fish   Next in Blog: Rewiring the Brain: Inside the New Science of Neuroengineering
Close
Close
Close
3 comments
Rate Comments: Nested

Microsoft Mapping Course to a Jetsons-Style Future

Posted March 02, 2009 9:11 AM

From NYT > Technology:

Meet Laura, the virtual personal assistant for those of us who cannot afford a human one. Built by researchers at Microsoft, Laura appears as a talking head on a screen. You can speak to her and ask her to handle basic tasks like booking appointments for meetings or scheduling a flight. More compelling, however, is Laura's ability to make sophisticated decisions about the people in front of her, judging things like their attire, whether they seem impatient, their importance and their preferred times for appointments.

Read the whole article

Reply

Interested in this topic? By joining CR4 you can "subscribe" to
this discussion and receive notification when new comments are added.

"Almost" Good Answers:

Check out these comments that don't yet have enough votes to be "official" good answers and, if you agree with them, vote them!
Guru
Hobbies - Car Customizing - Dances with Trees Canada - Member - because I can Hobbies - CNC - too much fun Hobbies - Target Shooting - paper shreader

Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 769
Good Answers: 10
#1

Re: Microsoft Mapping Course to a Jetsons-Style Future

03/03/2009 6:58 AM

"is Laura's ability to make sophisticated decisions about the people in front of her, judging things like their attire, whether they seem impatient, their importance ..."

Sophisticated my a$$ simple face recognition software, and if not decisions, based on attire just does not work. All the clowns look alike in most corps. same cheap suites.

Or maybe the decisions are based on not wearing the corp 'uniform'...

__________________
Kevin "Dances with Trees" Willey
Reply
Anonymous Poster
#2
In reply to #1

Re: Microsoft Mapping Course to a Jetsons-Style Future

03/03/2009 2:25 PM

Laura. From the same folks you brought us the insipid MS Word Paper-clip Guy: "Hey, it looks like you're writing a letter! Oh, pleeeze let me help. Pleeze?"

When folks bitched about that - and they did by the millions - Microsoft switched to a Cute Little Puppy Dog.

They never learn.

And what have we here? Yet Another completely pointless annoying Microsoft "helper" who not only gets in our face, but judges our attire, social position and moods. We really need this crap?

Do you think Laura recognizes the business end of a shotgun? "Oh, you're holding a shotgun! A sawed-off one, too! And you're pointing it at me! You must be in a foul moo..."

KA-BOOOM!!!!!!!

Reply Score 1 for Good Answer
Anonymous Poster
#3
In reply to #2

Re: Microsoft Mapping Course to a Jetsons-Style Future

04/01/2009 5:33 PM

Mah,

I think Microsoft arrives late...

http://www.talkingvideo.it

(italian language)

Reply
Reply to Blog Entry 3 comments

"Almost" Good Answers:

Check out these comments that don't yet have enough votes to be "official" good answers and, if you agree with them, vote them!

Previous in Blog: Nokia Phone Still Works After Week Inside a Fish   Next in Blog: Rewiring the Brain: Inside the New Science of Neuroengineering

Advertisement