Microsoft Research Summit

July 16 News, according to foreign media reports, at the opening of the Monday 2013 Microsoft Research Academic Summit (MSR Faculty Summit), Microsoft founder, Chairman Bill Gates, the president of the speech, said Software designed to introduce Windows features in 1995 Microsoft Bob did not do well, but he believes that such "personal assistant" features will be rolled out again, only to become more complex.

Gates believes that Microsoft Bob or at least a similar concept of products will be launched again, because the smart personal assistant has become part of the day-to-day calculation. At the consumer Electronics Show in January 1995, Gates himself launched Microsoft Bob, which showed a virtual house with rooms, doors and cartoon assistants to help users understand windows and use Microsoft's applications. For example, users can log on by clicking on a door knocker in a virtual house, or clicking on a calendar that hangs on a wall to open the calendar application.

In his speech, Mr. Gates said Microsoft Bob was not doing well, but he believes the product based on this concept will be rolled out again, only to become more complex. "Like most of the mistakes we made, we were a little ahead," he said. ”

Microsoft Bob did not get the user's favor after the launch, they are accustomed to simple icons and folders, do not need a cute puppy through the cartoon bubbles to provide instructions. Microsoft Bob has been around for a short time, exiting the stage early in 1996, but the idea continues in the Office Assistant Clippy. Clippy, a feature of Microsoft Office 97 to 2003, has been the subject of ridicule by critics.

Gates said a new generation of personal assistants would be more suited to planning activities such as finding a gift or organizing a trip in some way. Microsoft Bob no longer has a puppy to replace the invisible voice from cloud computing. The next generation of Microsoft Bob will be integrated into the Windows 8 user interface to "understand" what the user is doing-or to share information online with users-and to anticipate the needs of users and to display relevant information on any device, anytime, anywhere.

So far, only Apple Siri and Google's Google Now offer smart personal assistant features from cloud computing. Microsoft Bob does need a comeback.