Nocture - Microsoft Agent

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Visit the Personality Gallery
The Personality Gallery is a showcase of some of Microsoft's best work with Microsoft Agent, Genie, Merlin, Robby, and Peedy.

What is Microsoft Agent?
Microsoft Agent is a set of programmable software services that supports the presentation of interactive personalities within windows. Developers can use characters as interactive assistants to introduce, guide, entertain, or otherwise enhance their Web pages or applications in addition to the conventional use of windows, menus, and controls.

Microsoft Agent enables software developers and Web authors to incorporate a new form of user interaction,

known as conversational interfaces, that leverages natural aspects of human social communication. In addition to mouse and keyboard input, Microsoft Agent includes optional support for speech recognition so applications can respond to voice commands. Characters can respond using synthesized speech, recorded audio, or text in a cartoon word balloon.

The conversational interface approach facilitated by the Microsoft Agent services does not replace conventional graphical user interface (GUI) design. Instead, character interaction can be easily blended with the conventional interface components such as windows, menus, and controls to extend and enhance your application's interface.

Microsoft Agent's programming interfaces make it easy to animate a character to respond to user input. Animated characters appear in their own window, providing maximum flexibility for where they can be

displayed on the screen. Microsoft Agent includes an ActiveX control that makes its services accessible to programming languages that support ActiveX, including Web scripting languages such as Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript). This means that character interaction can be programmed even from HTML pages using the <OBJECT> tag. (© 1998 Microsoft)

Take the Agent Expedition
The newly created Agent Expedition, has received good reviews. The tour includes information about agent (cont)

technology and the Nocture web site. Merlin, Genie, Robby, and Peedy will be your hosts. Take the Agent Expedition now.

Where Do We Go From Here?
The Microsoft Agent technologies are relatively new. Microsoft is working on Social User Interfaces (SUI) that will act as personal assistants. These assistants can understand spoken dialogue that is not pre-programmed, therefore allowing the user to interact with the computer with no pervious knowledge of the interface. Any person could use the computer without learning the interface. This would allow the use of complex computer system to be used for everyday tasks, and by "everyday" people. Visit The Persona Project at Microsoft Research to learn more, the article is truly interesting. With advances in speech recognition and artificial intelligence, including natural language processing, occurring almost everyday, SUIs could very well become a reality before the projected date of 2004.

Visit Microsoft Research
Microsoft Research is one of the most interesting computer science research sites on the web. It is a showcase of the new technologies to come in the not-so-far-away future. Visit Microsoft Research to learn more.

Does Agent Effect Me?
With the agent technologies being relatively new, Microsoft Agent has not had time to be in widespread use. Nocture believes that these technologies will begin to pop up all over the internet and in many desktop applications in the very near future. You'll be seeing them around; they will change the way you look at computers.

Help Programming Agent
Wondering how you can incorporate Agents into your web site? Visit the Programming Aids page for help.